Sleeping with the Fishes [a pe(s)t project]

[ReefWeeds]

I'm sorry about your little tailspot that's a happy dendro though. Wow.

[holy carp]

I just realized you can actually see the fish's eye in the close-up. A little creepy.

Poor unnamed fishy.But yes, that dendrophyllia has never been happier, and I feed it every day. What an appetite.

[teenyreef]

Dang, sorry to hear about the troubles

 

Out of my three ATOs the only one I fully trust is the good old Tunze Osmolator. It has a physical overflow sensor and it also stops if it fills for too long. That way even if the sensor fails there's a backup.

 

My other ones only have the fill sensor and rely on a timer to avoid overflow and in a small tank it can be too late by then.

[holy carp]

New FTS:

[teenyreef]

Wow, those softies are getting huge! The corals on the sand bed make a really nice contrast and splash of color. Beautiful

[Mariaface]

Love it.

[metrokat]

Nice FTS. Elegance needs it's own tank......

 

That dendro and eye is perfect for Halloween init?

[holy carp]

I noticed something that amazed me this evening. On the rock a good distance below my Darth Maul porites (from Kat ), there is a newly seeded patch of coral. It's growing separately, the porites coral was received well healed, lived on my frag rack for at least a month before gluing. It hasn't been injured, bumped, chipped, etc. Yet somehow it seems to have seeded a distant patch.

How?

[holy carp]

So in an attempt to reduce phosphates and hinder the green wirey algae, I added extra phosguard on Monday. I normally measure out 30 grams and change it monthly, but based on the Hanna ULR phosphorus, my levels were still around 0.06 phosphate. This may not be extremely high, but my nitrates always test at 0 (red sea kit), and the algae is healthy. So after some water changes got it down to 0.04 and added one of these:

 

It says 60 grams on the package, but measures about 100 grams on my scale... (111g with the mesh bag to be exact)

 

I just put the mesh sack in the return section of the sump where there's a lot of continuous turbulence, and left in my prior month's 30g pouch.

 

2 days later (last night) my phosphates still measured 0.03 (I measured before feeding). I would have expected this extra phosguard to make a bigger difference.

 

What gives?

 

I'm primarily treating the algae with h2o2, which works very well, but I'm trying get my phosphates way down to starve it so it doesn't keep coming back so quickly.

[Mariaface]

I just want to say: You scared me. I saw the photo and thought this was going to be a 'phosphate shot down so quickly I bleached everything' post. I wouldn't dare drop a 60gal pouch of phosguard in my tank

 

Try continuing to test, maybe? I don't think media will pull phosphates down as quickly when it's that low, so it may take it a couple more days.

 

Any change there's phosphate being released by the sandbed?

[holy carp]

I suppose it's possible. Does phosphate just sit there in the sand? I do stir/vacuum it occasionally, and I baste my rocks weekly, but could try being more aggressive with it. I just hate sucking up all my little micro brittle stars.

 

I wasn't afraid to use that 60 gallon size, because I've used them before (before I got the hanna checker) and they never caused any problems with the corals. I just adjusted down to 30 grams when I started getting it by the bottle. Maybe I need to step that up or get a proper reactor... If I get my hands on an aqualifter, I might make one out of an old DI resin canister.

 

Kat - would the Microbacter Clean help? I got some but haven't figured out how to best use it - I remember you were talking about it a while back.

[Mariaface]

my little micro brittle stars.

 

 

 

 

Gimme.

[holy carp]

Gimme.

OK. I'll get you a dozen or so. They are pretty fun to watch, but I'm not convinced they clean up much. They love to live in hair and turf algae and holes in rocks and sand and rubble and on the glass. They pretty much just don't swim but go everywhere else...

[Mariaface]

Wait, seriously?! So excited. The only time I got one was accidentally, in a clump of chaeto from Arkayology

[holy carp]

You had one and it didn't multiply? Hopefully mine survive in your tank... It'll be a good experiment.

 

That said, I think I really noticed them multiplying around the one year mark - don't know what changed, maybe just more gunk on the rocks for them to pick at.

 

note: they do not like hydrogen peroxide, but survive it better than amphipods.

[Mariaface]

You had one and it didn't multiply? Hopefully mine survive in your tank... It'll be a good experiment.

 

That said, I think I really noticed them multiplying around the one year mark - don't know what changed, maybe just more gunk on the rocks for them to pick at.

 

note: they do not like hydrogen peroxide, but survive it better than amphipods.

 

I think I got up to two or three before the tank redo? But those rocks are long gone And none hitchhiked in on this shipment.

 

Gunk - yum!

[holy carp]

A few updates:

 

Micro brittle stars:

 

These adorably little guys are multiplying like crazy. Mariaface, you're going to have to get some soon. (Sorry, I got distracted a bit with the crab while trying to film them.)

 

Phosphates:

 

Still not too happy with my hanna checker. Are readings dramatically affected by feeding? I tested last night on the ULR Phosphorus and got 21 about 30 minutes after feeding. Seems high considering I've recently added 100 grams of phosguard. At this point I'm considering using an old DI cartridge as a make-shift media reactor for the phosguard. Anyone recommend a pump for this purpose? I was thinking just an aqualifter on the suction side might be simple and quiet and wouldn't add heat to the tank.

 

Plate coral surgery:

 

This little guy has been plagued from very early on. Flesh initially receded, so I tried to increase feeding. That didn't seem to help much, and algae started growing on all the exposed bone. I eventually gave up and just let it be. Recently it really started puffing up and looked healthy, but it wasn't able to make any noticeable progress against the algae, so I decided to go in for surgery.

 

Here it was in the tank:

 

After removing, pre-op:

 

Now I took tweezers to pick all the algae off and break off what exposed bone I could get to so it wouldn't grow back too quickly. A little 35% h2o2 on the affected area for a minute, rinsed, and back in the tank.

 

Here it was after 20 minutes in the tank. Not too happy yet, and showing some bone where I broke away the .

 

But another 45 minutes later and we have some PE back:

 

The next day it looks like the flesh is healing over the bone, but I'm no coral doctor... just a coral surgeon... or butcher.

[teenyreef]

Arrgh, you're killing me

 

Coral food, especially Reef Roids, causes a temporary spike in Phosphate readings. I've never been able to find out if it's due to the food actually raising phosphates, or if it's something about the food that just fools test kits. But Markalot and others have reported the same thing.

 

I just make sure I wait at least 24 hours, preferably 48, after feeding reef roids before measuring phosphates.

[Mariaface]

My plate's back to doing the SAME EXACT THING. UGH. And the palys' annoying algae has managed to grab hold of its skeleton, the ceramic square plug it's on, the clam hammock and shell, the tank floor, the zoas near it... It's still maybe a 3.5" cube of volume that it's spread to, but it's so annoying.

 

On the bright side: MICRO STARS. And your purple haze frag is still kicking

[teenyreef]

You should be able to use peroxide on a plate coral, although I haven't personally tried it. But I've dipped acans in straight peroxide before with no problems.

 

I found a thread on R2R where a guy used a qtip to put peroxide on the spots that had algae, and he said it worked well.

 

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2182353

[holy carp]

Thanks for the peroxide thread, Teeny.

I had gone straight to maximum peroxide. I've seen acro and monti tissue burn back from peroxide and expose bone, but all the other corals I've used it with have been incredibly resistant, including zoos that get bubbles inside their tissue, but seem fully recovered in a few hours.

 

The plate still looks ugly, but less bone showing is positive. No apparent peroxide damage, and no apparent algae.

[metrokat]

I've been MIA - I'm sorry. Just caught up on the thread. MB (both kinds) is bacteria so it does what bacteria is supposed to do which is work on nitrates. High levels of phosphate can and does seep into rocks and sand. Over time it leeches to equalize the phosphate in the water vs what is in the rocks. So a likely scenario is that when you do a water change, the PO4 level drops, but then the leaching tries to equalize the level in the water column. If you tested before a water change, after and a day after you would read PO4 again for that reason.

 

Long term usage of phosphate removal media combined with the usual water changes is the best method to gradually over time reduce PO$. Macros help, you could employ that light on the fuge and throw in some caulerpa.

 

Hope that answered your question.

 

 

Gimme.

+1

I personally don't like phosguard. You are running it passively right? So that's probably okay, in reactor it is super strong, If you are going to go that route please be very careful and use a fraction of the suggested amount for your tank.

 

Alternatively - without needing a reactor you can try Brightwell XPORT-PO4 cubes. I have taken my GFO offline and have only been using these since July. The PO4 stays at a sweet spot, if it shifts I replace some of the cubes. No reactor needed. If you are set on trying out the reactor, I thought you had one for carbon, no? I usually mix my medias in a reactor, separated by a sponge so GFO and Carbon both go in the same reactor.

[holy carp]

Good thinking, I'll add some PO4 cubes tonight.

 

For now I've been running both Phosguard and Carbon in media bags in the return pump section of the sump, where there's good turbulence and flow.

 

I don't know if I can pull off running a light in the sump yet. As long as this nuisance algae is in the tank, it seems to be too opportunistic. This is what happened after trying to run a frag rack in my sump. It was set up such that my marinepure block was on bottom, it was covered by the polyfilter pads, and the eggcrate rack above those.

 

This was when I set it up that way on August 6th:

(the eggcrate was new, but the polyfilter had already been in the sump for a while and was probably pretty depleted)

The fuge light is a coral compulsion 14w superblu.

 

This was the algae when I broke it down on September 11th:

 

I drained that center section of the sump to clean it out and have kept it dark ever since. For now it has nothing but the marinepure block in it.

 

FWIW, water changes have consistently been about 25-30% per week for the last year. Prior to getting the hanna, I only tested phosphates with the red sea kit, which typically indicated 0.00 or 0.02, so I hadn't expected my rock and sand to be laden with phosphates, but it's probably a lot more so than I assumed.

[holy carp]

This morning's plate progress update:

 

(yes, you can see some of the offending algae growing in the sand in the background on the right)

[metrokat]

That was some turf algae you had in the fuge! I have the same problem, but with GHA, the fuge is a magnet and I can't understand why.