Mark's 40B and 46 bow

[markalot]

I'm going through a similar situation with my whipfin fairy wrasse. she hasn't eaten (that I've seen) in a week now, is never out, just stays under her rock in her cocoon.

 

Sorry to hear it. I always get paranoid when I lose fish. I went for the longest time with 0 fish losses, but they have been mounting in the 46. Neon Goby, Rainford Goby, and now the wrasse. I have glass lids and very little space for a fish to escape, yet that damn wrasse must have hit the glass at an angle, bounced into the skimmer box, luckily was too big to get into the filter intake, but then jumped out the back through a 1/2 inch uncovered area. That area is now covered.

 

Unlike freshwater I have no test that might indicate a water quality issue. 0 nitrates, 0 (crappy kit) phosphates, no algae issues, but no real way to determine if the water is somehow not healthy for the fish. So corals look great, fish die, or fish look great, corals look crappy. :| I'm certain there is no real correlation, but it bothers me none the less.

[Walker]

I lost my Wrasse in the 46. He had jumped a week ago, first into the surface skimmer box, then out and behind the tank into a pile of dog hair. I put him back into the tank and he appeared but slowly got worse. First it appeared his tail was partially paralyzed but he was still eating, then not eating, then gone.

Always sucks when you lose fish .

[Felicia]

Sorry about the wrasse, Mark. Losing fish is always so depressing.

[markalot]

Some pictures.

 

The 46 continues to color up for no apparent reason. So frustrating to do something right, but not know what it is. There might be a second clown fish and a anemone in there.

 

[markalot]

Now the 40.

 

I'm going through some color loss since adjusting the lights. The Forest Fire digitata in the center was already getting pale when I did my PAR readings and reduced the light, so it may have been bleaching. Still, I'm worried I'm about to experience a full scale explosion of Montipora nudibranchs. I noticed more on the montis in front, on the sandbed, so I tossed it along with the frag next to it. I don't see any obvious damage on anything else, but ....

 

FTS

 

 

Some closeups of the two center montipora that lost the most color over the last week.

 

 

Forest Fire

 

 

See the white specs above? I was unable to get a clear shot.

 

Next, this rainbow has never been consistent for me. It will grow rapidly, then die back, then grow back. It's paled considerably in just the last week, and in this closeup notice a lot of white filaments coming out of the rock it's encrusting on.

 

 

Finally, how about a growth update for the Rainbow Stylophora.

 

9/15

 

 

10/5

 

[Spencer7]

Your FTS are of great quality, what camera/settings do you use?

 

How far away are you? It may just be the lighting...

[markalot]

Your FTS are of great quality, what camera/settings do you use?

 

How far away are you? It may just be the lighting...

 

edit: corrected camera model.

 

It's an SLR, Nikon uh ... D3100? The trick is using RAW photos which are uncompressed an have the full dynamic range, along with a good RAW image editor. I use the free RawTherapee program for the PC. For those pics I'm using the stock lens.

[markalot]

I count 2!

 

 

 

Plugged in the lava lamp, put on some music. I need more!

 

[markalot]

Quick set of pics for the weekend.

 

The RBTA is on the move and has re-appeared between the rocks near the Xenia, which are touching it and seem completely unbothered. Figures.

 

 

 

46 FTS

 

 

 

40 FTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gena]

Great pics, Mark!!!! What is growing in between the xenia? I love the color!!!!

[markalot]

Great pics, Mark!!!! What is growing in between the xenia? I love the color!!!!

 

Hi Gena, thabks.

 

That's a frogspawn that's not super happy in tht loction, kind of bright for it, but it keeps a nice light purple and green color.

[gena]

Hi Gena, thabks. That's a frogspawn that's not super happy in tht loction, kind of bright for it, but it keeps a nice light purple and green color.

Oh wow, cool!...I'm surprised everyone is behaving!!!!! I would have never guessed Frogspawn. It almost looked like a St. Thomas mushroom to me, but I knew it wasn't that. I really love the color of it!!!

[Zia]

Some pictures.

 

The 46 continues to color up for no apparent reason. So frustrating to do something right, but not know what it is.

Some mystery magic going on up in there. Any success, regardless of how we come by it. Is all good in this hobby

 

 

Looking good man!!

[markalot]

So i bought, for a whopping $8, a RAW image editor for my android tablet. I used it to post the previous FTS pictures but now that I have time to use my PC I can see that the photos edited using the tablet just don't come close to the PC.

 

Re-posting both FTS, then I need to post some boring documentation pictures, which is mostly what I use this thread for anyway.

 

The 40 photo colors are a little more vibrant that actual, but the 46 came out almost exactly right.

 

40

 

46

[markalot]

Crappy shot from this morning with blue lights only over the 40. I want to show how dulled out the Forest Fire digitata is in the middle of the tank. I believe this happened when I let KH fall to 6.5 after running out of topoff and not compensating with dosing 2 part. Silly mistake, but it could have been a lot worse.

 

Ironically my strawberry colored acro looks better than ever. That monti should be knock your eyes out orange, which it was even though the skin was bleached white. I can see it's recovering around the edges so hopefully it won't take long. The Setosa seems unaffected and neither does the blue polyp green monti cap.

 

The tank is a little cloudy because I twisted the left hand rock around and pushed it back a bit to give the cap some room to grow and better display the digitata frags I have growing on the side.

 

 

 

[FishBrawler]

What sand is that in the 40?

[markalot]

What sand is that in the 40?

 

mmm. good question. It's a medium grain, bought a couple of bags at Petsmart ... I believe it was the top left sand on this page: http://www.caribsea.com/caribsea/itempage_marine_substrates_aragonite.html FCC? I like it a lot because it's easy to gravel vac without removing the sand. I treat the substrate as if it's freshwater and vac each water change.

[markalot]

Rented that PAR meter again.

 

Latest PAR readings. Nothing has changed in the 46, I just rant a few more numbers at various dim settings (one of the nice things about LED) to see what I could do if needed. Full bright is 250 PAR near where the anemone is, but I am running at 25% which produces the following numbers.

 

 

 

I made some significant changes to the 40 lighting. I removed one of the two bulb units so I'm down to 4 T5's, then I put some legs on my reefbright LED strip so I can sit it at the front, on the glass lid, aimed back. It's a 30" fixture originally purchased for my old 20 gallon long. It does not offer very much PAR (about 50) but it adds a nice shimmer.

 

--front--

ReefBright blue/white

Ebay blue LED strip (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aquarium-LED-Light-ReefBar-36-inch-3ft-453-nm-Actinic-Blue-27W-36-Coral-Moon-/281159385514?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=580220752678&hash=item417667c1aa) ~35 PAR

AquaticLife blue

ATI Blue+

ATI Coral+

ATI Purple+

--back--

 

[markalot]

Quick pic with blue lights of the 46 to show how bright orange the digitata should be.

 

DSC_0475E.jpg by MarkStep, on Flickr

[RollaJase]

Both tanks are looking great Mark.

[markalot]

I made a short video to show the RBTA next to the Xenia. I have moved the frogspawn to another location, I can't risk damage to another one. So far I've lost 2 heads from one frag and probably one head from another due to getting stung by my wall frogspawn (you can just see the tips of it in the lower left corner), which is apparently different enough not to get along with the others.

 

[Felicia]

I really like the RBTA! Its crazy that it and the frogspawn are growing right up against the xenia and its not bothered at all. Such well behaved corals I enjoyed the video and new FTS's. The 46 is looking especially stunning!

[markalot]

My Hanna Phosphate meter arrived yesterday. Good thing I bought an additional package of reagents, since the meter only comes with a few. I also checked to make sure the lot # was not one of the reported bad ones, and it's not.

 

So what are the magical numbers.

 

In the 46, the tank with the most color right now, .01, .03, .02

 

In the 40, with dull lifeless colors but good growth. .12, .10, .11 (had a decimal point out of place there!)

 

I did a 6 gallon water change including gravel vac and flatworm removal.

 

.06, .05, .05

 

So how about them apples? In the 46 my DIY refugium is up and running, as usual, and is growing a fast crop of Chaeto AND that feather caulerpa that apparently found its way in. The feather Caulerpa is an incredibly fast grower, and frankly quite attractive.

 

In the 40 I had taken all phosphate removal offline, which apparently worked. I run a media basket in the HOB filter and it was growing Chaeto but mostly hair algae. I think my process went as follows.

 

Buy Tang.

 

Take phosphate media offline but keep refugium running.

 

Start feeding heavily with goal to brown out corals or any change, really, besides the pale white I was getting.

 

Note brown on all glass that starts appearing rapidly.

 

Note lack of any algae in tank but Tang looks happy.

 

Keep up with heavy feeding.

 

Note dull colors, green cap is darkening but more of a brown.

 

Tang looks rather fat ... I thought sure I had some hair algae growing in the back ....

 

Look into refugium and note that it's a giant mass of hair algae with some chaeto growing beneath. Remove all algae and turn light off.

 

That brings us to yesterday and the testing.

 

So after a water change I am slowly adding PhosGuard and I have the refugium running again. I have to admit being very tempted to bring some of that feather algae over to this tank since it seems to be able to out compete hair algae ... but the Tang is so happy. And I might add still not showing any stress symptoms being in a tank too small. These guys cruise for food, and right now he doesn't have to cruise very far.

 

The other interesting thing I noticed is that in spite of the high phosphates my Alk usage has gone up to 45ml a day, and growth of all corals has increased. This is especially true for my Sunset monti, which looks horrible (dull orange, smaller polyps) but yet is encrusting at a much more rapid rate than ever before. Odd.

 

I've also purchased a CPR media tumbler which will fit down in my CPR HOB refugium. I'm looking into slowly tumbling Phosguard, but as most of you know Phosguard can't be tumbled too vigorously without the risk of releasing dust into the tank. It appears if I want to tumble GFO I need a fine media kit addition. Typical of most reef crap sold, you always have to buy something else.

[markalot]

Phosphates in the 40 now down to .02 and I have found an indicator coral. At a glance the tank seems a tad more colorful, but what has really changes is my rainbow monti, which is now showing rich green polyps again. None of the other corals look much better, but it sure does.

 

Now for some pics of the 46, which is still incredibly colorful and getting better every day.

 

I believe this first pic is a pocillapora of some sort. I thought it might be a bird of paradise but while the colors are somewhat similar the polyp structure is not. Base is green, yellow and purple, polyps are brown and purple. Really nice coloration. I saw this at a LFS and they claimed they had 2 frags of it, so I bought the bigger one. That ended up being a pink and green pocci, I went back and found this frag laying sideways in the corner of their tank. Glad I picked it up!

 

 

Some shots through the side. Flat glass so nice and clear photos for a change.

 

 

 

FTS. RBTA still doing quite well and coloring up each day.

 

[markalot]

More blue only pics. The 40 looks remarkably better with just the blues on, but not much change when all the lights on. The 46 keeps getting brighter. My Rose bubble tip is not all red. Red at the tips, green at the base, and in blue green, orange, and red. Hmmm.