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

[Nixperience]

31 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

I did a water change tonight, and this is what I found when I pulled out the media basket to clean it and change the media. 

For reference, the media caddy is a little over four inches wide...

 

I put him in the garbage disposal. 

I'm not ashamed to admit I left the disposal running for a looooonnnnng time. If an 8" bristleworm came crawling up out of the sink drain when my wife was using the sink, we'd have to burn the house down because just moving out wouldn't be enough 

Lmao ???

[lkoechle]

[WV Reefer]

8 hours ago, teenyreef said:

I did a water change tonight, and this is what I found when I pulled out the media basket to clean it and change the media. 

For reference, the media caddy is a little over four inches wide...

 

I put him in the garbage disposal. 

I'm not ashamed to admit I left the disposal running for a looooonnnnng time. If an 8" bristleworm came crawling up out of the sink drain when my wife was using the sink, we'd have to burn the house down because just moving out wouldn't be enough 

 

I thought it was going to be super scary.   

 

.......... i guess if it came out of the sink it would be though. 

[Sharbuckle]

Ugh. Bristleworms are what nightmares are made of. 

[vlangel]

Teeny, I love the assortment of fish you have acquired.  Lots of interesting colors, personalities that occupy different areas of the tank.  Its really quite nice.  Your coral are looking wonderful too.  

 

I had to laugh when you described a giant bristle worm coming out of the sink.  I could almost hear 'Jaws' music.

[Lula_Mae]

11 hours ago, teenyreef said:

I did a water change tonight, and this is what I found when I pulled out the media basket to clean it and change the media. 

For reference, the media caddy is a little over four inches wide...

 

I put him in the garbage disposal. 

I'm not ashamed to admit I left the disposal running for a looooonnnnng time. If an 8" bristleworm came crawling up out of the sink drain when my wife was using the sink, we'd have to burn the house down because just moving out wouldn't be enough 

das a big worm! 

[gena]

13 hours ago, teenyreef said:

I did a water change tonight, and this is what I found when I pulled out the media basket to clean it and change the media. 

For reference, the media caddy is a little over four inches wide...

 

I put him in the garbage disposal. 

I'm not ashamed to admit I left the disposal running for a looooonnnnng time. If an 8" bristleworm came crawling up out of the sink drain when my wife was using the sink, we'd have to burn the house down because just moving out wouldn't be enough 

Awwww...he was just doing his job! Look how big you grew him.  You may miss his cleanup . 

 

Bet you could have sold him LOL.

[fishfreak0114]

 If mine get that big, I'll never put my hands in the tank again!

[ReefWeeds]

On 6/5/2017 at 9:49 PM, teenyreef said:

Yeah, me too. My nitrates fell from 4 to about 2 a few months ago, and I think the paler colors I saw in some of the corals (like the green slimer) were the result. I've gradually brought them back up to 3 or 4, but I think somewhere between 5 and 10 might be better, as long as I don't end up with algae problems.

 

So I'm hoping the Bangaii Spice Girls get pooping! 

Is a hard thing to manage. When mine get below 5, all my lps, zoas and mushies get pissy and things start bleaching. Once I get close to 10, I start getting algae ? I've got like a 3-4 point window where things are in balance 

I totally skipped to the end because I missed a ton! Great shots of the fish - and I love the school of cardinals! I had a pair of them from LA and then the male, after a year and a half, killed the female. I'm betting you don't have that problem with a school. 

 

Everything looks awesome! That bristleworm -  

[KJoFan]

Phew, I made it through the entire thread in the past few days.  Everything seems to be progressing nicely. Your tank is beautiful.

 

I was highly interested in your thread because I have the same exact tank currently lit by 2x AI Primes.  I have no complaints on them, but am seriously considering switching out to the Nanobox Wide Quad.  So...you can see why I was interested in reading your thread.

 

I saw you comment a couple times you wished you had or could go to a T5/LED hybrid fixture.  I am assuming to eliminate the typical shadowing issues that come along with LEDs? If so, is this specifically related to your sps or all corals?  So, I guess my question would be can you expand on why you'd prefer the T5 hybrid over LED only and were you in my position, would you advise a hybrid fixture over the wide quad only?

 

I do have sps currently, but am struggling to get good color out of them and ideally would like to keep sps in this tank, however, it's not a necessity as I have a 66g tank cycling now that will be sps dominant with MH/LED.  But, I want to be able to keep ALL corals in ALL tanks darnit!

 

[HarryPotter]

On 6/8/2017 at 3:19 PM, stellablue said:

Is a hard thing to manage. When mine get below 5, all my lps, zoas and mushies get pissy and things start bleaching. Once I get close to 10, I start getting algae ? I've got like a 3-4 point window where things are in balance 

I totally skipped to the end because I missed a ton! Great shots of the fish - and I love the school of cardinals! I had a pair of them from LA and then the male, after a year and a half, killed the female. I'm betting you don't have that problem with a school. 

 

Everything looks awesome! That bristleworm -  

 

 

Zero everything ???

 

lol it is possible I just don't know how to test right.. ?

2 minutes ago, KJoFan said:

Phew, I made it through the entire thread in the past few days.  Everything seems to be progressing nicely. Your tank is beautiful.

 

I was highly interested in your thread because I have the same exact tank currently lit by 2x AI Primes.  I have no complaints on them, but am seriously considering switching out to the Nanobox Wide Quad.  So...you can see why I was interested in reading your thread.

 

I saw you comment a couple times you wished you had or could go to a T5/LED hybrid fixture.  I am assuming to eliminate the typical shadowing issues that come along with LEDs? If so, is this specifically related to your sps or all corals?  So, I guess my question would be can you expand on why you'd prefer the T5 hybrid over LED only and were you in my position, would you advise a hybrid fixture over the wide quad only?

 

I do have sps currently, but am struggling to get good color out of them and ideally would like to keep sps in this tank, however, it's not a necessity as I have a 66g tank cycling now that will be sps dominant with MH/LED.  But, I want to be able to keep ALL corals in ALL tanks darnit!

 

 

Nanobox ATI retrofit- get quad pucks and 4 bulbs ???

[KJoFan]

8 minutes ago, HarryPotter said:

Nanobox ATI retrofit- get quad pucks and 4 bulbs ???

4 bulbs AND quad pucks?  That seems like overkill, no?

[HarryPotter]

Just now, KJoFan said:

4 bulbs AND quad pucks?  That seems like overkill, no?

 

 

Never overkill... the coverage just gets better and better- less shadowing= better growth! I would get 40 pucks on my tank if I could afford it- running them each at less power but gives crazy coverage

[teenyreef]

Update time! Overall things are going well, but the little hair worms are driving me crazy. I've been able to pick them all out of the sand bed, and the zoas are doing great as a result. Unfortunately, they've migrated into the rocks, where it's almost impossible to get them out. And before you tell me they're just harmless members of a beneficial clean up crew, here's a good example of what just one worm has done to one of the acros:

 

 

On the bright side, my family all got me gift certificates to my favorite lfs for Fathers' Day, and the lfs just happened to have a great coral sale on Fathers' Day, so I got a batch of new corals. So just as I had almost eliminated all the frags racks, I've filled them back up again. I think I have a problem 

 

Here are a few of the new corals!

 

PC Rainbow:

 

Hawkins Echinata:

 

Monti cap plus a tiny frag of Jason Fox Burnin Banana stylo

 

[markalot]

Love the new corals!  

 

I'm not sure I'd blame the worm on that acro dead patch but maybe, definitely maybe.  

 

Looking forward to seeing that StyloC get bigger.  I have a boring brown/green one that was free and pretty cool looking nonetheless.  

[teenyreef]

29 minutes ago, markalot said:

Love the new corals!  

 

I'm not sure I'd blame the worm on that acro dead patch but maybe, definitely maybe.  

 

Looking forward to seeing that StyloC get bigger.  I have a boring brown/green one that was free and pretty cool looking nonetheless.  

Thanks, Mark! Yeah, the worm thing is a chicken/egg problem - did it cause the damage or is it just cleaning up after the damage occurred? But after seeing what they did to the zoas, I strongly suspect it's the former. I've seen similar damage on a couple other acros, and it's only where the worms are present. Other undamaged acros have no worms anywhere near them.

 

I'm excited about the stylo, too, the colors should be really pretty if it turns out the way the larger colonies look.

 

I also picked up a tiny piece of JF Brain Freeze monti. It doesn't look like much right now, but again, the larger colonies look fantastic with really hot pink skin and bright blue polyps.

 

 

[teenyreef]

So I tried an experiment on the hair worms in the rocks. I turned off the flow, and used a small syringe to squirt boiling water into a couple holes where I knew they were living. When I used the turkey baster on the rocks later that night, they blew out of the holes, so I think it worked pretty well. I guess I'll just work on them a few at a time as I can get to them, just like I did on the one in the sand bed. I'll probably never get rid of them completely, but if I can keep them off the corals I'll consider it a victory.

 

In other news, I pulled EVERYTHING out of the back chambers, siphoned out as much water as I could, and used the turkey baster to suck up most of the rest of the water, along with all the detritus that was on the bottom of the chambers. My hope was to find something that was causing the high iron levels, like a screw or some other piece of metal, but I didn't find anything.  But at least the back of the tank is super clean 

 

Btw, here are a few more pictures of some of the new corals!

WWC Carolina, it's a nice super bright green.

 

Forest fire digitata. I've had a couple frags of this before but they've all died in various tank disasters over time.

 

Mr. Pacman acro. I had one of these before, and it grew well in this tank but turned all green. When I put it in the 10g tank, it turned back to purple, but then died about a month later. This one browned up after I put it in the tank, so hopefully I'll be posting a picture of it with better colors in a couple weeks.

 

The Oregon Tort was doing great, then suddenly started dying. I pulled it off the rocks and put if back in the frag rack, and it's been recovering well ever since. I think it probably got stung by the hair worms when it was on the rocks. 

 

Finally, Red Dragon acro:

 

[Pinner Reef]

your tort is looking a lil green 

[teenyreef]

2 minutes ago, Pinner Reef said:

your tort is looking a lil green 

Yep, along with many of the others. It's driving me crazy that I can't find where the high iron is coming from. 

[Pinner Reef]

7 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

Yep, along with many of the others. It's driving me crazy that I can't find where the high iron is coming from. 

This might sound asinine: but, did you screw the tank? I once swapped out a screw on a pipe clamp and screwed it wrong... totally screwed the system

[teenyreef]

1 hour ago, Pinner Reef said:

This might sound asinine: but, did you screw the tank? I once swapped out a screw on a pipe clamp and screwed it wrong... totally screwed the system

Good question - that's the kind of stuff I was checking by pulling everything out. It's an AIO so there no real plumbing, and I double checked that there were no hose clamps anywhere.

 

I've ruled out the pumps, skimmer, heater, magnets on the ATO sensor, plumbing, basically everything that goes into the tank other than the tank itself. I'm starting to worry that there's a chunk of metal encased in the live rock somewhere. Or there is something like a loose screw in the back chambers and I just couldn't find it. It's really hard to get into the back chambers and see everything. Short of completely breaking down the tank, turning it upside down, and rinsing it out with a hose, I don't think I can be any more thorough in checking it out, though.

[1891Bro]

2 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

Good question - that's the kind of stuff I was checking by pulling everything out. It's an AIO so there no real plumbing, and I double checked that there were no hose clamps anywhere.

 

I've ruled out the pumps, skimmer, heater, magnets on the ATO sensor, plumbing, basically everything that goes into the tank other than the tank itself. I'm starting to worry that there's a chunk of metal encased in the live rock somewhere. Or there is something like a loose screw in the back chambers and I just couldn't find it. It's really hard to get into the back chambers and see everything. Short of completely breaking down the tank, turning it upside down, and rinsing it out with a hose, I don't think I can be any more thorough in checking it out, though.

Magnets find metal good. You take the wet side of your mag cleaner and some plastic tongs and go nuts. Sand, rock, rear chambers. Just take out anything you already know has ferrous metal like pumps and such. Maybe you get lucky?

[teenyreef]

24 minutes ago, 1891Bro said:

Magnets find metal good. You take the wet side of your mag cleaner and some plastic tongs and go nuts. Sand, rock, rear chambers. Just take out anything you already know has ferrous metal like pumps and such. Maybe you get lucky?

Great suggestion - I forgot to mention I did that when I was sucking out the water. After there was about an inch of water left, I took a big magnet and ran it all over the bottom of the back chambers, but it picked up next to nothing. Probably because I had done it before with the chambers full of water - I was just a lot more deliberate about it this time.

 

I hadn't thought of running it around through the sand, though, that's a good idea. That's the next thing I'll try. 

 

And who knows, maybe I picked up whatever it was with the detritus and just didn't notice it. 

[ninjamyst]

i found a surgical knife under one of my rock before...so you never know!

[gone_PHiSHin]

6 minutes ago, ninjamyst said:

i found a surgical knife under one of my rock before...so you never know!

lol uh what? we're gonna need some details here...