Reef nutrition

40g ADA move and upgrade

Don't move it. Let it go where it wants to go. It is trying to get used to your tank conditions.

It will find a place it is happy and stay there. For a while anyway.

BTAs are notorious for taking walks. Make sure your powerheads are covered or run the risk of a nem purée.


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Took mine 3 weeks of roaming to settle down. Went in and out of the light a couple times. Hasn't moved the in the last 4-5weeks once it settled.
 
Thanks, I will leave this anemone alone then... for at least a week anyway :)

At least some corals are doing OK, my sympodium multiplied into three branches. I'm terrible at fragging, but lucky for me since only one of the three branches was anchored - one branch was flapping in the current due to my crappy original superglue job and the second was only half attached) I was able to rip the 2 branches away without hurting them and reglue them behind my overgrown Hollywood stunner chalice. If anyone wants a piece of the chalice let me know.
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Yup, looking good. Yeah I messed with my BTA one too many times when I first put him in and he ended up swollen and rolling all around my tank like a beach ball at a concert. No bueno!
 
The BTA put some feelers out after the tank lights went on today...
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in any case I think the clowns already chose a frogspawn as their home, and the male chases after and nips the female whenever she swims too far away from it. He was crazed when I moved their rock out of the holding tank- he kept trying to swim after it and tried launching himself out of the water. He is always the one that bites me when my hand gets too close. When I had tomato clowns it was always the female that was territorial and bit me. Are these traits species dependent or depends on the fish?


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Well, my male clownfish found the new BT anemone, female isn't totally convinced yet. Pygmy angelfish is curious what those clownfish are up to.
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I wonder if they will move in or just swim between the different hosts all day?
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A week later, anemone moved back to the front of the rock pile, ate three pieces of shrimp (a chunk every 3 days), and is stinging my leptastrea, but staying away from the chalice. The new stylophora still has nice polyp extension. I wonder how long that will last since I don't feed my corals (I guess they benefit from the fish feedings and Aqua Vitro Fuel though)
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Tank update. The RBTA was doing well, staying in the same spot, eating shrimp chunks every 3 days, but had maybe too healthy of a sting. As I watched more and more of my leptastrea colony fade away from frequent contact with the anemone (the anemone stayed away from the challice though), I decided to move him. This actually made me wonder if anyone ever put together a chart showing which coral would win in a fight, not just a general statement of whether the coral is aggressive or peaceful. Or maybe it depends more on the coral?

Anyway, the RBTA really decided it wanted to be on the rock the corals were on and wouldn't give up so I moved him to a nice hole in a big rock on the other side. My stupid clownfish quickly forgot all about it and went back to living in their frogspawn corals full time.

The anemone stayed for two days but last night, after my husband added reef buffer to the tank instead of the drip system and the alk shot up from ~8 to ~10, the anemone started a walkabout.

I was just getting used to a serene tank where nothing was harassing each other (except the chromises, although by chromis standards it's amazing two have coexisted for the past year). I even banned any type of crab - hermits, emeralds... and now I'm worried about where this anemone will decide to camp out next. I'm thinking about swapping this RBTA for a rock anemone or corals if anyone's interested... since don't rock anemones tend to stay put?
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This was the anemone with its foot in the rock on the upper right. Also cleared out some green macro algae for some red to add a little color.
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Added a beautiful chalice frag from Neptune's this weekend. Forgot to ask for the name but guess it's similar to watermelon chalice?
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The hardest part is capturing its color with an iPhone!

The RBTA is still skulking around the back of the tank, found a spot with good water flow, some light, but unfortunately not where the clownfish want to visit it (its in the Pygmy angelfish back-of-the-rock pile territory). Open invitation to trade this RBTA!

Tank parameters today (using test kits):
PH 8.1
Alk 8.4 dkH
Ca 410
Mg 1370
Nitrate 0/undetectable
PO4 (guess 0.1 by my interpretation of the color chart)
Working on keeping alk & pH up, macro algae and biweekly GFO replacement seem to keep phosphates mostly under control, despite feeding flake food 2x daily. I run my refuge sump light overnight (counter-cycle to my tank lights) as an attempt to keep the pH stable.



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Second appendix: I measure Ca, Mg, Alk with an "advanced" kit (little guesswork) but still do my phosphate and nitrate with the interpretative kits. I never expect problems with nitrates (6 small fish in a 40 gal with a lot of very porous live rock and macro algae) but phosphates need to be actively controlled.
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Your levels look all around really good. 8.5 on alk is file, and so is 8.1 on pH. I don't think there's any need to change anything. Keep doing whatever it is you're doing. It's working.
 
I put a little more Reef Builder alk mix in my top up this week and was able to slowly bring alk up to 9.4 dKH. I increased the temp from 76 to 77 since it seems like the cold days are over (I lowered the temp in the winter for energy savings and reduced condensation). Everything looks pretty happy. The anemone ended up right where I last tried to place it after wandering around again and is still eating well. It's now too far from adjacent corals to sting them.
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I noticed tonight that my trace element supplement doesn't contain iodine, but the Reef Fuel supplement I use does. I have a Lot of macro algae (not just in my sump) - does anyone else keep plants and do you find they need iodine supplements or are regular water changes enough?

One more question... red monti slowly turned neon orange/pink in my tank, but looks like it's growing... why does it appear red in other tanks?

pH 8.2
Alk 9.4 dKH
Ca 430
Mg 1360
Sal 1.0255
T 77F



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