Mark's 40B and 46 bow

[markalot]

40 had some significant snot build up last night, bacterial bloom from the Calcium mix most likely. Did a gravel vac and changed about 4 gallons of water. The old water, with muck, smelled alarmingly bad.

 

8.8KH, 380 calcium an hour after the water change.

 

I've got 15 gallons of RO/DI water made, will make the rest tonight, add salt, let it churn overnight and do a pretty big water change to try and balance everything out.

 

I may have identified two issues I need to change. First, I'm using Reef Builder mixed with my topoff which supplied Alk and some other chemicals usually associated with the calcium side of 2 part mix. I does The calcium part of 2 part, which also includes these (strontium, magnesium, etc). I may be chemically unbalanced due to this, so I will need to re-think how to add calcium on the cheap. I'm thinking BRS Calcium Chloride and mixing it myself is the way to go here.

 

Next is my salt mix. I have used Kent Reef Salt for a year now and while I've never believed a salt mix can lead to poor results I think I will switch over to Reef Crystals so I can remove salt mix as a possible issue.

 

Oh look, free tee shirt with purchase of a box. That's really why I'm switching.

[vlangel]

I'll be surprised if it turns out that your salt mix is the problem. However changing is probably the only way to rule that out. So, is the T-shirt really cool! And of course what are the chances that it came in your size? Instant Ocean, which is what I use were giving t shirts with their buckets and I think it was XL which was not my size. I did like the cute Lil' clown fish on it though! LOL

[markalot]

I'll be surprised if it turns out that your salt mix is the problem. However changing is probably the only way to rule that out. So, is the T-shirt really cool! And of course what are the chances that it came in your size? Instant Ocean, which is what I use were giving t shirts with their buckets and I think it was XL which was not my size. I did like the cute Lil' clown fish on it though! LOL

 

They never asked for the size. I need an XL, probably will get a small.

 

I agree on the salt, but the Kent is not doing what it once was for me, adding insane calcium and mag, so might as well switch. Calcium in my 40, 2 days after a 10% change, is back below 400. Mag was sitting at 1200, KH 7.8. I tried Oceanic as well but it left more of a brown film in my 32 gallon Brute than Kent does, so I switched back. Kent mixes very fast, and smells good!

[vlangel]

Hey, maybe we could switch t shirts? Of course you didn't say if yours was cool or not.LOL

I need to check my parameters today. Don't do that near enough! Which is another reason I have stayed away from SPS.

[markalot]

Hey, maybe we could switch t shirts? Of course you didn't say if yours was cool or not.LOL I need to check my parameters today. Don't do that near enough! Which is another reason I have stayed away from SPS.

 

It's on the truck for delivery today.

 

SPS is a disease. I love the looks of some of the best SPS tanks, so I want to try it and see if I can get close to the look just once, even for 5 minutes. I really think it's hurting my enjoyment of the hobby, but I continue.

 

When I look over all the past tank winners I tend to like the LPS, Polyp tanks the best ... then I go back and look at PodPimp's tank http://www.nano-reef.com/featured/_/2010/podpimp-r40 and I remember why I'm going down this road. Then again, there's Gena, NaturalWonders, uwwmatt ... all tanks I really enjoy looking at.

 

We'll see how long I can put up with it. I'm out of town this weekend and worried about the tanks being left alone for 2 days. This summer I will be gone for 10.

[vlangel]

Ok, you are right, Podpimps tank is amazing and when I look at those sort of tanks I get tempted to catch the SPS disease. But for me, I want my tank to look good 5 years from now and I'm afraid that I couldn't maintain that strict a regiment consistently. I guess each aquarist needs to know them self well enough and accept their limitations. And someday I want to be able to go on motorcycle road trips and not worry about the tank.

[markalot]

This is what kills me about PODPIMPS tank.

 

60mls of B-ionic Calcium, Alkalinity, and Magnesium added daily (manually dosed)

 

Manual daily dosing and he was able to achieve that color!

 

So I'm looking at the Maxspect Razor LED (16K,) on legs with the new 120 degree lenses for the 40. I've just about had it with my T5's. I have cheap AquaticLife fixtures which have good reflectors but need cooling, so I rigged up a fan to cool them, but it's not ideal. I was finally able to rent the PAR meter again and I put the sensor in front of the Forest Fire digitata and watched it bob up and down over 30 par throughout the day. My goal is to have between 200 and 250 on the floor of the tank, and it was going from 240 to 275, so I switched out a blue plus for a actinic to bring it down to 210, which then varied from 190 to 230.

 

Sure, clouds and the sun angle will vary PAR in the ocean, but I'm not interested.

 

PAR in the 46 is holding steady with a brick of various BuildMyLED fixtures on top. 200 on the milli in front, 250 on the newer Rose Milli, 290 on the monti caps and 300 - 325 on the top back row. I very nice 150 down on the Acans, which is just about perfect.

[RollaJase]

I like the razor fixtures, they definitely look the part. I almost ordered one over my Sol but ended up going with the cheaper option because I am er...cheap haha.

[markalot]

Well, our vacation plans have been sent packing.

 

My sons school robotic club (FIRST Tech Challenge) won the state championship, so off we go to the regionals in SAN ANTONIO TEXAS? !! Good grief. This will be at the end of this month so I better have everything automated enough in 3 weeks time.

[vlangel]

So.......vacation in San Antonio! Its a beautiful city and it has the river walk and the Alamo. Remember the Alamo?

[markalot]

So.......vacation in San Antonio! Its a beautiful city and it has the river walk and the Alamo. Remember the Alamo?

 

Unfortunately i don't think we'll have time. 2 days to get there, 3 day competition, 2 days to get home. Crazy! My son should have a blast, which is great, but if only it was a bit closer.

[vlangel]

Bummer. Well hopefully you will have a little time to see a little. I was only there once myself for a niece's wedding and we didn't have much time either. We did see the two things I mentioned and they were worth seeing.

[markalot]

Well well.

 

AEFW (Acropora eating flatworm) has reared its ugly head in the 46. This tank was acro free for months, and all new acros purchased at the same store from the same tank. Now I know how I got them, so at least I know who to avoid.

 

 

No evidence on either milli yet. Here's a pic of the one closest to the front of the tank.

 

 

 

I took a turkey baster and blew all acros off, then took a soft makeup brush and wiped them off. I'm oh so happy about this.

[markalot]

In better news, the 40 is coloring back up. I had inadvertently sowed feeding and noticed my display algae was vanishing and the technicolor walls were fading, so back to heavier dosing of Kent Coral Accel and Reef Roids! The Forest Fire digitata faded the most, either because of the lack of food or bad flow. I am now running the MP 10 in nutrient transport mode and the WP25 in slightly out of perfection wave mode, so it creates motion but not a big wave. This provided more water movement up at the front of the tank.

 

[RollaJase]

Sorry to hear about the AEFW again Mark . I'm lucky never to have experienced them, don't really dip or quarantine anything, perhaps I should start.

[Polarcollision]

Looking really good in the 40! If overnight deliveries could figure out how to get into my building I'd be hitting you up for the ORA green bird and the purple pocci /stylo(?). Are you putting the coloring on reef roids? It looks like all the unfortunate SPS frags are going to survive. They're just very light brown right now--looking for something less expensive than the little blue bottles to color them back up.

[markalot]

Sorry to hear about the AEFW again Mark . I'm lucky never to have experienced them, don't really dip or quarantine anything, perhaps I should start.

 

Yea, the 46 is sort of my QT tank for acros since I don't want them in this tank. I'm pretty shocked how fast they showed up and I'm debating mentioning it to the store I purchased from. I can't be 100% sure they came from that store, but based on the AEFW research thread over on RC adults would have not survived for more than 3 weeks without acros, and even if eggs survived there is no way newly hatched AEFW could have done this much damage this quickly. so I'm 99.99% sure I got an adult that came in with the ORA Plum Crazy frag. It may very well be coming in from this stores supplier.

 

Looking really good in the 40! If overnight deliveries could figure out how to get into my building I'd be hitting you up for the ORA green bird and the purple pocci /stylo(?). Are you putting the coloring on reef roids? It looks like all the unfortunate SPS frags are going to survive. They're just very light brown right now--looking for something less expensive than the little blue bottles to color them back up.

 

Thanks. Reef Roids or BRS Reef Chili seems to be key, along with Coral Accel, but you could probably replace Coral Accel with small doses of Iodine, Vitamin C, and a few other ingredients. Do you buy the biggest bottle of Coral Accel online? I know an 8 oz is $15 ($1.87 an ounce) locally while a big 64 oz jug is $35 $0.55 an ounce) online. http://www.bigalspets.com/coral-accel-64-fl-oz.html

 

I haven't shopped at Big Als in a long while, but they had the best picture of the jug of Coral Accel.

 

Yum!

[markalot]

Here is the AEFW research thread on RC. This links to the day 15 post when all adults were dead, click the thread link on the top right to view the entire thread. I gave money to this research which will start later this year.

 

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22103793&postcount=133

 

At day 15 without any acros all adults were dead, but eggs still present. What is not known at this point is how long the eggs survive and how long newly hatched AEFW can live without access to acros.

[Polarcollision]

Thanks. Reef Roids or BRS Reef Chili seems to be key, along with Coral Accel, but you could probably replace Coral Accel with small doses of Iodine, Vitamin C, and a few other ingredients. Do you buy the biggest bottle of Coral Accel online? I know an 8 oz is $15 ($1.87 an ounce) locally while a big 64 oz jug is $35 $0.55 an ounce) online. http://www.bigalspets.com/coral-accel-64-fl-oz.html

 

I haven't shopped at Big Als in a long while, but they had the best picture of the jug of Coral Accel.

Yum!

 

Well, I've had pretty good luck with montiporas and birds by just feeding the fish plus a sludge of spirulina and human seafood, so it's all new territory with acros. The first thing I tried was the nano pack of zeovit when it went on sale. It worked really well for colors, but then I read that cyano and zeovit can go hand in hand. Palm on forehead. I may have inadvertently been helping cyano by not using full zeo.

 

I think amino acids and coral snow are part of where it's at. I'll look for a sample/sale for reef roids and give it a shot, too. Seems to be a lot of people happy with it.

[markalot]

Ice storm last night, and had to vacation day today due to our street being iced up, so it was time for some dipping.

 

I first did a dab of Bayer in a small container. Enough to make it partly cloudy but still visible. Dipped the infected frag, waited, shook, and a AEFW the size of my pinky came off. I mean wow. Not dead though, just stunned. After 5 minutes put frag in clean water and dipped both millis. The oldest had bite marks and I think 2 small worms fell off, the other had no damage.

 

Dumped Bayer water, refilled, and this time put a ton of Bayer into the water until it was milky. Dipped each coral for 2 minutes, shook, rinsed twiced, then inspected frag and plug for eggs, scraping and wiping ragardless. Water was cold by now, but I returned to tank anyway.

 

Both millis had polyp extension within 30 minutes. The Plum Crazy acro is still hurting, but slight polyp extension on most polyps.

 

I doubt I got all the aefw or eggs, so will do this all again once I see any signs of re-infection.

 

What I don't understand is the 40 gallon and my big green slimer. Even though the tank was heavily infected it never showed any damage. I have taken numerous closeup pics at just about every angle and there is no sign of any aefw. Luck?

 

I think my long term plan is to maintain these acros in the 46 until big enough to frag, then cut, dip, and place the frags in the 40 where they belong. Once I know tha was a success I'll remove all the acros from the 46. That is assuming I'm still fighting AEFW.

[markalot]

So here we go.

 

At my nearby LFS, where I first purchased my acros long ago and never had AEFW issues, they got in a batch of all kinds of SPS goodies. I passed on a $70 full size rainbow stylo. Gorgeous pink, peach skin with light blue polyps. Killed me, but no, no stylos for a while. What I did buy were 2 small frags of acros, both pink / brown / purple in color. Inspected, no bite marks, dipped in Bayer for 6 minutes, then rinsed 5 times (I have a shrimp, very sensitive to Bayer). I installed a frag rack in the 40 and boom, there they are. If the Slimer is an AEFW carrier I will find out soon enough. These are small cheap frags, unlike the more expensive ones I bought for the 46 that now are infested. A fool and his money .....

 

In the 'Just another victim....' department, my wall frogspawn (46 gallon) managed to reach and destroy one head of my green acans. Effing bastard. It was a long tall reach as well, probably 8 inches straight up. Working on moving things around to give it some more room. Redirected some of the flow to make it impossible, I hope, to do that again.

[markalot]

I wanted to add one more thing. 3 weeks ago I put a couple of hockey puck warm white LEDs glued (silicone) to egg crate and used these to light my HOB fuge in the 40 gallon. I had been running without any fuge for over 6 months. Placed in a few strands of chaeto and placed an unused pump at the bottom to keep it stirred up. I forgot to look to see how it was going and last night, after cleaning the skimmer, I removed a ton of chaeto. The amount was simply amazing, I filled my 3 gallon blue bucket. Those cheap warm white LED lights grow chaeto like crazy. They has always worked well on the 46, glued to the lid of an AC110, but I was unsure if they would work on a much deeper fuge.

[metrokat]

How are the zoanthids??

[markalot]

How are the zoanthids??

Perfect, happy and colorful. Even the bit ches.

[markalot]

Pics of the new acros in the 40.

 

Distant shot, which captures the slight color variation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, I guessed right when I bought a $15 brown cap with purple polyps, guessing it might be a purple cap instead of another red cap, which the store was convinced it was.

 

Colored up pretty quickly in the 46, now moved into position with my other caps. Who was it that claimed to have better bubble algae than me? Also look at the gorgonian launching a new shoot from what was left of the encrusted area.