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Conner Reef Tank - JBJ28 (now in HD)


Aurortpa

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Current FTS 8/2

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7/2019:

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Past FTS pics:

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7/2018

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12/2018

 

Finally decided to start a tank journal.  The tank is only 2 years old as of 2018.

 

JBJ 28 stock equipment:
2x 266gph Accela return pumps

Stock 89w LED

Ai Prime HD

media basket (a small amt of carbon & large micron sponge pad)

 

Significant obstacles faced:
2016 Dinos -- had to scratch tank

2016 Moved tank to new house 

2017 Heavy metal contamination (anchors for macro algae was composed of lead)

2017 Nitrate accumulation and nuisance algae from lack of maintenance

2018 Cyano outbreak

2018 Total light failure


This tank was rebooted in May 2018:

Small fan added to help cool down hood & installed Nest to adjust room air to 73 F when lights turn on (tank avg temp 82 80)

Upgraded flow from a Koralia Evo 750 to a Icecap 1K Gyre

Added significant amount of new live rock

Added an Aquamaxx HOB 1.5 (slightly modified plumbing so I could prop hood open)

Started testing alk, cal, and mag (dose seachem manually twice once a week if needed) - targets are 8 dkh, 420 cal, 1350 mag

Performed a sand rinse on 95% of substrate and vacuumed out chambers.

Change 10% weekly with Red Sea PRO/Instant Ocean/Tropic Marin @ 1.024 SPG (25% as it stabilized [about 2 months])

Added a variety of copepods and installed a micro refugium in tank.

 

Inhabitants (fed everyday except water change day):

1 yellow watchman goby (first fish...survived all obstacles)

2 clownfish

1 tailspot blenny

1 springerii damsel

1 Royal gramma

1 Pajama cardinal

1 Fang Blenny

2 red legged hermits

2 turbos

1 strawberry conch

4 nassarius

1 tuxedo urchin

1 purple coral banded shrimp (stenopus tenuirostris)

4 trochus snails

3 ninja star snails

1 tiger pistol shrimp

various hitchhikers like a mico serpent star, chitons, stomatella, spaghetti worms, limpets, and bristle worms.

 

Coral & Macro Algae (coral fed twice a week, zooplankton and alternate frozen foods (capelin roe, mysis):

caulerpa prolifera

caulerpa racemosa

dragon's breath

halimeda

Rose petal macroalgae 

Blue ochtodes 

Bottle brush

Scrolling

Codium

Unconfirmed rhodophyte Identified as Fauchea

Graciliaria

forest fire digita (+2 years old, endured all obstacles; since monitoring alk, cal, mag, has colored up significantly, moreover growth has spurted)

duncan (+2 years old, also endured all obstacles)

balanophyllia (fed krill daily)

big head dendros

silver pom pom xenia

2 acans

rock flower anemone

birds nest

neon clove polyps

st. thomas mushroom

green star polyps

aquacultured flower pot

trumpet coral

gomezi acropora

yellow polyped orange montipora capricornus

montipora undata

montipora palawanesis

tubbs stellata digita

miami orchid acropora

red planet acropora

fuzzy milli

ice echinata

rainbow montipora

aussie cherry blastomussa

some green with yellow skirt zoa 

pink digitata

venom eye acropora

red dragon echinata

lavendar white acro 

setosa 

golden psammacora

cerulean tenius

mini Aussie Scoly

Florida ricordea

Emerald echinata

Blue tort

straberry shortcake acro

Hawaiian PPE paly

Daisy Dukes 

Pink Hallucinations

Outcasts

Sunny D

King Midas

Pinwheels

Bam Bams

Gatorade

Fruit loops

 

LFS:
Coral Corral

Marine Warehouse

Creative Aquariums

Corals and Fins

Drysdale 

Fish and Other Ichthy Stuff

Coral Bargain Warehouse

Coral Reefs & Aquariums

 

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So tested my dkh today, appears my alk consumption is slowing down a bit...

 

I also evicted my two red legged hermits who I caught eating my favorite nassarius snail 😞. I don’t blame them, as the nuisance algae in the tank has waned significantly. Also evicted my tuxedo urchin.  He was on my macroalgae, but my LFS has a huge display that they happily acceped him into—I’m glad at least he’ll be happy.

 

Added 4 macro algae:

bottle brush

scrolling

codium

unconfirmed rhodophyte

 

The unconfirmed rhodophyte is extremely tough, can’t be pruned by ripping, had to be cut. Thought it could be gracilaria but it’s toughness is out of the ordinary. Nobody could ID on the forums and Robert Fenner also didn’t positively ID it—may be worthy growing this one out for fragging...it’s very pretty with a greener base and purple tips.

 

The bottle brush is already greener than it was at the LFS, awaiting the scroll to attach—have heard it can be difficult to propogate, and watching the codium, as they typically like water 80 and below but my tank averages at 82.  

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My substrate was starting to look dirty earlier this week, even saw some cyano trying to come back 😮, so I was glad yesterday was water change day. I took my wider diameter siphon and basically sucked up all the top substrate from the entire front part of tank--peroxided, rinsed, and then rinsed with some display water.

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I can understand why some people just get rid of all their substrate, it's purely aesthetic and collects detritus BUT I like aesthetic, lol.  I put the majority of the sand towards the back of the tank with my caulerpa prolifera with hopes the macro will keep it grounded back there with the flow from my icecap 1k gyre--seems to be doing the trick so far. My theory is the macro will help absorb nutrients out of the sand, as I can't vacuum back there anyway with the macro all over the bed, so I'll just have the thinner bed of sand in the front half to be mindful of now. I'm quite happy with this sloped look.

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Also, I'm still in the process of trying to wean my system onto a 10% weekly water change regimen, so I expect to see some hiccups on the way to this. I was advised reducing to 10% weekly water changes should help the tank mature better and be less shocking to livestock than the 25-50% changes they've been enduring for months while I was rebooting the tank. I do see some truth here, as I remember hardly doing anything to my old 10g nano but MAYBE a monthly 20% water change and the corals and livestock flourished!  I'm also skimming more aggressively especially since I only change my chemical filtrants out monthly instead of weekly. I've learned you can actually submerge the aquamaxx 1.5 hob collection cup below the water line (doh!) and it has definitely increased production of skim.

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Also my params tested at alk 9.3, cal 470, and mag 1380 so I only dosed alk and mag.  I might have hit a growth speed bump but that's expected with my changes in maintenance. I will just continue to monitor and be patient.  In the meantime, I'm adding a cleaner shrimp.  I really miss my little tuxedo urchin I had to evict due to eating macros, so I figured I need something else to crawl around. It was the only invert I could think of that wouldn't be preyed upon or be a problem with my macros.  I almost got sexy shrimp but I think my yellow watchman goby would think they are sexy treats.  Also I am trying out zoas. Usually they are easy but it seems some have problems trying to keep them, so I got a little test colony. I MIGHT get a strawberry conch again next week but not sure--depends on how my substrate fares.

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Tested today Phosphates and Nitrates, none detectable and I removed my chemical filtrants 24 hours ago--no more carbon or Polyfilter. This will serve as a base test, so I'll test again in a week and see if my Phosphates and Nitrates remain undetectable.  

 

Alk was 9.3 as expected, dosed my regular 1.75 dkh.  Calcium 445 and magnesium 1425 holding pretty steady, so I did not dose either.  

 

Added livestock:

some green with yellow skirt zoa (not pictured)

pink digitata

veneom eye acropora

strawberry conch ❤️

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Also wanted to keep track of my red planet acro (middle of pic) and the little polyp ( bottom right of pic) from it that has grown.  The polyp is exponentially bigger and the parent frag is about to touch rockwork with new growth. At that point, corals seem to have a little growth spurt in my tank. Most notable, the polyp is an entirely different color than the parent frag, yet has always been glued close by. I anticipate at one point they would merge.  Just odd they are ao different in color but have been in the same exact locations.

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In my nano tank fish try to steal my corals’ food—in the half a million gallon tank at work the sea turtles steal the fish food...karma.

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2 hours ago, Aurortpa said:

In my nano tank fish try to steal my corals’ food—in the half a million gallon tank at work the sea turtles steal the fish food...karma.

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What? Wait, where do you work?! Do tell... 🙂

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Stopped by LFS for water and saw my urchin I donated to them was very happy in a display tank, dragging frags around. 🤣

 

Got 4 new corals & they gave me bonus duplicate frags too that I will try to grow out:

added red dragon echinata

added lavendar white acro (duplicated)

added setosa (duplicated)

added golden psammacora

 

Also noticed part of my halimeda looked kind of scraggly—appeared to be going sexual or perhaps just aging, so I trimmed off the scraggly part and left the new sprouts that are quickly growing.  My shaving brush also has a little baby!

 

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On 8/17/2018 at 4:02 PM, Aurortpa said:

I work at the Aquarium! You’d think I’d have frags for days but apparently they mostly focus on fish—which are kewl too ☺️ 

Lucky!!!

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I must have done a poor job acclimating the new lavender white acro. I had a lot going in at once yesterday so I used a bucket to acclimate them all.  It was evening so the air was running to keep the tank cooler with the lights on as usual.  I think I got the water adjusted fine, but I neglected temperature.  I should have considered this frag is also maricultured so not as adaptable as everything else I had gotten. The duplicate frag is a complete loss—first coral casualty in months—and the larger frag seems to have gotten burnt tips but the damage seems to have halted.  

 

I will not move it as it is already stressed and IMO if the damage has halted, doesn’t make sense to me to force it to reacclimate to a new spot, potentially stressing it more. 

 

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Tank life tonight. Mr George the conch seems to have taken a liking to some of the macro, he eats so slow tho—not very concerned. The tail spot forever with a full belly!

 

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The bottle brush baby, in just a few days, has really taken off!  

 

Added a cerulean tenuis coral.

 

Retested nitrates and phos, undetectable still, at about week after removing chem filtrants.

 

Also discovered my RFA might have some foot issues. I know they can quickly go down so I am experimenting with blue methylene dips—can only hope it works out, he’s lasted 9 days with the alleged foot trauma thus far before I discovered it today. 

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Day 2 of treating my hurt RFA (orange one).  I used two drops of methylene blue in about a cup of display water, this is double what I used yesterday...all of this experimental, as usually RFAs do not recover from foot wounds. His foot is still pink but I noticed it wasn’t as mucous covered, and I did not see any furher degeneration. I am still watching him carefully and will continue to treat till he recovers or falls apart.

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The RFA did not make it. 😔  Also, I’m assuming a snail knocked over my venom tipped acro, nose diving into the sand. 

 

Otherwise, all is well in the tank. The corals that have been in the tank a little longer seem to be having another growth spurt especially the corals that have started to grab onto the rockwork—seems that’s when most my corals seem to flourish.  This includes the rainbow monti, undata, golden psammacora, sunset montipora, and tubbs stellata. 

 

My dragon’s breath is getting huge so I have started fragging some to sell to the LFSs—they seem to always be running out and none have the flame tips like me.

 

Params are dkh 10, cal 450, mag 1440, spg 1.025. Been weeks without chem filtrants and lessening water changes to 10% from 25%, and tank seems to be running smoothly!

 

 

 

 

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Just now, banasophia said:

Oh wow, that is so cool... I didn’t know you could keep a goat as an indoor pet! Is she potty trained? She’s so pretty!!!

Thank you! She browses the back yard during the day, we live near downtown but had the luck to be on a third of an acre. At night she comes in and wears washable diapers—personally I like her bumblebee one but she likes pink.

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