Rogles Posted February 23, 2011 Author Share Posted February 23, 2011 agreed totally we should stop feeding the tank until we see what this is. there are posts in the general forum under "the plague" regarding string diatoms, these are pests that propagate in fish stores and are transmitted to the home aquarium, thats why you remove any algal growth whatsoever immediately, so nothing can wreck your tank. what you have is probably normal flat diatoms on the rocks just siphon them up and get them out of the tank with a full water change. remove the rocks and clean off in separate container if needed. the new nutrient restrictions after that water change will help starve them. if they come back just take them up again its new reef cycling nothing abnormal. are you using dry cyclopeeze? blenderized frozen mysis is a good stand in but there are no dried feeds I would add to this tank. it has enough nutrient reserve to be ok with a stop feeding while you control the algae balance and tame it. also are you dosing c balance? I noticed it starting over the weekend. I've only done 2 full doses of c-balance since I got my corals. I'll make sure I get started on the recommended 3 times a week (nothing like a good outbreak to get me in line!). I'll also cut back on the photo-period a few hours. Though it's unsightly, I'm not too worried about it yet. I had a break out of it in my 3 gallon pico a few months ago that lasted about two weeks and disappeared after cutting back feeding and frequent water changes. Oh, I also tested for nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia today and they came up as zero. Well, the ammonia might have been slightly higher than zero. It was hard to tell. It was definately below .25 though. Link to comment
.Newman. Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 of course they'd come up as 0, the algae or w/e bloom you have has been using all of them up to grow. still never hurts to check, make sure that ammonia reads 0. Link to comment
Rogles Posted March 21, 2011 Author Share Posted March 21, 2011 Most of the diatoms/algae are gone, but there are a few stubborn patches left. Most of them are right next to the frags that are glued down so it's difficult to remove it. Anyway, I picked up some more corals - a clump of purple death polyps, a red rhodactis, and a purple monti. I also took some new pics. This time I got the colors close to how they look in person. It's still a little off, but now most of the coral's colors pop like the they should. Link to comment
jdl Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 i love all these vase builds, good job! Link to comment
Rogles Posted March 21, 2011 Author Share Posted March 21, 2011 Some more pics. And more... Link to comment
brandon429 Posted March 22, 2011 Share Posted March 22, 2011 agreed it looks great. Theres something very unique about a vase shape when its aquascaped in those ratios. the sandbed is deep enough to hold all the structure right in the curve of the bowl, its one 360 degree magnifying glass without distortion, just a mag globe. it allows you to see detail crawling among the rock in a neat way, but don't judge off pics you have to see one in person and it'll grow on ya. liked the upshot above, it looks like a shovel chunk of reef put into a vase, its not supposed to feasibly work but it sure does. Link to comment
Rogles Posted April 20, 2011 Author Share Posted April 20, 2011 I got some more corals (mostly zoas) a few weeks ago along with two pederson shrimp. I'll try to post pics soon. Right now I'm trying to deal with a devastating flatworm outbreak. They are going through my zoa colonies fast! I hope my Coral RX order gets delivered soon! Link to comment
PinkDamsel Posted April 20, 2011 Share Posted April 20, 2011 There's something about the blue par38 that puzzles me. I have another par38 (3 white and 2 blue leds) from Ecoxotic that turned out to be way too strong for my 3G pico. Many of my corals closed up and the live rock was bleaching until I moved it 3 feet above the tank. Right now my blue par38 is only a few inches above the lid of my vase and the corals don't seem to mind it (so far at least). Sorry to backtrack, but I’m puzzled about this, too! I have a Boostled PAR 30 (4 B/1W, 60º optics), and I’ve had to raise it 22.5” above the sandbed of my 3-gallon picotope. A couple of corals (zoa, monti) bleached and others just shrank and remain small even now on the sandbed in shaded areas, months later. Yet Andrewkw has a PAR30 inches above the waterline of his 2.5 gallon. DulcyDoll has a Boostled PAR30 low over her picotope. Both have moderate-light corals that seem to be thriving. There’s a mystery here that needs solving…. Link to comment
Rogles Posted May 23, 2011 Author Share Posted May 23, 2011 It's been a while since my last update. The algae/diatoms that I've been fighting are all gone (finally!). That said, the red flatworms are still an issue. I'm not sure if they alone are responsible for my zoa die-offs or if they are just finishing them off. I ordered some Vitamarin C, we'll see if that helps at all. I've gotten a lot of new livestock since my last pics, including 2 Pederson shrimp. Sadly, the shrimp didn't make it. The second one died just yesterday. Here are new pics. Link to comment
Weetabix7 Posted May 23, 2011 Share Posted May 23, 2011 So sorry you lost the Pedersons. I really loved mine when I had them and was very upset when they died. Link to comment
Rogles Posted November 10, 2011 Author Share Posted November 10, 2011 Still up and running! Here are the latest pics. I moved the frogspawn to my new 17.4 gallon right after taking these. He was starting to get too big. Link to comment
PinkDamsel Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Beautiful pictures! Link to comment
brandon429 Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 absolutely stunning pics. Glad you kept it going, I can see its spot free of bad algae too, pure reef. Link to comment
.Newman. Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 did you find that the green bird lost most of its intense green color under LEDs? Link to comment
Rogles Posted November 10, 2011 Author Share Posted November 10, 2011 did you find that the green bird lost most of its intense green color under LEDs? Yeah. Though I'm not sure if it's because of the royal blue LEDs or just LEDs in general. Do you know if they lose their color with all LEDs? I moved a frag of it to my new 17.4 gallon that has an Aqua Illumination Sol on it. I'm curious how it will do there since there will be white light. absolutely stunning pics. Glad you kept it going, I can see its spot free of bad algae too, pure reef. I must say thanks again. You were a lot of help! Now that I've moved the frogspawn, I'm trying to think of what I should put in it's place. Some encrusting montis? zoas? a duncan? Link to comment
garrettparson Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Awesome! Its really starting to have the filled in look! Link to comment
.Newman. Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 you should concentrate on zoas imo. other corals dont seem to look as awesome as your zoas and palys do in this vase. maybe its just because of the magnification of the vase... Also i think the green bird will lose color in the white LEDs as well. When i moved mine to my pico it still lost most of its green. i run both blue and whites on my pico 3:3 The only place i see my birdsnest keep the intense green is under my MH lamp. what i find very interesting is that your corals are surviving just fine all this time under only the blue Crees, is that correct? also what kind of light is on this thing now? I noticed you went from blue to 20,000K purple but then back to blue? or is that just color changing via camera settings?(has is stayed the same blue this whole time?) Link to comment
Rogles Posted November 10, 2011 Author Share Posted November 10, 2011 you should concentrate on zoas imo. other corals dont seem to look as awesome as your zoas and palys do in this vase. maybe its just because of the magnification of the vase... Also i think the green bird will lose color in the white LEDs as well. When i moved mine to my pico it still lost most of its green. i run both blue and whites on my pico 3:3 The only place i see my birdsnest keep the intense green is under my MH lamp. what i find very interesting is that your corals are surviving just fine all this time under only the blue Crees, is that correct? also what kind of light is on this thing now? I noticed you went from blue to 20,000K purple but then back to blue? or is that just color changing via camera settings?(has is stayed the same blue this whole time?) Yeah, I'm still using the Ecoxotic Par38 Royal Blue bulb - all blue crees. I've been using it the whole time. I only used the more purple looking one for those pics way back. The rest of the blue pics used different camera settings so there's a slight difference in how they look. That's interesting about the green birdnest and LEDs. I wonder what part of the spectrum is missing. Might need to do some experimenting with UV LEDs sometime down the road. I see ecoxotic has some UV stunner stips, but I have a feeling they won't be powerful enough to make much of a difference. Link to comment
PinkDamsel Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Yeah, I'm still using the Ecoxotic Par38 Royal Blue bulb - all blue crees. I've been using it the whole time. Wow. I love the red and magenta colors. I'm using a PAR30 w. 4 royal blue/1 cool white, and my pink palys turn dull-colored. I've been thinking about switching to a bulb w. some neutral white to get additional spectra, but that's the opposite of what you have. Now I'm confused. Link to comment
1.0reef Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 amazing pico! I think a encrusting monti would look great on the top bare rock. PinkDamsel have you checked your tanks temp? Most corals in the wild bleach from the temp rising, the same could happen in our aquariums. Link to comment
brandon429 Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Pink Im amazed too, we're missing the primary photosynthetic driver spectrum...its like running a reef on pure actinics only, Newman? Link to comment
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