Christy's 180 build

[no_bs]

Beautiful tank Christy. Comming along very nicely.

[christyf5]

So this week I went on a bit of a killing spree. And I enjoyed it! Does that make me a bad person??

The tank has been pretty neglected lately, and by neglected I mean I do all the usual waterchanges, skimmer cup cleaning etc but not much looking other than to feed, count the fish, make sure they are all fat and then move on. Suffice it to say when I actually looked at it there are frigging majanos, aiptasia, flatworms, bubble algae and brown wafer algae all over the place.

Enough of that crap. I broke out the flatworm exit and used almost the whole bottle on the tank. Die you stinking flatworms! Who knew there were that many on the tank, I kind of laughed at the instructions "Do not underestimate the number of flatworms in your tank". Yeah thats for sure, they were dying in droves! I thought I had siphoned most of them out. Apparently not

Next, aiptasia and majanos. I mixed up some superconcentrated Aiptasia Destroyer and went to town on them. Some are pretty difficult to get as they're growing on an angle so you can't really pile on the solution (I like to make little Matterhorn mountains on top of them for good measure). I think I blasted most of them. I even put some of the solution on patches of brown wafer algae just for fun. Works like a hot damn. Unfortunately I'd take out my tank if I attempted to get all the wafer algae.

As for the bubble algae and the rest of the brown wafer algae, I've decided to get back on the FM Ultralith system. Even though I thought it was a pain in the arse measuring all the solutions (why can't they make little pumps for them, one pump = 1ml or something?) it did do a great job of eliminating almost every algae present in the tank the last time I used it. Well, except for the dreaded caulerpa which seems to be impossible to get rid of

Some new acquisitions from the frag swap

Lobophyllia from Terry


Gorgonian from Anthony


Sea whip from Anthony


Fancypants montipora from Chris


Marshall Island Acro and Hot to trot cyphastrea (I can't remember what it was called so I made that up) from Ron


And some new acquisitions not from the frag swap





And just because I love it so and its growing like a weed. My pink lemonade MINI COLONY!!!!



And when I got it last October (funny I thought it was longer than that)



I can grow SPS! Who knew!!??!

[Skimmerking]

Looks Great Christy some nice pieces you have there

[don.ald]

looks great. you can grow SPS
"Hot to trot cyphastrea " i like that! where can i get a frag?
OH and WTH is wafer algae?

[christyf5]

Originally Posted by don.ald

looks great. you can grow SPS
"Hot to trot cyphastrea " i like that! where can i get a frag?
OH and WTH is wafer algae?

LOL I just remembered its called a Toxic Cyphastrea. I like Hot to Trot better

Brown Wafer Algae = scurge of the deep

Also known as Lobophora sp.



Photo stolen from google who stole it from someones photobucket

[Youngster Dan]

Christy this tank is looking good. Some really nice stuff you have in there.

[Lance]

Lookin' good Christy!

[Doug]

No problems from the exit Christy. Still my favourite treatment. To heck with the natural cures. Good ole Flatworm Exit always worked well for me, for various things.

I had a bad bubble algae problem awhile back, and when in Winnipeg, picked up a pair of red mythrix crabs, as he had none of the regular green ones.

Man they ate everything that looked like algae including all the bubble algae. But wholley cow did they grow. One molted and was twice the size. Never bothered anything that I could see. They both reside in different tanks now. Perhaps the big one is eating Mike,s fish.

Corals are looking good though.

Are you not into the beads scenario or tried and not helping?

[christyf5]

Originally Posted by Doug

No problems from the exit Christy. Still my favourite treatment. To heck with the natural cures. Good ole Flatworm Exit always worked well for me, for various things.

yeah I was thinking yesterday that if only they could make a majano or aiptasia exit that worked as efficiently I'd buy stocks in salifert!

Originally Posted by Doug

Are you not into the beads scenario or tried and not helping?

yeah I'm running the beads, to be honest I don't think they're doing a bloody thing. I still have patches of cyano and the green slimy crap. I have a feeling that I don't have enough nitrate or phosphate to get them going. I ended up having to put phosban on the tank to lower the algae levels as the phosphate levels had started to rise and the beads weren't kicking in. When I finally got the cyano/green slime under control (its only in a few areas now) I thought the beads might have been working and fed the tank a bit more but I think that only created more problems with pests and algae growth.

Time to bring out the big guns I guess

[Greenmaster]

Nice tank... any tank that wins reef of the month shows the person knows what they are doing :-)