Kimber's Flowering Lagoon - We have babies!!

[kimberbee]

FTS:

11.29.20

 

12.30.20

 

Tank:

Innovative Marine Lagoon 25 with stock return (211gph)

Equipment:
InTank media basket (x2) with filter floss, Chemi-pure Blue Nano (x2), and Substrat Pro (~1 cup)
Finnex Titanium 150w heater (HMX 150S)
AutoAqua Smart ATO
Nanobox Duo
Digital thermometer
Just over 20lbs Carib-Sea Fiji Pink sand
ReefCleaners dry rock (in use since 2015)

 

Corals/Inverts:
Assorted Rock Flower Anemones, x12
Grube's gorgonian
Purple Sea Rod gorgonian
Silver/Spiny gorgonian
Purple plating sponge

Orange plate coral

Green plate coral
Assorted snails (florida cerith, nerite, dwarf cerith, bumblebee)

Fish:
Andromeda (~5yr old DaVinci clownfish)

 

The rock and many of the inhabitants of this reef have been with me since 2015. You can read my first thread HERE. I then moved everything into a 10 gallon tank that won TOTM in 2017. I kept the IM10 for a while, then moved everything back to an IM20, before moving everything into the 25 gallon that it's in today. 

[kimberbee]

Day 1: Everything seems to have made the transfer well. Just in case, I knocked the Duo down about 10%. Even the gorgonian frags I shoved into the sand are open and happy. 

 

I definitely want to add more flow to this tank with an rw-4, but I'm keeping my hands out for a few more days. 

 

This afternoon my goal is to get the glass cleaned up (I dripped some) and to wipe the lid clean. I need to tighen the lid screen a bit too, it's not quite taught from when one of the kittens jumped on it. I'm very lucky the screen held in place and the naughty kitten didn't go swimming!!

[vlangel]

Yeah kimber, a new tank!  I like!

[A.m.P]

Had to comment on those gorgeous RFA's and that enormous tree on the right, what an awesome concept for a system theme. 

Excited to watch things continue growing out, glad the transfers seem to have gone more smoothly this time, hope it stays that way for you.

[kimberbee]

Day 2: RFAs were looking happy but a little stretchy. I bumped the lights back up a little today. 

 

I forgot that this tank is one inch shallower than the 20 gallon. I'm going to have to frag more gorgonians. 🙄

 

 

 

[spectra]

Looks good! 

[kimberbee]

Well, the good news is that I don't have to do water changes in this tank for a bit...

 

The bad news is that phosphates and nitrates are at 0, and I no longer think it's a diatom issue going on with my sand. 

😬

 

The plan is to remove the Chemipure Blue and start feeding a little bit more. I don't want to make too many changes at once. I'll give it a few days to see how it goes. I'll need to check Ca, Alk, and Mg to make sure those don't get too low without water changes. 

 

At least nothing seems really bothered by the "dirty" sand. 🤷‍♀️

[kimberbee]

Day 4: I did a round of testing today...

 

Alk: 7.7

Ca: 410

Mg: 1200

Phos: 0

Nit: 0

 

Chemipure has been removed and replaced with straight activated carbon. I'll start dosing calcium and alkalinity, since those numbers are on the low side, and I won't be doing water changes for a while. I'm also going to try increasing feeding from 2x/wk to 3x. 

[kimberbee]

Week 4: Tank is settling in well, though I suspect I have dinos running rampant all over my sand bed. It's VERY rusty colored. I was able to rule out cyano with a hydrogen peroxide test, but I don't really want to spend the money on a microscope to confirm just yet. I've been testing every 5-7 days (while dosing) and my phosphates and nitrates have been at 0 for the past month. I just ran a whole set of tests this afternoon:

 

Alk: 8.1

Ca: 420

Mg: 1280

Phos: 0

Nit: 0

Ph: 8.24

 

I have been dosing ESV A (1.5ml) and B (1.5ml) with a few adjustments here and there, but these numbers have stayed steady enough for my liking. 

 

I need to consider options for raising nitrates and phosphates, since it's clear that no water changes, and more feeding isn't helping at all. We've had to cut our spending by a huge amount, and I was hoping to do things naturally instead of paying for additional chemicals/supplements/additives to put in the tank. 

 

FTS:

[A.m.P]

Love the purple hue of your lights, the spots where it congeals a bit does kinda look like dino, have you tried the windowsill test?
Strain some through a paper towel, stir it up, then set it by some light and see if it re-congeals?

[kimberbee]

34 minutes ago, A.m.P said:

Strain some through a paper towel, stir it up, then set it by some light and see if it re-congeals?

I tried with a coffee filter, but maybe it was too fine of a filter? There was basically nothing in the water after straining. I can give it a try in a few days - I just scraped the glass and stirred the sand, so it's cleaner... for now. 

[Hami]

Do your RFA’s eat very readily? Mine just close up whenever I put food around/on them, but they don’t take the food. They end up letting it roll off.

[kimberbee]

2 minutes ago, Hami said:

Do your RFA’s eat very readily? Mine just close up whenever I put food around/on them, but they don’t take the food. They end up letting it roll off.

What types of food are you using, and how long have you had them? When they are new to my tank, they always seem to need time to get used to a new food. 

 

Try every 2-3 days to feed them just a little. I've fed all kinds of food - pellets, frozen, particle, and eventually they'll eat just about anything. Some will say they never spot feed their anemones, and other people will say every few days. 

[Hami]

3 minutes ago, kimberbee said:

What types of food are you using, and how long have you had them? When they are new to my tank, they always seem to need time to get used to a new food. 

 

Try every 2-3 days to feed them just a little. I've fed all kinds of food - pellets, frozen, particle, and eventually they'll eat just about anything. Some will say they never spot feed their anemones, and other people will say every few days. 

I have tried frozen and pellets... I got them last week on Monday. 

[A.m.P]

If nothing made it through a paper towel it's probably not dino's, or if it is it's very, very large cell amphi. Could try just not filtering them at all and seeing what happens, sounds like a weird algae of one form or another.

 

Rust doesn't really scream dino's to me, every time I've seen them under blues they're this distinctly-wrong and alien looking brown-orange. Something about the hue and translucency just doesn't look "right", if that makes sense.

[kimberbee]

Alright, tried to collect some junk and let it sit. I didn't filter it first because last time I did that, everything filtered out. 

 

1. Freshly collected from the sand and glass

 

2. Stirred the fk out of it

 

3. About an hour later it looks a bit snotty

 

It is slightly more "brown" than "rust" colored, but that must be my lights. In my tanks it definitely has an orange-y color and does NOT look snotty like dinos typically do. Under my desk lamp it's a dark/light brown depending on how big the clumps are.

[A.m.P]

Sounds and looks like it could be dino's, if they didn't make it through a filter they're probably large cell, which also explains why they aren't snotty and look darker.

[kimberbee]

I have babies!!

 

 

I stared into the tank for about 20 minutes and kept counting more and more. I got up to 13, and called it quits. I'm sure there are more, but I'm also sure they won't all survive. Going to see if I can find recommendations for what to feed them so they can grow big and strong. 

[debbeach13]

Fantastic news!

 

[kimberbee]

Little bit better picture. They are farther back in the tank and a bit hard to photograph.