Ancelot Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 23 hours ago, xiaoxiy said: Guess who was a dummy and started bleaching his acros a second time... me. Last time I bleached/crashed my acros was during Thanksgiving. Prior to the episode, I had dislodged my ricordeas from their baskets and added aquarium gravel (Este's Spectrastone White) to my Ricordea basket so that they wouldn't attach to the bottom of the container. 18 hours later, my tank started bleaching. If you remember, I also found a stray current during that episode, and chalked the bleaching up to the stray current. I had also removed the gravel though just in case. Yesterday, I found that my ricordeas had attached fully to the bottom their basket, so I dislodged them and added aquarium gravel again. You guessed it, Este's Spectrastone White. 18 hours later, my acros are exhibiting diminished PE and mild bleaching again. Maybe the stray voltage from last time was the red herring, and the real culprit was the Spectrastone. Another culprit could be pissing off the ricordeas (but I've definitely done that before w/o issue). Time to do some massive water changes again and run polyfilter. I highly suspect that whatever process is occurring has been only going on for the past 24 hours. The growth shots for this week confirm this; the acros have clearly been growing this week. Also see the stag as an example of the mild bleaching. I'll post regular growth lapse shots later today, after I finish water changes and driving to the LFS 1 hour away to grab polyfilter. Probably some chemicals leeching out from that gravel. Actually during this time, I will turn off activated carbon and other funky dosing and focus on water changes. I will think some levels of KH is still important since its fundamental to sps health. Quote Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted February 21, 2021 Author Share Posted February 21, 2021 5 hours ago, Ancelot said: Probably some chemicals leeching out from that gravel. Actually during this time, I will turn off activated carbon and other funky dosing and focus on water changes. I will think some levels of KH is still important since its fundamental to sps health. I'm doing massive water changes. So far I have gone through 74 gallons of water. Mixing up 20 more gallons as we speak (with a plan to make a total of 80 more gallons total). I'm swapped from manual WC back to AWC to minimize temp swings. It's hard doing massive water changes on a 100G+ system. Moments like this make me miss having a nano system where 20G water change is equivalent to 100%. I'm going to continue carbon and polyfilter though, in an attempt to facilitate removal of anything that leached into the water column. My Alk has risen from 7.35 precrash to 7.92, just from virtue of the water changes. Things have continued to bleach overnight. Last time this happened, it took about 3-4 days before the bleaching halted and things recovered. Fingers crossed. 1 Quote Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted February 24, 2021 Author Share Posted February 24, 2021 Bad news. I’ve lost 3 acros so far and the others remain bleached. 120 gallons of water changes, carbon and polyfilter seem to have not made much progress in halting this episode. This is gonna be a painful ride. Granulosa started peeling last night and 90% of the tissue was gone this morning. Pink Lemonade started peeling a bit at noon, and the damage continues. (Pic 1 is at noon and pic 2 is at 6pm) 3 Quote Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted February 24, 2021 Author Share Posted February 24, 2021 The peeling got worse overnight, so I decided to do a last ditch effort. Broke out the gryphon saw and literally cut the peeling half off of the colony and discarded it. I tried making some smaller salvage frags from the non-peeling branches on the bad half though. We'll see what happens. Two other pieces started peeling overnight too. I also last-ditch effort fragged them out. I think it's fascinating that the RTN pieces are the ones that weren't as effected by the bleaching. I wonder if my rapid high volume water changes did more damage than good: mismatches in PH (significant mismatch because I had to use acid to decrease DKH of new water) and temp. Quote Link to comment
mitten_reef Posted February 24, 2021 Share Posted February 24, 2021 2 hours ago, xiaoxiy said: The peeling got worse overnight, so I decided to do a last ditch effort. Broke out the gryphon saw and literally cut the peeling half off of the colony and discarded it. I tried making some smaller salvage frags from the non-peeling branches on the bad half though. We'll see what happens. Two other pieces started peeling overnight too. I also last-ditch effort fragged them out. I think it's fascinating that the RTN pieces are the ones that weren't as effected by the bleaching. I wonder if my rapid high volume water changes did more damage than good: mismatches in PH (significant mismatch because I had to use acid to decrease DKH of new water) and temp. ugh, I hate those ones. a few of mine had literally melting flesh WHILE having full PE on the end of the branch....nothing much I could do at that point. hope to hear some success story with those emergency fragging. 2 Quote Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted February 27, 2021 Author Share Posted February 27, 2021 Pre vs Post crash. I think I’m starting to turn the corner with my acros. Lost 5 colonies, can you spot which ones? 2 Quote Link to comment
mitten_reef Posted February 27, 2021 Share Posted February 27, 2021 27 minutes ago, xiaoxiy said: Pre vs Post crash. I think I’m starting to turn the corner with my acros. Lost 5 colonies, can you spot which ones? Damn, those are some big ones. I only found 4; they were big! But glad you got it turned around. Quote Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted February 27, 2021 Author Share Posted February 27, 2021 1 hour ago, mitten_reef said: Damn, those are some big ones. I only found 4; they were big! But glad you got it turned around. The last one was the hawkins colony in the very back. :(. I may have been able to save couple smaller frags of some of these lost colonies; we'll have to see whether the frags RTN. I unfortunately 100% lost the red granulosa though...Glad I gave out several frags of it over the past year; I will have to grab a cut from once those local frags get bigger. 2 Quote Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted February 28, 2021 Author Share Posted February 28, 2021 Weekly Update: With all the freed up re-estate in my tank, I'm taking this opportunity to do a minor rescape of my tank. I've mounted some Pink Cadillac frags where the Granulosa used to be. Maybe I'll be able to get them colored up; so they don't look absolutely like trash. I was able to salvage a bit of the pink lemonade, so I mounted it further back than it was originally. Also brought one of my bounce frags upstairs too. Finally, I bought a clam to put on the rock space between the bounce and pink lemonade. Obligatory Display FTS: Man, things look duller than they have in the past. It'll take some time to heal things back up again. Frag Tank Top Down Shot: While my acros in the frag tank definitely bleached, fortunately none of them peeled/died. Finally, here are the weekly growth lapses: As expected, minimal to no growth this week. 2 Quote Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted March 6, 2021 Author Share Posted March 6, 2021 Weekly Update: Growth has started to slowly pick back up again. New Addition: Say hi to Mr. Clam, my new addition to the tank. Full Tank Shot: Frag Tank: 1/02/2021 to 3/06/2021. I have a fragging addiction/problem. Also my friends are way to generous with giving me frags... 3 Quote Link to comment
Reefkid88 Posted March 7, 2021 Share Posted March 7, 2021 I'm glad to hear that things are starting to rebound a little bit. 1 Quote Link to comment
Justind823 Posted March 7, 2021 Share Posted March 7, 2021 Man, you're on a roll with these crashes but the tank is still looking pretty good. Sorry for the losses. Are you still thinking it was the Spectrastone? That's a new one Love the new clam addition, I always need one in my tank. I'm gonna need some of those frags when I upgrade soon😉 Quote Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted March 7, 2021 Author Share Posted March 7, 2021 10 hours ago, Justind823 said: Man, you're on a roll with these crashes but the tank is still looking pretty good. Sorry for the losses. Are you still thinking it was the Spectrastone? That's a new one Love the new clam addition, I always need one in my tank. I'm gonna need some of those frags when I upgrade soon😉 Thanks man! I do think it was the Spectrastone; unless it was the red herring for both crashes. You have frags if ya drive up to Iowa 😉 Quote Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted March 28, 2021 Author Share Posted March 28, 2021 Week 13 Growth: At this point we are coming up on exactly 3 months. I'm excited to see what the next 9 months have in store. Oops, I forgot to update the thread last week. As compensation, here are some photos from my real camera. Assorted Acans: Fragged in December. WWC OG Bounce Frags. Colorado Sunburst Anemone. Finally, here's a FTS: 3 2 Quote Link to comment
mitten_reef Posted March 28, 2021 Share Posted March 28, 2021 That frag tank tho 😍 Quote Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted April 11, 2021 Author Share Posted April 11, 2021 It's been 15 weeks since the first time lapse picture! 4 1 Quote Link to comment
Reefkid88 Posted April 12, 2021 Share Posted April 12, 2021 Insane as usual,keep it up. 1 Quote Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted June 4, 2021 Author Share Posted June 4, 2021 No more timelapses for a while. I swapped phones, which have different default camera zooms. In essence, I can't recreate the old pictures anymore. :(. You guys get still shots instead for the time being. FTS: 6-3-2021 - Red monti in the back is getting huge and will need trimming. One of my favorite digis! It has brilliant blue polyps. I love it when Chromis hide in the acropora. 4 Quote Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted August 1, 2021 Author Share Posted August 1, 2021 Hi friends! It's been a while. The display tank keeps plugging away and I'm outgrowing my current frag tank. As such, I've been looking to upgrade the frag tank. It just so happened that one of my LFS ended up closing due to family reasons, and I was able to snag a really nice 6' x 2' x 1' acrylic frag tank from them. I also grabbed a used Kessil AP700 from them too, to light one half of the frag tank. I will be taking my current frag tank down and replacing it completely with this one, so the other half of the frag tank will be lit by my current Radions. A friend and I split the 2 frag tanks they had for sale. One frag tank each! Wow, they cleaned up really well. My friend was super generous and dropped the tank off (115 miles). He put a cardboard shield on the front to keep highway bugs from splattering on the acrylic! Got it moved into my basement. Finally, here's a FTS of my display: 1 1 Quote Link to comment
mitten_reef Posted August 2, 2021 Share Posted August 2, 2021 That whole having a frag system escalated quick 😂 3 Quote Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted August 2, 2021 Author Share Posted August 2, 2021 7 hours ago, mitten_reef said: That whole having a frag system escalated quick 😂 Agreed. I feel like I'm upgrading every 6 months due to space issues at this point. Definitely thought the 4' tank would take longer to fill up than it really did. On the bright side, this upgrade has been fully paid for by frags! 3 Quote Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted August 28, 2021 Author Share Posted August 28, 2021 Here are some fun pics I took from the display this evening. Enjoy! 3 1 Quote Link to comment
Reefkid88 Posted August 28, 2021 Share Posted August 28, 2021 Man,despite all the crash this system continues bouncing back. Looking amazing per usual. 1 Quote Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted September 2, 2021 Author Share Posted September 2, 2021 On 8/28/2021 at 5:50 PM, Reefkid88 said: Man,despite all the crash this system continues bouncing back. Looking amazing per usual. Thanks, I really appreciate it! I also got the giant frag tank up and running this past weekend. So much more room. 2 Quote Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted September 2, 2021 Share Posted September 2, 2021 Soooo when does your store open? Hahahha 2 Quote Link to comment
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