Teenyreef's IM40 Not-So-Teeny Tank - August FTS

[teenyreef]

4 hours ago, Weetabix7 said:

 

This is really interesting to me, please keep us updated on this!!!!

Not sure how I missed this last time I stopped by. 

I will! So far so good 

20 hours ago, jack1978 said:

Those worms are ####ing disturbing!

 

11 hours ago, Reefkid88 said:

Those look like something you would find on Mars or something... 

Yeah, they really do look like some alien lifeform, especially in the video. When I pick one up off the sandbed, it just looks like a brown piece of snot on my finger. But I don't hold onto it any longer than I absolutely have to...

[teenyreef]

6 hours ago, Mariaface said:

They're so cute!

 

Do you spot feed the zoas with fine particle foods? They may be feasting on that..

I have done that occasionally, maybe once every week or two. And when I do, I also spritz some on the acans and other corals on the sandbed. But it's certainly possible that the zoas and palys end up with more of it in between and around the polyps due the shape of the zoas compared to the other corals.

 

I can see more of them coming out of the sand tonight, so I'm going to do another round of worm removal.

[teenyreef]

5 hours ago, markalot said:

Acros are looking fantastic.  I can't keep most zoas in my SPS tank, and I can't keep acros in the little tank where zoas do well.

Thanks, Mark! If I could just get the blues a little deeper and extensive I think I'd be pretty happy with how things are going. It may be that they need a little more light, or possibly they just need more potassium. I've tested potassium and it's within normal levels, but it's possible that the test kit just isn't very accurate. I sent off a Triton test on Monday, so it will be interesting to see how the Triton results compare to my test kit measurements. In the meantime, I've dosed a little more potassium just to see what happens.

[teenyreef]

I gave in and picked up Pierre, a six line wrasse today. I don't know if he will touch the hair worms, but now that I've found that they're fairly easy to remove by hand, I'm not worried about it. I haven't had a pest eater since the Tanaka's disappeared, and even if this six line turns out to be a bully, I'm pretty sure the clowns and angel can hold their own. And the yellow watchman goby never ventures far from his tunnel so he should be OK too.

 

On the other hand, I don't think the six line will do much with the bristle worms. Right now he's about an inch and a half long. There are at least two or three bristle worms in this tanks that are at least 8 inches long, and they're probably as big around as the wrasse. I just hope the worms don't eat the wrasse 

 

He disappeared after I put him in the tank, but he came out at feeding time and ate. But for now I only have one picture that I took while he was still in the bag floating in the tank.

 

[JR!]

off topic but what length gooseneck do you have on you nanobox for your IM10

[teenyreef]

1 hour ago, JR! said:

off topic but what length gooseneck do you have on you nanobox for your IM10

Hi, JR! I have the 9" gooseneck. In a perfect world, it would be about an inch longer. But the 13" is way too long on an IM10.

[JR!]

10 hours ago, teenyreef said:

Hi, JR! I have the 9" gooseneck. In a perfect world, it would be about an inch longer. But the 13" is way too long on an IM10.

Thanks! That's what I thought too. Just wanted to check with the expert

[mipster]

Hey Teeny,

 

I saw on TJ's thread that you're planning on trying a Chaeto reactor and I was curious how you're going to plumb it into the IM 40 (unless you were putting it in the IM 10?). I'm planning  my build with a IM 20 and I'm playing with the idea on running a chaeto reactor on it and I want to keep the reactor in the stand below and I thought it would be nice to remove the Y on the returns, keep one pump running straight to the one return and then put in another pump that will feed the reactor. This pump will need to be strong enough to pump the water down into the stand, through the reactor and back up to the tank. Then I want that return line from the reactor plumbed directly into the second return. I'd love to know how you're installing yours and any thoughts you have one what I've described. 

 

Thanks!

[teenyreef]

3 hours ago, mipster said:

Hey Teeny,

 

I saw on TJ's thread that you're planning on trying a Chaeto reactor and I was curious how you're going to plumb it into the IM 40 (unless you were putting it in the IM 10?). I'm planning  my build with a IM 20 and I'm playing with the idea on running a chaeto reactor on it and I want to keep the reactor in the stand below and I thought it would be nice to remove the Y on the returns, keep one pump running straight to the one return and then put in another pump that will feed the reactor. This pump will need to be strong enough to pump the water down into the stand, through the reactor and back up to the tank. Then I want that return line from the reactor plumbed directly into the second return. I'd love to know how you're installing yours and any thoughts you have one what I've described. 

 

Thanks!

Great question! I'm actually planning on running it on my 30g tank which has a sump

 

I'm really interested to hear how it work if you try it like you describe. I wonder if the pump will have enough power to run the water down and back up again when the other half of the Y is a low resistance path straight to the tank. Seems like all the flow would go into the tank and very little would go through the other half of the Y. Maybe you could control that by putting a valve on the half of the Y that goes to the tank?

[mipster]

2 hours ago, teenyreef said:

Great question! I'm actually planning on running it on my 30g tank which has a sump

 

I'm really interested to hear how it work if you try it like you describe. I wonder if the pump will have enough power to run the water down and back up again when the other half of the Y is a low resistance path straight to the tank. Seems like all the flow would go into the tank and very little would go through the other half of the Y. Maybe you could control that by putting a valve on the half of the Y that goes to the tank?

I don't want to hijack you thread. Do you mind if I PM you to pick you brain a bit on this? My build is going to be such a slow careful process, it seems pointless to start a thread on it now to chat about it when it likely don't be wet for another 6 months lol

[teenyreef]

I haven't noticed Pierre swimming around at feeding time the last couple days, I'm not encouraged. I'll watch carefully tonight but I don't have a good feeling about this...

 

In the meantime, here are some more coral updates, some good, some meh.

 

Tyree Pink Lemonade has colors, but not the right ones 

 

The Mr. Pacman Acro has really lost his blue/purple colors and is mostly a vivid green. I'm hoping maybe trace elements may help, along with a little more light. The bottom two pictures are from when I first got it at the end of December. Upper right is February 20. Upper left is April 3. I can't complain about the growth, though!

 

Showcase Stylo and Blue Slimer. These are doing pretty well, and I'm starting to see no-kidding blue here and there in the slimer.

 

And I'm really excited that the Chef Tenuis is finally coloring up. It happened almost overnight!

 

This was the same frag a week ago: 

 

And it was pretty much all brown before that. 

[teenyreef]

22 minutes ago, mipster said:

I don't want to hijack you thread. Do you mind if I PM you to pick you brain a bit on this? My build is going to be such a slow careful process, it seems pointless to start a thread on it now to chat about it when it likely don't be wet for another 6 months lol

Of course, I'm happy to help!

[nanoreefz]

Looking good there Teeny!! What ratio do you use for the peroxide dip? I have some frags that I need to get some dead hair algae off of.  

[teenyreef]

13 minutes ago, nanoreefz said:

Looking good there Teeny!! What ratio do you use for the peroxide dip? I have some frags that I need to get some dead hair algae off of.  

You can use almost any ratio, just have to adjust how much time the dip lasts. Usually I do about 1 part peroxide to two parts tank water, and dip for no more the about two minutes. But if I'm spot treating, I just put drops straight from the bottle on the problem spot, and put the frag back in after about 30 or 40 seconds.

[teenyreef]

Couch FTS

 

 

[teenyreef]

I got my Triton test results back, and was surprised, but sort of not surprised, to learn that I have high concentrations of chromium and iron. The high levels of iron might explain why there's a lot of green in the corals. I'm guessing that the high iron is from the gfo - I've found that some of it works it's way out of the reactor, so maybe it's accumulating in the tank. But I have no idea why I have such high chromium, this is the second test that's shown that. Molybdenum and Manganese are also higher than they should be, but in the yellow, not the red.

 

I've removed the reactor and gfo, and I'm going to use PhosphateRX at least for a while so I can see if that's the source for the high levels of iron. I ran a magnet around the bottom of the chamber the reactor is in and removed about a teaspoon of gfo. Then I siphoned as much water as I could from the back chambers, and did an 8 gallon water change.

 

I put in a Poly-Filter and some fresh carbon to start absorbing the metals. I'll do a few more water changes and send in another test to see what happens.

 

In other interesting results, I've been struggling getting a handle on what my Magnesium levels really are. My Salifert test kept reading at or above 1500, even when I tested a new batch of saltwater. Since Aquaforest salt is supposed to have Magnesium around 1300, and I haven't been dosing Mag at all, that test result seemed suspect. So I got a new Salifert test kit, and, sigh, got the same results. So then I thought I had a bad batch of salt, ordered a new batch, threw out the old stuff, mixed up a new bucket, and, sigh, it tested at 1500.

 

So I got a Red Sea Pro Mag test kit, which is a lot more time-consuming to use, and lo and behold, it showed my mag much lower, right about 1350, where Aquaforest says it should be in a new bucket of saltwater. So I thought maybe I needed to improve my testing procedure with the Salifert kit, or maybe I just somehow got two bad kits.

 

You guessed it - the Triton test says my Mag is at 1500, right where Salifert says it is. So now I don't know what to think. Maybe two bad batches of salt? I got them both from the same vendor on Amazon so maybe they're from the same lot. I think the next step is to get another bucket of salt from a different vendor and see what it tests at.

 

Another interesting reading is Iodine. I dose Iodine based on test results I get from the Salifert kit, and try to keep it between .03 and .06, usually closer to .06. Triton tells me it's at .27! So no more Iodine dosing for a while, and in the future I'll try to keep it at or a little below .03 in the test kit.

 

Finally, I was wondering if my Potassium was low since the blue colors in my sps have faded. I tested Potassium using the Red Sea kit and got 422 ppm, which is about the right level, maybe a bit high even. Just to see the effects of dosing, I dosed a little bit and remeasured at 425, so at least the test is consistent. Since then I've dosed some more based on the colors I was seeing but hadn't retested yet. Triton says I'm at 370, which is quite a bit lower that even the measurement I had before doing additional dosing. So that is encouraging to me, indicating I'm on the right track to dose Potassium. I'll continue to test as I dose, and adjust the measurement from the test kit. Then I'll compare again with the next test.

 

Here are the test results. They're a little hard to read but if you click on the image and go to Flickr, then click on it in Flickr, it should be big enough to read.

 

 

 

[ninjamyst]

My zoas been struggling too.  Very long skinny stalks.  But only the ones attached to the rocks.  The ones on frag plugs are fine.  Blah.  

[Sharbuckle]

How do you like the dimensions of this tank? I think it may replace my 65. 

[teenyreef]

17 hours ago, ninjamyst said:

My zoas been struggling too.  Very long skinny stalks.  But only the ones attached to the rocks.  The ones on frag plugs are fine.  Blah.  

Yeah, zoas are just weird. Although between the hair worms, and maybe some of the weird chemistry the Triton test seems to show, it might explain things in this tank.

12 hours ago, Sharbuckle said:

How do you like the dimensions of this tank? I think it may replace my 65. 

I like it. As Kimberbee noticed when she had one, it is a tall tank, so reaching into it can be a bit of a pain, with a tendency for your arm to spill water all over the outside glass when you try to work in the tank. But on the other hand, there's a lot of vertical space for corals to grow toward the light, and you can get a good difference in PAR between the bottom and the top. It's a lot of water for the relatively small space it occupies.

[teenyreef]

So tonight I moved out some of the corals. A lot of the corals that have been squatting on the sand bed waiting for the 10g tank to get better went home, and I also had a few zoas that were on frag plugs because they're extras, and they went into the 30g frag tank.

 

I'm super excited because @drgibby asked me to coral sit some of his favorite corasl for him while goes through a tankless period moving from place to place, and the shipment arrives tomorrow! I'll be putting them in here, at least for now, because of my three tanks, this is the only one that I know 100% can handle finicky sps. I think the other two tanks are finally getting close, but I want to test them with some frags I don't mind losing first.

[teenyreef]

By the way, those of you with really sharp eyes may have noticed a little yellow blob in a bag floating in the tank in the full room shot I posted the other day. As I mentioned, Pierre, the six line wrasse, went missing after the second day, and unfortunately I found his remains stuck in the MP10. RIP little buddy.

 

But on the bright side, I finally found a yellow coris wrasse at another lfs. I acclimated him and put him in the tank, but unfortunately he got it into his tiny brain that the only good spot for him in the entire tank was right in the middle of the zoas where the clownfish host. He came back four or five times after being chased out, and finally decided it was time to hide and buried himself in the sand a little ways away from the clowns' turf.

 

I haven't seen him since, but the the lfs told me to expect him to be hidden for at least a couple days. And today there was sand all over the acans where he buries himself, so I think he's still alive. 

 

Here's a cell phone shot of Bartley tilting at windmills 

 

 

[RIP Sebastian]

What a little wrasse-hole! Trying to take over the clowns' turf!

[vlangel]

Bummer about the 6 line.  The coris wrasse is very pretty and so vibrant!  Bartley better watch his back if he's going to move in on the clowns' territory!

[drgibby]

I liked your six line  sad to see him gone so fast.  Your coris wrasse is so pretty! They should be there very soon !!!!!

[teenyreef]

@drgibby's corals are here and they are in the tank on yet another frag rack. The WWC yellow tips frag was losing flesh when I got it out of the box, but the rest look like they survived the trip OK. Pics tomorrow!

 

Sadly, I found the yellow coris wrasse plastered to the MP-10 screen tonight. He was still alive, so I put him in a little breeder box just to see if he pulls through. But it's never a good sign when a fish can't get off his side

I'm going to put some sand in the box so he can feel less stressed. I don't have a lot of optimism but after losing the six line it's a little discouraging.