skyscraper’s PicO III Reboot (7 Month Update 4/8, new photos)

[skyscraper2290]

2 hours ago, mtgmichaelg said:

I'd just try to pick at the rock with tweezers while sucking out the algae during a water change. Then hope your clean up crew can finish it off. 

Ya that’s what I have been trying to do, have thought about using like a pipe cleaner and dip it in a peroxide mixture and inserting it down in the holes in the rocks. May need to beef up my CUC a bit to help out. 

[skyscraper2290]

So I think I possibly have AEFW or some other kind of pest. I have noticed both my Millie’s and other acros showing recession. From what I have read so far it looks ideally you would set up a QT tank and do continuous dips on all the pieces for about 6 weeks. I don’t think I’ll be able to set up another tank, I do have an empty 5G laying around and my temp light I used to have. I may just pull all the frags and dip them and try to remove any eggs if I see them and just continue to dip once a week for a while. I have seen both bayer and luigols are probably be the best to use for dips. If anyone has any info or input it would be much appreciated. I’ll try to get some pictures up tomorrow to show the damage that has happened.

[DaveFason]

http://www.melevsreef.com/articles/acropora-eating-flat-worms-aefw

[skyscraper2290]

Thanks @DaveFason, that’s actually one of the articles I was reading last night! Glad to see others have used it! 

[skyscraper2290]

Alright so finally grabbed some photos of the pieces that look like they possibly have AEFW and was hoping to hear everyones opinion. 

 

Water Params

Alk - 6.4 (consumption must have jumped recently but will get this dialed in and back closer to 😎

Nitrates - 2

Salinity - 1.025

 

PC Rainbow on 3/3

 

PC Rainbow 3/9

 

Green Acro Top Down 3/9

 

Front 3/9

 

Unknown Milli Top Down 3/9

 

Unknown Milli Front 3/9

 

Diablo Milli Top Town 3/9

 

Diablo Front 3/9

 

Birdsnest 3/9

 

Sunset Milli Top Down 3/9 (sorry not a great picture)

 

On a better note my Sonic the Hedgehog Galaxea is becoming one of my favorite corals

Also 3/11 will be the 6 month mark for the tank so here is a FTS!

[dling]

Thats a great FTS.

[skyscraper2290]

8 hours ago, dling said:

Thats a great FTS.

Thank you!! 

[skyscraper2290]

Also did a larger prameter check today...

Alk - 7.6 

Ca - 450

Mag - 1320

Phos - 0

Nitrate - 2

 

also did a freshwater dip on one SPS piece, $10 birdsnest frag, and this is what came off. It looks like the thing in the middle may be a AEFW. 

[skyscraper2290]

Not too much to update here but snapped a couple photos of the dimming lights of the tank. With the lights going down the euphyllia wasn’t fully extended. I have been dealing with alk swings and trying to get the dose dialed in. I recently increased the dose because my alk dropped down to 6.4 and I had got it close to my goal of 8 and then got a consistent dose going again. Yesterday I tested alk because my few sticks (nubs) weren’t looking great and it had dropped down to 6.4 again even with the higher dose. Consumption must keep jumping on me so I’m going to focus on testing daily or every other day until I get it dialed in again. Anyways here are the few photos from tonight!

 

 

 

[skyscraper2290]

Was grabbing a few pics to start my contest thread and my torch was looking really good flowing around so decided to snap a quick picture of it. 

 

[vlangel]

Looking good!

[skyscraper2290]

3 hours ago, vlangel said:

Looking good!

Thank you!!

[skyscraper2290]

So decided to finally pick up a doser unit. I got the Jebao JB-3 and then did some DIY dosing containers. I used the small glass Voss water bottles and 1/4" bulk heads and then am waiting on the 1/4" stiff acrylic tubing to get here to finish everything up. I was getting too large of swing still with just manual dosing so hopefully this will finally allow me to get stable parameters.

 

 

 

 

 

[skyscraper2290]

Got everything set up for the doser, decided just to use the soft acrylic tubing I had on hand and will replace with the stiff acrylic ones it arrives. Pretty easy to set up doser, just looks a little messy so now I really wish I had a sump just to be able to hide more. 

 

 

 

[Reefkid88]

Dang those pictures are too good !!! Now things should be a lot easier with that doser !! 

[748S911]

great work on this build, what kind of camera are you using?

[skyscraper2290]

29 minutes ago, Reefkid88 said:

Dang those pictures are too good !!! Now things should be a lot easier with that doser !! 

Thanks! Ya should be way better than manually dosing. I start a new job soon that requires more out of state travel so had to get this tank a bit more automated. 

 

20 minutes ago, 748S911 said:

great work on this build, what kind of camera are you using?

Thank you! I’m using a Sony A7RII with the tamron 28-75mm f/2.8, awesome lens. 

[748S911]

Nice, I also dive and currently using a go pro 7, I wanted to upgrade to a Panasonic gh5 to shoot pics/vida of my personal reefs and to dive with.  I will have to do some research on the a7111 on backscatter. 

 

[skyscraper2290]

2 hours ago, 748S911 said:

Nice, I also dive and currently using a go pro 7, I wanted to upgrade to a Panasonic gh5 to shoot pics/vida of my personal reefs and to dive with.  I will have to do some research on the a7111 on backscatter. 

 

I used to have a gopro but never used it too much after a few months. I would like to get the Sony rx100 with the housing unit, think it would be an awesome second camera to have. 

[skyscraper2290]

So finally decided to stop being lazy and did a custom WB on my camera to get the most accurate colors of what I see. I'll start with a photo of Pink Hippo zoas shot on a Sony A7RII, Tamron 28-75mm F/2.8 with Meike extension tubes ( 26MM). The white balance on this was manually set to 9900K and is pulled straight from the camera. 

 

 

You can see that it still has a pretty heavy blue cast to it, normally this would be my starting point and I would adjust the WB in post processing. Well here is the same photo shot with a custom set WB and besides some minor adjustments to the exposure, it is very close to straight out of the camera. 

 

 

Big difference and really happy with how much it improved the color straight out of the camera. I did finish some coral moving today so the tank is looking a tad different than normal. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[skyscraper2290]

O forgot to post the one of my the PicO and the OS Contest pico next to each other

 

 

[skyscraper2290]

Picked up a new torch today, been so hard to find recently so feel lucky I found one I wanted. 

 

 

[skyscraper2290]

Tank was looking really nice under the evening lights after doing a WC today

 

[DaveFason]

Tanks are looking great! 

Few more months and it will be 🔥

[skyscraper2290]

6 hours ago, DaveFason said:

Tanks are looking great! 

Few more months and it will be 🔥

Thanks Dave! Also appreciate you using some photos for you IG! Now that I got a doser I’m hoping I’ll syart seeing some good growth on the SPS and the top will start filling in nicely.