Reef Tank Pro Iphone App Review

So I needed somewhere to store all my tank parameters as well as additions and deaths in my tanks. I'm good with excel and had created a couple sheets for that kind of stuff when I was working as a pool supervisor so I modified them to fit my needs with Reef Keeping. They work good for what I need, but I wanted something that I could easily carry with me as well as keep pictures of things as I add them to the tanks. I looked around and tried a couple apps, but the one that got me was the $5 app Reef Tank Pro by Eric Cosner. I liked the look as well as the capabilities it had. I've been using it now for well over a year and it really fits well with my needs.

Been awhile!

So it's been awhile since I posted an update. Everything's going good for the most part now. Byprosis is gone in the frag tank, corals are looking healthy, my girlfriends Duncan's made a full recovery in my frag tank and I've been sellin a few pieces here and there with a few freebies given as well.

I recently split up the frag tank into two partitions: one for frags and the other for anemones. I used two pieces of eggcrate as the divider and put them together so the holes were half the size as normal. It seemed to be working good while it was up. I recently took it down, however, to add more room to the frag rack and transferred the RBTAs to a Hang on breeder box where they can do whatever they please. The two RBTAs are still doing good, a nice deep red and bubbly. The RFAs are doing real well. My original one is constantly growing bigger. I got it when it was a baby about the size of a dime, now its about two and a half inches across. I'll probably do a review on the breeder box here soon as well as the Deep Blue Professional SolarFlare lights that I have had.

Bayer Dip and Tank Update

So as of today the Red Bugs on the Blue Stag have not returned so I'll call that a success. However, after dipping the zoa frags a few times it seems that the Byprosis is just as resilient as ever. It kind of faded away for a day or so looking like it would die off, but was back a couple days later in full force. I need to find a way to take care of this stuff cheaply. Yes I know, some of you may say that there is nothing cheap about this hobby and I will agree to some point, but the point of this blog is to find a way to keep reefs somewhat inexpensively. The majority of us, including myself, don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on keeping reefs.

Update: Bayer Advanced Insect Killer Dip

Last night I finally had the time to do this Bayer Dip on my Blue Stag. I was a little uneasy at first because I didn't know how it was going to turn out and I really didn't want to kill it, just the red bugs and whatever else that was being a pest. I used the recipe that I posted awhile back, diluted it a bit more adding about 290 mL to a gallon instead of the 320 mL that would have been used. When I was done mixing it all together it was the color of watered down milk which made me a little more nervous, but I tried it anyway.

NOAA Adds 22 More Corals to the threatened list!!

Well the title says it all. I just learned about this after watching Marks video on Mr. Saltwater Tank TV. This is a bummer in multiple ways. The main being the fact that our Ocean's reefs are still dying. Is there any good thing about this though? I think so. Even though there are a few more restrictions on what corals we are allowed to keep, it means that the Governments are starting to pick up on the fact that we truly do need to protect the reefs that we have. The coral that may come as a bit of a surprise is the branching frogspawn.

To read the article from NOAA and to see the 22 species added click the link below:
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/invertebrates/corals.htm

To watch the video from Mark Callahan AKA Mr. Saltwater Tank:
http://www.mrsaltwatertank.com/replay-of-the-live-qa-session-with-mr-saltwater-tank-about-listing-of-corals-as-threatened-under-the-endangered-species-act/

To read the article on ReefBuilders.com about the impact on the hobby click the link below:
http://reefbuilders.com/2014/09/05/20-species-stony-corals-finally-ruled-threatened/

Red Bugs: Bayer Complete Insect Killer

This is going to be the recipe that was posted up on Nano-Reef.com by a member going by the name of jcarmon81 last year around this time. Here is the link to the thread and the post and his observations with it are towards the bottom.

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/333832-discovered-some-red-bugs-in-my-sps-tank/

Of course I wont be using 30 Cups of it so I'll be scaling it down and storing a bit for when it's needed. I'll post my observations as well just to give my opinion on it to add to the multiple good reviews I've seen for it on the different forums.

Update: 26 Gallon Tank Extreme Clean!!!

So after careful consideration and planning I decided to do away with the 2" sand bed in the 26 gallon display. Looking at it after I cleaned it all out I realized that that was probably the best decision I've made in awhile. I grabbed a tote and put some of my tank water in it and removed all the corals, fish, and rocks and placed them in the tote and filled it up as much as possible. I filled up two more 2.5 gallon jugs with tank water too.

At this time I had about 2 gallons of water left in the tank and  all the sand which I mixed up and ended up turning the rest of the water that was in the tank into like a chocolate milk color... This was from all the crap that had settled in the sand bed over the past couple years. This is where my nitrate and phosphate issues were coming from. I decided that I would rinse out the sand that I removed from the tank as well just out of curiosity. Man was I surprised. After 6 or 7 full buckets of water and a few times of just continuously running water into the sand the water was still a dark brown.

I added the leftover sand from my girlfriends tank to the little bit of sand that was still in the tank to end up with a little under 3/4" of sand on the bottom. As I mixed 10 gallons of fresh saltwater up I decided to get the rock back in and play with it until I got the look I've been going for for the past 3 years and I finally got it. I dumped in the newly mixed saltwater, the two 2.5 gallon jugs of previous tank water and then as much of the tank water from the tote as was needed to fill the tank up past the power head so I could turn on the filter to clean up the water a bit before adding anything.

After an hour or so I started putting coral into the tank and then the fish and finally topping off the tank. Total time for this project: about 5 hours. I took my time with it making sure that I had everything, cleaned everything, and placed everything right the first time so there was no messing with it after the fact. Now since the sand is so shallow, when I blow the rocks out I can also do it with the sand as well and not have to worry about releasing 2" of crap and who knows what else into the tank. To help with keeping the sand bed clean I've added my girlfriends Orange Spotted Goby who kept jumping from her tank because he was to big for it. Now he has plenty of room in my tank to do what he pleases.

As far as the Red Bugs go, I haven't had a chance to make up the dip and try it out, but I will be doing that tonight and posting about it. I will also be posting up the recipe for it on here as well. Now it's picture time!


The tank before the tear down and cleaning

After the water, rock and sand have been removed and cleaned and the rock and sand were replaced. The front glass still needs to be cleaned off.

This is shortly after everything was put back in. It was still a bit cloudy, but everything was good.

 

 A FTS as of yesterday morning about an hour after the lights came on. The water is nice and clear, the fish are all active, and the corals are all open and happy (except for the Blue Stag that has the Red Bugs...).

20 Gallon Long Frag Tank Update

So since I was already doing a water change in the display I figured I would do one in the frag tank as well. Ever since I took the Scopus tank out of here and added the RBTA's I've been having a bit of an algae problem as you can see from the pictures. I wanted something else to help control it so when I was at my LFS I bought a small Sailfin Tang and an emerald crab to help keep the hair algae down until I can get a bigger filter.

In the previous post I mentioned that I bought a few pieces of Green Staghorn that were thrown into the LR bin at my LFS. They are a little worse for wear, but I may be able to bring them back with a little care. I cut some small pieces off the three bigger ones because the tissue wasn't attached. For some reason, I'm thinking that these small frags will recover better than the bigger ones. The tissue has become very thin due to being in the LR bin for a day or two with crappy light and water.

26 Gallon Display Tank Update

I hadn't done a water change in awhile and since I'm not running a sump or fuge with this tank I figured I needed to do one. I did a 10 gallon water change last Thursday and added some carbon to the filter before I went north for the holiday, but when I got back something still seemed off to me. Everything looked fine, but a film had developed on the glass and there was no polyp extension on my Blue Staghorn. So I decided to do another 10 gallon water change. And boy am I glad I did. 

I tend to take a real good, close look at my tanks before, during, and after a water change and tonight was no different and that's when I saw them... Red Bugs. All over my Blue Staghorn. These little bugs are an SPS keepers worst nightmare. It's a good thug I caught it though since I was going to add one of 7 different Green Staghorn frags I got and made up today (got an awesome deal: 2 bigger pieces for $10 ea and another for $5 cause they were dying pieces that my LFS had trimmed off a colony and put in the LR bin. I cut 4 more frags from these where it was just a little branch with tissue not connected to the main tissue). I'll be doing the dip tomorrow to see how it goes and give an update on my Red Bug situation during the next week.

Corals Under LED's!!

For the longest time I've admired the color of corals under blue LED's. To me they look so much more eye catching than when they are under other actinic lighting. Capturing that color in photos has always been on the back of my mind, but every time I've tried it I failed miserably. Until yesterday.

After I finished with the water change and frag rack replacement yesterday, I figured I would grab the camera again and try to capture that amazing color again. Photo after photo just kept turning out too blue or purple. I took a look online and realized that I had forgot the most basic step in video and photography: White Balance. I felt so stupid afterwards since I had taken so many video and photography through high school and college. I set the camera's white balance to custom, took a picture of an empty spot on the frag rack, set the custom white balance to balance off of that picture and started shooting again and with a couple minor adjustments to some of the other settings, I had my photos. Now all I need is a macro lens... These are some of the results:

 

 

Build a Better Frag Rack

So yesterday I decided to do some rework on my frag tank when I took everything out to clean the bottom. I'm glad to say there is no more Cyanobacteria. I did make a new frag rack that now spans almost the entire bottom of my tank as well as has two raised platforms for more light needing corals. I do like the look of this one much better because it gives me not only more room, but it makes the tank look more open as well. It's almost exactly like the pic I posted yesterday.

Before, I was using a 3 tier rack that I had in my 10 gallon. For that tank it was the perfect size. However, I needed more room in my 20 gallon and wanted a rack that would be able to handle the amount of frags I wanted to put in there, as well as make it look a little cleaner. This led me to make the rack in this design. It allows me to put corals wherever they need to be as far as flow and light are concerned.

Before:

After:

Now, what is the main reason frag racks are made? Personally I build them to be able to use as much room in my frag tank as I can, but I've also built them to keep frags in my display tank. These are also, from what I've read, what the majority of other people build racks for as well. Another reason I've seen is to keep the Cleanup Crew from knocking the frags around as they sit on the sand in the tank.

They can be made of anything from egg crate (light diffuser) to acrylic and held together with glue, zip ties, or epoxy. Depending on what is being kept on the rack, the size and shape of the tank, as well as the lighting, frag racks are made in all different shapes. The most common one I've seen is just a flat platform raised up off the bottom with either PVC legs or egg crate legs. People are keeping softies, LPS and SPS on these kinds of racks, they just change the lighting depending on the coral. If keeping a mixed frag tank, usually raised platforms are a good idea so you can put corals that need more light up higher and don't have to buy a new light.

Frag Tank Re-Do

So after a lot of searching and pondering I'm going to completely redo the egg crate stand in the frag tank. Something that spans the majority of the tank and give me lots of space as well as room, both high and low. Probably something like this:

I'll take out some of the LR that's in there as well so I can put my mushroom colonies on it too. Of course I'll still have the room to put the racks on the sides if need be but I like the openness of this setup. I'll probably raise it a bit to fit a powerhead under it to keep crap from settling on the bottom like it is now. Pics will be posted tonight when done. 

The Weekend is upon us!

So this weekend my tanks are going to get a much needed cleaning... I've kinda neglected them for a little because I was so busy. I need to do a major water change in the display cause I haven't for about a month, a big water change needs to be done in the frag tank as well. Oddly enough I have cyno growing on the bottom of the tank to the point that it's starting to bubble up. I can easily get it up but I think what I might do is pull out the frag racks and  do a whole tank cleaning. I'll probably start on it today when I get home actually. Everything is still looking good though which is kind of surprising. I can almost guess what the nitrates are and I cringe when I do. I should add a small CC, but that just adds more crap to the water. After this weekend though everything should be good.

I also am going to try and figure out what to do with the mushroom frags I just cut. Do I glue them to a rock and make a few colonies of different kinds/ colors of shrooms or do I put the Yumas and Floridas on frag plugs to keep them separate or build some colonies and some frags? Either way I look at it I need to get rid of some because I'm pretty much out of room. I suppose I could make up another 3 tier rack to go along with the one I have now instead of using random racks and put the rock on a rack underneath it...

Frag Tank update!!

So over the weekend I ended up getting a Banner Engineering light bar from my dad. Not the typical reef led but so far so good. It's a 24v bar that is "normally" used for industrial applications. 

Since putting it up my zoas and mushrooms that were reaching for light have settled down to where they should be. I've also added a couple more egg crate racks to the tank to lift some colonies off of the ground to make cleaning the bottom easier. 

Looking at the tanks today makes me think I went a little "frag crazy". My 20 gallon long tank is completely filled. I have really no more room... This is good in the sense that my coral is growing but bad in the fact that now I have to find somewhere to offload some of the frags. I suppose I could do a little rearranging, add another big rack and take out some of the smaller ones and so on, but that will have to wait until some time Monday or Tuesday. I have plenty of egg crate left to do it with. I mean look at it! It's packed!!

RBTA update!

So when I got these two little guys, well two halves of a little guy, they had just been split on accident by the seller. I was about 90% sure that they would be fine and it turns out I was correct. Within the two weeks I've had them they've healed up nicely and are accepting what I give them for food which is usually mysis every other day and a few small chunks of deboned silverside on the weekend. Next time I feed them I'll try taking a video of them feeding along with my rock flowers who greedily accept anything haha but a pic for now is all I have which is not the best due to the LEDs.

Not much new to update the blog with tank wise today, but I am updating the design a little and rearranging a few things as well as adding a few links that I found helpful to running my tank.

Frag Swap Goodies

Some new additions to the frag tank and display that I got at the Flint Swap yesterday.

Two halves of a Rose Bubble Tip Anemone.


A red, white, pink and yellow Rock Flower anemone.


Some blue and yellow zoa. Still have to figure out the name of them.


A Hawkins Blue acro (back) and a purple and blue encrusting Montipora.


And lastly a 2 headed frag of torch which will hopefully get to a nice size so my clowns can play in it. They miss their frogspawn that died in the crash a couple months ago.

Headed out to a Frag swap in Flint today. Mostly just to see whats there. Not really in the need for anything, but then again when do I ever NEED more coral lol.

The Frag tank is pretty full right now. I've got some yumas and ricordea healing from fragging a week ago. I might post a few frags up on Michigan Reefers soon just to empty out the tank a bit. I've also been looking at upgrading the lights on both tanks which will be easy if i can find a decent priced T5 HO for the display.

Just some photos.

Just some photos from the frag tank and display. Everything is going good so far. 

Just some details...

Alright... so everything seems to be on track as of right now. The thing I love about this tank is that it is running and has been running without any expensive equipment.

My maintenance routine includes:

• Weekly 5- 10 gallon water changes, 
• Replace the filter floss twice weekly, 
• Feed the tank a little every other day and once a week heavy feeding for the fish and feed the LPS the day before the water change,
• Blow the rocks off every other day
• One drop of iodine mid-week
• Check the chemicals once a week and add magnesium if needed

This has kept the tank going well without much issue, including nuisance algae, for a little over two years now.

Livestock includes:

• Two clownfish
• A yellow watchman goby
• A banded brittle star
• A decent sized pom-pom crab

As far as corals go:

• orange montipora cap
• green and blue polyp montipora cap
• purple with green polyp montipora cap
• orange montipora dig
• green and kryptonite candy cane colonies
• baseball sized colony of galaxiea 
• two small frags of purple and blue stylophora
• small frag of green porcillipora
• three different brain colonies
• two common paly colonies
• a frag of pavona
• a colony of branching duncan
• misc mushrooms including a purple and green yuma and a green and orange ric florida
• a nice frag of blue stag that is starting to get its blue color back
• a few pieces of green slimmer that are slowly recovering
• a baby piece of green loripes that i cut off of a dying colony

Everything has growth on it from within the last few weeks since it crashed due to a heater malfunction.

Starting a Blog

So I decided that I would start a blog to help me keep track of my 26 Gallon display as well as the frag tank I have running. Not just for my own personal reasons but to show it off as well. Unfortunately my display crashed about a month ago and I lost a couple nice sized pieces but everything is good now and I'm starting to repopulate it slowly. The frag tank has been going nicely since started about a year ago and I was able to throw a couple pieces crime there into the display. The rockwork was redone after the crash but there is only so much I can do with it due to it being such a tall tank with the lights I have.