Viking's 20 Long -- Small crash and recovery

[jedimasterben]

I was considering a frame, but do to the skimmer and filter, this seemed easier.

I see! One thing you could do is get some extra corners and make a small 'cutout' section for them.

[Viking]

If I don't like how this turns out, I will definitely go that route. I like the eggcrate structure as I was anticipating the cats trying to get on top of it again once they noticed it had a "lid" again. As it is right now, it would hold any of them, except for one of them... he breaks laps when he sits on them.

[Viking]

So, this happened today, Clown all of a sudden seemed to notice the Torch...

 

 

Wonder if it was due to the new WP-10 wave Maker.

[FlowerMama]

aaaw. How cute is that!

[Viking]

Sorry I haven't updated in awhile but work has been a bit busy ( I do IT related to Health Insurance and things are ramping up for annual enrollment, have been training some new employees to help out, so thing are starting relax a bit).

The tank has suffered a little due to limited attention. Green hair algae and Red slime outbreak got a bit wild. I was still doing weekly water changes, but think I was doing too much. Tank hold 20 gallons, but after saand and rock, would be surprised it there is actually 15 gallons of actual water in it, and I have been doing 5 gallons with each change. It was suggested that I may have been pulling too much and reomved too much of the beneficial bacteria and such.

I do about half of a 5 gallon bucket each week now, am back to rinsing my frozen food before feeding, and have cut light times to about half.

The Tailspot Blenny I got to assist with the (at the time) minor algae issue has not been seen in a few weeks and there is no sign of it out side of the tank. I really liked his personality.

About 2 weeks ago, while picking up more water from the usual LFS, they asked if I was interested in an urchin that another customer had left with them. He didn't want it as it kept moving his rocks and such, and the store didn't really want it in their tanks as it was a bit bigger than the ones they normally carry. I told them I would give it a run in my tank for a bit, figuring that he could at least help with some of the algae while I decided if I wanted to keep it. My daughter had a name picked out before my conversation with the store owner was over.

 

I present.... Richard the Urchin !

 

(yes, she is old enough to understand the double meaning, it was deliberate)

 

So, ovr the last couple weeks, between the 2 urchins ( had gotten a small black urchin with algae munching in mind near the end of August) and the extra effort I am putting in, the tank is getting better looking, bit by bit.

 

Sorry for this going on for so long, and thanks for reading. I should be able to get back to more regular updating now

[jedimasterben]

Bacteria in the tank almost solely live in your sandbed and inside your rocks, and they aren't easily cleaved from their films, so larger water changes (or changes in general) won't hurt your biofilter.

 

I've found that cyanobacteria typically indicates a nitrate:phosphate imbalance, usually nitrate limited.

 

Rinsing frozen food won't help you out. http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/3/chemistry

 

...That amount washed away does not seem significant with respect to the "in tank" target level of about 50-100 times that level (say, 0.015 to 0.03 ppm), nor does it seem significant relative to the total amount of phosphate actually added each day in foods (which is perhaps 50-1000 times as much)...

 

 

More pics

[FlowerMama]

yeah, I want a full shot. I don't remember what the tank looks like.

[Viking]

I'll get one up today before my water change

[Viking]

Here is my current FTS, in all it's epic hairyness.

You can see the Cyano on the sand near the Torch, as well as on the arch above it. Some of the discoloration on the sand is a more brown/rusty, kinda like the picture I see of diatom blooms when tanks are cycling. I never really saw any diatoms when I set this up, either in the Bubble or when I moved to this tank... I figured it was from using live rock and sand and having a minimal cycle that way.

My skimmer is now in the middle of the tank, as the wave maker rendered it useless at the far end due to the wave action. I am curently running the wavemaker in else mode, so it would be less of an issue, but I don't want to move it again in case I want the waves back

[jedimasterben]

yo dawg, I heard you like posting.

[Viking]

Not enough, it would appear .

 

New pics and updates are inbound....

[Viking]

Ben reminded me to get off my rear and do some updates, so here we go.

 

I had a pretty bad Hair Algae outbreak neat the end of summer, still not sure what caused it, but I have learned what it takes to get rid of it. It's taken several months, and alot of work and patience, but the end is in sight.

New lights just went on this week, bought the Orbit Marine LEDs to work along side my T5HOs, and replaced one of the Blue Plus with an ATI Actinic, figuring I can use the blue and white channels to adjust the color to my liking. I was originally going to try to add stunner strips into the T5 housing, but I couldn't decide what colors would work best, how I wanted to configure them, and once I realized that they did bupkus for the actual Coral, and were only for coral... This seemed a much better option.

 

Soooo... new FTS with the new lights

 

 

Right Side

 

 

Left Side

 

 

The Torch in the front is new. My Green died a few weeks ago, only thing we have come up with is possible damage from my spastic Clown rubbed some of it the tentacles against it's skeleton too hard and an infection set in. About 2 weeks later, while getting a water refill at my LFS, my daughter saw this white torch and decided we were getting it. It's labeled as a Ghost Torch, the LFS owner said the breeder had called it a Flaming Ghost Torch, but thought that sounded a little pretentious, so he just had it as "Ghost". Daughter has decided if the Clown starts trying to Host this one to, it will be named Ghostrider, since we still haven't bother to name the clown. Better than Nemo.

 

 

[myarmolich]

Ben reminded me to get off my rear and do some updates, so here we go.

 

I had a pretty bad Hair Algae outbreak neat the end of summer, still not sure what caused it, but I have learned what it takes to get rid of it. It's taken several months, and alot of work and patience, but the end is in sight.

New lights just went on this week, bought the Orbit Marine LEDs to work along side my T5HOs, and replaced one of the Blue Plus with an ATI Actinic, figuring I can use the blue and white channels to adjust the color to my liking. I was originally going to try to add stunner strips into the T5 housing, but I couldn't decide what colors would work best, how I wanted to configure them, and once I realized that they did bupkus for the actual Coral, and were only for coral... This seemed a much better option.

 

Soooo... new FTS with the new lights

 

 

Right Side

 

 

Left Side

 

 

The Torch in the front is new. My Green died a few weeks ago, only thing we have come up with is possible damage from my spastic Clown rubbed some of it the tentacles against it's skeleton too hard and an infection set in. About 2 weeks later, while getting a water refill at my LFS, my daughter saw this white torch and decided we were getting it. It's labeled as a Ghost Torch, the LFS owner said the breeder had called it a Flaming Ghost Torch, but thought that sounded a little pretentious, so he just had it as "Ghost". Daughter has decided if the Clown starts trying to Host this one to, it will be named Ghostrider, since we still haven't bother to name the clown. Better than Nemo.

 

 

 

Thats an awesome torch! love the tank

[Viking]

Thanks! I have never seen one like it before, so my daughter didn't really have to push very hard. I was planning on doing something different this time, like a gold Hammer. But the LFS has a gold hammer they frag now and then, so that is always an option down the road.

[Viking]

Reefapalooza Bound today!

 

When I went last year, it was for the sole purpose of looking at nano skimmers, and possibly buy one, as the local LFS don't generally stock them that small. I found the Hydor booth had the Slim Skim Nano on display, which looked very solid in design and whould mess up the look of my aquarium, and even managed to find one for sale below the Amazon price at the time.

This time, I'm going to actually look for new coral, since that is really what the show is about I'm going to be looking specifically at Acans and Zoas, since that is the majority of my stock.

The guys from the Tanked show are supposed to be there as well, could be interesting.

[Acielot]

Be sure to update us how it is. I might have to make time tomorrow to see it.

[Viking]

It was quite a bit larger than last year, they opened a second room for Vendors. I'm not sure if they had food available last year, but there was a table set up outside in the hall with Pizza, burgers, chip s and drinks for only mild highway robbery ( slice with can of Coke was $5 ). They only took cash though (who still does that?). There was alot of good stuff to see, some new products, including a new light system from a company out of Germany called GHL. Their controller and the stuff it does caught my eye.

I ended up with some new friends, too...

 

Ricordea

Rock Flower

 

 

Also have some new Zoas, but they are still a bit ticked off, Got a Rasta and a pair of Punk Rocker Polyps from Joshporksandwich, and small Fire and Ice Colony from Stormborn,

 

I will try to get some pics of the zoas up later if they open up for me.

 

If you do go, I would suggest going earlier, they ran out out of goodie bags pretty quick , and if they saved some for tomorrow, they looked to be worth getting, had more than just business cards this time, got a bunch of food samples. A buch of Vendors were handing out t-shirts also, I picked up 3

[Viking]

The Zoas have opened a bit, so I thought I'd post them as they are now.

All 3 of the new frags, with my Utter Chaos on the left behind them:

From left to right;

Rasta, Fire and Ice, Punk Rockers close up

 

Punk Rockers Centered

 

Rasta

 

The Rock Flower is out of the cup, but still roaming. I'm trying to "suggest" places for it to settle that aren't behind all of the rocks.

[Viking]

So things went bad really fast. The new Rockflower was dead within 4 days, and the Rasta polyp followed soon after. Lost my Birdsnest, Clownfish, and 2 of my acan colonies withing the next week and a half. I feel that I'm very lucky that that is where it stopped.

I have spent the last couple weeks doing water changes like clockwork, keeping an eye on my tests, and just trying to figure out what happened, which I think I have nailed down that to my LFS.

Right around reefapalooza (within a few day of each other) 3 things occurred that stand out:

1. New livestock added from Multiple vendors (reefapalooza)

2. trying new food (Coral Smoothie for the acans and such)

3. small issue with my HOB filter housing Chaeto

1 and 2 were my primary focus initially, as I don't know the conditions on the home tanks in case 1 and 2, was it possible the food had gone bad while on the shelf? I thought number 3 was a long shot as I've had the Chaeto sitting in the AC50 for about 9 months now, and figured it was too integrated into the system to have been able to do this. Pretty sure now however, it WAS the Chaeto.

Being a cheapskate, I decided I didn't want to spend the money for the Fuge box conversion, and I could do something like it my self, as I still wanted to be able to add filtration. I used a spare piece of eggcrate to make a stand up separation that I could slide filter media in front of for easy change out. The problem with my design is that nothing was anchored to any thing, so shifting occurred frequently. In fact, I started timing my filter changes to these shifts, as I considered that the shifts were due to the filter filling with gunk. And this was fine for many months, algae in the tanks was subsiding (slowly, but I know what happens when things go fast). Once the algae was mostly gone and my largest issue seemed to be diatom coatings on the sand and rock that came with lighting intervals, I thought that I should add a small bag of carbon back. I haven't used carbon in quite awhile, and though it would get me past this last hurdle. That it actually did (no fault of its' own) was mess up my "engineered" filter setup. One of the side effects of the "shifting filter" was that it would close of the side of the pump input and cause it to start loosing suction, making a noise like popcorn. The carbon bag added a fulcrum to the shift that ended up cutting suction completely. Not sure how long My daughter noticed when she came home from school. When that happened, my chaeto most most of it water and sat stewing under an LED for likely several hours. I got the pump straighened up and running, took the carbon out and everything seemed back to normal, until the day after reefapalooza, when it started gurgling again. Not having the time right at that moment to cut a new filter, I just stuck my hand in the HOB to get everything lined back up again, and I guess pushed down on the chaeto a bit, which dumped white cloud into my water. I have since learned that the stress it underwent probably cause a significant die off, as well as possibly causing it to go asexual. Go Me!

Nothing has died off in 3 weeks, and I am pleased so far, but have realized that a few of the shortcuts I've taken are what is truely to blame. I was rinsing the chaeto with each water change, but would squeeze it out (trying to get any gunk out), now when I rinnse it, I try to hold it open and swirl it in clean water from the change.

Also, my CUC is abysmal... 5 blue-legged hermits, 2 zombie snails (tongans, I think) and a rather large emerald crab. I added 5 Trochus and 5 Astreas last week, the Hermits ate the Trochus, Astreas are all still here, "running" around on the glass, out of reach. I am going to take probably 3 of the hermits to the LFS today, and try a few more snails to the mix. Forgot, I added a smallish Tiger Cinch last week as well, he seems ok and is picking at my sandbed.

 

I apologize for another wall of text, need to start posting more frequently so I can get my thought out in smaller chunks. I would welcome any suggestions regarding my CUC.

[Viking]

I just added an AC70, this way I can do actual filtration as well as continue my HOB "fuge". While I was cleaning today I did notice that there are 2 new polyps on my Punk Rocker frag. I am also acclimating a few more snails; 2 Astreas, another smaller Tiger Conch and 2 "small" Mexican Turbo snails.

Time to get this tank back on track.

[Viking]

I stand corrected, 3 new polyps on the Rocker frag

 

[Mom2many]

Bless your heart! Sorry about the issues you have had. I love your rock work and tank though. I think 20 longs are great tank set ups.

 

I wont keep hermits as they are snail murderers. The only crabs I keep are porcaline. The emeralds picked at and hurt my corals in past reef tanks.

 

I have an Aqua Clear 70 and love it. I have a 30 impeller in it as the 70 made the flow in my tank to much. I just have filer floss, phoslock and chem pure in there.

 

Congrats on the three new polyp heads on your zoos. Means something is going wright!

[Viking]

The AC 70 seemed to be helping alot as there hadn't been any more issues, water is almost shining. Bought a Red Mandarin on Saturday that looked healthy and was even shown to go after frozen Mysis. Since I have been having Pods running wild in my tank and ticking off my Zoas, I decided to go ahead and get the fella, even bought a bottle of live Tigger Pods to add to my "fuge" to colonize my Chaeto. Everything was peachy until this afternoon, when my daughter texted my at work to tell me it was acting strange, was just sitting by the Skimmer and that it looked like it was missing a fin.

Once I got home, I could see all the fins, but it was just sitting under a rock with none of the frilly fin waving I was used to, also appears to be gulping or panting. I went ahead and ran the tests and discovered that a bonafide Miracle had occured... Nitrates a 0!!!!

I didn't that was possible for me, so I ran a sample to the LFS, they tested it a 0 also. My tests also showed 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite. Great, except for the Mandarin.

My salt level is a little low, right at 1.021, so I am going to top off with salt instead of fresh for a bit and keep an eye on it. I do my waterchange in 2 days, may mix it at 1.025 on a 20% to bring it up some.

 

Pics of the New Guy

[Mom2many]

The AC 70 seemed to be helping alot as there hadn't been any more issues, water is almost shining. Bought a Red Mandarin on Saturday that looked healthy and was even shown to go after frozen Mysis. Since I have been having Pods running wild in my tank and ticking off my Zoas, I decided to go ahead and get the fella, even bought a bottle of live Tigger Pods to add to my "fuge" to colonize my Chaeto. Everything was peachy until this afternoon, when my daughter texted my at work to tell me it was acting strange, was just sitting by the Skimmer and that it looked like it was missing a fin.

Once I got home, I could see all the fins, but it was just sitting under a rock with none of the frilly fin waving I was used to, also appears to be gulping or panting. I went ahead and ran the tests and discovered that a bonafide Miracle had occured... Nitrates a 0!!!!

I didn't that was possible for me, so I ran a sample to the LFS, they tested it a 0 also. My tests also showed 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite. Great, except for the Mandarin.

My salt level is a little low, right at 1.021, so I am going to top off with salt instead of fresh for a bit and keep an eye on it. I do my waterchange in 2 days, may mix it at 1.025 on a 20% to bring it up some.

 

Pics of the New Guy

Glad all is going so well. I hope that your mandarin makes it.

[Viking]

Sadly, it didn't. Since I seem to have the Nitrates and what not under control for now, I'm going to concentrate on getting rid of the Diatoms or whatever it is. I just don't understand why the Mandarin, or my last clownfish died. My Cardinal just keeps trucking along, as do the crabs. Even my tuxedo seems fine. Just getting depressing.