Lognor's Biocube 29 Journal

[Lognor]

Linking a new thread I started on my Aquascape.

 

 

[Lognor]

Busy weekend.  Decided to frag my hollywood stunner and green hammer.  Both were starting to take up a lot of space.  Both were pretty easy.  The frogspawn really needs a fragging too, but it's going to take a little more work to do since it will need to be mounted in a different position afterwards.  Added another scarlet crab and a couple of astrea snails.

 

Cleaned the tank today and I think I found part of the reason I've been having diatom and algae issues.  Noticed the pump looked a little dirty, so I pulled it up.  Holy crap it was so caked in thick green slime, I wanted to yak.  Gave it a good scrubbing, cleared out the tube, and water looks better than it has in weeks.  It will be interesting to see how things looks this week.

 

I moved the the ricordea to a new spot under the frogspawn to see if it needs a lighting change or something else.  It hasn't grown one bit since I got it back in Dec, so trying a new spot to see if it does better.

[Lognor]

So far, no change in the algae issue.  If anything it came back quicker and stronger than before.  If all my corals didn't seem to be doing so well I'd be freaking out.  I ordered all new test kits (Salifert) and will make sure I follow the test instructions to the letter.  Something has to be off, but at this point I don't trust any of my previous readings with other kits, so I'm going to start from scratch as soon as they all arrive.  

[Lognor]

Well, after some consulting with my friend/personal reef expert, he diagnosed my algae issue as cyano.  Because I didn't crank the whites all the way up and the blues all the way down before yesterday my algae looked brown so I was chasing the wrong issue.  Seeing it under white, it's a nice shade of bright green.  Well, off to amazon I go at 9:30pm to order chemiclean and an airstone to start treating it as soon as possible.  I've already started changing my feeding over the past few days and have added a number of CUC to the tank, so once this is dealt with I should be in good shape.

 

[Lognor]

 

[Lognor]

Got home at 11pm last night and thankfully my amazon packages had all arrived.  Setup the pump and airstone and dropped that in the tank.  Removed all the filter media except for filter floss, and then add the chemiclean.  And now we wait...

[Lognor]

First treatment of Chemiclean for the cyano went pretty well.  The water and glass look crystal clear and the growth on the sandbed was significantly reduced.  On Saturday I did a 20% water change, vacuumed out the sandbed, and replaced the filterfloss.  It's not 100% gone, so on Sunday I started the next round of treatment.  I've significantly cut down on the feeding and have been straining my frozen food to be sure I'm not adding any unwanted material to the tank during this process.  Once the Cyano is gone, I'll increase the feeding, which really means I'll start feeding reefroids to the corals.  I've always target fed, but going forward I'm going to try a thicker solution to reduce how much goes uneaten.  

 

Next weekend is going to be a major re-landscaping.  I need to remove a bunch of those fast growing zoas as they're starting to choke off the one's I want to grow more.  I also want to move the acans around.  Last, I have a bunch of aptasia on the end of one of my rocks.  No amount of aiptasia-x will get rid of them, so I may be just breaking off that piece to see if I can get rid of root.

[Lognor]

Well, I'm on treatment #3 of chemiclean.  The first one made a huge difference.  The second one made a small difference, but not as big as the first.  The third one is halfway through it's cycle and i'm not seeing much of a difference.  I just bought all new salifert test kits.  After the next big water change I'm going to put my filtration back in and start running daily tests to see what is going on from numbers perspective.  Maybe I'm missing something.

[Lognor]

First of two updates today:  Over the weekend I did a fair amount of work on my coral and aquascape (before and after pictures below). 

I had a list of things I wanted to get done:  

1 - Remove most of the one type of zoa that was taking over my zoa garden

2 - Remove a part of one of my rocks that has been housing an endless colony of aptasia

3 - Make space for an RFA

4 - Shift the Acans around

 

I managed to accomplish everything on my list, but of course not without challenges.  First up was the acans since I was going to have to remove the entire LR they were mounted on to deal with the zoas and aptasia.  First step was just dismounting them.  3 went easy, but the green one had started attaching to the LR, so he had to come out with the rock and gently removed. 

 

Next was the zoas.  One of the species was literally overgrowing everything else, and of course it was the most boring plain one of the bunch.  I ended up pulling all the frag plugs off and then scraping the hell out of the rock to remove the ugly little bastards.  I got them about 95%.  I unfortunately removed some of the others that had been growing off the plug.  No serious damage, but just was unfortunate.  in the end, I'm good with the work done.  Hopefully the others will start to grow out now that the invasive one is gone.

 

On to the aptasia.  It was localized on one corner of the rock, which is deeply crevased and pitted.  I literally lopped off the corner.  I was just done dealing with it.  Unfortunately, I ended up losing a bunch more of the rock than I intended.  I was nervous about the integrity of the structure, but in the end it was ok.

 

Last was the acans.  My wife always hated their placement because the green one was on one side instead of in the middle.  She's got a thing about symmetry and balance.  When i was getting ready to re-seat them, I called her over to supervise.  I ended up moving one to a spot in the back off to the side.  The place was fine at first but by the next day when it and the hammer it was by fully opened they were about to have a discussion about personal space, so it was moved to a different spot, looking much better now. 

 

Pretty happy with how it turned out so far.  Now I just need to figure out what is going on with this algae outbreak I've been fighting.  But that's for post #2...

 

FTS - Before

 

FTS - After

 

Zoa Garden - Before

 

Zoa Garden - After

[Lognor]

I lied, I'm going to have 3 updates today!  I bought a couple of new inhabitants yesterday.  AquaSD is having a 40% off sale so I picked up an RFA and a Yuma mushroom.  Really excited.

 

[Lognor]

Post #3 today - Linking a thread I started about an ongoing algae issue I'm having.

 

 

[Lognor]

Went lights out for 2 days to see if that has any affect on my algae issue.  When I turned the lights on last night there wasn't any sign of the algae on the sand or on the glass.  Hopefully I got it all.  I did a 4g water change and replaced the filter floss. 

 

I have a few new corals coming from @AquaSD today so I turned down the light intensity in preparation for the acclimation.  I'll be sending updates later today once their in.  Really excited!

[Lognor]

Well, good news bad news update.  The new corals have arrived and are being acclimated.  Pics later once they're in and settled.  Very excited, but more on that later. 

 

Bad news, I can see that the algae in the sand is starting to come back (faintly) now that the lights are on.  I don't know what the hell is going on, but it's going to drive me mad.  2 days with no lights had a big effect, but apparently not enough.  Back to the drawing board I guess.  Once the new residents are settled in I'll do chem tests and start researching again.  Damn it!

[Lognor]

Ok, It's time!!  I got a colorful Yuma, with what looks like a baby growing on the same frag, an RFA, a Pink Halo Paly (not pictured since its not open yet), and a surprise in the box.  I'm not 100% sure what the freebie is, but it looks like another mushroom.  If anyone knows please share.  Full tank shot at the bottom, sorry for the washed out look, middle of the day using my iphone.

 

[Lognor]

Ok, been a while since my last journal update.  Still dealing with the algae issue.  It's been ~4 months now.  Parameters are stable.  Dosing reef carbonate every couple of days to maintain alkalinity.  Added pods for the first time 2 weeks ago.  Reduced water changes to once per week.  Feeding is still minimal.  Going to just keep riding it out for now.  Eventually it will get sorted out.  I think it is better than it has been, so we'll see.

 

This past weekend I did a bunch of fragging and reorganized the corals.  The euphyllias scattered all over were starting to become a problem for all the other inhabitants.  First I fragged the frogspawn and green/purple hammer to get them to a more manageable size.  I was able to get 2 frags of each, one with 3 heads and one with 2.  Took them to the LFS for credit.  I wanted to frag the duncan, but I would have had to cut flesh and that scared me a bit too much this time, so I left it alone for now.

 

I put the frogspawn back where it was, but moved the hammer by the duncan and put the torch where the hammer was.  The torch is growing well and was beginning to really crowd the front of the tank, so now it has a lot of space.  It's grown from two heads to 5 in the past few months.  I then moved the acans around to separate them and give them some more room to grow.  I like the placement of most everything, but I have some minor stuff I still need to figure out. 

 

1.  I absolutely brutalized the chalice.  Not on purpose.  I trimmed it back too much and in the process broke most of it off.  When I got it, it was the size of a finger nail clipping, so I know what is left will grow back, but man it's bad.

2.  I put one of the acans too close to the torch.  I think it's is going to get zapped eventually, so he may be finding a new spot soon.

3.  A few weeks ago, my RFA decided to move.  It was in a really good high visibility spot since I put it in.  It was doing great there, but the crabs always seemed to be near it trying to get into the crevices around it and finally I think it had enough and just moved one night.  Of course it is now in a spot that is hard to see from the front so I'm annoyed by it.  I've read ways to try to get it to move, but with my luck it will drop even further out of sight, so for now I guess he stays where he is.

4.  I have one invasive species of zoa that keeps overgrowing the more desirable varieties.  I've cut it back/out several times, but I can never quite get all of it.  Now it's grown onto a couple of the frag plugs with the others and is starting to push out the one's I really want to keep.  Not sure how I'm going to deal with this nuisance.  I really like the rock they're on and the zoa garden in general, so I don't want to keep tearing it apart every few months to cut back the one I don't want.  Annoying more than anything.

5.  Last thing is flow.  I've moved the powerheads a couple of times, trying to find a good spot.  Right now they're in the front of the tank pointing at each other, which is in the flow of the return pump, so there's some turbulence and randomizing happening.  Eventually I'm going to replace one of the koralias with a true wavemaker.  I tired the koralia wavemaker, but the simple power on/off it does didn't really get the job done, and became annoying.  More than anything I was becoming worried about shortening the life of the pump before I am ready to upgrade, so I pulled it out of the mix.

 

Before and after below:

 

[kimdawg]

I like the variety and arrangement of corals you have now.  I really like you zoa garden.

[Lognor]

5 hours ago, kimdawg said:

I like the variety and arrangement of corals you have now.  I really like you zoa garden.

Thanks.  Now I need to work on taking better photo's.  Everything looks too washed out.

[Lognor]

Looked at the tank this morning and the RFA moved back to the original spot he was in, LOL.  Do you think me telling him "I told you so" will do any good?

[Lognor]

Wow, I knew I hadn't journaled lately, but had no idea it has been 4 months.  Even though my tank is nearing 3 years old, there always seems to be something going on with it.  Re-landscaping, new inhabitants, fragging, new corals, fixing issues, parameter swings, etc.  I'll be catching up on journaling and posting some pics.  Not that I have a huge audience dying to read up on my screwy little reef.

 

Starting with the most recent: RIP to the most annoying inhabitant I have ever run across, Jacques the cleaner shrimp.  This guy had been stealing food from corals, annoying fish, and trampling zoas for over 2 years.  As I was cleaning the tank yesterday, I found the remnants of yet another molt.  Well, that was until later in the evening when I fed the tank and noticed he wasn't doing his usual starved inmate routine shoving everyone out of the way and trampling everything in site to get to mysis and pellets.  I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out if he was stuck somewhere, but nothing.  I apparently wasn't cleaning a molting earlier in the day...

 

That shrimp drove me crazy at feeding time, but my wife loved him (she names everything in the tank) and feeding time was definitely an event.

More updates later.  Work is beckoning me for attention now.

 

[billygoat]

5 hours ago, Lognor said:

Wow, I knew I hadn't journaled lately, but had no idea it has been 4 months.  Even though my tank is nearing 3 years old, there always seems to be something going on with it.  Re-landscaping, new inhabitants, fragging, new corals, fixing issues, parameter swings, etc.  I'll be catching up on journaling and posting some pics.  Not that I have a huge audience dying to read up on my screwy little reef.

Sorry to hear about the loss of your shrimp, but it's great to hear that for the most part things are still trucking along. It's a beautiful tank you have, so don't sell yourself short! 😊 I can only hope that mine looks as good as this at the 3-year mark too!

[Lognor]

9 hours ago, billygoat said:

Sorry to hear about the loss of your shrimp, but it's great to hear that for the most part things are still trucking along. It's a beautiful tank you have, so don't sell yourself short! 😊 I can only hope that mine looks as good as this at the 3-year mark too!

Thanks for the kind words.  Overall things have been pretty good.  I'm currently trying to figure out a phosphate spike.  Mine always seemed to be higher than normal, but my last few tests showed a reading of .5, assuming I'm reading the damn thing right.  The salifert phosphate test is the worst, so hard to read.  I'm also trying to keep my Alk stable.  I think I've reached the point that I need to look into auto dosing.   

 

Parameters the past 2 months

 

I've been dosing Alk in spots trying to see how it is changing.  I need to do daily testing for a few weeks to determine what the dosing will need to be.  I've had a phosphate filter pad in my media basket for the past few months, but I don't think its doing anything, or I have a major phosphate problem that it has been keeping in check.  I'm running Phosban for the past week and half to bring it down, but it's not having an impact either.  Next step is to research what possible causes are to figure out what I need to address.  The new torch I added is bleaching in spots and the only thing I can point to is the phosphate being high.  

 

The upside is that the algae on the sand I had been struggling with for months has gone down significantly. 

 

Pictures coming later today.

[Lognor]

Checked Alk, Calcium, and Phosphate last night.  Alk and Calcium are in the low end of normal range.  I've been dosing each the past few days and will continue to do so daily going forward for the next month or so.  The phosphate looks like it is down a smidge, maybe to .4, but still way to high.  My euphyllias, acans, and mushroom seem to be bigger than ever, but most of my zoas are in bad shape.  Looking closely last night, it looks like a bunch have melted, which is only going to compound the issue.  I ordered more phosban and will be doing a big water change tonight and again this weekend to try to right the ship.  I hate losing anything in the tank, but at least the zoas in question are easily replaceable.  Once things get in balance, its an opportunity to get something new I guess.

 

New pictures below.

 

[billygoat]

Weird that you'd be having trouble with the zoas of all things; you'd think that they'd be some of the toughest stuff in the tank! Regardless though, it really looks very beautiful. You've done a great job with this system.

[Lognor]

Went to feed the fish last night before doing the planned water change and I notice the nessarius snails locked together.  Thought it was odd, but they're odd so continued to check things out.  Looked back at them again and realized they were both on top of the Diamond Goby I just got a week ago.  I don't know what the hell is going on, but man when it rains it pours, I swear.  Something is definitely wrong, but my parameter tests don't show anything, again other than phosphate.  In the past 4 days I've lost my cleaner shrimp, the new diamond goby, and a couple of zoa frags.  Now, it could be a lot of coincidence, the shrimp was more than 2 years old, the goby may have been sick to start or just didn't take to the acclimation.  I just watch too many mystery type shows, so I'm always trying to connect events.  

 

I did a water change last night, about 8 gallons total, changed the filter floss and the phosban.  I didn't dose or test last night to give everything time to settle.  I'll be checking tonight to see where things are now.

 

I know that it will be fine in the long run, I just hate losing things.

[Ratvan]

Have you checked your equipment for rusting or stray voltage?