Amphiprion1's 40g Seagrass Patch Reef (Updated pics!)

[Amphiprion1]

I'll be picking up a used MP40wES this weekend to add to the mix. For now, I'll probably discontinue the MP10 and see how I like the other MP40 together with the current one. If it doesn't seem chaotic enough, the MP10 will go in, likely in the back.

 

Also, will be updating pics relatively soon, possibly next week. The growth has been quite good and the A. millepora frag, especially, has seen pretty good growth. Each of the top branches have anywhere from 2-4 new axial corallites. That rather bland Montipora on the left side has completely filled in the exposed areas and has started trying to encrust on the sand. Pocillopora is getting even pinker and the little wannabe purple Acropora is actually turning purple. Had to increase dosage amounts of 2 part ever so slightly to accommodate the growth--about 30 mL of bicarbonate-based 2 part, so roughly 15 mL of the carbonate version. This is up from only 25 mL. Despite the growth, I am not having to dose a whole lot, partly because there aren't that many corals and partly because I don't really get any kind of coralline algae. That's fine with me, though, since it ends up being cheaper for me in the long run and I don't need refills as often.

[jedimasterben]

So that will be two MP40 and one MP10? Sounds epic

 

I had the same on my 80g until the Mp10 bearings died again. I'm considering drilling some small holes in the bottom of the casing for ventilation, heat is what is killing the bearings IMHO.

[Amphiprion1]

So that will be two MP40 and one MP10? Sounds epic

 

I had the same on my 80g until the Mp10 bearings died again. I'm considering drilling some small holes in the bottom of the casing for ventilation, heat is what is killing the bearings IMHO.

Well, I haven't decided if the MP10 will need to remain. I will likely want it in there later as things progress, but I won't know until I get the other MP40 in and see what happens. It's entirely possible that I may leave it in to create as much random flow as possible. Either way, should be pretty epic

[Mr. Microscope]

Awesome tank! With the MP, I'd recommend long pulse mode with highest strength, and longest pulse distance. Looks the most natural IMO.

[Amphiprion1]

Funny you mention that... I was thinking the same. It doesn't work as wellnow with the MP10 due to the narrower stream, so I hope the effect will be better with the second MP40.

[Amphiprion1]

Okay, some coral only pics. I couldn't contain the excitement that they are doing well, given how bad things have been until just recently. I will have an updated FTS in the next couple of weeks when I can borrow a better camera and tidy up a bit more. I want to document the FTS on a monthly basis. Anyway, here they are:

 

Pink Pocillopora top-down to show how pink it actually is:

 

Same from the front:

 

Yellow Porites--note the amount of tissue regrowth from last time:

 

Blah looking, but fast growing Montipora recovering nicely (also starting to grow over sand):

http://s188.photobucket.com/user/Amphiprion_photos/media/487a512f-f18f-4c06-8e4d-43c4ddc90a14_zps8a41da4f.jpg.html'>

 

Little purple Acropora coloring up--not much growth for now:

 

And this thing--is now, by far the fastest in the tank. Has blown up in such a short time frame--didn't even have all those axial corallites when I bought it:

[Amphiprion1]

Okay, quick photo dump of updates. First, the updated FTS:

 

 

Porites--note bright yellow growth edge:

 

 

Millepora frag I separated from purple Acropora:

 

 

99% healed Montipora--note bright white growth edges:

 

 

Had to move larger millepora/prostrata, as it got top heavy and flipped over:

 

 

Better shot of pink pocillopora:

 

 

Purple Acropora encrusting in back--couldn't really photograph to make it visible:

 

 

Really happy with growth progress in everything.

[Amphiprion1]

Well, of course the dinos came back in full force, killing any kind of snail I had left. Naturally. Fed up with everything, I tore everything apart and have since dumped everything except 2 corals and my fish. The corals will be dipped in peroxide and the fish will have a quick freshwater dip. All my equipment has been placed in HCl and bleach to be sterilized. The original tank was also sterilized, along with all tubing, water containers, etc. that were previously used with the tank.

 

I recently received an order from Dan at gulfliverock and everything seems to have come in nicely. I bough 50 lbs live sand and 30 lbs of live rock, though I will likely have to trade in some of the latter, as that was far too much. On the plus side, I am already seeing lots of life, as I had the order air-freighted in overnight. Will update with pics once everything clears. I already have 40g of saltwater mixed and ready for any water changes, as the order smelled pretty bad.

[jedimasterben]

Do not place any corals from the old tank with the new stuff. Corals can harbor toxic dinoflagellates within their polyps (not for photosynthesis, mostly by accident) and will eject them later as waste and reinvesting where they are put next.

[Amphiprion1]

Do not place any corals from the old tank with the new stuff. Corals can harbor toxic dinoflagellates within their polyps (not for photosynthesis, mostly by accident) and will eject them later as waste and reinvesting where they are put next.

 

I can do that with all but one--don't know if I have the heart to do this with my bubble coral. I've had it in one form or another for nearly 20 years. I may have to take my chances with that one, unfortunately. It died off nearly 6 years ago to a nub and it's grown back out since then .

[Markburns43]

Man what a horror story. Im really sorry about the battle. Is there any known way of beating it ? Anyways good luck with the new startup. This made me remember my never ending hair algae battle with my first high tech planted . Good luck man.

[jedimasterben]

I can do that with all but one--don't know if I have the heart to do this with my bubble coral. I've had it in one form or another for nearly 20 years. I may have to take my chances with that one, unfortunately. It died off nearly 6 years ago to a nub and it's grown back out since then .

I know how ya feel, man. I couldn't get rid of my maxi minis, and that's why I still have dinos after a complete reboot

 

Is there any known way of beating it?

No.

[Amphiprion1]

Man what a horror story. Im really sorry about the battle. Is there any known way of beating it ? Anyways good luck with the new startup. This made me remember my never ending hair algae battle with my first high tech planted . Good luck man.

 

Thanks, it's been a nightmare . There's no 100% known "cure", unfortunately. I'm just opting for sterilization for lack of better alternatives. Honestly, I'd take just about any kind of algae over this at any point in time.

 

 

 

In other news, my BM Curve 7 stopped working, lol. The impeller bored through the housing... . I'll be ordering one of those first thing tomorrow, since now I have to deal with curing rock without any sort of skimming.

 

 

On the plus side of things, the amount of life on this stuff is crazy. The live sand had about 6 ceriths and tons of worms. The rock had quite a few worms as well. I've found tube coral, rose coral, a flower anemone, a giant tunicate, oysters, you name it. I'll start running lights the day after tomorrow (following a water change) to hopefully preserve some of the macroalgae. I'll probably trade off some of the rocks with large filter feeders, since there is a slim chance that I can keep them. I need to thin it out anyway, as I mentioned in the earlier post.

[Markburns43]

 

No.

Well chit. But its common just have to try and keep it undercontrol?

[Amphiprion1]

Well chit. But its common just have to try and keep it undercontrol?

 

That's just the thing--keeping it under control without either you or it killing numerous things. I nearly starved a number of corals trying to deal with it the old-fashioned way, which doesn't work at all. That's not mentioning the stress of blackouts, etc. And if you're not doing the damage yourself like this, the dinos are killing off as much as they can and causing other problems. Beyond all of that, mine were photosynthesizing so rapidly that they were causing the local pH to rise and making calcium carbonate precipitate under their mats. Ugh.

[jedimasterben]

^This. Dinoflagellates are terrible creatures, but that is why corals host Symbiodinium dinoflagellates, as they are also VERY resilient.

[Markburns43]

I wouldn't wish this upon anyone. I could see how it would be enough to scrape the setup.is it more common on start up or like you said if conditions are right and you bring in a coral from lfs and it has it stored with in and bam you got your self a lfs -TD . Well any ways i hope your new setup wont be compromised and im glad i ran across this thread even if its a misfortune. Something worth learning about.

[Amphiprion1]

I wouldn't wish this upon anyone. I could see how it would be enough to scrape the setup.is it more common on start up or like you said if conditions are right and you bring in a coral from lfs and it has it stored with in and bam you got your self a lfs -TD . Well any ways i hope your new setup wont be compromised and im glad i ran across this thread even if its a misfortune. Something worth learning about.

 

It seems to vary, but mine started pretty early--within a few months of setting up. Many dinoflagellate species seem to be ubiquitous--it should come in on just about anything. Some are obviously worse than others, though. I think a number of different factors contribute to whether or not it is able to take off from that point.

[Amphiprion1]

Okay, so I've finally had time to really look at this rock (and sand) and I just get more and more impressed. Dan did right by me. So far, I've got at least 6 rose corals and 2 tube coral clusters, 1 flower anemone, countless worms, some starfish, Halimeda, oysters, tunicates. The sand has at my last count 11 live ceriths and still countless worms.

 

Edit: We have lancelets!

 

On the negative side, I found 2 cirolanids--1 dead and one live. The next week will be telling as far as whether there are a lot of them. I know they aren't as active or seemingly numerous as the last rock I got from the LFS. A few small LFS rocks had hundreds of these things and they came out within a day or two. I don't really think there are many at all on this rock, though. So far, no mantis shrimps or pistol shrimps--no clicking noises. Also found a few nereids. I had one dying worm that looked like it may have been Oenone, though I hope not--was pretty mangled, though. This is all assumed risk with actual live rock, though.

 

Still no skimmer, though a replacement pump/impeller assembly is on the way. I performed a 75% water change, as the water was pretty rough/smelly. I will also add a bit of carbon tomorrow, as some of the die-off is yellowing the water quite a bit. Once things clear enough, I will take some pics.

[happyclam]

Great that your sticking with it! It is fascinating to hear of the diversity of organisms you find in the rock and sand- puts the rock I have seen to shame. Looking forward to pictures.

[Amphiprion1]

Great that your sticking with it! It is fascinating to hear of the diversity of organisms you find in the rock and sand- puts the rock I have seen to shame. Looking forward to pictures.

I did finally decide to stick with it. I could've gone either way after breaking the tank down--getting out of the hobby was tempting, sadly.

[Amphiprion1]

Okay, fish are now in the tank after enduring 10 min (or near 10 for one of them) FW dips yesterday. Didn't have the heart to dump one coral--my bubble coral--though. Couldn't go through with it. Just hope it won't be my undoing. I did treat it rather harshly, though, as it received a 5 min FW dip and immediately was placed into a 1:4 peroxide dip for another 5 mins. It was bad enough that quite a few vesicles lysed, but the coral is already recovering. Let's hope it was enough to kill many/most of the dino on exterior surfaces. I think the litmus test will be after about 2 months when the tank stabilizes from the more typical algae. Once those subside, I'll know if the dino will become a problem. Here's hoping my precautions will work or be enough. Quite literally every piece of other living matter from the old system was tossed and any reused equipment got the ever-living crap bleached out of it for a few days, followed by a vinegar soak, and cleaning with very hot water.

 

In any case, I will keep everyone updated. I know those who fought/are fighting dinos will be interested to hear how all of this pans out as much as I am.

 

Edit: on an unrelated note, can anyone else see my photobucket pics several posts up? The photobucket team wants proof that third parties can't see my pics in addition to myself.

[jedimasterben]

If you want to be sure, put in a little bit of vinegar. Organic carbon fuels them like nothing else, though sometimes they don't exactly need the help lol

 

 

Edit: on an unrelated note, can anyone else see my photobucket pics several posts up? The photobucket team wants proof that third parties can't see my pics in addition to myself.

 

 

The ones in post 32? If so, I can see them.

[Amphiprion1]

If you want to be sure, put in a little bit of vinegar. Organic carbon fuels them like nothing else, though sometimes they don't exactly need the help lol

 

 

 

 

The ones in post 32? If so, I can see them.

 

Don't know if I want to tempt fate just yet, lol.

 

 

Thanks! Hmm, that opens up new troubleshooting avenues. I think the service I use for my DNS may be causing the issue, as it is consistent across devices and operating systems...

 

Edit: Bingo! DNS related. I will get in touch with the team that manages the server filtering and figure out why it is being flagged.

[Amphiprion1]

Well folks, I promised I'd keep everyone up to date regardless of the outcome and that's what I plan to do now. As I had suspected (but hoped against), dinos in fact came back. The bloom was small and had just barely begun sometime on Monday--or rather, had just become visible enough. They came from any and all of the animals I previously had. They actually appeared before I introduced my one coral left, so likely came from cysts in digestive systems of my fish, namely a blenny.

 

So, onto the next part. Once I saw this new bloom, I was hardly surprised. Maybe disappointed, but not surprised. Being fed up, I tried something that was mentioned on RC, which consisted of dumping in skimmate. This actually had an effect overnight, as strings and much of the telltale bubbles disappeared within 24 hours. This is far from any kind of cure or solution, but it is food for thought. I unplugged my skimmer two days after that to hopefully see if I could maintain higher nutrient levels for longer. I may try running the skimmer on a partial basis depending upon how well this current idea works. If it starts having issues and flaring again despite these new efforts, I will break the tank down and give it up, at least for a while. I'm at the point where I can no longer responsibly dump more time and money into dealing with a protozoan. It just won't be worth it anymore. That being said, I'll still try up to a point, but I will not be expending anywhere near the amount of effort I have already. I'm honestly just tired.

 

Best of luck to anyone else fighting these bastards. Keep up the good fight as long as you can and push for a real cure that doesn't require all kinds of extremes. I'll continue to post and update for as long as I have the tank.

 

Later