alfieFIVE - 5g Pico Build

[alaskan84]

So here's the long story made short! I had my first "OMG something went wrong moment."

 

I had to catch a train to CT for Easter weekend with the family, and right before I was going to go, I decided to put the lid on to prevent unnecessary evaporation. I probably shouldn't have done that, because in the process, I knocked the rim into my tank (the top side of which I'm sure had some crappy residue from windex or something similar on it), dislodging the rock structure (which I had epoxied into place) and spilling almost an inch of water out of the tank.

 

I was horrified as to what would happen when I returned, but I had to jet immediately because I would otherwise have missed my train. I ran out of water the day before my vacation, and didn't get any until I drove back up from CT to MA to days later.

 

When I came back, the tank was a mess. Salinity was high because of evaporation, ALL my ricordeas had mysteriously moved to the sandbed and curled up, the zoas were closed, and my stomatella (which I thought had died) was on my desk.

 

The stomatella must have just crawled out because it is still alive. I QT'd all the rics/zoas which recovered nicely. I tossed the piece of rock that was causing my rocks to be unstable in the first place. Did 2x 50% water changes over two days, scrubbed the crap out of my rocks, and we're back to everything in the tank with clear water and good parameters.

 

The zoas are the only thing that are still adjusting (they haven't opened all the way, yet) but they are clearly on their way to recovery. I had always noticed a slight wiggle in my rock structure, so I'm glad that this "mistake" happened because I have a newer, low-profile, sturdier scape, and I managed to pull through.

 

Will be keeping up with 20% water changes every other day in case there was die-off from the disturbance to my sand bed.

 

Everything lived!

 

Pictures of new scape and my recovering corals are coming this week. Working on pushing resumes out the door and my camera is somewhere in my luggage.

 

Separately, I haven't seen a molt but my emerald crab is huge when compared to the date I purchased it. I'll try to snap a picture of him. She's been extremely friendly towards everything I have added into the tank, fortunately

 

 

 

Whew, close one alfie! glad to hear that things are perking back up, lucky the lid didnt damage the tank when it slipped in! that coulda been a nightmare. *knocks on wood* i've been taking a pretty lacksadasical attitude(less testing, less water changes) to my 28 gallon at home, and things have been just doing great. now looking forward to your recovery pics

[alfiefive]

Whew, close one alfie! glad to hear that things are perking back up, lucky the lid didnt damage the tank when it slipped in! that coulda been a nightmare. *knocks on wood* i've been taking a pretty lacksadasical attitude(less testing, less water changes) to my 28 gallon at home, and things have been just doing great. now looking forward to your recovery pics

 

honestly it was one of those things where i was rushing, went to put the lid on with the best of intentions, and it literally slammed into my tank/rocks.

 

there's a reason potholes are circular -- the lid can't fall through. not true with the ecopico!

 

i am happy to report things are continuing to look healthier. i figured they were dead by the time i got back.

[NUWildcat928]

Whew, glad to hear everything is okay with the tank. Perhaps a cheap ATO would work, there's one going around with a $3 hamster water bottle that might have avoided the salinity spike...

 

Anyway, I just placed a good sized order at Coral Morphologic after reading great things about them both in this thread and on the web in general. Few questions: did all of your ricordeas come attached to small rubble? And did you dip the ricordeas or zoos at all (FW, Revive, TMPCC, etc)?

[alfiefive]

Whew, glad to hear everything is okay with the tank. Perhaps a cheap ATO would work, there's one going around with a $3 hamster water bottle that might have avoided the salinity spike...

 

Anyway, I just placed a good sized order at Coral Morphologic after reading great things about them both in this thread and on the web in general. Few questions: did all of your ricordeas come attached to small rubble? And did you dip the ricordeas or zoos at all (FW, Revive, TMPCC, etc)?

 

I have an actual ATO on the way, I think.

 

Some of my rics came on SMALL shards of rock, and most came on nothing. They sent a few pieces of rubble with the order, but I had specifically requested it in advance because I didn't have any on hand. Not sure if that is normal practice for them. Where the base of the unattached rics were, there was a harder, calcified area that may have been rock or may simply be part of the animal. Scaping with the ones that come with small shards is pretty easy -- the shards fit in cracks in the rock, can be epoxied carefully, etc., and it will soon be clear if the ricordea will take to the area based on how it will relax itself on the rock. I highly recommend using the "netting" technique they describe on their website with a pile of live rock rubble to get the other ricordea to attach themselves. I had never worked with ricordea before, and was going to try using a superglue gel to attach one of the free rics to a rock, but it would have been impossible for me to do without supergluing/burning the ric itself ("hold slimy tiny thing in hand, glue the smallest and most inaccessible part of it [and only that part] to a rock?" no thanks).

 

I did a FW dip of the ZOAS only and inspected for nudi eggs. Dipping freaks ricordea out and will melt them from what I've researched; don't do that. I temp acclimated the zoas but honestly, the rics are so hardy I just threw them in.

[alaskan84]

Whew, glad to hear everything is okay with the tank. Perhaps a cheap ATO would work, there's one going around with a $3 hamster water bottle that might have avoided the salinity spike...

 

Anyway, I just placed a good sized order at Coral Morphologic after reading great things about them both in this thread and on the web in general. Few questions: did all of your ricordeas come attached to small rubble? And did you dip the ricordeas or zoos at all (FW, Revive, TMPCC, etc)?

 

 

I realize your directing the question to alfie, but I will chime in as well since I have ordered from CM as well. Firstly always dip, no matter where it comes from....I use Coral RX but there are others available. I havent seen anything other than pods and a brittle star come off my CM shipment, but I'd still dip. Not all of my rics came with rubble. I had 3 that were attached to nice actual small rubble chunks, and then 2 that barely had any sand attached to their foot. At the time I didnt know much better and I just superglued the foot/bottomside ot a rock and those two have actually stayed put and at least doubled in size.

 

Edit* Listen to alfie,be careful with rics and dips, I dont have alot of experience, but coral RX had no effect on my rics from CM.

[alfiefive]

I realize your directing the question to alfie, but I will chime in as well since I have ordered from CM as well. Firstly always dip, no matter where it comes from....I use Coral RX but there are others available. I havent seen anything other than pods and a brittle star come off my CM shipment, but I'd still dip. Not all of my rics came with rubble. I had 3 that were attached to nice actual small rubble chunks, and then 2 that barely had any sand attached to their foot. At the time I didnt know much better and I just superglued the foot/bottomside ot a rock and those two have actually stayed put and at least doubled in size.

 

Edit* Listen to alfie,be careful with rics and dips, I dont have alot of experience, but coral RX had no effect on my rics from CM.

 

All members of the ECOPICO CLUB are welcome to chime in at any time!

 

Sounds right, from what I've read SW dips can stress rics but it's the FW ones that will melt them.

[alfiefive]

New scape and recovery pics!

 

 

 

 

 

[malibukay]

New scape and recovery pics!

 

 

 

 

 

looing good =)

[alaskan84]

lookin good alf, did you chisel some of your rock down? it looked like it was almost all one piece before. Rics look great and the zoas arent doing bad either....looks like a good save here.

[alfiefive]

lookin good alf, did you chisel some of your rock down? it looked like it was almost all one piece before. Rics look great and the zoas arent doing bad either....looks like a good save here.

 

Thanks! I think everything is going to be aok. One of the polyps closed when I took the pics is now open, just waiting for that truly "full" extension of the fringe on the polyps and I'll feel good. Color seems fine.

 

As for that big rock, I just turned it on its side. The white band on the left was previously the bottom. It's angled diagonally, so it fits. Sort of hard to see that in the pic. It was too high before and the top of it probably would have been bleached out by light & unavailable for any stock. The "head" is now face down in the sand. The rock that was previously front-right is now support in the back. The previous support rock is (ugly) and in the garbage! I like the lower profile of the new scape I also like having more available sandbed for new introductions to the tank/easier access to things.

 

The old scape also had certain low-flow areas that collected a lot of detritus and algae and I couldn't get rid of those issues even by moving my pumps. In the new setup I am just using the HOB on max and flow seems great, albeit unidirectional.

[NUWildcat928]

I realize your directing the question to alfie, but I will chime in as well since I have ordered from CM as well. Firstly always dip, no matter where it comes from....I use Coral RX but there are others available. I havent seen anything other than pods and a brittle star come off my CM shipment, but I'd still dip. Not all of my rics came with rubble. I had 3 that were attached to nice actual small rubble chunks, and then 2 that barely had any sand attached to their foot. At the time I didnt know much better and I just superglued the foot/bottomside ot a rock and those two have actually stayed put and at least doubled in size.

 

Edit* Listen to alfie,be careful with rics and dips, I dont have alot of experience, but coral RX had no effect on my rics from CM.

 

Thanks for the info, to both of you. I will probably dip the rics in SW with Coral Revive, which seems to have worked for a lot of people. Interestingly out of all the people who have ordered from CM, I have only seen 1 who mentioned that they received a bug/bad hitchhiker. I will probably dip the rics very briefly, like 5 min or less (recommended time is 10 min or so). The zoos will definitely get dipped.

 

In terms of how to attach any loose ricordea, I will see how many of them need attaching. I'm thinking if a lot of them need it (5 rics total!) then I'll use the tray/netting method. If just 1 or 2 need it, I'll try doing the individual string method.

 

BTW, those really must be hardy corals if they survived and are already open again!

[alfiefive]

Thanks for the info, to both of you. I will probably dip the rics in SW with Coral Revive, which seems to have worked for a lot of people. Interestingly out of all the people who have ordered from CM, I have only seen 1 who mentioned that they received a bug/bad hitchhiker. I will probably dip the rics very briefly, like 5 min or less (recommended time is 10 min or so). The zoos will definitely get dipped.

 

In terms of how to attach any loose ricordea, I will see how many of them need attaching. I'm thinking if a lot of them need it (5 rics total!) then I'll use the tray/netting method. If just 1 or 2 need it, I'll try doing the individual string method.

 

BTW, those really must be hardy corals if they survived and are already open again!

 

an idea i read somewhere was that you can pile some rubble in the corner of your tank, and sort of place the rics on the pile with some netting in low flow. then a few days later you can take the pile apart and the rics will be attached to different pieces of rubble. nicer than having a piece of tupperware in your tank, but i never had the rubble to test that method.

 

Thanks for the info, to both of you. I will probably dip the rics in SW with Coral Revive, which seems to have worked for a lot of people. Interestingly out of all the people who have ordered from CM, I have only seen 1 who mentioned that they received a bug/bad hitchhiker. I will probably dip the rics very briefly, like 5 min or less (recommended time is 10 min or so). The zoos will definitely get dipped.

 

In terms of how to attach any loose ricordea, I will see how many of them need attaching. I'm thinking if a lot of them need it (5 rics total!) then I'll use the tray/netting method. If just 1 or 2 need it, I'll try doing the individual string method.

 

BTW, those really must be hardy corals if they survived and are already open again!

 

it's hard to kill a ric. they were my first corals and i manhandled them.

[alfiefive]

Picked up one of the ecopico lights and mounted it onto a clear piece of acrylic. Roped the whole thing around my HOB for fuge lighting. I thought it was a neat project. Once it gets dirtier, I can rope it onto the top so that too much light isn't diffused through the plastic of the HOB.

 

[Drift Monkey]

Picked up one of the ecopico lights and mounted it onto a clear piece of acrylic. Roped the whole thing around my HOB for fuge lighting. I thought it was a neat project. Once it gets dirtier, I can rope it onto the top so that too much light isn't diffused through the plastic of the HOB.

 

Good idea. I was thinking about doing something similar...I saw some LED strips at walmart, but I was scared they might be too weak...

[alfiefive]

Good idea. I was thinking about doing something similar...I saw some LED strips at walmart, but I was scared they might be too weak...

 

These might be too weak as well, but time will tell. I can see how I will probably be rotating the chaeto when I do my water changes because the penetration of the light is not complete throughout the whole fuge. I may try mounting the light fixture on the top, but it is wider than the section of my HOB I have dedicated as a fuge. So I figured the light lost through the plexi was less than having an entire bulb blocked out by the divider. I'll post updates!

 

That's a dog leash, btw.

[Drift Monkey]

These might be too weak as well, but time will tell. I can see how I will probably be rotating the chaeto when I do my water changes because the penetration of the light is not complete throughout the whole fuge. I may try mounting the light fixture on the top, but it is wider than the section of my HOB I have dedicated as a fuge. So I figured the light lost through the plexi was less than having an entire bulb blocked out by the divider. I'll post updates!

 

That's a dog leash, btw.

Dog leash Yeah, I might just end up setting something up that uses a CFL PAR38 aimed directy into the fuge or something...the stock picotope light apparently wasn't doing the job and my chaeto melted away. I wish there were something less conspicuous though, hopefully your LEDs work!

[alfiefive]

Zoas and GSP tomorrow!

[alaskan84]

Zoas and GSP tomorrow!

 

 

cant wait to see alfie! My coral morphologic order is supposed to arrive today...but its really foggy! I sure hope the plane makes it in today

[alfiefive]

Random video of my crab eating GHA when the tank was really hairy.

 

http://vimeo.com/21830652

[alfiefive]

These are sort of quick and dirty pics. Glass was a little dirty, etc. They didn't come out great, but show the stock!

 

Forming zoa garden.

 

 

GSP starting to open.

 

 

Made a "ricordea rock". The snail in the background turned out to be DEAD and was greening up the walls, I think.

 

 

Freebie zoas.

 

[ParanoidObseshun]

Looks like you are off to a nice start with your zoa garden!

[alfiefive]

Looks like you are off to a nice start with your zoa garden!

 

I hope so. If all of my sand and rock could be magically be covered in zoas, I would make it happen.

[Drift Monkey]

Dead snail was probably releasing ammonia...

[alfiefive]

Dead nnail was probably releasing ammonia...

 

yep! let us be reminded of the "i made a mistake" post a few pages back where i talked about why i made a beginner's mistake in purchasing the margaritas.

[Drift Monkey]

yep! let us be reminded of the "i made a mistake" post a few pages back where i talked about why i made a beginner's mistake in purchasing the margaritas.

Welp, now you know...