fenderchamp's 3.5 gal bow front

[fenderchamp]

I bought a couple more zoa frags today (this is getting out of hand) I probably have enough now, but.... 

 

Here's a picture of the rock under construction getting the new frags glued on.  I put it on an old cookie sheet. 

 

This time was the my best glue outing yet.  I'm panicking a little bit less every time I think. I didn't take another picture of it after I put it back in the tank, but everything seemed to open up after a bit. 

 

I'll post a picture tomorrow.

 

 

[fenderchamp]

Turning off the whites has seemed to be pretty effective as far as reducing gha goes 

[fenderchamp]

 

[fenderchamp]

[fenderchamp]

[fenderchamp]

[fenderchamp]

A sponge 

[fenderchamp]

In bowfront news

 

I fed the Duncan some jumbo bloodworms last night, and one head got a chunk that was too big for it apparently because it spit it back out today, It was pretty gnarly.  I got it out of the tank. 

 

I saw a tiny, what I believe was a bristle worm last night crawling on the bare bottom, and I seem to be seeing more fan worms as well, and lots of spirobid worms.  So I think stuff is happening in the tank.  I'm getting next to no gha on the rocks as of now, though I am getting some brownish fuzzy algae on the glass.  The whites are still more or less turned off, though I did turn a crack of daylight (like 4%  fading out for the first few hours of the 8 hour light cycle) on late last week to see what happens.  My zoas don't seem to thriving quite like they were,  I'm not sure what's going on, I'm a total noob, so that's no huge surprise.  I'm a little worried about how the some of the zoas are looking, but not really panicking or anything. 

 

I threw the light into acclimation mode a couple of weeks ago, and I think maybe the zoas picked up then, for a while, but I'm not really sure if that's what caused it.  

 

It seems like the issues with the zoas started when I had some of this same sponge, at least I think it was the same, growing in the shade under those green zoas I have in the front, it seemed to overwhelm a few polyps which disappeared.  I scrubbed it off with a toothbrush, probably about a month ago, and I think I got a little happy with the toothbursh and  I think I damaged the zoas and I sort of remember maybe scrubbing around some of the other zoas with the toothbrush as well.  

 

I'm not sure if I should get rid of this new little chunk of sponge or not, I'm inclined to leave it, because it's not close to any corals, and I think it's pretty cool.   I'm still changing all of the water 1x a week, and cleaning the tank out at the same time.  I'm not really testing the water other than salinity, though I did have my nitrates tested at the LFS yesterday (5 days after my last water change I think) and it was just a trace.  

 

My plan is simply to stick with my current water change/cleaning routine, be real careful about the salinity, and watch the tank.

 

I might dim the lights again with another acclimation mode, but I'll wait until the end of the week to decide.   

 

 

 

 

[PeterU]

32 minutes ago, fenderchamp said:

A sponge

Too many people miss the little things that make things interesting.🙂

[seabass]

6 minutes ago, fenderchamp said:

I'm not sure if I should get rid of this new little chunk of sponge or not,

I'd definitely leave it.  It's a good sign.

[PeterU]

I had three or four appear the last few days in my 20H. Several nights a week I take a flash light to see what else is in there.

[fenderchamp]

[fenderchamp]

I think my little tank is using up some calcium.  I tested the water right before changing it yesterday, it was a week old, and the alkalinity measured at 7.8 with a hannah checker, I then measured the alkalinity in the new water which I made with RSCP salt it was at 35ppm and the alkalinity was 12.2 or something close to that.  I've been using the same salt mix at the same salinity all along, so I'm guessing that that was my starting point a week ago.   

 

I proceeded with the water change which was 100% except I added a little more than a quart of the old tankwater back in, and today I measured the alkalinity at 10.8.  I'll measure again tomorrow at the same time (1PM) before lights on.  lights are running 2P-10P.  

[fenderchamp]

I measured the alkalinity again today and it is at 10.02

[fenderchamp]

today alkalinity at 9.4

[fenderchamp]

 

I did water change yesterday.  I've been adding about 1ml or AB+ about 2x a week for a few weeks.  Once early in the water change week and again on the day of the water change.  I'm usually feeding the crabs a goldfish pellet each about 1x a week too and giving the duncan some brine no more than once a week.   I bumped up the whites a little bit through the whole day (8 hr cycle now) now, and I turned down the violet/uv and I think I left the blues where they were.  The prime is running at about 10watts.  I put it in acclimation mode again too, kicked it down to about 67%.   Things seem pretty happy to me right now.  I'm going to test alkalinity tomorrow and for the next few days after that again.  I really hate the huge glob of superglue and pink epoxy that I have holding those orange zoas to side of the rock, but I don't think I want to pop them off of there quite yet. 

 

I also haven't got the nerve to break the hammer off of that frag plug and try to glue it's pretty tiny little base onto my rock.  I'll just try to be patient. I've been babying it during water changes and after I take the bigger rock out of the tank, I've been putting a bowl in the tank and wet transferring it into the bowl. No slime!  

 

 

[fenderchamp]

 

I've turned the flow down a little bit and glued that little hammer to the rock, and added a coral, the brown one with gold spots. I've also reduced the light intensity a little bit, the prime application says I'm at more like 9 watts than 10.   I've also started adding some two little fishies 2 part calcium/alkalinity supplement.  I've been adding about 1mil of each part around 4 times in a week.  It seems to be keeping the alkalinity from dropping quite as much as it was.  Things seem like they are doing well.  The tank seems to be running pretty cleanly, no hair algae and maybe less accumulation of detritus every week.

[fenderchamp]

[fenderchamp]

 

New position of the Nero which is running at 3%, variable speed, high variation. 

This is also just about 6 months for the tank. 

 

 

 

[fenderchamp]

[Merthynia]

On 4/10/2021 at 5:05 PM, fenderchamp said:

The guys at my LFS understand what I'm doing though, and they seem kind of into it, and think the tank is looking good so far.  I think I'm the only person that goes in there, that is trying to do a pico, or at least that talks about it. 

 

Well in this case I’d like to introduce myself! We are neighbors and have likely been at the LFS at the same time at some point! I have both a 30 gal and a 3 gal tank.

[fenderchamp]

[fenderchamp]

 

 

A couple of weeks ago, I added a trochus snail, and then the thermometer started reading high.  I realized after some triangulating with every thermometer, both my fish tanks and a sink, that the little tank's temperature was too high, around probably 83.  Instead of trusting the heater (with a thermostat display) I was trusting my little digital thermometer the probe of which was covered in  gunk (I never cleaned it doh...I'm such a noob) the trochus started cleaning it.  Anyway I did, at that point really, clean it and it's really not working at all now, but I reset that digital salinity meter/thermometer to read F instead of C, and I'm using that to monitor the temp now, I have the temp down to 77-78F and the corals, particularly the rainbow monty seem happier.  I also saw a little snail that must have hitched in on something on the front glass, and I have a aptasia growing which has survived one attempt on it's life with super glue and another with aptasiaX.   I wish I could get good pictures of everything, but I haven't been able to.   The Duncan has a couple of new little stubby legs too, and I've started to feed a little reef chili 1x a week or so in addition to the AB+ and CBalance.  

 

Also of note is that the tank was not supplemented or water changed for about 14 days because I was out of town, my neighbor topped it off with a little bit of freshwater from the goldfish tank every day though, to keep the salinity at bay. 

 

Pictures from yesterday

  

 

Acans

 

Mushroom

 

 

zooas the ones at the top of the photo have a couple of new polyps!

 

 

Monty

 

Lepto is starting to spread onto the rock, I actually glued a few pieces of rubble around it so it could get there quicker. the LFS where I got him has a frag rack that is slowly being completely encrusted with it.  

 

 

[fenderchamp]

I did not get pictures, but I believe that the Trochus snail was laying eggs this morning.  It was squirting out some milky looking stuff, and there were many little dots in the water. 

[Merthynia]

Your coral are really looking good!

 

On second glance, are you using a cobalt heater in there? I just had two of those nuke my picotope back to back about 2 weeks ago. Came home to temps in the 90s, threw the heater away and put in a backup, same thing happened about a week later. I’ve not have problems with those heaters before that point, but I’d keep an eye on it.