Beware the Shallows

[jedimasterben]

I wonder what is going on with them, then. I've seen john's setup. Its certainly not pretty (I don't think any holding setup is, though), but it is properly filtered. I dunno. Guess I will just have to collect some.

[jedimasterben]

So yesterday I cleaned out my planted tank. Cut a bunch of dead leaves and stems, and craploads of dead moss, and changed the filter floss, cleaned the glass panels. Then I figured hell, i'll toss in some KZ coral snow. WOW. This morning I looked at it and was like whoa, it looks like there isn't even water in the tank at all. This picture turned out terrible, as did the next 40 trying to get one clear pic of the blue shrimpies. I can see a very slight off color when looking through the long end of the tank, and it's probably because the purigen needs to be regenerated.

 

[Arkayology]

I thought I was the only one. My order of florida ceriths from John was all but dead. Got a replacement in my next order but they didnt make it either.

I usually lose half of them when I order from John. They don't seem to ship well with 2 day shipping.

[jedimasterben]

It's sad when pics from my cell come out much better than from the DSLR lol

 

 

 

 

 

 

Going on Wednesday to buy some storage stuff and will try and get a few otocinclus and corey cats.

[Alex B]

I love Oto cats...I had a tank with just rcs and oto's. I miss that tank.

[jedimasterben]

I'm sure you guys are wondering why I'm only talking about the planted tank and not the reef, but it's really because there is nothing much to report other than mostly bad stuff.

 

 

I'm down to seven fish total now. The rabbitfish, clown, leopard wrasse, watchman goby, chromis, and the two springeri damsels are all that are left. I really can't explain what happened to the others. All ate well, showed no sign of disease, and the two dragonets were spawning - spawning fish do not have health problems. I've stayed up many nights armed with red light and found nothing other than the 'night crew' of nassarius, ceriths, and stomatellas, so I'm not sure that there is any predation.

 

I've also lost/am losing several 'beginner' stony corals. My nice hammer, my dragon soul favia, my beautiful acan echinata from lawn, and my goniastrea all have tissue recession or have flat-out had polyp bailout. Shit (we can say shit now and it's not blocked lol), even my hitchhiker Siderastrea has lightened considerably, even though I know for a fact that it went through hell while waiting for me to put it in the tank (from the cataclysm that killed off all other life on the rocks I got from KPA), so what could be worse than that?

 

The only thing that has changed was that I raised my alkalinity over the course of a month, but that's been at least a month ago, and this tissue recession is within the past couple of weeks. I really haven't done anything other than the 'deep clean' I did recently and changing my skimmer back to my old one.

 

The cyano is disappearing, only a few strands remain on the rocks and sand, so at least I've got that going for me. I attribute that to the Reef Octopus skimmer being able to consistently. I get a full 500mL or so from the cup of dark skimmate. The BM skimmer would pull over a liter out, but it would never really be as dark, so I'd be pulling out more water. My salinity is still roughly the same as it has been (34/35ppt according to the refractometer, not that I have much reason to trust it, though), so that's marked off the list.

 

 

 

At any rate, what's left looks fabulous. All of kats corals (including three acropora, a montipora, and a bunch of zoas and mushrooms) look fantastic and I've got polyp extension from all of them, so they all seem unaffected by whatever is going on in the tank. Gorgonian has never looked better. Zoas and palys are looking great (and one of my P. grandis is regaining its green color). My goniopora, which I had purchased on a whim and noticed slight recession not expecting to recover, has recovered with full polyp extension. My sanctithomae mushrooms are still flighty, at best, but they have not decided to have any run-ins with the MP40s, so they're still hanging out under some rocks.

 

Calcium is still very high, nearly 600ppm, alk is around 180ppm, and mag is around 1450ppm. I've ordered a bucket of Instant Ocean (regular, not RC) to do a few large changes to help bring calcium back into normal range, as I don't know of any other way to force precipitation without first precipitating magnesium (which I can do, but only temporarily, using sodium silicate).

 

 

 

 

Probably the best news of all, though, is NO DINOFLAGELLATES. I've teased the tank using sodium ascorbate for a few days the past few weeks with zero response, whereas before, I could induce a bloom with a single small dose. It looks like they've receded to encystment. Huzzah!

[jedimasterben]

I guess one more plus is that I have feather dusters starting to cover all of the dry rocks

[Nano sapiens]

Having dinos and cyano recession is always good news...the fish, hmmm, strange.

 

How long have you been fighting the dinos?

[jedimasterben]

Having dinos and cyano recession is always good news...the fish, hmmm, strange.

 

How long have you been fighting the dinos?

I think around two years.

[Nano sapiens]

I think around two years.

 

Yeah, that's long enough...

[Arkayology]

I think around two years.

Is collecting from the ocean part of the problem?

[metrokat]

I love Oto cats...I had a tank with just rcs and oto's. I miss that tank.

I love Oto cats too!! Benny post up pictures okay?

 

Sorry to hear about the fish loss that is increasing, and the corals. Sounds like low nutrients even though I know that you feed. Perhaps the skimmer is removing more than you are putting in. However I am hesitant to suggest feeding more because this tank is young. And more could cause other problems. Yes yes it's been running for 2 years or more but it has not been a good run, the balance of the system has always been off with the multitude of problems and restarts. And this and that. So it's always been a system in flux rather than a system that is stable. Having said all of that with a beating stick in hand, I still think the corals might need a little target feeding of coral foods. Let me repeat: target feeding, coral foods.

[jedimasterben]

Is collecting from the ocean part of the problem?

It's the most likely culprit - the toxic dinoflagellate species typically live in mangrove swamps, which is exactly where I was collecting macroalgae from.

 

I love Oto cats too!! Benny post up pictures okay?

Absolutely. As long as the DSLR cooperates lol

 

Sorry to hear about the fish loss that is increasing, and the corals. Sounds like low nutrients even though I know that you feed. Perhaps the skimmer is removing more than you are putting in. However I am hesitant to suggest feeding more because this tank is young. And more could cause other problems. Yes yes it's been running for 2 years or more but it has not been a good run, the balance of the system has always been off with the multitude of problems and restarts. And this and that. So it's always been a system in flux rather than a system that is stable. Having said all of that with a beating stick in hand, I still think the corals might need a little target feeding of coral foods. Let me repeat: target feeding, coral foods.

It could be getting into ULNS territory. It would explain the lightening, but not necessarily the recession/bailout. Maybe it's a combination of factors? Hmm.

[bdevillier19]

I thought I was the only one. My order of florida ceriths from John was all but dead. Got a replacement in my next order but they didnt make it either.

Same here. All the Florida ceriths were rotting in the bag. Worst thing I have ever had the displeasure of smelling. The dwarf ceriths did OK, maybe 7 out of 10 lived.

[jedimasterben]

Same here. All the Florida ceriths were rotting in the bag. Worst thing I have ever had the displeasure of smelling. The dwarf ceriths did OK, maybe 7 out of 10 lived.

At least he ships 100-500 dwarfs with every order

[bdevillier19]

No joke. There was so many I split my order with my co-worker who is just getting into saltwater.

[Arkayology]

It's the most likely culprit - the toxic dinoflagellate species typically live in mangrove swamps, which is exactly where I was collecting macroalgae from.

I had a feeling that it was likely the cause. You don't see too many people with crazy strong dino strains in the tanks that often.

[jedimasterben]

Planted tank is still so clean and clear, I'm shocked. Looks like I'm gonna have to buy some veggies for the new otos to eat

 

I put the fish in the outflow of the HOB filter, this oto decided he liked it lol

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got six otos and three albino cory cats. I took pictures of the corys, I just can't find them.

[jedimasterben]

Was planning on taking some pics today, but it looks like a snowstorm in the tank. Last night I scraped my algae scrubber, scraped all the walls of the sump (had hair algae growing from the scrubber light), and stirred up all the detritus in the sump. I also am replacing a lot of the live rock in it with Seachem Matrix. I took out a bunch of rocks yesterday, so the powerhead that powers the algae scrubber is now keeping things in suspension and it's doing a damned good job. I'm gonna dose some Coral Snow tonight so it can clear things up for pics tomorrow

 

 

 

Oh, and I can finally grow algae on a scrubber again

 

[Arkayology]

That's a good looking mat of algae.

[jedimasterben]

 

That's a good looking mat of algae.

Words that usually aren't used in the same sentence

[jedimasterben]

So I was planning on cleaning up the cluster#### of wires that is sitting next to the tank, just a mass of power cables for everything, scares the shit outta me that I'm gonna splash water on it and eff it up. I've had a sheet of pegboard sitting near the tank for like 6 months now to do this with, but just never got around to cutting it. Now that I have a Ryobi 18v circular saw, makes it super simple. So, tonight, after cleaning all the glass panels, wiping down the sump, and cleaning out all the shit I've piled into the bottom of the stand, I decided I'd go to Home Depot and get some more pegboard hooks to hold the power supplies, Vortech controllers, etc, since I didn't have enough. So I'm almost to HD, and good god, it starts pouring down rain. So I go in and get what I need and head home. Still pouring. And it still is (about two hours later). Yay. So much for having some motivation lol.

 

 

I got a bucket of salt in finally, some more Instant Ocean. I really don't want to do a water change, but I don't see any other way to reduce calcium levels (still nearly 600ppm). Gonna do a few 30g changes this weekend (that's about the most I can mix at one time). 30g is about 35% of my total volume (after recalculating it with the new sump, I've got around 85g). I did at least check the salinity today, lol, right about 33ppt.

[NirvanaandTool]

What? No fancy LED over the planted tank? Fix that. Planted Evil Cluster, Ready go!

 

Nice looking growth on the scrubber. Makes me really consider going with a scrubber on my tank eventually once I get more than 2 fish in it.

 

All this talk about snails above reminds me to do an order with John. Hopefully he sends enough snails that some will escape my maori wrassehole.

[jedimasterben]

What? No fancy LED over the planted tank? Fix that. Planted Evil Cluster, Ready go!

The planted tank would be LED but I have not had an elegant solution for it since it is in the living room without a way to hang it easily and still look nice. Bug Dave and make him get me a Duo housing faster . I'll also probably just use a few 3up stars for it, this won't be a crazy strong build like the others, the tank is low-tech.

[jedimasterben]

Picked up four chromis and another sailfin blenny today.