Thomas' 29G TruVu

[Darkxerox]

Maintenance day. Swapping out the Phosguard two weeks ago brought down phosphates to 0.20 ppm pre water change.

Returned Kenny's Wilsoni after it recovered in my tank over two months:

Added a new clam which promptly got a welcome to the family bullying by the urchin:

Swapped out the peristaltic tubing for my kalkwasser pump (reminder to do so for anyone that hasn't in the past year or so).

Did a full skimmer clean out. And swapped out the return pump on the other nano.

 

[Darkxerox]

Update of the new clam and cradle made from a dead montipora for @tribbitt

Glad that @under_water_ninja has a bin of skeletons from when he has to trim SPS!

 

[Darkxerox]

Was home for Thanksgiving and got to do some work on the tank. Mostly trucking along, but last time the Walt Disney from @derek_SR RTNed after falling behind the rocks for who knows how long so I tried to save it. Two frags and the little glob on the tile survived.

Lost my POTM winner Wilsoni too which sucks. The baby clam died after the rocks flipped over and buried it in the sand too. The lack of water changes probably isn't helping after going from a consistent weekly schedule to maybe a month or so. Everything else looked good so I fragged a few things to bring down to the CADE.

FTS

I submitted some water to aquabiomics awhile back to make sure my fish were disease free before moving any of them, but it's been weeks with no results still. I also did a Triton N-DOC test based on what Salem had been mentioning about low water change and high macroalgae export tanks and dissolved carbon. Basically got low to normal dissolved organic and inorganic carbon and a ton of phosphate showing up from overfeeding. The results here for phosphorus show zero but in reality they're very high (>0.9ppm per Hanna). https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/n-doc/19324

 

[derek_SR]

I’m kind of skeptical of my triton NDOC results too. Both of mine showed low DOC although one was sent immediately after light feeding and carbon and the other after a long stint of heavy feeding and no carbon at all.

 

[tribbitt]

Both of mine showed low DOC although one was sent immediately after light feeding and carbon and the other after a long stint of heavy feeding and no carbon at all.

Could bacteria have consumed a significant portion of DOC during transit? Never used N-DOC kit but am very curious.

 

[Darkxerox]

Could bacteria have consumed a significant portion of DOC during transit? Never used N-DOC kit but am very curious.

Maybe? I doubt it though since I didn't leave any air gap in the falcon tube and most of those bacteria are aerobic. They would have run out really quickly.

 

[Darkxerox]

Finally got my Aquabiomics results in. Samples were collected from my overflow and return nozzle as suggested.

1001856_tankDNA_Report

Pretty huge number of different organisms but zero fish/clam parasites (yes you can have a cryptocaryon free or mostly fish tank!) which is surprising for a tank that has 20+ year old fish. Quarantine or partial quarantine does work.

Thought the flatworm numbers would be higher, but amusing to see the high dinoflagellate % despite zero visible mats or films. Very diverse as expected though.

The microbiome test showed a high diversity score, but lots of Vibrio. Again no fish or coral disease presenting currently.

1002982_Microbiome_Report

Traces of SCTLD but below the average. Really odd there's no pelagibacteraceae.

 

[Darkxerox]

Slowly shutting down this tank as I move things into the new CADE. The yellow wrasse is doing great in the new tank, along with all the tester corals. Had my own fragging workshop after the actual one at @Arvin R 's (the new blade was so much better btw).

Cut up all my micromussa, remaining torches, and my fimbriaphyllia to have backups and things for the swap. Check out the growth on @tribbitt 's splatter hammer nubbin from last June, I've never had one encrust down the plug before:

Heavy dipping in Reef Primer to keep out the planaria. Looking good so far.

I put in a bunch of phosphate pads from the free table last week that got things down to 0.38 ppm. Nitrates are 12.5. Alk creeping up to 8.9 after removing/losing some corals. That makes my N to P molar ratio 50.3 in the good range now. Looking back when my tank was awful looking in photos and I couldn't keep any new corals alive, the ratios were really high at 200+.

 

[Darkxerox]

Haven't been home for a couple weeks but my parents said my maxima died unfortunately. It had gotten knocked off its stand a few times by a money cowrie trying to lay eggs under it and I guess that must have damaged its byssal opening.

In other news, I'll be shutting down and moving the tank after 19+ years this Sunday with @FullerReef

@tribbitt if you want some good coralline I should be able to scrape off a chunk.

 

[Turkeysammich]

The end of an era. So sad. Must be the longest nano in history.

 

[Darkxerox]

Moved the tank last Sunday with the help of @FullerReef (thank you!)

Last photos in Oakland:

Guess I can finally get rid of my old metal halide ballast! Carpet was completely compressed.

Set up in the new garage while I treat for bryopsis and let the peppermints get hungry from no fish food and eat all the aiptasia:

Fun fact: Vortechs can communicate from 100 feet away. I had the one MP10 set to primary with the other as a secondary, but it was interfering with the ones in the house and the wave engine causing them to go haywire. After a factory reset they're fine and not causing issues.

Couple larger casualties of the move: my pitho crab and my yellow wrasse. I goofed the initial salinity which got the crab, but noticed it as a canary before bigger problems happened. The fish was moved a couple weeks before but he never acted normal and wasn't sleeping as much.

pH trends pre and post move (stopped kalk and haven't restarted the fuge). Note the dips in pH now (dip before March 3rd was me sleeping in the room at night):

My ancient clowns now live in the CADE 1500 along with the pink streak and the spotted mandarin. The other clown was taken out and moved into a frag nano.

 

[Alexander1312]

I misunderstood this when you responded in my journal.

On the PH chart, would this not be expected with no fish, no fish food and sitting in a fresh air like environment where almost no buffering is needed?

On a different note - how do you know how much your fish sleep?

 

[Darkxerox]

Update: tank is doing fine in the garage. Did a 50% water change this week for the first time in a couple months. BAR "Oregon" tort is getting huge, so are the chalices, and the rock from the tank breakdown looks better than the fake frag rock I had in the center.

At some point this summer I'll do a full reset and bomb it to kill all the planaria once and for all. The peppermints got hungry while I was gone for a month and wiped out all the in tank aiptasia. Been feeding powdered foods occasionally since there are no fish.

Zero algae, I think the dove snails, emerald crab, and black urchin are doing a great job.

I'll test things at one point but alk was 8.9 dKh. Still using just kalk plus some random shots of TM A and K.

 

[FinalPhaze987]

Are the powdered foods enough to sustain your nutrients without fish or are you having to dose?

 

[ReyDeFarts]

BAR "Oregon" tort

Can we change this dbtc item to something different? It's confusing since it isn't an Oregon.

 

[Darkxerox]

Can we change this dbtc item to something different? It's confusing since it isn't an Oregon.

I think @H2OPlayar is the owner and might be able to edit, I can't. I think we settled on BAR Blue Tort.

 

[H2OPlayar]

I think @H2OPlayar is the owner and might be able to edit, I can't. I think we settled on BAR Blue Tort.

It already got renamed a few months back.

 

[Darkxerox]

It already got renamed a few months back.

Thread renamed but not the DBTC entry:

 

[H2OPlayar]

Thread renamed but not the DBTC entry:

View attachment 70646

I poked around and can't see a place to rename that.

 

[H2OPlayar]

View attachment 70648View attachment 70649View attachment 70650View attachment 70651

I don't have that edit choice on it. Must have been taken over by the BOD. @JVU maybe can edit it.