cswan19 Posted June 15, 2014 Author Share Posted June 15, 2014 omg, my childhood dream was to become a marine biologist too. my fav animal as a kid was the manatee, now i like the deep sea weird creatures. but i cant swim....soo....probably not a career choice for me =P. i recommend Instant Ocean Reef Crystals, and alot of people use it. It's very economical. You can get a bag for 50 gallons for $18 or so. I bought a 2 part dosing calcium / alk when I first started my tank. Used it like 2-3 times and never again. With regular weekly water changes and good salt, your calcium and alk should be stable. Unless you get into SPS, then you start to look into dosing. definitely put the zoa frag on rock so it has room to grow and spread. that polyp looks amazing. as for the trumpet, you dont NEED to feed, but feeding in moderation won't hurt. But since you dont have much yet in the tank, I wouldn't feed right now. And try to use ur hand to pick the green hair algae off the trumpet. Haha yes, I have swam with wild manatees a few times while out on the water, we stopped and saw them and jumped in with masks to see them. But the law is that you have to wait for them to initiate contact first as they are a protected endangered species, so we had to wait for them to come to us first. They also used to come up to the dock if we had the hose on dripping in the water. They actually only drink freshwater so they would all show up when we would be out there cleaning. Such cool animals, there are big manatee tanks outside of the classroom labs I will be attending in the Spring, as well as sea turtle and dolphin tanks too. Its incredible. Alright back on topic.... haha Thats a lot more economical than what I am paying now for the pre mixed stuff from my LFS So should I not dose? Or should I just dose until they are up to a good level and then just try and maintain it using WC and salt mix? I don't plan to get into SPS for a long time, too much of headache for a beginner nano reefer IMO. I plan to put the new gobstopper paly on the rock as well as the rainbow butterfly rhodactis. I would like to leave my trumpet coral where it is as I like it on the SB. I also don't think I will be able to get the camo palys I got the other day on the rock as the frag plug is huge and the polyps are like all over the plug and I wouldn't be able to dremel the plug down any smaller. It would just look bad to have a huge plug on my rock imo. If there is another way to make the plug smaller I will be all over it though haha. Yeah, I didn't have much time to get them in the tank as I had to leave quick afterwards to go somewhere so didn't try to get any hair algae off the trumpet. I literally just temp acclimated for 30 min or so and then dipped them each for about 5 min and got them in the tank. So I will get on that possibly tomor. And I have been looking up the H202 dip for my camo palys with tons of GHA on the plug. Could I H202 the trumpet coral or would it hurt the coral or red macro algae that is in between the two trumpet coral heads? This is the best hobby, I love to just stare at my tank and all my corals... Link to comment
NanoClown Posted June 15, 2014 Share Posted June 15, 2014 I did an H2O2 dip today on all of my frags that had some GHA. I used 50/50 fresh saltwater to H2O2 for about 1 minute each. Swished them round and rinsed them off in another small container of just saltwater. Everything was pissed off for a few hours but when I came home everything looked nice and happy Link to comment
cswan19 Posted June 15, 2014 Author Share Posted June 15, 2014 I did an H2O2 dip today on all of my frags that had some GHA. I used 50/50 fresh saltwater to H2O2 for about 1 minute each. Swished them round and rinsed them off in another small container of just saltwater. Everything was pissed off for a few hours but when I came home everything looked nice and happy Yeah I will probably be doing a H2O2 dip next Sunday since I have some school work I really need to get done this week. I was planning to do a 25% Hydrogen peroxide to 75% fresh saltwater for about 5 minutes. I am a bit scared to do it though to tell you the truth... I am worried to hurt the coral. Also anyone know what kind of macro algae that red stuff is in between the two heads on the trumpet coral? Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted June 15, 2014 Share Posted June 15, 2014 5 mins maybe toooo long. when u see the frag start to bubble, give it 30s or so and then rinse off. Link to comment
cswan19 Posted June 15, 2014 Author Share Posted June 15, 2014 The second head on my gobstopper paly is starting to open up finally! woohoo 5 mins maybe toooo long. when u see the frag start to bubble, give it 30s or so and then rinse off. Alright, glad you told me, thanks ninja Link to comment
Kijho Posted June 15, 2014 Share Posted June 15, 2014 Looks AWESOME Cswan!! Absolutely awesome!! So stoked on your new frags. I haven't seen them before! I like the trumpet, very nice color under the lighting! Also the little paly is awesome. I think you should move it to a rock like Ninja said though and it will spread like wildfire!!! You can feed both aswell to the best of my knowledge. I haven't see a trumpet though but it looks like it has a mouth. I feed my Zoa's mysis and they will eat HUGE mysis ... just devours them! Love the new updates and pics!! Link to comment
NanoClown Posted June 15, 2014 Share Posted June 15, 2014 Get more zoas/palys and make yourself a little garden like mine Link to comment
cswan19 Posted June 16, 2014 Author Share Posted June 16, 2014 Looks AWESOME Cswan!! Absolutely awesome!! So stoked on your new frags. I haven't seen them before! I like the trumpet, very nice color under the lighting! Also the little paly is awesome. I think you should move it to a rock like Ninja said though and it will spread like wildfire!!! You can feed both aswell to the best of my knowledge. I haven't see a trumpet though but it looks like it has a mouth. I feed my Zoa's mysis and they will eat HUGE mysis ... just devours them! Love the new updates and pics!! Thanks, kijho! I plan to move the little gobstopper paly to the rock once I get some more epoxy as well as some of the other corals. Its about $8 cheaper for the epoxy at a LFS that is a bit out of town and I am waiting until I need to go down that way to stop in and pick some up. I have to drive down there for something for school later this week though so I will be able to go the LFS down there and get the reef epoxy. So hopefully I will have everything in their right places by this weekend. Get more zoas/palys and make yourself a little garden like mine I want toooooo! They are awesome! but unfortunately I am making myself wait until after I get back from my vacation. The less is in my tank the less my sister will have to worry about. Haha, I plan to get some more zoas/palys, a couple acans and some hammer coral once I am back but not all at once. Link to comment
cswan19 Posted June 16, 2014 Author Share Posted June 16, 2014 Update: June 15, 2014 Here are today's parameters: pH: 7.8 Ammonia: 0 ppm Nitrite: 0 ppm Nitrate: 0-5 ppm Calcium: 320 mg (this is too low. I added 2.5 mL of nanocode A) Alkalinity: 161.1 ppm Salinity: 1.024 Temp: 75.6'F As I said, my calc is too low. I added the amount the bottle said to add which was 2.5 mL (5 mL per 10 US gallons). But I did not add nanocode B (for alk dosing) because it wasn't that low. Do I have to use them in combination? Or can I just dose the nanocode A (calcium) until I have brought my calcium levels up? Link to comment
justinmb Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 Looks good, I really like those mushrooms. I need some of those. But I did just buy a bunch of yumas from a fathers day sale Link to comment
cswan19 Posted June 16, 2014 Author Share Posted June 16, 2014 Looks good, I really like those mushrooms. I need some of those. But I did just buy a bunch of yumas from a fathers day sale Thanks justin lets see the pictures of those yumas! They are some of my favorites! Link to comment
justinmb Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 Thanks justin lets see the pictures of those yumas! They are some of my favorites! I don't have them yet, ordered online. Should have them Wednesday. I also just got my camera back too so I will be taking pics of the other things I've got in the tank this week. Link to comment
cswan19 Posted June 16, 2014 Author Share Posted June 16, 2014 I don't have them yet, ordered online. Should have them Wednesday. I also just got my camera back too so I will be taking pics of the other things I've got in the tank this week. Awesome dude! I will be impatiently waiting for their arrival... I wanna see the pictures Link to comment
cswan19 Posted June 16, 2014 Author Share Posted June 16, 2014 Okay so I was going in to check out my tank like usual and I saw this.... What the heck is going on?! I thought it was like some weird kind of worm that was trying to enter my rics mouth but a piece of whatever it is broke of and started floating around the tank with the flow. I managed to scoop out the stray piece in the net. It isn't a worm since it doesn't move at all and is flat and "hair like" similar to that of algae. It is brown. Is my ricordea eating a piece of algae that was floating by? My ric actually has two mouths and each one has a piece of this stuff in it. Is it possible that a ricordea could be throwing up or something. Ah, what is going on!? Someone help me figure out what this is lol I'm worried there is an issue with my ricordea. Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 it's pooping =P. it's alll good. Link to comment
cswan19 Posted June 16, 2014 Author Share Posted June 16, 2014 hahaha oh man... well I guess thats a relief. lol I didn't realize they did that, now I know. Once again, thanks for your knowledge ninja Link to comment
Kijho Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 Looks really awesome! My Ricordia's do that often but sometimes it's like 1.5 inches length stringy thing. I usually take it out but I don't think it does any harm. Link to comment
cswan19 Posted June 17, 2014 Author Share Posted June 17, 2014 Looks really awesome! My Ricordia's do that often but sometimes it's like 1.5 inches length stringy thing. I usually take it out but I don't think it does any harm. haha yeah, I left it in there so hopefully it is all good. Also, I have the day off so I'm heading out to the beach to get some time in the water But I have a video of the tank planned for either later today or sometime tomor updates to come soon... Link to comment
cswan19 Posted June 18, 2014 Author Share Posted June 18, 2014 So I did a bit of target feeding a couple hours ago and it was pretty neat. I enjoyed watching it. I did however put a bit too much mysis in so I will be doing a WC tomor to eliminate waste. I am a bit worried about my trumpet coral... it looks like this now and it has looked this way for about an hour and a half. Is it possible for a trumpet coral to choke because I gave it too much food at one time? I am worried about it. Is there something I should do? Why is it so shrunk up? Thanks guys. Link to comment
cswan19 Posted June 18, 2014 Author Share Posted June 18, 2014 So my trumpet coral is looking a lot better this morning. He now looks like he normally does, though just a tad bit less full. Still not sure why it looked like that though... Anyway, idk if I'll have that video by today. I lost a lot of the footage I had captured yesterday and so I will have to wait until I can find some time to re shoot. bummer. I've got some school stuff I have to get done today and I am also planning to go down to the LFS and finally get some reef epoxy so I can get my corals on the rocks. Link to comment
cswan19 Posted June 19, 2014 Author Share Posted June 19, 2014 Pretty sure my xenia is a goner I woke up this morning and couldn't find it anywhere and they realized it was buried really deep in the sand bed and shoved under a rock. I'm not sure how long it was there, could have been a few minutes (doubtful) or all night. Either way I quickly dug it out and placed it up right on the sand bed and now it is looking pretty beat up.... I don't know if it will make it. I really liked the xenia too. Damn, my shrimp is an ass. Poor little xenia Link to comment
NanoClown Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Give it some time, im' sure if it still has solid tissue and is still holding onto the rock then it should pull through. You should start gluing down your stuff. Seems like your shrimp might need some more building materials Link to comment
cswan19 Posted June 19, 2014 Author Share Posted June 19, 2014 Give it some time, im' sure if it still has solid tissue and is still holding onto the rock then it should pull through. You should start gluing down your stuff. Seems like your shrimp might need some more building materials Thanks man, I'm hoping so. And yeah I planned to glue everything down today but can't figure out how to get the dang frag plugs off or at least smaller. How do you guys remove frag plugs or at least get the "plug" part, you know the long skinny part on the bottom, off? And I just grabbed a couple more hermit crab shells and smashed them up and threw them in, he didn't seem to like the sharks teeth, he just buried them haha. Oh well. Link to comment
lecroj Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 I have used a tile clipper to pop the bottoms off plugs. They are pretty cheap at home depot. You can also razor off the coral and glue it to something else. Link to comment
Kijho Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Hey cswan, All of my Acan's "shrivel" up during feeding time. I guess it's how they eat haha. Also - my clowns sometimes bounce off my Acan's and then it really upsets them. One of my Acan's fell down too and it upside down in the corner haha just haven't had time to get it yet... Poor xenia, maybe it'll come back like my birdsnest did... (but my birdnest then died later..) Looks pretty good though, I like how your reef is coming together. Feels awesome right!? Shrimp are ass's though, yup. He's dug my entire hammer down in his cave once.. or, tried to haha. And pulled ricordia's in there too. And killed a little baby YCG. :'( Link to comment
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