Mitten_reef’s IM30L

[ninjamyst]

have you seen that new lens from ocean design for your phones?  the ads look promising.

[mitten_reef]

Took my March photos tonight: still gotta sift through all the crappy acros pics, but here's some non-acro ones

 

 

 

 

 

[WV Reefer]

8 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

Took my March photos tonight: still gotta sift through all the crappy acros pics, but here's some non-acro ones

 

 

 

 

 

 

Very nice! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[mitten_reef]

20 hours ago, WV Reefer said:

 

Very nice! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Thanks!  Love my new acans, hopefully they stay as colorful as they're now.

 

Center rescape: frag rack gone from the floor to the back wall.  The goal is that yuma rock will be in the center of the tank, interspersed with some colorful zoas. The yuma rock has bubble algae in a few spots , so will be observing the bubbles for a while and manually remove them before I transplant the zoas over. 

[Tom@HaslettMI]

Looking good!  We need a FTS to fully appreciate your re-scape efforts. 

 

Tom

[mitten_reef]

37 minutes ago, Tom@HaslettMI said:

Looking good!  We need a FTS to fully appreciate your re-scape efforts. 

 

Tom

Thanks!  It really created more of a clutter, haha. 

 

🤦🏻‍♂️ And I forgot to take FTS yesterday with the real camera. Here’s a quick iPhone shot just now. 

 

[billygoat]

Love those ricordea, especially the ones in the back middle. Gorgeous colors!

[mitten_reef]

10 hours ago, billygoat said:

Love those ricordea, especially the ones in the back middle. Gorgeous colors!

Thanks for stopping by, I love your tank's concept! 

 

Here are some more close-ups of my Ricordea Florida from a while back.  the rocks were a bit tucked away to get any photos this month.  

 

[banasophia]

On 3/17/2019 at 8:15 PM, micoastreefing said:

Took my March photos tonight: still gotta sift through all the crappy acros pics, but here's some non-acro ones

 

 

 

 

 

Great photos! Your BTA looks amazing!!!

[mitten_reef]

So a few weeks ago my torch was slowly gaining more colors...and BAM, last week, it started receding.  I’m a lazy reefer, but it’s conditions had caused enough concerns for me to do the full test tonight:

Alk 9 dKh

Ca 410-420

Mag 1600+; high? Yup, but I thought this doesn’t affect corals much, or is that just SPS.

pH 8.1-8.2

nitrate: big fat 0 as yellow as the reagent is, no hint of change whatsoever

 

now, I’m the type that run my tank pretty dirty, no skimmer, no purigen, no chemipure/blue. I run a small piece of deep blue phosphate remover filter pad, it helps keep my sand from getting dirty.  Never imagined having zero nitrate.  

 

So is it the lack of nitrate? or the Mag? Or is it simply physical trauma? Pygmy angel has been picking out Zoas poop; and he may have the same idea for the torch poop.  and this wknd I just added a new peppermint shrimp (never had one picked at corals before), but could be a possible culprit. 

 

Here’s before pic

 

 

This past wknd

 

[banasophia]

1 hour ago, micoastreefing said:

So a few weeks ago my torch was slowly gaining more colors...and BAM, last week, it started receding.  I’m a lazy reefer, but it’s conditions had caused enough concerns for me to do the full test tonight:

Alk 9 dKh

Ca 410-420

Mag 1600+; high? Yup, but I thought this doesn’t affect corals much, or is that just SPS.

pH 8.1-8.2

nitrate: big fat 0 as yellow as the reagent is, no hint of change whatsoever

 

now, I’m the type that run my tank pretty dirty, no skimmer, no purigen, no chemipure/blue. I run a small piece of deep blue phosphate remover filter pad, it helps keep my sand from getting dirty.  Never imagined having zero nitrate.  

 

So is it the lack of nitrate? or the Mag? Or is it simply physical trauma? Pygmy angel has been picking out Zoas poop; and he may have the same idea for the torch poop.  and this wknd I just added a new peppermint shrimp (never had one picked at corals before), but could be a possible culprit. 

 

Here’s before pic

 

 

This past wknd

 

Beautiful torch. You sure about your nitrate results? If that’s not the usual range, maybe try to double check? Is the torch super close to that acan, or is that just the angle of your pic? 

[mitten_reef]

7 minutes ago, banasophia said:

Beautiful torch. You sure about your nitrate results? If that’s not the usual range, maybe try to double check? Is the torch super close to that acan, or is that just the angle of your pic? 

thanks, I never checked nitrate, so I don't know what the usual range is 🤪.  But yeah, it was super close to that acan, I just moved it this evening over to its old spot.  It had started to shrink at the old spot so I thought it was getting blasted by flow.  I had since been moving it around the tank a little bit trying to find a place where it is not getting blown around too much.    

 

[banasophia]

27 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

thanks, I never checked nitrate, so I don't know what the usual range is 🤪.  But yeah, it was super close to that acan, I just moved it this evening over to its old spot.  It had started to shrink at the old spot so I thought it was getting blasted by flow.  I had since been moving it around the tank a little bit trying to find a place where it is not getting blown around too much.    

 

Yeah my acans took out my beautiful long tentacle plate one night. 😞  Not really sure what’s going on with your torch, hopefully some more experienced people will chime in. 

[tanacharison]

Torchs are one of the random ones I've always struggled with with no real reason why. However any other euphyllia has done really well.

[mitten_reef]

1 hour ago, tanacharison said:

Torchs are one of the random ones I've always struggled with with no real reason why. However any other euphyllia has done really well.

That's mostly what I gathered about torches...not as easy to take care of as other euphyllia. 

 

All the flesh fully retracted into the skeleton as of this morning - it's either resetting itself overnight (pray to the reefing god), or it's one step closer to being goner.  My money is on the latter. 

 

This is about to become the most expensive frag I've ever lost....

  

[--chris--]

Hope its just being over cautious or is a particularly moody variant of torch.  

[Polarcollision]

if nitrates were truly zero, your leng sy monti and SPS would be super unhappy too, so that could help decide how much weight to put in the test kit -- or not.

 

People raise mag to 1600 to kill bryopsis with snails being the only think I remember taking it badly.

 

What about lighting or water flow? Too strong? Too weak?

Brown jelly disease?

 

salinity?

 

 

[--chris--]

+1 for s.g.

 

Mine has been creepin' north and driving me nuts.  The only time I seem to notice is when PE goes away.  

[mitten_reef]

31 minutes ago, Polarcollision said:

if nitrates were truly zero, your leng sy monti and SPS would be super unhappy too, so that could help decide how much weight to put in the test kit -- or not.

My thought as well - SPS needs/loves nitrate more than most people would like to admit.  so 0 nitrate reading seems a bit misleading (but it's also API kit afterall)

32 minutes ago, Polarcollision said:

What about lighting or water flow? Too strong? Too weak?

Been shuffling it around the tank trying to find a sweet spot for it to re-expand.  the shrinking occured from the original spot where it started to look a bit beat up from flow.  lighting could be something to consider as I moved it from the edge of the tank (original spot) to center of the tank, pretty high light even on the tank floor.

 

34 minutes ago, Polarcollision said:

Brown jelly disease?

it hasn't expanded enough to see any jelly/goo-ey anything.  but when it was there wasn't anything suspicious

 

35 minutes ago, Polarcollision said:

salinity?

 

31 minutes ago, --chris-- said:

+1 for s.g.

 

Mine has been creepin' north and driving me nuts.  The only time I seem to notice is when PE goes away.  

hmmm, s.g. this is a good one - my tank creeps up in s.g. over time too!  I have no idea to why.  (Minor?) problem is I actually don't know my s.g.  I still use my hydrometer, and I s.g. match the LFS water to "calibrate it" whenever I can as recently as this wknd.  And it was only off by about 0.002 unit.  I know, living on the edge.  I need one of those s.g./temp pens.    

 

 

[--chris--]

When my s.g. gets out of wack, I see it first in SPS PE, then z's and p's if it gets worse.  And algae seems to take hold easier.  Hows all that looking for you?  

[mitten_reef]

55 minutes ago, --chris-- said:

When my s.g. gets out of wack, I see it first in SPS PE, then z's and p's if it gets worse.  And algae seems to take hold easier.  Hows all that looking for you?  

SPS PE are good, not great (but I never had great PE for the most part anyways).  No algae, other than this wknd, I can't recall if I scrape my glass at all since my February photos.  Zs & Ps fluffy and bright with the exception of the struggling SunnyDs.  These are from the same photoset the other night.

[Polarcollision]

Well, if salinity is too high, osmosis would make softies and nems shrink up. It fits. You could remove a quart of water and replace with RODI in the morning and again in the evening to see if it responds.

[Polarcollision]

Side thought: salinity and alkalinity are my top 2 parameters to watch tightly. You can pick up an ATI refractometer from BRS for ~50 or less. Best money you’ll spend.

[mitten_reef]

Quick update:

 

Just caught the peppermint shrimp picking at the torch for his dinner. 

As they say in GoT, and now his watch is ended. 

 

Two lessons learned from this:

1. no more impulse buy on inverts. 

2. Know my salinity - a nearby NR member offered up his older refractomer, really appreciate his generosity.  

 

Hopefully I caught this in time, and without the shrimp picking at it for fun, the torch will make the recovery. 

 

[WV Reefer]

3 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

Quick update:

 

Just caught the peppermint shrimp picking at the torch for his dinner. 

As they say in GoT, and now his watch is ended. 

 

Two lessons learned from this:

1. no more impulse buy on inverts. 

2. Know my salinity - a nearby NR member offered up his older refractomer, really appreciate his generosity.  

 

Hopefully I caught this in time, and without the shrimp picking at it for fun, the torch will make the recovery. 

 

 

Glad you know, Its the wondering that gets ya......... hopefully it recovers. 🤞🏻

 

 

“And now his watch has ended.” 😂