MrObscura's Nuvo 10... still reefing.

[MrObscura]

Well, I'm not here to only share the good and it seems I spoke too soon regarding the tank maybe coming into it's own... Despite good husbandry and regular testing, while keeping parameters stable, acros just don't seem to like my tank much. Within days of being mouted my pink cadillac and bb unicorn have started to rtn even though I waited a month with them on the rack looking happy and healthy, coloring up and even displaying growth. 

 

I don't even know what to do at this point. The only thing I can think of is since I started with all dry rock the tank might still be a little immature. 

[MrObscura]

The bubble bath completely rtned but the pink cadi has stalled with only a little tissue loss so there's a chance it'll be OK. Other acros seem all good. I did have a big Ph drop that was my own doing so that might have played a role. 

 

For my feeding regiment I've also started dosing acropower along and benereef together with my usuall rods/reef roids mix. Benereef has a number of pre and probiotics in it designed to feed corals as well as increase biodiversity so I'm hoping it'll help mature the tank a bit. 

 

I originally stopped using it because my tank was too clean and it didn't increase nutrients like I needed, so I switched to rods food. But since nutrients are holding steady i figured more variety in the menu couldn't hurt. 

[Tamberav]

Sorry to hear about the corals 😞 My Jason fox is pissy and brown and other stuff grows fine. Damn acros.

[MrObscura]

Well, over the past 4 days Alk has gone from 9.6 to 9.9 according to the hannah. So it's might still be rising, but not by as much. 

 

Sps are all struggling and ill wouldn't be surprised if i lose them all. I'm just going to do a water change and stick to routine, and hopefully everything with settle in and the tank will sort itself out before the big saaos come fall. 

 

With a new puppy new corals aren't really in the cards anyway right now. 

[MrObscura]

3 months and finally an update. Nothing munch has changed with the tank and a big strong puppy has been keeping me busy.

 

Anyway, Alk is still high for some weird reason but steady and while I lost my spa due to the issues I had months back, the tanks otherwise doing pretty good.

 

I just got back from aquashella, and though i wasn't that impressed by the selection or prices I did come home with a few corals. I picked up a chunky frag of JF Kamikaze, as well as a cool chalice frag that based on pictures of the mother from the vendor should be bright teal with pink hot pink eyes and rim. I also picked up an acan of his that he felt was the only one worth naming and keeping lineage on. He calls it the RTC over the rainbow acan. Again based on a picture it should morph 2 different color polyps with younger ones being orange and yellow with older ones pink and blue. Well see.

 

I'm just waiting for water to heat up for dipping, and I'll get some pics later.

 

I'm really looking forward to reefapalooza next month. 

[Tamberav]

Oh nice I went to Aquashella too 🙂 Grabbed a plate and a torch. 

[MrObscura]

Cool, you from Chicago? There was a decent torch selection, but a torch is no go in my tank. And I saw an amazing plate at one booth, it was one of the nicest corals there today at a decent price. 100 bucks, but it had colors like no plate I've seen. Almost rainbow.

 

If I had floor space in my tank I would have bought it.

[Tamberav]

Milwaukee

 

I didn't see that plate or I would have went for it for only 100 bucks, what color was it? short tentacle plate?

 

I was only after euphyllia and plates. Maybe that one was sold already.

 

 Only thing that sucks is everything is under heavy blues so hard to tell what shit actually looks like if you run anything but blues. 

[MrObscura]

I run heavy blues so it works out for me. Lol

 

The plate was a short tentacle with like a multi color iredecent going on. It was cool.

 

Anyway, not the best pics but... in the last pic of the acan you can actually see a little baby head that has the dual morph going on.

 

 

[Tamberav]

13 minutes ago, MrObscura said:

I run heavy blues so it works out for me. Lol

 

The plate was a short tentacle with like a multi color iredecent going on. It was cool.

Sounds cool! Wish I had seen it.

[MrObscura]

Well, today sucked for reefing. I just got done with my weekly water change after about a 3-4 hour ordeal. 

 

I should have known there'd be trouble considering today I decided to mount my new frags and mounting is always a pain in the ass. Easily the worst part of reef keeping in my book.

 

Anyway, it started down hill immediately when attempting to mount the first frag, a nice chunky piece of JF Kamikaze, resulted in it breaking in half from the simple force of cutting off the bottom of the plug.

 

I didnt even realize it happened until I flipped it around. I then had to find it on the floor,  rinse it off and glue it back together hoping the two halves fuse.

 

But that was just the start. The pressure of attempting to mount it to my rock work literally caused half my scape to collapse, and then I spent the last few hours trying to balance it in a way that's relatively sturdy. I'm still going to have to be super careful going forward. 

 

On a bright note mounting the last two frags went relatively painlessly.  As did the usual water change.

[kimdawg]

I am glad it all ended well.  I have those same problems in my pico tank.  It is only 6 inches wide and you can't move anything without knocking over two more things with it.

[MrObscura]

Yeah, I don't think things would be as difficult in a larger tank.

[Tamberav]

That sucks! I have half my rocks glued together with epoxy so I can still remove easily but not so it's not all entirely stuck together.

[MrObscura]

Mine was glued and epoxied.

[banasophia]

5 hours ago, MrObscura said:

Mine was glued and epoxied.

Yeah my scape in my biocube is like that too, not very sturdily stuck together and a disaster if it breaks apart... I did my second tank with two separate/individual rocks since I’d had problems similar to what just happened to you... sorry for your struggles today. 😞

[MrObscura]

TSA Fruity Pebbles, TSA Princess Peach, JF Monti(vender forget which one), Grafted Sunfire Cap, Oregon Tort, Green Slimer, Forest Fire Digi, Walt Disney 

 

 

 

Params have all been stable and alk is back on track so theres no reason these shouldn't do well. Knock on wood. Spent a bit but the deals I got were awesome.

[choconut74]

Frags look great 🙂 How are you liking the x1 so far? Are you happy with those and the b ionic?

[MrObscura]

I havent got to use them much with my tanks issues. But from the little I have used them I like them. It's nice being able to control them from my phone and they offer a decent range of volume and dosing intervals. 

 

And bionic as proven far more predictable in its effect on params compared to the all for reef.

 

Anyway hopefully these new guys do well and I'll need to get back on the dosing.

[A.m.P]

Benereef is odd stuff, it really doesn't have much of an impact at all on PO4 or Nitrates lol, someone did a test and it contributed like 1/10 the phosphates of reef roids per-gram. I don't know if any animals besides that pig of a damsel in my tank much care for it either, it's supposed to have phyto, yeast, and all kinds of goodies to cover just about every base so I definitely feed it still, but I gotta' say I'm way-past iffy about the product.

[Tamberav]

 Nice pickups! All I grabbed was a gold torch but that was enough $$

[MrObscura]

Just a kinda crappy FTS.

 

[MrObscura]

On 10/19/2019 at 8:12 PM, Amphrites said:

Benereef is odd stuff, it really doesn't have much of an impact at all on PO4 or Nitrates lol, someone did a test and it contributed like 1/10 the phosphates of reef roids per-gram. I don't know if any animals besides that pig of a damsel in my tank much care for it either, it's supposed to have phyto, yeast, and all kinds of goodies to cover just about every base so I definitely feed it still, but I gotta' say I'm way-past iffy about the product.

It has a bioactive element that actually reduces nutrients so i stopped feeding it. Every time I tried it my tank actually did worse. My corals always struggle when nutrients get low.

 

I just feed my fish pellets twice a day  and dose reef roids and rods food once or twice a week depending on nutrient levels.

[A.m.P]

25 minutes ago, MrObscura said:

It has a bioactive element that actually reduces nutrients so i stopped feeding it. Every time I tried it my tank actually did worse. My corals always struggle when nutrients get low.

 

I just feed my fish pellets twice a day  and dose reef roids and rods food once or twice a week depending on nutrient levels.

To level I've had a similar-overall experience, I think it might be a great alternative for tanks struggling with higher nutrient levels while trying to keep sps, but for nanos or already fairly-clean systems it seems to have the potential to cause actual harm. I noticed, for instance, that when feeding it while I was having a dino-outbreak from my tank upgrade that it actually, counterintuitively, contributed to the dino population. Perhaps something to do with aminos or other trace-nutrients the dino's love, but with it containing yeast and bacteria, both of which can outcompete and eat dinos, alongside the supposedly-large influx of nutrients I was really expecting a different result.

[MrObscura]

I had the same issue with it when I had dinos. I think it's just that dinos thrive when low nutrients are present. They are a very simple life form and cant compete for nutrients. But when nutrients are low other more complex organisms can't sustain themselves and that allows dinos to take hold.