Mixed reef species guide - lessons learned from trial and error 

Thank you Paul! Glad you liked it.

I myself experienced a period when I immersed myself in reef building and in figuring out the right way to a balanced ecosystem. I'm not sure if that was an addiction but I did feel that I was sort of escaping from reality to certain extent. As the system started to mature, I now spend just 10 minutes each day on maintenance works. But meanwhile I spend more time in helping others build reef systems to achieve their goals. This at least brings me back to reality a little bit. :)

Probably the only high end reef tank with some soft corals aside from zoas there are even nps corals to which most hobbyist forget that they even exist

I felt exactly the same way... Just kidding :) Thank you so much for your kind words. Much obliged!

Thank you Carlos! Glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you White Knight! Algae combat was my paramount task in the first 6 months. I’m going to shoot a footage on how to keep the sand bed white and clean.

Thank you Kevin. Much obliged!

Thank you Larry! Although most corals were bought as colonies, all of them have seen substantial growths in the past two years. I have fragged nems, will do leathers and SPS too, which I'm going to talk about in my future episodes.

Thank you!

Thank you, much obliged 🙏

Thank you so much, much obliged!

Thank you so much! Glad you liked it.

Thank you so much for your kind words. I shall keep up the effort!

Thank you TRAY NICE! Glad you enjoyed it.

Thank you so much! Glad you liked it.

Thank you Aussie for your kind support! The upcoming update will be on the rearing of garden eels in a mixed reef environment.

Thank you CrackerJack! You and me both!

Thank you so much! Patience is the key. Time cures everything. I wish you a great start with your dream tank!

Thank you Mason, much obliged!

Thank you Michigan. I bought colonies but almost all of them have gone through substantial growth except for one piece not seen much growth. I'm still looking into that. Maybe that is a slow growing SPS species that requires more patience.

Thanks for visiting!

Thank you Carl. I caught them on tide pool at night, when they tended to be less alert than in the day.

Glad you enjoyed. Thank you Alex!

Thank you so much!

I'm leaving my tank alone for a month hope it survives.

Thank you Andrew! I appreciate your kind words.

Thank you Laura. Glad you liked it!

Thank you so much! My pleasure.

Thank you Alexander! GHA are indeed nightmare. Few cleanup crew eat them. Although tuxedo urchin sometimes consume GHA when they are hungry, it becomes difficult to get rid of GHA once they are everywhere. Having an algae reactor and algae eaters to curb their growth at the early stage of the cycle is the key.

@@zzyz Thank you for the advice! I'm definitely taking my time with my next build

@@alexandersouza1144 My pleasure! Good luck with your next build!

Thank you Kevin. I wish I could have a blue tang as in the movie, but tangs do fight in a 70 gallon.

@@zzyz I think one blue tang could work for right now and grow it out for a larger tank down the road . Yeah I know they get big but if you can get a bigger tank it would be worth it . Another fish that may look good in your tank is a yellow head jawfish . Very peaceful fish . And scooter blennys . Yellow tangs would work too . Keep a close eye on that puffer.

Thank you for your great suggestions! The yellowhead jawfish looks cool. Will be a good addition to the bottom feeder fish. Scooters are similar to mandarins I suppose. And yes, I kept the yellow box fish out of the main tank to prevent it from releasing toxins under stress. I would definitely consider a blue tang should I have enough space. But a yellow tang is fit for the moment as it hasn’t grown much in the past 12 months.

Thank you! That's the plan, more to come.

@@zzyz Good to know!! And thank you for the reply. Looking for to it!!

Thank you Sunny. Glad you liked it! Wishing you a year full of love and blessings!

Thank you Annie 🙏

Thank you Sam. You can do it. It just takes time to cycle. Best of luck!

@@zzyz i have had a 60 lps cube for almost two years. Pretty good growth with those easier hammers, elegances, acans, bubble coral rock flowers and a scoly but i have not dabbed into sps yet. I want to start with a hardier species of montipora. Im just amazed how full your tank looks with all the variety!

Sounds awesome! When you try SPS corals, remember to keep your alkalinity stable and NO3 low. And when you procure from LFS, do pick those with noticeable growth. SPS corals without growth are usually slowly dying. Moreover, it will be easy to fix them on live rocks if you choose the fast growing species, which will encrust nearby rocks in a week or two.

yes i think my main issue is not monitoring my current display tank as much as i should. That along with my lack of experience with dosing i only replenish calcium alk and magnesium with water changes and i test twice a week before and after water change so id need ad to ramp up the testing if i want to feel comfortable with sps. Much appreciated for the advice and info i hope to see many future updates on your tank!

With water changes only, chemicals will be constantly declining. Dosing is a must to keep stability, not only for base chemicals, but also trace elements. SPS coloration is very sensitive to various minor chemicals. An SPS colony may look entirely different in different tanks. The next episode will be on the husbandry of goni/alveopora. Thanks for watching.

Thank you Paul! My pleasure.

Thank you mkvvv, much obliged!

Thank you 🙏

Thank you 🙏

Thank you for watching!

Thank you! I've changed background music in recent updates due to negative comments.

Thank you 🙏

You are very welcome Jonathan. Let me know your questions anytime.

Wow! Im so happy to hear from your response speed. I want to and will watch the videos again....once i have the names of those creatures....also the biological terms that you are researching from first point of enthused personal experience till the point when we first interacted and fair reached for belonging grace together. Thank you so much for giving us a chance to relate on such things. Do you have others you talk to about those things in that tank perfectly placed with style and divine hope to help us feel whole and fullfilled in our resolving lives. I want to to start with how you knew about arragements of corals and sponges. Helping feel pleasurable and supported by compatible forms of life. You just seem so beautiful by the way you presented your caring interest of the tank and all the descriptions you have put together from expertise and organized experience. Also the polyps? If im spelling it correctly. And said something about them in a way i want to know and learn from you. Your credit is your credit. My credit can be from your credit. Super cool thing. Im really looking forward to work with you more. What is your status? You work alone or have people with similar agendas for such research opportunity's?

Hi Jonathan, thank you for your kind words! Not sure why your msg was banned from RU-vid. I just received your msg a moment ago. I benefited a lot from an App called Reef App where you can find most tank inhabitants, knowing their characters and compatibility. I also learnt a great deal from online forums and by trial and error. I'm not very certain what you mean by polyps. If you were talking about polyp extension, it's pretty much related to stability in water chemistry, especially alkalinity. I also found that polyps would extend to their maximum at relatively lower alkalinity and nitrate levels.

Yes l, i will try to get that app, thanks for the references. i will do more research, so were you into the waters and film selectments that might be secreted by those sponges and hydra. Polyp extention seem perverted. Pardon my liberty of interpretation. Thanks so much.

@@jonathansantos2271 Thank you! I filmed from outside of the tank by iPhone 12 pro with an optical filter to filter out the blue light.

Thank you. It's indeed funny! I confirmed with a few reefers that clownfish do love sucking nems.

Thank you Paul! My pleasure.

Thank you 🙏

😄

Thank you Mo. I appreciate your kind words!

My pleasure. Thank you Benjamin.

Garden eels are very docile. A gradual and gentle acclimation process is needed. Good luck! :)

Roger. What is a docile and gentle acclimation exactly?

@@RavineDriver Put it in a breeder box, make sure it is getting familiar with all types of artificial food you usually feed the tank, and let it see its tank mates, get acquainted with them before adding in.

Thank you so much!

Wow, that's a mature tank fully stocked! Thank you for sharing your stories. I once put my acan on a live rock. It opened well for a while and all of a sudden closed up overnight. I looked into the problem and found a brittle starfish was harassing the acan. I moved it to the sand bed and it has been wonderful ever since. However, not all corals will be doing well on the sand. For instance, bottom feeders such as sexy shrimps prefer to eat (or harass) hammer or frogspawn corals even though they are perfectly healthy.

Thank you Otana! My pleasure.

Thank you! 🤗

Thank you Tom!

Thank you! It's always been fun observing the interactions among tank inhabitants, sometimes enticing and inspiring.

@@zzyz I believe it!! Your tank has to be one of my favorites I’ve ever seen

@@ndTheArgonauts Thank you, much obliged! 🙏

My pleasure. And thank you too, gold3n!

Thank you! And wish you great luck with your new tank!

@@zzyz taking the time to do my research while I wait for the 29g sump to be plumbed. I want a that thing loaded with cheato and pods. Probly gonna go predominantly softies to start with. On the bright side I learned the light i bought for 40 bucks apparently used to run like 900.

@@connerbixby6532 Great to hear that! Would you please share with us what the light you bought?

@@zzyz It is an older corallife oddysea model. 48" fixture 4 100w actinics, 2 175w metal halides, and 3 blue leds down the middle.

@@connerbixby6532 Sound gorgeous! Would appreciate it very much if you come back and share with us how corals respond to this lighting setup in the near future!

My pleasure Mikey and thank you too!

Thank you 🙏

Thank you Steve.

Thank you! 👍

Thank you Mark! 🙏 They won’t be friends for sure, but might not fight to deaths. I usually put the newly added fish in a breeder box for a week or two to let it make acquaintance with its fellow tank mates and relieve stress. My yellow tang occasionally had conflicts with the rabbit fish as both of them are herbivores, but most of the time they got along.

Glad you liked it. Thank you too!

Thank you so much for sharing with us your lesson in detail. It adds one more data point to reef keeping practices.

Thank you Andrew. My pleasure 🙏

@@zzyz Roger can I ask what do you run your peramiters at . Cheers Andrew 😀🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

I'll talk about chemicals in my future episodes. But simply put, I've maintained parameters at a very stable level as below: - KH: 9.3 - Ca: 440 - Mg: 1320 - NO3: 5 - PO4: ~0 - Salinity: 1.024 Hope that helps.

@@zzyz many thanks , Can’t wait especially with no phosphates 🤔😂👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

@@andrew5762 Strangely phosphates have never been my concern. Nitrates are more of a consternation for me. I believe if you are using algae reactors, phosphates will automatically be reduced to undetectable levels in a couple of weeks.

Sure, thanks for watching. The next episode will be on flow and lighting.

Thank you! I'll try iPhone 12 Pro for the next episode.

@@zzyz keep it up! You are doing great 👍

Will try my best! 🙏

Thank you so much!

Thanks Ernesto. For your information: - Corals: toadstool leather, finger leather, torch, frogspawn, goniopora, alveopora, brain, acan, zoa, grass polyps, clove polyps, sun polyps, mushroom, acropora and montipora - Nems: green and red bubble tip anemones - Fish: anthias, yellow tang, clownfish, tailspot blenny, lawnmower blenny, chromis, damselfish, cardinal fish, royal gramma, pipefish, goby, sardine and garden eel - Crustaceans: blue leg hermit crab, peppermint shrimp, cleaner shrimp, sexy shrimp, anemone shrimp, pistol shrimp and acropora crab - Tubeworms, bivalves and echinoderms: red fanworm, sea shell, mussel, giant clam, black cucumber, tigertail, tuxedo urchin and turbo snail

I’ve been dreaming of a white sand bed for 8 years....would you say your sea cucumber is key to attaining that? And are there types of cucumbers to stay away from? What size is your tank? Mine is 65gal.

@@RavineDriver I wouldn't say sea cucumber is the key. All of the measures mentioned in the video are jointly helpful. But sea cucumber is definitely the more effective creature than any other cleanup crew alone. I have a tiger tail and a black cucumber. I don't personally have experiences in other species. My tank is 70 gal, about the same size as yours.

Thank you! Peninsula looks gorgeous! You will be proud of it. I talked about hardware, circulation and filtration in my last episode. I'll continue to discuss flow, lighting and useful gadgets in future updates. For your information, other than the equipment already included in Peninsula, you still need the following: - Chiller with pump - Skimmer with pump - Algae reactor with pump - Bio rings - Return pump - Wave makers - Lights - Filter floss - Active carbon

@@zzyz Thank you! 😊

@@avelinofernandes6359 My pleasure!

Thank you Oceanchaser. Here are some setup costs: hardware around 4k USD, corals and other creatures around 4k too. Despite an expensive upfront investment, appropriate setup and husbandry can save tremendous costs. I couldn’t agree with you more that global warming is really a disturbance to the ecosystem at large. The entire tank would look entirely different should I turn off the cooler.

Thank you so much! I've been to Japan many times. Great place, awesome people!

Thank you so much! It takes some effort and patience to start, but it's well worth the effort and will pay off.

Thank you!

Thank you 🙏 Mine is Red Sea 250, close to your bigger tank.

Thank you 🙏

wow 👍

Thank you! I have the subtitle attached where you can find the exact wording, in particular: 6:14 six line wrass 6:34 copepods 8:50 yes, aiptasia 8:58 marble shrimps

谢谢🙏 水体差不多半年左右开始稳定，之后就会越来越好，坚持就有回报✊

Thank you, my pleasure! I don't have additional care for tubeworms. Broadcast feeding phyto and zooplanktons mixed with amino acids two times everyday. I've tried Brightwell, Red Sea, and Tropic Marin in line with their specified average dosing. My personal favorite is Brightwell Phyto Green M and Zooplanktos M, 2ml each, for both morning and evening feedings. Red Sea Reef Energy AB alone cannot sustain gonioporas while Tropic Marin products are more nutrients rich. I feed manually, as coral food usually sediment to the bottom, each time you need to shake well before use, hence difficult to dose. In terms of sand, I use Red Sea live sand.

Thank you Paul! We shall see. I think most of the tank inhabitants will remain the same except for a few movements due to sexy shrimps nibbling at frogspawns. And there might be some SPS fragging to prevent potential fights as they continue to branch outward.