My Fluval Evo 13.5 journal... thing!

[Lula_Mae]

Diatoms will stop growing when they burn through the silicates in the tank and will disappear. Yay for first inhabitants!

[Clown79]

Tank looks great.

 

 

[Roachant]

Update!

So, I took the plunge and bought my first coral, a mushroom to be exact.

I was going to get some gsp as well but they did t have any frags in stock. 

I picked up some revive by two little fishies and dipped the ‘shrooms to kill the nasties that may have been on it.

Well they didn’t like that at all, they shriveled up quite a bit and looked miserable. Here’s a pic as to how they look after about a hour being in my tank.

 

trust me they looked worse when they were in the dip. I hope they’ll recover as they look really nice when fully extended.

 

This is a pic of my janitor doing his thing:

 

and the the current status of the tank which as you can see, still has some diatoms which have been receding. Oh and I have a massive pod explosion that congregate on the areas of the glass where algae is present. I can actually see them nibbling on the algae when I use a hand held microscope!

 

My nitrates fell to about 3 or so according to my test kit, I hope it’s not too low for the shrooms. My phosphate barely registers as well. I will try to feed the mushrooms later this week before a water change. 

So I will see how the mushrooms do and if they do well I will add another coral in a week or two. 

Keeping my fingers crossed that they live!

[Roachant]

Looking better this morning!

 

 

[Roachant]

Update, new corals!

So, I was looking at some local classifieds and Lo and behold I saw that someone not too far from me was selling some corals at a reasonable price. So, I decided yesterday to check it out and this is what I got for 30$:

 

small hammer

 

a ricordea

 

another ricordea

 

and a green mushroom.

 

They are all open and are looking happy!

My tank is still experiencing a diatom outbreak so I may add some more snails soon because it’s starting to look nasty, but other than that everything is doing well! I can even see a bit of coralline algae starting around on the live rock.

I noticed that I have a single astreins starfish that survived my dip of the new corals. I’m going to keep an eye on it and make sure it’s not bothering anything.

[Snazxy]

Noice

[Roachant]

Sad Update..

I think I have what appear to be dinos.... what I thought was diatoms turned out to be dinos, I’m thinking this because the brown spots are producing a lot of bubbles and are growing in sheets that look like snot a bit. So... I’m going to try blacking out the tank and use a small UV sterilizer in my back chamber 3. I hope my new corals will survive the treatment. 

Im pretty sure the dinos came on the chaeto I added.

any tips would be appreciated!

[4Swanson2Reefer0N00b]

How do you know they're dinos?  Diatoms in my experience have created long snotty like filaments that produce tiny air bubbles.  Diatoms lasted longer than I thought when I cycled my tank and didn't fully go away until some time had passed.  You can suck that stuff out if ya want cause I know it's not cool to look at but I would be more patient before moving to more extreme steps.  Less is more sometimes.  Give it a few more days to clear and try to remove some manually.  I would think ur tank is pretty young for a Dino explosion.  Got any pics??

[4Swanson2Reefer0N00b]

[4Swanson2Reefer0N00b]

Keep in mind.  If you're blasting ur sand or vacuuming sand or even stirring and turning sand over-it rereleases silicates which will continue to fuel diatoms.   I personally just kept churning and have lots of snails to churn my sand.  The silicate supply has been used up at this point so no more diatoms.  That's my understanding of this one at least

[Roachant]

Hmmm good point, I was under the impression that because they were producing bubbles and looked like sheets a bit that they were dinos and not diatoms but now that I think of it, they tend to disappear a bit when the lights go out and return after a day of lights. I’ll get a pic tonight and post it. 

Also they were kind of going away but returned when I vacuumed the sand bed when I did my water change. Also my hermit crabs have been eating the stuff like crazy and are still alive. 

[4Swanson2Reefer0N00b]

I think you're still in the diatoms/cycling phase.  I'm a little over a year into my first reef tank and I tell ya what-everyone has answers for what you think ails your tank but imo you're well advised to take a deep breath most times to see what plays out rather than chasing answers for quick fixes.  After ur tank stabilizes by way of you not messing with it too much things will really Come into form.  If you can get a pic I would bet u just have to wait it out a little longer but I would bet u just have diatoms.  Keep basting rocks and stirring sand.  In the long run it will be worth enduring another week or so of brown sand.  Good luck man I love this stuff!!!

[Roachant]

Well, I came home and turned on the lights only to see the algae has reduced. I guess I may have panicked for nothing, but here are some pics anyways:

 

this is how it is on my live rock, it looks kind of slimy and grows like a sheet sort of.

 

 

Some more on the rock, there was more before the full day blackout, and it stopped making bubbles soi guess it was photosynthesising or something. I picked up two trochus snails to clean up the algae a bit, I’ll try that out and I plan to return them if they don’t have enough to eat.

At least my dry rock is looking a lot more like real reef rock it is getting a multitude of colour all over it. And im starting to see bits of coralline in a few places. Maybe my trick to spread it in the tank worked!

 

[4Swanson2Reefer0N00b]

I have pretty nice buildup of corral one but I still scrape it off in small patches to disperse it in the water hopefully seeding new spots in the tank.  

 

As as for the diatoms. Just hang in there they will eventually pass for good for the most part

[Roachant]

Update!

So as expected what I thought was dinos we’re indeed diatoms because they are all gone from what I can see. In their place is green algae but my snails and hermits are slurping it up rather well. The corals are growing rather nicely and I saw a blob off the side of one of my ricordea so I think it burped out a baby. I’ll keep watch n th little blob and see how it does. I’m going to try a new lens on my phone today so I’ll post pics later 😁.

[ninjamyst]

8 minutes ago, Roachant said:

Update!

So as expected what I thought was dinos we’re indeed diatoms because they are all gone from what I can see. In their place is green algae but my snails and hermits are slurping it up rather well. The corals are growing rather nicely and I saw a blob off the side of one of my ricordea so I think it burped out a baby. I’ll keep watch n th little blob and see how it does. I’m going to try a new lens on my phone today so I’ll post pics later 😁.

I think ricordea splits into two instead of "burping" out babies =P. 

[Roachant]

42 minutes ago, ninjamyst said:

I think ricordea splits into two instead of "burping" out babies =P. 

Oh... I was wondering because the baby blob looks like a piece of the ricordea but small and is unattached. I’ll keep an eye on it. 

[4Swanson2Reefer0N00b]

Ricordea mushrooms will elongate and will eventually sprout new mouths.  As far as I know they do not replicate new mushrooms but just grow and continue adding new mouths.  Depending on the food ur giving them some ejecta as I could call it maybe will come out of the mouths from time to time.  What color do you have??

 

i have a nice discosoma mushroom that walks around on a rock and will leave little parts of its foot behind which grow into new mushrooms.  I think I've got four new ones from the original I bought for five total now.  Sorta neat.  

 

Ive also got a rhodactis mushroom that I truely thought was dividing but I don't think they divide naturally?  I believe you actually can cut a rhodactis mushroom in half and it will become two.  Must be sure to cut mouth in half but I don't know for sure.  

 

Glad ad to hear the diatoms cleared up!!!

[ninjamyst]

looked back at your photos and you have ricordea yuma which DOES burp out new babies =).  Congrats!!!  Ricordea Florida is the one that splits.

[Roachant]

Update! Here is a short video I did for my young tank.

4Swanson2Reefer0, it’s a purple and green yuma, and it looks like both of them have burped babies now 😄.

 

 

https://youtu.be/MYF9KuiUBqQ

[Roachant]

And some pics taken with a new lens attachment I got for my iPhone. Not bad for 20$.

 

 

[Roachant]

Update! A few new corals, really small Eagle Eye Zoas and green star polyps that I will see if it grows on the back wall.

 

[Roachant]

Update...

I think I screwed up... A friend of mine had some corals in his tank and offered me some, some zoas and a nuclear green palythoa. Well I took them and placed them in my tank and they looked nice.

Yesterday I came home and saw my mushrooms were all shriveled and so was my hammer coral, my yumas and gsp were fine. I saw a hermit crab sitting on the palythoa and was picking on algae on it, it didn’t look happy at all.

Did my paly poison the tank which is affecting my mushrooms and hammer?

I promptly added carbon, lots of it fearing the worst and threw out the paly frag. I hope my corals recover because they were my favourites in the tank but they looked really bad.

I am so bummed at how stupid I was taking that paly. I’ll update on how they are doing.

[Roachant]

Update, since I added the carbon, everything bounced back to normal! Lesson learned I suppose.

[Roachant]

Hi gang, 

So the tank is doing great since my paly fiasco. My spotted mushrooms have some babies that have sprouted off the colony, my gsp is growing fast, (really fast which I should have expected) and my yumas have burped yet another two babies. I would like to add a fish and I would love to have a tailspot blenny. 

The problem is that I don’t have very much algae in the tank, definitely not enough for a blenny to chew on, would it be ok with prepared foods and possibly nori?

Should I start with a clownfish instead?