Blog Comments

Thanks for the kind words. I think this site and format is really useful for relative beginners like me. The perspectives from the tank setup journals (Michika, Jessy, Melev, Hat, and all the others) are incredibly valuable. Aside from flow, lighting, ect. it's sorting out the silly little things that no one ever talks about.

Jessy, you can credit Juan Valdez and his 100% Colombian brew for the extent of the post. haha

Thanks for the great post! I love it when people actually get into the "blog" format and write like they mean it

Thanks for the detailed post, really appreciated your experience sharing. I've had my GHA outbreaks and it sure isn't fun, although I didn't do too much manual removal. I did remove a few times, but not every few days. The growth reduced significantly after I expanded my sump size adding a refugium (still without Cheato or Caulerpa), started a PhosGuard reactor (to cut down Phosphates) and most importantly reduced the amount of food I fed.

Look forward to your future updates!

I'm glad you are enjoying the site. Now that my own tank is finally up and running, I feel like I'm going to have the time to immerse myself back into this site and getting more articles, videos, podcasts --- everything has been put on hold as my frustration levels rose with my extended project eating up my time, money and living space.

Another complete noob here. My first fish tank ever is a 4+ month old biocube 14 setup for saltwater. I've learned a LOT from Melev (Marc) and based by decision to build a sump on his other site - melev's reef. This is by far and away the best saltwater forum I have found yet. It's way different in feel and flavor than all the rest and the visual nature of the site takes the cake! I've learned a lot because I can actually see everything in detailed posts. Thanks Melev!

I really appreciated your post! I've been thinking about doing one on my tiny tank. Though I want a bigger tank I think learning on a Biocube 14 will really help me down the road. I have recently built a stand for up to a 90 gallon tank and have a 40 breeder ready to hook up as a sump for by 14... yes, by 14, I know. Anyway, the setup is unique and you have inspired me to try to make a good write up of my own, specifically documenting the various problems I've encountered.

Thank you for going into such detail about your trials. I can empathize with much of it in some form or other.
We haven't had horrid algae blooms, but we do have hair algae where there is the most flow of nutrients and the crabs can't get to it. The crabs decimated our snails of any size, though we have found a number of tiny ceriths and colonista snails in the rock work at night.
Live rock. I have trepidation about buying live rock sight unseen, as in ordering a box. I've bought our live rock a couple of pieces at a time, cycling or quarantining the rock again when I got it home, in a brute garbage can. I've been ruthless about removing rock from the tank, even if I paid good dough for it, if it grew, say, a majano anemone on it. I looked at live rock on craigslist, and invariably, the poster had "lost interest" and the pictures showed rock with no coralline and tufts of brown or green junk.
Since my hermits ate all of our snails, the snails aren't stirring the sand bed either, so I do it every now and then. All the worms in the bed stick up like a lawn for a bit until they've dug back in, and the shrimp and crabs get back to work cleaning up the joint.
I will say that the livestock you show in pictures seem happy and nicely expanded, and I like your rock arrangement. IMHO, all of these critters that take off and multiply like roaches, after all, are found on the reef and are neither good nor bad, though sometimes inconvenient for us. Our efforts to balance an ecosystem in a box by adding and subtracting the right things must be laughable to the gods of the sea, but even their laughter doesn't dampen the mysterious attraction our boxes hold for us.
Please continue to post, I've subscribed!

Upster your setup is still so clean! I'm glad to hear that you had great luck in the algae department, I may have to start fraggin mine, lol. Glad ya having great luck with your Monti's too. Your tank is beautiful. I'm going to do me a sump like that real soon, can't wait, it's up next on the wish list.

I'd have to same the majority of the corals we have access to should not be brown. Sure there are some tan corals out there, but with good water quality, good lighting, and a little luck, every coral should have some nice color to them. Try looking at those same corals from above and let me know what you see.

Originally Posted by melev

I like reading about your updates. It sounds like you've got a good plan formulated for future success.

There are a number of reefers that score their LFS for brown acros, knowing they will turn into beauties with a little time and TLC. The trick is having an eye for what can be something amazing even though it doesn't look like much now. I can spot those from time to time, much to the LFS owner's surprise.

Agreed, I picked up the the superman monti in the third pic for $10. It is spreading like crazy with a good shade of red and blue. I found that the center portion has really gotten clogged with tightly packed polyps that are actually changing green. I've come across this in a few other posts.

I still haven't taken the plunge on a high quality Acro colony yet. My mother beat a frugal streak in me! I have yet to stifle all the colour out a healthy frag.

Do some corals just stay brown? Sometimes I get frustrated that I can hold colours, but I can't dramatically improve them.

Please categorize your entries. When y'all don't, I do it for you but there will come a day where it will be impossible to keep up with everyone's entries.

FYI when you have some tubing that is hard to install over a hose barb or nipple, heat up a small mug of water in the microwave to near boiling, then put the tubing in the hot water to soften it up. Now it will slide right over as far as you like, and as it cools it will regain that former rigidity. Locked and ready to use.

I like reading about your updates. It sounds like you've got a good plan formulated for future success.

There are a number of reefers that score their LFS for brown acros, knowing they will turn into beauties with a little time and TLC. The trick is having an eye for what can be something amazing even though it doesn't look like much now. I can spot those from time to time, much to the LFS owner's surprise.

Looking good! I use Seachem Reef salt and I just tested my calcium to discover a reading of 500 with low alk. I'm thinking of switching too.

Yeah, but there's only one of you.

hey, Let not press your luck melev... you got me here which I'm a damn noobie at this stuff

Hopefully in time, you'll see the same type of response or better. The good thing I'm seeing now is that the people here want to be here and tend to know what they are talking about. I think that is better than having 1000 people that can't help.

Originally Posted by evoracer

Looks nice, but you need to change your homepage...

Yeah no kidding! I was doing a bit of research at the time. The best thing about this site is that posts seem to get much more attention. Believe me, ReefAddicts.com is at the front of my rotation.

Looks nice, but you need to change your homepage...

Thanks for the info, can't wait for your feedback about it.

Originally Posted by Hat39406

Hey Upster, do you have any updated pics? I know you were getting more live rock and I would love to see your tank with with the née rock.

Yes! I have been meaning to post more horrible pictures. Hopefully this weekend. I have a dosing unit to set up too.