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


Felicia

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Just now, ReefingRelapse said:

Never even heard of black cardinall. Love all the gorgonians. My LFS's never have any...

mot local fish stores don't carry gorgonians, and when they do they seem to only be NPS varieties. Order them from places like WWW.KPAQUATICS.COM.

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Your tank is absolutely beautiful! Love the nano serpent stars too - how big are they supposed to get?

Also, I've skimmed your thread and probably just missed it, but where did you get your gorgonians from? I'm setting up a seahorse tank in the very near future and ideally would like it to have the look that your tank has. Thanks for any info!!

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Just saw your last post - mine was posting at the same time! (KP aquatics I'm assuming...)

Any recommendations on what types of gorgonians to go for? I'm not looking for any non-photosynthetic ones.

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17 hours ago, Felicia said:

Thank you, Dawn!  Lily is usually pretty careful about knocking things over, but even though she's almost 8, she still has the occasional rambunctious streak where she goes scampering about the house like a kitten and knocks things over.  :lol:  She looked pretty contrite when I scolded her for knocking over the acclimation bucket.  She's just too darn cute to stay mad at for any amount of time!  Also, I'm glad you like the name!  He just seems like a Batman.  He's such a weird fish, but that was why I liked him!  Hopefully he settles into the tank and does well.

 

And thank you for such a wonderful compliment! :flower:  I LOVE your seahorse tank and I definitely miss having seahorses and predators, but this tank is such a nice low maintenance option for now.  I was so frustrated when the dino outbreak first started because it was like, "Oh no here we go again with the major aquarium issues and the constant maintenance and battling the pest."  However, even doing every 2-3 day water changes, siphoning out the whole tank, removing and scrubbing equipment, etc. to try to fight the dinos really wasn't bad on a tank this size.  Small and with minimal equipment definitely makes things a bit easier, which is just what I want right now.

I really enjoy reading the dialogue on your thread.  Your philosophy on reef keeping is very relaxed:  less technology/more biology/less maintenance.  I so much enjoy seeing the beauty in your mixed garden and of hearing “cat antics”.   I need to go back further in your thread to see how you got rid of your algae problem.  I use a lot of differrent janitors, somethimes the biggest Janitor is me with a tooth brush & hydrogen peroxide.

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4 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

Very very nice. :wub:

Thank you! :flower:

4 hours ago, ReefingRelapse said:

Never even heard of black cardinall. Love all the gorgonians. My LFS's never have any...

I hadn't either until I saw them at the LFS.  ORA aquacultures them.

4 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

mot local fish stores don't carry gorgonians, and when they do they seem to only be NPS varieties. Order them from places like WWW.KPAQUATICS.COM.

4 hours ago, hinnenkm said:

Just saw your last post - mine was posting at the same time! (KP aquatics I'm assuming...)

Any recommendations on what types of gorgonians to go for? I'm not looking for any non-photosynthetic ones.

I have found some photosynthetic gorgonians at LFS's, but I don't see them that often.  I generally order them online.  Most of mine have come from KPA.  All of their photosynthetic gorgonians are hardy/easy.  Just don't get any NPS varieties.  I've also ordered photosynthetic gorgonians from Gulf Coast Ecosystems.  Four of the gorgonians in my current tank are from them and I was also very happy with my order from them.

4 hours ago, hinnenkm said:

Your tank is absolutely beautiful! Love the nano serpent stars too - how big are they supposed to get?

Thank you!  KP Aquatics say they can grow to have a body about 1" in diameter with legs about 6" in diameter.  However, they seem to grow really slowly.  I've had some for several years in the past and never really noticed significant growth.

 

3 hours ago, Subsea said:

I really enjoy reading the dialogue on your thread.  Your philosophy on reef keeping is very relaxed:  less technology/more biology/less maintenance.  I so much enjoy seeing the beauty in your mixed garden and of hearing “cat antics”.   I need to go back further in your thread to see how you got rid of your algae problem.  I use a lot of differrent janitors, somethimes the biggest Janitor is me with a tooth brush & hydrogen peroxide.

Yep, relaxed and low maintenance is definitely the goal with this tank.  I actually haven't had any algae problems in this tank.  I was however having an issue with dinoflagellates.  I'm not aware of any fish or inverts that would eat dinoflagellates, so getting rid of them involves other approaches.  There's a lot of mixed information out there about fighting dinoflagellates.  I went the route of doing 30% water changes every couple days for about 2 weeks and siphoning out as much as possible.  Then I did a 3-day blackout of the aquarium, including covering the tank in towels to block out any ambient light.  That seems to have completely gotten rid of the dinoflagellates.

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13 minutes ago, Subsea said:

With respect to Dino, it is one type of phytoplankton.  I hope you find this link intetesting, I did.

 

http://www.fondriest.com/environmental-measurements/parameters/water-quality/algae-phytoplankton-chlorophyll/

 

Yep!  I was thinking you meant more what people think of as traditional algae (hair algae, bryopsis, etc.).  Thank you for the link!  I am really relieved that mine seem to be gone.  Everything I've been reading about dinos says that they are one of the absolute worst pests in the aquarium hobby and most hobbyists seem to fight dinoflagellate outbreaks for 6 months to a year.  There are a lot of different strains, some worse than others, so I think I must have had a weak strain.  A lot of the recommended ways to fight dinos are a lot of work to implement (elevated pH, outcompeting the dino growth with other algae, dosing DinoX or H2O2, etc.).  Luckily the 3-day blackout was super easy to implement and seems to have worked for my strain.

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Tank Update

  1. I took my return pump out a few weeks back and soaked it in vinegar to get it all cleaned up.  When I reassembled it and put it back in the tank, it was soooo loud.  I was using the stock IM pump, but I hadn't had any issues with it being loud before.  I fiddled with it a bunch and could not get it to stop being loud, so I decided to cave and upgrade to a nicer return pump.  I ordered a Sicce Syncra Silent 1.0 and finally got around to installing that last night.  It seems to be working well and is much quieter.
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1 minute ago, William said:

In the 18 years I have been doing this I have never seen a black cardinal like that.... where did you get it ?

They seem to be pretty uncommon, which is odd since ORA has been captive breeding them since like 2013 (articles here and here).  I guess they just never became popular.  Aquatic Collection in Hayward had 4 in stock when I stopped in on Saturday.  They were so weird and unique that I just couldn't resist getting one.  Three of the ones they had in stock had some white banding which is apparently the juvenile coloring.  According to ORA, they become the deep, solid black as they mature.  The one I got was the only one that was solid black.  It was just such a unique coloring that I had to get him.  Even though I guess he must be a little bit more mature, he's pretty tiny.  He's smaller than my little misbar clown.

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2 minutes ago, Nano sapiens said:

Both Sicce and the Tunze (which is what I have) work really well.

 

Good to hear that the Dinos have abated.  Fingers crossed they stay that way!

Yeah, I came down between the Sicce and the Tunze for the upgrade.  They both seem like really nice, compact pumps.  Hopefully this one will hold up for the long haul in this tank.

 

Thank you!  Yeah I am cautiously optimistic about the dinos at this point.  From what I've read they generally reappear within 2 days when they come back after a tank blackout.  Yesterday evening was two days and I haven't seen any signs of them returning, so hopefully I'm in the clear.  Knock on wood! fingerscrossed

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The tank looks great, glad to hear about your current success with the dinos! Also, the cardinal looks awesome, I love the name! I kinda forgot they existed until I went to the LFS to the other day and they had a bunch. Very underrated :)

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9 hours ago, hinnenkm said:

Just saw your last post - mine was posting at the same time! (KP aquatics I'm assuming...)

Any recommendations on what types of gorgonians to go for? I'm not looking for any non-photosynthetic ones.

Another great source for tank raised photosynthetic gorgonians is Pacific East Aquaculture.  Nice variety, too.

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1 hour ago, yoshii said:

The tank looks great, glad to hear about your current success with the dinos! Also, the cardinal looks awesome, I love the name! I kinda forgot they existed until I went to the LFS to the other day and they had a bunch. Very underrated :)

Thank you, Christina!  How's the spring semester going?  I'm hoping the cardinal does well for me.  I've been having a streak of really bad luck with fish.  ORA must have had a big batch of them or something since you saw some the other day as well.  I'm just a sucker for weird looking fish!  :D

1 hour ago, OldManSea said:

Another great source for tank raised photosynthetic gorgonians is Pacific East Aquaculture.  Nice variety, too.

Good point!  I had a photosynthetic gorgonian from PEA in the 40B that I picked up at MACNA several years ago.  They had a nice display at MACNA with a good variety of large, healthy photosynthetic gorgonians.  I ordered quite a few softies for my current tank from PEA and they have wonderful customer service.  I highly recommend them as well.

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Christopher Marks
18 hours ago, Felicia said:

39455168135_09578d9ce6_c.jpg

 

Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah BATMAN!  The black cardinalfish.  He's hard to photograph because he is a really deep, solid black color.

26481308448_ab32911b10_c.jpg

? 

Absolutely Incredible! All the gorgonians and zoanthids ? and that cardinal fish is so freaking cool!

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19 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

? 

Absolutely Incredible! All the gorgonians and zoanthids ? and that cardinal fish is so freaking cool!

Thank you, Chris! :flower:  Glad you like it!  The gorgonians and zoanthids got the worst of the dino outbreak, so I'm glad they don't seem to be any the worse for wear.  :)  Go figure my favorite zoanthids right now are the Eagle Eyes, which are inexpensive, old-school zoanthids. :lol:  I'm just patiently waiting for all the zoanthids to grow in and fill the space.  I tried to get a nice mix of colors and distribute them so that they'll grow into nice, multi-colored zoanthid colonies.  Batman seems to be doing well and I saw him at least take a piece or two of flake food.  He's still a bit shy, but hopefully he'll get all settled in.  He's so weird and cool!  I'm glad you appreciate my weird fish selection! :lol:

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2 hours ago, markalot said:

Hi Felicia,

 

looking good.  I especially like the way the rics color up that rock.  Hopefully the dinos stay far far away.

Thank you, Mark!  Yeah, rics are an easy way to add some nice color.  A lot of the tank is purple/pink/tan with so many gorgonians and leathers, so I'm trying to also add some pops of color with the ricordea and zoanthids.  Still no sign of any dinos! fingerscrossed

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Tank Update

1. Batman is doing well! He's been eating, but he's been shy so he's mostly been hovering in among the corals and snagging a few pieces of food that came by. Last night he got brave and went out into the open water column to chase down flakes. I'm thrilled he seems to really like flake food. Makes my life easy!

 

2. I've got a light dusting of brown stuff on my sand... are the Dino's coming back? I'm not sure yet. So far it really just looks like diatoms which I've had off and on since I started this tank. I'm not sure why this tank has diatoms after being set up for about 6 months, but I guess that's still young and it must be new tank syndrome. No sign of anything up on the rocks or corals, so doesn't look like Dino's so far. Fingers crossed this is my ongoing diatom issue. I'm going to do a water change and siphon the sandbed in the next day or two.

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1 hour ago, Felicia said:

I'm not sure why this tank has diatoms after being set up for about 6 months, but I guess that's still young and it must be new tank syndrome. 

I had diatoms show up on and off for the first year and a half my tank was set up. They seem to have gone away for now... :rolleyes:

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On 2/22/2018 at 9:16 AM, Cannedfish said:

Tank looks great! 

Thank you! :D

On 2/22/2018 at 9:57 AM, kimberbee said:

I had diatoms show up on and off for the first year and a half my tank was set up. They seem to have gone away for now... :rolleyes:

17 hours ago, vlangel said:

The shallow part of my sandbed also seems to have diatoms.  I just turn the sandbed over every several days and hoping they will stop eventually.

Yeah it definitely seems like diatoms can just be part of new tank syndrome and come and go for quite a while.  They normally don't bother me and I've had them off and on in this tank since I set it up.  Seeing brown stuff on the sand now just makes me nervous because of the dinos.  I think this is really just diatoms though.

 

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Not tank-related, but a photo of my other hobby...baking!  Two of my coworkers have birthdays this weekend, so I made dark chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter cream frosting.  They're topped with Reese's Pieces crumbles.

 

39733004734_4bf53d2849_z.jpg

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