Walker's 90g - brb nuking algae

[NanoTopia]

Sounds like your skimmer was stripping too much from the water. I think taking the GFO off line was a good move.

[Walker]

First, the damage. Dead birdsnest ;_;

From this:

to this:

 

There was a marked change even in the hardiest green slimer:

From this:

To this:

[Walker]

The most marked change was the yellow tortuosa:

From this:

To this:

 

Even my wife was stunned by the difference in the Incredible Hulk coral. The reference shot was a bit older, but you can tell the difference:

4 months ago:

Today:

 

I don't have any before shots, but trust me, this one was a pale orange a month ago:

 

 

And of course, FTS:

 

 

 

[Roshan8768]

Looks fantastic man.... your coralline is really taking off as well

[Walker]

After the recovery of the tank from RTN, I decided to celebrate by adding 4 new SPS to replace the three that were lost. Pics tomorrow!

[Walker]

First coral is a duplicate - a Red Planet frag. I have what is allegedly a red planet but it never grew up, just encrusted and encrusted. I hope this one will be better:

 

Second one is a Joe the Coral lookalike. It's not certified ORA so I can't claim it's a Joe, but it looks quite like it from the big colony I got it from:

 

Third is a tortuosa colour morph (and I do love my torts). The guy I got it from calls it a westcoast tort. It is very similar to a cali tort, but with a dark purple base instead of green.

 

Fourth is the pick of the litter. It's a blue/purple base millipora, with neon green polyps. This picture unfortunately doesn't do it justice. I look forward to growing this bad boy out.

[Walker]

As you've seen in the latest photos, I've started to have an algae problem. I did a test today and my nitrates were zero (expected) and phosphates at 0.25! Without GFO to balance out the carbon dosing, the phosphates have gone up from undetectable. This is good for the corals but it's getting to the point where algae is starting to take over.

 

I've restarted my reactor with a very minimal amount of GFO (2 tablespoons) with a mixture of ROX carbon as opposed to the 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) I was using when I shut it down due to RTN. This is to reduce GFO to lower levels and then I aim to use 1 tablespoon every 2 weeks when I change the carbon as well.

[Walker]

It seems like the reactor does not work well with a mix of ROX carbon and GFO. I've dialed down the flow enough that the GFO was able to solidify and completely block the reactor (it didn't even channel). I've tossed the ROX and GFO after a week and am now trying reverse flow with the valve half open (maybe around 30gph?). I plan to change the carbon/GFO mix every two weeks, so only a minimal amount of media is in the reactor. Hopefully that means the channeling will be kept to a minimum.

[Walker]

Many moons ago, a local reefer gave me three dove snails. He said that they reproduced like crazy in his aquarium. I gratefully took them and placed them in my 35g. Now, over a year and a tank transfer later, I've spotted the first of their fully grown progeny. I'm actually surprised I haven't seen them before, but I guess they're not like their parents that are completely and fully encrusted with coralline.

 

[Walker]

Monthly update: I've restarted the GFO, but with minimal amounts now. I am having some algae troubles, but they are mostly slow-growing red turf and bubble algae that gets killed by the slightest touch of vinegar. I've taken to squirting problem spots with vinegar twice a week, letting the CUC deal with the dead algae, and then moving on to another spot. It takes a while in a 90g but it's getting there! This is infinitely better than dealing with STN on acros.

 

Speaking of corals, all of the established corals have responded very well to increased nutrients. I am now seeing growth that I haven't seen before. My tricolour acros (a tricolour bonsai and a purple tricolour) which have been languishing for forever have now started sending out branches. Three out of the four new frags are doing very well. The westcoast tort looks like it has STN, which means I'll have to re-frag it soon. I blame myself for that one - I planted it right on top of turf algae and it didn't like that.

 

The LPS are loving the increased feeding and higher nutrients. This torch has gotten bigger and fatter - much happier than even a month ago.

 

 

I've had to frag my cali tort and green slimer as they were getting a bit big. I'll probably try to sell this myself locally as opposed to selling it back to the LFS.

 

[Walker]

FTS. Note that my coralline has finally taken off as well. I'm at a loss as to how to scrape the glass near the bottom, but I'll figure it out.

 

[Walker]

Yesterday I just fed the fish, turned my back to it, and heard a *splash*. I think my yellow coris tried to follow the mysis trail into the overflow, jumped, and managed to fit in the 1/4" gap between mesh and overflow.

 

 

This is the first time ever that I've needed to fish something out of the overflow. At first I thought I'd be Wile E. Coyote, suuuuuper-genius and cover the overflow top with a curved bowl, then scare the coris into jumping and caroming off the bowl into the tank. Nope, didn't work - the bowl is opaque so once the bowl is over the overflow, it gets dark and the coris dives down. Bah. Back to basics.

 

I used a net to reach all the way down and move it from side to side to encourage him to move up. Then, I'd move the net up and chances are good that he dives down into the net. I got him and tossed him back. He dove straight into the sand and slept.

 

Success, right? Random occurence, never going to happen again, right? NOPE.

 

I was doing weekly water change today and it spooked the coris. Surprise, surprise, he had learned that the overflow is a quiet, rich hiding spot full of copepods. *splash* indeed. Gaaaah. I'm starting to get annoyed at you, Mr. Yellow Coris. I fished him out with the net again (not a pleasant experience for both of us), and tossed him back. He's a little worse for wear, but he's active and not hiding, so hopefully he'll recover.

 

This time, I grabbed my gutter-guard and ziptied some to the top of the overflow. If he gets through that, he's some kind of fish Houdini and deserves to eat all the pods in the overflow.

 

 

*sigh* the things we do for our fishy friends.

[Roshan8768]

Haha nice!! if there's a fish of capable of getting around that though, it's the Yellow Coris... super intelligent fish for its size

[Walker]

Haha nice!! if there's a fish of capable of getting around that though, it's the Yellow Coris... super intelligent fish for its size

I think it learned that the netting has a bit of give in it, so if it caroms off the top it has an extra 1/8" of space. The gutter guard is right up against the net, so hopefully that dissuades it. I wouldn't like it to be skewered onto the gutter guard.

 

The Left Coast of Canada has hit summer, so that means we hit 27 degrees C near the water, higher indoors and inland. My tank hit 83 F a few days ago, which is higher than what I'm comfortable with. I decided to mitigate it a bit by freezing three water bottles and dunking them in the sump 2x a day. It drops the average temperature by a degree - not much, but at least it's not hitting 84F+.

 

 

And while I'm taking pictures of my freezer - my two weeks' worth of frozen fish food. It's quite convenient to put them in medicine boxes, especially since I feed both hikari and PE mysis. The yellow coris doesn't care for hikari but eats PE. The other fish don't particularly care, but I like the coris, so he gets special treatment.

 

[NanoTopia]

The Left Coast of Canada has hit summer, so that means we hit 27 degrees C near the water, higher indoors and inland. My tank hit 83 F a few days ago, which is higher than what I'm comfortable with. I decided to mitigate it a bit by freezing three water bottles and dunking them in the sump 2x a day. It drops the average temperature by a degree - not much, but at least it's not hitting 84F+.

 

32-34c in the Valley, your pic made laugh and remember the good old days before air conditioning in the house. Very stressful to say the least when you are constantly checking tank temp and swapping bottle 24/7. I feel for ya. I think if I didn't have air cond now I would have bought a chiller for the tank even if it was only used for a couple of months a year, just couldn't go through that again. Good luck, its supposed to cool down by Thursday

[Walker]

Because I've been consciously letting my reef have higher phosphates, algae has made a resurgence and I'm now in the position of having to augment my CUC. My trochus are breeding which is good, but they don't eat:

 

1. red wire algae

2. sandbed diatoms and detritus

3. bubble algae

 

I'm in the process of augmenting my crew with fighting conches, an emerald crab, and turbos. I wanted Mexican turbos but the LFS doesn't have them in stock yet, so I got two of the regular run-of-the-mill turbos. So far, so good.

 

You can clearly see the difference from left (no turbo) and right (with a turbo):

 

I'm sorely tempted to try another fish, but I'm not too sure what to add yet. Anthias are enticing, but I might end up with another wrasse. I wated another grazer (rabbitfish or tang) but I've been told it's not a good idea to add another.

[Walker]

One of the turbos didn't make it, but the other one is making inroads into the wire algae. I think I need at least one more, but I'll wait until the Mexican turbos come in at the LFS.

 

The rock to the right used to have a light covering of gelidium. All gone.

 

One of the three new fighting conches. It's pretty cool to see them eat. This one is pretty stealthy.

 

I just have to shill for this product - the Easy Blade Scraper attachment. Simple yet ingenious It needs the bigger magfloats (or equivalent), but just superglue it on and slip in one of the stainless steel blades. Makes it so much easier to scrape coralline on the bottom half of the tank. Totally worth it.

 

I couldn't get a pic of the emerald as it's taken to wandering around the aquarium at night, and hiding during the day, bah.

 

As far as new additions go, I think I have two or three more spots for SPS and that's it. I'll monitor the local reef forums and will be pretty selective as to what I'll add. I think a red dragon will be on that list, and maybe (hopefully) someone will sell frags of Reef Raft corals.

 

I'm in the process of working out the last few fish. I suspect I won't be adding them until later on in the year, but the front runners have to be some sort of anthias. So far I'm leaning towards threadfin (canberryi) or bartlett's.

[Walker]

I've finally managed to tune in the Tunze 9410. I know it's one of the better skimmers but without a gate valve in the outflow, it is a HUGE pain in the ass to tune. If I had to choose again, I wouldn't use a 9410 and change it over to a Vertex 150. Net effect of this, however, was that my aquarium wasn't skimmed all that well for the past month. Lots of algae issues, even though a turbo is now working the area as well. Here's a view of the dead RTN'd birdsnest:

 

On the plus side, corals (especially LPS) are very happy.

 

I've been feeding a lot because I've recently added a Bartlett Anthias pair. Very handsome looking fish, and they are very active - well worth the extra feedings. Hope they stay on the less belligerent side.

 

 

Since the STN event, I've taken to feeding 3x a day anyway, so anthias was within the realm of possibility. The Lubbock fairy wrasse has become absolutely massive. I think it's up to its full adult size, maybe even larger. Here it is in comparison to the kole tang:

 

And solo:

[Walker]

Just for fun, a 1.5 month growth comparison of the Incredible Hulk acro:

 

mid-June:

 

August:

Note that my coralline has finally taken off and is now covering the vast majority of the aquarium rear glass.

 

FTS 2014-08-03:

[Walker]

A death in one of my original 35g creatures - the skunk cleaner shrimp. The older shrimp I`ve had since it was a wee little ebi (from July 2012). I`ve heard that skunk cleaners only last a year to two years, and this one finally bit the dust a little bit after living a little bit over two years. I didn`t see it (only saw a crab chewing on the last vestiges of tail), but it looks like it just up and failed to molt. I`ll monitor its mate (a much younger one) but I think it`ll be ok.

[Walker]

My first photo of the cleaner shrimp - note the nice clean dry rock it's perched on:

[Roshan8768]

That is a HUGE Lubbock's Fairy wrasse! Mine is only 2"

 

It recently spent some quality time on my floor when I took the screen off of my tank and walked away for 5-10 minutes. Somehow it held on to life and is still doing well today.

 

As far as the algae on the glass goes, get that new TUNZE care magnet thing. It rocks and won't scratch your glass... just got mine and I'm super impressed. Either that or the Flipper scraper would do the trick.

 

Tank is coming along

[Walker]

It's been a down month for the tank. I lost one new frag (the tortuosa) and it looks like I'm losing my large yellow tort as well. I think the stress of being constantly picked on by a hammer coral has taken its toll. My main colony of cali tort is not looking too hot either after being constantly stung by the same hammer. I've fragged the yellow tort and have a backup of the cali which is doing well. I'll probably do another frag... and I'll probably cut the hammer down to size. It's thriving, which is great, but it's taking up way too much space.

 

I've also decided to finally remove the dead skeletons of my BOP and birdsnest, as they're attracting algae growth of every kind. It's kinda sad to remove them, but I figure the tank will be better without them. I'll probably eventually get another frag of BOP as well, as the guy I got it from is local.

 

Cut stump of a BOP:

Space where the birdsnest was (taken up by a torch):

 

On the plus side, I think I'm starting to get a handle on how much GFO to use to maintain .04 P04 - 1/2 cup per 2 weeks. I've increased it to 3/4 cup and will see if I can finally drop it to below .015, then start maintaining it at 1/2 cup.

 

The turbo snails have done a very good job trimming the red wire algae I have, evidenced by the return nozzles now being much cleaner. Looks like they preferentially eat red algae, but they're starting with the green stuff now that most of the red is gone.

 

I'm trying to rescue the last few remnants of the blue milli frag I got - it started STN'ing two weeks ago and I had to break it apart to frag it:

Here's the yellow tort frag - note it's actually mostly brown due to high PO4 and stress:

 

I have also noticed with lower nutrients that a few SPS are starting to get burnt tips, presumably from high alk + carbon dosing. I have just switched from ESV B-ionic to Randy's recipe, which is much less potent. What I'll do is slowly drop my alk from 12 to 8-9 over a week or so (which the switch allows me to do), and then adjust the dosing schedule. Here's to hoping everything will work out, and next month I can report on some happier frags .

FTS 2014-09-07:

[NanoTopia]

Sorry to hear about all this, it does look like you are struggling with nutrients.

 

Are you sure they are burnt tips and not growth tips? If burnt tips it could be from ALK swings or just high elements. Check your K and Sr if you are dosing those as well.

[Walker]

Sorry to hear about all this, it does look like you are struggling with nutrients.

 

Are you sure they are burnt tips and not growth tips? If burnt tips it could be from ALK swings or just high elements. Check your K and Sr if you are dosing those as well.

 

Pretty sure they are burnt tips - it looks like white skeleton on tips, no flesh. When my phosphate jumped too high, all of the growth tips disappeared on my SPS. When I finally got a handle on it, the white tips started showing up. My alk has been traditionally very high (11-12dKH) as the salt mixes I've used mix that high, but I've never had a problem with burnt tips until now. This is why I'm reducing alk and hoping that it will rectify the problem.