Not that Garf's EVO 13.5

[Garf]

I gotta stop going to Tank it Easy in Chicago. Pretty much done now, time to let this all grow out. 

 

From upper right clockwise, green pachyseris, some crazy leptoseris, meteor shower cyphastrea, green polyp tutbinaria (live aquaria called it yellow). I wish I could get a good photograph of the leptoseris, it has crazy metallic orange highlighter polyps on dark blueish purple. 

 

Edit: I found out that the bottom right coral is a Jason Fox Outer Space Psammocora. 

 

[Garf]

So woke up this morning, the tank looked a bit off. Didn't worry about it, started work, then took a closer look in the afternoon. Huh. Started some testing, params looked good. Huh. Was just about to test PH when I realized I turned return pump off last night for feeding. Yep, it was still off... Temp was down to 75, not a huge deal. Everything is fine, just glad this bonehead move didn't occur before I left for a while.

[Proxo]

oh la la, wanna swap 13.5gs? 😄 I have no patience hehe!
Looking good though, i'll be snooping to learn more 

[Garf]

FTS

 

[Garf]

I may need to find a cat proof ATO. Cat was playing with the magnets holding my sensors on, woke from a nap to hear my controller beeping at me. Maybe super gluing them on will work.

[Garf]

So I started dosing today.

 

After my last water change a few days ago, I was at my target 8.5 dkh (what my current batch of Fritz RPM mixes at). For anyone following, remember I was lowering my dkh from 11 to my target. It took 4 weeks of water changes to get to the target. The first two weeks I did 10% WC every few days, and the last two weeks were back to my weekly 20% schedule. My sporadic testing over the last week or so (after water changes and at least one other time a week)  suggested that my tank was starting to consume more than what my water changes were supplying. 

 

Started daily alk testing to see what my consumption is, and it appears I consume alk about .1 dkh a day. This matched what I guessed it would be at based on the last few weeks of WCs and testing suggested.

 

In preparation, I bought some Kent part A and B on Friday. Will use that until my Tropic Marin All for Reef gets here. Took my best guess based on package instructions and decided to dose 1ml, which raised my dkh from 8.2 to 8.5. A bit larger jump than I would like, but gives me a good number to figure out what I need to dose now. I am dosing by hand, so I can easily adjust based on my testing. 

 

Will have to do this all again when the All for Reef gets here, but it should be easy to figure out. Lessons learned, test alk at same time each day, I tested early yesterday and it appeared I didn't consume anything from the day before.

 

 

[Garf]

Lessons learned:

 

Next setup, use a bit less Rock in display, and some bio media like Brightwell cubes. A few cubes in chamber 2, and breaking up my large live rock would have been perfect, and allowed more coral placement. 

 

Take the plunge and do a sump, tired of trying to make do with small back chambers.

 

Bigger tank

 

 

[Garf]

Some updates.

 

I replaced the 12k white Truelumen strip with another 12k/Actinic strip. So I am running Actinic/Combo/Combo/Actinic on the stock hood (sans stock light). Bought another micromussa to fill in the sand. Going to figure out an area so the three of mine can create a nice little community. had one of my zoas frags pop off the frag plug. In my attempt to retrieve it, I fumbled it into a deep crevice in my largest rock. Thinking of just leaving it there, don't really want to remove the rock just to retrieve it. Shame, it started with 4 heads, a 5th appeared last week, and just saw another peeking out the other day. 

 

Bought an InTank media basket for chamber one. I had to grind down about 1/4" in order to get enough flow in the back chambers. The basket makes installation of my eFlux pump a chore, It is currently setup off chamber 1, but when removing the basket, the magnet pulls out also.  Plus, I can't get it to agitate the surface as well as it did when it was higher up. The solution I think is to put the mounting magnet in the middle chamber, and point it up and towards the side a bit. Might give more of a random flow also.  

 

Corals are doing fine, growing and looking nice. As I am running mostly blue light, it is not a fast growth, but that is fine with me.  Fluval Spec V was moved to my son's room a month ago, it had a few mushrooms and my excess snails and hermits.  Cleaning that tank up was not fun, the detritus in the sand bed was nasty.  I got a lot of the mushrooms out htough, kept about 6 hairy shrooms.  4 weeks later, the green stripped mushrooms appear to be ascendant yet again. 

 

We took trips to the LFSs this weekend, really looking for neon gobies or clown gobies, one of which I was planning on adding to my EVO 13.5  My son picked out a blue/yellow damsel (score, as they are cheap!) and I decided to pickup one of its tank mates, a tail spot blenny.  After a few weeks of quarantine, I plan on moving the blenny in my tank. 

 

Nitrates and phosphate are still low. I think I am ok with phosphate, testing around .03, though it is tough to compare to that chart. It looks like there is just a touch of blue... Nitrates are under 5, I give it a 2 or 3 with my optimistic assessment of my color comparisons. Keeping an eye out for any nasties. I have been feeding the tank a lot, KZ LPS, KZ Coral Vitalizer, Fritz AZOCS every other day, Reef Chili and Reef Roids once a week, and frozen Reef Frenzy or 1/2 a PE calanus cube once a week. 

 

Alk testing kinda frustrates me. I did dose 1ml of Kent two part the other week. I tested like 20 minutes after dosing, and thought it was ok at 8.5. The next day, I tested with Hannah checker, and it was 9.1, with salifert, I tested at 8.9 and 8.7  I had just opened a new bottle of reagent the day after dosing, and it appears it is testing a bit high, though the salifert test kinda affirms it did in fact rise from 8.4 to around 8.8. Perfect storm of lots of stuff changing at once, water change, starting dosing, new testing reagent so I left the tank alone for a week. Did my normal Friday 20% water change, and back to testing alk every 5 days or so. In reality, my tank isn't consuming enough yet to worry about dosing.  Next time, I will remember to save some reagent before I swap over to a new lot number so I can compare how far off they measure.

 

 

[Garf]

So I think my JF Outer Space Psammocora is a Leptoseris. I increased my lighting a bit, and it started to not like it. Looking around for more pictures, it sure seems like it has the patterns of a lepto. I moved it to a new spot, and under full actinics, it literally looked like I was moving a piece of molten lava. I love this coral.

 

 

[Garf]

So I was peeking around the other night, and noticed a small group of flowy things at night on my live rock. Poked it with a stick (love bamboo skewers) and it didn't retreat. Hurrah, I have some algae growing! it is a small patch, but hey, I will take it.  I have been feeding a lot lately, hoping to increase PHo and NO3.  Moved my tailspot blenny to the EVO 13.5 this week, he has become my favorite inhabitant. Such cool personality, 5 days later he is getting along well with the clowns.  I was hoping that the added bio-load would help my low nutrients....

 

Did a 20% water change, and did a full set of test afterwards. Damn, still 0.02 or 0.03 (just a tinge of blue in Salifert), and an optimistic 2 on nitrates. I guess my live rock and sand are just too efficient. I need to really keep an eye on this, as my tank is still pretty young. Lots of stuff living in my live rock, I expect it to go through blooms and busts as things ascend and descend. Like the extremely small flea like things that I saw a few weeks ago, literally hundreds covering my rock. A day later, none to be found. Now I notice some pretty cool bright red algae growing on parts of my rock, small areas, most of it in the shade. Really fun to watch the progress of the tank.

 

After placing corals in what I hope to be their final spots, I find I have room to place a couple more coral frags, up on my highest rock, and in a high flow area. Trying to find some tubinaria or leptoseris that I can add here. Heading to the LFS's tomorrow. 

 

 

[A.m.P]

Definitely looks like a lepto to me, my outer space psammo looks awful under anything but heavy blue light lol... Almost transparent, but under blues it gets that nice dark-purple and golden mouths, easiest way to tell the difference IMO is lepto will have more defined tentacles (but concentrated around the mouths) and have ridges in its' flesh. Psammo will have uniform zipper-like, short-hair-tentacles, and tiny but easily recognized mouths all over the place.

[Garf]

22 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

Definitely looks like a lepto to me, my outer space psammo looks awful under anything but heavy blue light lol... Almost transparent, but under blues it gets that nice dark-purple and golden mouths, easiest way to tell the difference IMO is lepto will have more defined tentacles (but concentrated around the mouths) and have ridges in its' flesh. Psammo will have uniform zipper-like, short-hair-tentacles, and tiny but easily recognized mouths all over the place.

Ya, I went back to the place I got it from, and the owner asked me how it was doing. I called it a leptoseris, and he corrected, and said psammocora. Even wrote it down on my receipt. The thing that made me question was when I increased my light a bit, it started to lighten up. More research and I came to the conclusion it is a lepto. Moved it down the other day, it seems to be recovering.

[A.m.P]

To be fair, my outerspace psammo doesn't seem to love high light situations either, that said my tank-floor gets 150+ PAR in places, so it isn't exactly low or even medium-light down there. Wish it colored-up better in the 16k range, looks great in the evening 20k though.
Glad it's doing better out of higher-light, looks beautiful, now it could be a fireworks psammo or one of the odd growth-pattern ones, without getting right-up on them it can be hard to tell from photos. How defined the individual mouths are does kind of make me think it might be some kind of psammocora, but I can't tell from that pic lol.
 https://www.google.com/search?q=fireworks+psammocora&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS773US773&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjgqdLMtLPjAhVBa80KHXnMBsoQ_AUIECgB&biw=1344&bih=927#imgrc=umd-iXiczGlxGM:

[Garf]

Now it is time for sitting back, and watching my tank fill out. After doing final placing of 6 frags yesterday, I realized I could make space for two more. A bright yellow 24k leptoseris and an orange montipora setosa joined the top most rock with my yellow polyp tubinaria. 

 

 

[Garf]

Flow.

 

I think the reason my Outer Space lepto/psammacora was looking a bit pale was because of flow. Over time, the gunk built up on my eFlux powerheads really slowed the flow down. I think that tank was missing that. I didn't notice it as it was happening over time, but the difference is startling. Gonipora extension is much better, the duncans seem fuller, the hairy shrooms are larger.

 

I will make sure that the powerheads are kept clean as part of my weekly maintenance, cleaning every two to three weekly changes.

 

@Amphrites  , thanks for that link, one of the pictures looks a lot like mine. Tidal Gardens calls it a Fireworks Psammacora. The second pic on this page. I do not see any vertical small tentacles, but the horizontal pattern and the growth edge are spot on.

 

https://www.tidalgardens.com/stock-fireworks-psammocora.html

 

And on Jason Fox's site, the closest match is the Outer Space Lepto. Perhaps it is just confusion over trade names and coral identification. 

 

https://shop.jasonfoxsignaturecorals.com/products/sfls-89?_pos=1&_sid=240747363&_ss=r

[Garf]

So last week, things were going on and I pushed my water change back a couple of days. I did it on Monday 7/29 during the day on my lunch break. I work from home, so I am flexible. I got back to work, and forgot to test dkh after the water change. 

 

I did my water change yesterday, pulled up my testing journal, and didn't see any entry for 7/29.  I can only assume I didn't test dkh.  My last dkh test was 8.4 on 7/22. Yesterday's sw mix tested 8.4, rock solid as always for the Fritz RPM.

 

And my tank, of course, tested 7.1. After the water change, tank tested 7.4

 

After a couple months of my tank testing near 8.4 dkh, it appears it is finally consuming ca/alk.  Trying out the All for Reef one part dosing, added 1.5ml of it last night.  

[Garf]

It's been a couple of weeks since I last did an inspection of the tank at night, Put on my handy Carson magnifying headlamp, and took a peek at things last night. Ugh, two aptasia hiding in the back of the tank, in a very inaccessible spot, and next to the clowns' nesting area. Debated taking the rock out and breaking off the piece, but that is too disruptive. I went to a LFS north of me, Reef Geeks in Northbrook, IL. Nice people, inexpensive and nice selection. They just got a shipment of inverts a couple weeks ago, so I got a couple relatives to the peppermint shrimp (Lymasta Kuekenthali) that I hope will take care of the aptasia. My clowns though are being protective of their space, and have been shooing them away. Worried one of the shrimp got eaten by the elegance coral, he headed under it as soon as I dropped him in. I saw the elegance start to curl up when it was moving on the edges. Was unable to find him for a couple hours. Just saw him dancing around in the middle of the elegance, climbing all over the tentacles, both of them seeming there is not a care in the world. 

 

I also purchased a pom pom crab, he headed straight to a corner and started to pile sand up around him. He has now made it to a small piece of rubble, and I think will soon disappear into the liver rock. He came from a tank that was pretty empty, so I think he needs to get used to the live rock.  Took a pic before he disappeared.

 

 

Re-homing an elegance coral. It just doesn't fit my tank. I moved it to the corner more, as it was extending tentacles onto the rock near my zoas. I just don't like it in the corner.  Going to replace it with something fun, a cool plate coral or a colorful scoly.  If anyone is in the Chicago area, they can get a nice elegance for free. 

[ninjamyst]

Wow, must be nice to live so close to Tank It Easy.  I been there a couple of times.  Small but very clean.  What other corals are you thinking about adding?  

[Garf]

I think I am close to full up. But that didn't stop me from buying a couple of small frags today, a platygyra and a leptasrea. 

 

The only area I think I can add something is an area that is somewhat near vertical on the shadier side of the tank.  I will do a bit of research and look for some good LPS candidates.

[NaturallyKait]

Oh you got kuekenthali shrimp! My LFS has them too, the owner said they’re shy and hide a lot. I know yours are still new, but how are they doing? I can’t find many other people who have had them. 

[Garf]

14 minutes ago, NaturallyKait said:

Oh you got kuekenthali shrimp! My LFS has them too, the owner said they’re shy and hide a lot. I know yours are still new, but how are they doing? I can’t find many other people who have had them. 

Hiding! I saw them in the liverock last night. I hope they take care of the aiptasia. 

 

[NaturallyKait]

7 minutes ago, Garf said:

Hiding! I saw them in the liverock last night. I hope they take care of the aiptasia. 

 

Fingers crossed 🤞🏻🤞🏻

[Garf]

@ninjamyst apparently I am getting a small plate coral and an aussie mini scoly. I am weak, I couldn't resist a couple Divers Den corals while I was doing some research on what would work for me. I found a home for my elegance coral, and will fill the spot up with the plate. I will probably take a cyphastrea and put it on the blank spot I have. See if it can grow there, maybe a bit too shady. Moving my blasto merletti to the base of the rock under that cypastrea, and that should balance out that area. 

 

When I moved my hairy shrooms, I apparently left a few cells, a couple months later I have the cutest itty bitty hairy shroom. Going to nuke it with aiptasia x, or super glue over it. Awful ain't I? I just know if I don't nip this in the bud, I will have a problem down the road. Plus, I am moving the cyphastrea next to it. 

 

Getting antsy about the aiptasia. Wonder how long I will give the shrimp to handle it. I think I can get a hand in there on one side of the tank, and look from the other side to guide the hand. Or I may just break the super glued piece I have hanging off the rock. If I do that, I can access it from the top if I remove my powerheads and the return nozzle. It will really piss my clowns off, they camp under that overhang, resting in the hairy shrooms. The clowns have been pecking at the roof of the overhang, first signs of spawning behavior I have seen in 5 years. I think this approach will be best, if I rework that corner. I can probably get another hairy shroom in there to really make their space comfy. 

 

Searched for the new inverts under the moonlights. All are happy hiding in the liverock. One of the shrimps molted last night. The pom pom looks quite comfortable in his spot, I may be able to get a picture if I get a light on him. 

 

[ninjamyst]

I look at divers den every day too!  If you ever need hammer or Frogspawn, I will be glad to frag you a few heads.  I have tons.  I have aiptasia x if you want to give that a try.

[Garf]

oh man, my tank looks so bare with the elegance coral gone. He is off to his new home. My plate coral and mini scoly came today, gave them a quick inspection them dropped them right in.  FTS shoot soon.