Flexin5's 10 gallon Tank

[Felicia]

Yeah I tested right before my water change each week to figure out what my trend was on calcium use. I'm pretty much always at 360 after a week, so now I can just dose enough once a week to up that to 400-450. Iodine might help as well, although be careful if you have a shrimp (I can't remember). It speeds up their life cycle or something and too much of it can kill them easily. That's how I lost my first cleaner shrimp. I've stopped dosing iodine and I just dose calcium now.

 

Also, zoas can just be finicky unfortunately.

[Flexin5]

Yeah I tested right before my water change each week to figure out what my trend was on calcium use. I'm pretty much always at 360 after a week, so now I can just dose enough once a week to up that to 400-450. Iodine might help as well, although be careful if you have a shrimp (I can't remember). It speeds up their life cycle or something and too much of it can kill them easily. That's how I lost my first cleaner shrimp. I've stopped dosing iodine and I just dose calcium now.

 

Also, zoas can just be finicky unfortunately.

 

ah gotcha. yea i thought that there woulden't be much of a point to testing now since the new water is in there, i'm planning on testing on wed. and then again on saturday then do my water change on sunday as per my regular schedual. i'm going to start with calcium definatly before i start to dose iodine.....i would also like to replace my cleaner shrimp that i lost back when i was fighting the GHA.

 

did you notice alot of growth start when you started to dose with calcium? and how much do you put in for a 10gal? (i'm guessing it's depending on your cal. reading?) i've never dosed anything before. 3 guys at the LFS were saying to just dose iodine and i don't need a test kit...i looked all 3 in the face and said.."uhh..yeaa..no."

[timothymarsh]

Awesome tank. I like the layout of the rocks, I'm going to be doing something similar on a 15 gallon. Good luck man.

[Flexin5]

^thanks man! i'll admit that i wasen't too creative with the rock, being the first tank and everything i was scared that i was going to kill off my live rock before i could get it scaped. i'll definatly get more creative with the next tank with smaller rocks or bust these into smaller bits.

 

one other quick question for anyone that knows,

 

the torch that i just picked up, the way the heads are is in a star pattern almost, so one of them is kinda pressing against the glass when it's extended, is that ok or will it kill that head?

 

[timothymarsh]

I think it will be fine, it doesn't look like there is too much pressure on it. What are you feeding the tank right now as far as corals go? Are you spot feeding the frogspawn?

[Flexin5]

I think it will be fine, it doesn't look like there is too much pressure on it. What are you feeding the tank right now as far as corals go? Are you spot feeding the frogspawn?

 

it seemes fine, actually when it was at the LFS that paticular head wasen't extended, but now it is.

 

so far i'm not really feeding anything special. flake and pellet for the clowns, and kent marine phytoplex every couple of days.

[timothymarsh]

There you go it sounds like the coral likes the glass lol, and thanks for the info, I've had tons of fish before but never any coral so I'm trying to get all the info I can before I start.

[Flexin5]

There you go it sounds like the coral likes the glass lol, and thanks for the info, I've had tons of fish before but never any coral so I'm trying to get all the info I can before I start.

 

 

lol anytime man, i'm a noob with coral too so i started out with just zoa's and 1 head of frogspawn. gets addicting!

[Felicia]

did you notice alot of growth start when you started to dose with calcium? and how much do you put in for a 10gal? (i'm guessing it's depending on your cal. reading?) i've never dosed anything before. 3 guys at the LFS were saying to just dose iodine and i don't need a test kit...i looked all 3 in the face and said.."uhh..yeaa..no."

 

I have had a lot of growth recently, but I'm not sure if its more from the calcium or the feeding. I would guess the calcium definitely helps some. I don't know that it helps as much with the softies, but definitely the LPS and SPS corals.

[Flexin5]

I have had a lot of growth recently, but I'm not sure if its more from the calcium or the feeding. I would guess the calcium definitely helps some. I don't know that it helps as much with the softies, but definitely the LPS and SPS corals.

 

ah gotcha. i hope the calicum helps things grow out a bit more. your tank is looking great btw.

 

i'm starting to get spots of the purple coraline algae on the back glass, i noticed that most mature tanks have that. i'm guessing that's a good thing? lol

[Flexin5]

well two steps foward, one step back.

 

my male clown fish hosted the colony of zoa's that are on the bottom, they also have a couple long, yellow polyps on there. well i think that the zoa was stinging the crap out of him because he has black spots all over his belly/underside.

 

so i put the zoa on the other side and added the torch corals hoping they would be better. he hasent' hosted them, but last night he woulden't eat. i think that the female is bullying him, she chases him away all the time at feeding. first time he's never eaten.....i hope he is ok.

 

also, that 6 head torch i got, at the lfs, one of the heads were not extended, just a tiny bit. i noticed today that it's not extended at all, and looks kinda dead; with brown fleshy kinda stuff on it. but the other 5 heads are donig great and nice and extended very long. i don't know wtf is up with it, or if i should cut it off?

 

i check calcium last night and it was good at 440ppm, i'm going to test all params tonight. bahhh

[MikeTR]

sounds like your torch has brown jelly disease... take action now or all your LPS will have brown jelly. Turn off all flow when you touch this torch to get rid of the head and dip in an iodine based dip to kill it. If any of it floats off it spreads, highly contagious.. it's devastating.

[Flexin5]

sounds like your torch has brown jelly disease... take action now or all your LPS will have brown jelly. Turn off all flow when you touch this torch to get rid of the head and dip in an iodine based dip to kill it. If any of it floats off it spreads, highly contagious.. it's devastating.

 

crap. after some research i think that's whats going on. now can i just cut the entire head right off? or do i need to dip the entire 6 seperate heads? i thought that if that paticular head was going bad that i can just cut it off.

 

and if so, how do i cut it? with a saw? i've never frag'd anything or done something like this.

[Felicia]

Oh no! I don't know anything about this but it sounds horrible. Good luck! I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you that it doesn't spread at all.

[Flexin5]

Oh no! I don't know anything about this but it sounds horrible. Good luck! I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you that it doesn't spread at all.

 

thanks! i hope it's just the one head and the others are fine. they look ok to me?

 

 

 

i'm going on my lunch break in an hour, i'm going to run home and cut the head off. can anyone explain to me what to do? is it ok to have it out of the water for a min to cut the head off and then stick it back into the tank? will a sharp pair of scissors do the trick? do i cut off the entire branch of that head?

 

i knew that i might have to do this when i bought the coral, i just diden't expect it to happen this fast honestly.

[Flexin5]

well here's a funny story for you guys.

 

i ran home on my break to get rid of the head with the brown jelly.

 

let me start out by saying, that coral with brown jelly is the most nasty thing i have ever smelt! and i work in the ER, so that's saying something. it makes changing my kid's poopy bin smell like roses!

 

so i put a chair next to the tank, fold up a towel, pull out the coral, and place a wet paper towel over the good heads. all i had at the condo was a pair of sharp sissors, all my tools (jig saw, dremels, grinder, bunch of stuff) is all in the garage at my moms place.

 

well i diden't know how britle coral was, so i cut off the top part, it all crumbles onto the towel and the brown jelly smears on the towel, all good.

 

but i had to cut away a bit more, and it was thicker, so i put some more umph into it, well doesn't it freakin EXPLOAD all over! brown smelly jelly all over my walls, floor, on the chair and let me tell you it stunk to high heaven! took me 2 mins to do, spent the next 20 cleaning up the place, lucky for me the wife wasen't home

 

so this is the before pic, you can see that one head with the brown stuff on the side

 

 

and after

 

 

the other heads seem to be ok.

[JoelRHale]

Great work man! Hopefully it'll pull through!

 

Sucks about the explosion. At least you didn't have zoa juice go in your eye.

[MikeTR]

good work man... i would dip the coral just to be safe.

 

if you don't have any iodine based dips your lfs should help you out... all you need is a couple drops in enough water to cover the coral

[Flexin5]

good work man... i would dip the coral just to be safe.

 

if you don't have any iodine based dips your lfs should help you out... all you need is a couple drops in enough water to cover the coral

 

for sure, i'm going to keep an eye on it and probably dip it this weekend. it seems to be doing fine today, tenticles are all out nice and long, i can't see any other brown jelly on them either.

 

the emrald crab who i rarely see has taken a liking to the torch coral.

 

[Dani3d]

You should get a good refractometer as hydrometer can be way off. YOu think you have 1.025 but you may have anything from 1.020 to 1.030.

 

What hapened to the zoanthids? they melted?

[Flexin5]

You should get a good refractometer as hydrometer can be way off. YOu think you have 1.025 but you may have anything from 1.020 to 1.030.

 

What hapened to the zoanthids? they melted?

 

ya i think i'm going to pick one up. when i was buying some of the equipment from the lfs when i started the price in the store was wayyyy off from their internet price, so i have to order one online.

 

2 frags melted. on one there's nothing left on the frag plug, the other looks like this:

 

 

i don't know if there's any saving it, i'd love too because it was purple with a neon green dot in the middle. i liked that frag. i tried dipping it in ro/di but nothing happend.

[Flexin5]

well good news, the clown fish went back to eating no problem. and one of my favourite zoa's sprouted a new polyp, so a sign of growth is good.

[iball1804]

Awesome!

 

That torch is nuts.

[boxboy]

I have the same star fish, he is sooooo cool

[iball1804]

That little zoa is soooo cute!