Penny's Lane Movin' On Up-Retired

[OfficeReefer]

On 6/6/2021 at 10:46 AM, FISHnChix said:

Dang that sucks the included ato is 1.5 gallons. You will have to fill that almost daily... as an example this lasts me about 7 days..

Check out my build when you get a moment. You'll never mess with this again.

[Pjanssen]

2 weeks in with the Fluconazole. Can't say I see much change as far as decline goes. new growth is definitely minimal. Sand bed is covered in green algae now, which is a change from the brownish from before. Not sure what my next move is. I have another 800 mcg of Fluconazole that I can add. Maybe tho I should do a water change and get some fresh Flux Rx?

 

I've lost a bunch of snails. Not sure what the relevance to treatment would be.

 

Corals all seemed good until I just noticed some bleaching on the Season's Greetings and Idaho Grape Montis. Again. not sure if treatment related.

 

 

Thoughts?

[Pjanssen]

On 7/26/2022 at 9:40 AM, OfficeReefer said:

Check out my build when you get a moment. You'll never mess with this again.

link?

[seabass]

4 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

Thoughts?

The whole colony isn't affected, so maybe it's not a direct effect of the medication.  I'm not really sure what's causing the localized damage.  Obviously the lost flesh is more concerning than the bleaching.  Continue to monitor these areas.  If there is more tissue loss, you might consider fragging off the affected area.

[Wonderboy]

I just want to insert that in my opinion, that doesn't look like bryopsis - more so like a caulerpa. Macros tend to be quite resistant to fluc... Not sure how to handle this; can you pull the rock the algae is on out? Removing what you can and spot dripping peroxide onto its roots should do it.

[Pjanssen]

21 hours ago, Wonderboy said:

I just want to insert that in my opinion, that doesn't look like bryopsis - more so like a caulerpa. Macros tend to be quite resistant to fluc... Not sure how to handle this; can you pull the rock the algae is on out? Removing what you can and spot dripping peroxide onto its roots should do it.

I actually thought it was caulerpa as well, but when I pulled some out I discovered that it  is much denser and a bit wirey in texture.... Can't take rock out, as everything is pretty much bonded together

[FISHnChix]

Did you turn your skimmer off during the medication?? 

[DevilDuck]

I have to agree this looks more like calerpura, very hard to get rid of once the roots take hold in the rock. 

Can you lower the water level enough to spray some hydrogen peroxide on the area where it's growing?

 

I just got back after being away from the tank over a month. Giant patches of green hair algae everywhere. I'm going to try the Reef Flux to get it back under control too.

 

[Pjanssen]

9 hours ago, FISHnChix said:

Did you turn your skimmer off during the medication?? 

I don't run a skimmer at the moment. Plan to add one when treatment is done.

[Pjanssen]

So looking at lots of pictures of both Caulepra and bryopsis I've determined that the alga in question here is Caulepra. Seems like if I really want to get rid of it I'll have to get some kind of tang or rabbitfish. I'll have to give that quite a bit of thought as I don't believe my tank is big enough for either of those fish species.

 

My bigger concern is the hair algae, which while growth has slowed, it still has a strong hold.

 

Also, I don't know what the bright green algae on the sand bed is. It's not hairy or matted, and it doesn't seem to have roots. 

[seabass]

1 hour ago, Pjanssen said:

My bigger concern is the hair algae, which while growth has slowed, it still has a strong hold.

Fluconazole might eventually take care of this.  Could take over a month.

[Pjanssen]

On 7/31/2022 at 12:05 PM, Pjanssen said:

I've lost a bunch of snails. Not sure what the relevance to treatment would be.

 

Corals all seemed good until I just noticed some bleaching on the Season's Greetings and Idaho Grape Montis. Again. not sure if treatment related.

It occurred to me as I just did my weekly water tests that perhaps I increased my last dosing #s too much. I've been gradually increasing alkalinity to go from somewhere in the 6es (don't remember exactly and don't feel like going back thru thread!) to around 9. Last week I went from dosing 8 ml alk solution to 10. Previously I only jumped 1 ml per week.

Testing puts me right where I wanted to be with alk at 8.8 and Ca at 460. But should I bring it back down a touch for a bit, or is the damage done at this point?

[Pjanssen]

7 minutes ago, seabass said:

Fluconazole might eventually take care of this.  Could take over a month.

This is my thinking as well. I'll have to decide what to do about the caulepra. Maybe just leave it and prune as needed.

[seabass]

1 hour ago, Pjanssen said:

should I bring it back down a touch for a bit, or is the damage done at this point?

I'd just try to keep it stable now.

[Pjanssen]

Alkalinity climbed to 9.0 today so I dropped dosing back down to 9 ml per day. Ca ok at 460, but dropped dose down from 6 to 5 ml.

[Pjanssen]

The good:

• Hair algae and culepera are gone.
• Zoanthids, torch, duncan, chalice, cyphestrea look good.
• RFA's seem happy.
• The blood shrimp is still alive.
• While cleaning the refugium, I rediscovered the little red and white anemone that was in the IM15. It's grown quite a bit and is beautiful.

 

The Bad:

• I've lost most of the snails. No sign of any of the crabs, including hermits and emerald.
• SPS including Pocillipora, Acropora and Stylopora seem to bee on their way out. Montiporas are not looking so good.
• Octospawn is struggling
• While the GHA and Culepera are now under control/gone, there is some other kind of bright green algae that is flourishing on the sand bed, any bare rock, and on the Monti's. I don't know what it is.
• I was having dosing issues, with alkalinity and calcium rising above 10 and 500 respectively, even though I kept dropping the amount dosed. I decided to stop dosing all together and turned the doser off. I discovered yesterday that the doser was still on- I'm thinking toddler or husband 🤷‍♀️. Alkalinity over 11, calcium over 500. The doser is now unplugged!

 

The Frustrating:  Where do I begin?

• Not knowing what this new algae is makes it hard to treat. Going back to regular water changes may help.
• Not being able to EVER grow SPS is maddening.
• Formerly beautiful montis declining.
• decided I was going to finally put the skimmer that I have on line, only to discover that I will need to reconfigure everything in the stand, including relocating the water reservoir and using a pump rather than gravity, and I'm out of plug recepicals. Changed my mind about putting the skimmer in.
• Currently using ESV salt mix, which entails weighing and mixing 4 separate components together, which is time consuming at best. Yesterday I accidentally added the liquid component A (alkalinity) twice, rather than adding component B (calcium). Fortunately I had the fore site to test the water before adding to the tank so I didn't put water with a dKh of 14 into a tank with already high dKh! 

 

Moving Forward:

• Back to weekly or at least biweekly water changes for awhile
• switching back to Tropic Marin Reef Pro salt when ESV is gone.
• figuring out what I need to do to possibly bring the SPS back-could use some help here.
• Open to suggestions

[seabass]

As you know, stony corals react negatively to swings in alkalinity.  Sounds like you are addressing this problem.  However, it might take some time to see them recover and take off.

[Pjanssen]

Oh Yeah, I still have bubble algae🤪🙄

 

[Pjanssen]

[Pjanssen]

Just a few cell phone shots

happy little anemone in refugium

SPS Graveyard

[Pjanssen]

struggling octospawn

 

[Pjanssen]

Montis fading. 

 

Idaho grape and seasons greetings

 

 

Lime green gone

[seabass]

There is potential for most of those Montis to recover. 

[Pjanssen]

I say the Zoanthids are doing well, but these use to be quite a bit bluer and brighter

[Pjanssen]

18 minutes ago, seabass said:

There is potential for most of those Montis to recover. 

I think all but the lime green will be okay. I hope so because they use to be stunning.