Dawn's shrimp chalet & 5.5 AIO !

[vlangel]

8 hours ago, teenyreef said:

I usually consider "not thriving" to be pretty good in my tanks since it's much better than "mostly dead" 

Ha ha, actually teeny I am an optimist and 'not thriving' and 'mostly dead' are pretty much the same thing.  I can't help myself, if there is still any flesh at all on a coral, I hang on to the hope that it will resurrect!

Right now that is describing my orange monti, and coral that was given to me with 1 living polyp, (it still only has 1 living polyp).  Also the blue clove polyps are very sparce as in 1 or 2 specks of blue and 2 of the gorgs are alive with polyps but have algae that needs to be cleaned off regularly.

In the good news side, all the acans, palys, zoas, euphillias and mushroon are open, plump and happy.  The purple photosynthetic sponge seems to have attached to the coco worm tube.  A couple encrusting corals that I do not know what they are, are showing good PE.

I still want to add a yellow sponge that I have in the seahorse tank, and also gsp.  Green star polyp scares me in a jar where it will be hard to keep confined.  Maybe I will just try to glue it to the glass floor.

[gena]

On 12/5/2017 at 6:29 PM, teenyreef said:

It's amazing how much dirt just the corals and live rock organisms can generate!

Oh my gosh...yes!  What the heck?  

 

Your jar is looking fantastic, Dawn!  I loved the video.  Aren't those bubbles messy?  I really dislike the salt spray they cause.  Every time I take the lid off I have to clean up LOL.

[teenyreef]

14 hours ago, vlangel said:

Ha ha, actually teeny I am an optimist and 'not thriving' and 'mostly dead' are pretty much the same thing.  I can't help myself, if there is still any flesh at all on a coral, I hang on to the hope that it will resurrect!

Right now that is describing my orange monti, and coral that was given to me with 1 living polyp, (it still only has 1 living polyp).  Also the blue clove polyps are very sparce as in 1 or 2 specks of blue and 2 of the gorgs are alive with polyps but have algae that needs to be cleaned off regularly.

In the good news side, all the acans, palys, zoas, euphillias and mushroon are open, plump and happy.  The purple photosynthetic sponge seems to have attached to the coco worm tube.  A couple encrusting corals that I do not know what they are, are showing good PE.

I still want to add a yellow sponge that I have in the seahorse tank, and also gsp.  Green star polyp scares me in a jar where it will be hard to keep confined.  Maybe I will just try to glue it to the glass floor.

I'm having the same struggle with algae. I know Brandon recommended covering the rocks with corals from the start to minimize the algae growth, but that doesn't help when the algae is growing on the corals. And when the corals are sps, you can't use peroxide to combat the algae.

 

I'm starting to thing a two phase approach is the way to go. Start with tough corals that are easy to keep clean, either one that don't allow algae to grow at all, like acans, or one that can tolerate peroxide treatment, like zoas. Then after the worst of the initial algae bloom is over, start putting in sps.

 

Now I'm going to go post the same thing in my own jar thread 

[vlangel]

11 hours ago, teenyreef said:

I'm having the same struggle with algae. I know Brandon recommended covering the rocks with corals from the start to minimize the algae growth, but that doesn't help when the algae is growing on the corals. And when the corals are sps, you can't use peroxide to combat the algae.

 

I'm starting to thing a two phase approach is the way to go. Start with tough corals that are easy to keep clean, either one that don't allow algae to grow at all, like acans, or one that can tolerate peroxide treatment, like zoas. Then after the worst of the initial algae bloom is over, start putting in sps.

 

Now I'm going to go post the same thing in my own jar thread 

That makes excellant sense.  I am not sure if my 2 mysterious encrusting coral are sps or not.  One is a leptra-something or another.  I am so dumb about coral, ha ha!  The other I haven't a clue. Neither of them are where my algae is.  

Algae might be slightly on the rise in my jar because I lowered the bulb.  It was 2 ft above the jar and now is 10-12" from the water.  I still only have the photophase as 6 hours since I have no way to phase it.  Its a straight 6 hours on and 18 hours off.

[TheRope]

On 17/11/2017 at 2:16 PM, vlangel said:

 

Are you guys getting sick of seeing basically the same FTS of my jar?  Sorry, I am not quite sure what to do different.  One thing that amazes me is that I have never cleaned the glass.

 

Im having trouble stabilizing my rock, how do you get it to not slode on bare bottom? ♡♡

[seabass]

19 minutes ago, TheRope said:

Are you guys getting sick of seeing basically the same FTS of my jar?

Nah, looks great.

 

22 minutes ago, TheRope said:

Im having trouble stabilizing my rock, how do you get it to not slode on bare bottom?

IDK, maybe you can smear some aquarium silicone on a piece a glass, let it dry, and take a razor blade and scrape it off.  It could act like a silicone pad between the rock and the glass.  You could make a few of them (maybe the size of a quarter).

[TheRope]

9 minutes ago, seabass said:

Nah, looks great.

 

IDK, maybe you can smear some aquarium silicone on a piece a glass, let it dry, and take a razor blade and scrape it off.  It could act like a silicone pad between the rock and the glass.  You could make a few of them (maybe the size of a quarter).

Hmm that sounds notnso bad, i was thinking o rings or jamming dome suction cups where i can hahaha

[vlangel]

2 hours ago, TheRope said:

Im having trouble stabilizing my rock, how do you get it to not slode on bare bottom? ♡♡

I epoxied it all together into 1 rock structure. It stays in 1 place unless I intentionally spin it to clean the bottom.

[TheRope]

2 hours ago, vlangel said:

I epoxied it all together into 1 rock structure. It stays in 1 place unless I intentionally spin it to clean the bottom.

Ah i see, mine is just one block of rock haha, but very unbalanced ... the suction cups worked tho!

[seabass]

24 minutes ago, TheRope said:

but very unbalanced

I used a grinder to flatten out the bottom and make my rock more stable.

[vlangel]

20 hours ago, TheRope said:

Ah i see, mine is just one block of rock haha, but very unbalanced ... the suction cups worked tho!

I am glad the suction cups worked.  I set my rock on a flat table and epoxied it to be balanced.

[vlangel]

Yesterday I fed my jar mysis.  Today a lot of the coral have feeding tentacles out so I am feeding microvert, frozen rotifer and bbs before a water change tonight.

Micro stars and bristle worms are coming out of the rockwork to partake of the feast as well.

[vlangel]

Tonight while I was doing my water change I decided to try my hand at dealing with the small amount of algae I see by applying hydrogen peroxide to it.  I used a Qtip dipped in 3% hydrogen peroxide and just dabbed it on the algae.  Then I did (2) 100% water changes to hopefully flush all the peroxide off of everything.  Most of the coral looked alright when I was done.  I will know better tomorrow.

[vlangel]

I forgot to say last night that I added some of my yellow sponge to the reef.  I put it almost at the bottom in a hole so that it wont be out of water and exposed to air but a few seconds when I am doing the 100% water changes.  I read pom pom crabs will sometimes rip small pi3ces of sponge off when they don't have access to any nems.  Also sponges are great filters.  I hope it thrives.

[vlangel]

On 12/8/2017 at 11:58 AM, gena said:

Oh my gosh...yes!  What the heck?  

 

Your jar is looking fantastic, Dawn!  I loved the video.  Aren't those bubbles messy?  I really dislike the salt spray they cause.  Every time I take the lid off I have to clean up LOL.

Oops gena, somehow I missed your post, (?my bad!).

 

Anyway thank you.  And yes those bubbles are a pain and I hate the salt spray too.  I usually disconnect my airline at the adjustment valve when I remove the lid.  I do not have to worry about forgetting to hook it back up because I also have the rio pump going.

[vlangel]

The reef jar handled the peroxide treatment very well and everything look full and fluffy today and minus algae.?

[teenyreef]

I'm a believer in peroxide. Almost everything except sps will tolerate even full strength as long as it doesn't stay on too long (under a minute). I do the same routine except I apply mine with a dropper. Then I rinse it off with some of the old jar water, let it sit in the water for a few minutes, drain it back out, and fill it with new water.

[vlangel]

I fed mysis, mysis juice, qnd microvert today.  I hate throwing away mysis when the ponies don't eat it all.  I love being able to feed this little jar that left over mysis.

 

Also today I took the lid off, turned the air pump off and run the rio pump and let the coral soak up the light more directly.  From all appearances the coral loved their time in the sun!

[vlangel]

Yesterday my snail was upside down and somewhat under the rock.  I wasn't sure if it was alive or dead so I placed it on the rockwork to see if it would move.  This morning I found it on the bottom of the tank...upside down.  At least I know its alive.

[vlangel]

Here are today's pics!

A top down view.

[vlangel]

The upper left of the jar. Lots of feeding tentacles out.

[vlangel]

I really love how the light plays on the coral in this pic.

[vlangel]

A blown up close up of some blastos!

[vlangel]

 

And last but not least...frogspawn! Oops not frogspawn, its a hammer!  I was half asleep this afternoon when I posted these pics?.

[TheRope]

25 minutes ago, vlangel said:

 

And last but not least...frogspawn!

Waiiit a sec thats a frogspawn? If thats the case i mistakened mine for a hammer!