Annakim's struggling 20 gallon

[Annakim28]

Picked up some extra shells for my hermits and some corals today. Shortly after putting the new corals and shells in the tank I counted 7 blue leg hermits when I had only bought 6 originally...looks like one of the empty shells was not empty! I feel bad though, I rinsed the shells in RODI to get the lfs tank water off and let them sit like that for a minute while I did something else so crab number 7 survived a great ordeal today! From being put in a bag with almost no water, being carried around in my purse all day, then being rinsed in fresh water and chucked in a new tank...I'm surprised he's alive! Corals are all stressed from the dip still but I'll post pictures once they open up.

[Annakim28]

I got a new zoa frag ,red with a purple center. They have opened a few times but the hermits keep using the frag as a jungle gym...I also got one Duncan head that seems very happy, steal what ever bits of food float by and stuffing his face. The last coral I brought home yesterday is a teal mushroom. It's supper pretty but for some reason comes out dark blue in all the pictures, it's teal and purple. Everyone seems happy except the frequently pestered zoas, but even they seem ok when left alone for a bit!

[Annakim28]

Had to turn the iso up on my camera app to get the zoas not to look dark, this is as close as I can get to lifelike colors on the coral itself.

[Annakim28]

Got a new linear blenny today! I was planning on a tail spot as my next fish but this little one was in  the next tank over and looked so cool I had to get it! Still un-named. Sunny the yellow clown goby is super curious about his new roommate. 

[Annakim28]

How is this hermie doing this...?

[Kdrof]

Hermie is like Spider-man 😉

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

Tank looks good  keep up the good work

[Annakim28]

Finally stopped being lazy and mounted my corals so that crabs would stop moving stuff around. I think all the corals seem to have come through the ordeal fine.

 

Bonus points if you can spot Tish the linear blenny 😁

[Annakim28]

Went to my lfs to get water and they were having a sale! Picked up a purple monti and a dusty blue acan for $5 each! I have no idea if I can keep a monti in my tank but it was 5 bucks so I figured I'd give it a go. It's in the sand right now and seems happy but it will make it's way to the top of the reef eventually! It was bright purple in the store but of course is more maroon in the bottom of my cheaply lit tank. I'm not mad about it, I like maroon 😊.

[Annakim28]

Ok, some issues; I've been lucky so far and haven't had many algae problems. But it seems my luck has run out. Something brown and tufty is growing all over my rocks and the walls of my refugeum and on bits of the substrate as well.  I don't know what it is. The hermies don't seem terribly interested in it but something is eating some of it because there are whole sections of rock that are clean as a whistle. This short brown fluffy stuff is my main concern. It's ugly. 

 

Something green and whispy is growing on the back glass but it is easily removed my the mag float on the sides that I clean (I'm too lazy to clean the back glass). Idk what that is either but I'm not worried about, it seems to be on the decline and I have seen Tish the linear blenny take a few bites of it. 

 

In other news, most of my corals are doing amazing, the Duncan appears to be budding new heads, I can see little bumps just undee the current head. My hairy mushroom looks happier than ever and is growing a bit. The teal discosoma shrooms has something growing under it that is pushing it up away from the rock, idk what's going on there but overall seems fine. Only trouble makers are the kedds reds zoas and the purple monti. Only the half the zoas open on a regular basis at this point, idk why they're mad. The monti just doesn't seem happy to me; I've only seen polyps come out once or twice since I moved it up to get it more light. It is still purple, just all retracted. Give it more time? I've been having a hard time keeping up with top offs lately so it could be a salinity instability problem. 

 

Any advice is appreciated but you should all know sometimes I am more of a "let it go and see what happens" kind of aquarist so I will o my be taking drastic measures if things are dying.  I like to think that over time things will balance themselves out. For instance: in my 29 planted freshwater tank i had a black beard algae problem and i did nothing. Now I have a cyano problem but the cyano is smothering the life out of the BBA, so I'll probably let it go for a minute and then clean it all up with chemiclean, problem solved haha. 

[Annakim28]

So the "algea", or whatever it is, has been frustrating to deal with. It went from a few Tufts to covering 60% of the rocks in a month. I turned down the lights and shortened the "day" and tried to do better with water changes. Alas, life and school still got in the way. The Mexican Turbo snail I purchased on the advice of a local store has not helped much. He ate all the stringy green hair algae that was growing on the back glass but he has totally ignored the brown fluffy stuff. The inhabitants all seem fine with a few exceptions: I dramatically reduced feeding which has been fine for the two fish but the crabs are dying. Im down to 4 blue legs and 1 Halloween crab. My Duncan is sprouting heads in all directions but never opens fully since I changed the lighting. I lost one head of my dusty blue acan, it kept getting rolled around in the sand bed by the nassarius snails. Now that I have it more stable the remaining head is making a comeback. My attemt at an SPS seems to have failed. The polyps never extend but the base is till light purple, could be dead but in case it's not I'm going to move it back down closer to where it was last happy. The hairy mushroom is growing and I see new zoas popping up. Sunny the yellow clown goby went through a rough patch where he had little yellow skin tag like bumbs, the disease is something the internet seems to not know much about and is solely a clown goby problem. I increased feeding and he fattened up and the bumps went away. This is probably what lead to my algea issue. One more bit of good news: my trochus snails have reproduced! What I initially thought were colonista snails appear to be baby trochus snails instead. I can see all their tiny tenticles and they are shaped exactly the same. So the tank is ugly right now but there are successes too. Now that my semester is over I'm going to wage war on this brown gunk: more water changes, going to finally invest in an ATO, will be rinsing out the HOB intake sponge an hour after every feeding. Finally, I plan on contacting reef cleaner to see what they might have to help. My refugeum seems to only be a refuge to the brown plague and the baby snails at this point, it will be gutted and restarted with fresh macro algea. I'm sorry for the novel but at this point I am keeping this log for myself. Here are some recent pics: 

[Pinner Reef]

I forget what that type of algae is called but it's form of cyanobacteria and you should treat it as such. Perhaps someone better versed will jump in here.  Reduce nitrates, phosphates... ect. 

 

Free bump for a kickass scape 👍

[JBM]

https://www.reefcleaners.org/nuisance-algae-id-guide

[Annakim28]

Progress is slow but I am making progress. I added 1/3 of a bad of phosguard to the HOB filter, changed out the purigen and have been doing more water changes. I probably should be doing even more but I can't seem to convince myself to do it more than once a week so I upped the volume a bit. Along with cutting back feeding and lighting I seem to be winning the battle... slowly. All fish are still happy but I am down to 3 blue legs hermits. Rodrigo the mexican turbo snail will be going back to the store soon. I really don't want him to starve to death and since he won't eat the brown gunk he probably will if I keep him any longer. Plus, Tish picks on him all the time. I finally chucked the peice if monti I killed. The acan is recovering now that it's monted. I dipped the zoas in case a parasite is the reason they are dying one by one and then remounted them in a different spot in case the spaghetti worm or light/flow was the reason. They are opening up more already and it's been 24 hours. I tried to move the Duncan to a spot where the algae wouldn't touch it and dip it also but I couldn't get it off the rockwork so I settled for removing as much algae from the rocks next to it as I could. It still moves but never fully opens so it is still alive just not happy. I have my fingers crossed. Soft corals continue to thrive as if the tank were perfect as do the baby snails. Something off-white and spongey (a sponge perhaps?) Is growing in the bottom of my HOB.... hopefully it's nothing bad? 

[WV Reefer]

7 minutes ago, Annakim28 said:

Progress is slow but I am making progress. I added 1/3 of a bad of phosguard to the HOB filter, changed out the purigen and have been doing more water changes. I probably should be doing even more but I can't seem to convince myself to do it more than once a week so I upped the volume a bit. Along with cutting back feeding and lighting I seem to be winning the battle... slowly. All fish are still happy but I am down to 3 blue legs hermits. Rodrigo the mexican turbo snail will be going back to the store soon. I really don't want him to starve to death and since he won't eat the brown gunk he probably will if I keep him any longer. Plus, Tish picks on him all the time. I finally chucked the peice if monti I killed. The acan is recovering now that it's monted. I dipped the zoas in case a parasite is the reason they are dying one by one and then remounted them in a different spot in case the spaghetti worm or light/flow was the reason. They are opening up more already and it's been 24 hours. I tried to move the Duncan to a spot where the algae wouldn't touch it and dip it also but I couldn't get it off the rockwork so I settled for removing as much algae from the rocks next to it as I could. It still moves but never fully opens so it is still alive just not happy. I have my fingers crossed. Soft corals continue to thrive as if the tank were perfect as do the baby snails. Something off-white and spongey (a sponge perhaps?) Is growing in the bottom of my HOB.... hopefully it's nothing bad? 

 

Other than the ugly algae, things look like they are doing well.  🙂

 

I found that zoas did not do well in my tank for the first year. I would buy them and they would either die quickly or do a very slow dissspearing act. 

 

The white thing is probably a sponge. Pineapple sponges are usually the first to show up..... usually inside equipment, under rocks and other calm areas with good flow.  

 

That refugium is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen! I think those were baby shrimp in there. Do you still have them?

[Annakim28]

Thanks! The brown stuff killed my cheto so the refugium is not so cute right now but it will be restored when i can get more macro. The mysterious cretures that i assume were shrimps came a went a few times and then were no more. Now I have red flat worms in their place that I pipette out when ever I see them...again, not so cute but since they only show up in the fuge so far I'm not gonna stress about it! 

[WV Reefer]

3 minutes ago, Annakim28 said:

Thanks! The brown stuff killed my cheto so the refugium is not so cute right now but it will be restored when i can get more macro. The mysterious cretures that i assume we're shrimps came a went a few times and then were no more. Now I have red flat worms in their place that I pipette out when ever I see them...again, not so cute but since they only show up in the fuge so far I'm not gonna stress about it! 

 

I have the red flatworms on my glass sometimes...... just keep sucking them out.  They are no biggie unless they start to take over. 

 

 

[JBM]

Are you using rodi for water changes?

[Annakim28]

I do, I get rodi from my lfs. 

[Pinner Reef]

Sometimes; this hobby can seem 'oppressive'.

 

Keep going... You're headed in the proper direction.

 

Takes time

[Annakim28]

Thanks! I've accepted that I'm going to be doing a lot of waiting for a while. Luckily I've had a lot of practice with waiting for planted tanks to grow in and stabilize. 😄

[JBM]

On 9/4/2018 at 2:35 PM, Annakim28 said:

I do, I get rodi from my lfs. 

 

That doesn't ensure your tds are low. 

 

Ask them to check it for you,  or find out when their filters were last changed.

 

At this stage, manual removal is your best bet.

 

Get a cup or bowl filled with tap water. Stick your hand in the tank and pinch some algae. Pull it out with your fingers still pinched. Swish in bowl/cupand release algar into bowl. Repeat process. Dump dirty algar water in garbage.

[Clown79]

You can also dose 3% hydrogen peroxide directly into the tank which will kill the algae and harm nothing else.

 

Dosing procedure: 1ml of 3% peroxide per gallon

[JBM]

3 hours ago, Clown79 said:

You can also dose 3% hydrogen peroxide directly into the tank which will kill the algae and harm nothing else.

 

Dosing procedure: 1ml of 3% peroxide per gallon

 

Thats good to know. Even I didnt know that.

[Clown79]

23 minutes ago, JBM said:

 

Thats good to know. Even I didnt know that.

Works like a charm. 

 

There are a few things sensitive to it but the average coral/fish isn't.

 

The key is not over dosing it.

 

Taking out the rocks, scrubbing them, and doing a peroxide dip will offer faster results.

 

Unfortunately with a large outbreak 2 things need to be done

 

 

Find the cause and correct

Aggressive removal of algae or it will just spread