My 125 Gallon Mixed Reef: Flames are here!

[revaltion131]

The other mp40 will also remove three more powerheads. The sinularia on that side will be pissed, but I can move it. Can't believe I'll have 8 Koralias just laying around. I still only need two at absolute most for water mixing. I don't really want to sell them all, especially because they're not going to bring me even $100 all said and done.

 

I was thinking like you with the phosphates and tech M in regards to the bryopsis. My phosphates had been averaging .04ppm without serious algae growth for awhile, then after the last change, they went back up even with feeding being down. That also includes changing out the PhosGuard. I'm going to get a BRS dual GFO and Carbon reactor, probably with the group buy being organized for next week. However, I already had a ton of Tech M on hand so I started doing it. Especially because the bryopsis was really threatening my psammacora again. I refuse to lose that tough bugger! And it's much happier, have two patches showing green now! I'm going to have to borrow my brother's pro camera and get some pics of it so I can show before, in between, and after.

 

I figure the Tech M is exactly as you say, a nice stop-gap until I have the GFO up and running. I'm about a week in and the bryopsis really started to bite the dust two days ago. It'll be visibly gone within another day or two. But I do agree with you; it'll never be gone for good until phosphates are truly "undetectable".

 

I am using baking soda for the dKH. If there's a solid, cheap solution like that, why not use it?

 

I wanted to post some pictures and/or video of my flame wrasses today, but of course as soon as I whipped out a camera, they went to hiding. The female eats like any normal wrasse, but the male doesn't, right now. My reading says that they're very cryptic for awhile when they're new and I have seen him eat some things. When he does get out moving, he seems healthy and doesn't look like he's not eating. I added a good piece of LR from my tank so that they had access to some pods, just in case. I'm only treating with prazipro at the moment, so no worries about die-off or leeching. If I have to treat with something else, I'll remove it.

 

Thanks for reading, as always.

[Smity]

Looking good bud, keep us updated on the algae issue. Mp40 will help with the flow pattern and a second one will work wonders.

 

*are you a member of michigan reefers?

[revaltion131]

Thanks! I'm excited to get working on the master-slave set up with two pumps, too. I'm hoping to get it this afternoon but I may be waiting until Monday or Tuesday...pay check is running a little late. My bryopsis is going down fast, but I can see the high phosphates still winning as green film algae and this wierd red stuff I haven't ID'd yet (camera's not good enough for a pic) is coming up in place of the bryopsis.

 

I'm not a member of Michigan Reefers, though I am on that BB a lot. I'm considering it, but I want to see if the Mid-Michigan one, basically run by Preuss, is worth it first.

 

And I need a moment to vent/panic. My DD order has been sitting in the sorting facility in Grand Rapids (~1-1.5 hours away) for a couple of hours. And I have a 'nem coming.

 

Edit: both critters here and clearly alive. Phew.

[Smity]

Nice! Been wanting to eventually order from DD but haven't given it a try... Solid experience I take it?

[revaltion131]

IMO, Diver's Den is still the best place to buy your livestock from, and Vivid Aquariums a close second. I've done several DD orders in the past and have never had a health issue with any of them. I've lost them all...but the deaths were on me (jumping, bad tank move............), and not DD. If you're particularly looking for a specimen that's difficult to acclimate to captivity, I would definitely wait until Diver's Den has it and buy theirs.

 

I've got a ton of pics to post in a bit and they'll include the additions from DD.

[Smity]

[revaltion131]

First, my male Flame died last night. I thought he might, but was really hoping he'd make it. The female is alive, but I haven't fed yet so I don't know just how "alive" she is. From what I've found, I possibly screwed them up with a bad, bad acclimation, or it could just be chalked up to male Flame Wrasses adapting far more terribly than I thought they did.

 

Alright, here we go with photos. First, the new guys.

 

Purple LTA It's not perfectly happy yet, but it doesn't seem terribly peeved either.

 

 

Whitecheek Tang (A. nigricans)

 

 

 

Now, the Psammacora. Before, and after. I thought I had some inbetween pics when I thought it was all gone, but I don't.

 

 

You can see the flesh starting to color back up inside the black box. The pic below is just a wider angle with no flash. All of the little brown patches are flesh. Bryopsis is still clinging to life on the skeleton.

 

 

 

 

Here's one I could use some ID help with. I know I know what this one in the middle of the caps is, I just can't remember or find it. I'm also quite thrilled, there was an aiptasia that came with this frag, hiding when I inspected it at purchase. I don't have a peppermint right now and I worry about it with the new LTA. T.T

 

 

And now we commence with a large amount of pics.

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry this one's blurry. I lurves her color and haven't been able to get a pic showing it off.

 

 

 

And finally, got some pictures that were true to the color of this fat, king of the tank! I kid you not, he even chased the new tang around yesterday.

 

 

[Smity]

Beautiful fish! love the last one.

[revaltion131]

Thanks! I really love him. The little green one in this video is him, almost two years ago. For reference, the fatty bellus male that keeps intruding is ~6". The other wrasse turned male originally, but he managed to make his way into the overflow and...it wasn't pretty when I found him

 

[animalmaster6]

I love the Bluethroat.

 

Awesome!

[revaltion131]

Thanks! It's been a long, crappy weekend. 'Bout the only thing that was good was Verlander having a great game yesterday...I even got the wrong info on the broadcast time and missed the damn game. T.T Digging up that little video with the wrasses made me smile again.

[revaltion131]

I ####ing hate my mfing suction overflow. I may be buying a new ####ing tank much sooner than I wanted to. Eff being up at 1:30 in the morning fixing the ####ing return. Would be able to just throw on the Vortechs and go to bed if this damn anemone would set its foot!

 

/rant

/bed with no sleep

 

 

Alright, morning after:

 

Stayed up late to watch a movie, actually worked out. One of the cats knocked something off downstairs, which led me to the basement door, where I could hear a propeller making a weird noise. I went down to check out the tank and while I was at it, the return pump quit running. Yay. One of the seams burst in the sump and the pump had gotten full of sand. Annoying, but easy fix. Well, apparently it hadn't been cleaned in longer than I thought because when I hooked it back up after cleaning, it was going at a much stronger gph than it had been. Somehow, this resulted in more busted seams, this time on the return line, which is external. Also, in one of the elbows going into the top of the tank, it looks like it punctured right at the heart of the right angle in the joint. Thankfully duct tape is working as a stop-gap until I can get new plumbing put together tonight. FYI, the way it's set up, this wouldn't be a problem with a reef-ready tank. All leaked water goes right back into the system, not all over the stand and floor.

 

Now, the pump was running much stronger than the single U-tube in the suction overflow could handle, so the tank started to get a little full. This is good, because the overflow was designed to run with two u-tubes. It's also bad because the ball of the ball valve stopped working, acting like handle sheared off of the actual ball within the valve, so I have no control over the flow going through the system. It's even worse because, do you know how flipping impossible it is to eliminate air bubbles in two u-tubes for suction overflows?? If you can't get rid of them entirely, they build in the tube and eventually get so large that they prevent flow. I've never had this happen with a single u-tube, but running with two seems impossible.

 

I'm thinking I'm going to find a cheap, scratched up RR 125 until I move and do my 'upgrade' next year. Which, by the way, is going to be a ~300 gallon display, probably 96"x30"x24". This 125 will be a DIY sump/fuge, and I'll get another 90-125 for a QT tank.

[animalmaster6]

Dang that stinks :/

[revaltion131]

This is a short story.

 

Foot's badly damaged. 'Nem's toast.

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=307404

 

 

Silver lining: It was a DD critter so getting the money back should be no issue. It also wasn't a water quality problem so trying one again in the future (not anytime soon I don't think) isn't out of the question.

[Smity]

Any updates rev?

[revaltion131]

No real updates right now. Someone ran a red light last week and caused ~$14,000 in damage to my car (more than twice its sellable value) so obviously my priorities have changed quite a bit! The fish are doing great and the corals are really starting to show some nice color and PE, but my camera isn't good enough to get usable pictures.

[indyjaco]

Sorry if i missed this, what do you feed your trigger? I really want to get one.

[revaltion131]

Nope, you didn't miss it! I feed a mix of frozen mysis (PE when I can), Ocean Nutrition's Trigger Formula, and Formula 2, all frozen. I feed the large Formula 1 pellets to help grind the teeth down since larger food items are still too large for him. He tears into nori sheets, as well.

[revaltion131]

He's a short update (sorry, no pictures).

 

My little Red Planet frag (hairy and very colorful) and my zoas are doing excellently (5-8 new polyps in ~1 month). I've got some troubles with the combo rock posted earlier that has a couple of different caps and some other SPS in the middle. The green cap and unknown something er other are doing great, but the red cap is STN'ing in patches. The purple cap went brown and started the STN, but it seems to have stopped. It has not, however, regained color. My sinularia/some sort of kenya tree-like leather, has not been happy since I got the Vortechs both going. I can't seem to find a spot with lower flow and I'm pretty sure this is what has it all scrunched and unhappy. Especially because once I turn the pumps off, it's right back to being happy! It will go into my QT tank for a little while until I can find a better solution (I really don't want to get rid of it.

 

Also, I have eggcrate covering the tank. It's not small enough. Lost the male Pyle's to jumping a week or so ago. I am going to go to bird netting or something with smaller openings when I have time to do the work on it.

[revaltion131]

The kenya tree/sinularia/whatever leather it is, is gone-zo. I put an old lighting fixture I had from my 34 gallon tank onto my quarantine tank and turned it into a coral quarantine with perfect water conditions and added the coral to that tank to see if I could get it to perk back up. Instead, it just closed up and melted off. I've never had a leather go so fast. I had put some zoas in the quarantine with it, just because they've always been such a good sign of water quality for me. They're in there this morning as happy as can be. Maybe the leather lost some sort of warfare with the little guys. Who knows.

[revaltion131]

I haven't updated in awhile, and here's why.

 

Looking at what happened with my kenya tree/random finger leather and a couple of other corals that just decided to up and die (not the SPS though, go figure), about that same time an ich outbreak started with of course, the tang. During that short span of about a week, I also lost several hermits and my emerald crabs (seriously, I've never lost one and actually seen it clearly dead before). I am thinking I must have had some sort of water quality issue that wasn't in the testable stuff. My TDS on my RO/DI continued to read and still does read zero. I had all of my tests confirmed by the LFS, as well. I had a temperature spike to 85 F, but that was just once and no one seemed to be the worse for it. I'm not sure what happened, but I am happy that what seems like a mini-crash, looking back on it, never got any worse. The 'worst' loss was a Rainbow Chalice frag with 7 or 8 eyes. But, I've lost corals before. It happens.

 

The fish have been in hypo for about four weeks now and the tang, which was the obvious sicky, is finally showing zero white spots. So, I'm going for three more full weeks at 1.008 specific gravity, and then over the course of four weeks it'll go back up to 1.025. All fish are healthy and eating well. The tang still won't eat frozen foods, but he devours nori sheets, so I'm not exactly concerned. I am happy with my neon goby, who has finally gotten up the guts to get into the feeding frenzy, which is complete with anthias, a wrasse, and of course the trigger.

[revaltion131]

And now, a nearly-two month later update.

 

The fish are finally back in the display. I've got pest algae that's going away right now (I kinda had the skimmer unplugged for a week and didn't notice it >.>) but everything else is going well. I did have one loss, but it was a jumping wrasse. I don't know how it got through the top, but I got home from work and I had male Pyle's jerky! At least a cat hadn't eaten him.

 

I grabbed a couple of fish two weeks ago. One was a juvenile Flagfin angel. I didn't realize just how skinny the poor thing was until I had it home and under real lighting in the QT. She was eating very well, but I lost her in the first 48 hours. Chalking it up to being too skinny for too long/collection issues/etc. The other is a Black Sailfin Blenny which is one awesome but little fish. It needs to be spot-fed atm, and it's alone in a 20 gallon QT, so I am seriously considering a nano for it. I hope to borrow my brother's good camera this weekend and get some nice pics of the new guy.

[Andynco]

Update?

[bryantbfusho]

update!

[eitallent]

Hope all is well. I enjoyed reading your thread.