The Narrow Sea - Aqueon Evolve 4

[lkoechle]

Darn, sorry to hear that. I've always liked the look of those plate coral.

 

When I start buying coral for my tank, I'm planning on running a stripped-down little 2.5g to put frags in for quarantine and observation (for at least a week or two) before moving them to my display. Something to think about that might prevent that kind of tumultuous acclimation with new specimens.

 

I suppose, on the bright side... at least you have the plot back for your ric garden? Heh.

Yeah, we've planning on setting up another tank for frags. I even suggested starting it up with the AC70 but, like I said, husband was pretty over it by that point lol.

[lkoechle]

Gah! The bane of my saltwater existence has arrived! It appears a fireworm rode in on my GSP and survived the dip. Despite my displeasure with their wormy kind, I would usually not be so concerned. They always get in eventually. But he is big, I'm 95% it is a fireworm and not a bristleworm and bigger than my clown goby. So he's got to go. Meraxes lives in caves so this unwelcomed tenant has to be evicted for my teeny fish's safety.

 

So, we've set a pantyhose trap. Hopefully, the bastard will get tangled in it tonight and into the trash tomorrow.

[lnglostsurfer]

Wow, I've been out of the game for awhile now but this tank is really coming along nice! The zoas look great! I love the long skirted rastas, probably one of my favorite zoas. Look forward to seeing your progress!

[lkoechle]

Wow, I've been out of the game for awhile now but this tank is really coming along nice! The zoas look great! I love the long skirted rastas, probably one of my favorite zoas. Look forward to seeing your progress!

Thanks. Hopefully it'll keep going well.

 

Everything in the tank is still pretty pissed off since the chalice coral catastrophe. Downsides of a pico I guess. I did a 40% water change but most of the zoas are closed up still. The ricordea is a little happier and I think has been in the process of splitting over the last couple days but I haven't seen a mouth on the smaller portion. The GSP is still MIA. It was closest to the chalices in the tank. Surprisingly, GSP seem to love to hold a grudge against me. I'm also wondering if the newly discovered fireworm is agitating them at all since when I saw him for the first time, it was worming its way out of my GSP rock.

 

Fireworm attempt failed last night but we're trying again tonight. Meraxes has also been pretty timid so I'm wondering if the chemistry off. If everything is still as angry tomorrow as it is today, I'm going to test and go from there. Given the water changes and the addition of Purigen, however, I cannot imagine what would be off. I'm hoping they're still just upset from the chalice coral incident.

[LylaPico]

Hey, sorry to hear about your chalices and that whole incident. And the fireworm. Those buggers hurt so be careful. the gsp is resilient, so don't worry.

[lkoechle]

Success! The trap didn't work. I was using the pantyhose method. Major fail. But this morning the bugger was wrapped around the end of the gsp rock. I was just going to drop in the trap and wait, but then the bugger went after a nass snail! can you believe that? I thought they were just scavengers. I went all mama bear on the tank after that. You attack my zombie snails, you attack me. lol After attempts of luring it out with shrimp, I decided to see if I could take the rock out with him on it. He fell off. At first I was going, "Awww sh**!" But then I attached a little Dixie cup to the end of my forceps and scooped out all the substrate he was on with him in it. Sweet, sweet success.

 

The coral look a slight more happier today. Only two of the five zoa populations are closed with some random polyps on the open one. The Ric's opened up a lot more but the GSP is still closed. Not surprising considering where I found the worm today. I did another 20% water change and hoping for the best. Another 20% change will happen tonight since it's feeding day. I checked the salinity since I just got a new bucket from the LFS and thought maybe that was it but its good. I haven't done my other tests yet since, I'll be honest, I don't see the point. The remedy to anything that would be off in that is water changes. I'm speculating it may be nitrates from the chalice slime and the shrimp being left in the tank but at this point all the water from the chalices should have been removed. I am encouraged with everything looking happier today. I'm optimistic that another two days and everyone will be back to normal.

 

Also, I took out the standard Evolve filter (just floss and carbon) when I put in the purigen. I couldn't fit them both back there. Would removing the floss cause any negative effects that I may be seeing in the coral being pissed? I'm not too worried about the carbon since the purigen should do the same job. I'm planning on buying some more floss I can cut down to size and throw in the back. Thoughts?

[LylaPico]

I have to say, good job. As to the filter. I can't give any advice as i have kept the carbon filter made for the tank. :/ sorry. I did think about continuing to buy the pouches, dumping out the carbon and adding chemipure elite though. But, I haven't been brave enough to try it yet.

[lkoechle]

I have to say, good job. As to the filter. I can't give any advice as i have kept the carbon filter made for the tank. :/ sorry. I did think about continuing to buy the pouches, dumping out the carbon and adding chemipure elite though. But, I haven't been brave enough to try it yet.

 

When I first did all my research before getting in the hobby, I read of a few people taking those kinds of filters, cutting them open, dumping out the carbon, replacing the carbon, and then supergluing it shut and just did it like that indefinitely. I forget what filter it was for but seems like a lot of work to me. I've heard rumors of some really great evolve mods out there for the filter and see what others are up to back there.

[LylaPico]

When I first did all my research before getting in the hobby, I read of a few people taking those kinds of filters, cutting them open, dumping out the carbon, replacing the carbon, and then supergluing it shut and just did it like that indefinitely. I forget what filter it was for but seems like a lot of work to me. I've heard rumors of some really great evolve mods out there for the filter and see what others are up to back there.

Eh, not too much work. I might give it a try soon. If I do, I'll let you know how it goes.

[lkoechle]

Eh, not too much work. I might give it a try soon. If I do, I'll let you know how it goes.

 

I just found this video on youtube:

 

It's for the 8 but most of it can work with the 4. I don't know the dimensions of the modular surface skimmer he's using though. But if it fits, I think I'll probably copy this exactly.

[LylaPico]

Thanks for that. I might try it out. Even without the surface skimmer, looks like it would save me a few bucks a month. lol.

[lkoechle]

Yeah he has another mod with the pump. It's just taking off the nozzle and a shield inside the pump. really bumps up your flow. I just did it to see what the difference would be, because the mods aren't permanent, you can easily reassemble it. It takes like two minutes to do. And it's like night and day.

[lkoechle]

After some reading, I think I may have come to the bottom of what's pissed the corals off so badly: the Purigen.

 

I came accross a random thread of someone saying running carbon for the first time can cause corals to get made because it will pull out stuff more quickly than the corals can happily acclimate to. That led to googling if Purigen can do the same thing, which it can. Within a couple of hours of adding the Purigen, the tank was noticeably clearer and the water was pretty clear to begin with. So, since no other conclusion makes sense, I'm going with the unhappiness being caused by the purigen. Hopefully everything will adjust and open up again soon.

 

On the good side, while I re-angered what was happy with the increase in flow, I learned one unexpected thing: clown gobies love flow. My normally shy Meraxes has been bouncing all over the tank since the flow increase. lol

[LylaPico]

Yeah. All the clown gobies at the lfs are always active and sell well because the owner keeps the flow up.

[lkoechle]

Yeah. All the clown gobies at the lfs are always active and sell well because the owner keeps the flow up.

It's interesting how something like that can affect a fish's behavior. I never thought it would be a big deal to him since they're perchers and not swimmers.

[lkoechle]

So, this tank is just going through a funk. lol My heater's been getting stuck in the on position. So, I'm looking at the finnex aquarium heater controller. It's only $30 and it's better than stressing out my stuff more than what it's been. Thanks to the flooding in Colorado, the temperatures are also dropping which isn't bad for me since the last few weeks were brutal. But it means I really need to have a reliable heater to keep everything stress free. I'm thinking about maintaining the temps close to 80 since that's what it's been running at and I read a few articles saying the lifespan and growth of corals do better at higher temperatures than most hobbyists keep their tanks. So far it's been doing great at 80 to 82. So if the controller works, I think I'm going to stick to it.

 

On a side note, I may have the opportunity to get some free baby ricordea or get slightly larger ones at 5 for $20 from a local reefer. So I'm pretty excited about that. It'd be awesome to really get the ric garden started. Then I just have to decide how long I'm willing to let it grow out before adding my sexies. I know it's not necessary at all for the sexies, but I would love to present them and say "This is your kingdom! Be free my little ones!" and have them absolutely bowled over by the expanse of their new domain.

[Lucubration]

I love the Finnex controllers I have. They're a thermometer and heater safety in one package, and at a reasonable price.

 

Good luck on your ric garden! Love those little shrooms. That local find sounds like a great opportunity for you.

[lkoechle]

Just got back from my first MASC (Marine Aquarium Society of Colorado) frag swap. It was our first time going to a meeting and we didn't bring anything since the tank is still recovering. One guy had to bail early and gave us the tickets for his frags since we were new. Once the swapping was under way, you got a ticket based on the rarity of the coral you brought. You then are allowed to choose from that category or under. One guy who had all the highest level ticket, gave one away for free by the old "guess the number" which we got and then gave us another one later on during the next category because he didn't want us to wait until the very end. He was very nice. Everyone was very generous and just having a great time.

 

For not having brought anything, I came away with one Sunny D polyp, a colony of Alpha and Omega zoas, four Mohawk polyps, a red mushroom someone just wanted to be rid of, and a frag of pink and green hammer. We're hopefully going to put together the 10 or 20 soon so we can be fragging our stuff to take to the next one and be able to give back what was given to us. Which is sort of the whole point of the frag swap. Even at the end, if we didn't have any tickets, we could still pick from everything left over. They call it the "Don't Break The Chain" swap like paying it forward. So you can take, but you are expected to give back. Hopefully in the next couple of months, finances providing, we can set up the frag tank so for that exact purpose. I had a great time and was really blown away by their hospitality. Pictures will come when they're open!

[dtitus1]

I will say, with the way the chambers are I found it very difficult to keep floss in mine last time as it would restrict the flow after 3-4 days and then throw the water balance between the chambers off and the pump would start making noise and shoot bubbles everywhere. I think the only real solution if you wanted to run floss would be to put an azoo palm filter on the back, which I'm still deciding if I want to do it or not.

 

I've also never had any problems with purigen and won't run a tank without it.

[lkoechle]

I will say, with the way the chambers are I found it very difficult to keep floss in mine last time as it would restrict the flow after 3-4 days and then throw the water balance between the chambers off and the pump would start making noise and shoot bubbles everywhere. I think the only real solution if you wanted to run floss would be to put an azoo palm filter on the back, which I'm still deciding if I want to do it or not.

 

I've also never had any problems with purigen and won't run a tank without it.

 

I haven't had any problems with the floss so far. I've been changing it out once a week or so.

 

The tank is still angry for some reason. Can't figure it out. Everything measures good and the new controller is keeping the temp from swinging. The GSP is pissed from a calcium addition about a week ago. I've learned this particular frag likes to close up for 2 weeks or so at a time. Very frustrating but it's finally starting to open again. The Rastas have been closed for about a month now but I moved them to a different part of the tank to see if different flow & lighting would help and it seems to be peeking open a little. I can at least see the green skirt through the peep hole. The Darth Mauls have been pissed for the last three days and not fully opening. And I think that covers all the angry ones. Everyone else seems fine and dandy.

 

The hammer is loving the tank (and I know the hammer is not the cause of the anger. All the pissed off ones are far away from it.) And so is the ric. In fact:

 

 

I should be saying "rics" since it split! So, I'm very happy that at least one coral is showing much happiness even if the others are not.

[lkoechle]

Update: the saga continues. Since nothing chemically seems to be the problem with the tank, we went with ideas that maybe it was the light. Surprisingly, everything seemed to do well under them for several months. But since nothing chemically was wrong, the heater controller is keeping the temp stable, and nothing else changed in the tank, it had to be the lights. Why everything started hating them so violently so suddenly? I have no idea. But clearly they've had enough. With a baby on the way and all other ready-made LEDs seeming to be only nominally better than the existing light, we decided to not buy a new light and, instead, do overkill and break out our AI SOL unit that has been in storage since we pulled down the 20. So far, I think everything is doing better. I don't know, only time will tell, the tank still hasn't seemed to fully recover from the chalice incident. But, this is the last idea we have as to what can be causing the stress.

 

On an off topic note: Friday we went in for my 20 week anatomy scan on our little reefer and it is a BOY! So, super excited about that. It was a pretty awesome day.

 

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