Cali Kid Corals

Moving in from Texas

ashburn2k said:
You should have left all your frags at my place
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You know it’s funny. Some of the corals you held for me looked better when I got them back from you than they ever have for me. A few others that were STNing healed when I got them back. Not sure what is different among them. Mostly I feel bad enough for taking up your tank space for so long. Thank you again for holding them for me.
Now if only I could clear out the corals a guy in Dallas gave me to hang in to for 3 months... more than a year ago.
 
Rostato said:
Nah. Stick with bare bottom. Once you go bare bottom and get stabilized you’ll never go back to a sand bed.
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I really prefer the look of fine sand, so it’s likely I’ll end up with sand at some point. I also find sand bed cleaning to be a handy export mechanism, but there are ways around that.
 
I went up to Aqua Forest Aquarium after work today, mostly because it was the closest PE mysis dealer to me. Of course they don't even carry it, but I was able to get some other frozen mysis. Seeing as I'm just feeding coral it probably won't matter, but the PE has always done well for my fish so I figured I'd just keep doing the same.

Anyhow, given the shortage of fish poop (something that seems to be good for corals) I figured coral poop would be the next closest thing. A cube of mysis wasn't nearly enough to feed the duncan, but at least I've got something going in now. About to head out of town for another couple days, so we'll see what it looks like when I get back.

The little tiny scoly has a pretty solid feeding response, so it got some. The welso still hasn't redeveloped its feeding response (it suffered from some fish abuse in the TX tank). The duncan of course eats like a pig.

If I'd been thinking I would have picked up a turkey baster while I was out.
 
Here are some of the latest additions, and some algae. On the plus side I'm starting to see a lot of pods and brittle stars, so things are progressing.
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Backing off the display lights didn't do much but it occurred to me that I'd never tried riding out a bloom since I started using skimmers. So long as I wasn't losing anything critical I decided to let the experiment run for observation. Instead of clearing up it moved to almost opaque white and has now taken on a greenish tinge. My backup UV unit is in Dallas and a bit of a pain to plumb in anyways so I'm going to black it out for a few days and see if that knocks it out. I tend to prefer solutions that don't include equipment. The only question at this point is if its easier to black the tank out, or black out the one window in the room. It's an interesting observation on the quantity and type of time I spend at home that I'm willing to live in darkness for several days whenever I'm there.

As an aside, I wonder if running a reverse light cycle on the fuge light in a higher flow system makes it easier for photosynthetic waterborne organisms to survive as they can be exposed to light through the night as well?

Edit: I'm also about to declare green porites as the star polyps of the SPS world. I used to consider that to be mystic monti after watching mine over run zoas, lordhowensis acans (micromussa) and even make good progress against a full bowerbanki before I intervened, but the porites seems to be doing fantastic in even this questionable environment. It would be interesting to put the two up against each other at some point and see which one wins.
 
So, exiting day 3 of the full apartment blackout and I decided to peek at the tank. To my great disappointment it's still very cloudy. Before I repair and bring out my UV unit from TX on my next trip, does anyone here have one I can borrow, or other ideas?
 
Yet let the bacterial populations settle out, they'll fix themselves in due time. Add some Microbactr7 or something similar if you're really that concerned.
 
I’ve used a floculant (forget what product name was) before to help collect it all. Doesn’t stop it from coming back necessarily, but clears it out at least.
 
I'll give it a bit more time based on the consensus here. I've only had one other extra cloudy water issue that didn't go away in the past. I waited 3 months of people telling me to be patient with no change, went through a bottle or two of bacteria because someone who knew more than me recommended it (and told me it would be free if it didn't work), then finally ran a blackout. That one change and it went from a 3 month issue to gone in 72 hours and never came back.

More importantly I'm curious as to the specific circumstances, and honestly a bit frustrated as I don't have my usual tools (phosphate tests, microscope, etc.) here with me.

With planted freshwater I liked running experiments on the tanks. I'd get my planted tank running really well, then specifically throw a single parameter (or pair) out of balance to induce an algae or bacterial bloom. I'd then adjust the system so that it went away, get things looking nice, and either repeat or move on to the next experiment. By the time that was done I could create or resolve all of the common issues. The thing that bothers me about this one is that I don't understand it beyond "The tank is young and maturing", and I'd like to get it to something like "Because the tank is new X is at Y and is resulting in Z. Once X gets to A then Z will no longer be an issue".
 
I think mine lasted a little more than 2 weeks. I watched things closely and nothing seemed effected. I got the same advice you did to just leave it and it did go away but I’m not sure of the circumstances that caused it or that fixed it. I just watched one of the brs videos though and they had a bloom in their new bare bottom tank. They said they were going to wait it out but for the sake of the show they put a uv light on it and it cleared it up.
 
After looking at my water in more neutral lighting I concluded that it was in fact a phyto bloom, although apparently blacking it out wasn't successful. On a trip home I finally grabbed my UV unit, put a fresh bulb and quartz tube in it, and dragged it out here. I put a spare pump, in this case a very small spare pump, on it. As a result I'm only trying to kill algae, but was just below the flow rate for larger parasites. Not as efficient, particularly given the lack of fish, but it got the job done in a bit under a week. I'm trying to decide what to do now. I feel like sterilizing the water on a long term basis should be a bad thing, but I'm also enjoying the water being so clear that I can barely tell its there.
The macro growth has not yet picked up, but I did notice that my nitrate level was back to 0 (API, so at least well below 5, looks like solid yellow w/no orange), so I dosed in a bit more and have started feeding the LPS again every day or two. The more fleshy LPS (trachy, scoly) actually looked really good coming out of the pea soup, although they look even better now. I'm actually a bit concerned about that because it adds weight to my theory that my CBB was picking on them in the last tank. I moved one other not doing so well scoly to the sump/frag system to confirm. I really do like the CBB, but I also like those corals so I'm not sure what I'll do with them. Perhaps they'll have to live their days in my frag system.
The SPS for the most part seems to have survived but looks pretty pale, but has been (slowly) encrusting and has very good PE, so I'm hoping it will bounce back. If not I can always move more frags.

I am getting just a bit of nuisance algae, which actually started be, so I decided to hop on my bike and make the ride down to Ultimate Aquarium and picked up 4 turbo snails today. TBD how long before their bulldozer nature makes me glue down the unsecured frags plugs.

I'm getting a solid feather duster population, and better yet, coralline is finally appearing in some places, which I feel is an excellent sign.
 
jccaclimber said:
After looking at my water in more neutral lighting I concluded that it was in fact a phyto bloom, although apparently blacking it out wasn't successful. On a trip home I finally grabbed my UV unit, put a fresh bulb and quartz tube in it, and dragged it out here. I put a spare pump, in this case a very small spare pump, on it. As a result I'm only trying to kill algae, but was just below the flow rate for larger parasites. Not as efficient, particularly given the lack of fish, but it got the job done in a bit under a week. I'm trying to decide what to do now. I feel like sterilizing the water on a long term basis should be a bad thing, but I'm also enjoying the water being so clear that I can barely tell its there.
The macro growth has not yet picked up, but I did notice that my nitrate level was back to 0 (API, so at least well below 5, looks like solid yellow w/no orange), so I dosed in a bit more and have started feeding the LPS again every day or two. The more fleshy LPS (trachy, scoly) actually looked really good coming out of the pea soup, although they look even better now. I'm actually a bit concerned about that because it adds weight to my theory that my CBB was picking on them in the last tank. I moved one other not doing so well scoly to the sump/frag system to confirm. I really do like the CBB, but I also like those corals so I'm not sure what I'll do with them. Perhaps they'll have to live their days in my frag system.
The SPS for the most part seems to have survived but looks pretty pale, but has been (slowly) encrusting and has very good PE, so I'm hoping it will bounce back. If not I can always move more frags.

I am getting just a bit of nuisance algae, which actually started be, so I decided to hop on my bike and make the ride down to Ultimate Aquarium and picked up 4 turbo snails today. TBD how long before their bulldozer nature makes me glue down the unsecured frags plugs.

I'm getting a solid feather duster population, and better yet, coralline is finally appearing in some places, which I feel is an excellent sign.
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I never got feather dusters. I don’t know if maybe I had something that was picking them off before they had a chance to grow.
 
Flagg37 said:
I never got feather dusters. I don’t know if maybe I had something that was picking them off before they had a chance to grow.
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What is your fish list? I have at least 3 types in the TX system, but all now live mainly in the sump due to the CBB. That guy can eat hundreds if not thousands per day.

The only other time I’ve seen a single fish change an environment that fast was the day my desjardini realized he likes ulva. It had completely taken over the entire tank during the cycle and the desjardini reduced it to bare rock in less than 24 hours. The yellow probably helped, but he looked roughly normal. The desjardini on the other hand looked like he was about to explode. Ulva is pretty thin, but I had no idea a single fish could consume it so fast.
 
Another trip home and another container of coral successfully transported. Still no fish. Boring things first, then pictures later:
1) When you think things might go poorly and you don't plan accordingly, things occasionally go poorly. I was gone for 6 days around the 4th and I managed to run out of ATO water (lid off at the moment) as well as both 2 part containers (this last part was expected, only lost a day or so). I also managed to bottom out my nitrates, and I wonder if I bottomed out my phosphate. Alk was down to 7, which makes me wonder if I missed more than 1 day of dosing. One rainbow stylo frag was lost, although I have a second frag, so not world ending.
2) Fortunately many issues aren't hard to fix. Refilled the ATO reservoir, manually dosed some 2 part, cleaned the algae, fed a couple cubes of mysis, and threw in a teaspoon of KNO3, all told less than 30 minutes and things were back on track. A week later I have the alk back up to 10, and am slowly getting it tuned in. Consumption is increasing as I add coral and the tank matures, so I need to regularly test and adjust anyways. The LFS in TX that I have a Trident on order through is still a month out or so (I think he got a better offer and bumped me on the list a bit, but that's ok), so I'll be manually measuring for a bit longer.
3) My 2 part containers have been upgraded from 1.6 L lemonade containers to gallon milk jugs. For the moment they are in front of the stand so as not to violate the "no dosing pumps below the top of the dosing container" rule, but I may be able to modify the stand floor to make things work.
4) I'm thinking of bringing out my smaller clam at some point since it fits in a carry on container, but I don't think the alk is sufficiently stable for that to be a good idea just yet.
5) At this point I have at least frags of almost all of the SPS I intend to bring, most of the zoas, and most of the chalices. No clams, and no fish. I'm unsure where I want to mount the chalices, but they have to go somewhere because I need to clear the frag racks and foreground space for clams, things that haven't moved yet, etc.
6) Pictures from this afternoon, pardon the glare and distortion near the bottom of the tank:

My pink goni made it out. Getting this guy out of the old tank was actually pretty miserable. It started ~3 years ago as a 2"x1" frag and obviously has expanded since then. The much smaller red goni is out as well, although it doesn't seem to be at home yet.
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The orange bowerbanki took a couple hits when I had to chip it off of its shelf in the old tank, but seems to have taken the trip ok. It of course entered the neighborhood by starting to kill its neighbor, so I'll have to keep a lot of space around it.
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Not bubbling like I like it, but one of my favorite pieces survived the same trip:
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Finally, a current tank shot even if it is mostly frags. As you can see I've moved a few of the larger LPS pieces from the previous tank.
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jccaclimber said:
Yes to a large house, although mostly because the big house came with the garage. By Midwest standards is call the yard small, although the locals disagree. While I like my green space cutting grass is a chore, not a joy. (Edit, you'd be amazed how much space is freed up when you don't have a TV.)
Position is Uber ATG, so Lyft was a decent guess. They'll get me from a train station, although I don't know the details. Personally I'd rather ride my bike from the train station if that's at all practical (chronic wrist injury may prevent this).
Baseline vs non baseline rates is a new one to me, that hurts. With electric rates that high I'm surprised I didn't see more solar, or does the fog make that impractical?
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Nice tank! I’m at Uber too but I sit at 1455. I assume you’re over at the pier?


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