Paneubert's 40G Breeder - Round 2

[mcarroll]

15 hours ago, paneubert said:

The one rock I nuked with Hydrogen Peroxide is still really white, but gives a good contrast to how the other rocks are darkening.

Gives a good idea of what H2O2-nuking can do!  Eek.  ☠️

 

It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for that rock to recover.  Any algae growth green/coraline/otherwise on it?  Any signs of life yet?

[paneubert]

42 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

This is what you need to watch out for – it is not a goal.  🙂  A growth spurt, such as from adding a bunch of corals, will run down the system's available nutrients and can cause a nutrient-crash...where levels reach zero.  

 

Your anemone has to acclimate to new lighting – which is a phosphate-intensive process.  (Nutrient-intensive in general, really.)  When he started to get burned and there were minimal-to-no resources available for repair, he ran for the shade.  This helps him to avoid damage in the first place, and lets him bide his time in acclimating under the current circumstances.  (Bleaching out would be the alternative if he couldn't find cover.)

 

Not having much in the way of fish-load is actually hurting more than just your heart right now...it's limiting the amount of nutrients going into the tank just at the time the tank's going through (or went through) a growth spurt.

 

I would suggest removing the macro algae from the equation – the tank doesn't need it, and it might be delaying your anemone's acclimation as well as the growth of your corals.

 

That's a good sign, but it will starve out too under these conditions.  

 

I still wouldn't do anything more than remove the unnecessary competition from the equation.  Perhaps some light broadcast feeding if you can.  Gotta be light so you don't spike the nutrients in the tank the other direction...using a whole food like baby brine shrimp or Reef Nutrition's ROE that has excellent boyancy and relatively low nutrients (vs flake or pellet foods) will be the best option.  (low but of the correct profile)

 

From what you've said, your tank wasn't so low in nutrients before.  

 

That would explain any anemones that didn't run as well as corals that acclimated without problems.  You're right that light is related....more light creates a demand for more nutrients....especially phosphate.  (I have lotsa articles on this on my blog, but don't wannt clog your thread with em....just check out the Coral section.  If you search there on "anemone" you'll get a really good one.)

 

Your tank probably has (or had) a reservoir of phosphates attached to available aragonite surfaces to draw on for some time – that plus trace sources of nitrogen is probably what's growing the algae you're seeing.  

 

For better or worse, algae can use that phosphate directly by settling and growing right on the source.

 

Your corals and anemones need it to be dissolved first.  

 

This puts the corals second in line for this nutrient source 

 

It possibly even makes this source competitively unavailable to them.

 

If your macro isn't dying off, that's a good sign.....just don't let it keep competing with your corals.

 

If needed you can always restart the macro section after the fish go in....after your tank actually shows some need for it again.  🙂 🙂

Very interesting info.....  I always read about ULN systems sometimes being tricky, and it sounds like I might have one unintentionally!  Haha.  I think I will experiment with resuming a little target feeding of the corals with some powder.  Maybe once a week.  See what happens.  When (I assume) I spiked things earlier, I was both target and broadcast feeding about once every 2-3 days.  But I was using a lot of powder, and had a cube of frozen food in the mix as well.  And the "water" I use to soak the powder is live phytoplankton that I culture.  So pretty nutrient dense.....  When I stopped doing that due to the hair algae explosion, feeding has been limited to pellets, and about 90% of those made it into the mouths of the fish directly.  So not a lot of decaying food in the substrate.  Almost all waste was/is coming from fish poop. 

 

I am sure I will report back!  I tend to post a lot to this thread, mostly so I can look back on it.  My last tank thread was missing some good chunks of time and it makes me sad that I can't look back to see how things were going or what I added when.  So expect to see more comments on this thread.  Good and bad.

[paneubert]

13 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

Gives a good idea of what H2O2-nuking can do!  Eek.  ☠️

 

It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for that rock to recover.  Any algae growth green/coraline/otherwise on it?  Any signs of life yet?

It is still pretty pure white.  The bleaching of the rock took a few days to become totally apparent, about the same timeline for the algae to die.  When I was spraying it, the color did not change at all.  It was like I was spraying with RO/DI water.  I did not see any bubbling when applying, but apparently the impact was felt pretty hard by the rock.  There are still some very short whisps of clear/white algae on the rock, but I think they are just waiting to decompose completely.  So that might be a tiny contributor to nutrients in the tank. 

 

[mcarroll]

Nerd alert:

MODIFICATION OF SEA ANEMONE BEHAVIOR BY SYMBIOTIC ZOOXANTHELLAE: PHOTOTAXIS

VICKI BUCHSBAUM PEARSE

The Biological Bulletin 1974 147:3, 630-640 

 

Interesting that it's not the animal, but the algae that are responsible for the behavior!!!

[paneubert]

That IS interesting.  

[paneubert]

@mcarroll, if you want a copy (assuming you just saw the abstract and did not have access to the article), let me know.  I have a PDF of it.  

 

 

[mcarroll]

Ya I wouldn't mind!  :)  Can you post it here or PM it?

 

(Out of curiousity do you have academic access, or where'd you find it?  I don't think Google listed an available PDF.)

[paneubert]

These posts only accept images, so I will try to PM you.  Don't know if PM will take PDFs.  I work for a large university, so if something is not already available as a scanned PDF from the journal, and if the original is not sitting on the shelf in the library, there is some sad work-study student being paid by the libraries who will pull the original from the archives and scan a copy.  I once did that for an article on trying to cross breed a chicken with a quail.  They had me a PDF scan within a couple hours.  Hahaha.  I felt bad for whoever had to go find and scan that from some random farming journal from the 50's or whenever it was.  The one you posted was already available, just had to log in to get it.  

[paneubert]

I leave for work long before my lights come on, but this morning when I took a peek, it looked like my most recent Rock Flower is coming back out of the crack that he crawled into on night number 1.  Maybe he will settle somewhere more visible.  I did try to target feed him last night, which was not very effective, but I wonder if it got him moving again. 

[paneubert]

9.5 dKH on the 25th.  

8.45 dKH today.

9 days.  

.116 dKH per day

Dosed back up to 9.5

[paneubert]

Booooooooooooring...

 

9.5 dKH on the 4th.  

8.75 dKH today.

7 days.  

.107 dKH per day

Dosed back up to 9.5

[paneubert]

Well.....something new to discover every day.  I don't know where the hell they came from, but I swear to God I just saw not one, but two jet black stomatella snails.  Not my photo, but basically identical to this one.... 

 

I guess they came in on my coral frags from AquaSD?  Unless they came in on my rock flower anemone.  But I doubt that....  The weird thing is I dipped the corals before adding them to the tank, so if they came in on the frags, these guys held on tight.  Haha.  

 

I hope they breed!  They are pretty!

[paneubert]

Booooooooooooring...

 

9.5 dKH on the 11th.  

8.9 dKH today.

6 days.  

.10 dKH per day

Dosed back up to 9.5

 

 

[paneubert]

Guess I took a 2 month break from posting.  Who knew!  Nothing fun to report.  Lots of stomatellas are showing up.  Both the black variety as well as the classic white/grey.  Anemones are gaining back some lost color.  Salinity is reading a bit low, which is odd.....So I am going to slowly raise it by topping off with saltwater instead of fresh.

[skyscraper2290]

Welcome back, I think we need some updated photos for sure!