Natalia’s reefbowl: 8 years old!

[natalia_la_loca]

Me too, me too I was eyeing Mr. Freeze leptos at Cherry Corals last year, but the price was higher than I wanted to pay. It's fantastic to finally have one in the reefbowl.

[HammerLover]

Lovely pics! I had a sundial outbreak and I semi reseted the tank my zoas werent opening much and I thought they were just irritated or simply just unpredictable in closing and opening. Well I was wrong, I removed 4 large sundials and 3 small ones

 

Does your monti digi burn other corals? My little frag is slowly encrusting and growing and its Im sure it will get close to other corals in time.

[HammerLover]

And that ring of fire zoa is so lovely <3 I cant find any nepthea for sale, but Ive got some VDM palys. As of now the zoas/palys have opened but I lost my sunflower, captain america paly and half of my implosions. Sundials love premium corals ?

[natalia_la_loca]

Lovely pics! I had a sundial outbreak and I semi reseted the tank my zoas werent opening much and I thought they were just irritated or simply just unpredictable in closing and opening. Well I was wrong, I removed 4 large sundials and 3 small ones

 

Does your monti digi burn other corals? My little frag is slowly encrusting and growing and its Im sure it will get close to other corals in time.

 

The digi does not burn other corals, but it could smother them as it's spreading quickly. Really sorry to hear about the sundials. I've certainly had my share of pest troubles. Because of hydroids and vermetid snails, I nearly exited the hobby completely. Since then I've become much more vigilant about dipping for pests.

 

Even so, a few have made it into the reefbowl. I removed an isolated valonia bubble last week. And I've never completely gotten rid of the bryopsis that infested the bowl last year. It's hard to see in my photos because I treat it every week with peroxide, but it's there.

 

Here is a relatively big patch on my Captain America palys; I took the photo before the lights came on so the algae would be more visible. (I know it looks like regular hair algae in the photo, but the strands have a feathery branching structure like bryopsis.) During Friday's water change, I hit that patch with peroxide, so it's gone now. And after the water change, I added a dose of fluconazole in hopes of eliminating all of the bryopsis (or derbesia or whatever it is) for good.

 

Another bit of algae on the blasto

 

In happier news, I have some new additions to the zoa-garden section of the bowl. Thanks to Lawn for some excellent frags

 

Utter chaos

 

Blondies, just waking up. More to follow as the other zoas open.

 

The Mr. Freeze lepto looks happy in the shade of the nephthea. I think it's already starting to grow.

 

The afternoon sun created some really pretty light effects the other day.

[HammerLover]

Thanks! Though I dont have much algae issues except for slime algae that grows in the glass. I constantly monitored my zoas and palys, and thank goodness they were opening. My implosions was closed for 2 weeks due to the attack of the sundials, but now they seem to bounce back. Well, lesson learned that dipping isnt just enough I gotta manually inspect every zoa that enters the pico (my last addition was a wild caught pokerchips zoa, possibly from Indonesia and I think that's where it started)

[natalia_la_loca]

So yesterday, three days in, I realized I'd only added about half the recommended dose of fluconazole. The capsules contain 200 mg, and the thread on R2R is recommending 9 mg per liter of water volume. So I added 54 mg to my reefbowl because the volume is about 6 liters if you subtract the rocks. What I didn't take into account were the binders or fillers that might also be in the capsule. So yesterday I dumped out all the powder in a flucon capsule and weighed it. It was 375 mg! Oops.

 

So I have another 50 mg ready to add. But the flucon appears to be working already. Several strands of bryopsis that I intentionally didn't treat with peroxide were eaten by the snails last night. Usually they never touch the stuff unless it's been broken down by peroxide first.

[holy carp]

I'm anxious to hear the fluconazole results. I had read in one of the other threads that it is dosage dependent and not time dependent. However, it sounds like there is a very large range of tested dosages. Also, the half-life is relatively short (30hrs if I recall), so I don't think you have to worry too much about residual medication in the bowl too much if it's been a few days.

 

Also, keep in mind when splitting pills that the medicine may not be uniformly distributed in the powder. So technically, you might have to get your razor blade and mirror out...

[natalia_la_loca]

I'm anxious to hear the fluconazole results. I had read in one of the other threads that it is dosage dependent and not time dependent. However, it sounds like there is a very large range of tested dosages. Also, the half-life is relatively short (30hrs if I recall), so I don't think you have to worry too much about residual medication in the bowl too much if it's been a few days.

 

Also, keep in mind when splitting pills that the medicine may not be uniformly distributed in the powder. So technically, you might have to get your razor blade and mirror out...

 

Wow, that's a really short half-life, I hadn't seen any reference to that in the R2R thread. I thought I read that fluconazole doesn't break down in waterways the way some other meds do...if true, wouldn't that argue against it having such a short half-life?

 

And I didn't even think about the possibility of the med not being uniformly distributed in the powder. It looks uniform to the naked eye, but who knows? This is all pretty vague and confusing. But my inclination is to go ahead and add the extra half-dose, since that's what others have been doing, and I've seen no ill effects at all on my corals and inverts.

[holy carp]

That's a good point. The half life I had seen was from Wikipedia, but that's in humans, so what happens in the aquarium could be completely different. I ain't no biologist, but my aquarium only pees once a week, so maybe it lasts a lot longer.

 

[natalia_la_loca]

I ain't no biologist, but my aquarium only pees once a week, so maybe it lasts a lot longer.

 

 

[Lula_Mae]

Eep! Bryopsis! I've had GHA plenty of times but I don't think I've ever (knock on wood) had to deal with bryopsis. I find the administration of fluconazole for treatment interesting--I'll have to read up on that.

 

New additions are lovely!

[HammerLover]

What's that green branching coral beside the digitatas? Is it the nephthea? Lol haha. It seems like a branching cabbage coral to me haha

[natalia_la_loca]

Yup, that's the nephthea. It's doing really well and adds movement to the bowl along with the frogspawn, goniopora and Duncan.

[natalia_la_loca]

Six days in, I'm not sure if the fluconazone is taking effect. I still see several little strands of algae. The snails are pretty thorough, so if it were dying, I would think it would be disappearing faster.

 

Tomorrow is the day I usually do the weekly 100% water change. I'm not sure how to proceed. I could skip the water change and add another full dose of flucon, or do the water change and dose flucon after. If I do the water change, it will allow me to treat the algae with peroxide--a form of insurance in case the flucon doesn't work. If I don't do the water change, it could possibly make for a larger cumulative dose of flucon to help knock back the algae for good. Thoughts? (Maybe I should repost this question in the flucon thread.)

 

This is the only bit of algae that's easy to photograph. It looks pretty much the same as before.

 

On a happier note, here's a photo dump.

 

Good morning blondies! It's nice to have some of them again.

 

The utter chaos zoas are looking good too.

 

Fruit loops are taking a little longer to wake up. There's also a searchlight zoa in the shade there, a freebie from Lawn

 

Overall, the zoa garden is looking pretty good. There's a spaghetti worm hanging out there.

 

Continued recovery of the acan. Continued failure to thrive from the sunset monti (far right).

 

Finally got a decent side shot of the Duncan

 

All in all, the bowl is doing great. I just wish that flucon would work. I'm tired of peroxide.

[SeaFurn]

Six days in, I'm not sure if the fluconazone is taking effect. I still see several little strands of algae. The snails are pretty thorough, so if it were dying, I would think it would be disappearing faster.

 

Tomorrow is the day I usually do the weekly 100% water change. I'm not sure how to proceed. I could skip the water change and add another full dose of flucon, or do the water change and dose flucon after. If I do the water change, it will allow me to treat the algae with peroxide--a form of insurance in case the flucon doesn't work. If I don't do the water change, it could possibly make for a larger cumulative dose of flucon to help knock back the algae for good. Thoughts? (Maybe I should repost this question in the flucon thread.)

 

 

 

On a happier note, here's a photo dump.

 

 

All in all, the bowl is doing great. I just wish that flucon would work. I'm tired of peroxide.

 

 

 

 

 

Despite your latest battle the bowl still looks amazing! And keep the pictures coming.

 

I think I'd stick to your routine - water change, treat with peroxide, and then dose the fluconazole again.

(Didn't read the Flucon thread to see if you posted there or if others answered)

 

Are you still running your light for 8 hours per day and 16inches above the water?

[HammerLover]

Stunning pics Nathalie!!

I wish I can get ahold of utter chaos and blondies but they sadly cost a fortune which I cant afford.

 

And that pink gonio is looking really really happy in there haha. All your corals are just simply amazing!

[natalia_la_loca]

Thanks you guys

 

Yup, I'm going to do the WC-peroxide-flucon tomorrow. Best to take no chances.

 

I am still running the light 8 hrs daily but now have it at 17.5" above the water line.

[Jrodinnola]

Looking great!! I'm loving those utter chaos!

[natalia_la_loca]

Thank you J it's so nice to have utter chaos again. They're one of my favorite zoas.

 

Today was busy. I did the water change, hit the bryopsis with peroxide, and dosed 110 mg of flucon. Then dropped off some digitata frags at Cherry Corals.

 

I did not return emptyhanded

[Lula_Mae]

The acan looks like it's recovering nicely! Not gonna let a chalice get it down! I love the little zoa garden. I'm hoping to have success with zoas this time around, as I've always managed to kill them in short order. Looking forward to seeing pics of the new additions!

[natalia_la_loca]

Yup, zoas are super temperamental. But I keep getting more of them because they're so pretty...

[natalia_la_loca]

I was too busy this weekend to get out the DSLR, but here are some quick cellphone snaps of a new acquisition from Cherry Corals. The colors of this goniopora remind me a lot of an "ultra" eagle eye zoa colony I used to have in the Nuvo 8 zoa garden. Hopefully it will do as well as the pink gonio has done over the last couple of months.

 

 

[natalia_la_loca]

Memory lane: This is the "ultra" eagle eye colony (far left) from my old zoa garden.

 

Looking back at the pics of my zoa garden, I really miss having Petroglyph zoas. I should probably save up some more pennies (and dollars, many many dollars) and place an order at Legendary. There's no more room on the rockscape, but I'm ordering some magnetic frag racks for individual frags. I think a little petroglyph colony near the surface (they really seem to love the light) would be perfect for that.

[Mariaface]

Ugh, petroglyphs are gorgeous. I need to grow out my zoa frags and grab some from Darwin..

[zoohed]

Nat I know I've said it before but man this is gorgeous.

 

On another not I just went with the lamp and bulb combo you've got for my 2.5. Have you noticed any heat issues? I know it said not to put it in this type of lamp.