Reef nutrition

Randy's Red Sea Reefer 250

Yippee said:
Your corals look great! I see the Rastas went to a good home. Are those mushrooms yuma or florida?
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Thanks! Those Rastas are growing like crazy. I think I picked it up from the swap with 6-7 polyps, but I've probably got 12, maybe 13, now.

You know, I actually didn't confirm if it was a florida or yuma when buying it, but after looking at it more closely, I'd lean florida. The mouth is pretty isolated from the tentacles and the different tentacle sized placement is pretty random. So I'd definitely guess florida.
 
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How are the MP40s working out for you? Do you run them at a low setting and are they quiet during nutrient transport mode?
 
Yippee said:
How are the MP40s working out for you? Do you run them at a low setting and are they quiet during nutrient transport mode?
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They're working out well; I like them a lot. Two MP40s are probably too much for a RSR250, but the benefit is that I don't hear them at all in any mode. I run them between 7-10%. The loudest thing I hear in my setup is the skimmer bubbles and even that is barely noticeable.
 
Day 66: Screw you and whatever horse you came on monsters! Two or three days ago I noticed these on my Aussie Gold torch and purple with yellow tips torch. They kinda look like black bugs, sometimes look like a flatworm, but whatever you are (unless someone tells me you're good or benign), I don't like you. There didn't seem to be any bite marks or any negative effects though. If anyone has an idea what exactly they are please let me know. I've never seen black bugs on an Euphyllia, so I don't know what this is and can't seem to find a diagnosis online. Seems that they only come out at night when the lights are off. These two torches have been with me for around 4-5 months.

At any rate, I dipped both torches in Bayer and I haven't seen the black specks come back on these two corals or any other so far, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but that might just be wishful thinking.

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This was taken early this morning, so they still appear healthy and in really good shape and black speck/dot free.

 
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We had flatworms on our torch corals at the Steinhart for over a year. No damage was done to the coral, they seem to eat the slime on the coral. Nothing else was in the tank so we left them. I bet flatworm exit would kill em if you wanted to try that. I used on my tank before and it didn't harm anything...although I have never seen black ones before.
 
Day 73

Fighting a little bit of a cyano problem. I've cut back on my heavy-handed feeding and took the light cycle down an hour. I also increased return flow from the sump.

Black bugs/flatworms from last week have not reappeared after the Bayer dip on the two torches that had them. I ordered flatworm eXit, but have not used it. Still keeping fingers crossed they won't come back and I won't have to dose the whole tank with eXit.

I also brought my alk to 10 dKh to match my salt mix. I made a mistake in a previous post and mentioned my salt mixed to 9 dKh, but it's actually 10. So after manually bringing the tank up to 10 dKh, I'm dosing around 24-25ml of 2-part daily and it looks to keep my alk pretty stable around 10dKh.

BTA is not happy with its location as it has been moving around a lot the last week within a 6-8" radius. And it has lost most of the bubble tips, hopefully this is temporary until it finds a spot it likes. Right now it is dangerously close to settling in next to my Aussie gold torch. Hope I don't have to rearrange stuff for the BTA. I am sad that there are no signs my clown fish will ever host this guy as they seem completely unaware it's even there or just don't care.

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Does anyone else's BTA(s) close every night for a short period? Mine seems to...or maybe it's because it's not a happy camper.

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Cheato is growing super fast. Went from slightly smaller than baseball sized to filling the entire 2.1 gallon fuge in around 3.5 weeks. It appears the fuge light may be too strong when the fuge is full of chateo as the cheto on the light side was pretty much white. The light after all is about 1-2" from the glass.

Day_0073_chaeto_growth.jpg


Other than that, things are going well. Clowns are doing well, flame angel is happy and 6-line wrasse is still buddy-buddy with the flame angel swimming together around the tank. There was a little nipping from my female clown last week and the 6-line lost a little bit of tail fin, but all is peaceful and happy now. Skunk cleaner shrimp are still being food hogs and trying to entice the fish to let them be cleaned, but they can't convince any of them.

Coral are looking happy. Five of my euphyllia and the candy cane splitting. Vamp-in-drag zoas are multiplying like bunnies and rasta and eagle zoas are showing some matting growth (new polyps will probably start soon). Montis and meteor shower cyphastrea are starting to encrust. Acros are still looking the same, might still be adjusting to the tank as I haven't seen much change in them so far.

I've been thinking of adding bio-pellets to the system, I'm trying to figure out if it's worth the effort to find the space to make it happen. Any strong opinions one way or the other from the BAR?
 
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Day 80: "The proof of the pudding is in the eating!". QT and/or TTM is a wise thing to do.

So I was bad with my first four SW fish and didn't QT them or use TTM. The clowns were transplants from my Fluval edge (6+ months ago) and the flame angel and 6-line wrasse have been in the tank for 19 days, but they did get a drip acclimation and a fresh water bath (no sign of flukes). Those four are cool so far (keep fingers crossed, knock on wood). I had my first six-line meet his demise in this tank, but that's on him. A swim into a MP40 pump starting back from feed mode is not a good idea.

So last week I decided to pick up a couple of fish (a green warpaint clown goby and a female leopard wrasse) and my gut told me to give TTM a go this time around. Well, suffice to say, neither of them are around anymore after tonight. Things were looking good, both looked healthy for the first couple of days - weren't eating yet, but I assumed they were still adjusting. But then the clown goby started first about 3 days in with heavy breathing at bottom of tank, but no physical signs. He was gone a couple days later. No white spots, didn't see flukes in the gills or body after examining, thought maybe velvet. Threw in half of the recommended Cupramine dosage to ramp the copper treatment up slowly for the wrasse, but by early morning of Day 6, she started heavy breathing at bottom of tank, laying on her side. Gone by the evening. No white spots on wrasse. Limited fish owner, so I don't know any better, but I've read velvet can kill fast without physical signs. If not velvet, any thoughts BAR on what else it might have been?

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Two standard 10 gallon tanks, Colbalt neotherm 75W heaters set at 78F, koralia nano 240s, some PVC elbows, and had a container of new sand for leopard to bury herself in. New saltwater - SG 1.024, pH ~8.2.
 
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I'm just glad you listened to your gut. So far I've got only a clown pair and chromis pair in my tank, but I'll probably get more and more diligent about ttm and QT on top of that the more fish I have in there. Might ttm the first 12 days and QT til total of 21 days.
 
RandyC said:
Two standard 10 gallon tanks, Colbalt neotherm 75W heaters set at 78F, koralia nano 240s, some PVC elbows, and had a container of new sand for leopard to bury herself in. New saltwater - SG 1.024, pH ~8.2.
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You forgot air pump/tubing/stone. Unless you point the powerheads up at the surface and really break up the surface, there isn't enough gas exchange.

Might be why the fish died if it wasn't a disease or parasite. Velvet looks like ich except it is very fine dusting, makes the skin look like it's covered in flour. And it won't be distinct spots but rather like a coating.

Also, you will need to throw away the sand every transfer and add new sand. Nothing that stays wet gets moved to a new tank except the fish. Move as little water over as possible, so no nets if you can. I use a plastic colander and I drain all the water from it.


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Vhuang168 said:
You forgot air pump/tubing/stone. Unless you point the powerheads up at the surface and really break up the surface, there isn't enough gas exchange.

Might be why the fish died if it wasn't a disease or parasite. Velvet looks like ich except it is very fine dusting, makes the skin look like it's covered in flour. And it won't be distinct spots but rather like a coating.

Also, you will need to throw away the sand every transfer and add new sand. Nothing that stays wet gets moved to a new tank except the fish. Move as little water over as possible, so no nets if you can. I use a plastic colander and I drain all the water from it.


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Power heads were pointed at the surface and was creating a ripple across the tank. So I don't think that was it. Was planning on ditching the sand every transfer, but sadly, I didn't get that far.
 
A ripple is not going to cut it. The surface needs to be broken.

Also, what is your acclimation procedure into the 1st tank?


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Also another drawback to powerhead is it's harder to dry off (sterilize) between transfers. I don't bleach, just towel dry and let dry completely. But I wouldn't be confident that a powerhead is completely dry.
 
Speaking of, I watched this yesterday and thought it was worthwhile.

Shows a tang with presumed velvet and it's behavior. Maybe it's ich, but this was after TTM during QT.

 
Vhuang168 said:
A ripple is not going to cut it. The surface needs to be broken.

Also, what is your acclimation procedure into the 1st tank?


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It was breaking. The power head was pointed at the surface and the output of the power head was place just below the surface.

I'll put in airstones in next time at any rate.

I floated the bag in the TTM tank and drip acclimated for 30 minutes.
 
Gablami said:
Also another drawback to powerhead is it's harder to dry off (sterilize) between transfers. I don't bleach, just towel dry and let dry completely. But I wouldn't be confident that a powerhead is completely dry.
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I was planning on bleaching and then putting a fan on the tank make sure everything was dry.

For the power head, was gonna take it apart and lay out the parts to make sure it would dry.
 
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