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Paradise on the Prairie


flatlandreefer

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flatlandreefer

sounds good, will follow....feel free to share more full tank shots from distance so I can get a feel for how it looks in a room ;)

 

I'll try to get shot of that later today, wish I had something other than an iphone to take pics with some of my photos aren't the best.

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flatlandreefer

sounds good, will follow....feel free to share more full tank shots from distance so I can get a feel for how it looks in a room ;)

 

 

Here is a shot of the tank and stand. The height is nice since it allows easy viewing from above and is easy to work inside the tank.

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flatlandreefer

I picked up a few new additions over the weekend at the fish store. I got a red rock flower anemone, a green birds nest, and two emerald crabs. I made a mistake when adding the birds nest, I initially placed it high in the tank kind of by the monti cap. I woke up this am to a birds nest that only has a fraction of the green that it had at the lfs and has a significant amount of bleaching. I moved the frag down to the sandbed this am. I'm not what to expect really, hopefully it will survive!?!

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Nice additions, did the birds nest lose tissue or just colour? If it lost tissue then you might want to consider fragging it into smaller bits but if it was just colour then you're doing the right thing. Keep it low until it recovers.

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flatlandreefer

Nice additions, did the birds nest lose tissue or just colour? If it lost tissue then you might want to consider fragging it into smaller bits but if it was just colour then you're doing the right thing. Keep it low until it recovers.

 

I think it lost tissue, I'm new to the whole sps thing. When talking about tissue are you referring to the brown coat around the polyps that sits on top of the white skeleton?

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I think it lost tissue, I'm new to the whole sps thing. When talking about tissue are you referring to the brown coat around the polyps that sits on top of the white skeleton?

 

Yes, that's what a lot of people refer to as flesh. Often the frag will continue to lose flesh/tissue until the entire frag coral is just skeleton. Just monitor it for now sometimes you can save a small amount by fragging it into smaller pieces.

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flatlandreefer

 

Yes, that's what a lot of people refer to as flesh. Often the frag will continue to lose flesh/tissue until the entire frag coral is just skeleton. Just monitor it for now sometimes you can save a small amount by fragging it into smaller pieces.

 

Ok, well I am out of town for a few days but I am anxious to see what is looking like on Thursday. I'm thinking I might have to frag the branch that is still looking good.

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flatlandreefer

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I cut the bottom of the plug off my orange zoa frag that has been sitting on the sand bed for a while. I super glued the frag next to my green zoas. Hopefully they look good when they grow out together!

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flatlandreefer

I went on ahead and fragged the healthy part of the birdsnest that bleached when I put it in the tank. I glued the healthy portion on to a small piece of rock rubble and also moved it up in the tank a little bit to start acclimating it to its final resting place. We shall see how the main colony does in the next few weeks, there is still some green but mostly white :wacko:

 

BEFORE

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AFTER

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
flatlandreefer

Tested all of my water parameters today.

Phosphate = 0

Nitrate = 0

Calcium = 425

Alk = 9

Mg = 1260

 

Everything looked good except mag was a little low so I dosed BRS mag mix to bring it up to 1350. I'm still a little puzzled at why I still have hair algae on the rockwork, it doesn't seem to be actively growing much but it still covers the rocks...maybe I need some astrea snails to make it dissappear?! I have also seen a little bit of cyano algae in a few places that get the lowest flow but so far it hasn't become much of an issue.

 

I have been debating on whether or not to switch up my salt mix since my Instant Ocean bucket is getting close to empty, at this point I think I am going to stick with IO because I can't get a very good explanation that explains what is actually better about more premium salt mixes. I was considering Red Sea Blue top but I am not yet convinced.

 

I recently obtained an InkBird temp controller to put my mind at ease that my heaters won't get stuck on the on position and fry the tank. It was super easy to setup but one thing I did notice is that the tempeature readout on the InkBird was 3 deg F less than the cheap digital thermometer that I have been using. I got out my digital thermometer that i use when I smoke meat to determine which one was reading correctly and it turns out that the InkBird is dead on. I have the ink bird set for 79 F which is what I was shooting for before but most likely I was actually 82 F...oops! I do like that my temp is now rock steady with the InkBird!

 

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I snapped this pic of my trumpets while I had the flow off. Hopefully there will be five separate heads soon! I think the clowns thought they were going to get fed!

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flatlandreefer

I moved my JF Jack O Lantern frag to the back of the tank in a more shaded area. It has slowly been browning out losing its orange color over the past month or so. I made the mistake of holding the super glue bottle over the frag when I opened the cap, there is a little bit of super glue on the top of the frag....hopefully it will be ok. Hopefully it is happy in its new place :wacko:

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
flatlandreefer

A pic of the latest addition. I picked up a tuxedo urchin at a lfs in denver with the goal of mowing down some of the hair algae on my rockwork. Pretty neat little guy, seems to be happy so far

 

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flatlandreefer

I got my BRS dosers hooked up a couple of days ago, so far so good. I calibrated them and they are putting out around 1.9 ml/min. Right now I have them set at 2 min dosing in the am and 3 min in the pm. I tested my Mg when I was testing Kh and Ca, my Mg was 1275 which seemed low considering I dosed Mg not too long ago. I went ahead and tested my freshly mixed Instant Ocean and it tested around 1100 so that must be why my Mg is dropping so fast. I used the BRS calculator to see how much Mg I needed to add to the fresh salt water to get its levels up to 1400, it said i needed 3.9 oz. I added that to the fresh salt water and tested again but it only took it up to the lower 1300s? I did another BRS calculation to get levels up to 1400 from the new number, added another ounce of Mg but still not at 1400. Any way I was tired of testing so I did my water change as well as dosing the tank to get the tank up to 1375 mg. After all is said and done my tank levels are at 1320, not exactly what i wanted but good enough for now and until after Christmas :D

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
flatlandreefer

My current struggle is loss of color for my green birds nest. The first picture is a current picture and the second is when I first added it. There is some growth which is a good thing but there is a very noticeable loss of color and it is now more brown than green. Possible contributing factors could be Mg swings in the past due to low Mg in fresh salt water, I have started adding Mg to new salt water. The other possibility is too much light, maybe? I bumped my kessil down slightly but nothing too dramatic. I also have dosing pumps now so there shouldn't be very much Alk fluctuation.

 

Current Brown State

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Initial Introduction and Good Green Color

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flatlandreefer

Current Parameters (1/2/17)

 

Nitrates: undetectable

Phosphate: did not test

Calcium: 400 (a little low)

Alkalinity: 10 (high but I did a water change yesterday so that might have effected it)

Magnesium: 1330

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  • 1 month later...
flatlandreefer

Finally took some time to clean the front glass, turn the flow off and take some pics of the tank and new inhabitants. 

 

This is the best pic I could get of my new pair of Radial Files from Divers Den.  I got them 3 days ago and they seem to be doing well.  I have some fish eggs and Rod's food on order because the pellets seem to be too big for their mouths and the mysis also seem to be a little big, they are very entertaining to watch and make use of the whole tank.

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Here are are a few new pieces that I got from a not so local fish store but my usual one 3 hours away.  I got a blue acro, a mainly green so far with pink highlights acro, a stylo that I didnt get a close up of, and a gold lepto frag.  All seem to be doing well so far and am excited to see them grow out.  I also turned my mp10 up to full blast and things seem to be doing well.

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flatlandreefer

Here are some older inhabitants in the tank and some full tank shots.  I got a reef octopus ns80 because everything was looking rough in the mornings, I concluded it was too much CO2 in the house, i ran the air line outside and everything is looking great! The two things that struggling is the green birds nest and monti cap.  The monti cap is bleaching but it is encrusted so I am going to leave it and see how it does.  The birds nest was not extending polyps for a while and is browned out but it seems to be bouncing back.  My plan right now is to focus on everything in the tank right now and hold off on additions for a while. 

 

Feather duster from LA

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Acans(lots of new polyps!)

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8 minutes ago, Rehype said:

 

 

The pics arent displaying.  Tank looks great BTW. Hows the sps doing?

 

Really? Are they just showing up as URL's?

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flatlandreefer

That's weird because I see the pics in the post that you sent in your post.  Can anybody else see the photos?  I uploaded them from photobucket through the insert image from url option. 

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flatlandreefer

I got my shipment from marine depot yesterday with nutrimar ova, rod food, and some brine/mysis so I have some food on hand that is appropriate size for my files. I fed some rods food this morning, he is not kidding when he says a little goes a long way! 

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