speyside's new 90 gallon reef build!

I have another thread going in the General Discussion section about the trouble i'm having with my apex probes.  But last night I got 4 of 5 probes working as intended.  The 2 ph probes and 2 temperature probes are now working well.  two are in the filter sock/skimmer section, and two are in the return pump section.  I've got the temperature set to bounce between 77.7 and 77.8, it never seems to be more than .1 degree off, and the ph probes are currently fluctuating between 8.1 in the day time and 7.9 at night.

The PH had previously been a lot lower, but I think that was due to the cycle finishing.  The 2-part i've started dosing daily has helped too.  I'm dosing a small amount of 2-part daily until I can get my Calcium to 450 and my Alk to 9.  I was at 400 and 7 when i checked 4 days ago.

Once I get them up to this point I have a feeling I won't have to dose hardly anything since I have almost no coral at this point, and no stony corals.  Once i start adding corals i'll keep checking my parameters and adjust the 2part as necessary.


I was given a big piece of chaeto from a fellow reefer in Kaysville.  I already had a little bit in my tank but was really after the amphipods and all the live that comes along with it.

I inspected the 2 zoa frags I got from The Fish Tank last week, making sure I didnt get any pests I didn't want.  After using no live rock to start it and all the hassle that comes with, I should probably be pretty careful what I put in there.  The frags had a little dark red coraline algae and two tiny feather duster worms.  The kind that everyone has in their tank that grow on everything.  I don't particularly mind the worms so I left em on there.

I'm still toying with the idea of throwing my "dry rock only, no pests" idea out the window and buying a piece or two of live rock to seed it with more life.  I feel like i'm missing out on some of the good stuff.

I once worked at a place where LR was transshipped in. It came direct from the ocean without going through a distributor. As it was placed in the "curing vats" (no light, huge skimmer) to "clean it up". I would sort through to find the most unique fist size or double fist sized pieces that had tons of sponge, algae and any other animals. The company didn't mind me buying the small pieces that couldn't be used or would have been considered rubble in a client aquarium. Sure, this LR had stuff on it that was dead and decomposing, but when placed in a mature aquarium the mature biofiltration handled the dead stuff while providing excellent water conditions for recovery of anything still alive. Every couple of months I would take a few pieces home and place them into my established reef. I cannot describe all the cool things that began to grow in my system from that uncured LR straight from the ocean. New things often emerged many months after introduction.

Why do distributors "cure" LR? My take on it is that aquarium maintenance companies don't have the time to carefully watch the aquariums they maintain and most hobbyists don't have the experience. desire or time to deal with new creatures, or don't have experienced fishy friends like here in the WMAS to help them understand and deal with strange new creatures.

Why this current trend among hobbyists to use dry, dead LR? It's a bit of a mystery to me.

That said, When getting LR from a fellow hobbyist or advertised here or on ksl.com, I'm still very choosy about what I take. I pass up a lot more LR than I accept.

Just today I was moving some rock around and felt a large soft and squishy something on what had been a small piece of LR. The rock had basically grown into a ball of live Sponge.  This is the kind of animals I give away, yes give away, to people that come to me for LR to help start their new tank. 

"Keep your arms and hands inside the tank and enjoy the ride." - L.A.Goon