Play Video

300 Gallon Update & Spikes New Lizzardscape!

By Fish of Hex on

Travis: What's up guys? Welcome back to FishofHex. My name is Travis. In today's video, we are going to be doing an update on the 300 gallon. Also, looking at the frag tank and the 40 gallon shallow reef.

This wasn't the video I planned on doing today. I was actually in the middle of a voice over with some Q&As, and also working on identifying and troubleshooting our dying coral video. It looks like I am not going to record that tonight until either Spike eats all his crickets, or until everybody goes to bed and it's finally quiet enough because, the mic picks up everything and it's very difficult to record.

On my to-do-list, build a recording booth or something where I can really remove some of the sound. Anyway, I figured it would be a good opportunity to look at the 300 gallon, talk about some of the things I like, dislike and also, look at that 40 gallon shallow reef and talk about some of the upcoming videos for that.

Right of the bat. Over the last few days, I have noticed that the coral and algae on the bottom right hand side- not so much to the left- has started to turn white, basically, indicating that it is dying. I double checked my alkalinity, which is the very first thing I did just because usually alkalinity drops, or fluctuations will kill off the coral line first and then start working on the coral.

Alkalinity was fine. It went from 8.7 to 8.5. Again, that is a little lower than the nine that I like to keep the tank at, but it's still not a big fluctuation over a week-and-a-half. I'm not really too worried about it. As for the reason why? Probably because, the growth that I have gotten, like I said, it was at nine, the elk and then it just-- The tank goes through ups and downs of fluctuations.

Sometimes I am getting a perfect nutrients and the growth is off the charts, and then of course, I have to make up for that with the alkalinity being lower. Sometimes, I am just not paying attention to the tank and things are not the way they should and the growth isn't as good. I think with the nutrients being in the correct ratio, I get a lot of growth and basically cause the alkalinity to drop and that is why the coral line is dying.

It will recover. There is plenty of it the tank. The back glass is full, and yes, I will clean it at some point but it's pretty difficult. You can see that there is no much room between the coral and the back glass. It's definitely a pain in the ass to go on there and scrap it off. I will admit, it looks better when the back glass is clean, black. It really helps the tank popping over, the color looks pretty good. I will do that sometime between now and when I take the tank down, I suppose.

Other than that, everything seems to be pretty good. I am ready to start cutting coral for this tank and putting it in the 40 gallon breeder. There is a lot of corals that are just about the touch, if I need to get around these fish. Maybe not. Right here, we have a stag touching the milli, I want to cut that before it gets any worse. You guys, come over here, over here. Get away from the camera so I can show people.

Also, we have our purple acro that I want to cut before it touches the milli. Just little things there that I plan on trimming and putting in the new 40 gallon tank. You can see that this rainbow milli colony is completely gone. I talked about it STNing because it was getting attacked from the monty, the didgy and this acropora, plus being shaded by this acro. That is one of many colonies that would be bringing in that new tank.

It's definitely a bare spot. It took me a few days to get used to it, but everything seems to be growing in and filling in the area. I was actually thinking about rotating some of these rock structures to be able to get back there and clean the glass. I was thinking about that the other day when I was looking at it, but when I want to go and move it, it's just not possible.

The structures have fused together with corals here between the montis and the birds nest. Also at the back there, they're getting close between the monti an the stylo. There is a very beautiful plating acro that is never seen because its in the back. A piece of that would be going in the new tank. I forgot the name of it, but it's pretty darn good looking. Unfortunately it's in the back of the tank where we really can't see it.

A coral that I am having an issue with, that it's a good seller, I have had it in all my tanks, but it's just becoming a real problem. That is this purple multiplora. As you can see, it's taken out the acro here, it's eaten the satosa, it's getting messed up by the favia. Thank God it's losing that one, but it's also attacking the pink lemonade. It killed the birds nest, I used to have a whole bunch of birds nest right there. Dead. It's working it's way over.

I have it there, as you can see it's taking over. I also have it down here where it's losing the battle with the lobo. It killed an acro, there actually used to be a very beautiful acro right there, it's gone. I like the coral. It's very pretty, but I probably will never put it in anymore in my main display tanks.

At least not a permanent tank or one that I feel that I might have for a long time, just because it grows super fast and you can see- unless you have favia or something that can sting, it's going to win. It's killing all the SPS. There's no one SPS that I have seen it lose to only, LPS have been able to keep it at bay. Yes, I love the coral, but it's just a huge pain in the ass.

Let me give you guys a side show of the growth. Tank is taking off. I definitely have to get in here and start cutting soon, especially on this back wall. Let's go ahead and move over to our 40 gallon tank and we'll talk about what's going on with that. Here's our frag tank with our new castle A3 or 360X's. We will do a whole video on that set up soon.

As you guys can see, I have the four AI prime HDs or HD primes, whatever you want to call them. I have four of them over in this tank, they are at 100%. The light has been on for about five or six days and you can see them get a little bit of a brown film diatoms on the glass, totally normal. The rocks are getting a little bit of a brown film, again, totally normal. I am going to probably throw in a couple of snails in here, either turbos or another type, probably in the next couple of weeks before we start putting coral in.

I haven't really decided exactly when I'm going to do that. I want to wait for this mini little diatoms bloom to go away. Again, it's nothing crazy. It's not going to be algae or anything insane. It's a little bit of a diatoms bloom and that's because the lighting is on the rock. If you guys remember, I did wait at least a couple of weeks before even turning the lights on- I think it was two and a half weeks before I even put on any lights on.

That was so that bacteria film could build up on the rock and that is exactly what it did. As you guys can see, I do have some colonies down in the tank and I only did this so they can get used to the light. There is a lot more power on this tank than is over my frag system. I want to put these colonies in here just to get used to the light before I cut them and put them up on the rock structure.

This tank is going to be really full of acros. I am not going to spread them out as much as I did in the 300 because, this is going to be a working display. Yes, I am going to have it grow out so it looks different but I am gong to do the majority of my fragging from this tank. If I grow them close together it doesn't really matter because, they are going to be fragged out anyway before they are sold on the website.

I am thinking probably in the next week, I am going to say, I am going to clean this glass one more time see how long it takes for the diatoms to come back because, the main display doesn't really get any kind of nonsense on the glass. It takes a long long time. I am going to wait to see how long it takes for the tank to get a literally dirty. See if the rocks clear up over the next week and then we are going to come in here and start adding our acropora.

Basically, what I'm going to do, is just go over to our 300, cut out the pieces of the colonies that I want to keep and grow in this tank, like good sellers. A lot of the staghorns that are growing fast and selling really well on the website, of course, I want to put those in these tanks so I can grow more of them and then we are going to put them in places where I think they are going to grow well, where they're either shelfing acros, or again, staghorns or the other types. We'll see how it all plays out.

That video is going to include the installation of the lights. I'll show you guys the schedule, show you everything that's going on with the power and the overall intensity spectrum.

I will show you guys all that on this tank. We'll add the coral in the same video because, I don't want to spread it out and make the series too long so, we'll do lighting and coral on the same video.

Other than that, everything is looking good, the imported frag system, I am getting used to go down to two tanks. It's an issue because, it's like taking half the coral away. The website is suffering because I don't have as much on there. At this time of the year, there isn't a ton going on. A lot of the coral sales are in November when it's colder and everything is a little bit easier for shipping.

Going to two tanks is a little bit of an issue. I am having a problem putting coral cause, this is where all the coral stay when it's being processed or healed and then it's pictures get taken. Then it goes to up to the weighing racks where then it goes to the website and then it gets sold that way. It is a little bit of a problem but this is the route I wanted to go, and of course, with everything that we do and change in life, sometimes it takes a little bit to adjust. Let's assume I'm doing pretty good.

Let me see here. I do want to show you guys the new lizzardscape for Spike which I might take off the gel filter and I'll head over to Spike and give you guys a quick glimpse of that. I will do a full video on this whole setup probably next week. Let me go and take the filter off and head over there.

All right. Here is a quick look at Spike's new 40 gallon tank. I want to head in and use the excavator clay. There's a lot of mixed reviews online but from what I read, I went through the forms and looked at some of the Q&As and stuff, people find this to be pretty successful for bear dragons, even babies. They are not really eating it, which is the problem with sand when they become impacted and they die and all that sort of stuff. He is not licking it or going after it or anything, it's completely hard, it's like a rock. As you can see, he's just chilling up there, "Yo, leave me alone." Yes, he likes it so far. I really like the way it was set up, where he can go up here and get his temp, get his heat and all that good stuff. At night, because the heat's going through the clay and warming it up, he can go into this tunnel here, which actually allows you to see him down here.

He sleeps at night and then if he wants to get away from the heat, he can come over here and do the same thing, bringing it up on the log to cool down and also go inside this tunnel to cool down as well. It gives him the ability to go wherever he wants in the terrarium. People, I guess that's what they call now, not really aquarium, but a terrarium. He can do whatever he wants and there's plenty of room where he can live in here for quite a while.

I think it's going to take several years for him to outgrow this. Of course, I'll have to adjust the lizardscape while he grows because he's not going to be able to fit in the holes at certain point in his life, but he definitely likes it. Like I said, the reason why I haven't been able to do that voiceover is because there's a cricket in there, stuck up underneath the wood. You can hear him. I can't get him out, but it picks it up on the mic no problem.

Yes, really happy with this. I know that he really likes it and seems to be pretty happy. Also got the 3D printer, working out some stuff to help out with that video. I was talking about being able to clean your tank without doing a water change. I'm in the process of designing something that will make that process easy for those of you who either don't have filter socks or a specific sump where you can put mechanical filtration. It's going to make that process a lot easier.

I'm working on that and it should be out in the next month or so. Yes, that's about it for the video. I hope you guys enjoyed it, it's a quick update. I will see you Friday, with either the Q&A or we'll do the par. Whatever, we'll see. There's definitely going to be a video between now and Friday. All right. Until then, peace.

About Fish of Hex

Travis’ main reef display tank featuring many small-polyp stony coral (SPS) is a 300-gallon custom glass aquarium setting on a welded iron stand, both from Custom Aquariums.

"Here you will find everything you need to know to be successful in the saltwater aquarium hobby. I have several video series such as "Beginner Guide to Saltwater Aquariums", "300 Gallon Build" and "How to & Diy". I will teach you how to avoid common mistakes and prevent tank disasters. With thirteen years of experience in the hobby, I plan on sharing all of it with my subscribers. I take great pride in helping others and seeing their tanks grow into amazing works of art makes the time I put into making these videos worth it. Follow me and you will have an amazing reef tank in no time!"

View More

Connect with Fish of Hex