Newman's Picotope

[brandon429]

newman I took a look at your tank and it looks fine. the coralline on the back wall, did you grow that since tank startup on this thread? a nice amount if so, reflects well on your current calcium/alk balances. water changes seem to be okay because the levels present in the water don't seem to be depleted by bioacids/calcification or else that back wall coralline would bleach out. when you add more fish, and more corals, and the tank builds up detritus due to old age, if your new coralline stops growing or the old starts to bleach thats a sign ion balance is off.

 

the rocks seem to have purple on them which normally comes on the rock from the lfs, that's harder to use to gauge dosing levels because even in the face of low ions purple on the rocks will stay for a while before bleaching. The tank looks great as is therefore I wouldnt change it. That large birdsnest, how long has it been in there and has it started to base plate yet?

[andrewkw]

You're the first person in a long long time I've seen say they like button polyps. I consider them a pest

[Mr. Microscope]

I say go for it with your green button polyps. You may end up regreting it, but in the mean time, what good is a hobby if you can't have fun with it?! I imagine, however that you zoas will be fine if you frag some and put them higher up in the tank. No reason they need to stay on the bottom. Especially if they've had adequate time for photo acclimation.

 

BTW. Isn't this a contest pico? I thought you were in the growout phase. Are you aloud to, "stick your hands in there" so to speak?

[.Newman.]

yes, the growout phase allows fragging and such I think. just no new additions.

 

well I like the palys cuz theyre cool looking and they aren't taking over and my tank looks very barren. I want them to grow into colonies, not be solitary polyps. thats why I am now feeding them flakes lol. i also fed a flake to my blasto and it looked absolutely overjoyed after it ate the flake. I fed Formula One fish flakes...

 

and btw, I guess I was too late, but I wanted this FTS to be judged by Brandon, not the others lol

 

 

Also Brandon, what birdsnest coral? I was sold that SPS frag under the name of a montipora lol.

It hasnt grown much at all in the months that i had it. it must have been 3 months now since got it. its melting just a tad over the plug on one side but other than that I cant see any growth so I thought that C Balance or something similar can help me here...

 

 

also to explain some lack of coralline, I own an emerald mythrax crab, and he has an affinity for eating coralline, especially new growth. he eats any type of algae really.

[straydog]

yes, the growout phase allows fragging and such I think. just no new additions.

 

well I like the palys cuz theyre cool looking and they aren't taking over and my tank looks very barren. I want them to grow into colonies, not be solitary polyps. thats why I am now feeding them flakes lol. i also fed a flake to my blasto and it looked absolutely overjoyed after it ate the flake. I fed Formula One fish flakes...

 

and btw, I guess I was too late, but I wanted this FTS to be judged by Brandon, not the others lol

 

 

Also Brandon, what birdsnest coral? I was sold that SPS frag under the name of a montipora lol.

It hasnt grown much at all in the months that i had it. it must have been 3 months now since got it. its melting just a tad over the plug on one side but other than that I cant see any growth so I thought that C Balance or something similar can help me here...

 

 

also to explain some lack of coralline, I own an emerald mythrax crab, and he has an affinity for eating coralline, especially new growth. he eats any type of algae really.

Have you tried cuting the palys to get new ones in the healing process?

[.Newman.]

no I am afraid they will get an infection, will get sick, and just die on me. i dont really want to risk it. my crabs do enough jabbing and pinching to them I think lol.

[brandon429]

oops bad call was thinking seriatopora for some reason saw pointy thin branches in my minds eye those are schtubs lol

 

great coral color by the way on it, and if you are seeing a bulge that was not there upon entry, indicating localization of cell division/base plating, then really man nothing is wrong. if you want to add the c balance it will for sure add more coralline and speed up the sps growth but clearly the tank is great without it, and, many people want the slow calcification metabolism because its less scraping work its just a turbo button you can use or not.

 

for your tank Id dose like mentioned in yoshi's thread, 3x per week, but Id do 3/4 cap your system is ready, its got a demand thats just waiting for a little more ion but will also grow slowly without it your call, I judge the picture nice beyond the wish of the common man.

 

also thanks for reminding me about direct coralline predation. other than urchins and parrot fish it would have been hard to name a third so add m crabs to the mix of animals possibly worth stocking in my tank to lessen coralline scraping work, wouldn't have thought of that didn't know they took to it. gracias

B

[.Newman.]

yes, no problem. I actually thank my crab because in theory he can keep it from covering all my rock and from blocking the essential pores in the rock that contain bacteria needed for filtering the water of waste.

 

and C balance is like NOS to my tank? sweet, I will try that approach

[brandon429]

it is for sure Sir! you know what, Dr Shimek wrote extensively about pore plugging like you just mentioned its a real surface area reducer but I still find constantly enough surface area likely coming from other substrates to handle heavy bioloading.

 

also not one time in my history of pico reefs did green hair algae ever hit on top of a purple spot, that was always an interesting allelopathic observation the pico seemed to throw at me. it always, always hit a gray or barren area of the rock first and then crept> so since then I wanted blankets of purple and somehow I cannot exactly pinpoint it always coincided with no algae for me either, when I starting heavy dosing and large water changes.

 

inextricably I find dosing to lessen the presence of unwanted green algae but the reds and macro-bodied beasts that pop up from time to time are just hitch hikers testing things out, green hair algae is what I found stopped when I maintained my pH and ions aggressively combined with full export. As I mentioned in the pm I only do full changes as insurance work against underchanging, and because it takes no more time for me personally at 1 gallon to do them, for you 3x guys it still wouldn't add two more minutes and I say why not export/import the most you can when its a proven fact it doesn't harm a darn thing (including filter bacteria for the dude about to pop off lol)

[.Newman.]

well i did have my astrea's coraline covered shell burst into bryopsis flames and remain there until i did my second and final magnesium nuking. also i gave the shell hair cuts lol, and i saw that the coralline that was taken over the bryopsis bleached. then my emerald crab ate off the bleached coralline with the bryopsis algae off the snail's shell. unfortunately towards the end of my magnesium treatment the snail perished >_<

 

 

anyway now the trouble is to find C balance lol.

[brandon429]

I buy mine, the 16 oz bottle pair really cheap at marinedepot.com for like the past 8 years. gets here in 4 days for me reg shipping!

[.Newman.]

I was looking at marine depot too. I buy from them sometimes.

[friar1]

Marine Depot is where I get my C-Balance

[.Newman.]

lol i just bought it from DFS site. only saved $2 though. somehow marine depot charges more for the shipping of a 50gal bag of salt

I will amp up the water changes in this tank to about 2 gals per week. thats 2x the amount normally changed. this will be in response to C balance dosing, when I get it in the mail...

 

I'll have to either get up at 5 am to do that before light's on dosing or I could just dose when the display lights are off (they are off from 9 am until 5pm) so i may be able to dose just before 5 pm then for the same effect.

[brandon429]

just to reference the pm we were talking about a *very* unique pH stabilizing approach newman is employing on his tank where the daily peaks and troughs in pH are not as marked compared to a standard tank of just live rock and corals, recall his refugium counterlit on an opposite lighting schedule!

 

 

 

 

A dense pico reef that is dosed in the pm before lights off can easily, easily be driven to pH 9 or worse vs a morning dose and this is more prounouced in high light, high growth setups. morning only dosing is still likely the safer option unless your refugium mass far exceeds your reef display mass, id guess

[.Newman.]

so what youre saying is that I should do the 5 am dosing? ok then i'd just shift my hours over by a few...no way im getting up at 5 am lol.

[brandon429]

was meaning that with your pH balancing work day cycles can't be the deciding factor like they are in a non refugd reef, maybe dose in smaller increments since your pH is steadier

[.Newman.]

ok, C balance arrives this saturday.

[.Newman.]

I just realized something. I am no longer a teen refer

turned 20 two days ago

[yoshii]

Happy late birthday!!

[.Newman.]

haha, thanks!

[.Newman.]

C Balance arrived today along with another bag of my salt mix. Going to start dosing tomorrow, following the schedule I made for all my tanks.

[friar1]

Happy Birthday!

[.Newman.]

thanks! We celebrated yesterday (Saturday)

[.Newman.]

Who wants to see some zoa under RB LEDs? I DO!