Softie reef on a student budget

[campbell_wat]

Do you have enough flow on those zoas? It looks like there is some buildup on the mat.

 

Im sure you know but rastas are among the pickiest and most temperamental

 

 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

7 hours ago, campbell_wat said:

Do you have enough flow on those zoas? It looks like there is some buildup on the mat.

 

Im sure you know but rastas are among the pickiest and most temperamental

 

 

thats what I was thinking. they're in a lower flow spot near the front so I was going to move them closer to my pump outlet and see if they perked up - but they were fragged off a bigger colony the day I got them home so I wasn't sure if they were sulky because of that/travelling/still acclimatising either. Worth a try though! 🙂

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Ok so it WAS happier higher up. Till one of my arsehole hermits tossed it halfway across the tank. Sulking again now, which is fair enough I say 🤣 I'd sulk too if a crab used me as a volleyball

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Just after lights on this morning 

I need to clean the glass lol 

 There's some lil scypha sponges on my rock now too. As per I'll leave em unless they start taking over. Can't say I mind any of the hitchhikers tbh, they're just more interesting stuff to look at. Maintenance is still topoff once a day and WC every 1-2 weeks n it seems ok. 

Still experimenting with rasta placement but I'll get there.  Gonna rehome my candy cane to the frag tank at work though probably because I keep forgetting to target feed it and it's got really skinny and sad, but that's my fault. 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

I think they could be out a bit more than they are but i literally just turned them the right way up from where the crab had tossed them, and then left them. So might see how they go tbh - they're bloody gorgeous. I do love zoas though 🥰

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Acquisitions ..... Ten columbellindae snails and a green Monti (terrified about keeping the Monti alive lol). Have salifert magnesium and calcium kits and epoxy to hold it in place/keep it safe from vandal hermits, coming tomorrow though. 

 

Meanwhile my £5 blue shroom is encroaching on the rock next door. 

And there's two heads of rainbow zoa under the Kenya tree that id quite frankly forgotten I had lol but they seem fairly happy. 

 

 

[Ratvan]

Those mushrooms are cute, where they from? 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

10 hours ago, Ratvan said:

Those mushrooms are cute, where they from? 

The store where I work 🙂 

We have a great selection of £5/£10 frags - not just softies but montis and things as well. My rastas were from there too though the manager just gave me those because he was fragging some stuff and they were too small to sell. The monti and palys were from there too. Monti free because it had fallen off the frag rack and was just sitting on the substrate, palys were £5 each. (less with staff discount lol!)

But for the prices our frags are huge.

Not local to you though unfortunately, it's Gloucestershire.

If anyone more local wants anything specific I can ask about it and put it aside if we've got it.

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Oh no!! Moved my Monti onto the central Island this morning and it bleached a little 😓 

Put it lower down on the sandbed and its not lost anymore colour and the remaining green bits have brightened up again. If it stays ok where it is will target feed it on Saturday I think...

 

Also tested my magnesium and calcium, with salifert liquid test kits; 

Mg was 1410ppm,

Ca was 325ppm. 

 

Might raise salinity to 1.0265 for faster coral growth, it's currently 1.025. but I know my calcium is a little low and magnesium is a bit high. From memory the dkH was 11 or 12° last time I tested, and nitrate was about 5ppm, but I will check tomorrow. 

More feedback on my parameters would be really appreciated though.

 

Need to do a full range of other parameters (kh, pH, nitrates) tomorrow - but I have COVID, so it can wait lol.

 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

However the other corals are happy. Just some teething issues with my first SPS I guess 🤷

 

 

[seabass]

15 hours ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

Might raise salinity to 1.0265 for faster coral growth, it's currently 1.025. but I know my calcium is a little low and magnesium is a bit high. From memory the dkH was 11 or 12° last time I tested, and nitrate was about 5ppm, but I will check tomorrow. 

More feedback on my parameters would be really appreciated though.

 

Need to do a full range of other parameters (kh, pH, nitrates)...

1.025 to 1.026 is good.  Try to keep it stable within this range.  Alkalinity stability is crucial for stony corals.  I try to target the value of a newly mixed batch of saltwater, so that water changes have no effect on stability.  The alkalinity level and stability is what's important, pH isn't usually very important to monitor.  Some exceptions would be if you are doing something which might change it (like dosing Kalkwasser or running a calcium reactor) or if the room where you keep your tank has a high CO2 concentration.

 

Phosphate is another critical nutrient level.  Low nutrient levels negatively affect photosynthetic life and could potentially result in a pest like dinoflagellates, which are better able to thrive in those conditions (without the typical competitors).  Get a good low range phosphate kit.  Salifert's kit is adequate, but I prefer Hanna's Phosphate Checker (API's phosphate kit is a high range kit and therefore isn't very helpful for keeping most reef tanks).

 

On 10/1/2021 at 8:59 AM, seabass said:

Reef Parameters:

	Recommended Reef Tank Parameters
	Parameter:	Recommended Reef Tank Values:	Typical Ocean Reef Values:*
	Temperature	76 to 83° F (up to 84° F)	83 to 86° F
	Salinity	34 to 35 ppt sg = 1.025 to 1.026	34 to 36 ppt sg = 1.025 to 1.027
	Ammonia	Less than 0.1 ppm	Less than 0.1 ppm
	Nitrite	Less than 0.2 ppm	Below 0.0001 ppm
	Nitrate	2 to 10 ppm (up to 20 ppm)	Below 0.1 ppm
	Phosphate	0.02 to 0.10 ppm (up to 0.20 ppm)	0.005 ppm
	pH	7.8 to 8.3 (up to 8.4)	8.0 to 8.3
	Alkalinity	2.5 to 4 meq/L 7 to 11 dKH 125 to 200 ppm CaCO3 equivalents	2.5 meq/L 7 dKH 125 ppm CaCO3 equivalents
	Calcium	380 to 450 ppm	420 ppm
	Magnesium	1250 to 1350 ppm	1280 ppm
			* Per Randy Holmes-Farley

 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

I guess the fact that I have nothing to report really in reef terms is good? 

 

But I have finally mounted the rastas on a plug. 

Hermits have touch wood been leaving the dove snails alone. Parameters are totally stable. Corals growing. Moving some of my zoas about I think at some point so they're together, then I'll probably grab some more of our £5 frags at some point from work. Some red mushrooms to contrast with my pretty blues would really pop I think. We don't have a great zoa selection so I'm thinking of getting some from Coralz, bit I dunno - I love watching my current corals grow and get bigger so might leave it and let them have lots of space to hopefully get massive. 

 

 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

One of my hermits has somehow got hold of a ramshorn snail shell and I can see a creepy amount of its body through it 😅

Aaah!! No idea why those are upside down, sorry

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

First major screw up in a while 

 

Water change Thursday, obviously didn't mix my salt up thoroughly enough because thought salinity was 1.025 but checked yesterday and got 1.020.

 

Kenya tree is a goner and has been removed....gsp not sure on, everything else sulky but ok. 

Damnit! 😢 

 

[seabass]

Any undissolved salt can burn coral tissue.  But that's a huge drop in salinity.  Are you sure you didn't do a water change with just freshwater?  It would take a lot of freshwater to drop specific gravity from 1.025 to 1.020.

 

I also question your test results.  Swing-arm hydrometers are notorious for getting micro-bubbles on the arm, which make the results look higher than reality.  Whenever you get a questionable result, repeat the test (that goes for any other test kit too).

 

A calibrated refractometer should provide more accurate results.  And, in theory at least, calibration fluid should give you the most accurate calibration; however, I've found that calibration fluid can be off, or become off over time.  Therefore, I find that using RO/DI (or distilled) water to calibrate provides the most consistent calibrations.

 

Dropping salinity quickly is typically less disruptive than raising it too quickly.  To raise specific gravity, I usually just top off the evaporated water with saltwater until the level is back up where I want it.

 

Sorry to hear about the mishap.  I know that you are trying to provide a healthy environment for your marine life.  You might be surprised how a coral can sometimes recover.  Don't be too quick to remove unhappy corals.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Really sorry to hear about this - I went through this exact mistake just a few days ago and melted tissue on parts of my pavona (didn't mix the salt well, and kept dropping/increasing salinity to get it back to 1.024 too quickly). 😞

 

Seabass is right though - our reefs are quite resilient, and I wouldn't remove anything from the tank, no matter how unhappy it looks. Instead, just wait and observe, and also gradually raise salinity back to 1.025 over a day or two (don't jump from 1.020 back to 1.025 too quickly - because that'll stress out the animals even more).

 

The kenya tree will be sulky for a while, but should recover once the salinity is back up and the tank stabilizes. 

 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

The kenya tree and gsp are sadly very definitely gone.....but everything else is doing good. I think my slip up with the salinity was a combination of things: I hadn't calibrated my refractometer in a while, I was water changing in a hurry so I took more than I intended to out, likely didn't mix up my salt correctly and also only checked the salinity of the newly made water once (normally I do it at least twice). There's also two large pieces of rock in there which I suppose may have affected things? (open to correction on that, I don't know in truth). So multiple places where mistakes were made/things could have gone wrong; in truth it was probably mistakes at several points in the process rather than just one!

This is my bad but I have learned my lesson, sad it has happened at the cost of two corals (especially the kenya tree, that thing was gorgeous), and have now invested in a Hanna salinity checker too.

[seabass]

19 minutes ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

There's also two large pieces of rock in there which I suppose may have affected things?

Why might that be?

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

8 minutes ago, seabass said:

Why might that be?

No idea; that's why I'm asking. I'm just throwing things out that were different to usual....from a chemistry point of view I don't know any reason why it would, but I acknowledge I'm stupid. 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

*mental note to self to clean the freaking glass 😂

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

incidentally I can't tell very well but I'm sure the bleached patch on the monti is shrinking.....but it's hard to notice changes sometimes when you see something multiple times a day 😕 I still need to raise my calcium levels but not really sure how to 

[seabass]

52 minutes ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

 I still need to raise my calcium levels but not really sure how to 

There are two part dosing additives which are designed to replenish consumed elements.  Generally alkalinity and calcium (and magnesium) are consumed in a typical ratio.  Two part dosing additives were designed to replenish both alkalinity and calcium; however, you could just use the calcium additive.  There are a number of vendors which sell two part additives like ESV, Red Sea, Seachem, etc.

 

The calcium component is basically calcium chloride:  http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

 

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/1-gallon-mix-calcium-chloride-single-use-bulk-reef-supply.html

 

 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

All corals are happy except the green zoa which has been consistently retracted and sulky for a little while and I'm not sure why....also woke up this morning to find that Sherbert (bigger blue legged dwarf hermit) had murdered Marshmallow (smaller blue legged dwarf hermit) for his shell, even though there are spares in the tank. 😞 rip marshmallow.

I love the crabs but omg they are vicious little arseholes lol - they also like throwing frags.  

[InAtTheDeepEnd]