Alex's Biocube 29

[tinyforest]

Looking forward to seeing the new additions. Would be really cool if the clowns host the BTA.

[xAyanex]

14 minutes ago, tinyforest said:

Looking forward to seeing the new additions. Would be really cool if the clowns host the BTA.

I'm hoping for it! I wonder if I can somehow encourage that behavior... lol

[Pjanssen]

39 minutes ago, xAyanex said:

I'm hoping for it! I wonder if I can somehow encourage that behavior... lol

Good luck with that! I have a beautiful BTA and my clown hang out in the toadstool. 

[xAyanex]

2 minutes ago, Pjanssen said:

Good luck with that! I have a beautiful BTA and my clown hang out in the toadstool. 

Hahahaha, well mine hang out clinging to the cold, hard, plastic tiny thermometer in the dark upper left hand corner of the tank, because that was Bob's first instinct hiding place when he was transferred from QT.

[Pjanssen]

Yep. I have one that hangs out up near the return output when the female won't let him near her.

[xAyanex]

Lol silly fish. Wait so is your BTA in your BC29 with stock lighting?

[Narzyzz_12]

Sweet BC RockerChic! I actually have one myself.I've always wanted an anemone for my clowns,but I'm afraid it move around and sting everything.

[xAyanex]

I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

[Pjanssen]

12 hours ago, xAyanex said:

Lol silly fish. Wait so is your BTA in your BC29 with stock lighting?

It is in my 29 but not stock lighting. I have LED's.  I think it might be getting a little big though so I might have to get rid of it. 

[xAyanex]

57 minutes ago, Pjanssen said:

It is in my 29 but not stock lighting. I have LED's.  I think it might be getting a little big though so I might have to get rid of it. 

Ah, I eventually want to upgrade to a nanobox retro

[RIP Sebastian]

Yay! Nem! It was almost eight or ten months before my clowns began hosting.

[xAyanex]

21 minutes ago, RIP Sebastian said:

Yay! Nem! It was almost eight or ten months before my clowns began hosting.

Oh my gosh, wow! 

[teenyreef]

Sorry about the royal gramma, but don't feel bad, it sounds like you did everything right, these things just happen sometimes. 

 

Looking forward to pictures of the rbta 

[RIP Sebastian]

4 minutes ago, xAyanex said:

Oh my gosh, wow! 

Yeah. Settle in!

[xAyanex]

A couple (blurry, as always...) pictures, finally!

 

Here is the small GSP frag that is mostly agitated by open on one spot:

 

 

Here is the bubble tip anemone that I'm assuming is an RBTA with only moonlights:

 

 

And here is the RBTA under only white daylights (no actinics):

 

 

Please disregard Dot's tail and the embarrassing cyano-covered sandbed I tried not to capture too much of. I am reading up on cyano, but people say it's high nutrients cause by too much light, overfeeding, and not enough good tank husbandry. Well, I've been slacking on the husbandry, and I could shorten my light cycle but I'd prefer not to. I definitely don't overfeed.

 

I'll keep up on waterchanges (plus do a few extra) and really try to clean up the tank, and hopefully it will take care of the problem.

[Pjanssen]

Cyano is something that almost everybody has at some point. I had good luck with Vibrant. You can also try chemiclean or red slime remover. It's very hard to get rid of with just water changes etc. It's doable, but takes a long time 

[xAyanex]

53 minutes ago, Pjanssen said:

Cyano is something that almost everybody has at some point. I had good luck with Vibrant. You can also try chemiclean or red slime remover. It's very hard to get rid of with just water changes etc. It's doable, but takes a long time 

Thanks, I think I'll try one of those then!

[xAyanex]

So tonight when I got home, I did a few things to the tank.

 

I relocated and glued all my corals so nothing is on the sand bed. Even the plate is slightly on the rocks. I stirred up the sand so it wasn't so ugly with red cyano. I turkey basted all the rocks and back chambers. And finally, I did a water change.

 

I'm hoping everything is happy and less pissed off tomorrow so I can take some pictures! 

[Weetabix7]

That RBTA is really beautiful!!!

[xAyanex]

Time to post some sad and embarrassing pictures of the tank. All these pictures were taken today, 3/6/17:

 

An FTS I took before I left for work. You can see I moved a lot of corals around. The anemone decided it didn't like being front-and-center, so he scooted to the back and decided he might be better off in the slight shade. Ignore the temporary fix to the powerheads, I haven't gotten around to opening the hole in front of them (where the flow comes out), and I will be replacing the make-shift covers altogether very soon anyway. The lights had just come on a few minutes prior to me leaving, so the torch and some other corals weren't as open as they normally are:

 

 

Here are three pictures my boyfriend sent me about 6 hours later. As you can see, the cyano pretty much covers the sand on the front half of the tank and parts of the sides. It is also on the glass frequently in a couple spots, on the rocks, on the GSP frag as shown here, and on the toadstool. Things are a little more opened up since the lights have been on a while:

 

 

Right Side View, where you can see the poor plate that isn't doing well. It doesn't look near that bad in real life. The lighting makes it look completely white, but it's really not:

 

 

Left Side View:

 

 

I am ordering some Chemi Clean from Amazon tonight. I am upset that my tank is so ugly with cyano and I feel like I'm not doing a good job. It is very discouraging. 

[RotaryReef]

Don't be discouraged, you have done a great job since day 1. This is just a phase and it will pass! The Chemi-clean should def help with the cyano, the reviews seem to be great.

 

Side Note: Woohoo post #100 

Edited March 7, 2017 by NanoSteve
Post #100

[xAyanex]

17 minutes ago, NanoSteve said:

Don't be discouraged, you have done a great job since day 1. This is just a phase and it will pass! The Chemi-clean should def help with the cyano, the reviews seem to be great.

 

Side Note: Woohoo post #100 

Thank you!! Lol congratulations on your 100th post!

[xAyanex]

Alright, my plan of attack for the cyano:

 

• Ordered Phosguard and Chemi-Clean. They won't arrive for a few days, but that gives me some time to try and combat the cyano manually. The phosguard is precautionary-although my phosphates never have tested high before, perhaps there are some phosphates for whatever reason and they are appearing falsely decreased due to consumption by algae.
• Remove the sponge next to the filter pump. I haven't been cleaning it as often as I should be, and it's probably just trapping excess nutrients to feed algae. If I ever do create a refugium or add a skimmer, I'll revisit creating a barrier in that area.
• Change the filter floss every day or every other day if it looks white. I will use less floss more often to try and keep the least amount of nutrients in the tank possible.
• Do a water change at least once a week, if not more often. I'll admit to only doing bi-weekly water changes, so I need to up this.
• Clean out the back chambers of the BC29. I will do this by scrubbing the walls and bottom, turkey basting the chamber to loosen the particulates into the water column, and siphoning out as best as I can.
• Manual removal of the cyano as much as I can. I will achieve this by siphoning out the cyano off the sandbed and glass. I will use the turkey-baster on the corals to get off as much cyano as I can and siphon it out, and I will scrub the rocks if they accumulate cyano as well. If I siphon out a bunch of sand I can rinse it well and put it back.

I won't let this ugly stuff bring me down! I would cut back on lighting, but I already decreased my lighting from 12 whites/10 actinics to 10 whites/9 actinics when I wanted to rid the tank of diatoms. I can cut back on feeding a little bit, but I already feed fairly lightly since none of my corals particularly requires being fed, and I only have 2 small clownfish which I can get by feeding once or twice a week. I admit sometimes I feed the clowns a tiny pinch each day, but with as much live rock as my tank has, I'm sure it could easily handle a couple leftover flakes that didn't make it to the fish (since I always feed with powerheads and pump on).

 

Once I get the chemi-clean, I plan to follow all the instructions. I could point the powerheads to the surface, but I'm not sure if that will be enough oxygenation. I'm considering picking up a cheap small airstone bubbler like I have in the QT tank. I would just use the QT tank one (because I have never used medication in the QT), but the blenny is still in QT and I feel like he needs it.

 

I will do a water change on the QT tonight when I get home and get some more water mixing for another water change tomorrow on the QT. The blenny racks up ammonia fast in the small, uncycled tank.

 

[fishfreak0114]

Sounds like a good attack plan!  I think your tank looks pretty, a little cyano is nothing. Your coral looks happy and that's what really matters. 

[xAyanex]

6 minutes ago, fishfreak0114 said:

Sounds like a good attack plan!  I think your tank looks pretty, a little cyano is nothing. Your coral looks happy and that's what really matters. 

Awe thanks, coming from you that's a huge compliment!