got ethical husbandry?

BleepBloop’s 73 Gallon

“Around two months ago I found some MENBs in my display tank”

what are MENBs? My plating monti was doing beautiful until a couple months ago, and I thought it’s was a change in lighting or NO3 dosing, both of which I changed.

what should I look for?
 
Imo, I think you did the right thing by removing ALL the monti’s as soon as you spotted the pests. I’ve tried to fight them off in the past in my old system and just prolonged the agony of defeat. They eventually will eat/kill all your monti one by one. They don’t care if you have a favorite. They don’t discriminate. Sooner or later your tank would have to go monti - less for a period of time in order to stave them out.
 
Imo, I think you did the right thing by removing ALL the monti’s as soon as you spotted the pests. I’ve tried to fight them off in the past in my old system and just prolonged the agony of defeat. They eventually will eat/kill all your monti one by one. They don’t care if you have a favorite. They don’t discriminate. Sooner or later your tank would have to go monti - less for a period of time in order to stave them out.
Ok I am glad to hear this, I figured the same thing. Thought it was better to just get it over with at once and let the healing begin sooner instead of trying to face an uphill battle saving them
 
Ah what a bummer. I’m sorry you’re dealing with those nasty nudis. Do you have any fish that might eat them in addition to starvation killing them?
 
Ah what a bummer. I’m sorry you’re dealing with those nasty nudis. Do you have any fish that might eat them in addition to starvation killing them?
I’ve got two leopard wrasses that seem to cruise around and eat all the little critters, I saw them poking under some montis back when I had them in there but can confirm they were indeed eating the nudis. Got a pintail too but seems to like the prepared food more than the microfauna, but could be helping
 
Hi Bleep
If you have time, I would love to hear your update on the chaeto reactor. I am interested in finding a used one if it works good for you.
Thanks
 
Honestly I love it, its been working great and I never used to be able to keep chaeto alive and now mine has been growing like crazy, in fact it is probably about time to empty it. My nitrate levels are stable at 10 ppm and I have a lot of fish and feed a lot so I really cant recommend it enough.
 
Next step for me is getting more flow in my tank. I used to have sort of one high flow half and one low flow half but that is not exactly cutting it anymore cause of too many coral, but I do still want to keep one area where I can have my euphyllia, trachy, acans and goni where they won't get torn apart. The one thing keeping my from taking my sand out are my two leopard wrasses, but I am more and more thinking that I might just put some sand containers in there and take all the rest out. More research and debating to be done, and knowing myself I am going to just end up with a big rescape as I take the sand out and move the rock. Anybody have any thoughts about the best way to get the sand out? The tricky part is my rock is not on the glass, its just sitting on the sand, so I need to take that out, then siphon the sand, then put the rock back in a stable way.
 
I’d siphon out sand slowly like over a few weeks or a month. If you’re going to rescape will you use same rocks? If so I would go ahead and cement them into several structures now over a period of time rather than try to do it all at once, although that can totally work. Put all rocks in a bin with tank water. Put all corals not attached to rocks in another bin with tank water. Put an additional water you want to keep in another container, pull it out before rocks to avoid getting water after you stir stuff up. Then siphon out all the sand. Refill tank and scape it up.
 
Ok cool that sounds like I plan, I was going to use the same rocks I have now for the most part, but have some new rock I was going to make a new rock structure with for some more real estate in the middle of the tank for coral, so that could be cemented out of the tank before hand no problem. Do most of the cements work in the water pretty well? I also slowly have started taking the sand out over the last few water changes, but I am at about max level where any more and I think the structures will start to fall
 
Things have been going really well, good growth on my coral, had ich return but things have settled down after adding a UV sterilizer and using the polylab reef medic. I debated doing the H2O2 dosing but haven't seen anything get worse so holding off, but I have got the doser and supplies ready to go.

Main issue is cyano which has never gotten too out of hand but has sort of just been lingering, Po4 is at 0.05 and no3 at 10 ppm for a while now, what is getting annoying is the blackish cyano with air bubbles showing up on my rock and getting close to coral. I have chemi clean but am very hesitant to add any chemicals. I may turn down the auto feeder to feed a little less and use smaller pellets cause I think a lot of the medium sized pellets are going uneaten.

I have to go out of town for at least a month to take care of a relative so my main thing has been keeping everything stable and not making any changes so that the person taking care of my tank has the least amount of work to do. I already set up an enormous RODI reservoir and started a few weeks ago automating and monitoring everything with as little input as possible to make sure it is all good to go when I am gone.

I will premix and fill 5 gallon jugs for waterchanges, since I change about 5 gallons a week that will be pretty straightforward, I have large enough 2 part reservoirs to last a month, and two auto feeders that should also last a month if they are set to rotate alternatingly. In the end, all that will have to be done is 5 gallon water change once per week, clean out the skimmer, and replace co2 media. I thought about setting up AWC but worry about doing something with so many moving parts without the time to monitor is before I leave, same thing with the calcium reactor, I am nervous to set up anything that I cannot see in action for a month or two and make sure it doesn't need more tweaking. A fellow reefer is taking care of my tank, but I don't want to have him needing to troubleshoot.
 
had ich return but things have settled down after adding a UV sterilizer and using the polylab reef medic. I debated doing the H2O2 dosing but haven't seen anything get worse so holding off
I believe those polyp lab medic tablets are just peroxide salts. So you would get a similar effect from h2o2 dosing with the benefit of much finer control over the dosage. I’m dosing it while introducing fish since they from a variety of sources and it’s going well so far. But I didn’t see signs of ich so it is preventative.

It sounds like you’ve got a good approach to the upcoming time away from the tank. The multiple jugs with water ready is a good idea. Do you use any filter media? I suppose carbon would be fine for a month
 
I believe those polyp lab medic tablets are just peroxide salts. So you would get a similar effect from h2o2 dosing with the benefit of much finer control over the dosage. I’m dosing it while introducing fish since they from a variety of sources and it’s going well so far. But I didn’t see signs of ich so it is preventative.

It sounds like you’ve got a good approach to the upcoming time away from the tank. The multiple jugs with water ready is a good idea. Do you use any filter media? I suppose carbon would be fine for a month
I use rowaphos/GFO and occasionally carbon, I could prep an extra bag of carbon in case it needs to be changed out which might not be a bad idea
 
Will things need to be turned off or unplugged for the friend to take care of your water changes? This seems to be the easiest thing to overlook after a water change. Maybe make a checklist for the friend?
 
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Since the beginning of the month my ph has gone down steadily and my temperature has gone up, I have been putting a fan the last few times it has gotten really hot but haven't connected it to apex yet or anything, I am not exactly sure why the ph has gone down, my co2 media was pretty wet but not exhausted but I replaced it anyway, but it hasn't really recovered back to what it was before. At the same time my alk consumption was gone down and my alkalinity went up almost exactly when my ph decreased, I have since lowered my two part dosing down from 50 ml a day to 30 ml a day (b-ionic two part) but would like to get my ph back so I things grow faster.
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Alk graph from that same time
 
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