Loungeview Pico – An Old School Cheerleader

[Tempestas]

10 hours ago, MetaTank said:

I mean...I like mussels. Steamed, sauteed with garlic and wine, bbq'd, baked with japanese Mayo on it and garnished with bonito, green onion and tobiko roe... Yum! 😋

 

Only two main problems I see with this:

 

1. I am a vegetarian, so I would likely vom it all out.

 

2. I would be cooking my very pretty colourful mushroom, which I don't think would taste very nice either.

[Tempestas]

The battle between the mushroom and the mussel continues..

 

Hold the Door!!!

 

[Tempestas]

So we've been hit by a power outage today. Joy of joys...

 

Not too sure if it's load shedding or an ordinary power outage. The news doesn't seem to have anything about the main power utiity.

 

I've done the below in the meantime. Just not sure if I should crack open the heat-pack I bought to trial and use it.

 

 

I also don't have power for breakfast or lunch. Coffeeeeeee....

[Tigahboy]

Sorry to hear about the power.  But you did an awesome job of wrapping that pico!  Hope all goes well (but I suspect it will).

[Tempestas]

🤦‍♂️

 

So the power's back. 0,4 degrees Celcius drop in just under an hour with the wrapping.

 

Unfortunately I need to leave for work in 5 mins, and given that my shifts are about 12 hours, I cracked open the heat pack. Oh well. Now I have to decide if I should unwrap the pico or leave it in case there's more outages during the day.

[Wonderboy]

"coffeeeeeee" lmao

 

I'm sure everything will be just fine however you left it   :]

[Wingy]

You don't have a back up plan for coffee?  😯

[Tempestas]

On 7/3/2019 at 9:59 AM, Wonderboy said:

"coffeeeeeee" lmao

 

I'm sure everything will be just fine however you left it   :]

 

I decided to leave it wrapped up. Came home to a cold heat pack (that's meant to last 18 hours). Thankfully all the corals just looked like they'd been sleeping. Only thing that might have happened is increased evaporation. Maybe.

 

On 7/3/2019 at 12:13 PM, Wingy said:

You don't have a back up plan for coffee?  😯

 

Of course I do! Landed up buying coffee from a coffee shop on the way to work. But I do like making my own coffee, mainly because these "baristas" often don't have much of a clue on how to actually make a proper cup. Sadly Father Coffee doesn't have a branch in this city.

[Ratvan]

1 hour ago, Tempestas said:

 

I decided to leave it wrapped up. Came home to a cold heat pack (that's meant to last 18 hours). Thankfully all the corals just looked like they'd been sleeping. Only thing that might have happened is increased evaporation. Maybe.

 

 

Of course I do! Landed up buying coffee from a coffee shop on the way to work. But I do like making my own coffee, mainly because these "baristas" often don't have much of a clue on how to actually make a proper cup. Sadly Father Coffee doesn't have a branch in this city.

Good news, glad to see it made it through another outage. 

[Tempestas]

What a crazy week it's been.

 

Work landed up being exhausting, and on Saturday I finally managed to get my hands on some Red Sea Salt (the LFS has been out for weeks). I was going to water change on Saturday but my work colleague convinced me to help her set up a betta tank which is now currently cycling.

 

So on Sunday after an exhausting night shift I managed to mix up salt water for the first time ever. Surprisingly, the collected sea water I have has quite a high salinity (35.5ppt), so I mixed the salt up to 35ppt, and mixed it with my sea water (1/3rd salt and 2/3 sea) and did the water change. I was just annoyed by how long it took for the water to heat up and landed up changing out slightly cold water at 24 degrees. Surprisingly the tank residents seemed unphased by this change.

 

And then on Monday I woke up to find a missing digi. One of the d-bag urchins had pushed it over the edge and into the abyss, where I couldn't fish it out. and of course it was under the biggest rock. To add insult, one of the urchins had managed to prick and attach one of the zoa frags and was proceeding to drag it around. Eventually I landed up removing all the frags from the tank just so that I could shift the rockwork so I could reach the digi frag. I couldn't even use my hands as one of the urchins was attached right above the digi and was threatening to prick me.

 

Remarkably, this semi tank teardown and rebuild only took 15 minutes to achieve, but I was still late for work.

 

Thankfully Tuesday was unremarkable but yesterday I flew out early in the morning to go visit my folks. How the tank copes without supervision for the next few days is going to be anyone's guess.

 

On the plus side, Father Coffee:

 

[Tempestas]

These pico's are truly amazing. Left it alone for 4 days and everyone's still happy.

 

The only issue that popped up is that one of the zoa frags mysteriously fell into the abyss.  🤔 I'm looking at you d-bag urchins! 

 

However, the zoas opened during the day so I'm not stressed. I'll fish it out during the water change later today.

 

The hammer is now also showing signs of wanting to split. The vesicle between the mouths is getting larger and larger. And there's small bumps on the stem that look like they're going to turn into new polyps. Yay!

 

Now the only thing that stresses me out is moving everyone in an epic 11 hour journey in 2 weeks time.

[Tempestas]

Nothing too interesting to update. Just getting ready for the big move on Saturday.

 

I already have the cooler box, heat packs and sponge for keeping the corals stable during the move. Just one more batch of salt water left to mix up.

 

Also liberated the mystery LPS from the rockwork today in preparation for the move. And noticed during the water change that the Purple Milka has grown by about 5mm. Yay!

 

Otherwise, here's some FTS's:

 

 

Hammer showing its two heads nicely.

 

 

 

The trachy thinks it's an elegance tonight.

 

[Tempestas]

Time for another long overdue update.

 

At the end of July I quit my current job, and the lease on my apartment had also come to an end. Sadly that involved moving back into my folks place in another city. The rest of the move was mild compared to the stress of moving this tank. As the move was planned for one day, I dutifully moved all the frags into a polystyrene cooler box, and the rocks into one of my mixing buckets and covered both with water. What made life fun is that my last night in the city was spent in a B'nB, so I had to plug in both heaters and the air pump in that place.

 

Come the morning I loaded all the equipment and the cooler box into the car and began the epic 1050km journey, which landed up taking just under 11 hours.

 

During that time, I had inserted a heat pack into the cooler box and placed the digital thermometer probe inside with it, and what happened was quite surprising. The temperature started to rise quite rapidly when the cooler box was sealed up, until it stabilised around 26 C. Unfortunately, after about 1 hour the temperature was at around 27 degrees, which forced me to open the box and remove the heat pack. After resealing, I was shocked to see the temperature remain stable around 25 degrees for at least another 7 hours, keeping in mind that we had the car heater on as well.

 

However, during the last three hours, the temperature of the box started to steadily rise, showing that the box was over 29 degrees at one stage, I could not understand this, but nonetheless the box was opened and placed directly near an air vent and the A/C switched on. However, when I felt the bag, the water didn't feel that warm, so I thought that the thermometer had failed and closed the lid and hoped for the best.

 

Now for the interesting part. When I finally arrived at my folks place and we unpacked the car, I used my second el-cheapo thermometer to check the cooler box water, and it was actually at 26 degree - the same reading as the digital thermometer. And when I checked the bucket that all the rocks were in, that water was 27!

All which proves a lesson in that even the middle of a South African winter, you probably don't need a heat pack to transport corals safely.

 

The next day I mixed a new batch of saltwater and it seemed none of the corals were any worse for wear...

[Tempestas]

And now for a pic heavy post:

 

During the week I went to buy water and came back with a turbo snail and a nice green RFA. Unfortunately, in the acclimation pot, the RFA decided to attached to the snail's shell and has been riding around the tank since.

 

 

 

Getting some coraline growth.

 

 

 

The ricordia has been slowly moving over the mussel.

 

 

 

And the starfish has almost doubled in size.

 

 

 

Sadly, all's not going great. Even though these pics show the growth of the stylo over 3 months, it has remained surprisingly closed up this week.

 

6 May 2019

 

5 Aug 2019

 

 

And lastly the hammer is sprouting lots of little polyps near its base. What worries me though is that there seems to be tissue receding from the base. I'm just hoping that the water change today is able to correct whatever's been causing the problems.

 

 

 

[debbeach13]

Glad you made it safe and sound. I hope the coral that aren't feeling well get better for you. I always start with a water change also when things look bad. Good Luck

[Tempestas]

Hmm. So the tissue recession of the hammer continues, and it hasn't inflated as much as before. There is also some polyp extension in the sps corals, but not as much as previously. However the trachy and the zoa's are acting normally.

 

I wonder if it might be an issue of altitude. Especially because in 10 hours I elevated the tank from sea level to around 1750m above sea level (5750 ft). From my understanding of physics that resulted in a 14% decrease in the partial pressure of all the gases in the coral tissues, which is undoubtedly causing some problems. (The gas pressure difference is probably even greater than a corals normal considering that corals naturally grow below sea level where gas pressures are magnified with water pressure).

 

To this end I suspect it's just going to take time for them to hopefully adjust...🤞

 

For the nerds amongst you here's the math:

Atmospheric pressure at sea level = 100kPa

Atmospheric pressure at 1750m = 86kPa

Percentage of oxygen in air = 21%

Partial pressure of O2 at sea level = 21kPa

Partial pressure of O2 at 1750 = 18kPa

Percentage drop = 14%

 

On the other hand it might possibly have to do with all the incense my mother and sister have been burning in the house 😶

[A.m.P]

+1 on incense, the stuff is awful for people and probably not great for animals lol, if people like the inappropriate reefer are willing to dedicate an entire video to bitterant in canned-air causing lps and sps irritation/death, chances are the fragrances and smoke from incense probably aren't gentle on livestock either.

[Tempestas]

Sadly, things aren't looking all that good in the pico. The hammer's tissue is continuing to recede, and some tentacles have dropped off as well.

 

 

The bases of the mint green stylo and the digi have also turned white and polyp extension isn't great either.

 

 

I honestly am not too sure what's causing all of this. I just did a full water change yesterday, and there isn't any marked improvement. The only thing I could think off is that some of the dry rock chunks I placed in the abyss have been leaching something into the water, so I removed them today. There are also a lot of flatworms on the glass today, but I don't think that they are the source of the problem. Any other thoughts? Solutions?

 

At the same time, it seemed like the turbo snail had gotten stuck, so I moved it and the RFA managed to jump off it. Just waiting to see where it settles now.

 

 

[Ratvan]

5 minutes ago, Tempestas said:

Sadly, things aren't looking all that good in the pico. The hammer's tissue is continuing to recede, and some tentacles have dropped off as well.

 

 

The bases of the mint green stylo and the digi have also turned white and polyp extension isn't great either.

 

 

I honestly am not too sure what's causing all of this. I just did a full water change yesterday, and there isn't any marked improvement. The only thing I could think off is that some of the dry rock chunks I placed in the abyss have been leaching something into the water, so I removed them today. There are also a lot of flatworms on the glass today, but I don't think that they are the source of the problem. Any other thoughts? Solutions?

 

At the same time, it seemed like the turbo snail had gotten stuck, so I moved it and the RFA managed to jump off it. Just waiting to see where it settles now.

 

 

Do you have any Softies in here? I'm thinking in particular Sinularia. 

 

Adjust position for a higher/lower flow?

[Tempestas]

Wow, can't believe that it's been more than a month since I posted here.

 

Since then, the tank has continued to improve, and is almost back to its pre-move status.

 

Part of the reason for my radio silence is because I've been on the other side of the country. Unfortunately there was an emergency with one of my old collegues and my old boss phoned me in a panic at the end of last month as they had no-one to cover her shifts. Skip forward 24 hours and I found myself back in Port Elizabeth. And somehow, what was meant to be a weekend cover turned into 2,5 weeks.

 

When I eventually got back home, the tank was looking great, even though it hadn't had a water change in 3,5 weeks. Polyp extension was back to normal on the SPS, and the hammer has started re-inflating decently - sadly most of its tentacles had shortened. The green monti digi has also started greening up again. What I found the most exciting is that the mystery brown-purple LPS decided to acquire a green tint, which I am very happy about.

 

I also got a set of yellow tinted safely goggles which has improved my photo quality somewhat.

 

Here's some algae covered pics before the big clean up:

 

 

And after:

 

 

And lastly, for some interesting news. I signed back up with my previous company, so I'll be working on cruise ships from now on. Currently I'm scheduled to go around the Caribbean mid October, but it does mean that I might be able to get some dry-stock from the US soon.

[Ratvan]

Looks great, I love your colour selection on the corals as well as the placement 

[A.m.P]

Green-diatom club, now if only I could grow coraline... Glad to hear the lack of waterchanges didn't hurt and may have even helped perk everything back up!

[seabass]

2 hours ago, Amphrites said:

Glad to hear the lack of waterchanges didn't hurt and may have even helped perk everything back up!

Maybe not the right thread for me to respond; however, I feel that this may just be a temporary positive side effect.  Some people use anecdotal evidence like this to justify reduced maintenance.

 

Initially, the increase in nutrients will have a positive effect on the system.  However, if maintenance is ignored for too long, a buildup of organics may end up  leading to negative results (especially in a young tank).

 

That said (as a disclosure), my maintenance and water change routines tend not to be very strict.  However, a mature system does tend to be more resilient in these matters.

[A.m.P]

I may have been vague or misinterpreted, but I meant that more as a "glad none of your animals were hurt by", than a "you shouldn't moving forward" lol.

[seabass]

I didn't mean to imply anything from my response.  It was more of a random thought regarding missed water changes improving things.  We see this happen a lot; so I just thought I'd comment.