Sadies Biocube 16

[sadie]

I've been working on my tank so much lately, my cat, Gypsi, had to check things out,,,😄

[sadie]

I woke up this morning and saw my poor duncan face planted in the sand. 😔  He has been doing well on that rock, so I finally glued him to it.  I think he likes being up instead of lying down anyway.

 

 

[sadie]

The GHA is almost under control.  I have been keeping my Phos above .03, still trying to figure out the right dose to keep it between .o3 and .05.  Today it was up to .10.  I dosed 4 ml when it went down to .03 and it went up to .14 I think next time I will do 1/2 that amount.  My NO3 is 1.  I have increased feeding, hoping to bring it to a 2.

 

I def have dinos.  Last time I battled that I made a pod hotel, ordered a bag of pods and did it that way. It was kind of a nightmare, though it worked.  This time I am going to try a different method. 

 

Keep myt phos between .03-.05

get my NO3 to 2

I ordered some good bacteria (Microbacter7)  I'll add that and hopefully between all this it will go away.  If not, I will do a black out for a few days.

 

I read to keep vacuuming it from the sand bed.

 

And a picture of Nubble, who is coming out more and getting taller.

 

[sadie]

I was tweezing a little GHA on my mushroom island and plucked it right off the island!  Poor thing fell behind all my rock and I had to fish him out.  glued him back on the island.

 

Good news is he has definitely split!😁  I thought he split a bit ago, but he was just curled.  I can now see 2 separate mouths.

[sadie]

I took some of the algae in my tank and looked at it under a microscope, I think I have every algae that ever grew, but I do think the majority is GHA and cyano.  At first I thought it was dinos again, and there could be a bit in there, but I am going to treat mostly for cyano and GHA. 

 

It seems the treatments is mostly the same, though I remember NOT doing WC with the dinos because it got worse and I think with Cyano you DO want to do WC.  I will do a 3 gal one today and see what happens.

 

I have been tweezing it off the rocks, and vacuuming it off the bottom.  I haven't gotten my Microbacter7 yet, I think I'm getting that on Thur.

[sadie]

FTS with flash and no flash. Lights just came on.  

 

 

 

[sadie]

I got a new coral today, I wanted to get it yesterday for the first day of spring but ran out of time.  It's a white toadstool.  I had one before and liked it.  I think I lost that one when I had the bad hood and a bunch of my stuff just vansihed. 😔

 

I also took the 3 trees that broke off my kenya tree and "grounded" them.  I used elastic bands and put one on an old plug and 2 on giant shells.  I have 2 in the sand bed and one up higher.  The higher one is doing better, but I don't think I have room (without glueing) to put the other 2 higher.  I am hoping to trade them when they get a bit bigger.

[sadie]

I got my MicroBacter7 today.  I also found some NeoNitro that I ordered when I ordered my NeoPhos.  I don't know why I never used it.  I think when I read it I got confused so I just didn't use it.  But now I think this will all work.  I added the MicroBacter7 and the NeoNitro so hopefully my nitrates will go up and all my levels will finally be balanced and the algaes will go away.

 

I am still removing the algae manually form the rock and vacuuming them from the sand bed.

 

Time will tell...

[kimdawg]

I love toadstools also.  I have one that has finally decided to start growing since I cleaned the tank up.

[sadie]

I added the MicroBacter7 last night along with the NeoNitro.  this morning my NO3 was still barely 1 so I added 2ml of each and I just checked my NO3 and it's a 2!

 

I want it up to a 5 so I added another ml of NeoNitro and I'll check it in the AM.  My phos is .12.  I might try and raise my KH a bit, it's 7.7.  I read some people had good luck with higher PH fighting cyano, but I don't want to get into a swinging KH.  

 

And I woke up this morning to kenya branches everywhere.  🤪 on 2 of the trees I attached with the elastic, it just split, must have been a little too tight.  I have glued them down on the shell.  We'll see what that does.

[sadie]

I started using the Nano A+B and got my KH up to 8.5.  My nitrates went back down to 1 so I added more NeoNitro (3ml).  

 

And the kenya branches I glued on the shell, fell off the rock and the branches came unglued 🤪  I might call LFS and see if they want a bowl of loose kenya trees.  I have like 6 of them now.  One that I glued on a flat plug has stayed put, maybe because they are in low flow as suggested.

[DevilDuck]

Looks like your making great progress! One other thing that helped me add biodiversity was a cup of sand from the ocean: 1 CUP LIVE Sand Aragonite Fine- SEED YOUR SALTWATER TANK!! – Addictive Reef Keeping and these corraline shells 2 Pack Coraline Covered Shell- SEED YOUR REEF TANK!!! – Addictive Reef Keeping

 

 

 

 

[sadie]

3 hours ago, DevilDuck said:

Looks like your making great progress! One other thing that helped me add biodiversity was a cup of sand from the ocean: 1 CUP LIVE Sand Aragonite Fine- SEED YOUR SALTWATER TANK!! – Addictive Reef Keeping and these corraline shells 2 Pack Coraline Covered Shell- SEED YOUR REEF TANK!!! – Addictive Reef Keeping

 

 

 

 

Did you add the sand to help fight algae, or just add biodiversity to your tank?  the last time I did anything to my sandbed (except vacuuming the top of it) was I guess when I upgraded to my 16 gal Biocube from my 12 gal JBJ.  I rinsed out my old sand and added 1 new bag of sand to it.  That was in 2018...

 

How often should we do something to our sandbed and what should we do to it?  I never really thought about it.  

[sadie]

My white toadstool is straight up now and opening.  I moved one of coral/RFA rocks to get better flow through the cave and my RFA was NOT attached to the rock so now it is sitting on my sandbed.  It looks like he might attach to the giant shell I had the kenya glued to.

 

Some shots of my tank today.  Cayno still very visible.

 

[Murphs_Reef]

If your looking to add biodiversity.. consider buying a bag of Chaetomorpha and collecting the life from it..

Its a brilliant way to get the things you can't easily buy such as brittle stars, bristle worms, amphipods, stoma snails, asterinas etc etc.. 

 

Simple to harvest by putting the chaeto into a white bowl.. shaking it and collecting what falls out, when I have collected everything I can see, the chaeto goes in the bin.. £5 / $7 will get you soo much biodiversity you won't believe. Very very helpful. 

 

I do this at least once a month.. and have so much life in the tank things like Dino's, GHA etc just don't happen. 

 

[sadie]

2 hours ago, Murphs_Reef said:

If your looking to add biodiversity.. consider buying a bag of Chaetomorpha and collecting the life from it..

Its a brilliant way to get the things you can't easily buy such as brittle stars, bristle worms, amphipods, stoma snails, asterinas etc etc.. 

 

Simple to harvest by putting the chaeto into a white bowl.. shaking it and collecting what falls out for the DT.. £5 / $7 will get you soo much biodiversity you won't believe. Very very helpful. 

 

I do this at least once a month.. and have so much life in the tankz things like Dino's, GHA etc just don't happen. 

what do you do with the chaeto when your done with it?  I am having a problem with both GHA and cyano.  It happens when my nutrients get too low.  🙄

[sadie]

from the sounds of it, chaeto is put in to reduce nutrients, ( I am trying to raise mine) and most of it is sold as "clean" so I wouldn't get all those cool critters you mention.  I found only one place that said it was seeded with pods.  

[Murphs_Reef]

6 hours ago, sadie said:

from the sounds of it, chaeto is put in to reduce nutrients, ( I am trying to raise mine) and most of it is sold as "clean" so I wouldn't get all those cool critters you mention.  I found only one place that said it was seeded with pods.  

No I throw away the chaeto. I only buy it for the critters that it comes with 👍🏼

[sadie]

5 hours ago, Murphs_Reef said:

No I throw away the chaeto. I only buy it for the critters that it comes with 👍🏼

where do you get it?

[sadie]

I was just sitting in front of my tank, the white lights hadn't come on yet.  I bought some stuff from P.O.T.O. and they gave me these "sun glasses".  They are so cool.  When you put them on and the white lights arent on, everything GLOWS!  I wasn't sure it would work, but I took a picture through the glasses.  Here is a before and after pic.

[sadie]

Levels are FINALLY getting where I want them.  Everything is looking great!!  things opening up more, color getting brighter.  Now just waiting for GHA and cyanos to go away.  Still removing manually.

 

My levels this morning:

Phos-.09

salinity- 1.025

KH- 8.9

Cal- 485

MG- 1305

NO3- 2 (still working on getting that to 5 by adding NeoNitro.  I started with 2ml went up to 3ml this morning.  Also using MicroBacter7 with that)

[Murphs_Reef]

7 hours ago, sadie said:

where do you get it?

Just the local LFS 

[sadie]

I have my levels where I want them, now I'm going to do a black out for 3 days.  It's gonna be hard not see my tank.  😒It's already getting better over the past 2 days, so I'm hoping with all this it will be gone.  (and I'll still do manual removal during black out)

[sadie]

I'm already going through withdrawal!! Ahhhhhh...😵

[sadie]

I just did a 2gal WC, tweezed all the rock and coral.  Some coral are kinda mad they don't have any light, some are happy they got a WC.  Can't please everybody, but it looks like this might work.

 

I turned the lights on for a second to take the photo, then shut them off again.