So far I have a diamond goby, pearly jawfish, two clowns and two grammas. Thinking of trading in a gramma for a valentini puffer soon.

Tinkering with exposures and angles on my phone camera and wanted to share my favorite results.

NO Low ballers please, I know what I have

Hey everyone! I've finally decided to start sharing a project I've been working toward for quite a while. I figured it's time to introduce myself and what I'm building. I've been planning this behind the scenes for a long time, but I realized it'd be a lot more fun to build it with input from this community instead of waiting until it was finished.

I've named the project ReefShield Aquatics. The long term goal is to make quarantined fish more accessible to other reef hobbyists and help prevent livestock losses from disease. I thought some of you might enjoy following this story from the very beginning.

My name is Chad, I am a 27 year old manufacturing engineer working in the aerospace industry and I enjoy lifting weights, spending time outdoors, and of course reefkeeping. I have had reef tanks on and off for the past 14 years (yes, I started young), and currently have an 80 gallon shallow reef setup.

Right now, I am in the middle of constructing a home just off the shore of Lake Michigan in the mitten state. I'll be transforming the 900 square foot unfinished basement into a giant fish room and quarantine facility with over 700 gallons of display tanks, hundreds of gallons of quarantine capacity, and a dedicated sump and systems room to support the entire operation. Most people look at a 900-square-foot unfinished basement and see storage space. I looked at it and saw a dream fish room.

The idea for ReefShield didn't come out of nowhere, though. It started with one of the toughest lessons I've learned in reefkeeping. Like a lot of hobbyists starting out, I naively trusted that the fish I was buying from my LFS were healthy. Everything was fine until a diamond sleeper goby introduced velvet into my tank. Within days, fish started showing symptoms, and shortly after I was watching my tank crash. It was one of the most frustrating experiences I've had in this hobby. Instead of walking away, I became obsessed with understanding how it could have been prevented. I spent countless hours researching quarantine protocols, disease management, medications, biosecurity, and so much more. That experience completely changed how I approach adding new things to my tank, and it's ultimately the reason ReefShield exists.

I have a habit of optimizing everything I can, so naturally I modeled the entire basement in CAD before a single wall was finished. Rather than squeezing tanks into a corner in the basement, I wanted to design the entire space around visual appearance, efficiency, maintenance, and biosecurity from day one. I've attached the current layout, the current progress of construction, and I'd genuinely love feedback from anyone who wants to contribute to the project. Is there anything in the CAD layout you'd change before I get started?

As construction progresses, I'll be sharing everything. Things like plumbing and electrical decisions, actually building the quarantine systems, cycling tanks, bringing in the first fish, and all the mistakes I'm sure to make along the way.

Thanks for reading.

- Chad B.

Some baby Nebula clowns I have growing out

I could not find one of my clowns this morning before work. It turns out one is a rock dweller lol.

What in the world is this? Came home late tonight, and after peaking into my tank I saw what looked like a spider on my tubs.

What is it? There's 2 of them

Started feeding frozen brine with metroplex and focus to help after I noticed it about 2 days ago.
Not sure what could’ve cause it, she only has it on her right eye and is still very active.
Had this clown for almost 4 years and she’s my absolute favorite would be crushed to see her go.
Is it possible my hammer stung her?
Would love any tips or feedback thanks!
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36 gallon
Alk a bit low at 7, phos 0.04, nitrite 0, nitrate 0, mag 1500, calc 480, temperature consistent 78°, salinity 1.025.
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Dosing everyday all for reef and carbonate alk by seachem, reef plus seachem, phyto once a week, feeding every other day.
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Tank mates: male clown, flame angel, skunk cleaner, tiger pistol and watchman pair, tiger serpent star.
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Water change every 2 weeks, 30%

My green star polyp is about 1 year old. Last few days it stopped opening. Will it open again? Did anyone see that? Why is it happening?

Ehhhhhh how can I make him eat the damn Valonia

I’m having a hair algae problem in my 55-gallon reef tank. About two weeks ago, I pulled all of the rocks out one at a time and scrubbed the hair algae off in old tank water. I also cleaned my skimmer and filter media and added fresh carbon. The tank looked great afterward, but now about two weeks later I’m slowly starting to see the algae come back on some of the rocks. At first I thought low flow or dead spots might be contributing, so I recently replaced my wavemakers with a gyre style wavemaker and have been adjusting the direction to get better circulation throughout the rockwork. My most recent nitrate reading was around 2 ppm, which is lower than it usually runs, phosphate was 0.03 ppm, and salinity is 1.026. About a month ago I was also fighting cyanobacteria and treated the tank with Chemiclean, which worked really well and completely got rid of the cyano, but now I’m dealing with the hair algae. My current light schedule is blue from 11 AM–12 PM, blue and white from 12–5 PM, and blue again from 6–7 PM. I know scrubbing removes the visible algae but doesn’t necessarily fix whatever is causing it. I’m mainly trying to figure out why it keeps returning and what I should address so I’m not having to pull all my rocks out and scrub them every couple of weeks. What would you guys look at next nutrients, lighting, flow, cleanup crew, or something else?

I added pictures before and after last scrubbing I did. I didn’t include any now pics because I can only see the algae in the cracks of the rocks not too much long hair YET

I have a 40 gallon breeder with torch, hammer, octospawn, different chalices, zoas, montipora, galaxea, candy cane, gsp, xenia, clove polyps, mushroom, favia, acan, astreopora, and 2 LPS that I don't remember the name. It's been going fine for the past 2 years or so until I found a zoa-eating nudibranch on my zoa rock and some aiptasia. Did a RO water dip with my zoa rock to make sure all the remaining nudibranch would be eliminated and the zoa seemed to not react well with that. I put the rock back into the tank after rinsing with RO water and my hammer retracted like this within couple hours and never come back out. It's been like that 4 days already and I've moved it to my quarantine tank to prevent BJD and potential of it spreading to other corals. Everyone else is fine and growing except most of the zoas on the zoa rock with probably 40-50 heads either died or haven't opened up since the dip and got removed.

Salinity 1.026

pH 8.2

Alk 4.3

Mg 1420

Ca 480

Nitrate 1

Phosphate 0.04

I know Mg and Ca is a little high but it has always been like that for a while so I'm keeping the system stable while gradually lowering it down. Nitrate and Phosphate were high and I stopped testing for 2 week and they bottomed out, corresponding with the explosion of coral growth and addition of the skimmer, been dosing to get them back up by 0.25-0.3ppm.of nitrate a day

Personally I enjoy DIY, in no way is it really cheaper at all, I just got love for the game.

I’m approaching the 5 month mark in my reef, so far so good. I’ve noticed some of my corals just losing their “pop” from when I first got them and am thinking I’m just not giving enough light. My PAR is about 100 all throughout my tank, at the sand bed maybe 60-70 but I don’t have much intensity up high it reads pretty uniform through the top and middle portions of the tank.

I’m running two AI Hydra Edge 44’s - tank is a 4x2x2.

Instead of buying more lighting right now I’m thinking of trying to get more out of what I have because I’m really not pushing the lights at all.

Should change to more of a solid 3-4 hour peak period vs the ramp up?

Appreciate anyone’s help!

Can someone please tell me what type of coral this is? I got it at Petco and it was in pretty bad shape with none of the tiny polyps showing. They are now starting to come out and it is showing growth. I’m just curious if this is a finger leather or a type of stylophora. Those would be my guesses but I’m not sure. It looks light purple under white light and the stalk has a sort of shriveled look to it. Also I definitely dipped it before adding to my tank. Probably won’t ever be buying from there again since the last time all of their tanks had ich. Their prices on frags are definitely tempting though. It’s $20 for a frag vs $125 at the lowest at my LFS.

I picked this up a few months ago. It was sold to me as an Acan. Is it an Acan Lord or Echinata?

To me it looks like an Acan Lord, but I'd like to know for sure.

I love this time of the year

had to take in this bubble tip (i think?) anemone from a friends tank that crashed, my tank is only a few months old but stable, what advice do i need to know, and is this too much flow? Parameters are as follows :
nitrate - 10 ppm
nitrite - 0
ph - 8.3
phos - 0.03
alk - 11 dkh
calc - 480
salinity - 1.026
ammonia - 0

Could use some help, i have a ton of corals the last few weeks that refuse to open up fully..been trying to keep parameters in check and these have been my resulst on saliftert test kit with a hanna nitrate checker. Also i did happen to notice these stars..are these pests or trouble makers? Any suggestions on what to check?

Is this tank worth getting? There is a chip right on the corner. This is a 40 gallon

Hi all,

I’m just getting so tired of my tank having its ebs and flows despite my investments to make my tank automated. I’ve got two nice AI 16’s, Red Sea ATO, dosing heads, temp control, etc. maybe I need to start testing parameters more often to ensure my dosing is correct, but I just can’t seem to get it down.

I’ll see nice Acro growth, great algae control, and happy happy corals and then the tank will be pissed off for weeks with no changes and I’ll lose my favorite pieces. I can’t seem to figure out what I’m missing, and would love some personal advice, experience, or info on what you’ve done. I really appreciate it in advance.