got ethical husbandry?

George's IM Nuvo 14

Maintenance day:
- pruned back some junky palys (took bone cutters to the rock as much as possible), gloves, etc on for protection. Trying to get rid of them before they spead, and also wanted to make room for a new addition or two.
- did another water change. I've been doing about a 15-20% water change split over 2 days each week.

Testing Measurements.
  • Alk 7.7
  • Ca 415
  • Nitrates ~2 Showed some color on the Red Sea test, but not quite dark as the 1st readable amount.
  • pH 8.2
I've been target feeding Reef Roids once a week the past month before my water changes, and also did one day of mysis this week. Thinking that the roids may be contributing o the nitrate creep. May cut back on the roids... I do have some Reef Chili that I'm going to research on whether it's any better than the Reef Roids when it comes to nitrates and phosphates.
 
So, despite being careful, I think the pruning of the nuisance palys had a hit to my tank. I tried hard to clip off rock with a bone cutter that the paly's were on vs. the actual polyps.

Having some recession/bleaching on a few corals (a newer chalice, a encrusting monti). Did a water change last night, and planning on doing another today. Tossed an extra bag of carbon in the return chamber. Working on getting things stabilized.
 
georgec said:
Maintenance day:
- pruned back some junky palys (took bone cutters to the rock as much as possible), gloves, etc on for protection. Trying to get rid of them before they spead, and also wanted to make room for a new addition or two.
- did another water change. I've been doing about a 15-20% water change split over 2 days each week.

Testing Measurements.
  • Alk 7.7
  • Ca 415
  • Nitrates ~2 Showed some color on the Red Sea test, but not quite dark as the 1st readable amount.
  • pH 8.2
I've been target feeding Reef Roids once a week the past month before my water changes, and also did one day of mysis this week. Thinking that the roids may be contributing o the nitrate creep. May cut back on the roids... I do have some Reef Chili that I'm going to research on whether it's any better than the Reef Roids when it comes to nitrates and phosphates.
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Nitrates at 2 is good. What's your phosphate?
 
Also, note that I did do my monthly replacement of carbon/GFO bag at the same time as the Monday maintenance. (usually about 2 Tablespoons carbon/2 tablespoons GFO).
 
Carbon should help if it was related to the paly pruning.

I think that cutting rock can also expose some bacteria which can lead to a bloom and that can be detrimental to the corals in the short term.

And I’m seeing now you’re saying PO4 is 0, you probably should remove the GFO if that is true. You want some phosphate
 
georgec said:
I ran it twice this morning on my Hanna ULR Phosphorous checker and it read 0. (this was after one more water change from the Nitrates measure)
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I would work on getting that at least detectable. The exact number is endlessly debatable, but I believe nitrate from 1-5 (maybe even 10) and phosphate from 0.03 - 0.10 is generally an accepted range. It will be very hard to maintain phosphate and nitrate at an exact level.
 
georgec said:
I could do that and just run my testing a bit more frequently in the short term to watch closely.
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I believe weekly testing for N and P should suffice. It takes time for things to change and rebalance.
Plus, you don’t really want to switch things again in less than a week anyways. I learned that the hard way with nutrients, definitely gotta take it slow.
 
A quick update. My chalice and monti that were bleaching are making a come back and the parts that were still alive have been coloring up. In addition to the extra carbon, I've been doing daily 10% water changes this week to try and clear whatever it was out of the system.
 
max_nano said:
That’s a reason to love small tanks, just a gallon and a half will do it.
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Yes, while the swings can happen quicker, and more drastically, water changes do not equal the brute/ rubbermaid trash cans that many of you deal with. A 5 gallon bucket usually gets me through for 2 weeks. Though this week it was rough... I had to make two 5 gallon buckets of salt water. ;)
 
georgec said:
Yes, while the swings can happen quicker, and more drastically, water changes do not equal the brute/ rubbermaid trash cans that many of you deal with. A 5 gallon bucket usually gets me through for 2 weeks. Though this week it was rough... I had to make two 5 gallon buckets of salt water. ;)
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When you’re looking to upgrade, I’ve been using the 12 gallon storage boxes from Costco to mix in. I normally only fill them with 9-10 gallons so it doesn’t start to bow out, but they’re pretty great for mixing up water.

I usually mix the water, change 5 gal, then save the other 5 for the next wc
 
Thought I'd post an update. The tank was a little neglected over the holidays, but have been doing some extra water changes the past 2 weeks. Continue to fight hair algae, but have been manually pulling it, and also hitting spots where I can with a toothbrush where I can. I only feed corals same day as water changes, and even then, usually not more than every other week. Feed fish 2x per day at the most.

Coral growth:
  • Blasto has been struggling. Question: I'm wondering if the Frogspawn has grown too big and is sending out sweepers that are irritating it?
  • Green Monti frag is has been showing growth around the sides, and looks like it's plating out
  • Green slimer is showing some branches starting to come off of it (I bought a frag that was the base/plate section as it looked the healthiest)
  • Orange Chalice (pic doesn't show the true color) has made a good come back. It's still a bit pale in general.
    Question: The orange flourecense shows most on the tentales around the eyes. Not sure if this is normal or if it should be over more of the chalice.

Parameters (RedSea test kits for everything except PO4 which is with a Hanna Phosphorous ULR). Tested after 20-25% water change over 2 days. Water change brought everything up except for Alk.
  • Alk 5.32 <-- This seems really low, but tested twice. Thinking about bumping up my kalk dosing (currently at 32 ml). Maybe bumping to 35 and seeing how it goes.
  • Ca 440
  • Mg 1600
  • pH 8.2
  • NO3 0
  • PO4 0
Lighting:
  • Have been running AB+ profile that hit 50% from 11AM (on) to 10PM (off) with a 2 hour ramp up/down. So, 7 hours at full power. This gets me 90-100 par at the top of the tank, 60-80 at the bottom.
  • I'm planning on bumping up another 10% to 60% over the coming month to see how things go.
  • The new lighting has definitely been helping.
    • An orange lepto that was holding on and pale over the past year is now growing and deepened in color.
    • An acro that was brown/grey looking is starting to color up and is showing green polyps for the first time in years. I think it's likely another garf.


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max_nano said:
Looks nice! I think the orange chalice is a lepto?
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Hmm... the kid at Neptune said it was a chalice... So it's a lepto? I thought they were encrusting. This one plates out a little more like a monti.

Here's a picture of the lepto that I have in my tank that's been recovering (I'm pretty sure it's a lepto as I picked it up at the swap in '19 and it was labelled). It looks a lot different than the one I though was a chalice.

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