Sublunary's 16 Gallon Gamble - Beginning of the End

[sublunary]

On 4/1/2018 at 6:27 PM, k4ndyk1ng said:

It is looking so nice, hopefully you won't get the algae.

Thanks!  So far so good.  Diatoms are still around, but they don't bother me. 

 

Things have been a bit crazy, so there hasn't been much going on and I haven't gotten any good pictures.   I lost a ricordea, because the shrimp dragged it into a tunnel.    The aussie turbinaria is still slowly declining.  i think I helped it along by dosing alk close enough to burn it. Sigh.  Everything else is hanging in there though.

 

I also have a new toy, so here are some extreme close ups of worms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think these are snail eggs?  Not 100% sure.  But I think they look cool.

 

[sublunary]

Some confusing and concerning things going on with my tank at the moment.  

 

Yesterday was the first time in a while that I got home when the lights were on. I noticed my monti is horribly bleached and has very little polyp extension.

 

 

I don't know how long it's been like that, but it shocked me, since it had otherwise been doing well.  I did a water change and preliminary check before I had to run out the door.  Got home late and started checking everything else.  I found my temperature reading 67.  67!  So I checked the heater, no light, it was plugged in.  Ransacked the house for a spare heater.  Nothing.  Ordered a new one online and decided to drive to PetCo the second it opened.   Woke up at 6, realizing there was one place I might have a heater but didn't check.  Found a heater.  Plugged it in, no light.  Argh.

 

So I figured out half the outlets on my power strip were not powering.  Thankfully the heater was the only thing on that side.  So I got power to the heater, it's heating as it's supposed to.  Light goes off, I check the temp - 68.  Argh!  Grabbed my IR thermometer, which told me somewhere between 74 and 78 depending what part of the tank I pointed it at.  

 

So.  I don't think my tank was actually in the mid-60s all night.  I do think it was a lower temp than I wanted it to be for at least a couple days.  I'm getting it back where I want and stable.

 

But I'm freaking out because I haven't seen my yasha all day.  I'm going to be pissed if I lose my fish over something this stupid.    Leather looks pissed, but that doesn't mean much. Everything else seems alive and ok.

 

Sympodium is the most open I've seen it so far... 

 

 

 

So I have no idea if the temp was the only problem or even the main one.  There have been no changes with lighting or feeding.  I was a week late on a water change, but everything else was basically the same. 

 

 

Edit to add:  fish stuck it's head out. I can go back to just worrying about the month now. Whew.

 

[sublunary]

The story of this tank seems to be me never having the time to scrape the glass and photograph it properly.  So here are a few shots from just before lights out tonight.

 

The gorgonians on the whole are doing very well.  The purple plume is impressively fast growing compared to everything else.

 

My snail population has been getting a bit low so I put in a Reef Cleaners order. The post office took 3 days (the hottest days of the year so far) to deliver it, so the 2 nassarius I got were DOA.  All of the tiny snails I got seem to have made it and gone to work.  I also got some extra shells for the hermits.  I must have needed them because all of the crabs upgraded within a minute of me throwing them in.

 

I mentioned a while ago that one of my rics got knocked into a hole in the rock.  It had managed to climb most of the way out, enough to get light at least.  Then a few days ago it vanished and I thought it died.  Yesterday I found it halfway across the tank and shrunk to half it's previous size.  So it's back with the other remaining ric and seems to be ok.  My plans of them taking over that slope seem to be going nowhere though.

 

I realized the new turbinaria was not getting enough flow, so it's been moved for the moment.  I don't think I want to keep it this close to the blasto, so I need to figure out where else I can fit that damn frag disk.  It's the most active eater I have in the tank and those tentacles are always out.

 

As you can guess I haven't added anything new and my rocks are still pretty sparsely populated.  I'm going away for a week at the end of this month and decided it makes sense to wait until I'm back (and know how bad my vacation spending is).  Next month however Reefapalooza will be in my area the weekend before my birthday.  So all of my presents to myself will be ending up in my tank.  Here's hoping I can afford lots of pretty!

 

[sublunary]

Very messy FTS.

 

 

After my last post I cut down the Aussie turbinaria to get rid of as much dead skeleton as possible.  Basically the only live part left was the top edge.  It's still extending polyps, so here's hoping they stick around.

[Newstead]

Enjoyed reading your log.  How did you lije your IPRF order? I lost all of my dozens of microstars in a tank crash and really miss them, so have been looking to restock some.

[sublunary]

On 5/10/2018 at 10:09 PM, Newstead said:

Enjoyed reading your log.  How did you lije your IPRF order? I lost all of my dozens of microstars in a tank crash and really miss them, so have been looking to restock some.

 

Thanks!  I love IPSF.  The only real downside is their weird ordering structure that makes me spend more money than I would if I could buy things al la carte.  But their stuff has always been good to me.  Weirdly, this time the micro stars didn't take off in my tank, but they are one of the big reasons I always buy from IPSF.  I haven't found anywhere else that actually sells them. 

[Newstead]

I got my white microstars originally from a Nano-reef member who sold 10-12 in clumps of chaeto very reasonably , and had a striped larger brittle come in on a coral frag. By the time of my tank crash I probably had 100. Great sand sifters and I miss seeing their arms come snaking out of the rocks.

[sublunary]

I need to stop going on vacation. I was gone for a little over a week and cane back to find everything pissed. Gorgonians shedding, green turbinaria losing flesh, blastos looking beaten up, ricordea shrunken, leather, zoas and sympodium closed up tight.   

Nothing I can test for was weird, alk lower than I'd like of course, but not deadly low. Cat sitters kept the ato full so salinity was stable. Temp stayed stable. They forgot to feed, but the coral shouldn't care about that. 

Since Monday, I've done 2 water changes, changed out the chemipure, changed filter floss about 9 times. I'm not seeing any change. I'm really at a loss.

On the plus side, fish, shrimp, cowrie and crab are all accounted for. So nothing bigger than a snail could have died in there.  And whatever is going on only seems to be affecting coral. 

I'm so confused. 

 

[sublunary]

Things are looking a little bit better today. Blasto, sympodium and gorgs are showing some polyps. Still don't know what's wrong, but I'll take any improvement. 

 

[Lula_Mae]

On 3/7/2018 at 4:33 PM, DarkMagic said:

Oh no! Are pom poms known for being aggressive towards one another? I was planning to get two for my tank, but this has me rethinking things. 

It depends on the individual pom poms.  I had two get along famously but the first time I ever added a pom to a tank that had one already...well, Shelby the pom pom tried to eat her new friend.  Shelby was an exceptionally bold and ballsy pom though.

 

On 3/7/2018 at 7:15 PM, sublunary said:

So in addition to losing my female pom pom, I've had a couple of things shake my confidence.

 

One  of my ricordea has decided to move to the bottom of a hole, and I can't get it out without removing the rock and destroying my shrimp's tunnels.  Though the shrimp may deserve it, given how many times he's stolen the other rics off my rock...

 

My turbinaria has suddenly started losing flesh.  I think it started after Monday night's small water change (I didn't notice before that, but didn't look closely) and has progressed pretty quickly.

 

Ugh, that just breaks my heart.

 

And today I noticed a tiny patch of cyano.  Sigh.

That got removed immediately, but I suspect I haven't seen the end of it.

 

The worst part is, I'm going out of state for a week starting tomorrow morning, so I can't do all that much to fix/change things right now.  I just have to hope nothing dramatic happens while I'm gone.  Maybe a week without me feeding will help avoid more cyano at least...  

 

On the I'm-not-a complete-failure-yet side, my leather is still happy, and at least one frag of zoas is multiplying. 

 

My monti is growing slowly but surely.  (I promise it isn't actually bleached, I'm just too lazy to play with the lights/camera settings.)

I really do love starting with small frags and being able to watch closely to see little bits of growth.  But it makes for really boring growth pictures.  Woo, the super glue is covered by flesh now!  So exciting!

 

And my fuzzy gorgonians are still nice and fluffy.  When I first got these, I was a bit concerned because the polyps looked white.  They've matured into the brown that I'm mosre used to seeing on photosynthetic gorgs.  The red gorgonian is still hanging on.  I'm still not sure if the main frag will make it, but it's doing way better than it was, and I have more hope now.

I love the little blue zoas!  Are those the neon blue ones offered by KPA?  Hope you can figure out why your tank is mad and fix it!

[sublunary]

On 6/13/2018 at 4:34 PM, Lula_Mae said:

I love the little blue zoas!  Are those the neon blue ones offered by KPA?  Hope you can figure out why your tank is mad and fix it!

 

Yes, they are from KPA!  They are slow growers for me, but they are tough.  And thanks for the good wishes!

 

Things continue to get a bit better.  All of the gorgs shed and once they were done, the leather opened back up and things started looking back to normal.  I hate not knowing what happened, but not much I can do about that. 

 

Reef-a-palooza is next weekend, so I need to decide how much I'm willing to buy.  Knowing things might not be as stable as I'd like, it's a bit of risk, but also.. want to buy myself birthday presents...  

[sublunary]

More crappy cell phone shots, more excuses!

 

 

Post water change FTS.  Most things are back to opening up normally. I think we're past the rough patch. 

 

I'm wondering if it's the leather.  Now that it's opened up, it looks a bit bigger to me.  I'm wondering if it doesn't piss everything off as part of it's growing cycle.  Just in case, I think I should stop buying turbinarias, because they clearly react the worst out of everything in the tank, and if it is the leather, this will keep happening. 

 

[sublunary]

I hit up Reefapalooza today.  It was really cool to be surrounded by so many people in the hobby (not to mention all the pretty things they brought with them).  I took the bar exam in that convention hall, so it is also really nice to replace those memories with more fun ones.  I stuck with affordable and easy corals, given things have not been quite as stable as I'd like (in my tank or my bank account).  They may not be as bright and shiny as what other people were buying, but I like them.

 

One of my first ever corals was a ricordea yuma, and I loved that thing.  I've wanted one for this tank since I started it, but not enough to pay as much as the online places are charging.  So I was super happy to find so many available today.  I had to pass on the $400 rainbow one I saw, but I'm just as pleased to have this $15 guy,

 

 

True color is somewhere in between these two pictures.  A nice pinky-orange.

 

 

My biggest (still not big) splurge was for this guy.  I've kind of been wanting a walking denrdo since Cannedfish started posting about his "worm powered duncan"  and I could not say no when faced with a whole tank of them today.  I'm pretty sure it'll end up being moved around by the pistol shrimp, but at least it'll be able to wander off again.

 

 

I also picked up some cheap zoas and monti caps.  The caps were a grown in a high school that has a way cooler marine biology program than mine did.  I thought that was kind of cool.  (And a good sign I might be able to keep them alive for more than ten minutes.)  Just basic color varieties, but I like them.   I'm going to have to find a new spot for my blastos if I can actually get the caps to grow.

 

 

[sublunary]

So.  Things have been a bit... rough.

 

Two days after my last update, we found out my mother had cancer again.  (She'd been clear for 25 years!)  Two weeks after that she died.   Between the emotional stuff and the practical stuff, I let a lot of my home care and self care slide.  I'm just starting to get back on track, and things are still a bit dicey.

 

Unfortunately the tank slid as much as everything.  I was able to fill the ATO and occasionally chuck in some food or Alk/Cal.  But everything else fell behind.  I think I forgot to change the filter floss for a whole month....

 

So here's where we were this evening:

 

Yuck.  Cyano has moved in pretty firmly, especially in the back chambers.  I've got some green hair algea.  And some weird really dark purple mats that are more solid than cyano, but also clean up easier.

 

I've lost the montis, and the turbinarias.  The yuma has vanished, as have the florida zoanthids.  Sigh.  

 

Several gallons of water and one very sore scraping arm later, we are here:

 

Still a ton of cleanup to do, but that's all for tonight.  Luckily it's not all doom and gloom.  The gorgonians are all doing great.  The leather is bigger than ever. 

 

I've acquired a spiffy new sponge, also known as the giant white blob in the center of the blurry photo.

 

Surprisingly, the walking dendro is super plump.  (And has wandered pretty far from where I started, which makes me feel like I'm getting my money's worth.)

 

 

Assuming the sudden shock of getting attention doesn't send things into a death spiral, I feel pretty good about things going forward.  I've got a lot more scraping to do, but I finally ordered the flipper that will help me with that.  I also ordered some Fritz RPM, which I think will make mixing water less of a chore than the Coral Pro.  I might even charge the fancy camera again!  Plus I should reup my snails...

 

After weeks of looking at my tank guiltily as I ran out the door, I feel like I can finally get invested in it again.  It's a really good feeling. 

[MSunkin23]

Very sorry to hear about your mom, but nice to hear she had 25 extra years to enjoy.

 

I am just jumping into your thread, but really like your scape, looks very natural. Surprised to see the tank was mostly stable with low maintenance. Those are some resilient gorgonians!

[sublunary]

Thanks!  I tend to like scapes with lots of open space and I'm never sure if they look ok to other people.  

 

I know gorgs tend to like dirtier water, which I think is my saving grace here.  I'm  happy they got through it as well as they did.

 

In case anyone is wondering, fish and shrimp are still just fine and doing their thing. 

 

[sublunary]

So...  When I started this tank the plan was to move in with my partner mid-2019, meaning I'd be able to pick out the upgrade tank around now, and have several months to set it up and get it cycled before I moved my critters in. 

 

Things changed rather suddenly and now we own our own house,  It is amazing, but doesn't have a ton of available wall space.  I need to be out of my apartment by the end of the month, and I really shouldn't drop $2k+ on a new tank right now.   So instead of a nice leisurely upgrade, I'm faced with moving the nuvo 16.  I really, really didn't want to do this, because I'm scared of the tank cracking.  It's done great for the past 11 months, but the move will put extra stress on it.  So it's got me all anxious. 

 

I've got a lot of decisions in front of me - how to do the move, where to set up, what to upgrade to...   I think I want a red sea reefer 250.  I want to try a sumped tank for the first time, so something that's basically plug and play is really appealing.  But I don't know that we have a good place for something that size.   I also still need to set up a water storage/mixing station.   It's a lot of stress, coming right on the heels of the whole lot of stress from buying a house, and right in the middle of all of the normal moving stress.  

 

So I'm going to continue to be quiet here, maybe float some ideas for how to move forward.  I will probably start a new build thread once I decide on a plan.  if anyone has any advice or recommendations of sumped stands for people with no plumbing acumen, I'd love to hear them. 

[sublunary]

The tank move was terrifying, but successful.  There was apparently a power outtage in my apartment the night before.  While the flow had kicked back on, the heater hadn't, so I had a lot of very cold and angry critters.  (The responsible powerstrip has been soundly thrown away.)  I way underestimated how long it would take to drain a 16 gallong tank using airline tubing.  I need to get some wider water change tubes in the future.  My boyfriend about gave up and left halfway through it was taking so long.  But we eventually got things settled and packed up and carted them over to the new house.  I was a nervous wreck the whole time. 

 

Everything seems to have made it through the cold spell and the tank move.  Fish and shrimp have made new burrows.  Pom pom crab and cowry have been running around like normal.  The walking dendro looks a bit worse for wear, so I'll be target feeding...as soon as I go out and get some new frozen food.  What I had did not make it through the move. 

 

I ended up with a different scape than I started with, going from 2 islands to one with a bunch of arches.  I like it for now.   Unfortunately the upheaval seems to have made the cyano redouble its efforts and there is a ton more of it than there had been.  So there will be more maintenance to be done. 

 

 

After the tank move, I had some time to sit down and look at finances, and was able to place the order for my tank upgrade and some of the equipment for it.  Next week i will be getting a shiny new Red Sea Reefer 250.  I am so excited.  It will probably take a few months to get wet.  There is so much unpacking and organizing still to be done!  But it's nice to have that waiting in the wings for when I'm ready.   I have 2 potential places picked out for it.  One is better location in a lot of ways, the other is more appealing to my partner because it's in the kitchen where there's not carpet for me to spill stuff on.  I have so much reading to do on how to work a sumped tank and what other equipment I might want.  It's a lot to look forward to. 

 

So the Nuvo just needs to make it a few more months and then I can retire it for something more secure.  Or turn it into a QT.  or something...

 

 

[vlangel]

You have had quite a year!  I am sorry about the loss of your mom. 😢 Its exciting to move into a new house and now a new upgrade!  I will look forward to seeing it.

[sublunary]

*heavy breathing*

[sublunary]

Thank you vlangel.  This year was a lot. But I'm ending it with good things on the horizon and high hopes for 2019.