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The 20H Atoll


lakshwadeep

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My SPS had been looking bad for a month or so, and I think my limited feeding was a problem. Old tank syndrome (at least for my sand bed) may also have played a part. Unfortunately, STN in some of them turned into RTN for most in December. I'm left with what I started out with: the mushrooms and little pocillopora. I plan now to check if my heater and thermometer are truly accurate. I also am going to make some new live rock with base rock and carefully selecting as much of the diverse organisms in my tank as I can. Buying live rock from an established tank is a gamble when trying to use the natural method.

 

So, here are some pics of the tank in its former glory:

 

kdk_0936.jpg

kdk_0942.jpg

kdk_0947.jpg

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Sorry to hear of the changes in the health of your tank. It's such a fine balancing act in our small tanks that one small little thing can have huge implications on the inhabitants.

 

Were there any major changes other than your limited feeding before things started to decline?

 

Start listing things out and we can start tossing some ideas around....you never know, it could just be something simple.

 

-Adam

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There are a lot of factors that I think could have caused the general problem. I have to admit that the pics I showed actually are during the start of the problems. You can see the birdsnest already had lost its green color and had limited polyp extension, as did some other corals. Some of the SPS were showing pale/pastel colors. Currently, the pocillopora is browned out, partly because I was using my old PC bulbs for a week.

 

filtration-I got so upset with the aiptasia the ball of chaeto that I took most of it out without replacement.

 

feeding-When I mean limited feeding, I actually did not feed the tank for a few months. The gobies survived on pods (I usually left the glass unscraped), while the CUC did what they always do.

 

aiptasia-They may have grown so much to reach the frags. Alternatively, they could have competed for the limited nutrients.

 

salt mix- I had been using reef crystals successfully, and I tried to do multiple water changes when things were slowing down. However, there were different times when I failed to do regular water changes, often thanks to physical chemistry lab reports that take 2 days to finish. I was using one (50 gallons worth) bag, so it's possible something in it was not supposed to be there.

 

temperature- I'm not sure, but temperature fluctuations may have increased as room temperatures were lowered to around 73.

 

water chemistry-ammonia/nitrite/nitrate generally stayed 0. Alkalinity and calcium were sometimes not stable because of my infrequent dosing schedule.

 

The actual STN started on the shaded portions of the corals. I also know that one water change was very stressful because I failed to heat the water to tropical conditions.

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Wow. I love your tank. I like all the SPS you have. I don't have the correct lighting in my tank to put them in a hopefully down the road.

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  • 3 months later...
lakshwadeep

:lol: I was going to update this week.

 

So, the tank has been on autopilot through my extreme neglect besides freshwater top offs. Eventually almost all the corals succumbed to aiptasia or water quality swings; the turbinaria is the only stony coral survivor. Somehow the blue neon goby has survived without any direct feedings for many months. The eviota goby mysteriously disappeared, possibly from old age or, more morbidly, being attacked by the omnipresent aiptasia. Also, it appears Caulerpa serrulata has started to pop up on one rock.

 

So, the tank will go through another restart, which I will probably post in a new thread. Earlier this week, I set up a 10 gallon tank with older dry rock that came from previous version of the tank. The pieces are mainly the Totoka (fiji) rocks that I used years ago and are seeded with two small pieces of live rock from an LFS.

 

My new concern is to try and transfer hitchhikers (mainly the chiton and collonistas -the three ceriths have too many vermetids/aiptasia) from the original tank while avoiding introducing aiptasia (or bubble algae, vermetids, hydroids...). I will also try to see if any of the sponges, the orange/purple coralline algae (Titanoderma?), parts of the turbinaria, and larger feather dusters can be safely removed.

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Arkayology
:lol: I was going to update this week.

 

So, the tank has been on autopilot through my extreme neglect besides freshwater top offs. Eventually almost all the corals succumbed to aiptasia or water quality swings; the turbinaria is the only stony coral survivor. Somehow the blue neon goby has survived without any direct feedings for many months. The eviota goby mysteriously disappeared, possibly from old age or, more morbidly, being attacked by the omnipresent aiptasia. Also, it appears Caulerpa serrulata has started to pop up on one rock.

 

So, the tank will go through another restart, which I will probably post in a new thread. Earlier this week, I set up a 10 gallon tank with older dry rock that came from previous version of the tank. The pieces are mainly the Totoka (fiji) rocks that I used years ago and are seeded with two small pieces of live rock from an LFS.

 

My new concern is to try and transfer hitchhikers (mainly the chiton and collonistas -the three ceriths have too many vermetids/aiptasia) from the original tank while avoiding introducing aiptasia (or bubble algae, vermetids, hydroids...). I will also try to see if any of the sponges, the orange/purple coralline algae (Titanoderma?), parts of the turbinaria, and larger feather dusters can be safely removed.

 

good luck

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Sounds like someone needs to spend a little less time answering noob questions on nr and more time taking care of their tank! :P j/k

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LiveBrock
Sounds like someone needs to spend a little less time answering noob questions on nr and more time taking care of their tank! :P j/k

Herd :P

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  • 5 weeks later...
lakshwadeep
Herd :P

 

Thanks, jerk. ;)

 

Anywho, I have good news and bad news.

 

bad:

 

Recently, the air conditioner fuse box blew out, leaving the tanks having a week of dealing with temperatures in the upper 80s. Unfortunately, the neon goby disappeared probably from the overheating.

 

good:

 

The dry rock has done well in becoming live rock, albeit with a sparse covering of hair algae. I've successfully transferred ~10 collonista snails. I also broke one of my own recommendations of careful stocking when I bought a pair of Trimma gobies that are living in the 10 gallon with the new rock. I bought them mainly because they were fairly unique and had been in the LFS for almost a month.

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lakshwadeep

The two Trimmas are still skittish after only four days. I actually never saw them until today, when I turned over all the rocks to find them wedged in really small holes. I was actually worried the fish were stuck until to day I saw them peeking out. Here are two decent shots:

kdk_1209.jpg

kdk_1212.jpg

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lakshwadeep

The neon goby is still alive! At a year and four months, it's the oldest fish that I've kept. I plan on trying to remove it when it hides into it's favorite rock. Also, I got an elos osmocontroller II to hopefully ensure long term salinity stability.

 

I've learned that chitons really don't like to be pulled. After my first failure, I've decided to wait a while before trying again, mainly because there are a few aiptasia growing on its valves ("plates"). Searching for some sites, I now know they are nearly impossible to remove unless you let them slowly crawl onto a removable object.

 

The trimmas have resumed their hiding today; hopefully not indicating they're in trouble.

 

edited to limit space:

 

I found the trimmas wedged once again after a nerve-wracking episode of turning over all the rocks again. These two houdinis are probably the most stressful fish I've had in a while.

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The neon goby is still alive! At a year and four months, it's the oldest fish that I've kept. I plan on trying to remove it when it hides into it's favorite rock. Also, I got an elos osmocontroller II to hopefully ensure long term salinity stability.

 

I've learned that chitons really don't like to be pulled. After my first failure, I've decided to wait a while before trying again, mainly because there are a few aiptasia growing on its valves ("plates"). Searching for some sites, I now know they are nearly impossible to remove unless you let them slowly crawl onto a removable object.

 

The trimmas have resumed their hiding today; hopefully not indicating they're in trouble.

 

edited to limit space:

 

I found the trimmas wedged once again after a nerve-wracking episode of turning over all the rocks again. These two houdinis are probably the most stressful fish I've had in a while.

 

Hey lakshwadeep, how's ur status now? any photo to share?

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lakshwadeep

Nothing much has changed. I don't want to show a FTS of the main tank since it might be too much for the weak of heart. :P Instead, I'll post two closeups:

 

The turbinaria is a true survivor and has grown well, but unfortunately I will only be able to save a frag to avoid getting some hitchhiker aiptasias. As you can see, bubble algae are another reason for restarting:

kdk_1222.jpg

 

Here you can see that the aiptasia have managed to grow on even the "titanoderma". Interestingly, the blue/yellow portions have started to regrow, and I'm not really sure if the blue is actually a coralline alga.

kdk_1223.jpg

 

I'm still kind of on the fence about my removal of the current rock. Each time I think of more hitchhikers that I would like to save, like the sponges and peanut worms. Also, I saw a small aiptasia growing on the chiton, which makes me nervous to transfer it.

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buy 10 peppermint shrimps, lol.

 

+1 believe it or not if you get a large amount op PEP's they will knock these down quickly. You cannot feed the tank while trying to get them to eat though because it is easier to eat food than the aptaisia's. Good luck on getting rid of them though hehehe.

 

V/Tim

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  • 2 weeks later...
squirrelieygrrrl

gasp...

 

 

havnt seen u in ages and just thought id check out your tank... :eek:

 

wow.

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  • 5 weeks later...

So, after having such depressing set of recent posts in this thread for a month (great first post in my thread, goose240...not!), here's some good news:

 

I've just ordered an ADA 60-P (~17 gallons) rimless tank!

 

So, I'm not really sure all of the newly seeded rock will be used since even the current tank's amount of rock is a little too much for me. I would like to have a much more open sand bed. Also, I will try to maintain the simplicity of the in-tank equipment (just the vortech and a heater), but I'm also considering an overflow of some sort (possibly like the mame design nano overflow). One class I'm excited about this upcoming semester is laboratory glassblowing (I'm a biochemistry major, and our department has a scientific glassblower), so in the future I might be able to make a simplified piping system similar to the ADA lily pipes. Alternatively, I may consider drilling the tank (shock!) since my main aim with any overflow is to get rid of the surface film that currently plagues my tank.

 

All three gobies are fine; I'm a little apprehensive at introducing the neon to the Trimmas since it may have become slightly insane after being alone for so long. I don't have any pictures since the tank with the Trimmas has algae on the walls to provide more pod breeding/feeding areas, and you all can imagine how the 20H looks like (i.e. the same).

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I received the ADA tank today, and I'm planning to do a leak test. Even though I seeded roughly 20 lbs of rock, I'm thinking about only using a few select pieces to more closely follow my ideal of an open aquascape. The overhangs on the current tank were nice, but that meant the rocks were too close to the sides, making maintenance difficult.

 

As for the overflow, I'm leaning toward doing nothing and just keeping the vortech and a heater.

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  • 5 months later...

No, and I haven't got the new tank set up. This is my senior year of college, and working on a research project outside of classes (hopefully to get a thesis) has severely cut down on my free time.

 

More recently, I was wanting to order live rock online for the first time because the dry rock I've tried to seed have been having constant algae problems. WIth mild temperatures being present now, I may get the new tank started up soon.

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