Jesse's 30 gallon reef + 10 gallon planted dorm tank

[kinetic]

what did you get?

[HIppieRose]

And pictures.

 

[jesseatam]

I got a link's goby, a black line blenny, and a frag of grube's gorgonian and some branching gsp. The gsp has mostly opened up which I'm happy about considering my hermit crab already knocked it over once, the gorgonian has not however. The goby has been eating pellets quite well but the blenny has shown no interest in them, I might try offering some frozen later. Also I'm having the worst cyano outbreak I've ever had in the display but I'm confused since my nutrients are the lowest they've ever been, I used to have nitrates of around 20 ppm and phosphates of 1. something when the tank first started up and had no issues. Now nitrates are undetectable (probably due to macro algae uptake) and phosphates are around .04 - .08. The stuff has spread onto the rocks as you can probably see in the pics and has even taken hold in the higher flow areas. But enough of that time for pics, excuse the dirty glass and qt, I figured the film algae might give whatever I put in there something to graze on since there's no live rock.

[HIppieRose]

Great pictures.  Thank you for sharing.

[jesseatam]

1 hour ago, HIppieRose said:

Great pictures.  Thank you for sharing.

Thanks! I would post an updated FTS too but everythings pretty ugly and cyano covered.

 

Minor update: The goby just restlessly swims around and paces the tank unless he's pecking at the glass and looking for food, slightly concerned because this doesn't seem like a normal behavior for this type of fish but I don't know as I've never had one. At least it's eating though. The blenny is very illusive hiding in squidwards house usually looking out one of the eyes, if he even decides to show himself at all. I did catch him out in the open once though, I think he's still getting adjusted to the tank and to me. He still hasn't shown interest in any food but he came in looking pretty fat so I'm not worried yet.

 

[kinetic]

Cyano outbreak means there's a lot of phosphates/nitrates for it to consume. The more cyano you have, the lower these levels will be since the cyano bacteria is using them up before you can test for them.

 

Try to use chemiclean in the display. I did this once in my previous tank and cyano never came back. If it does, you need to figure out how to reduce the phos/nitrates overall (more skimming, less feeding, etc.)

[jesseatam]

See but I'm not sure how my nutrients can be so high, I'm not overfeeding and the tank is very lightly stocked. There's the fire shrimp, the hermit crab, the two brittle stars, one possibly 2 small pistol shrimp, snails, and then that crab I'm trying to get rid of. I was thinking about getting some chemiclean but I was hoping this outbreak would just burn itself out like the last one did.

[kinetic]

6 hours ago, jesseatam said:

See but I'm not sure how my nutrients can be so high, I'm not overfeeding and the tank is very lightly stocked. There's the fire shrimp, the hermit crab, the two brittle stars, one possibly 2 small pistol shrimp, snails, and then that crab I'm trying to get rid of. I was thinking about getting some chemiclean but I was hoping this outbreak would just burn itself out like the last one did.

Your sand/rock may be trapping a lot of detritus or even left over food? That can build up over time, and won't release a lot at first, but can start releasing more nutrient later. Even lightly stocked tanks need enough nutrient export and low amounts of trapped areas. Again, might be none of those things. Cyano can grow with just about any amount of nutrient. You just need to either combat that with competing nutrient consumers or reduce the source. If I were you, I'd just use chemiclean. I used that and cyano never came back (3 years with that tank).

 

I'm also in the camp of using cool innovative things like chemipure to get rid of something fast. As long as it doesn't hurt anything else (which it doesn't when dosed correctly).

[jesseatam]

6 hours ago, kinetic said:

Your sand/rock may be trapping a lot of detritus or even left over food? That can build up over time, and won't release a lot at first, but can start releasing more nutrient later. Even lightly stocked tanks need enough nutrient export and low amounts of trapped areas. Again, might be none of those things. Cyano can grow with just about any amount of nutrient. You just need to either combat that with competing nutrient consumers or reduce the source. If I were you, I'd just use chemiclean. I used that and cyano never came back (3 years with that tank).

 

I'm also in the camp of using cool innovative things like chemipure to get rid of something fast. As long as it doesn't hurt anything else (which it doesn't when dosed correctly).

Definitely going to get some chemiclean cause this cyano is getting to be too much, and I'll probably get some chemipure once I run out of carbon. The stuffs seems like it would be nice for the QT tank, I just need a hob with more room though since the stock filter that came with the little 10 gallon kit barely has enough room for the bio media I have in it.

[jesseatam]

Just order some chemi clean, but I've achieved success! I saw the blenny eat for the first time just now. I usually just drop a pinch of the hikari marine s pellets and let them get blown around for the goby to forage for but the blenny actually grabbed one out of the water column! I'm going to try to train him onto the pipette but it seems to spook him a bit. I really though the goby was going to be way more difficult but the guys a total pig and quite bold. Side note however, I have seen both of these fish flash (and the blenny even chase its tail a bit) but I'm not super worried as there's nothing really besides some small opaque spts on the goby's pectoral and tail fins. 

 

The corals have been doing well, the GSP would be doing better if someone would keep flipping it over or knocking it onto the sand bed every night but the gorgonian finally opened which has me happy.

[jesseatam]

Also saw a very scary worm that I've never seen before, had me pretty spooked.

[kinetic]

7 hours ago, jesseatam said:

Also saw a very scary worm that I've never seen before, had me pretty spooked.

eunice worm? bobbit?

[jesseatam]

15 hours ago, kinetic said:

eunice worm? bobbit?

Not a eunice, have some very small white ones and a brown one that lives in one of my rocks so I know what they look like.  It could've been a bristle worm and me seeing it directly from the front confused me, but it seemed to have spikes on its sides rather than bristles. Also didn't get to see it very clearly at all so there's that too. I'm just going to go with bristle worm unless I manage to see it again.

[ajmckay]

Nice tank - sucks you've had so many issues with fish...  

 

IME fish do best when you:

- Only buy the healthiest fish (comes from experience and hours and hours and hours of observation).  Bigger fish also tend to do better IME - but that's just me.

- Use a QT.  Keep the QT dim and in a place where it doesn't see a lot of movement.  Get the fish eating as quickly as possible.  Eating stimulates the appetite and if it hasn't eaten in a few days the chances of it suddenly starting is small.  If a fish isn't eating you should be switching foods or finding the root cause as soon as possible.  When you add a fish to QT, match salinity and pH exactly to the water the fish are coming from.  Then temp acclimate. 

- Try to have some 100% cured live rock in the QT.  I found a few lbs of super cheap stuff on craigslist from a tank teardown and I use it in my QT.  When not in QT it's in a tub of water with a small powerhead and some food dropped in occasionally to keep it active.  Alternatively run a sponge in your DT and when it's time to QT use the sponge.  Get a new sponge each time if you can.

- Treat prophylactically with praziquantel.  Have some other meds on-hand though.  Crypto (SW ich) is pretty common.  Internal parasites are also common and I've had a little success with metro + focus.  I think in my case the focus may have been old though and didn't bind enough of the medication to the food so it seemed to work fine but a few months later noticed the same symptoms in a wrasse (notorious for parasites).  I've treated the water with metro before - but honestly that didn't work well.

 

Good luck - the fish you ordered look pretty cool.

 

[jesseatam]

1 hour ago, ajmckay said:

Nice tank - sucks you've had so many issues with fish...  

 

IME fish do best when you:

- Only buy the healthiest fish (comes from experience and hours and hours and hours of observation).  Bigger fish also tend to do better IME - but that's just me.

- Use a QT.  Keep the QT dim and in a place where it doesn't see a lot of movement.  Get the fish eating as quickly as possible.  Eating stimulates the appetite and if it hasn't eaten in a few days the chances of it suddenly starting is small.  If a fish isn't eating you should be switching foods or finding the root cause as soon as possible.  When you add a fish to QT, match salinity and pH exactly to the water the fish are coming from.  Then temp acclimate. 

- Try to have some 100% cured live rock in the QT.  I found a few lbs of super cheap stuff on craigslist from a tank teardown and I use it in my QT.  When not in QT it's in a tub of water with a small powerhead and some food dropped in occasionally to keep it active.  Alternatively run a sponge in your DT and when it's time to QT use the sponge.  Get a new sponge each time if you can.

- Treat prophylactically with praziquantel.  Have some other meds on-hand though.  Crypto (SW ich) is pretty common.  Internal parasites are also common and I've had a little success with metro + focus.  I think in my case the focus may have been old though and didn't bind enough of the medication to the food so it seemed to work fine but a few months later noticed the same symptoms in a wrasse (notorious for parasites).  I've treated the water with metro before - but honestly that didn't work well.

 

Good luck - the fish you ordered look pretty cool.

 

Thank you! Everything was going so well and it then all went downhill suddenly, It was my own fault though and I've learned from it. I'm trying to do the right thing now, hopefully everything goes well with these fish.

 

Also thank you for the tips as well! The meds I have on hand are cupramine, prazi, and now metroplex. Do I need focus to be able to bind the metro with food? 

 

Yeah  I'm really happy with the fish I ended picking, they're not really fish you see all that often and I think it'll make for a really cool and unique display.

[ajmckay]

15 hours ago, jesseatam said:

Thank you! Everything was going so well and it then all went downhill suddenly, It was my own fault though and I've learned from it. I'm trying to do the right thing now, hopefully everything goes well with these fish.

 

Also thank you for the tips as well! The meds I have on hand are cupramine, prazi, and now metroplex. Do I need focus to be able to bind the metro with food? 

 

Yeah  I'm really happy with the fish I ended picking, they're not really fish you see all that often and I think it'll make for a really cool and unique display.

Haven't had a tank wiped out by a parasite (yet ) but I can't imagine anything more frustrating.  It takes quite a bit of work to get a tank set up and running.

 

Those are pretty good meds to have on-hand.  It seems that most of the accounts I've read where people had success with metro used focus to bind it to the food.  There may be successful accounts of people treating the water as well - I just haven't read many.  I have used it both ways for internal parasites and treated the water for crypto.  For internal parasites I found some success treating the food but it must have missed some because the same fish had internal parasites again several months later.  I treated the water but it died.  For crypto I treated the water but the fish still died.  Could be that I was too late in starting treatment?  Either way it's supposed to be relatively gentle on fish but my experience is that the effects aren't felt as quickly as say, a copper based medication?  For internal parasites you usually have more time though...

[jesseatam]

1 hour ago, ajmckay said:

Haven't had a tank wiped out by a parasite (yet ) but I can't imagine anything more frustrating.  It takes quite a bit of work to get a tank set up and running.

 

Those are pretty good meds to have on-hand.  It seems that most of the accounts I've read where people had success with metro used focus to bind it to the food.  There may be successful accounts of people treating the water as well - I just haven't read many.  I have used it both ways for internal parasites and treated the water for crypto.  For internal parasites I found some success treating the food but it must have missed some because the same fish had internal parasites again several months later.  I treated the water but it died.  For crypto I treated the water but the fish still died.  Could be that I was too late in starting treatment?  Either way it's supposed to be relatively gentle on fish but my experience is that the effects aren't felt as quickly as say, a copper based medication?  For internal parasites you usually have more time though...

I really hope you don't have to experience it.

 

Oh I also forgot that I have some polyp lab medic laying around somewhere too as that's what I tried to treat with since I didn't have a QT at the time of the outbreak. I'm going to order some focus because I didn't realize I needed it to bind the metroplex to the food, I actually forgot that I have some homemade frozen pellets that an LFS gave me that are supposed to get rid of parasites so I might try them out. I'm trying to avoid using copper if I can just because I don't want to compromise the equipment and the tank itself.

[ajmckay]

Completely forgot to mention this but NLS (New life spectrum) sells pre-medicated foods.  Hex shield I believe is impregnated with metro.  There's also an ich-shield which I believe active ingredient is Chloroquine based?

[jesseatam]

Apologizes for the absence, had some things happen to the tank. Long story short chemi clean kind of crashed my tank but not really. If you want to see what happened check this thread: 

 

I’m just mainly going to talk about how the tank is now and what I lost and how the fish in QT are doing.

 

The only coral that’s fully gone is the gorgonian, the LPS took a major hit, the branching gsp lost its branch, but and the zoas and the nems in my system are alright. Everything else besides the corals however, did not fair nearly as well. I lost my hermit, my fire shrimp, my brittle stars, my little hitchhiker pistol shrimp, and who knows how much microfauna like pods and all the assorted worms I had in my sand bed. I’ll attach a current FTS and what some of my corals look like below.

 

The fish in QT are doing quite well, the blend has become much bolder and active, and is eating better too. I’m worried about whether the blenny gets enough to eat as I know it has a fast metabolism but I’m always able to get at least 2 feeding a day during the week and I feed heavily on the weekends, we’ll have to see if this is enough. There is still some flashing going on though, I’m undecided on what my course of action is going to be at this point as there’s no noticeable marks on the fish. The goby is doing very well, this guy eats like a pig and will eat right out of the water column and right off the bare bottom. Even though these guys are naturally sand sifters I definitely think they’d be suitable for a bare bottom system. I also think the goby acts as a dither fish for the blenny, it has me thinking as to whether it’s beneficial to have other fish in the QT while you have more cryptic fish to make them more comfortable. Maybe something like a molly would be good as they’re peaceful, cheap, and hardy. Anyway I’ll try to get some good pics of these guys in too.

[jesseatam]

[kinetic]

Yikes! Sorry to hear about the crash. Bouncing back is the best way to go about it. Glad you're pushing forward.

[jesseatam]

8 hours ago, kinetic said:

Yikes! Sorry to hear about the crash. Bouncing back is the best way to go about it. Glad you're pushing forward.

Thank you, I just wish I new for sure what caused the negative reaction. I’m having what looks to be a hair algae outbreak due to all the die off. I haven’t done any testing to see what my numbers are at but I’ve been changing out and putting extra carbon every week with my water changes so hopefully that will help with things. Also been putting a put of reef roids in the water every once in a while to feed whatever pods are left if any. On the bright side I should be heading to Manhattan aquariums next weekend, I need some more CUC and see if anything else catches my eye. I would order from reef cleaners again but with school I can’t be home for a the delivery.

[jesseatam]

Took a trip to the city and stopped at Manhattan Aquariums, came home with 2 turban snails, 2 scarlett hermits, a porcelain crab, and an orange ricordia. Everything was just added about 10 minutes ago as of typing this and the porcelain is already fanning which is great. I only have a picture of the mushroom though since I forgot to take pics of everything in their bags .

[Snow_Phoenix]

Your blenny is beautiful! Like the unique look of the goby too. Sorry to hear about the crash. I never knew Chemiclean could kill inverts until I read this thread.

[jesseatam]

I'm pretty sure I was sold empty snail shells... Probably going to try to just stick to reef cleaners from now on if possible. Everything else I bought is doing well though. However, I feel like the mushroom might be losing a bit of color but it is also expanding more.