Dr. Felicia's Back to Basics IM14 - Retired 2/25/2020

[Felicia]

2 hours ago, Ebn said:

They just picked this one up since they're up in the bay over the break.

 

 

Neon green base and tentacles and purple tips from Japan. It's available at California Reef Co. if you're interested.  

Thank you!  However, that actually looks almost identical to the weeping willow toadstool I got from Legendary Corals.  I'm just bad at photographing the true colors of mine and also I keep my lights really white, which makes the colors more pastel.  I wonder if its the same lineage since Legendary and Cali Reef Company are both in the South Bay.  It really is a unique variety of sarcophyton!

1 hour ago, gogeta said:

Tank looks amazing!!

Thank you!

 

 

Tank Updates

1. I had to mix up some fresh salt water since I took out some tank water to acclimate the new possum wrasse.  I decided to just go ahead and do a full water change/tank cleaning.  I replaced the ChemiPure Blue as well this time since the media was about a month old.
2. I got the new AI Prime light all set up and programmed.  It was super easy!  There are so many channels to play with!  I'm not sure I have it all dialed in exactly how I want it, but its good as a starting point.  I've got it running at about 50% power, which hopefully won't be too intense while the corals adjust.  The Maxspect Razor Nano was a 60 watt fixture and I ran it at about 80%.  The Prime is 55 watts, so I figure 50% should be ok.  Once the corals adjust, I can ramp it up gradually.
3. The possum wrasse seems to be just as spunky in my tank as he was in the LFS.  I was under the impression that they were very shy fish, but that doesn't seem to be the case at all.  I added him to the tank and he immediately just started swimming all around out in the open.  I've done a water change, had my hands in the tank, and been turning the light on and off a bunch to set up the new fixture, but he hasn't hidden even once.  He just stayed out in the open all chill during all of that.  I hope he does well and maintains the spunky personality!  He didn't eat yet this evening, but he's a fat little fish, so hopefully he'll eat once he settles into the tank.  Also, the LFS he came from feeds primarily frozen, so he probably isn't quite sure about flakes/pellets yet.

 

Here's a bad photo of the new possum wrasse!  He's a cutie!

 

And here's what I have right now for the light program.

 

 

[Ebn]

Different lineage. They have the enoki, Tyree sarco, weeping willow, as well as a few others in their collection. This one also hails from Japan whereas the LC one is from your favorite LFS  which doesn't import from Japan. 

[Pjanssen]

It's amazing how much you can put into these little tanks! Everything looks awesome! Mine needs some revamping-seems like something has knocked all r most of my gorgs off of the rocks so I need to get in there and re-glue everything. 

Love the possum wrasse, and your yellow palys/zoas.

[Felicia]

7 hours ago, Ebn said:

Different lineage. They have the enoki, Tyree sarco, weeping willow, as well as a few others in their collection. This one also hails from Japan whereas the LC one is from your favorite LFS  which doesn't import from Japan. 

Good to know!  I am so bad at keeping track of names and lineages and such.  I'm just like oh, pretty!  I'm curious, do the two look similar or very different in their tank together under the same lighting?  I'm more looking for ones that look quite a bit different from each other since I don't have much space.  

[gogeta]

If you have a google search there's a big thread on rc which goes through setting up the AI lights to the radion ab+ setting which is preferred by many with these lights. Worth a look

[Felicia]

5 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

It's amazing how much you can put into these little tanks! Everything looks awesome! Mine needs some revamping-seems like something has knocked all r most of my gorgs off of the rocks so I need to get in there and re-glue everything. 

Love the possum wrasse, and your yellow palys/zoas.

Thank you!   I do love to cram things in!  That's why softies and gorgonians are nice since they don't sting or have much coral warfare.  Its nice in a crammed space to let everything just grow together naturally.  Are you just using superglue to glue down the gorgonians?  I like to use a small ball of reef epoxy with a big glob of glue on each side to attach things.  They end up being very difficult to dislodge or knock over with that method.

 

The possum wrasse seems to be doing well today!  He's been out and about all day.  I didn't see him eat when I fed the tank, but I'm not too stressed about that.  He hopefully should start eating once he settles in a bit more.  He's so fat and healthy that he'll be fine not eating for a few days.  The yellow zoas are King Midas zoas.  They're an oldie, but a goodie in terms of the named zoanthids.  I grabbed them at RAP and they're one of my favorites for the nice pop of a different color they add to this tank.  

[Felicia]

1 minute ago, gogeta said:

If you have a google search there's a big thread on rc which goes through setting up the AI lights to the radion ab+ setting which is preferred by many with these lights. Worth a look

Thank you!  I just googled and looked at it.  Unfortunately, that's much too blue for me.  I keep my spectrum more in the range of 11-13K, which I know is much less blue than most people prefer.  I've just never been a big fan of the super blue look and since the gorgonians don't fluoresce, the really blue lighting really doesn't do them justice.

[Felicia]

I put together a quick video because I wanted to try out photography/videography with the new light.  Luckily it has a manual mode that is easy to switch to without messing up the lighting program.  That way I can do photography the way I've always done by just changing the lighting to a more white spectrum until the iPhone camera picks up the colors the way they appear under the normal lighting.  I find that to be an easier option than worrying about white balance settings or post processing.  I'll have to find just the right settings for photography, but I figured out something that would work ok for this quick video.  Also you can see the new possum wrasse cruising around in the video.  Oh and Lily went and walked right in front of the tank at the very end of the video.  Remember to switch the quality setting to 1080p!

 

 

[teenyreef]

Wow, that video is absolutely fabulous! Even the part when Lily comes in 

Seriously, the clarity and color is fantastic, and all the movement is so soothing and hypnotic, it's hard to look away.

 

You've inspired me work on trying more videos. I hardly ever do any because I'm never happy with the way they turn out. Time to try harder 

[Nano sapiens]

Super video!

[Polarcollision]

I'm out of the loop, what's the advantage of chemipure blue vs regular?

[Andreww]

Congrats on a very nice tank...really nice video as well.

You might want to try something different with your prime HD.

ive got a Hydra 26HD , and after countless hours of reading various very scientifical papers out there on advanced aquarist and other websites, seems like the consensus is all channels in the lower spectrum should be equal, meaning blues and violets /uv’s all equal. Green seems like it adds a weird tinge to the water so I leave it off. I do a bit of reds and whites (since our fixtures have cool whites instead of warm whites-ugh) half the amount the blues .

 

So my channels are like this:

Uv/violet/blue/royal blue 50%

green:0

red:15%

white -20-25%

 

what you get is a very natural looking reef with not an overwhelming amount of blue . 

Ofcourse you can adjust the white if you prefer but my corals love this program.

Sorry for the long reply, just thought I’d throw this out there:)

[Subsea]

Great vidio.  

 

As I was just waking up with my first coffee, at the very end of the vidio, I imagined a giant cat head.

[gena]

I love the wrasse  

 

He could be an older one and that's why it's not as shy?  It looks larger.  Just a thought.  Or you just got a really outgoing one .

[Sharbuckle]

Hi Felicia, 

 

completely unrelated question. 

 

What did you feed your dwarf lions? 

[Felicia]

Sorry for disappearing everyone!  I had some last minute work travel come up, then I got sick, and then the holidays just snuck up on me!  Where did December go?!  Anyways, I'm back now after a much needed vacation.    Happy New Year, everyone!

 

My goal with this tank was to have a system that could withstand some neglect when I was too busy to deal with it, and that worked out well.  I basically ignored it (besides feeding) for the last month and it did really well!  No losses and all the corals and inhabitants are happy and healthy.  Only side effects of the neglect were small amounts of nuisance algae growth on the glass and rocks and a small patch of cyano on the sand.  I spent a few hours last night doing a deep cleaning and everything looks as good as new.  I'll try to get some photos to share soon.   

 

 

 

 

[RIP Sebastian]

1 minute ago, Felicia said:

Sorry for disappearing everyone!  I had some last minute work travel come up, then I got sick, and then the holidays just snuck up on me!  Where did December go?!  Anyways, I'm back now after a much needed vacation.    Happy New Year, everyone!

 

My goal with this tank was to have a system that could withstand some neglect when I was too busy to deal with it, and that worked out well.  I basically ignored it (besides feeding) for the last month and it did really well!  No losses and all the corals and inhabitants are happy and healthy.  Only side effects of the neglect were small amounts of nuisance algae growth on the glass and rocks and a small patch of cyano on the sand.  I spent a few hours last night doing a deep cleaning and everything looks as good as new.  I'll try to get some photos to share soon.   

 

 

 

 

Glad to see you're back! Quick question: I have a gorgonian that is losing flesh rapidly. How should I attend to that?

 

Thanks,

 

-Nick

[Felicia]

On 12/2/2017 at 8:57 PM, teenyreef said:

Wow, that video is absolutely fabulous! Even the part when Lily comes in 

Seriously, the clarity and color is fantastic, and all the movement is so soothing and hypnotic, it's hard to look away.

 

You've inspired me work on trying more videos. I hardly ever do any because I'm never happy with the way they turn out. Time to try harder 

Thank you!  I just shoot my videos with my iPhone 7 and then do all the editing in iMovie on my MacBook.  Its really very simple and they seem to turn out well.  You should definitely try more videos!  I love seeing photos, but videos give you an even better feel for someone's tank since you can see the movement and the fish behavior and such.  I think we're all just too critical of our own photos and videos. 

On 12/2/2017 at 9:06 PM, Nano sapiens said:

Super video!

Thank you! 

On 12/6/2017 at 9:20 PM, Polarcollision said:

I'm out of the loop, what's the advantage of chemipure blue vs regular?

I'm not sure there's necessarily an advantage but Chemipure Blue added a high-capacity ion exchange resin, so something like Purigen.  Chemipure Elite had a blend of carbon and GFO.  I honestly don't really know if there's much of a benefit to one over the other.  I just went with the Blue because it's the newest version.

On 12/7/2017 at 12:25 AM, Andreww said:

Congrats on a very nice tank...really nice video as well.

You might want to try something different with your prime HD.

ive got a Hydra 26HD , and after countless hours of reading various very scientifical papers out there on advanced aquarist and other websites, seems like the consensus is all channels in the lower spectrum should be equal, meaning blues and violets /uv’s all equal. Green seems like it adds a weird tinge to the water so I leave it off. I do a bit of reds and whites (since our fixtures have cool whites instead of warm whites-ugh) half the amount the blues .

 

So my channels are like this:

Uv/violet/blue/royal blue 50%

green:0

red:15%

white -20-25%

 

what you get is a very natural looking reef with not an overwhelming amount of blue . 

Ofcourse you can adjust the white if you prefer but my corals love this program.

Sorry for the long reply, just thought I’d throw this out there:)

Thank you! Thank you for the information on your light settings!  I think I finally have mine mostly dialed in, so I'm going to leave it be for now since my corals are happy.  I may tweak some color balance down the line though, so I'll keep this in mind.   

On 12/7/2017 at 4:28 AM, Subsea said:

Great vidio.  

 

As I was just waking up with my first coffee, at the very end of the vidio, I imagined a giant cat head.

Thank you! 

On 12/8/2017 at 9:24 AM, gena said:

I love the wrasse  

 

He could be an older one and that's why it's not as shy?  It looks larger.  Just a thought.  Or you just got a really outgoing one .

The wrasse is a cutie.  He seems to be doing well.  Funny enough, he seems to lurk more now that he's settled in.  I wouldn't say he's shy but he loves being down in the rocks and has established a schedule for when he comes out.  He's definitely a larger one, so likely an adult.  I don't always see him eat, but he's still fat and happy, so he seems to be doing well.  I ended up caving and grabbing a pack of frozen Marine Cuisine to supplement his diet a bit since he doesn't seem to be a huge fan of just flakes and pellets.

On 12/16/2017 at 6:50 AM, Sharbuckle said:

Hi Felicia, 

 

completely unrelated question. 

 

What did you feed your dwarf lions? 

Not unrelated!  I love to discuss the lionfish care.  The Fu Manchu was eating frozen silversides when I got him from the LFS, so that's initially what I fed him.  Then I added in more varied chunks of seafood to see what he liked.  The antennata and dwarf zebra were initially eating only live food, so I fed them gut loaded live brine while I weaned them.  They were smaller than the Fu Manchu to start, so they needed smaller pieces of food.  I initially weaned them onto frozen PE mysis and they ate predominantly PE mysis for quite a while.  Eventually I was able to get them taking smaller chunks of other seafood and as they grew, they took to more variety and larger pieces.  I would make my own homemade frozen seafood blend by buying fresh salmon, silversides, squid, scallops, clams, etc and chopping it all up and mixing it together and then freezing cubes.  That way I could thaw a single cube for feeding and have a nice mix of seafood chunks.  I also continued to feed them PE mysis.

[Felicia]

13 minutes ago, RIP Sebastian said:

Glad to see you're back! Quick question: I have a gorgonian that is losing flesh rapidly. How should I attend to that?

 

Thanks,

 

-Nick

Thank you!  First off, is it losing flesh or shedding?  Gorgonians will shed the top layer of their flesh periodically, which will peel off rapidly and look like big ribbons of flesh floating around in the tank.  If that's what's going on, there's no need to worry.  If the gorgonian is losing flesh (not shedding), it will just leave behind the black wire skeleton of the gorgonian with no flesh in that area. 

 

If the gorgonian is really losing flesh, you should definitely try to intervene.  The first step is going to be to figure out why its losing flesh.  Was it just shipped or did you just add it to your tank?  If so, it could just be general stress from shipping/switching tanks.  If its been in your tank for a while, then its likely an issue with either flow, lighting, or water quality.  Most likely its not getting enough flow which means that algae can grow on the flesh and smother it, which will result in tissue loss.  Gorgonians need pretty high flow and a lot of people don't have them in enough flow.  I consider them basically like SPS in terms of needing high flow so they can shed properly and not grow algae.  Is it a photosynthetic gorgonian?  If so, it needs moderate lighting to thrive.  If its an NPS gorgonian, it could be dying off due to lack of food.  NPS gorgonians are very difficult to keep and I'd recommend steering clear of them unless you have a lot of experience with NPS corals.  Gorgonians don't need super clean water and actually like some excess nutrients in the water (like soft corals), but of course if you're water quality is really bad, then that can cause health issues.  I'd try to sort out what the root cause of the tissue loss is and address that (change flow, lighting, water changes, etc.).  Then I'd recommend using a turkey baster to knock free any detaching tissue and any algae growth.  Then I would snip off all the sections of exposed skeleton, because that will just grow algae that will irritate the healthy tissue.  Just trim down the exposes skeleton to the area of healthy flesh.  If you address the root cause of the issue, the gorgonian should stop losing flesh and recover.

[RIP Sebastian]

1 minute ago, Felicia said:

Thank you!  First off, is it losing flesh or shedding?  Gorgonians will shed the top layer of their flesh periodically, which will peel off rapidly and look like big ribbons of flesh floating around in the tank.  If that's what's going on, there's no need to worry.  If the gorgonian is losing flesh (not shedding), it will just leave behind the black wire skeleton of the gorgonian with no flesh in that area. 

 

If the gorgonian is really losing flesh, you should definitely try to intervene.  The first step is going to be to figure out why its losing flesh.  Was it just shipped or did you just add it to your tank?  If so, it could just be general stress from shipping/switching tanks.  If its been in your tank for a while, then its likely an issue with either flow, lighting, or water quality.  Most likely its not getting enough flow which means that algae can grow on the flesh and smother it, which will result in tissue loss.  Gorgonians need pretty high flow and a lot of people don't have them in enough flow.  I consider them basically like SPS in terms of needing high flow so they can shed properly and not grow algae.  Is it a photosynthetic gorgonian?  If so, it needs moderate lighting to thrive.  If its an NPS gorgonian, it could be dying off due to lack of food.  NPS gorgonians are very difficult to keep and I'd recommend steering clear of them unless you have a lot of experience with NPS corals.  Gorgonians don't need super clean water and actually like some excess nutrients in the water (like soft corals), but of course if you're water quality is really bad, then that can cause health issues.  I'd try to sort out what the root cause of the tissue loss is and address that (change flow, lighting, water changes, etc.).  Then I'd recommend using a turkey baster to knock free any detaching tissue and any algae growth.  Then I would snip off all the sections of exposed skeleton, because that will just grow algae that will irritate the healthy tissue.  Just trim down the exposes skeleton to the area of healthy flesh.  If you address the root cause of the issue, the gorgonian should stop losing flesh and recover.

Thanks for the quick reply. Yes, it is unfortunately losing flesh. It is a photosynthetic gorgonian, and it has been growing fine in my tank for a year now. However, I recently had to move it from where it was and accidentally took a small part of flesh off of it. I will cut off the dead/dying parts and put it in more direct flow.

 

Thanks again!

[Felicia]

2 hours ago, Felicia said:

Not unrelated!  I love to discuss the lionfish care.  The Fu Manchu was eating frozen silversides when I got him from the LFS, so that's initially what I fed him.  Then I added in more varied chunks of seafood to see what he liked.  The antennata and dwarf zebra were initially eating only live food, so I fed them gut loaded live brine while I weaned them.  They were smaller than the Fu Manchu to start, so they needed smaller pieces of food.  I initially weaned them onto frozen PE mysis and they ate predominantly PE mysis for quite a while.  Eventually I was able to get them taking smaller chunks of other seafood and as they grew, they took to more variety and larger pieces.  I would make my own homemade frozen seafood blend by buying fresh salmon, silversides, squid, scallops, clams, etc and chopping it all up and mixing it together and then freezing cubes.  That way I could thaw a single cube for feeding and have a nice mix of seafood chunks.  I also continued to feed them PE mysis.

Whoops, I realized I misspoke here.  I meant to say live, gut-loaded ghost shrimp (not brine shrimp).  Brine shrimp are going to be too small.  Ghost shrimp are generally the best option as a live food for lionfish.

[RollaJase]

Happy New Year Felicia! The tank is looking amazing, you have crammed it with so many nice pieces. I hope you are well .

[Felicia]

On 1/11/2018 at 10:54 PM, RollaJase said:

Happy New Year Felicia! The tank is looking amazing, you have crammed it with so many nice pieces. I hope you are well .

Happy New Year, Jase!  Glad to see you checking in!  I saw you posted on your thread, but I haven't had time this week to spend much time on N-R.  I'll have to go check out your thread when I get a chance and get caught up.    I'm doing well, thank you!  Just busy at work right now playing catch-up after the holidays.  How about you?  Glad you like the tank!  I crammed it full of easy stuff and now I'm just letting it do its thing.  So far so good on the low maintenance front!  Thank you for the kind words! 

 

 

Not too much new to report for the tank.  Everything is happy and healthy and I'm seeing some nice growth from the corals.  I hadn't really messed with the tank much because I've been busy, so yesterday I decided to make a quick LFS trip to browse around.  I picked up a leather coral that's probably a sinularia and then ended up impulse buying a tail spot blenny.  The tank has been doing so well that I decided the bioload could handle one more small fish.  So far the new blenny seems to be settling in well and he ate well tonight at feeding time.  I picked up some PE Calanus at the LFS because the possum wrasse seems to prefer smaller food.  The blenny also seemed to really like the calanus.  Anyways, just a quick and dirty photo, but here's the new little guy.

 

[Andreww]

Cool fish. Calanus is such good stuff, my Ignitus Anthias ate it for the first week now they could care less for it and instead eat PE Mysis and salmon like crazy. Can’t complain since that has more protein and can keep them fat but now I have an almost full pack of Calanus and no one to feed it to lol

[Lula_Mae]

TSB is super cute! Mine is pretty shy. Found a hole he likes though and hangs out there a lot!