Adventures in keeping a SPS reef

[Llorgon]

Some tank updates for all those interested. The clowns are doing well and growing, not quickly, but bigger than when I got them. The yellow Tang is doing well, still skittish, but has put on some weight which is nice.

 

Corals are a bit of a mixed bag. Seeing growth with the green one on the left as well as the forest fire and staghorn. The rest don't seem to be growing at all.

 

I think I'm going to need a bigger ato reservoir. Since changing out the glass tops, I'm filling up every 3 days.

 

Been seeing some tufts of gha in the display so I've been trying to stay on top of that.

 

Did some water testing last night:

Alk: 8.6

Cal: 450

Nitrate: 0

Phosphate: 0

 

I expected nitrate and phosphate to be higher since I've been feeding twice a day. I have noticed less gha growth in the refugium.

 

[Llorgon]

Had a long nose hawkfish delivered yesterday. Got it in the QT tank, hasn't eaten so far. Hopefully it will take some mysis tonight.

[Llorgon]

Hawkfish ate mysis tonight! So that's a good sign. 

 

I also did a water change on the qt tank to suck up any uneaten food from last night/today.

 

This is my first time quarantining a fish. Anything specific I should be looking for? I don't have easy access to any medication here in Canada.

[Llorgon]

Long nose hawk is still doing well in qt. Wife has named him Gary. Seen him poop and it looks normal or at least not white. Eats everything now. Even ate pellets last night. Fingers crossed he keeps doing well!

 

[TheKleinReef]

i love those fish. such a cool personality.

[Llorgon]

This guy seems to have a good personality as well. Will eat from my hand and goes to a higher perch when I come to the tank.

 

I'm not sure how long to QT for. It's not like I can easily get any meds if I need them. He seems to be healthy so far. I guess I will wait at least a week and go from there.

[Llorgon]

Picked up a few more frags this weekend from a local reefer. Unfortunately, I can't remember the names of all of them.

 

[Llorgon]

For the second time I've had to re glue the one green slimer frag. Really hoping it will encrust on the rock soon.

[Llorgon]

I've been having some issues with my pac man frag. It doesn't seem to want to colour up at all. The skin is pale and the ends aren't very green. Doesn't look green at all during the day, but a bit of glow under the blues. I tested my water and nitrate and phosphate are reading 0. So I am hoping that is the issue. I thought I was feeding on the heavy side, but I had noticed the gha in the refugium is disappearing although I'm getting new tuffs of it in the display.

 

Params are:

Alk: 8.9

Cal: 430

Mag: 1450

Nitrate: 0

Phosphate: 0

[Llorgon]

So I tried moving the pacman frag a bit lower down in the tank since the more I look at it the more it seems kind of bleached. It's kind of close to the green montipora, but if it colours up there I know about the level of light it likes and I can move it further away.

 

I'm also having issues with keeping the starburst monti on the back wall. The glue just doesn't seem to be holding well. Maybe not enough contact points. Any tips on keeping it stuck on there?

[A.m.P]

Gorilla super glue gel l+ epoxy + gorilla glue and really squish it on and rub it around to make sure the glue actually makes contact instead of forming a film.

Definitely want detectable nutrients.
You should look into H202 dips on humblefish's website, a single dip/bath before entry is better than nothing.

[Llorgon]

14 hours ago, A.m.P said:

Gorilla super glue gel l+ epoxy + gorilla glue and really squish it on and rub it around to make sure the glue actually makes contact instead of forming a film.

Definitely want detectable nutrients.
You should look into H202 dips on humblefish's website, a single dip/bath before entry is better than nothing.

I didn't have any epoxy readily available so I cut the stem off a frag plug, glued the monti to the plug and the plug to the wall. Hopefully that works. If not, I'll order some epoxy and try that.

I haven't heard of using H202 to dip fish. That's an interesting site. Lots of good info on there. It is better than nothing. That's the hard part about being in Canada. The meds are banned so super hard to get any of them.

[Llorgon]

Here is the monti on the back wall. Not as nice looking without the frag plug, but hopefully it stays.

 

The other SPS that I got are coming along and starting to colour up. I'm really just having issues with that pacman frag.

[Llorgon]

Attempt number 3 at mounting the monti to the back wall.

 

Glued some epoxy to the wall and epoxy/glue to the frag plug. Hopefully it sticks this time!

[Llorgon]

A few new things to report here. 

 

The monti on the back wall fell off again. I used the last of my coral glue to stick it back on there. Maybe it's just not destined to be on the wall.

 

Fish are doing well and the long nose hawk is slowly starting to fatten up. Corals are good for the most part. Seeing a bit of growth on most. Some colours have faded a bit on a few, but I'm seeing some green on the forest fire Digi!

 

I also picked up some euphyllia fr a fellow reefer who was getting rid of all his euphyllia. The biggest of them is about softball size.

 

I finally finished off the box of rpm salt and I am now switching over to red sea coral program. 

 

I did my first water change with the red sea salt and mixed up the calcium, alkalinity and magnesium. When I poured everything into the dosing containers, the alkalinity and magnesium had a lot of sediment at the bottom. I must not have mixed it enough.

 

I'm hoping that the red sea program will help with some trace elements I've been low on and improve colours.

 

[Llorgon]

Been quite awhile since I updated. It's been a bit of a crazy last couple months. Near the end of March I got laid off in a mass layoff. Luckily the tech market is hot right now so I was able to find a job in a week and took 3 weeks off.

 

As for the tank, it's been a bit neglected the last couple weeks. Been on a couple camping trips and ran out of salt so this weekend was the first water change in a few weeks.

 

Overall the tank is doing pretty well. I'm seeing some growth on the SPS, but I'm not getting good colour. Maybe it just takes time?

 

I did pick up a reef dose doser. So far, no complaints. It was easy to setup and pretty accurate. I'm dosing 12ml ALK, 3ml cal and no mag right now. I tested my water yesterday for the first time in a couple weeks. I had no movement in cal and mag, ALK had dropped so I bumped it up from 9 to 12ml a day.

 

I feel I'm not utilizing my refugium to it's full potential. I added some macro algae about a month and a half ago and I haven't seen much growth at all. I also get a bit of a film on top of the algae. I have my refugium lights go on opposite of the display tank. Any advice on improving the refugium area is welcome.

[Llorgon]

Got a few new additions to the tank. Couple nice coral pieces and a blue eye kole tang.

 

I was hesitant about the tang since I already have a yellow tang, but I got it from a friend who was shutting his tank down and it was the last fish. So far it seems to be doing well and has buddied up with the yellow tang. I'll keep an eye on them and see how it goes. It probably should have a bigger tank...

 

Corals are doing alright, noticed my elkhorn and forest fire haven't been happy the last 2 days. I tested the water and everything is in normal parameters. So I'm not sure what is going on. The Elkhorn is usually the first to show signs something is off so I'm going to keep an eye on it.

 

My nitrates were low the last time I tested my water for the last week I've been dosing a couple caps of nitrate to slowly bring it up. I've noticed colours in the corals improving since I started the dosing.

 

I've been having some trouble getting my magnesium supplement to mix up well. I'm using red sea magnesium powder and it always seems to have half an inch of unmixed powder at the bottom. I heated my water before mixing and used the kitchen aid to mix it for a good 15 mins and still didn't all mix in...

 

Overall the tank is looking a bit ugly at the moment. Dealing with cyano and mystery gold/yellow algae type stuff on the rocks.

[Llorgon]

I did my regular 15g water change on Saturday. I also cleaned the skimmer cup, replaced filter floss and got a new ATO reservoir. The ATO reservoir is a food safe/grade dog food container that I washed out with vinegar and water.

 

Sunday: All the corals looking the same, but a bit less cyano so I was happy.

 

Sunday night comes around and in the span of an hour my pacman frag completely RTN and a few other frags have gone white at the base. Literally looked at the tank after dinner, walked the dog and came back to this! I added some carbon, but really not sure what else to do or the cause.

 

I checked the temp, salinity and all the basic params and no change from when I tested them before the water change on Saturday.

 

On the plus side, there doesn't seem to be any more coral tissue lost this morning.

[Llorgon]

Well I think I found my issue. I had 0 nitrates for the last week and a bit I was dosing nitrates to help bring them up. Got them up a bit higher than I wanted, but then phosphate bottomed out. Which is probably what caused the RTN of the pacman.

After doing more thorough and less rushed/panic testing I know have detectable nitrates and phosphates.

 

Params as of last night:

Temp: 78
Salinity: 1.026
Alk: 8.1
Cal: 420
Mag: 1230
Nitrate: 20
Phosphate: 0.22

 

I had a big jump in Alk from Sunday to Monday. I'm guessing growth has stopped/significantly slowed down. When I test tonight, if it's gone up by another 1dkh I will cut my dosing in half.

 

Currently my forest fire isn't looking great, elkhorn might not make it, montipora has significant bleaching and one other sps that I can't remember the name of has lost tissue at the base. Things don't seem to be getting worse though so that's good I guess.

 

My slight cyano problem has become much worse and is taking over most of the rocks and a bunch of the sandbed.

 

Of course I leave for vacation on thursday and will be gone a bit over a week. No idea what the tank will look like when I get back, but if cyano takes over I'm bracing for the worst.

 

Should I do another water change before leaving or just let things be and see if they even themselves out?

[Reefkid88]

Man this stinks. I would just let things be while you are on vacation. Worst case,sps die best case they all bounce back,honestly. 

[Llorgon]

34 minutes ago, Reefkid88 said:

Man this stinks. I would just let things be while you are on vacation. Worst case,sps die best case they all bounce back,honestly. 

That's probably a safe bet. I'll monitor params this week and hopefully get things stable for while I'm away. I'm surprised more of the SPS aren't looking bad honestly. 

 

I've never had great colour, but only a few seem angry. Guess I got lucky all things considered.

[Reefkid88]

Have you checked for possible stray voltage,corroding magnets or anything out of the ordinairy ? 

[Llorgon]

2 hours ago, Reefkid88 said:

Have you checked for possible stray voltage,corroding magnets or anything out of the ordinairy ? 

Everything seems fine. Checked magnets and they all look good. Everything seems to be running as expected.

 

I don't have a voltmeter to check for stray voltage, but no shock when I have my hand in the tank...

[ninjamyst]

I went through the same low nutrient issue recently.  Instead of dosing nitrate and phosphate directly, I went the route of dosing amino every day and broadcasting reef roids and easySPS every day.  My brown acros quickly colored back to green.  I am hoping they will get back their true color soon.  

 

Are you dosing any aminos right now?

[Llorgon]

49 minutes ago, ninjamyst said:

I went through the same low nutrient issue recently.  Instead of dosing nitrate and phosphate directly, I went the route of dosing amino every day and broadcasting reef roids and easySPS every day.  My brown acros quickly colored back to green.  I am hoping they will get back their true color soon.  

 

Are you dosing any aminos right now?

I have reef roids and the reef energy ab+. I dose reef energy every so often. I was doing it every night when I noticed the nitrate was at zero, but then the cyano started so I stopped. 

 

I could dose that again and put it on a doser while I'm away.