Jake's 3G Desk Pico

[jSully]

3 tiny heads growing on the Duncan. Pretty cool. 

 

Meanwhile, big Bird is getting emaciated. Been feeding frozen baby brine, cyclops and mysis and he just spits everything out. Heading to the LFS today to get some cyclopeeze. 

[jSully]

LFS didn’t have any cyclopeeze but they had some stuff called “reef stew” which is a mix of brine shrimp, copepods, amphipods, rotifers and phyto. They suggested this for the YCG so I got roughly a 1/2 cup for $1. Lots of littles in there. Poured half in the back with thrbchaeto and the other half in the front with the pump off. Big Bird immediately came out and began feasting. Hopefully they reproduce quickly otherwise I’ll be making often trips to the LFS. Lol. 

 

Grabbed a small monti frag, a purple bonsai and another blue acro of some sort on the cheap. Bonsai is receding a bit at the bottom  Hate the look of these plugs. Need to pickup some epoxy. 

[jSully]

So, YCG died of starvation. :( Did some reading and apparently that's not terribly uncommon, but still a bummer nonetheless.

 

Today I pulled the acros and monti off their plugs and super glued them to the rock. In the meantime, my fire shrimp went and touched some of the glue before it had completely set, now his claws and hands have glue on them. :\

 

Question: in my GSP conquest to fill the back wall, do I need to move the rock away from it or will it move around it or will it just climb right onto it?

[TatorTaco]

It's my understanding that GSP will grow on to anything that it touches, especially if the GSP is growing on the back wall and the rock is touching the back wall. 

[jSully]

Thanks boss!

[jSully]

Duncan babes are growing, such a cool process to watch. Frogspawn is in process of splitting so it’s in and out. The mouth was completely closed up yesterday. 

[jSully]

Took off all the plugs and glued everything down. I observed polyp extension on everything and no signs of discomfort so I went for it. The only thing left I have to get are the softies I like: clove polyps and Xenia. Likely some zoas and ricordias to fill in the rock/sand, otherwise I’m very pleased and looking forward to just watching it fill in. Might add a purple tentacle torch in the front left corner if not too much $. 

 

So so as of today tank inhabirants include:

 

Fish/inverts:

yellowtail damsel

large blue hermit (who just finished consuming a nerotr snail)

margarita snail 

fire shrimp

 

Coral:

Two unk acros

purple bonsai

red monti cap

monti spongodes

duncan

frogspawn

 

 

[jSully]

Few changes the last couple weeks. 

 

Duncan is continuing to grow and now has 4 small heads growing at the base of the tissue. The purple bonsai was bleaching when I got it and has already began growing back down. PE was severely lacking on two of the acros when I got them and they’re much better now. Monti cap has completely healed over where I broke it off to glue it on the rock. Birds nest looks awesome, despite how tiny it is. I’m contemplating gluing it to the side glass. Still on the plug for now. 

 

LFS broke down their display and one of their huge rocks was covered in different zoas so I got a sizable piece for only $20. Broke that piece into two and it looks pretty good. 4 different types of beteeen the two small rocks. 

 

Also, added a porcelain crab. Pretty neat little guy. 

[TatorTaco]

Everything sure does look good.  Congrats on being at the right place at the right time to pick up the colony of zoas for $20.  

[jSully]

update:

 

Everything seems be growing well. My blue leg hermit abandoned his(her?) cerith shell and is inhabiting a margarita snail shell. I have an astrea in there too if he gets any bigger. Not sure about the top size of these guys. He doesn't really have to compete for food as there aren't any snails in the tank so he gets what everyone else doesn't want. The monti cap has completely healed where I broke it off of the larger piece and is showing some light pink growth tips around the edges and a couple spots where its starting to rise up. The monti spongodes has excellent PE and is encrusting well on the rock. The purple bonsai has regrown a fair amount of its base that was bleaching. A few more weeks and I'm hoping to see it encrusting onto the rock. The forest fire digi is a nice color contrast for where it's located. Both it and the green birds next haven't begun encrusting yet, but it's only been about 2 weeks since I placed them in the tank. The misc blue/green acro seems to be doing ok. It's begun encrusting onto the rock on its top side but the bottom side is just barely sending out the very thin layer of skin to encrust over the super glue. Polyp extension is ok, though, I don't have a standard for it to compare to so it may just be at max PE.

 

The Duncan has 4 tiny duncans growing at its base that look fantastic. The frogspawn now has 3 mouths and I anticipate it to split apart soon. The zoas are hanging in there. They all came from one larger rock that I broke up into 3 pieces. All of the pieces are in different areas on the sand bed. The zoas on the right are fully open and loving live. the zoas in the middle have only 1-2 open an the zoas on the left are completely closed. Strange. GPS is growing rapidly on the back wall, can't wait to see it all filled in. I'm considering cutting half of it off, cutting it into pieces then gluing smaller pieces all over the back so they will grow into each other. I'd rather just let it go, but I've read that they'll only grow toward the light in which case I'll need to manually place them on the bottom of the back wall. Thoughts?

 

Finally..... took my water to the store to check params today (wondering if nutrients were the cause of the zoa issue). This is the first time I've check params since the cycle finished in May. I've been doing twice weekly 2g water changes. I was also interested in calcium consumption. I should have had them check phos, however, nitrates are zero, calcium is 450 and kh is 5.7. I use Red Sea Coral Pro which is supposed to be approx. 12dkh at 35ppm. The gentleman at the LFS asked what my base water was, which is the blue RO units at various gas states that sell 5g for $1.25. He thinks that's the cause and suggested securing a good location for RO/DI water. So over the next couple weeks I'm going change that out to try to bring it back up, hopefully I don't create too much of a spike. I may also drop down to 1g twice a week for my water changes, seeing how nutrients seem to be doing well even with my "dirty" water that I took him (I'm due for a WC today but took him my preWC water).

 

Really pleased with how the tank is looking, though, would love to get my hands on some xenia and clove polyps.

 

Oh, they had a beautiful gold torch at the LFS. Man... $200 though... O_o

[jSully]

Took some water to LFS to test again yesterday. Nitrates at zero, Ca at 450, dkh @ 5.3, mg at 1600+. Now the interesting part: I completed a 60% water change (1.5g) on Thursday so there's no way the corals drained 6.7dkh out of the water in less than 24 hours. LFS uses the same Red Sea salt I use so I'm going to buy my SW from them for a while since I'm only going through about 3g/week. Going to do about 1/2 gallon WC/day for the next week or so to try to slowly bring dkh back up to where it should be. While there is no bleaching or STN, a couple of the acros are losing color.

 

In other news, LFS has a tyree toadstool he's getting ready to frag so that may be the next inhabitant. I picked up a Kenya tree yesterday as well. They have a really pretty yellow goniopora, but I'm undecided on that at the moment.

[jSully]

[jSully]

Alright, took my water back to LFS on Monday to check dkh which is sitting at 6.0. After 4 water changes, one of them being a 70% WC with 9.0dkh alk water, I don't know what gives. I broke down and bought some 2 part and my personal tests will be here tomorrow. I dosed 2ml yesterday and will dose another 2ml tomorrow, which should raise dkh by about 1 each shot in 2 gallons of water. Since it's actually about 2.6g I presume it'll be a bit lower. Hopefully everything starts coloring back up pretty quickly once I get alk stable. The monti cap, spongodes and purple bonsai have lost a lot of color.

[SeaFurn]

I assume you're using Red Sea blue bucket salt?   I'm guessing the recent LFS store test was incorrect so I'd be careful with your dosing until your own test kits get there.  It was definitely wise to get your own test kits. Just be careful not to raise the dKH too quickly.  I think the suggestion is around no more than 1.4 dKH change per day.

[jSully]

On ‎9‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 5:00 AM, SeaFurn said:

I assume you're using Red Sea blue bucket salt?   I'm guessing the recent LFS store test was incorrect so I'd be careful with your dosing until your own test kits get there.  It was definitely wise to get your own test kits. Just be careful not to raise the dKH too quickly.  I think the suggestion is around no more than 1.4 dKH change per day.

I was using the red sea black bucket which is supposed to mix to 12.0dkh @ 35ppm, yet the very next day was testing at 5.4dkh. So I switched to the LFS' water which is testing at 9dkh, did 4 water changes over a week and a half and was still only testing at 6.0dkh. That's why I bought the 2 part and my own test kit. API will only test in 1dkh increments so it was testing between 8 and 9 today. I took the water to the LFS and they tested it at 8.6dkh so we're on the same level. My goal is to get it between 9-10 and to keep it there. So my next step is to test the water before the water change and make sure it matches, then wait a few days and see what it drops to so I can get on a consistent dosing schedule. I was really hoping to avoid dosing with such a small tank and frequent water changes but it seems that's not possible right now.