Aqueon Evolve 2 Soft Corals: First attempt at SW

[mechishark7]

Should I do a water change before adding CUC or corals?

[Horerczy]

Should I do a water change before adding CUC or corals?

Yes. About 50% i think.

 

I just bought distilled water from Walmart for .88 cents a gallon.

Even better.

[mechishark7]

Giving it a rinse should be fine. Just be aware whatever is in the rinse water might moderate into the tank with the filter pad.

 

 

Yes. About 50% i think.

 

Rinsing the filter pad in the water I'm changing out of the tank, figured it's better than using tap water?

[Horerczy]

It will be perfect for a rinse.

[mechishark7]

Also stopped by Petco today to get my water tested and to check out their new frag stock. Water PH was a little low, 7.8-7.9ish? Assuming the 50% water change I'm doing will help level that out. Also picked up distilled water from Shaw's today, $0.99 a gallon, sorry for freaking out on you Mstefa1, I just remember seeing RO beta water at petsmart for like $9 a gallon and thought thats what RO/DI would cost and that that was ridiculous.

 

Frag stock at petco was scarce, however, there was one zoa frag with about 12 heads on it. Looked like a really cool mix of (honestly these guesses are complete shots in the dark) mostly neon green heads, with 1-2 purples and like 3 oranges. Couldn't get a good pic of it and don't clearly remember what exactly they looked like, but it was vibrant.

 

Luckily for my tank (I'm super impatient), the kid working there was new and couldn't ID or find any SKUs for the frags, so I'm going back tomorrow morning to grab it. This will give some time for the water change to cycle.

 

Going to research acclimating/introducing new zoas into a tank now, any specific advice on this?

[Horerczy]

Get some airline and a small flow valve for it.

Use it to suction out water from the tank and dip into the bag with the coral.

Take a small about of water every 15 or so minutes. Acclimate for about 2 hours.

Pull the zoas out and put on your tank.

 

You can probably do zoas in an hour instead of two.

 

Get some extra water to refill what you draw from the tank.

 

You should return over about 1.5x the water in the bag during acclamation. The slower the duo the better.

 

That frag sounds pretty epic.

[mechishark7]

That frag sounds pretty epic.

 

Yeah I just called them up and had them hold it for me. I don't want to talk it up too much though, especially as I'm a noob and mesmerized by the simplest things and also that it might not look as great under my stock lights for now.

[Horerczy]

We shall see. Sometimes petco gets the nicest frags.

[mechishark7]

Get some airline and a small flow valve for it.

Use it to suction out water from the tank and dip into the bag with the coral.

Take a small about of water every 15 or so minutes. Acclimate for about 2 hours.

Pull the zoas out and put on your tank.

 

You can probably do zoas in an hour instead of two.

 

Get some extra water to refill what you draw from the tank.

 

You should return over about 1.5x the water in the bag during acclamation. The slower the duo the better.

 

So for clarification:

 

I bring the zoas home in a bag from the store with water in it

 

I run my air filter hose from the tank to the bag

 

I let a little bit of water from the tank to trickle into the zoa bag every 15 minutes until I have added 1.5 times the volume of water that was already present in the bag over the course of an hour

 

After this hour I pull the zoa frag from the bag and put it in the tank

 

I discard the water in the zoa bag

 

I add new water to the tank to bring it back up to its level

 

Correct?

 

Can I cut the heads from the frag rock and glue them to my live tank rock? Or is that just for hard corals? I'm thinking of separating the heads by color and placing them in different places on the rock. Or do I just put the whole frag rock with zoas on my live rock?

[Horerczy]

Let the water trickle continuously pull a small amount out every 15 minutes. About 4oz is what i typically get out every 15 minutes. Slow drip is best.

 

You can frag zoas that way but i would not suggest compounding that kind of stress on the corals so soon.

[Mstefa1]

Get some airline and a small flow valve for it.

Use it to suction out water from the tank and dip into the bag with the coral.

Take a small about of water every 15 or so minutes. Acclimate for about 2 hours.

Pull the zoas out and put on your tank.

 

You can probably do zoas in an hour instead of two.

 

Get some extra water to refill what you draw from the tank.

 

You should return over about 1.5x the water in the bag during acclamation. The slower the duo the better.

 

That frag sounds pretty epic.

 

 

No way, not for coral acclimation.

 

Temp acclimate your corals by floating the bag in your tank. Prepare a coral dip. Dip your corals in the dip for up to 15 minutes. Examine corals for pests. Remove from dip, then rinse in tank water (not in tank). Then add coral to tank. Should take you about 20 minutes.

 

Buddy, I strongly recommend you shop at a good LFS, not Petco. Can you share your water parameters? Nobody is really interested in PH for the most part with reef tanks. Its really not that important. For a newly cycled tank, you should make sure that ammonia is 0, nitrites are 0, and nitrates are greater than 0. At this point you can do a nice water change and start stocking (slowly). Generally you see a diatom bloom at the end of the cycle.

 

Once you start introducing corals, you need to test Alk and Ca which is extremely important. It's very hard to maintain these levels in such a small tank, however beginner corals are more forgiving. If you only have a few small corals, weekly water changes might be enough to replenish. Otherwise as most of us do, dosing is required.

[mechishark7]

No way, not for coral acclimation.

 

Temp acclimate your corals by floating the bag in your tank. Prepare a coral dip. Dip your corals in the dip for up to 15 minutes. Examine corals for pests. Remove from dip, then rinse in tank water (not in tank). Then add coral to tank. Should take you about 20 minutes.

 

Buddy, I strongly recommend you shop at a good LFS, not Petco. Can you share your water parameters? Nobody is really interested in PH for the most part with reef tanks. Its really not that important. For a newly cycled tank, you should make sure that ammonia is 0, nitrites are 0, and nitrates are greater than 0. At this point you can do a nice water change and start stocking (slowly). Generally you see a diatom bloom at the end of the cycle.

 

Once you start introducing corals, you need to test Alk and Ca which is extremely important. It's very hard to maintain these levels in such a small tank, however beginner corals are more forgiving. If you only have a few small corals, weekly water changes might be enough to replenish. Otherwise as most of us do, dosing is required.

 

I'll pick up a testing kit tomorrow, what's a good one/what parameters should I test? Assuming Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates, Alkalinity and Calcium, so a master saltwater test kit should be good?

 

I know the ammonia and nitrites were essentially zero when I had the water tested today, but I'll get a kit and share those numbers tomorrow.

 

I'll look into some LFSs tonight and maybe visit one or two close ones tomorrow before going to petco for that zoa frag, incase I find a better store/better zoas somewhere else, I wouldn't have already bought it from petco.

 

I briefly looked into dips earlier but it was a topic for hard corals so I didn't take it too seriously, I'll look into it more tonight but what do you put in your dips?

 

I guess I'll just put the frag in the sand for now and let it acclimate before hacking it up and placing it on the rock.

 

Did a 50% (1 gal) water change tonight, I used distilled water too.

[mechishark7]

Alright so I found two LFSs I'm gonna check out tomorrow, one is 6 minutes away and the other is 10, so not a hike at all.

[mechishark7]

just noticed this critter, brown colored worm shape. It hasn't moved at all since I spotted it 10 minutes ago, any ID?

[mechishark7]

do they look kinda spiky it could be a brittle sea star.

 

Not too uncommon for these to lurk in the rockwork I tend to get lots of them from petco bits much to the charign of my dad who never gets fun hitch hikers. I blame that on his use of only dry rock and golf ball size live rock.

 

BTW I ID-ed this weird worm thing, apparently its a harmless Hair Worm, similar to spaghetti worms but with only 2 arms.

[Horerczy]

 

 

No way, not for coral acclimation.

 

Temp acclimate your corals by floating the bag in your tank. Prepare a coral dip. Dip your corals in the dip for up to 15 minutes. Examine corals for pests. Remove from dip, then rinse in tank water (not in tank). Then add coral to tank. Should take you about 20 minutes.

Eh, different strokes for different folks. I don't use dips usually. Don't find them necessary. But i know what to look for while they acclimate.

 

Worst hitchhiker i got was a mantis.

 

No need to get snippy sheesh.

[mechishark7]

Went to two LFSs today, they were mostly fish and hard coral dedicated though, lots of anemones but not too many zoa frags. Got my water tested though;

 

PH- 8.0

Ammonia- 0.25ppm

Nitrite- 0

Nitrate- 0

Salinity- 1.026

Calcium- 24-480

Alkalinity- 140-200

Phosphate- 0

 

Also picked up that zoa frag from petco, its currently floating in the tank to acclimate, I'll post picks when I put it in the tank but it was labeled as a radioactive dragon eye frag, its about 20 heads on it with different colors. Looked like this in the frag tank at the store

[mechishark7]

Considering how crowded these zoas are, I am thinking of fragging them off to little pieces of acrylic by color so they have more room for now.

Thoughts?

[Horerczy]

Zoas don't mind crowding.

[mechishark7]

Zoas don't mind crowding.

 

So this isn't them 'stretching' above each other?

[mechishark7]

Idk, this guy looks pretty crowded.

I also want to get them off the frag rock and onto the live rock eventually, I figured separating them by color and putting them on their own plate would allow like colors to grow together and then I could move the connected polyps to the rock?

[FlowerMama]

They're stretching because they're wanting more light, not because they are crowded.

 

Keep using the distilled at Walmart or whatever. If you don't you'll have algae out the yin-yang because you're bringing bacteria into the tank.

 

Someone said you'd be limited in an Evolve 8 small tank- check out the latter half of my Evolve 8 tank w/a Par38 bulb. Mushrooms, ricordea, zoas, paly, acropora, birdsnest, monti, bonsai- all the last 4 I mentioned are high light need corals and they're at the top of the tank. Oh and a clam that grew 1/4" the last month. This tank is a year old and when something happened in my 5 mos old 34g I removed some damaged corals and put them in the Evolve8. They healed up. That's what great water quality AND time will do for you. Yes, the light is bright but what I do to make sure my lower items don't get bleached is I have a piece of plastic canvas from Walmart and I rest it on top. It helps difuse the light. And actually, I only cut it to sit on the from 3/4 of the tank, the back 2 inches is uncovered so my sps and clam get the light they need.

[mechishark7]

They're stretching because they're wanting more light, not because they are crowded.

 

Keep using the distilled at Walmart or whatever. If you don't you'll have algae out the yin-yang because you're bringing bacteria into the tank.

 

Someone said you'd be limited in an Evolve 8 small tank- check out the latter half of my Evolve 8 tank w/a Par38 bulb. Mushrooms, ricordea, zoas, paly, acropora, birdsnest, monti, bonsai- all the last 4 I mentioned are high light need corals and they're at the top of the tank. Oh and a clam that grew 1/4" the last month. This tank is a year old and when something happened in my 5 mos old 34g I removed some damaged corals and put them in the Evolve8. They healed up. That's what great water quality AND time will do for you. Yes, the light is bright but what I do to make sure my lower items don't get bleached is I have a piece of plastic canvas from Walmart and I rest it on top. It helps difuse the light. And actually, I only cut it to sit on the from 3/4 of the tank, the back 2 inches is uncovered so my sps and clam get the light they need.

 

Its actually the Evolve 2, someone posted earlier that they had the Evolve 8, not me.

My PAR38 has shipped and should be here next week, but I just introduced those zoas today. They must have been reaching for light in the store tank or wherever the store got them from.

[Horerczy]

They might not be reaching as some zoas are naturally taller than others. Still they could have been reaching as petcos lighting tends to be inadequate for the task at hand.

[mechishark7]

I am laser cutting a frag rack that I'm going to set up on the back of my tank as well as a bunch of acrylic frag plugs and a new top for the tank tomorrow.

Will post pics when they're all cut