Lognor's Biocube 29 Journal

[Lognor]

I think I've got the flow dialed in!  This morning everything is looking pretty happy.  Duncan, Hammers, Frogspawn, and Torch are all open and doing well.  Blue star polyps are slowly adjusting.  As I was working on uploading the video I look over at the tank and see both of the clowns trying to wiggle into the Torch!  Unfortunately it is too small still, especially for the larger clown, but it's a great sign.  Now I just have to keep an eye out for algae growth and detritus build up because of the lower flow.  I was going to switch the 2 powerheads and put the 425 in place of the 240 so I can increase the volume as well as buy the Hydor smartwave controller to vary the flow, but I think I'm going to leave things alone for a few weeks before making anymore changes.

 

Feeling really happy today.  Small victories. 

 

 

 

 

[Lognor]

It seems a week doesn't go by that I don't have some new thing to figure out.  Luckily it's usually small stuff, but stressful none the less.  This week's drama is a once healthy zoa is now receding.  A week ago, the zoa in question was looking good.  It has been stable for weeks.  Now, I fully acknowledge I've been doing a lot of monkeying with flow, rockscape, etc. trying to make my Duncan and new Torch coral happy.  I think I've succeeded at that, as my previous post indicates, but I think my tinkering has had an averse affect on the zoa.  In doing research, it comes down to light, flow, nutrients, or a predator.  I've been watching the tank.  I've seen nothing, and given that my other zoas are doing okay, I don't think it's a predator.  Nutrients aren't likely an issue either since I spot feed my coral and the other zoas are doing fine.  So that leaves flow and light.  The flow has been lower the past 2 weeks since I turned one powerhead off to help the Torch and Duncan.  There's flow, so I don't think that's it.  Which leaves lighting.  This zoa sits partly under an overhang.  It has been doing fine, but with all of my tinkering, I'm thinking I must have moved the rock causing it to get less light.  I'm not confident that is the real cause, but it's one I can easily try to address.  The zoa has overgrown the frag of course, so I decided to remove some of the rock overhang and get it more direct light.  We'll see...

[Lognor]

I can't seem to get everything in my tank happy at the same time.  One cause is flow, for sure, and I think I have another issue that I haven't been able to nail down yet.  

 

Getting flow right is driving me crazy.  No matter what I do, something in the tank isn't happy.  If it's not the Duncan, it's the Torch, or the Hammer or the Blue Star Polyps.  I make a change to make one happy, it ends up affecting another.  I adjuet the position of the powerheads or turn one off and it makes one happy and something else is unhappy.  It's driving me banana's.  I'm contemplating getting the Hydor wavemaker to alternate on/off for the two powerheads to see if varying the flow makes things better, but I really hate playing a guessing game with money.  It's only $40, but I don't want to add to my collection of "spare" equipment sitting unused in my stand.  

 

The second issue, and more concerning is my zoas are all starting to look unhappy now.  I have one frag that is noticeably receding.  I have a few more that don't seem to be fully open on a regular basis, and I'm definitely not seeing much growth overall.  My LPS all seem to be doing pretty well from a growth standpoint, I just can't seem to get the zoa's growing now.  I've been testing parameters weekly and everything seems okay.  I'm not seeing any predator damage or signs of illness or discoloration.  I do weekly 5g water changes, vacuum the sand, and spot feed all of the corals 3 times per week, so just not finding any obvious reasons.  

 

Just kind of talking out loud today.  I'm trying to ease up on making changes and just let the tank figure out what it wants to do, but I'm always worried about losing corals.

 

Anyway, happy Monday.  Thanks for listening this morning.

[specore]

5 minutes ago, Lognor said:

I can't seem to get everything in my tank happy at the same time.  One cause is flow, for sure, and I think I have another issue that I haven't been able to nail down yet.  

 

Getting flow right is driving me crazy.  No matter what I do, something in the tank isn't happy.  If it's not the Duncan, it's the Torch, or the Hammer or the Blue Star Polyps.  I make a change to make one happy, it ends up affecting another.  I adjuet the position of the powerheads or turn one off and it makes one happy and something else is unhappy.  It's driving me banana's.  I'm contemplating getting the Hydor wavemaker to alternate on/off for the two powerheads to see if varying the flow makes things better, but I really hate playing a guessing game with money.  It's only $40, but I don't want to add to my collection of "spare" equipment sitting unused in my stand.  

 

The second issue, and more concerning is my zoas are all starting to look unhappy now.  I have one frag that is noticeably receding.  I have a few more that don't seem to be fully open on a regular basis, and I'm definitely not seeing much growth overall.  My LPS all seem to be doing pretty well from a growth standpoint, I just can't seem to get the zoa's growing now.  I've been testing parameters weekly and everything seems okay.  I'm not seeing any predator damage or signs of illness or discoloration.  I do weekly 5g water changes, vacuum the sand, and spot feed all of the corals 3 times per week, so just not finding any obvious reasons.  

 

Just kind of talking out loud today.  I'm trying to ease up on making changes and just let the tank figure out what it wants to do, but I'm always worried about losing corals.

 

Anyway, happy Monday.  Thanks for listening this morning.

This has been my exact experience with zoas almost every  time.  

[Lognor]

Well, today's post is about how I'm a bad tank owner.  I've been using a fake anemone in my tank to keep my Picasso Clowns happy.  It's been there since I put the clowns in.  I didn't have any corals mature enough for them, and I wasn't going to get a real anemone, so I used the fake one.  The clowns took to it immediately and would wedge themselves in at night when the lights went down.  I've had the clowns for about 5 months now, and other than having to replace it once because of the algae buildup on it, things have been good.

 

Starting a week or two ago, my corals started looking a bit unhappy.  Testing my parameters, everything looked fine, so I was baffled.  I was thinking flow was an issue because I have been changing it around some.  While doing a water change last night I pulled the fake anemone out to clean it as I normally do each week and found it to be sticky and covered in a white film.  Apparently the damn thing was breaking down.  After talking to a friend he said that the anemone breaking down would definitely be causing the issues I'm seeing.  He suggested I start using Purigen immediately which will pull the silicates out of the water.  Trying to find it locally so I can pick it up on the way home tonight after work.

 

I know, I know, I should never have put the fake crap in there to begin with.  I thought I was helping the clowns be less stressed after having some bad experiences with the prior clowns I had.  Once again, lesson learned.  I may end up losing some zoa's, but hopefully everything else is going to recover ok.

[banasophia]

Wow well good thing you fugured it out! Maybe a bubble tip is in your future?

[Lognor]

14 hours ago, banasophia said:

Wow well good thing you fugured it out! Maybe a bubble tip is in your future?

Went to a LFS near my work to pick up Purigen.  After talking with the guy there, he suggested Phosguard instead of Purigen.  After looking at the description of Phosguard, it makes sense.  It's specifically for removing silicates, so I went that route.  

 

Got home last night and things were already looking a bit better.  Duncan, hammer, frogspawn and Acans were all more open than the previous few days.  Zoa's are still a bit closed up though.  The clowns are a little bit lost, but they're now hanging out with the Torch.  The torch isn't necessarily a fan of their attention yet, but is doing ok.  Put the Phosguard in and will leave it in place until I do my next maintenance on Sunday.  Corals we're all open and got a good spot feeding.

 

I would love a real anemone, but I've just read so much on how they're a pain to have in a smaller tank like mine (29g)  If I were to get one, I would likely have to redo the aquascape and remove some of the rockwork, as well as try placing the Anemone in a small piece of PVC to keep it from wandering.  I'm just not ready for that yet.  My short term goals are to get some stability and solid growth from the corals, and I'm saving up to get the Steve's LED retro kit sometime around Christmas.

 

 

[banasophia]

3 hours ago, Lognor said:

Went to a LFS near my work to pick up Purigen.  After talking with the guy there, he suggested Phosguard instead of Purigen.  After looking at the description of Phosguard, it makes sense.  It's specifically for removing silicates, so I went that route.  

 

Got home last night and things were already looking a bit better.  Duncan, hammer, frogspawn and Acans were all more open than the previous few days.  Zoa's are still a bit closed up though.  The clowns are a little bit lost, but they're now hanging out with the Torch.  The torch isn't necessarily a fan of their attention yet, but is doing ok.  Put the Phosguard in and will leave it in place until I do my next maintenance on Sunday.  Corals we're all open and got a good spot feeding.

 

I would love a real anemone, but I've just read so much on how they're a pain to have in a smaller tank like mine (29g)  If I were to get one, I would likely have to redo the aquascape and remove some of the rockwork, as well as try placing the Anemone in a small piece of PVC to keep it from wandering.  I'm just not ready for that yet.  My short term goals are to get some stability and solid growth from the corals, and I'm saving up to get the Steve's LED retro kit sometime around Christmas.

 

 

I got a bta three weeks ago for my Biocube 16 and so far so good though my clowns don’t go near it. It stayed where I put it in the front for two weeks but then it wandered to the back.

[Lognor]

Lot of updates from this weekend. 

 

Friday - The removal of the fake anemone, weekly cleaning, and changing all the filters on Monday and then adding Phosguard on Wednesday really helped the corals recover from what I believe was the fake anemone breaking down and releasing silicates into the water.  By Friday night, almost everything was open and looking good again. 

 

Saturday - Noticed my Picasso clown had a white spot on his eye and it looks to be larger/swollen.  Off to the internet I go!  Luckily it didn't take long to diagnose it as pop eye.  Talked to my LFS guy and he confirmed the same thing I found.  He also said there's two different kinds, one is parasitic.  I'm was fairly confident that it was due to an injury.  Both of my clowns have been all over the Torch coral, including burrowing in the side trying to hide under it on the sides.  I'm guessing he aggravated it that way somehow.  Will keep a close watch on him.  If it doesn't get better in a day or two, I'll have to look at quarantining him and treating him with medicine.  Fortunately on Sunday the white spot was gone and looking better.  By the 2nd day, there's still some swelling, but looking better.  Funny thing, last night, the cleaner shrimp was following the clown around the tank.  Excited that he finally had some work to do, but the clown wasn't having it.  lol

 

Sunday - Went to the LFS to get water, have my water checked, and talk with my friend about some of the stuff I've been dealing with lately.  Good conversation.  Validated the pop eye issue with the clown, the issue with the fake anemone, and talked about water parameters.  Always look forward to the weekly/bi-weekly trip to the LFS.  While I was there a couple of corals caught my eye and I couldn't resist.  My tank is pretty full up, so bigger corals aren't something I consider at this point, but I did see a couple of really small zoa frags that would fit my zoa garden so I picked them up.  One had a single head on it and the other piece had a dozen or so mixed colony heads.  Then I saw this nice piece of LR with a colony of small blue mushrooms.  I have no room for a piece that big, but my guy was willing to break a couple of small pieces off for me.  In all he gave me 4 pieces with 7-8 heads on it.  I picked up the zoas and mushrooms for $10 total, so I was extra happy about the trip.

 

Got home and spent the afternoon adjusting my rockwork some and then mounting the new frags and fixing a couple of pieces that had come loose.  I also determined I need to mount the Torch coral on something bigger/more stable than the frag plug it was on.  The clowns keep burrowing in the sand around it causing it to lean and shift.  I found a piece of ceramic tile I had on hand, cut it down to a size, and glued the frag plug to it after removing the stem.  Pretty happy with how everything came out.  Pictures below of all my exploits this past week/weekend.  I tried using an app for my phone to get some pictures with just the blues on.  They're ok, need more practice with the app to see if I can get a more realistic shot.

 

 

 

 

[banasophia]

Wow, busy weekend!!! I love your torch, and hope your fish will be okay. 

[Lognor]

11 minutes ago, banasophia said:

Wow, busy weekend!!! I love your torch, and hope your fish will be okay. 

Yeah.  Busy week.  These critters have had me on my toes this past week.  The clown was looking better last night, so hopefully it's just a minor injury that will take care of itself.  

 

I love the torch.  It's doing really well.  Especially considering all the attention it is getting from both the clown fish.

[Lognor]

Update on the clown with pop-eye:  After 4 days, the eye has mostly cleared, and the swelling has gone down, so it must have been an injury and is healing just fine on its own.  

 

On Monday my first bout of coral wars took place while I was at work.  I have a small single duncan head on one side of my tank near an Acan.  Since fixing the water quality issue form the past few weeks, it's really starting to open up.  According to my wife and son, the duncan was open and extended and the acan head closest to it was closed up.  My son, who is 18, has pretty much declared himself second in charge of the tank, so he decides the duncan has to be moved.  Keep in mind this story is being relayed to me by my wife, so some exaggeration is likely.  But anyway, she said he reached into the tank to pick up the duncan.  He stops just above it and then stops and asks her if it's going to sting him if he touches it.  My wife is laughing at him during the event and in the retelling.  He take a couple unsuccessful tries to grab the plug (it's not glued fixed, just wedged into the rock for now).  In the process the shrimp decides that the new object in the tank must be cleaned which further freaks him out.  He manages to get the duncan moved to the sand, but just barely before being chased from the tank by the cleaner shrimp.  Pure comedy I wish I was there to witness and record.

 

Speaking of coral wars, I think that is just the first volley.  The other side of my tank has a small acan near a colony of duncans who now that the water is good is really starting to open and stretch, I think the acan is going to have to be relocated soon.  The duncan seems to be inching closer each day...

[Lognor]

Just connecting my other threads into my journal page

 

 

[Lognor]

Linking another thread I opened about an issue I'm having with my Zoas and Blue Star Polyps.

 

 

[Lognor]

Well, after starting to use Marine Snow to try to get my Sympodium and Zoas healthy and growing again, I realized that I made a huge error and forgot to refrigerate the food after I opened it the first night, so after 2 feedings I had to dump the whole bottle and re-order.  Waiting until this weekend to start the experiment again...

 

On other fronts, got clearance from the tower to buy an LED upgrade for the tank.  I've been looking at Steve's and Nanobox.  I think i'm leaning towards nanobox.  Doing my research now and planning it out.  Main differentiator right now is cost, but i'm wondering if there are any other key differences in functionality or color, PAR etc.  

 

I also adjusted my powerheads a bit last night, looks a little better.  I have a lot of euphyllias in the tank and they make it very apparent what the flow is.  I was watching a video someone posted and their euphyllias and flow were mesmerizing.  While I'm not ready to spend the money on one of the higher end controllers with new powerheads, I think i'm going to give the Hydor wavemaker a try.  It's not a true wavemaker since it is only turning the power heads on and off, but that may be a good place to start.

[Lognor]

Well, finally pulled the trigger and bought the Nanobox retro kit for my BC.  Now the wait...

[Lognor]

I think i'm about done trying to save the Blue Sympodium and Zoa's.  I've tried dosing Iodide and feeding Marine Snow.  It's been a week and they continue to decline/recede.  I'm done spending money on possible remedies.  In the end I think my nitrates are too low for them, maybe lighting could be higher.  My Euphyllias have never looked better with the current nitrate level, so I'm not going to start playing with that level. 

 

I'm considering getting some GSP for the back wall, but not sure.  I have to do some research.  I know they're pretty hardy and people talk about it being a nuisance, but I don't want to add another filter coral that is going to starve because my nitrates are too low. 

 

I'm also looking at other LPS coral types to add more to the tank without adding more of the same.  Leading candidates are Plate coral, Pagoda cup and button coral.

 

For now, I'm not planning on adding anything until I get the new lights in.  No ETA yet on that.  Hopefully they'll arrive in the next week or two.

[Lognor]

This weeks cleaning saw the last of the bio balls come out and the @inTank media basket go in.  Using a double layer of filter floss, purigen and Chemipure.  I'm using blue at the moment, because I just added it a few weeks ago, but it will be replaced with Elite on next change.

 

the zoa's continue to recede, and i've mentally conceded the fight.  A few of them are doing ok, but a bunch are continue to recede.  The large zoa/pally colony that was completely full when I bought it is down to about 60% coverage, so I decided to break it down into a couple of smaller pieces and reclaim some of the sandbed real estate.  

 

Went to the LFS my friend owns for water and ended up taking a couple of corals home.  I had been thinking about a plate coral to fill the space I just opened up by breaking down the zoa colony, and my guy happened to have one on hand.  It looks like it might have some tissue damage, so my guy told me to take it, if it recovers then I owe him for it.  The other coral I brought home is a duncan frag that I had given him a few weeks ago.  It had been doing fine in his tank, but this week when I was there it was completely shut down.  He wasn't sure what was going on with it, since it had been growing for the past few weeks and suddenly shut down.  Since all of my duncans are doing so well I told him I would see if I could get it to recover and then bring it back if it does.  

 

Last night I tried a new method of feeding the corals.  I feed mysis and coral frenzy/reef roids.  I saw a video about a different technique for reef roids, making it into a thicker paste consistency and using a syringe/plunger to drop food directly into the mouth/head of the corals.  The technique worked like in the video, but I way overfed everything and I don't think they were ready for the concentrated feeding.  I ended up having to use the turkey baster to remove big globs of food and Euphyllia mucous.  The water has been a bit cloudy since then.  I changed out the filter floss as it was way gunked up.  We'll see what happens the next time.

 

 

[Lognor]

Went on vacation last week, and left my 16 year old in charge of the tank while we were gone.  I had him just feed the fish daily and not worry about the corals to keep things simple.  Other than forgetting to turn the AC on before he left for school one day (thanks to a neighbor who was home and able to run over for us), he managed to keep everything as I left it.

 

Coral Updates:

• I'm throwing in the towel on the blue sympodium and some of the zoas.  When I got home this weekend I gave the tank a visual once over, and noticed that all but one remaining sympodium polyps are gone.  Several of the Zoa species are looking pretty bad as well.  I think the root cause is nitrate level.  They were doing fine did well when my nitrates were 10-20 ppm, but my euphyllias were really unhappy.  I started doing larger water changes and added filter floss which brought the nitrates down to 5-10 ppm and now the euphyllias are looking great.  Next tank cleaning is going to include dead/dying frags. 
• On the upside, the duncan frag I brought back from the LFS is slowly recovering.  Last week it was skeleton with flesh stretched over it, not a sign of a polyp.  Now I'm finally starting to see heads with tentacles sprouting, so it's definitely going to recover. 
• As for the plate coral, I'm not really sure there's been any change.  I was hoping that it would develop some fingers/tentacles once it was in the tank.  It still has the tissue damage visible in my earlier picture, but i'm not sure if it is better or the same.  Have to really compare where it is now to when I brought it home to determine. 
• It seems I'm going to have to do some more rearranging.  The neon green hammer is getting too big and starting to annoy the acans. 

Equipment Updates:

• Ordered the Nanobox retro LED kit a couple of weeks ago.  Checked with Dave at @nanobox today, and it looks like I might be seeing it next week.  I love that we're keeping him busy. 
• The new @inTank media basket is working great.  With having just gotten back from vacation, I didn't have time to do a water change and cleaning last weekend.  A quick filterfloss change will tide things over until I can get to it later this week, as opposed to having to do the whole process of changing and rinsing media I was doing previously.  Lots of extra time cleaning glass is going to suck though.
• Last thing on gear, I'm still not 100% happy with the flow.  With all the Euphyllia I have in the tank there always seems to be one or two of them that get a little too much and aren't completely happy.  Still tinkering.  I really need to do a wavemaker or something to better randomize the flow, but I just don't have the cash for it.  All in all, things are doing pretty well though, so not a high priority.

I was in Disney World for vacation and got to see some really cool display tanks including the one below with a huge frogspawn colony.

 

[Lognor]

Well, the neon green hammer did more than just annoy the acan it was closest to, it hit it good.  The head it came in contact with used to be huge now it's smaller and half receded.  No pictures for now, but needless to say, the hammer just found himself in timeout.  Unfortunately the skeleton at the bottom was pretty pourous and just snapped off from the place it was mounted, so the sandbed is the only place to put him for now.

[Lognor]

Got some pictures of the damage to the acan from the hammer.  It's more extensive than I though, but the rest of the coral is fine, so hopefully the damaged head will repair itself.  First top down pic of the tank, but not really enthused by the picture.  With it being an AIO the lights don't throw down into the tank, so the color is muted.  Looking forward to doing a cleaning and water change today.  Need to remove some more dead zoas and rearrange some things including finding a new home for the green hammer.

 

[Newstead]

I have had acan heads come back from a fraction of what they were - feed it once or twice a week and hopefully yours will as well!

[Lognor]

2 hours ago, Newstead said:

I have had acan heads come back from a fraction of what they were - feed it once or twice a week and hopefully yours will as well!

All the corals get spot fed twice a week already, so that's good news.  I suspected as much, based on how a lot of corals regenerate, but being so new to the hobby, it's good to get some confirmation.   Thanks!

[vlangel]

Your tank is beautiful.  I love your coral choices.

[Lognor]

6 minutes ago, vlangel said:

Your tank is beautiful.  I love your coral choices.

Thanks!  I wish I could say it was all careful planning.  A lot of it was luck and availability at my LFS because I was just kind of rolling with it from week to week as a new tank owner.  My only major regret is not being more selective in my coral choices and not looking at other sources early on.  I'm loyal to my LFS because he's a very good friend first and LFS owner second to me, so when I buy from somewhere else I feel a bit guilty.  That being said, I eventually I might swap a few things out here and there to change the colors.  Right now the entire tank looks pink to me, all the time.  New lights should be here in a week, so I'm hoping that will change some of that.  I also need a little more variety.  Whatever way it goes, i'm happy with the tank at this point.  The early stress is gone and things are in a good place.