120g La Ville des Poissons 🐚 Well that didn’t last long 😢

[WV Reefer]

16 hours ago, ECLS Reefer said:

Wow a month (almost) goes by so fast! 
 

Updates: have done a couple of water changes but solely because the two tangs are abominably messy eaters and keep tossing seaweed all over. So more for siphoning purposes. Have started turkey basting daily again to try and decrease the amount of chaff in the water column. Am also trying out both Brightwell Razor and Clarifi-SW to try and get the floaties either to the sand bed, the filter socks or the skimmer. Was a bit clearer today so seems to be working. 
 

On the flip side of that the nutrients are pretty low, lower than the LPS has historically shown me they like. The mangroves seem a bit unhappy with that, so I may end up having to dose some phosphates, or feeding heavier. The fish requested the latter, of course. 
 

The flatworm situation isn’t necessarily resolved, though the melanurus is a hard working little hunter. Lost a pretty green/gold hammer today from the little savages 😡. But, replaced it with a stunning atomic balls goni from a fellow Houstonite. Excited about those prospects- it’s a gorgeous frag! 
 

Otherwise, things are coasting along, and corals are slowly growing. I’m not sure what the secret is to explosive growth but I haven’t figured it out yet. 

 

Pictures!

 

Smiths damsel

 

 

El Guapo the powder brown tang

 

Berry Manilow the purple tang

 

Mel the melanurus

 

Rey the yellow coris wrasse

 

Dilly (he and Billy are killing it in the big tank now!)

 

 

@mitten_reef’s Pink Lemonade

 

Dragon soul torch

 

 

Leather coral a la @jack1978

 

Purple gold hammer

 

The clown stop Big Blue wellsophyllia 

 

Red goniopora 

 

Purple stylo

 

 

Favia

 

 

The new Atomic Balls goni from @pokerdobe

 

 

 

Full tank video

 

 

Some more goni love

 

 

That new Goni is noice! 

[ECLS Reefer]

1 hour ago, WV Reefer said:

That new Goni is noice! 

Yes it’s fabulous! I can’t wait until the glitter goni and amazeballs gonis are ready. I’m sure I’ll have to sell a child to afford them but they’re so nice!

[FISHnChix]

Haha nice videos!!! And those gonis are super sweet. Still my favorite coral!!!!

[ECLS Reefer]

Introducing my new reefing logo, designed by @yomu.art off Instagram. It turned out fantastic and I’m so happy with it. 
 

 

 

The tank is doing well, and all the fish are seemingly happy. All six clowns are still alive though there’s so hold outs on joining the harem. They’ve got over the initial battery phase and have taken to passive aggressive hiding, but are still eating well. I’m hoping that as they settle they’ll move back to the front of the tank and all six will get along as a group. 
 

Pictures!

 

Clown harem in action

 

 

 

Berry Manilow

 

Atomic balls goni

 

New sebae anemone 

 

Green bubble coral

 

Favia

 

 

 

 

 

[Ratvan]

Interesting to see how the Harem will work out for you. its something that i've really been interested in trying for a while

[ECLS Reefer]

18 minutes ago, Ratvan said:

Interesting to see how the Harem will work out for you. its something that i've really been interested in trying for a while

They’re all settled down and are living something of a truce. One of the hold outs they don’t even chase anymore, so I think it’s going to work out.

[ECLS Reefer]

Lord it's already August, and I feel often that days just up and disappear on me lately. Round two of Covid + RSV is kicking my and my hospital's arse. Thankfully the tank is doing well, mostly on autopilot. Have been doing weekly small water changes lately, mostly for detritus removal to help with water clarity. It's still a daily struggle, because of the two elephants in the tank, their dietary habits and their never ending poop. If I didn't love those two fish so much, I'd probably sell them off because they really are like having my husband's horse living in the tank. (His specialty is never ending poop, too). Added a third wave pump to the tank to try and push water to the overflow, with all the chaff in the water column. Not sure if it's truly helping, but it also seems to have made a lot of the corals happier with more flow. 

 

In the future I am really considering going for an apex with triton testing setup. I feel like it would cut down on some of the weekly manual testing I do, plus give me a little peace of mind with the app tracking things. Those things are so expensive though 😵‍💫

 

Anyway, PICTURES!

 

 

The rarely seen ember blenny

 

 

Berry Manilow getting some film algae

 

 

Altuve II impersonating a tree

 

 

Billy Frechette posing pretty

 

 

Mel on his way to keep the tank free of flat worms

 

 

El Guapo admiring himself in the mirror

 

 

 

R' hllor on the cruise

 

 

Tropic thunder montipora

 

 

Kentucky blue grass zoas (I think)

 

 

Magician zoas

 

 

 

Purple stylo

 

 

Atomic balls goniopora

 

 

 

Red goni

 

 

Sector 001 favia

 

Amazeballz goni

 

 

The clown harem

 

 

Some tank views

 

 

Altuve II is such a creep…

 

[ECLS Reefer]

Got my ATI results in today! All actually looked pretty good considering this is the first time I’ve done one of these. I’m still struggling with red cyano algae and fight it daily, but the tank has been leaning toward pretty clean, and I’ve been doing weekly to biweekly water changes to help the NoPox dosing. Hopefully in the coming weeks I’ll beat that red crap back. At any rate, here are the results. 

 

 

 

 

 

Anybody with advice on the few pollutants such as silicates, aluminum, and such, or any levels that are out of range and should be better, please chime in!!! If it helps, I dose: 

MB 7

Part 1 and 2

Magnesium

Iodide

Vitamin C

Strontium

Nopox

Trace Elements

Phosguard and Carbon (once a month) for nutrients and impurity control

 

 

 

Also, here are the RODI results. Again the silicates

 

 

 

[DevilDuck]

Thats pretty high silicon. You may need to add a secondary DI cartridge after your primary DI that targets the silicate.

I haven't used this but heard good things about it:

SpectraPure® SilicaBuster™ DI Cartridge - Color-Indicating - SuperDI DI-SB-CI-10HC | SpectraPure

 

[ECLS Reefer]

1 hour ago, DevilDuck said:

Thats pretty high silicon. You may need to add a secondary DI cartridge after your primary DI that targets the silicate.

I haven't used this but heard good things about it:

SpectraPure® SilicaBuster™ DI Cartridge - Color-Indicating - SuperDI DI-SB-CI-10HC | SpectraPure

 

Hmmmm I’ll do some research. I don’t use the typical RODI system from BRS- I use a liquagen six stage system which has done well. Maybe they have something I can add in. 

[Murphs_Reef]

I get cyanobacteria when my phosphate bottoms out.

I know people will disagree with that off the bat. But that's what happens for me. I dose 1ml X 3 times a day phosphate via my dosing pump to keep it above 0.03 ideally 0.05. as soon as it goes lower than that... Cyano. Bring it up and the cyano starts to break up in the current and gets sucked into the overflow. 

[ECLS Reefer]

40 minutes ago, Murphych said:

I get cyanobacteria when my phosphate bottoms out.

I know people will disagree with that off the bat. But that's what happens for me. I dose 1ml X 3 times a day phosphate via my dosing pump to keep it above 0.03 ideally 0.05. as soon as it goes lower than that... Cyano. Bring it up and the cyano starts to break up in the current and gets sucked into the overflow. 

Yeah I had an LFS guy already tell me that high phosphates is what causes it, but I’ve both bottomed them out and let them rise and stuff doesn’t want to go away. I started dosing Biospira in the Evo and put carbon in with the phosguard again, and it’s finally starting to recede, but the cyano in the big tank is being stubborn. Which is why I sent off the ATI tests to begin with. It makes me wonder if the silicates are causing some of this problem. Need to change out my RODI filters, and I may try some Brightwell Purit for a bit, see if that helps. 
 

 

I feed every other day and the phosphates have never gotten to zero in the big tank. Too many poopin fish.

[Murphs_Reef]

How's the cyanobacteria? 

[ECLS Reefer]

23 minutes ago, Murphych said:

How's the cyanobacteria? 

Still there. Less in the 13g than in the 120g. It’ll seem like it’s getting better and then have a heavy build every afternoon. I’ve got the nitrates and phosphates way down, which scares me because I don’t want dinos, but I’m not sure what else to do. Dosed a smidge of chaeto grow today- there’s a ball of chaeto in the sump that’s not dead yet surprisingly. Hoping to get it going to out compete some stuff.

 

What really annoys and baffles me is the slow death of my euphyllia. They’re all just slowly disintegrating and I can’t figure out why. Not sure if the cyano is related to the problem. 

[Murphs_Reef]

Yeah I get it on and off in areas. It's low phosphate in my case so dosing just a ml of phosphate works to keep it at bay but if I stop for any reason it's back across the tank fully.

[ECLS Reefer]

2 minutes ago, Murphych said:

Yeah I get it on and off in areas. It's low phosphate in my case so dosing just a ml of phosphate works to keep it at bay but if I stop for any reason it's back across the tank fully.

I tried the high phosphate route it didn’t seem to help, so now I’m gonna try low phosphates and dose chaetogrow for the iron and see. All the parameters I check for have been consistent- I switched my RODI filters today to try and attenuate the silicates and tin problem. The only other thing I can think is that my pH has been 7.9 consistently for a while, and maybe if I bumped it up to over 8 it could help? Not sure. 

[ECLS Reefer]

You know this is one of those times that are just aggravating and frustrating because I don’t have the answer but because of work I don’t really have the time to figure it out either 😢. I have only today to do all the maintenance like testing, making water, replacing media, cleaning some stuff up AND house chores besides, before diving right back into back to back shifts 🤦🏽‍♀️ My poor tanks seem mad at me. 

[Murphs_Reef]

5 minutes ago, ECLS Reefer said:

You know this is one of those times that are just aggravating and frustrating because I don’t have the answer but because of work I don’t really have the time to figure it out either 😢. I have only today to do all the maintenance like testing, making water, replacing media, cleaning some stuff up AND house chores besides, before diving right back into back to back shifts 🤦🏽‍♀️ My poor tanks seem mad at me. 

Yeah it's frustrating. But your doing good work both tank and your job! 

[ECLS Reefer]

So, some updates:

 

Replaced filters on the RODI system, ordered new sediment filters as well so that I can get after changes more frequently. Hopefully this pulls all the contaminants like the silicon and tin out before getting to my tank. The TDS meter read 0 at any rate, so there's that. 

 

Have still be struggling with the red cyano in this tank, and I've been blaming the slow death of many of my euphyllia on it. I have lost probably 6 good pieces of euphyllia - hammers and torches - in the past month. It's been very frustrating to watch. Have also seen it kill a couple montipora pieces, and it daily annoys the GSP colonies. So I finally decided to try some Red Cyano RX I had on hand. I tried it in the Evo with stunning literally over night success, but of course, that hasn't been the case in this big tank. It's taken multiple days of dosing to get it to start receding. I have seen some success finally in the last two days, but I noticed the pH on the water starting to drop out. That led me to install a hand made CO2 scrubber (pretty proud of myself there). Ordered some color changing CO2 resin by IceCap, a little media container and hooked it up to the skimmer and BAM. pH has been coming back up to the 8's finally. Keeping a close eye on the tank and the red crap to make sure it stays gone. 

 

Due to spending more time at work and less time on the tanks, I have been rather worried about all of my fish and corals. After all, I'm the single parent here when it comes to them - the family enjoys them but they sure don't put any effort into their care. So I finally bit the proverbial bullet and bought a Neptune Apex system with the Trident testing module. I figure it will give me quite a bit of peace of mind while at work to be able to keep an eye on things. How to organize the absolute mess in the sump? No idea. But guess that will be my next major project. But at any rate, hoping to get this tank off the struggle bus and back to looking great again.

 

 

 

[ECLS Reefer]

October Update:

 

Still struggling a bit in this tank. I ended up dosing the tank with ChemiClean which seems to have *mostly* killed off the cyano, but now I have a very healthy GHA growth (wah wah wah waaaaaaahhh). The tangs and blennies help with that to some extent, but not all. I’ve taken to providing them less veggie handouts to encourage their grazing - so far I’ve noticed no weight loss on anyone’s part so they’re still eating something in there.

 

Some euphyllia is still melting away, but it was the ones already damaged and sickly. I snagged to fabulous wall hammer colonies from my favorite LFS and a huge green Goni colony to fill in some gaps, and they are doing fantastic. I did end up raising the nitrates and phosphates levels back up by dosing NeoPhos and feeding a bit more liberally, hoping to encourage the slow chaeto growth to speed up and salvage the remaining LPS in the tank. I think it’s working, if the GHA, zoa and mushroom explosions are any indicator. Hopefully this tank will be back on track to growth and glory soon.

 

Also picked up some great looking super fluffy RFAs at that same LFS and they were a pretty bunch. Got 5 new ones, all fairly large, and they’re already moving around looking for their happy places. They definitely bring color to the tank.

 

Pictures!!

 

 

 

Purple pincushion urchin

 

 

Mel the melanurus wrasse

 

 

Sunny the yellow coris wrasse

 

 

R’ullhor the flame angel

 

 

El Guapo the Powder Brown Tang

 

 

Billy Frechette the black ice clown harem queen

 

 

Dilly the black ice clown harem beta

 

 

Acanthophyllia

 

 

Green Goniopora

 

 

Pink spotted goby

 

 

Pink wall hammer colony

 

 

Pink wall hammer colony

 

 

Ultra red (depending on lighting) scolymia

 

 

Orange onyx oxide zoas

 

 

Magician zoas

 

 

Smiths damsels

 

 

 

Hawkeye the hawk fish

 

 

 

Pulsing Xenia 

 

 

Berry Manilow the purple tang

 

 

 

Pink RFA

 

 

 

 

The most hated guy in the tank - Huey the green Chromys

 

 

Little Jack in his Duncan 

 

 

New Incinerator goniopora 

 

 

 

The shy guy (coco worm)

 

[ECLS Reefer]

So, long time, no updates because frankly, my tank and I haven’t been getting along. It softly whispers “I hate you” from the den and I passive aggressively refuse to look at it longer than it takes to do necessary interventions. 
 

The GHA outbreak got so fluffy it would have made bald men jealous of the rate and fullness of growth. I killed all of that with a nice dose of Reef Flux, because hairless rocks are far more sexy. Before I did that, the pH started slipping from a nice stable 7.8-8, and now a month later still refuses to stay out of the more depressing 7.4-7.6 range. 7.8 on a good day. 
 

Fish wise things are mostly fair. Pretty sure my leopard wrasse did not make it through the whole maturation rituals of transitioning. Haven’t seen her/him in days. Last time I saw her/him she/he was very blue, but incredibly skinny. Growing up sucks. My goby died which was odd because he was a grumpy but stalwart eater, so possibly that was age. The mandarin disappeared weeks ago as well, so there was a small hit on livestock. Ep Guapo finally grew too big to get along with Berry Manilow and I took him to my favorite trusted LFS where he now swims happily in their giant tanks. He’s living the fat life. All the rest are happy and eating, including Patrick the non reef safe sump dwelling star fish. He was intended as a harlequin sacrifice but he’s just been so happy in there, keeping it clean that I couldn’t do it. No chop chop for him.

 

So, that’s the story of my ungrateful uncooperative 17 month old big tank. If anyone has ideas on why it wants to be chronically acidotic, let me know. It has so much flow- two gyres and an extra more movable wave pump, return nozzles aimed at the water line. A CO2 scrubber on the skimmer. A Reef Octopus INT 110 skimmer. Every second day filter sock changes. Stable kH in the 8-9 range. Stable Ca in the 470 range. I even have an air bubbler in the sump

as well, intended to be a makeshift algae scrubber. 
 

It’s been an incredibly annoying, frustrating month watching the pH sit low and laugh at me, and watching all of my high end corals slowly dissolve. Any guesses at causes or handy advice that might fix this, let me know. Because currently I just avoid looking at it and change the water about 50% every 2-5 days.
 

This hobby 😑

 

[Murphs_Reef]

To be fair... That's an update worth waiting for 

[ECLS Reefer]

Wow it’s been a few months already 😳 Time flies by these days with work being so hectic. The tank has been on autopilot, still recovering from whatever made the pH tank and killed off so many corals. Have been making slow coral additions and I have hope that it’s making a comeback. Actually have my first coral shipment coming tomorrow for the first time in like six months! The tank has looked so pathetic for so long I can’t wait to see it looking happier. 
 

The fish haven’t changed- still have the same compliment of troublemakers which have all been happier since I pulled the Powder Brown Tang out. I would like to get a new jawfish in there and see leopards in there someday, but at the moment I’m afraid to rock the boat with my fish squad. 

The Squad: 

Purple Tang

Starry Blenny

Ember Blenny

Melanurus Wrasse

Yellow Coris Wrasse

Black Ice Clowns X 4

Orange and White Oscellaris Clown 

Smiths Damsels x 3

Hawkfish

 

Recently had to break down and do some major equipment maintenance- pulled and cleaned the skimmer and it’s pump, pulled and cleaned the UV light pump, and replaced the return pump with a new, larger pump. Now the pH seems to be holding a lot more steady with the skimmer working appropriately and pulling through the CO2 skimmer. 
 

Have had to start keeping chocolate stars in the sump for the future use of the harlequin in my Evo. He’s a voracious eater and the LFS I usually get asterina from is dropping its saltwater business for fresh only. So at the moment there’s three chocolates and one red knobby star in there and surprisingly all doing well. I really wish I could put the red knobby guy up top but he would probably eat things he should not, much like my 4month old Aussie pup. I hate the thought that I must start chopping legs but the harlequin is the husbands favorite creature and so I must satisfy the little piggy. 
 

At any rate, here’s to a brighter future going forward and hopefully some good coral growth. 

Mr Sand

 

Getting up in Mr Sands business 

 

New acan colony

 

Billy Frechette

 

The Black Fish

 

Dilly

 

Hammer colony

 

 

Berry Manilow praisin the lawd!

 

Mel the Melanurus 

 

Fatty Lumpkin the Smith Damsel

 

Jack

 

Jack in his Elegance

 

You don’t know Jack (he says back off his elegance)

 

 

 

Had to pop in a shot of Moose

 

Those eyes 👀 

[mitten_reef]

5 minutes ago, ECLS Reefer said:

Wow it’s been a few months already 😳 Time flies by these days with work being so hectic. The tank has been on autopilot, still recovering from whatever made the pH tank and killed off so many corals. Have been making slow coral additions and I have hope that it’s making a comeback. Actually have my first coral shipment coming tomorrow for the first time in like six months! The tank has looked so pathetic for so long I can’t wait to see it looking happier. 
 

The fish haven’t changed- still have the same compliment of troublemakers which have all been happier since I pulled the Powder Brown Tang out. I would like to get a new jawfish in there and see leopards in there someday, but at the moment I’m afraid to rock the boat with my fish squad. 

The Squad: 

Purple Tang

Starry Blenny

Ember Blenny

Melanurus Wrasse

Yellow Coris Wrasse

Black Ice Clowns X 4

Orange and White Oscellaris Clown 

Smiths Damsels x 3

Hawkfish

 

Recently had to break down and do some major equipment maintenance- pulled and cleaned the skimmer and it’s pump, pulled and cleaned the UV light pump, and replaced the return pump with a new, larger pump. Now the pH seems to be holding a lot more steady with the skimmer working appropriately and pulling through the CO2 skimmer. 
 

Have had to start keeping chocolate stars in the sump for the future use of the harlequin in my Evo. He’s a voracious eater and the LFS I usually get asterina from is dropping its saltwater business for fresh only. So at the moment there’s three chocolates and one red knobby star in there and surprisingly all doing well. I really wish I could put the red knobby guy up top but he would probably eat things he should not, much like my 4month old Aussie pup. I hate the thought that I must start chopping legs but the harlequin is the husbands favorite creature and so I must satisfy the little piggy. 
 

At any rate, here’s to a brighter future going forward and hopefully some good coral growth. 

Mr Sand

 

Getting up in Mr Sands business 

 

New acan colony

 

Billy Frechette

 

The Black Fish

 

Dilly

 

Hammer colony

 

 

Berry Manilow praisin the lawd!

 

Mel the Melanurus 

 

Fatty Lumpkin the Smith Damsel

 

Jack

 

Jack in his Elegance

 

You don’t know Jack (he says back off his elegance)

 

 

 

Had to pop in a shot of Moose

 

Those eyes 👀 

your pics are so much sharper on here than on IG.  some great shots of the fishies.  

[debbeach13]

Glad to hear you were just busy. Looks pretty happy now. I hope everyone is well. Tell Moose we all say Hi.