Mitten_reef’s IM30L

[mitten_reef]

Since a few corals had gone on the decline recently, figured a nice deep clean might be in order. Can’t recall last time I vacuumed the sand bed. I blew the sand bed near daily, but clearly that wasn’t enough. Yup, pretty nasty 🤢. 

🤞for better tank status next week. 

[A Little Blue]

29 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

Since a few corals had gone on the decline recently, figured a nice deep clean might be in order. Can’t recall last time I vacuumed the sand bed. I blew the sand bed near daily, but clearly that wasn’t enough. Yup, pretty nasty 🤢. 

🤞for better tank status next week. 

It’s a waste trap. 

 

[specore]

22 hours ago, ninjamyst said:

if there's no algae growing on it, it may still recover!  I find that once algae takes hold of the dead skeleton, it's pretty frag off the dead and hope for the best

Even if algae takes hold it can still re encrust.  Shouldn't be any different than encrusting on live rock.

[ninjamyst]

2 hours ago, specore said:

Even if algae takes hold it can still re encrust.  Shouldn't be any different than encrusting on live rock.

It will encrust over the algae?  

[specore]

1 hour ago, ninjamyst said:

It will encrust over the algae?  

Live rock has the same algae on its surface yet corals encrust over it...does it not?  And I do for the record have a couple which RTN'd down to the tips and are now encrusting back over the algae covered skeleton. 

 

This frag for example RTN'd to practically nothing, then after a couple of months it started encrusting again despite the fact the skeleton had a layer of algae which can be seen in the second photo. 

[ninjamyst]

impressive!  i have a birdsnest with some algae at the tips and for months it's been that way.  it's the more stringy algae though so maybe that's why

[mitten_reef]

2 hours ago, specore said:

Live rock has the same algae on its surface yet corals encrust over it...does it not?  And I do for the record have a couple which RTN'd down to the tips and are now encrusting back over the algae covered skeleton. 

 

This frag for example RTN'd to practically nothing, then after a couple of months it started encrusting again despite the fact the skeleton had a layer of algae which can be seen in the second photo. 

That’s really cool!  Sadly, mine tends to be of the shadow side and hard for the tissue to recover. 

1 hour ago, ninjamyst said:

impressive!  i have a birdsnest with some algae at the tips and for months it's been that way.  it's the more stringy algae though so maybe that's why

^ this too. 

[mitten_reef]

Merry Christmas everyone. 

 

First course for our family: charcuterie platter. 

 

[--chris--]

Merry Christmas Rut!

 

Great looking board, glad to see the photog skills getting used somewhere other than the glass box.  

 

I don't know if you have any plans to visit this side of the state, but a guy near me has dozens and dozens of SPS varieties for sale.  He is in Metro Detroit, just an FYI if you are in that area...I can pass along his info.  

[mitten_reef]

9 hours ago, --chris-- said:

Merry Christmas Rut!

 

Great looking board, glad to see the photog skills getting used somewhere other than the glass box.  

 

I don't know if you have any plans to visit this side of the state, but a guy near me has dozens and dozens of SPS varieties for sale.  He is in Metro Detroit, just an FYI if you are in that area...I can pass along his info.  

Thanks, Chris! Hope you had a good Christmas. 

I’ll likely be going over to Birmingham one of the wknds in January, not sure which yet. Is your guy nearby that area?  

[--chris--]

He is in Clinton twp, so travel time depends on traffic.  Also its further east, so not the kind of thing you can 'swing by' on the way home BUT he does have a lot of stuff!  

[mitten_reef]

2 hours ago, --chris-- said:

He is in Clinton twp, so travel time depends on traffic.  Also its further east, so not the kind of thing you can 'swing by' on the way home BUT he does have a lot of stuff!  

Interesting, my wife's grandma lives right around there in Mt Clemens.  But I don't think I'll be ready to pick up any new SPS yet, at least not the kind that I need to spend $$ on. Can you pm me to his sale thread, I assume he has one on michigan reefers?  Plus there's the Lansing swap next month...

 

I actually just picked up a small monti frag (free with store credit) from LFS on christmas eve, it has the coloration of bubblegum digi, but there's no branch offshoot...yet, we'll see.    

[--chris--]

It sounds like he will be around when you are ready.  

 

https://www.michiganreefers.com/forums/selling-forums/254075-coral-sale-sps-zoas-chalixes-tonnnnnns.html

[mitten_reef]

New acro island in the works.  Hopefully it’ll be wet before the vacation is over. 

 

This time I’ll be making my placement more carefully to avoid immediate crowding, 2 per shelf maximum. 

[mitten_reef]

Happy New Year NR friends

1/1/2018 FTS 

 

The stylo had quite a growth spurt the last few weeks.  A few acros colonies are doing phenomenal, including the cali tort frags.  A couple of acro frags are meh, hopefully I'll be able to make them look their bests again.   

[ninjamyst]

On 12/29/2018 at 10:17 PM, micoastreefing said:

New acro island in the works.  Hopefully it’ll be wet before the vacation is over. 

 

This time I’ll be making my placement more carefully to avoid immediate crowding, 2 per shelf maximum. 

where you putting it?  in the middle where the rack currently is?

[mitten_reef]

9 hours ago, ninjamyst said:

where you putting it?  in the middle where the rack currently is?

That’s the plan!! 😁 Moving most of those frags up on the new rock and get rid of the egg crate rack/stand.  

 

[DaveFason]

Great FTS and glad to see everything really coming together. New rock looks great. 

[mitten_reef]

9 hours ago, DaveFason said:

Great FTS and glad to see everything really coming together. New rock looks great. 

Thanks! Been a rocky year for the tank, due to less than stellar maintenance on my part. Hoping to be better this year with that. The light settings are far from its full potential, so I’ll be continually raising and watching the tank this first quarter. 

 

[samnaz]

On 12/29/2018 at 11:17 PM, micoastreefing said:

New acro island in the works.  Hopefully it’ll be wet before the vacation is over. 

 

This time I’ll be making my placement more carefully to avoid immediate crowding, 2 per shelf maximum. 

are you gunna drill some holes for easy frag plug mounting?

 

Tank is looking great by the way. I see you have a reef IG, def following 🙂 

[mitten_reef]

13 hours ago, samnaz said:

are you gunna drill some holes for easy frag plug mounting?

 

Tank is looking great by the way. I see you have a reef IG, def following 🙂 

Nope, not drilling any holes.  The goal is that rock will be a new permanent 'scape piece, and not just a frag parking lot. 😄 

 

Thanks for the IG follow. 👍🏼

[mitten_reef]

Some pics from the other night

let’s start with the good:

top-view

 

side view

 

Acan

 

Ric’s

 

Green acro still glows and grows

 

The other acros: the mint green and the Cali tort are doing great, the others are not so much

 

And here’s the bad - the struggling acros on the frag rack. 

And the free monti frag that might be bubblegum  

 

 

 

[teenyreef]

The tank looks great, and the goods look great too! What do you think is going on with the ones that are struggling?

[mitten_reef]

13 hours ago, teenyreef said:

The tank looks great, and the goods look great too! What do you think is going on with the ones that are struggling?

I wish I knew, my lazy reefer mentality is not gonna help with finding the actual answer.  all I can say is it's one or combination of these things: 

• high phosphate (presumably, had a major cyano outbreak right before xmas) - just poor maintenance in general led up to this
• I also must have had high nitrate at one point with hair algae everywhere right up until I got the pygmy angel.  Now I can't tell, cuz he has since eaten all my hair algae 😄 - again, just poor maintenance in general led up to this.  
• I have never done a test for either of the two above tho
• while doing a water change to try to combat cyano, noticed that my salinity was high, 1.030 high. 
• low light, still experimenting with the settings and had been keeping it quite lower than I used to. As mentioned somewhere above, each channel intensity will be ramping up significantly over the next 2 months. 

New year, new tank goals - growth, and better colors.  let's see if I can make it happen.  

[Polarcollision]

On 1/4/2019 at 10:58 AM, micoastreefing said:

I wish I knew, my lazy reefer mentality is not gonna help with finding the actual answer.  all I can say is it's one or combination of these things: 

• high phosphate (presumably, had a major cyano outbreak right before xmas) - just poor maintenance in general led up to this
• I also must have had high nitrate at one point with hair algae everywhere right up until I got the pygmy angel.  Now I can't tell, cuz he has since eaten all my hair algae 😄 - again, just poor maintenance in general led up to this.  
• I have never done a test for either of the two above tho
• while doing a water change to try to combat cyano, noticed that my salinity was high, 1.030 high. 
• low light, still experimenting with the settings and had been keeping it quite lower than I used to. As mentioned somewhere above, each channel intensity will be ramping up significantly over the next 2 months. 

New year, new tank goals - growth, and better colors.  let's see if I can make it happen.  

My lazy reefer mentality got me into high salinity challenges last month also. Corrected it over 2 days and coral that had been looking unhappy have bounced back. Not knowing whether to trust my salinity probe or the refractometer's reading, I took a deep dive to understand why the discrepancy. Salinity probe read 35ppt and calibrated refractometer read 36-37 ppt on same tank water. Turns out the 35ppt reference solution is mostly NaCl which has a different refraction than seawater with it's calcium, Mg, S, etc. Seawater at the same salinity as the 35 ppt calibration solution will read 36.6ppt at the equivalent salinity. Annoyingly complex, but at least the discrepancy is resolved. And I hope any of that is helpful in dialing in the correct salinity.