rnd4's 40 Breeder (New April FTS)

[andru24]

Nice pics! Did u photoshop your July fts? There is some weird double frag plug/repetition going on in the left side.

[rnd4]

Nice pics! Did u photoshop your July fts? There is some weird double frag plug/repetition going on in the left side.

 

Yeah, I tried to stitch 3 images together and the left side didn't turn out so well.

[rnd4]

I visited my LFS for the first time in about two months today and was taken aback by how much awesome stuff they had for so cheap! I was about to buy three or four SPS/LPS frags when I saw this guy tucked in the back. I asked if he was for sale and he became the newest inhabitant in my tank!

 

 

 

[latteslave]

What a great nem! Beautiful colors!

[Rehype]

Beautiful pics rnd!

[steely185]

Looks good and very nice pics.

[rnd4]

I'm a big fan of, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." With that in mind, I hadn't tested my tank's parameters (outside of temperature and salinity) since mid-July 2010. I've been doing 5g water changes every two weeks. Every single coral has shown growth (especially the bird's nest coral).

 

 

 

 

So, since everything is growing and algae is generally under control, I haven't worried about doing more frequent water changes or wasting my test kits by using them daily/weekly/monthly. That said, this morning I got to wondering about how the tank parameters were on day 14, ie: I'm doing a water change this afternoon.

 

pH 8.1

Alkalinity 1.83 meq/L

Calcium 450ppm

Ammonia 0

Salinity 1.024

Nitrite 0.05

Nitrate 0

Temperature 77.0°F

Phosphate 0

 

The only things that have changed since July are alkalinity, which is down from 2.63 meq/L, Calcium is down from 470ppm, and temperature is down from 84.2°F. I'm curious to see if the alkalinity and calcium will change much after I perform the water change. I remember fretting over my low alkalinity when I was starting the tank last spring (Oceanic salt mix), but it hasn't seemed to prevent the corals from doing their thing.

[rnd4]

Several hours after the water change....the alkalinity is exactly the same as pre-water change, but the calcium went up to 480ppm.

[rnd4]

I had a LOT of bird's nest frags in my tank, so I was thrilled when my LFS offered to take them off of my hands in a trade this week. I opened up a lot of space in my tank and added a piece of Stylophora sp.

 

[rnd4]

Since my last update I re-aquascaped (again):

 

 

This is actually what I've been wanting all along. I've wanted "two islands" since the very beginning, but it took me a long time (almost a year now) to get the rock situated just right.

 

I have also added a green urchin:

 

 

And a bubble-tip anemone (which is currently hiding in a cave):

 

 

I also picked up a Panasonic DMC-TS2, which is a waterproof digital camera. I haven't taken too many shots with it yet, but here are a few:

 

 

 

 

I re-started my QT tank about three weeks ago, so I'm hoping to find a fish I desire at the LFS this afternoon. I'd really like a dwarf angel, but I'm a bit afraid of having my coral mowed down. There was a Tail-spot Blenny I was interested in when I was there on Friday, but I'm slightly concerned about it becoming anemone food. Decisions, decisions!

[rnd4]

Now that my tank is approaching its first birthday I went into my hard drive and pulled out a series of photos that document its progression:

 

10 May 2010

 

14 May 2010

 

30 May 2010

 

06 June 2010

 

13 June 2010

 

30 July 2010

 

25 October 2010

 

03 February 2011

 

06 March 2011

 

04 April 2011

[cdr5y7]

looks damn good.

[peewee1467]

nice growth man

[Coastie]

Like 'scaping much?!

 

Haha does look good!

[rnd4]

Like 'scaping much?!

 

You have no idea how much aquascaping has frustrated me!!! All along I had an idea in my head of how I wanted it to look, and I think I finally made reality line up with my desires. I hope to be done 'scaping for a very long time now!

[inferno2113]

Dude that growth is awesome! Are you dosing anything?

[rnd4]

Dude that growth is awesome! Are you dosing anything?

 

Nope. All I do is change ~5g of water every 2 weeks or so.

[gutterguy]

Looks great man!!

[rnd4]

Well, much has happened in the ~2 months since my last post, none of it good. A friend forgot to come feed my Coral Beauty while I was out of town for a week, and I came back to find that almost all of my coral had been eaten. I was left with a couple tiny frags of the giant birdsnest, the frogspawn, one branch of torch, all the zoanthids, the plate coral, the lobo, and the big Favia. Everything else was eaten, including both anemones. The big Kenya Tree was mowed down, but, not surprisingly, it's started to grow back from the stump that was left behind. Those things are indestructible!

 

Yesterday, Norton (ocellaris clown) was found behind the aquarium, all dried up. He jumped and died between 11:30pm Saturday and 5:30am Sunday morning.

 

However, I have been slowly adding things back to the tank. I have two new Bubble-tip Anemones (one speckled green, one rose) and a new maxi-mini, plus a feather duster.

 

Unfortunately, I also have started to have a bit of an algae problem. I went from no algae to lots of algae when several of my key algae eaters died a couple months back. I spend about 20 minutes 3-4 times a week just picking algae trying to keep things under control until I can figure out what's causing the problem. All of my water tests come out normal and I'm using RO/DI water, so I'm at a loss. I'm not planning on adding anything that won't help control the algae until I get this figured out.

 

Oh, my AquaC Remora also has mostly stopped skimming despite me not being able to find anything wrong with it (I've cleaned it, flushed it, ran it on a 5g bucket, etc.).

 

Nevertheless, I am undeterred! I will get this tank back to a respectable state eventually! Until then, I'm a little too embarrassed to put up a FTS. However, here are a couple shots of my two BTAs:

 

 

[gutterguy]

bummer about the corals and alge. Lots of WC and gfo or chemi pure.

 

bta look great

[rnd4]

What is gfo?

[gutterguy]

What is gfo?

 

its what is in the chemi-pure elite that makes it elite.

[rnd4]

Well, here's a quick iPhone shot of the tank. As you can probably tell, I re-aquascaped a bit since I removed all of the rocks to scrub them of algae about a month ago.

 

[rnd4]

All the nasty algae (hair and turf, I believe) got me to check my water parameters for the first time since 06 Feb 2011.

 

pH 8.15

Alkalinity 2.40 meq/L

Calcium 480 ppm

Ammonia 0 ppm

Salinity 1.025

Nitrite 0.1 ppm

Nitrate 0 ppm

Temperature 79.5°F

Phosphate 0 ppm

 

The alkalinity is still lower than I'd like, but it's actually my highest reading ever. I use Oceanic salt and don't dose anything, just weekly (used to be bi-weekly before the algae) 5g water changes with RO/DI water (TDS reading on that water is 0-3, compared to ~300 out of the tap).

 

Since our ocellaris clown jumped out last weekend, I've been looking for a replacement. I didn't want another ocellaris, and I really wanted something that would host in my anemones, so I went with a Tomato Clownfish.

 

Within 20 minutes of hitting the tank the new addition was having a tough time deciding who to live with:

 

 

[rnd4]

I have finally decided to add a sump to my aquarium. I don't have a whole lot of room under the stand, so it will just be a little 10g sump.

 

My plan is to remove the two AC70s from the back of the tank, but still run the AquaC Remora (which is working well after a vinegar bath and some cleaning out). I'll have a small refugium in the middle of the sump and I'm going to run Phosban in a reactor attached to the sump just in case I'm mis-reading the PO4 test kit and my PO4 isn't really 0.

 

I hope to have all the parts within a week or so, then hopefully I'll be able to test my set up a few days after that. Since the tank is already full of stuff I'll be going with a HOB overflow rather than drilling.