Kyle's Reef - ~150g combined system

[Kyl]

Moved the surviving forestfire digi frag and half of the flowerpot goniopora back into the tank on the frag rack. Flowerpot already looks as happy as it ever did with polyp extension, but the digi is completely bleached on the skeleton.. though it looks kind of neat with the contrast from bleached white skeleton / pink-ish red polyps. I'm convinced that removing the birdsnest colony is the way to go, but still have to clean up the 65g more and get some good water changes done on it. Sump's refugium has been taken over by cyano, so it needs to be drained, cleaned and re-started. 

 

Going to be watching what happens at Reefstock this week as I'm really interested in what the Cobalt C-VUE 45 gallon will end up as dimension wise.. 

[Kyl]

 

Doesn't really look 1080p.. but these guys were having a little get together tonight.

 

Funny, much better in stills..

sexyshrimp by Kyl, on Flickr

 

And always, the blenny being a blenny

blennystare by Kyl, on Flickr

[teenyreef]

Love it! That last picture is great

[Kyl]

Another sign the tank is doing well now, the sexy shrimp spawned again tonight. I'm guessing a hundred little larvae, free food for everyone in the tank!

[Kyl]

Some evening reflection and musings..

 

After a number of months of use and the constant fiddling, the change to the dual SW-2 power heads has felt like an overall downgrade to the tank, ultimately not really achieving my 'increased chaotic flow' goal. I've tried DIY 0-10v via Apex VSP control harness adapters , Jebao "official" Apex VSP control adapter (which doesn't work correctly with the reduced 0-5v output), and for some reason the power just isn't there when they're being controlled with the Apex. Add to it the VSP control voltage seems to have to be reversed to function as I've noted previously (0v = 100% speed, 10v = lowest, around 20%, will never actually fully stop), I'm guessing that has something to do with it. Obviously I can continue to use them without any control ability, but I like having random settings, or 'go crazy' modes for a few minutes every 60-90 minutes. There are some definite areas where detritus is now settling, something that previously was avoided for the most part since the MP10 had so much gyre-like flow with the small tank volume. Have really given thought to picking up a 130/230 gyre and running it with the one end capped off, but that brings it back to 'overkill' for the current tank and I want control so that would basically double the price :| Going to stick with them for now though, they'd be useless in the 65 if I brought the MP10 back in.

 

I was also really hoping the forthcoming 45 gallon Cobalt C-VUE tank would be a final AIO upgrade goal, but upon learning the dimensions this week it's made me really reconsider things. Volume wise it's a big upgrade, more than doubling the display dimensions at 25 x ~18 x 19 versus ~24 x 12 x 13, but I'm really after more horizontal room. This is basically the same dimensions of the fusion 40 but with a larger rear AIO chamber and 4" filter sock holders. I was hoping for 30", and a bit less depth than the lagoon 50, but oh well. Really wish there was something in that 30-36" width like the 30 but a bit deeper, basically a rimless starfire version of the 40 gallon breeder. I guess that's really pushing the bounds, costs and ultimately marketability of an AIO tank though and the 50 doesn't quite fit the dimensions wanted. With a 3 foot rimless pane the glass needs to keep being up-sized as that volume increases, it would probably have to be 10mm or even more. 

 

I keep looking back at what one guy in my province did with his 30L and am kicking myself for not grabbing the tank when he sold it for a very good price. I may just end up ordering one and recouping as much as I can by selling the 20 & 10. Already have the stand / lights and everything else, the Ikea cabinets would just need a new top / bottom plywood plate to affix together. It's getting tempting, especially with the income tax rebate coming soon.

 

Then again, maybe I need to just take a step back and focus on what currently is here...

[vlangel]

Its always good to stop and reflect, and then just sleep on it for a week or two.  Tanks can bring out the most impetuous impulses in us reefers.

[Kyl]

Speaking of potential impulses, LFS finally got Midas blennies in, first time in over a year..! As much as I don't like the idea of getting rid of a fish for petty reasons, this was *the* blenny I had wanted all along in the first place for the larger tank, not to mention it fills the yellow coloured fish wish list. I think the bi-colour is going to be going back to the LFS unless they can get along when both are eventually in the 65. There is a lot of rock-work in that tank, and when the bi-colour was in it he had a set hole in the far left that he hung out in almost all day, so maybe it will work.

 

For now they would be separated between copper and non-copper QT, so there's at least two months of no contact to make a decision. I feel that given the rarity locally of the Midas, it just makes sense to pick one up. 

 

On another note, the closet retrofit is basically done. Not a great picture though as I can't zoom out any further on the phone. Top shelf held over 450lbs without flinching, but it's angle braced in the front just in case. The rear and right side are anchored into the wall studs, this thing ain't moving.

 

closetdone by Kyl, on Flickr

 

1x 20long for final QT / observation, 2x 10gallon below it for 30 day copper stints. I don't intend on having 5 fish in a single copper tank again, at most two at a time, so the 10's will be more than enough. The current 20long with copper in it will get run for a couple weeks when the fish are out with cuprisorb before it gets put into storage.

 

Hoping to get the 65 gallon's refugium cleaned out and re-started this weekend then I can get the frags moved over, and slightly modify the sock holder to get some more flow capacity. 

[Kyl]

Picked up the Midas blenny for the 65 gallon yesterday, today he's finally eating - gobbling up both reef frenzy nano and spirulina brine shrimp. Very skittish though, and when you go near the QT tank he's doing his stressed colour change but not choosing to hide in the fake rock / pvc yet.  I'm hoping over the next while he comes around, the other Midas available at the LFS didn't look anywhere near as good as him. One thing is for sure, it moves far too quick for this crappy S4 camera, only one decent shot I could get remotely.

 

midas by Kyl, on Flickr

 

Going to be picking up some new frags this Friday; yellow Fiji leather, purple photosynthetic gorgonian, some kryptonite candycanes and blue mushrooms. The emerald crab is going to get banished back to the 10, he's destroyed both the mushrooms I had going :|

[Kyl]

Some frags and the emerald crab are out of the 20 and into the 10, most of the frags from the 10 are in the 65, except the chalices which are back in the 20. 65 velvet survivors are now out of copper and in the permanent QT tank on my closet stand, the midas is eating well but still very shy. It feels like things are coming together again . Definitely going to remove the huge birdsnest out of the 20. The frags I pruned in January that were just a single branches touching the pocillopora are already 2-3 times the size, can't believe how fast this birdsnest grows. And I found one of the ironman mushrooms, well a piece of it anyway. So at least the emerald didn't eat all of them.

 

Still trying to figure out the best spot to re-mount some things like the rainbow montipora, pink lemonade acro, forestfire digi, grape monticap and the red setosa. To add to this, now there will be a gorgonian, candycane and some blue mushrooms as well in the future. Also debating removing the armor of god palys, which were sold to me as zoas when I didn't know better. The rock they're on is about 4" x 4" wide, and they've completely overgrown the frootloop zoas on that rock as well. It does look very nice under the actinics though, might be a good sand dwelling candidate for the 65.

 

 

[teenyreef]

I'm glad you can keep it all straight, now I know how people must feel when I talk about moving things between my three tanks 

 

I'm with you on the palys, I've got a bunch of different ones now and some of them are really super pretty. But they grow fast and can be really invasive. I've tried isolating them on the sand bed but true palys pick up bits of sand as part of their base so they spread just as fast on the sand. But at least on the sand I can (carefully) pick off the runners to keep the colony under control.

[Kyl]

Managed to find something brighter than my original hammer today:

 

kryptonite by Kyl, on Flickr

[teenyreef]

Nice, I really like that toxic green color. I've got some but they went really pale when my 10g went downhill. I'm still hoping I can bring them back! 

[Kyl]

They're from a guy with a 15 year old tank and ocellaris clowns just as old, quite the sight. Under the Kessils the toxic green is borderline blinding with heavy actinic.

 

He also had a small Bristletooth Tomini Tang that looked pretty neat, something I hadn't seen before and in over a year it's been in his tank has barely grown past 2". Might be a future fish to keep an eye out for in the larger tank, said it was very friendly and zero aggression with any of his other fish (clowns, leopard wrasse, pipe fish, royal gramma, mandarin, scooter blenny). All in a 65 gallon tank that's been ticking since 2001.

 

And hot damn, Cobalt is in fact coming out with a C-Vue tank that's 36" long, their 39 gallon (36"L x 18"W x 14"H). Perfect!

[Kyl]

Someone's started perching on the zoa rock recently..

 

stare by Kyl, on Flickr

[Hirsh]

It looks like the blenny is posing on purpose, Like its Glamour Shots.

[Kyl]

I was surprised that a) he sat there long enough to get a shot and b ), my crappy phone camera actually took something clear. 

 

Some non-20 stuff:

Spoiler

 

The Midas blenny in "acclimation" QT is still very shy, but he's been becoming increasingly more active and swimming around for some periods the past day or so. He's also beginning to realize that person coming to the tank and touching the top most likely means food is coming, and thankfully is already eating numerous types including:

• Hikari spirulina and regular frozen brine shrimp
• Small-grade PE mysis
• 1mm PE mysis pellets
• New life spectrum small fish pellets
• New Era marine flakes

He doesn't care much for LRS reef frenzy nano currently, so I'm not trying to push my luck else it has to be sucked out of the tank after an hour. Going to give it another week or so of healthy eating before I start him on copper. Also thinking how I want the stock list to evolve since the colour options have been pushed around a bit. I do want to re-try lyretail anthias, and from what I've read they'll allow the midas to swim with them at times.

QTY Name Binomial Name Type 2 Ocellaris Clownfish Amphiprion ocellaris  Clownfish 1 Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasse Labroides dimidiatus Wrasse 1 Red Elongated Dottyback Pseudochromis elongatus Dottyback 1 Midas Blenny Ecsenius midas Blenny 2 Lyretail Anthias Pseudanthias squamipinnis Anthias 1 Bristletooth Tomini Tang Ctenochaetus tominiensis Surgeonfish 1 Flame Angel Centropyge loriculus  Dwarf Angelfish

So what else do I want? Another display wrasse (fairy or leopard), a sand-sifter of some type, and a mandarin eventually. That would be 12 total, and probably not until another year to fully stock. 

 

 

[Kyl]

One good sign of things, PO4 has been testing between .02-.03 weekly, though I have been tardy on Mg and it's showing: 1215ppm, ugh.. I actually can't remember the last time any was added, there's no Apex notes so it must have been a while. Hopefully by the weekend it will be back up to snuff and I can get to work on the alk which has been dipping into the low 6's even with dosing.

 

Thankfully that hasn't seemed to be hurting the tank, SPS continues to encrust, frags are going strong and even the goniopora has been looking much happier than previous months. This frag of it has been through a lot, having a frogspawn branch fall on it for a day killing half of the frag, being put through dinoflagellates snot coverings and finally a fragging in half for the other tank. It's basically as big as when I bought it, but seems to be spreading at a steady pace recently.

goniopora by Kyl, on Flickr

 

The pink lemonade acro has fully recovered from the anemone assault and has almost fully encrusted over it's teporary plug. Even the small piece I broke off while removing it from the rockwork has encrusted out and almost completely covered the once dead skeleton pieces I glued on there as well.

pinklemonade by Kyl, on Flickr

 

I think this last piece had the roughest time of all. The forestfire digi was almost completely destroyed by monti eating nudibranchs, lived through the PO4 problems last year, survived dino snot, bleached on a H2O2 dip and is finally encrusting and regaining some of the green colouring on its skeleton. Still amazed at how some of this stuff can recover, thankfully. 

forestfire by Kyl, on Flickr

 

And finally the LFS just got a Fiji order in, and I'm thinking of picking up an acropora crab if they have any really small ones. From everything I've been reading they will not hurt any corals nor prey on the other livestock, and really won't venture far from any hosting acropora / pocillopora. Might be a neat little addition to the inverts, as the clowns have killed off all three porcelain crabs that attempted to cohabit in the anemone. There's also another potential goodie on that order mentioned a few days ago, small Tomini tangs are in. 

 

 

[Hirsh]

Those look really good. Any tips on the gonipora?

[Kyl]

I'm not entirely sure what makes it happy, other than keeping it free of nuisance algae. If the crabs aren't able to get to it some green algae starts to form on the portions of the skeleton base that haven't been re-grown over, and that tends to make the polyps retract completely. I have noticed the sexy shrimp picking at it quite frequently when it's lower as well, so maybe they're helping things too?

 

Trying to figure a good final place for it that won't have any stinging neighbors, but the birdsnest colony has to be removed and replaced with the ever-growing frag first.

[Kyl]

Picked up a small ~2" Bristletooth Tomini tang (for the 65 gallon) on Saturday but it's still very shy so far in "acclimation" QT. This phone is even worse for detail with the ambiant led light in the QT area than the actinics on the nano tank! That's a 4" elbow in the background for reference, it's tiny! 

tominiQT by Kyl, on Flickr

 

Eating very well though; spirulina brine, small grade PE mysis, PE 1mm mysis pellets and has already eaten two 1" x 1" sections of nori sheet. Visibly it looks perfect, no fin damage or sunken sides but I want to fatten it up a bit before introducing it to the 20L with the midas blenny, then will start them both on copper for a month. 

 

Also found out about the Kamoer 2L dosing containers, a much better form factor than the 4.5" x 4.5" ones I'm using right now, and the neat part being they have built in float sensors on the dosing intake tube. Can wire up a couple female stereo jacks to the custom BOB and then it can get apex alerts when low . It's also given me some more DIY ideas to do the same on my ATO containers, something which I'm always having to remember to catch even with weekly reminders setup.

 

Also related to dosing I'm thinking of switching from my local no-name bulk alk/ca/mg mixes to the aquaforest DIY line. I'm definitely not going to go crazy with their whole system additives, but I do like that their alk/ca/mg system also involves some trace elements and other goodies as well. Cost wise it doesn't seem like much of an increase over the self-packaged bulk, maybe 20% higher which on this nano is spread out over such a long period of time it won't even matter.

 

Lastly I had curtailed dosing Vibrant for the last few weeks and I can start to see hints of the dinos forming again when I get home after work. For my tank it has been what has been helping keep them knocked back, so I'm going to resume the normal weekly dosing before it gets out of hand again.

[Hirsh]

WARNING! The tang police will find you. LOL

[Kyl]

2 minutes ago, Hirsh said:

WARNING! The tang police will find you. LOL

Fortunately it's not for this tank, which is kind of confusing I know but a) I like this forum the most compared to a lot of the others and b ) I'm too lazy to make another build thread for a tank that's not really doing much of anything since the velvet outbreak. Though judging from some of the monster tanks on places like R2R, 65 gallons is a nano haha!

 

 

[Hirsh]

Just now, Kyl said:

Fortunately it's not for this tank, which is kind of confusing I know but a) I like this forum the most compared to a lot of the others and b ) I'm too lazy to make another build thread for a tank that's not really doing much of anything since the velvet outbreak. Though judging from some of the monster tanks on places like R2R, 65 gallons is a nano haha!

 

 

I like this forum too. Not as many "preachy" know it all people like RC. Some of those ass clowns think that 125 gal tank is too small for tangs. 

[Kyl]

What sealed the deal is the guy I got my gorg frag from has a tomini in his 65g tank (same dimensions) and in over a year it has barely grown an inch (just over 3"). I figure by the time it hits 4 or even 5 I'm either out of the hobby or able to have a nice 5'-6' peninsula tank.

[Kyl]

Thinking about mounting spots for my rainbow montipora, and potential future conflict.

 

montispot by Kyl, on Flickr

I have dead spots between euphyllia where the mushrooms were first intended, but thinking some more I'm wondering if it would be a better spot for the encrusting rainbow monti instead. From what I'm reading it won't over-grow the euphyllia due to coral warfare, and if that is the case it can pretty much go all over that lower rock without worry.

 

Next up is the pink lemonade acro, which I want to try and establish below the purple valida 

lemonadespot by Kyl, on Flickr

It would be bordered by the plating monti, hammer, duncan purple valida and pocillopora. The hammer is going to be moved slightly lower and to the left, but I like the buffer that it's making with the plating monti which I can just break frags off of to easily keep at bay. The only question mark is really the duncan, but it can also be moved lower if need be for the future.

 

That still leaves the purple monticap, flowerpot, forestfire digi and the tyree toadstool.. some of which I think will be able to have new homes when the birdsnest ball is removed. The gorgonian I want to have in the back right corner of the tank where the current GSP island is, and as always there's the anemone to worry about getting antsy and moving again. I think the best thing about this hobby is it keeps my analytical side busy with all the what-ifs.