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Penny's Lane-A BC29 Journey. Retired


Pjanssen

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20 minutes ago, Pjanssen said:

It's too flat, no dimension. If I were to convert it to black and white you would see very little contrast.

Oh interesting, that's something I not thought about doing before. So what's the answer? Rescape? Lighting? Shopping? 

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1 hour ago, Ratvan said:

Oh interesting, that's something I not thought about doing before. So what's the answer? Rescape? Lighting? Shopping? 

Well, in this instance lighting. It's too hot, so the camera automatically adjusts. What I need do is not be lazy, take the camera off automatic and set my aperture and fstop myself, and adjust the lighting. (and buy a better lens)

 

But shopping always sounds like fun.

 

Edit-i meant aperture and shutter speed. Fstop is aperture

 

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testing alk and ca today:

Alk down to 11.3

ca just under 500

so its dropping slowly. dropped the dose another 20%

Everything still looks fine, except for some cyano. Wouldn't think it's related to the high ca/alk, but idk. let me do some research on that

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18 minutes ago, Pjanssen said:

Everything still looks fine, except for some cyano. Wouldn't think it's related to the high ca/alk, but idk. let me do some research on that

Based on what I've read, high alk is actually supposed to help curb the spread of cyano. Every tank is different though, so who knows really! 😅🤷‍♂️

 

My tank has had a little bit of cyano for basically its whole lifetime - long, thin strands of the stuff are visible here and there in the afternoon every day. I figure that as long as it doesn't get to infestation-levels, it's probably nothing to worry about. Cyanobacteria are very common in natural ecosystems, after all.

 

Great pics of the tank too! Everything looks very nice in there. 👌

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1 minute ago, billygoat said:

Based on what I've read, high alk is actually supposed to help curb the spread of cyano. Every tank is different though, so who knows really! 😅🤷‍♂️

 

My tank has had a little bit of cyano for basically its whole lifetime - long, thin strands of the stuff are visible here and there in the afternoon every day. I figure that as long as it doesn't get to infestation-levels, it's probably nothing to worry about. Cyanobacteria are very common in natural ecosystems, after all.

 

Great pics of the tank too! Everything looks very nice in there. 👌

lol. I saw your post just as I was hitting submit. 

I'm not too worried about the cyano at this point-I usually have a little here and there as well. There is a little bit more of it right now though, so I want to get it in check before it gets out of control.

I just realized, as I'm typing, the time of year. I'm getting more sun through the window for longer periods. Use to be that I had blackout curtains to block it, but since my dog decided to ruin them I no longer have them. probably the culprit, because where the sun hits is where the increased cyano is.

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On 2/3/2020 at 9:58 PM, Pjanssen said:

@teenyreef, how do you frag your Monitis?

Sorry, I missed this while I was doing my Invisible Man thing!

 

I usually "cut" them with some small forceps and just break off little chunks. Kind of like trimming toe nails. If it's too thick I use bone cutters.

 

I've used a dremel with a diamond wheel for thick corals. It works well, but you'll get flying coral crap EVERYWHERE.  The good news is you can't kill a monticap and it will just come back better than ever a week after you trim.

 

The biggest thing to watch is your alk consumption. I've had alk consumption go down as much as 50-75% after a big monticap trim. It's crazy how much it can change. Since you're alk is higher than you like right now, I would cut dosing by 25-50% after the trim. And definitely check alk every day for a couple weeks after the trim and make adjustments.

 

PS: they look fantastic 🙂

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Water change done. Back to weekly instead of bi-weekly for now. Alkalinity down to 9.7, Calcium down to 470. Another adjustment to bring it down just a bit more. 

Pink Hippos are still doing well, so I'm happy about that.

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  • 1 month later...

Well I finally did it. Cut up the giant red monti cap. As beautiful and impressive as it was, it was taking over everything. Moved the other monti caps to the back and up higher in the tank, so for now I've dimmed the lights a little so as to hopefully avoid burning them.

FTS

P6020084.thumb.jpeg.05d437d4096f5cd7d7e660000b556cf0.jpeg

 

Right side view

P6020086.thumb.jpeg.c775b82935526408f1fbc6eac32330e8.jpeg

 

Left side view

P6020085.thumb.jpeg.462805898e824990614da70b2f8f961e.jpeg

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Trying to figure out why my yellow Zoanthids, including King Midas on the bottom and LA Lakers on the top, have turned green, and what to do about it. After I acclimate the Monti's to their new location I am going to try increasing the light intensity to see if it helps.

P6020091.thumb.jpeg.3370cb6ece0c2b4ae9c4f471684b28fe.jpeg

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Question for all you Chemistry experts ( @mitten_reef,  @DreC80 and others 😄)

Having removed a huge portion of the Monticap, should I reduce my Ca and Alk dosing to compensate for the likely less consumption? currently I'm only dosing 4mg of each a day anyway. dropping down to 3 would be a 25% reduction, which seems like a big drop. 

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mitten_reef
3 minutes ago, Pjanssen said:

Question for all you Chemistry experts ( @mitten_reef,  @DreC80 and others 😄)

Having removed a huge portion of the Monticap, should I reduce my Ca and Alk dosing to compensate for the likely less consumption? currently I'm only dosing 4mg of each a day anyway. dropping down to 3 would be a 25% reduction, which seems like a big drop. 

Monti can consume a lot of alk when they are huge. You don’t seem to have many other stony corals that would pick up the slack.  I’d say try reduce to 3 ml a day, and check back in one week. If it gets too low, you can always bump it back up to 4 ml a day then. 

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Ha, you said expert 🤣.

 

I agree with mitten though.  3ml per day is a safe bet...just test every other day over the next few days and see how it does.

 

A little too low for alk always seems better than too high in my experience with SPS.

 

 

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So 4ml of each Ca and Alk seems to be the magic number

Ca 450

Alk 7.7

 

Monti's seem to be adjusting well to their new position. gradually increasing intensity over the next few weeks.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So during an overdue water change and generally paying some attention to the tank, I noticed that the Cyphestrea is losing color. Likely due to moving the monti's and exposing them to too much light. So I ripped the rock on it's side, which I was hoping was going to be a simple thing, but now it never is. I think it will be good for the Cyphestrea, but now I have other empty space that I need to fill.

 

And on the other side of the tank, I flipped a mushroom rock on it's side, because I wast to add some height to the right side of he tank. was thinking maybe a Stylophora or Pink Birds nest. Or maybe try another gold/yellow torch, but I think it will get too much flow there.

 

Any thoughts?

P6190128.thumb.jpeg.3881c2c6addff0a8a19d1574963f7374.jpegP6190122.thumb.jpeg.4a2d1f860d107ea93ddd1e812318fa15.jpegP6190123.thumb.jpeg.07610491ec5ce0bbb0e3d193b7aea27b.jpeg

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Long overdue maintenance today. I hate when I neglect this tank. Lots of some kind of turf algae lurking in the shadows. Deciding whether I want to do a black out period & dose some Vibrin, or just do another water change in a few days and see what happens. Things don't look too bad considering. Few of the Zoas are closed up, but other than that I don't see any signs of stress.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Algae looks about the same, maybe a little less. Last week I reduced the light intensity a little, and feeding a little less. This week I've reduced the light intensity and length of photo period to try to cut back on the algae a little more before I decide on the chemical route (AKA Vibrin-which I guess technically would be biologic, since it is a bacteria).  Also added a bit of GFO to the carbon.

 

Purple Idaho Grape monti seems like it has faded a bit. Hopefully the GFO will reduce the phosphorous enough to make it happy again.

 

Alkalinity and Calcium remain stable at 8.0 and 470 respectively.

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  • Pjanssen changed the title to Penny's Lane-A BC29 Journey. FTS July 27,2020

Algae is looking quite a bit better already. still there, but better. A few pics.

 

FTS

P7270148.thumb.jpeg.477e2c8e22383c7263392cb9fa5ebe62.jpeg

 

Burning banana

P7270153.thumb.jpeg.adaa473efeb758ab4aa5baee2daa010a.jpeg

 

Cyphestrea looking better after moving it to the shadeP7270155.thumb.jpeg.64be9b00ddd678dd6d3a834c23d5fdae.jpeg

 

Duncan is very happy

P7270156.thumb.jpeg.e49db4b2a9b4e714dca08d114f4eb4b5.jpeg

 

Couple of top downs

Acans

P7270159.thumb.jpeg.158164059e70c863aec2e69fdc85f622.jpeg

 

Utter chaos

P7270158.thumb.jpeg.191f9b3aebc8b3356022e1bd217deba6.jpeg

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  • 3 weeks later...

🙄 Another doser mishap. Went to do a water change and noticed a bunch of "stuff" on the floor behind the tank. Now what?" Yep, the alkalinity  tube running from the doser to the tank had become dislodged. I don't know for how long, we were at of town last week. Alkalinity is down to 5.7. For some reason the calcium is down to 400, and nothing was wrong with that line. Maybe it's time for a new doser?

 

Corals look pretty good, except most of the zoanthids are closed up. Still battling sone turf algae. I think I'm going to try a lawnmower blenny again. It always works, but then when it runs out of algae it tends to starve. I'll have to figure out a substitute to feed it when the time comes. 

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Couple new pics, even though the tank is not at it's best.

 

Duncan looks awesome

 

P8160174.thumb.jpeg.ef2d4eff73cc53428df26aeb30fba57d.jpeg

 

 

Colors and growth of the montis are really nice. Camera doesn't really capture the purple of the Idaho grape

 

 

P8160188.thumb.jpeg.7db7b4d13ffcf6487f663c1518e9764a.jpeg

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  • Pjanssen changed the title to Penny's Lane-A BC29 Journey. Retired

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