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Cultivated Reef

Alex's Biocube 29


xAyanex

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The toadstool complements the rock and the rest of your tank nicely. Are you still able to find your starfish? :D

 

-JN

Thank you! Nope, haven't seen the starfish in a long time! It's probably still in there somewhere, though. There are a lot of holes in one of the rocks. It could stay hidden for months.

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I tried the chemipure elite and it didn't do anything to bring down my phosphates. Finally I gave up and ordered some brs high grade carbon and gfo and just mixed them in a bag myself. My phosphates went from .08-.16 down to .02-.04.

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Thanks Stella!

 

And thank you RDVALLEJO for sharing your experience with me. If I have phosphate issues in the future maybe I can learn from you! :)

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Nice toadstool! Those look like radioactive dragon eye Zoanthids to me. Or close anyways.

Thanks! That sounds really cool!!

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Today is 3 days away from finishing the 4 week quarantine of observation of Bob and Dot, the clownfish. They had been doing awesome, but...

 

Two days ago, a tiny white dot appeared on Dot's eyeball (the black and white ocellaris). She stopped eating. Now, two days later, I came home and she is dead. :( She was significantly larger than Bob and could have been much older. She acted fine and ate well until two days ago. I don't know what the white dot was, but it did not look like ich. It may have contributed to her death. She didn't act weird in any other way and showed no other behavior or symptoms out of the ordinary leading up to this.

 

Bob is still doing great, but since I'm so new I have no idea what Dot's cause of death was or if it could affect Bob. I'm scared to add Bob to the new tank and feel like I should restart his quarantine process before adding him to the DT, especially since I want to go get another black and white ocellaris to pair with him (to replace Dot). Since I'll be quarantining the new Dot anyway, I can just quarantine them together, I suppose.

 

This was a very upsetting thing to come home to this evening, but I had a bad feeling when she stopped eating two days ago... (I have been feeding ocean nutrition flakes and 1mm pellets-I forget the brand. Spectra something maybe?).

 

I keep salinity at 1.025 (tested with refractometer) and temperature at 79 degrees. They have a small cheapo LED light (it's just a 10 gallon from walmart).

 

The tank is bare bottom with PVC and not cycled, I just do a lot of water changes. So, Nitrite and Nitrate are always 0. pH is typically 8.0 or 8.2. Ammonia is never quite 0.25 but never 0 either. (I'm betting that's an accurate measurement since there are fish and fish food in there every day, although I am using an API test kit). Equipment includes airstone, heater, and HOB with filter floss and a sponge (no carbon running).

 

This is my first fish loss (and these are the first two fish I've bought). I feel like I did everything I could correctly and did thorough research. The only thing I might have done differently was automatically medicate without seeing symptoms, but I was trying to avoid that.

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Sometimes... Random crap happens that no one can pinpoint. Best of luck to you! Hope this doesn't happen again :( Sorry for your loss

Thank you. Hopefully the next one goes better!

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fishfreak0114

Bummer :(. Nothing worse than losing fish 2 days before QT ends. That happened to me a week and a half ago. Best of luck with Dot II! :). Don't feel too bad, as my favorite decorative pillow says, "shit happens"

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Bummer :(. Nothing worse than losing fish 2 days before QT ends. That happened to me a week and a half ago. Best of luck with Dot II! :). Don't feel too bad, as my favorite decorative pillow says, "shit happens"

Lol thanks for getting my spirits up :)

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Update:

 

So far Bob is doing fantastic is Quarantine. Still a bummer I had to stick it out a whole 'nother month before adding him to the DT, but better safe than sorry. The ammonia level in there is staying low a lot longer with just Bob, but most likely because I'm feeding a lot more lightly. I was way over-feeding before.

 

The toadstool and zoas are also doing quite well. The zoas rarely close (even at night) unless they are just pissed off (from me cleaning the inside glass or a snail grazing the side of them passing by). I'll be moving them up onto the LR sometime soon. The toadstool always opens up an extends its little things every day when the lights are on, but it doesn't usually stand up like it did the first day I got it (in terms of its actual stem). I'm not real sure what that means. From what I've read, toadstools exaggerate their behavior at the slightly change in water chemisty. I've also read it may not be standing up because it has too little flow or too little light. Since it's still opening up all the way, I haven't messed with it at all.

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fishfreak0114

Glad Bob's doing good! Definitely better safe than sorry! Case point, I just added to my freshwater without QTing and guess who gets to treat ich! It's not that bad, but a pain. My toadstool was pretty limp until it got used to my tank. Now it's stalk thingy (no clue what it's actually called :lol: ) stands up. I have it in pretty high light and flow too, so that could very well be part of it.

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Glad Bob's doing good! Definitely better safe than sorry! Case point, I just added to my freshwater without QTing and guess who gets to treat ich! It's not that bad, but a pain. My toadstool was pretty limp until it got used to my tank. Now it's stalk thingy (no clue what it's actually called :lol: ) stands up. I have it in pretty high light and flow too, so that could very well be part of it.

Oh no! Hope everything gets through the ich okay. I don't know what the stalk thingy is called either. It's probably easy to google, too, but oh well. Rofl.

 

Maybe I'll move it when I move the zoas, but probably not. Since it opens up and seems happy, I feel like it's okay where it is.

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fishfreak0114

Oh no! Hope everything gets through the ich okay. I don't know what the stalk thingy is called either. It's probably easy to google, too, but oh well. Rofl.

 

Maybe I'll move it when I move the zoas, but probably not. Since it opens up and seems happy, I feel like it's okay where it is.

As long as it's happy, all is well :). Mine took up too much room on the sand bed so I used it to help fill the gap on the top of my rock work.

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Since Bob has been doing well for so long and it's been a week since Dot died, I'm thinking about putting him in the main tank tomorrow!

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Sounds good! I'm sure it'll be ok if he's not showing any signs of illness :)

Good!! Thinking I'll make the transfer after I get home from work.

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  • 1 month later...

How's Bob doing? Any new pics?

Bob's doing fantastic! I shall post an update now! Someone was let go from my work, so I have been working a lot of 60 hour weeks.

 

Sorry to read about Dot. Hope Bob is well. Time for an update I think :)

It's alright, I got a new Dot in the mean time. And I'll work on that update right now. :)

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Update, finally! Sorry for the long delay. Several people were let go from work recently. The job is highly complex so it takes months to train replacements. Therefore, I've been working almost every single day, usually with several 12-hour days a week.

 

First, my parameters, because I like to think everything I do is completely transparent. No secrets! Anyone learning from this thread should know everything I do:

 

Quaratine Tank:

pH: 8.2

Ammonia: 0.25 (Did a water change immediately)

Temperature: 78 F

Salinity: 36 ppt, 1.026 specific gravity. (Topped off)

 

Display Tank:

pH: 8.2

Ammonia: 0

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 0

Temp: 79 F

Salinity: 35 ppt, 1.025 specific gravity

Calcium: 500 (high)

Magnesium: 1500 (high)

Alkalinity: 6.4 (very low)

Phosphate: 0.03

 

As before: Salinity is with a refractometer. Ammonia/pH/nitrite/nitrate is API. Mag, calcium, alk, and phos are Salifert. This was before a needed water change. I currently use Instant Ocean Reef Crystals salt, but I really want to change it as soon as I run out. Currently considering Red Sea.

 

Alrighty! The Quarantine Tank was just set up again about a week ago. The store I got Dot from said they had issues from their supplier with the black clowns dying and couldn't get them for weeks after that. Finally they got some last week so I have a new Dot. New Dot is smaller than the old Dot, but still larger than Bob. Unfortunately, I haven't seen Dot eat anything. I have flakes and pellets. Dot looks at the flakes, but doesn't eat them unless they fall to the bottom. Even then she doesn't seem to eat much. She tried eating the pellets a few times but gives up easily. All in all, Dot doesn't eat well. I am worried about her honestly.

 

Bob is doing great! He LOVES to eat, and would eat as much and as often as I feed him. His favorite spot in the tank is in the back by the thermometer, staying vertical with the thermometer. At first I thought this was weird and was really worried, but he seems fine. He doesn't care about any of the corals or rocks in the tank, and pretty much avoids them all. He loves to come front and center if you walk up to the tank because he thinks he'll be fed again.

 

I've gotten some new corals since I last posted. And of course, what good is an update without PICTURES!!! Here we go:

 

My new current FTS, taken 08/12/2016:

28351084974_2464442b1c_b.jpg

Nighttime FTS taken 08/14/2016:

28685120360_0fddeefb7f_b.jpg

My Toadstool which seems to have grown:

28351084124_bcea80a543_b.jpg

My Torch Coral:

28684341630_cf497887ba_b.jpg

This is my Hammer Coral. I was told it is an "Aussie Hammer", but I don't know anything about it. Anyone have any ideas?:

28353623053_49a4e1088a_b.jpg

My Radioactive Dragon Eye Zoas have REALLY grown!! Edit: I just counted 22 or 23 heads (or whatever they're called), and I don't even know that I counted them all!:

28351073414_ed2e50c988_b.jpg

This is one my newest corals, a Grape Candy Cane:

28970058425_9fd12d3165_b.jpg

Here is Bob, in his favorite spot by the thermometer:

28353611203_601725ffea_b.jpg

My other newest coral, an Orange Yuma Mushroom:

28865316372_a15b499444_b.jpg

What looks like growth of pink coralline algae:

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A Side Tank Shot:

28353596843_3edd74bb50_b.jpg

The other Side Tank Shot:

28970041535_f275625a13_b.jpg

A blurry picture of the ever-uncooperative new Dot:

28937738596_9b03b076b5_b.jpg

My first bristleworm spotting! He is a little difficult to see because he is tiny, but he is in the center top of the dirty sand there:

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And finally, another (bad) attempt at getting my first bristleworm sighting! I saw like 4 the next day, though:

28351031714_d1caaf1e60_b.jpg

Edit: Another reason for the lack of pictures specifically is because the tank went through a quite hideous bloom of diatoms algae. All the brown was just hideous and depressing to look at, so I wanted to wait it out rather than over-analyze or get frustrated about it.

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Corals look happy. Well done. Everybody goes through the ugly stages so dont worry about it. Keep on that maintenance schedule and its gonna be awesome.

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fishfreak0114

Tanks coming along nice!!! It's always nice when a phase of uglies passes. That toadstool is pretty massive! :)

 

Have you tried something like frozen mysis shrimp with dot? That might work. You could also soak it in garlic which is supposed to entice them to eat. Sometimes they just take a while though, my clowns didn't eat for over a week when I got them.

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