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12 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

Who doesn't love a good fresh crabmeat appetizer

The clowns will just eat till there's no end...even off the coral. They think it's a Golden Corral or something, pun intended.

 

I have some reason to make an educated guess that even though my Favia didn't look like it was dying it may be just surviving. Color is there and it seemed just stable, but I've been trying to see the feeding tentacles and sweepers come out, and it is not showing up. I pulled one whole gall crab out and shared it on the ID thread just so we'd have an entry for it. (kinda generated a tiny amount of back and forth...)

 

Guesses aside I'm hoping that the colony will do a little better even though it's only been in the tank for about 4 days. tbf, if it was fine with the crab at LiveAquaria and in Tonga it may be okay for my tank, but I don't have the devices that either entity has.  I am certainly not the ocean either...despite what I think haha.

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February 18:

 

Cyanobacteria reared its ugly colonial slick in the back of my tank, so after about 13 days; it's time for a partial water change. No, nothing traumatizing like the previous ones. Just 3 gallons out, 3 gallons in. Cyano is a bit of a triggering subject so I went out and bought some of the powdered Chemiclean. It appears that the slime indeed grows on areas of low flow. Everywhere but behind the rocks didn't get slimed.

 

But I was glad to see my goby again...I suppose something went wrong in the relationship and the pair has been divorced. Shrimp is at one end and the goby at the opposite side of the tank. I tried. Or maybe I got the wrong pistol shrimp.

 

I'm kinda fascinated at how algaes and bacteria grow when I'm running a couple forms of chemical filtration. I am aware the bag of Purigen is actually a pretty old one so it may not be collecting as well as a new bag. The bag of PhosGuard is new. Many places just say PhosGuard takes in silica and phosphates, but it leads me to think of what kind? If I'm getting microbial autotrophic growth with what might look like low or no phosphate, perhaps I have been filtering out inorganic species and the organic species are going about their business.

 

Also I moved my green polyp toadstool again because it kept cleaving itself off the rock I glued it to. I found a decent sized hole in my rocks and just put it there. One of my candy canes occupied that hole originally, so I had the two corals switch places.

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Oddly enough plenty of folks end up with cyano issues in low-nutrient environments, it outcompetes other more-nascent algae's by directly- predating on them, other bacteria, or turning to other alternatives present in the water column. P04 is necessary for photosynthesis, not having any in your water isn't the best for corals and it will allow things, frequently partial or total heterotrophs like dinoflagellates which can survive lower-levels, to thrive by starving their competition.

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Hm, make sense. I'm not running any of my chemical filtration right now since I don't want it interfering with the Chemiclean dose I have in the water right now. Do you think the grazing pressure from my clean up crew is allowing real estate for the cyanobacteria to grow?

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30 minutes ago, Diamonds x Pearls said:

Hm, make sense. I'm not running any of my chemical filtration right now since I don't want it interfering with the Chemiclean dose I have in the water right now. Do you think the grazing pressure from my clean up crew is allowing real estate for the cyanobacteria to grow?

Nah, probably not, there are very few herbivores we have access to in the hobby which can/will eat algae down to the rock.
Having them starve and die is unfortunately the usual indicator that there are too many in the system, if too many die they can cause a cyano outbreak.

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February 20:

 

Come to think of it. I have been feeding rather heavily on alternating days for the past two weeks. It's just feeding fish, but several attempts at feeding my LPS with the NLS micro pellets. It's a little tough to control as it's pelletized to .5-.75mm in size. I found it to be a pretty optimal size for my corals. I think I just need to scale back coral feeds to just once a week and not 3-4 times a week, or learn to be more precise in my feedings. Bottom line: better regulation of feeding.

 

On the flip side, I'm debating trying out liquid foods. I've many good things about AquaVitro Fuel and BRS's Reef Chili. Is it even a thing to try feeding my soft coral assortment? I feel like they're entirely set and forget.

 

Coworker who is probably about as novice as I am has the hook up. Someone was leaving the hobby and offloaded onto him a bunch of hardware. I acquired a new bag of Purigen, an old 50w Jager heater, and an Aquaclear 10 powerhead.

 

In real life news, I accepted a conditional offer with the National Aquarium for a volunteer aquarium assistant position. They have an opening with the jellies and the culturing lab. Fun stuff.

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February 24:

Ran Chemiclean for about 5+ days, 3 cycles of treatment to be pretty sure the cyanobacteria is beaten back. My nose doesn't have a PhD in chemistry, but I have a feeling that this stuff is erythromycin sulfate species. There's a distinct sweet egg smell. If anyone has had the tamago onigiri from a sushi restaurant it resembles that smell. Yesterday I went out and got 3 bags of Fluval bituminous carbon. I'm planning on running 1 bag a week. They're pretty hefty bags. Since the filter was being opened up, I decided to run a little maintenance and pulled some of the dirty water out and rinsed the mechanical media in the old water. Purigen makes a return. PhosGuard has not. I changed out about 1.25 gallons.

 

I am currently researching a DIY Chemi-pure. I love the convenience concept of it, but I feel like a couple tablespoons of carbon and GFO changed monthly would suffice. I have three separate bags of Purigen. 1 regenerated from my Betta tank and 2 unopened packages. I'm planning to use it with the GAC-GFO blend.

 

I talked to a couple ladies at Fintastic on how they feed their corals and they let me onto their recipe. Their staple diet is Reef-roids mixed with aquarium water and Aquavitro Fuel. Afterwards, they'll add mini-cubes of cyclops, rotifers, baby brine, [insert your favorite planktonic species here]. I went ahead and about some roids and fuel for the corals. I don't have a syringe yet (I'll bum one off from work); however I do have pipettes that originally came with my refractometer.

 

My goby has started to come out more and it seems that he's made occupancy of the next rocks over as well. I'm not sure if he's in the rocks are burrowing under as I do see him with a chunk of CORALine in his mouth. Maybe a little bit of both.

 

Clownfish are doing their thing. Also spazzing out. I'm understanding that their weird seizure like behavior is some signal of submission to another. Glad they're figuring out who's male or female.

 

I found a barnacle living among the Favia polyps. Interesting stuff.

 

I get it now. Walk into a fish store and it's a little tempting to walk out with a bit of coral to take home.

 

Tonight I fed my corals the roids and fuel and it smelled like pineapples to me. I don't know why, but it had a distinct tart smell when I took a whiff. Clownfish took a whiff and attempted to eat it right off the acan.  Finally a little more after a week the ORA Candy Canes exposed their feeding tentacles. It's super rewarding to have corals take in what you give them. The acans are a little funny in their feeding right now. It looks like they just form a mucous net and there's just orange goop over the polyp tissue. I'm unsure what the Favia is doing; I hope it gets better. Fungia is still my personal favorite to drop in morsels right on top of its gaping mouth.

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February 28: Thought I'd give an end of the week update.

 

Tank is doing fine as I'm going through a careful and slow process of removing Chemiclean from my system. I've added carbon to the box. After about 4 days of exposure I swapped out for another new bag of bit carbon. Still no PhosGuard this week as I wanted to see if phosphates make a readable appearance on my API test kit. So far it hasn't, but I'm certain that after 3 fish feeds, 1 rather robust coral feed, and 2 doses of Fuel I might see something. My current educated guess is that the API kit doesn't have an ultra-low resolution so API's ugly imprecision rears its head. 

 

Question for the gallery: I can't quite afford a Hanna ULR checker, so I'm wondering if NYOS or Salifert are good tests to use. I heard good but time-consuming things about the Red Sea kits. To be fully honest, I want to buy all the NYOS kits because the packaging looks so sexy. GERMAN ENGINEERING, JA, HANS. die uber reefing experienze ja.

 

Memes aside.

 

If anything here's a parameter report

 

NO3 - <20ppm

PO4 - ???, it says zero...

Alk - 9 dKH

Ca - 400-420ppm

Salt - 1.025sg

Temperature - 71F

 

My leathers have gone through a couple runs of exfoliating. I've been helping it along with a disposable pipette and pushing water at the skin. I'm considering doing away with the AC70 sponge as I still have in there and just use entirely of the poly-fil stuff. As nice as the polish pads are they get invaded by Germany and Russia very quickly fouled by particulates really quickly. When they foul out it means there's debris that can settle on leather corals meaning they'll have to exfoliate more. Not a bad thing, but I want to see them bloom you know?

 

The candy cane corals are finally situated in the tank and I see their feeding tentacles at night. It's pretty fun feeding them. I also noticed that I had some tiny springs of Caulerpa growing on some of the skeleton. Funny stuff. That's mariculture for you.

 

Acan is I don't know. Not dead yet. But it is host for a number of brittle stars.

 

Favia has been more or less a record of my ups and downs. One morning I wasn't careful in dosing my 2 part solution and I let my part 2 burn my Favia colony, so I lost a few polyps from the colony. I noticed the following afternoon that a lot of tissue was sloughing off but the skeleton was colorful. I guessed that I burned them from Reef Fusion 2. To mitigate that I had that syringe I bummed from work and I dose very very slowly with it at the return side of my AC70, gently tapping the plunger so it's about a tick mark per second or more. It probably ensures better mixing in the water column anyway. Also I moved the Favia away from the front so it won't get a face full of 2 part.

 

I love my Fungia; I don't need to say more. I want more.

 

I've been long thinking about getting some P. damicornis and M. digitata especially the former as I hear it's quite easy for an SPS. The latter just to complete a built up reef look. Maybe at a later time. Let's just be happy where we are.

 

Fish are doing fine. My Frostbites definitely recognize me and generally think every time is a feeding time. They seem to be always hungry. They'll stare at the liquidized Reef Roids and Fuel mix and try to slurp it in with no avail. I'm planning to make a trip to the LFS and get a blister pack of Hikari Cyclopods or something...whatever comes in those mini-cubes. It'll also double as a target feed solution for the divorced pistol shrimp. Speaking of divorce, the goby is enjoying its take over of the right side of the rock work. I see it pop up its head moving bits and bobs around. I wish they'd pair, but I guess it wasn't meant to be.

 

I feel my CUC is a little too robust. I might be wrong. My substrate is looking pretty clean.

 

Unfortunately the hitchhiker sponge is turning translucent and looks like it will be dying. Oops.

 

My bibliography is also updated to reflect a couple more papers I read. I finally found some stuff on octocorallia!

 

I'll post a whole tank photo this weekend.

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I owe you guys photos, so here's a thicc order.

 

Currently it's on sunset/sunrise mode. All the red, some green, hardly any blue, barely any white. It's supposed to resemble a rose gold if you will.

 

 

 

 

IMG_20200229_180527.jpg

IMG_20200229_180820.jpg

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March 3rd

 

Just conquer all the "algae" why don't you.

 

First it was brown diatoms, which is an easy thing to address, so I added a robust amount of snails. Second red slime arrived so I zapped it with Chemiclean for 6 days. We've been rather clear since the treatment period.

 

This morning a third type of algae arrived it was some green hair or Bryopsis sprouting. I don't want to think it is the latter since it means I have to think about the magnesium or Flucon treatments. Nonetheless I got a length of airline tubing I normally use for acclimating and used it to manually remove the tiny sprouts growing on the aquarium glass. Fortunately, I found some help from one of the five Cerith snails. It slurped the sprouts down like spaghetti. It was rather fun to see. Fun enough that I decided to take some sequential action shots of grazing. There's a lot more on the back side of the tank. I'm considering getting more Cerith snails from work to help graze it down. I may recruit the help of a Margarita snail. My aquarium runs cooler than most reef aquariums at 70-72F, a lot closer to ocean temperatures of Southern California during the summer, the exact temperature range of Okinawa during January. Now, where they came from I had suspicions of the hair algae that was transported from my neon Candy Cane. I scrubbed the skeleton, but it appeared to come back. I suppose next time I'll set it aside and use a syringe full of hydrogen peroxide if I see growths again.

 

Curious little tufts.

IMG_20200303_110515.thumb.jpg.c3df5f7966952ef5a772a34119838600.jpg

 

IMG_20200303_110554.thumb.jpg.c3d45d25841ecb6e0379054fcc53de07.jpg

 

Now these may be the beginnings of algal growth

IMG_20200303_110802.thumb.jpg.12b6225737df3823258efff7e9502081.jpg

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March 6th

 

I don't think I am dealing hair algae as I don't see my clean up snails doing any marked progression. The lawn in the back has continued to propagate. I have noticed new propagules on some of the rubble and main pieces within the tank. After closely observing the propagules that are growing right on the crushed coral and front pane of the aquarium, I noticed that the growths are bushy connecting to a single...root? holdfast? Each given stalk is starting to fan out. It is similar to a Caulerpa appearance. The ends looking they splinter off into many fronds, a feathery look if you will.

 

This past week I've been casually researching on the interwebs and I came across someone's story on another forum. NCreefguy wrote an exhaustive account of his journey with this algae and using Fluconazole, the same stuff for yeast infections in humans and animals. I was colored impressed by not only his depth of content, but also the before and after results he reported. His tank looked very well invaded with a big lawns. I decided to verify his findings some more by looking into what Youtube had to share. All but two shared different soluntions. EAT SLEEP Reef probably doesn't have Bryopsis (or could be a different species). Mile High Reefs had tangs at his disposal. I don't have tangs (even though I got a sweet Naso tang at work today). And I am certain I do indeed have Bryopsis making its first stages in claiming significant real estate (the back panel) of the my aquarium. It's funny how this is all from one Candy Cane frag I got for free in a buy 2 deal. You get what you pay for? I'm generally not a fan of adding chemicals to any system but this has appeared to be the most expedient way to address my circumstances. I could increase magnesium but the entails another solution another test kit to add and whatever Kent Tech M had in as an additional ingredient has changed its formula since. I supposed the old formulation had an algaecide. The Fluconazole seems to be a pretty user friendly approach. 20mg/gallon and let the rest work itself for 2 weeks.

 

So I bought Reef Flux Rx from Amazon and it'll arrive later next week. I'm due for a water change before then, so I'll get the tank prepared...and more meds...yaaaaay~ During the two week span, I'll limit feeding amounts and times. Even though Bryopsis is competitive even in the ultra-low realms, it's certainly better to stall or at least slow propagation as treatment is working itself into the water. Am I excited? No.

 

Did I ever mention I installed a bootleg refugium at Petco? It's pretty freaking brilliant for now.

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31 minutes ago, Diamonds x Pearls said:

March 6th

 

I don't think I am dealing hair algae as I don't see my clean up snails doing any marked progression. The lawn in the back has continued to propagate. I have noticed new propagules on some of the rubble and main pieces within the tank. After closely observing the propagules that are growing right on the crushed coral and front pane of the aquarium, I noticed that the growths are bushy connecting to a single...root? holdfast? Each given stalk is starting to fan out. It is similar to a Caulerpa appearance. The ends looking they splinter off into many fronds, a feathery look if you will.

 

This past week I've been casually researching on the interwebs and I came across someone's story on another forum. NCreefguy wrote an exhaustive account of his journey with this algae and using Fluconazole, the same stuff for yeast infections in humans and animals. I was colored impressed by not only his depth of content, but also the before and after results he reported. His tank looked very well invaded with a big lawns. I decided to verify his findings some more by looking into what Youtube had to share. All but two shared different soluntions. EAT SLEEP Reef probably doesn't have Bryopsis (or could be a different species). Mile High Reefs had tangs at his disposal. I don't have tangs (even though I got a sweet Naso tang at work today). And I am certain I do indeed have Bryopsis making its first stages in claiming significant real estate (the back panel) of the my aquarium. It's funny how this is all from one Candy Cane frag I got for free in a buy 2 deal. You get what you pay for? I'm generally not a fan of adding chemicals to any system but this has appeared to be the most expedient way to address my circumstances. I could increase magnesium but the entails another solution another test kit to add and whatever Kent Tech M had in as an additional ingredient has changed its formula since. I supposed the old formulation had an algaecide. The Fluconazole seems to be a pretty user friendly approach. 20mg/gallon and let the rest work itself for 2 weeks.

 

So I bought Reef Flux Rx from Amazon and it'll arrive later next week. I'm due for a water change before then, so I'll get the tank prepared...and more meds...yaaaaay~ During the two week span, I'll limit feeding amounts and times. Even though Bryopsis is competitive even in the ultra-low realms, it's certainly better to stall or at least slow propagation as treatment is working itself into the water.

 

Did I ever mention I installed a bootleg refugium at Petco? It's pretty freaking brilliant for now.

I know it doesn't fit with your Ryukyu Islands biotope theme, but lettuce sea slugs from the Caribbean (Elysia crispata) will also devour Bryopsis. They are an extremely effective natural control for that particular problem algae - so effective in fact that we utilize them at the public aquarium where I work specifically for that purpose. The real challenge is keeping them alive once the Bryopsis is gone, but they're very cool creatures and possibly worth looking into if you think they would be appropriate for your tank.

 

Anyway, I hope your efforts to control the new algae meet with success, no matter what route you choose! I really like your new Favia colony too. And how are your leathers looking? Are you starting to see good extension from them?

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DISQUALIFIED-QQ
1 minute ago, billygoat said:

I know it doesn't fit with your Ryukyu Islands biotope theme, but lettuce sea slugs from the Caribbean (Elysia crispata) will also devour Bryopsis. They are an extremely effective natural control for that particular problem algae - so effective in fact that we utilize them at the public aquarium where I work specifically for that purpose. The real challenge is keeping them alive once the Bryopsis is gone, but they're very cool creatures and possibly worth looking into if you think they would be appropriate for your tank.

 

Anyway, I hope your efforts to control the new algae meet with success, no matter what route you choose! I really like your new Favia colony too. And how are your leathers looking? Are you starting to see good extension from them?

The toadstool at center right has grown about 30% of its original size and has some nice polyp extension. The clowns stare at it thinking its a carpet 'nem. The big hand is currently peeling its old skin. I saw some brighter polyps under blue light one night before. The small Lobo has stopped sagging for once and I noticed a few polyps pop out. My Sinularia is making small progress.

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March 10:

 

Water change occurred Friday March 6th

 

Parameter report

Temperature: 71F

Salinity: 1.025-1.026sg

Ammonia: 0ppm

Nitrite: 0ppm

Nitrate: ~10ppm

Phosphate: >0ppm (I swear I need to get another kit eventually)

Alkalinity: 9-10 dKH

Calcium: 420-440ppm

 

The lawn in the back is missing. I think it either up and left for somewhere else or the combination of cerithiidae and margarita snails munched it all up. My opinion is shifting again thinking I have more of a GHA population rather than Bryopsis. I just may need to increase my grazing pressure for my reef. There's bushy growths on the intake tube of my filter and the stem of the heater unit still.

 

I decided to do a multi-prong attack with more grazing and the Fluconazole. We'll see how it'll work.

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March 17:

Hey everyone!

 

I thought I would check in and make some presence to let you all know that I'm not going crazy. What is crazy is seeing everyone buying out butter, pasta, and the gallon jugs of water. I also wonder how often do people visit the restroom. Do people actually shit that much? I'm asking because I do poop, but just probably once or twice a day.

 

Parameters:

Temperature: 70

Salinity: 1.026 sg

Nitrate: ~10ppm

Phosphate: .25ppm

Alkalinity: 9 dKH

Calcium: 500? ppm

 

I would imagine a decreased calcium uptake as there is no carbon or Purigen because it would interfere with the ongoing Fluconazole treatment. I am looking to push my alkalinity up to 11dkH once we return to normal. Carbon and Purigen are agents that interact with the chemical agents from the octocorallia.

 

We're right in the middle of the treatment and results are already showing. It appears that microalgaes are replacing the missing biomass from the snails eating macroalgal growth. I am observing more green microalgaes on the upper portions of my rocks. There was a very tiny sprout of alga one of my C. furcata frags at the time of treatment. It was present for about 4 days and on the 5th day I noticed deterioration in its stature. It couldn't keep itself upright, so I thought the cell walls were being compromised. It also looked like the alga sprout was burnt at the tips based on the small white decaying matter at the ends. Now being day 7, I do not see it anymore, so it appears that the treatment affected structural integrity at the cellular level. Very interesting how this treatment targets what in a cell.

 

I have also decreased my fish feeding schedule from every other day to once midweek and once weekend. In turn, I have made the coral feeding more rich as I have incorporated the frozen mini-cubes of Coral Gumbo from Hikari on top of the Reef Roids suspended in AquaVitro Fuel. Coral feeding occurs once a week.

 

I am expecting a shipment of margarita snails coming into work even with the pandemic. I believe I can keep these snails at a great success as the water in my aquarium is comparatively cooler than other home reefs. Lately I've been pondering my further filtration options. I do like the results that come from GAC, and I have seen results that come from refugium modifications for filters exactly like mine.

 

I was considering:

  1. Purely chemical
    • 4tbsp activated carbon and 2tbsp granular ferric oxide in a single bag, replace monthly
    • Purigen bag, replace refresh and rotate monthly
  2. Refugium
    • Incorporate into the AC70 using a modified/aftermarket basket
    • Purchase a HOB refugium
      • Finnex makes a refugium with slow flow (32gph) that could facilitate the use of supposedly de-nitrifying products
    • Acquire a MagnaFuge LED
  3. A combination
    • Why not both?
      • Filter box can house all elements into one neat package
      • Create a robust system where mechanical and chemical filtration live in one box and refugium and biological filtration live in another
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March 25:

 

Parameters:

Temperature: 70

Salinity: 1.026 sg

Nitrate: >10ppm

Phosphate: <.25ppm

Alkalinity: 9 dKH

Calcium: 400-420 ppm

 

We've made it through a round of the Fluconazole treatment and it appeared to be pretty successful eliminating whatever chlorophyta we were growing. I also learned that lessening the amount of fish food I put in also helped with nutrient loads. I'm very curious what would happen if I were to stretch water change periods from two weeks to three or even four.

 

Another change that has happen in the past week was that I stopped dosing Fusion 1 in light what was "500ppm of Ca^2+" I want to think I was not counting my drops correctly and read out a wrong result. I wonder if I just ran my tests wrong. Phosphate read "0" again when I clearly had a signature of phosphate as it was light green last week. My guess is that the corals took it in to eat and grow.

 

Overall the reef appears to be stable short of one colony. Of my soft corals, only the long polyp Sarcophtyon has not extended its polyps for several weeks now. The others have been sloughing old skin and extending polyps continuously. Of my hard corals all the colonies appear to be stable. I'm wondering when my candy cane corals will split. Some of them have developed new mouths. The red and green Favia has a barnacle/worm neighbor. Thankfully it is not a vermetid worm since I only see small strands coming from two distinct tubes. I'm thinking it is some polychaete similar to a feather duster worm. I am judging this by the behavior of its trying to collect crushed coral to surround the body. This Favia has been successful in growing tiny new mouths along the edge. I saw very small bulbous mouths.

 

I did find a vesicle of bubble algae. Upon further staring, more vesicles lived around my acan colony. I decided to manually remove all that I was able to see from the "frag disk." The largest vesicle I saw I accidentally lanced with my pocket knife. Oops. I should probably dig up my dissecting kit from my senior year in university. Fortunately all this removing happened out of the water and near the kitchen sink. Once everything was cut away I did a rinse with running hot tap water on the disk making sure no water made direct contact to the colony. Dangerous. Then I poured some RODI water into a bowl and dipped the colony disk for about 2 minutes. It was actually pretty amazing to see all the gammarid shrimp jump ship. Too bad I can't save them. Microinvertebrates are a fascinating thing I secretly like. Once the dip was complete I rinsed the colony with more RODI by pouring a pitcher over the colony for about 10-15 seconds. Colony was reinstalled to its original placement. We'll see how things develop. I think that algae was the real season of where all the phosphates went.

 

I also saw some ulva growing on my rocks. Now that's an algae I don't mind having a lot of. I've always liked the translucent green frilly waviness that sea lettuce featured even since I was little. Unfortunately I don't think it will last very long as I do have a robust snail group.

 

Welp, time the change the water now. Bye.

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April 1st: Happy Fools' Day

 

Parameters: from yesterday's test

Temperature is now hovering between 70-74F. I'm imagining a steady rise in tank temp as the season progresses into summer.

Salinity 1.024sg, previous water change was a little more on the dilute side

Nitrate: about 10ppm

Phosphate: >0ppm, it's off yellow meaning there's a trace level of phosphates

Alkalinity: 9 dKH

Calcium: 380-400ppm

 

I think the two clownfish I bought are really ramping up on who's who. When I purchased them they were the same size and I knew going into it there will be a violent time where they'd fight hard on who was going to be which sex. That is definitely happening the past week and a half. The one with the black tail has been harassing the smaller orange-tailed fish intermittently. What's really confusing about my clownfish is that the bigger one was the one that's jittery. At least that's what it used to be.

 

Soft corals have been mostly the same, a lot of expansion especially out of the toadstool. The hand coral likes to exfoliate a lot. I'm certain I should ramp up my fine mechanical filtration.

 

I think my Fungia is growing there's a fleshy and droopy part of the coral which may signal there's tissue in wanting for some skeleton. Pictures to follow.

 

Coralline algae has started to form on the powerheads and on each panel of the aquarium glass. Calcium is dropping more than previously observed.

 

IMG_20200401_114128.jpg

IMG_20200401_114213.jpg

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Mini update. If you see the vertical photo there's a growth of what may be a vermetid snail on my neon green trumpet coral frag. I'm not going to lie... IT'S THAT PARTICULAR FRAG THAT KEEPS THE FUN GOING. You get what you pay for. I got it for free. See where I'm going?

 

Today I immediately used my thumbnail and crushed it into oblivion and rinsed it with freshwater. Interestingly enough one of my tinier nassarius snails smelled blood in the water and sure enough it was on the frag like white on rice. We shall see how things pan out.

 

I owe you all macro photos so here it comes.

IMG_20200401_114243.thumb.jpg.1a50832c52e113eaa145b2bc4c8d659d.jpg

 

IMG_20200401_114250.thumb.jpg.da57748ce90f4349258312c71754cc5b.jpg

 

IMG_20200401_114304.thumb.jpg.c2fc64e35e5ddc5cb27718c7db390747.jpg

I'm uncertain of what's wrong with this guy.

 

IMG_20200401_114341.thumb.jpg.466314e3eedfc52c33ba3653bda0ecb3.jpgIMG_20200401_114354.thumb.jpg.4547af358eb0eaa84faf826b967efd16.jpgIMG_20200401_114400.thumb.jpg.f637f17982bbb1335a922831db1507ae.jpgIMG_20200401_114428.thumb.jpg.77adea2d6b1ffc9df82ec6bb5331529a.jpgIMG_20200401_114437.thumb.jpg.5f95a807271f6714264a3dc16a11d295.jpg

Mood.

 

IMG_20200401_114524.thumb.jpg.dddb087e976b369b862277f90b77daa0.jpg

It was exfoliation day. It's way better looking right now as I'm writing this.

 

 

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DISQUALIFIED-QQ

IMG_20200401_114841.thumb.jpg.007591b4bedd729484b457e8cb7ac489.jpg

 

This was the "worm" I was referring to. I'm pretty certain it's not harmful, but there's not a whole lot I can do with it. I guess if I were really worried I'd see the entire colony fail at this point but there's no sign of it.

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