UPDATES... WHERE DO I START???
The Good...
> More corals have been added (I'll try to get some decent pictures soon). I have a nice little euphyllia garden going, some hammers in one spot, some torches in another, and I just recently started quarantining some different color variants of octospawn. I've also added a nice blue maxima clam, some goniopora, and quite a few SPS frags, which have honestly have been a little hit and miss in my system so far. The only corals the Moorish Idol seems to pick at so far are acans and my Space Invader Pectina, so those have been relegated back down to the Coral QT tank until I feel like I can introduce them again to see if the dumb fish remembers (hahaha!).
> More fish have been added after a few months of no more "mysterious deaths". No other fish were lost since my last post, so I figured I would just take the summer and let things settle down a while before adding anymore fish (plus, I was too busy over the summer to take the time and quarantine anything other than some corals). After a few months of everything running smoothly and all of the fish looking healthy, I've started adding some new quarantined fish, including a Blue Star Leopard Wrasse and a Flame Angel. I also have a Flame Hawkfish and Springers Damselfish in quarantine, with some more fish lined up in the next month or so (possibly a fairy wrasse or two and a Copperband Butterflyfish).
The Bad (or not-so-good)...
> Turf Algae Issues: I don't know exactly how it got into the tank, since ALL of my livestock/corals/inverts go through a quarantine of at least 45 days, but some turf algae made it into my system. It started on the sandbed of all places, like little tumbleweeds of turf algae (which I would siphon out once a week), then made it onto the rock work. It seems to be in check at the moment, but that was only after I added two urchins from ReefCleaners that seem to be mowing it down slowly but surely. I might need to add one more, but I also don't want the urchins to starve by adding too many at once.
Equipment Reviews...
> RedSea Gyre 45: I honestly have not had any major issues with the equipment I chose (and it has been over a year now), EXCEPT the Red Sea Gyre45. Just recently (within the last month or so) even after I give it a Citric Acid bath, it gets jammed, then I can get it unjammed, it'll start working again, then several days later, it'll get jammed again. I think it has something to do with a rubber gasket thing by the propeller, but I'm not sure how to fix it. So, if anyone has had any experience with Red Sea gyres and would like to give me some tips, they'd be welcome. I've been so busy lately that I haven't even had a chance to reach out to Red Sea myself, but that day will come soon.
> Tunze: with the above problems with the RedSea, and the fact the gyres in general need to be cleaned more often, I was thinking of replacing the flow coming from the overflow tower with one of the more powerful controllable Tunze pumps (6255), just to get some more flow going through the rock work. Everything looks happy right now, but I can see it starting to get stagnant once things start growing in. Tunze pumps are such great quality and low maintenance, I can simply clean it when some coralline builds up, or leave it for a year and it'll still work flawlessly (although, I like to keep my tank clean, so regular cleanings are a must for me).
Other than that, life has been extremely busy. Some lady decided to not look where she was driving and crashed head on into my car, which led to me having to do PT for a few months over the summer and having to find a new car. The kids are back in school, with all of the homework that comes with it. Work has been busy as well. So I just need to get off my ass and take some decent pictures of the tank soon. Sorry guys!