Amp's 35 Breeder

[A.m.P]

Amp's 35 Breeder

 

So after nearly a year of grabbing ebay deals, three different leaking 40 breeder tanks, and accumulating a bunch of supplies I've managed to scrape-together and finish an upgrade for the 20 long.

                The older system had been struggling for over a year, dino's, monti eating nudi's, skeletal erosion band disease... A clownfish who has been through two two-month treatments of General Cure food, a month of fenbendazole food, too many two-week treatments of both to count, multiple mag-sulfate food courses and still has a mixture of normal-movements, thin stringy movements, and white casing movements.

A pair of Rolland damsels which spawned only for the male to almost kill the female overnight in response. A year old maxima killed by a corallimorph relocation attempt... Periods of growth followed by mysterious recession, nutrient swings, a skimmer which constantly tried to perform auto-water changes... And plain old too-little space. I'd wanted a lagoon-style system to begin with, so I set out to making one.

 

There's technically a mythical tank-size, a "30 breeder", produced by a couple of manufacturers, but it's almost impossible to actually find or buy one, instead I decided to wait for a $ per gallon sale and make my own.

I really don't need the extra height of a standard 40 breeder, fish don't need it and corals getting that tall need to be trimmed anyway. I much prefer using the extra air for the light, plus smaller, easier waterchanges, and I can now have some serious wave action (I may build a standing-wave generator out of a spaghetti tupperware container and the Jebao XD).

                -The baffle is jury-rigged an mis-measured (I decided to make it 35 instead of 32 gallons last-minute)

                -The skimmer was just a K-100 body I grabbed for next-to-nothing, cleaned-up and bought a new couple pumps for 

                -The light is the same used 120w Maxspect I bought and had refurbished for just a touch over the price of a prime HD (but now with diffuser panels backed with foil to keep light from spilling into the room)

                -Pump is an old sicce fountain pump (w/ 6-foot head before flow loss to 200 gph?) I grabbed on ebay for $10 new

                -The power heads are; the same KPS, and a new Jebao sdw-5 on Else mode

                -Cool random flow generator, these accelerators are awesome love it so far

                -Two 50W Finnex Titanium heaters on an Inkbird

                -A C02 Scrubber from BRS
                -Had some lovely glass panels made as a cover by a local glass shop, they're pretty-thick but you don't actually lose much more light doubling the thickness of float glass anyway

                -Oh and I made a little square from diffuser panel to eliminate any possibility of fish jumping out

 

[WV Reefer]

20 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

Amp's 35 Breeder

 

So after nearly a year of grabbing ebay deals, three different leaking 40 breeder tanks, and accumulating a bunch of supplies I've managed to scrape-together and finish an upgrade for the 20 long.
 

Yay! 😀

[A.m.P]

Just now, WV Reefer said:

Yay! 😀

Lol, still working on the OP XD
Dumb phone made the topic before I was done.

[A.m.P]

So, first bit of interesting news, during the process of swapping things out the big perc decided to squeeze her chubby cheeks right out the top of the breeder box she'd been in. But it seems having more space after all that time apart was exactly what she needed and the two clowns are getting along fine again. 

            -I still have no idea what she has going on with her GI system, she's been in metro and prazi(twice) medicated water, had at least 6 courses of General-cure food (from two weeks to a month in length), at least 4 courses of fenbendazole (one for a month, two week-long stints, one two-week stint), and a handful of epsom salt food treatments... She still bounces freely-between normal movements and stringy movements, others are just white mucus capsules as if she'd not eaten in a while.
           -She eats fine, looks fine, acts like a crazy freaking little spazz, but always has. I honestly have no Idea at all, maybe @Humblefish has come across something similar, but I'm totally stumped and down to either levamisole or chloroquine. At this point I'm starting to suspect she may just have a damaged GI tract or some kind of chronic inflammation.

 

 

 

Her Occy boy toy is looking great, still a wonderful personality and joy to watch. I'm glad they're back together because the perc is really, really hard to get eating when she's by herself.

 

[A.m.P]

Moving on to losses, essentially all branching monti's died very quickly from the band erosion disease, oddly enough the halo and the mind-trick seem totally-immune and are looking fine. 

In fact, clumsy monkey that I've become, I managed to shatter the mind-trick during the transfer and now have three growing frags of it (already healed over the skeleton).

 

The Halo just always looks pouty, it grows a tiny bit in bursts, but any little change browns it out and halts growth for a few weeks.

 

 

The litho chalice is bright tangerine orange and growing steadily, but the lepto has been browned out since the transfer.
I'm hoping it perks back up as I'm fairly certain it's a a lava flow lepto and it really was a pretty animal with a rapid growth-rate.
The Bravo favia is also still hanging-on and regrowing after the bizarre infection and RTN.

 

I also managed to superglue my glove to the tricolor acro and tear darn-near half its' tissue off during the transfer. However it's apparently unfazed, growing, and happy a week later.

 

Worth mentioning I had an insane precipitation event during the transfer, alk dropped to 6 and Calcium was over 600 ppm, I managed to correct it over the course of two-days, by raising P04, dosing nitrate/ mictrobacter, and adding some super-alkaline water in small water-changes, but man it scared the heck out of me. 

EDIT: And magnesium, I dosed quite allot of magnesium.

Some folks seem to get caught fighting the process for weeks, I got really, really lucky.

[A.m.P]

A few shots of the new scape and old, still growing animals.

 

 

 

 

 

DrAgOnS bReAtH iS a SlOw GrOwEr

 

 

Dragons breath and a relatively-new addition I Finally found a Pink nepthea frag at a price I was willing to settle for, still too much, but it's absolutely beautiful.

 

Really, for $3, the dragon's breath is pretty much the best purchase I've made in either system and I love the way it looks as a backdrop to the scape.

 

(If you look really closely you can see a very-upset, long-polyp green tyree toadstool peaking out over the dense forest of algae)

 

Stunning Titanium-Blue polyps on the Stellar Stylophora and a happy and fuzzy, but slow growing, Stylocoeneilla, also my two Mind trick... "Frags".

 

 

Another new addition is a purple candelabra Gorgonian, fluffed out within five minutes of being put in the tank (but I think it's in a bit too much flow XD)

 

 

Peninsula-view of the tank

 

 

 

[A.m.P]

Newcomer, a rainbow lobo (Acanthastrea pachysepta?) brain, I really hope I can keep it happy. Going to attempt feedings with AB + Benereef, but Doc Whiskers is a cleaner shrimp sooo... 

 

 

A few more random, hasty and iffy-looking shots. I'll need to get the actual camera out and take some shots for both of my journals in the next few days.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading through my messy transfer update, I'm not incredibly good at these lol...

[Humblefish]

@Amphrites Do the stools alternate between brown and white on a pretty regular basis? If so, I suspect it is just intestinal irritation. When a fish has intestinal worms or internal flagellates in their GI tract the white stringy poo stays pretty consistent.

[A.m.P]

20 minutes ago, Humblefish said:

@Amphrites Do the stools alternate between brown and white on a pretty regular basis? If so, I suspect it is just intestinal irritation. When a fish has intestinal worms or internal flagellates in their GI tract the white stringy poo stays pretty consistent.

It's definitely alternating, she seems to have trouble with movements to begin with, sometimes its' mostly undigested, almost-whole, pellets, other times somewhat normal but still thin and kind of encased in a clear mucus, other times it's a "normal" sized and time-spent movement that's white and not stringy, and then every couple days it's stringy.
Changing her diet (only have experience changing it to medicated food [which is also a different set of pellet foods]) almost immediately -we're talking day one- causes a normal movement, and it will stay normal for a few days, and then it will go back to alternating different stool-types.
The strangest part is that she frequently has all three movement types on the same day, in the morning a normal bit or mostly-undigested pellets, then in the evening -after eating-  another normalish one (or stringy/clumpy and white) and then right before bedding down she'll frequently (every third or fourth day) have a difficult stringy movement which causes her to be visibly somewhat distressed (she'll fuss at her mate during).

 

She also never spread it to the rolland's damsels in the tank with her for 6 months, but it's hard to say with her mate - he's pretty consistently normal but has intermittent stringy-movements and they both came from the same LFS. At first I suspected some kind of exceedingly-resilient parasite in their system, but now I'm wondering if it's just less-than-stellar local breeding practices and typical luck on my end.

Really appreciate the help because I'm beyond clueless and google has had nothing to offer in return for a few multi-hour excursions.

[Tired]

Could you get another type of non-medicated pellet food, switch back and forth between the two every couple days, and see if that produces the same normal-digestion effect and keeps it going? It does sound kinda like some sort of physical issue, rather than a parasite, since it's been so stubborn. Which makes me think the thing to do would be just try to reduce the effects.

[A.m.P]

Picky eater refuses to eat beef heart and mysis, and my sustainable aquatic pellets are now too small for her big mouth XD

Something's obviously wrong because she almost never passes "large movements", they're almost always somewhat crinkled or thin (even if normal in coloration they're obviously tied up with excess mucus and narrow from inflammation), same goes for her mate (to a lesser extent), but the intermittent nature, lack of interspecies-spread, and fairly normal growth/behavior (plus vibrant coloration) makes me think it's a virus or bacteria causing some kind of fish IBS.

 

It was probably a bit rude to tag Humblefish, but at the time it seemed like a good idea as they just have far more experience to draw from.

 

Thanks for the tip, I may try to vary their diet a bit more and see if it helps.

[Humblefish]

53 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

It was probably a bit rude to tag Humblefish, but at the time it seemed like a good idea as they just have far more experience to draw from.

Its all good; I'm here to help. :)

 

It almost sounds like she's just constipated a lot, and the medications are serving as a laxative. Have you ever tried just sprinkling a little Epsom salt in her food? Or some peeled boiled green peas to help with fiber intake?

 

Are the white stools always stringy or sometimes thick??

[A.m.P]

1 hour ago, Humblefish said:

Its all good; I'm here to help. 🙂

 

It almost sounds like she's just constipated a lot, and the medications are serving as a laxative. Have you ever tried just sprinkling a little Epsom salt in her food? Or some peeled boiled green peas to help with fiber intake?

 

Are the white stools always stringy or sometimes thick??

Sometimes they're thicker and not stringy or long at-all, but neither ever really have the "full-colon" kind of movement one-way or another (always at least somewhat narrow, mucus-bound and more frequent than I'd expect).
I've tried epsom salt as a post-medicated treatment and as a de-wormer a few times, but never really maintained it in a feeding-regimen for more than a week or so.

[A.m.P]

Some promised "better" photos, the sensor artifacting bugs me, I've also committed a cardinal lighting sin in this system [my lighting is purple, not blue]. 

 

Rainbow Lobo - I really hope this animal prefers higher-light, medium-flow, and high-nutrients, because I have nothing else to offer it lol. It sure is gorgeous though...

 

 

[A.m.P]

Maybe technically Acanthastrea pachysepta?

 

The little Stylo I've almost accidentally killed a dozen times still forgiving and doing its' own thing.

 

 

This Favia grew great, died overnight, and is now slowly coming back from whatever bacterial infection it had. Also Baron is adorable and beautiful.

 

 

[A.m.P]

This Halo Monti always ends up in an impossible spot to photograph...

 

 

 

Mind-Trick lookin' good

 

 

 

[A.m.P]

Baron lookin' good too

 

 

The Stellar Stylo is looking great, it's in a nice high-light area, fantastic for viewing but apparently not-great for photos.

 

 

 

My favorite, and most accurate, shot

 

 

Some love for the Blasto's

 

 

 

Love this yellow-striped Trumpet, wish it would split or grow a bit quicker, but as long as it's big and inflated I can't really complain.

 

[A.m.P]

This orange Litho is just so, so bright. (I'm going to start just calling this a tangerine Psammo)

 

 

And this Lepto is just so, so upset XD

 

 

It has been kind of difficult to keep this shrimp well-fed after the transfer, poor things stuggles on the bare-bottom tank, so I've been trying to target feed it with a baster

 

 

Just a nice shot looking-down the back of the tank

 

 

The, hopefully recovering, tri-color acro has really gotten' its' polyp extension back, but you can certainly see where I ripped it

 

 

Really excited to watch this purple candelabra grow out, it's in a spot where it intermittently get's just about blown-level and I think I'm going to see how that plays out.

 

 

Fresh-cut Toadstool peaking-out from behind the Dragons Breath Forest

 

 

A wide, context-shot of the back side of the system

 

 

And finally one of, if not my all-time, favorite corals Pink Nepthea. I'm really happy to have finally found a frag and very excited to watch it color-up and hopefully thrive.

The polyps are incredible, the movement is beautiful and the color is just so vibrant... Plus those Sclerites are just cool as heck.

 

 

Thanks for looking/reading ^_^

[A.m.P]

A few quick and easy pixel snaps from this morning, I now realize that almost all of the macro shots were somewhat out of focus, but they looked perfectly in-focus on my end before I uploaded them. Either my eyes/brain were very broken that day, or some really, really weird compression artifacting went down. Probably both, but I wonder if it's from cropping them with windows instead of using the native-software.

The Pachysepta/Lobo is SO fluffy after being taken off the rock I glued it to.

 

 

I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on this little spazz for any erratic swimming or odd behavior in case of accidental quarantine cross-contamination. The clown which constantly, agitatedly slams herself into silicone, scoots along the bottom of the tank, and peeks up over the rim to check on what's going outside the tank. This crazy furtive little dorkfish... Oiy...

 

Tyree Toadstool looking much happier (but still much shorter than the dragons breath)

 

Tricolor Acro still looking good after its' injury

 

Candelabra gorg looking extra-fluffy, guess it really likes being tossed-around in the current

 

The blasto's have adapted really-well to high-flow life

 

And a cool little back-of-reef shot with Doc Whiskers centerstage

[WV Reefer]

On 8/29/2020 at 1:54 PM, Amphrites said:

This orange Litho is just so, so bright. (I'm going to start just calling this a tangerine Psammo)

 

 

And this Lepto is just so, so upset XD

 

 

It has been kind of difficult to keep this shrimp well-fed after the transfer, poor things stuggles on the bare-bottom tank, so I've been trying to target feed it with a baster

 

 

Just a nice shot looking-down the back of the tank

 

 

The, hopefully recovering, tri-color acro has really gotten' its' polyp extension back, but you can certainly see where I ripped it

 

 

Really excited to watch this purple candelabra grow out, it's in a spot where it intermittently get's just about blown-level and I think I'm going to see how that plays out.

 

 

Fresh-cut Toadstool peaking-out from behind the Dragons Breath Forest

 

 

A wide, context-shot of the back side of the system

 

 

And finally one of, if not my all-time, favorite corals Pink Nepthea. I'm really happy to have finally found a frag and very excited to watch it color-up and hopefully thrive.

The polyps are incredible, the movement is beautiful and the color is just so vibrant... Plus those Sclerites are just cool as heck.

 

 

Thanks for looking/reading ^_^

The Nepthea looks nice.  Mine is about 7” tall now when stretched out and I love it. 
 

Also, I’ve said this before but why are Stylocoeniella not more popular? My green one is one of my favorites. 

[A.m.P]

14 minutes ago, WV Reefer said:

The Nepthea looks nice.  Mine is about 7” tall now when stretched out and I love it. 
 

Also, I’ve said this before but why are Stylocoeniella not more popular? My green one is one of my favorites. 

I don't think they photograph well honestly. They look best when they're super-fuzzy and extended, but it's hard to capture that aesthetic with a still-shot. In motion you can see the bright, reflective base, the metallic centers of the polyps, and the cool translucent stalks. In still top-downs they tend to just look kind of like a bright-encruster, at that point I think most folks just pass it for monti's or animals with more "shape" to them.

The only reason my shots came out looking "pretty-good" is because they're like a weird 45 degree angle with the flow blowing the polyps away from the camera, all just dumb luck, but the coral has never looked better and never been easier to photograph XD

Been super-happy with mine, even though it grows crazy slow in my systems, it's one of my wife's favorites and the base looks "irish-spring bottle green" in person, really unique. 

[A.m.P]

Well, the smaller clown was coughing, head shaking, and flashing all day, neither had an appetite.
Looks like the tank is going to be fishless until the 16th of October.

[A.m.P]

Here are a few FTS, weird to see the tank without fish.

 

 

[Break]

Dig the barebottom! Sorry to hear about the fish ☹️

[A.m.P]

29 minutes ago, Break said:

Dig the barebottom! Sorry to hear about the fish ☹️

They're certainly not too happy about the situation either, the little occy hasn't quite figured out how to eat with so little headroom yet.
Past the first 48 hours, where they both went through a surprisingly-sudden outbreak of visible velvet and heavy-breathing, they're both doing just-fine. 
The little basslet is looking great and eating like a pig now as well, just gotta' find a way to not botch the QT process.