Waterbox Cube 20G
- Thread starter Ibn
- Start date
Ibn
Guest
Will do but it might not happen for a long time, if ever, since he's never cut it before and originally it was supposed to be a trade against another deepwater ric that never panned out.
It's interesting to see it in the tank in comparison with the other two ricordeas that I have, one florida and one yuma. The polyps on this deepwater is more substantial than the rainbow florida and it has more substance in comparison to my bounce yuma.
It's interesting to see it in the tank in comparison with the other two ricordeas that I have, one florida and one yuma. The polyps on this deepwater is more substantial than the rainbow florida and it has more substance in comparison to my bounce yuma.
Ibn
Guest
Thanks and great seeing you here, Alan!
Ibn
Guest
Thanks Liz! I'm trying to recover a maleficent that was given to me in rather poor shape at the moment. It barely made it through the melafix dip and has been iffy since then. Hopefully it'll make it through.Welcome back! Wow already your nano has higher end equipment than any of my tanksand as always exquisite taste in corals. The Neptune tenuis with orange polyps is crazy. If you need some red I have a maleficent for you.
Ibn
Guest
Not much happening. Colors are coming in, coralline showing up, and alk is slowly being consumed. Been dropping the effluent down to target levels since I had to up it awhile back, when I noticed that the demand wasn't so high, after clearing out some corals. Also been dosing potassium nitrates at ~1 ppm daily to keep it detectable.
Ibn
Guest
Sure thing, Will!
Just some progression changes, which isn't much at all, over the course of the last month, which is typical of most frags at the 1/2" - 1" size.
RR Pink Floyd. Shed its ugliness and picking up its famed yellows. Hard to notice the small amount of encrustation at all.
POTO Ice Age Granulosa. Shed its brown coloration and lightening up. It actually fell off the rockwork when I was cleaning and I glued it back on, but you'll notice that it's facing a slightly different angle. Biggest change is the amount of coralline on the plug.
BigR Walt Disney. Not much happening here, other than the color changes as it shed its ugliness. The frag was glued into a big 'ole glob of glue so it's taking its time to encrust...
Neptune SPS #4. Picked up its pink and the purple tip is more noticeable. For some reason there's barely any encrustation at all and there's just a small bit of tip growth. The nuisance algae eventually disappeared over time.
Neptune SPS #6. Color change and barely noticeable increase in encrustation. Similar to the piece above, algae at its base went away.
Neptune SPS #7. You can see the edge of the encrustation in today's pic. Otherwise, not much other than it getting a bit beefier with the red polyps defining itself over time.
Neptune SPS #9. Not much happening...
ORA Pearlberry. This one came off the frag during a cleaning and I had to reattach it to its plug. Just a bit of tip growth and more coralline showing up on its plug.
Oregon tort. Slow as per usual for the frag.
Pink Lemonade. Picked up its famed yellowish coloration. Still waiting for the algae to go away with this piece.
Ibn
Guest
RR OP. Arguable the smallest frag in the tank at 1/2". Hasn't done much, but it is slowly growing and pushing out new polyps.
RR The Vinh. Another piece that came off the rock and had to be reglued. Shed most of the browns on it. Can't see from this angle but it is slowly encrusting over the glob of glue at its base.
RRC Pink Cadillac. Mostly encrusted over the plug and is touching the epoxy now.
Vivid Confetti. Encrusting and doing its own thing. Lost some of its trademark colors, but it's healthy so I'm not concerned about it.
RR The Vinh. Another piece that came off the rock and had to be reglued. Shed most of the browns on it. Can't see from this angle but it is slowly encrusting over the glob of glue at its base.
RRC Pink Cadillac. Mostly encrusted over the plug and is touching the epoxy now.
Vivid Confetti. Encrusting and doing its own thing. Lost some of its trademark colors, but it's healthy so I'm not concerned about it.
Ibn
Guest
Yep, health is all I'm concerned about with these pieces. Colors will get there eventually.
Ibn
Guest
Good eyes! Due to it being knocked off the plug, there isn't much encrustation, but the tip has grown by ~1/2". BTW, where's the Neptune light program at?
@Vhuang168No real methods really. I've just been really consistent. 3-4x a day feeding with NLS small pellets (I haven't used frozen food in over 2 months), weekly 2.5 gallons water changes, Coral Lab AB+ program, plus the daily KNO3 dosing (~1-2 ppm to get nitrates reading). I haven't worried about phosphates and haven't measured it since the tank has been set up.
I've been dealing with diatoms and cyano in the tank as it's been slowly maturing. It was both on the rocks as well as the sand bed. Been using a small baster to blow it off the rocks, then I remove both structure of rocks and let it sit out in the air during the water changes. I then siphon out as much of the algae and cyano as possible in the meantime. With the pieces on disks and on rubble, I pull those out, invert them over the bucket, and swish them around to remove the cyano. Everything then gets chucked back into the tank. The entire process takes ~30 minutes and the sps on both rock structure doesn't mind it at all. Their polyps pop back out ~10 minutes afterwards.
If you take a look at the RRC Pink Caddy in the picture above from 5/10/21, you'll notice the slime coating on it. That pic was taken ~5 minutes after the water changes. That slime coating gets blasted off the coral within 30 minutes and its back to normal.
The process has helped as the tank matures. The coralline is slowly coming in and battling with the other algaes, with less growing on both the sand bed and the rocks. Also noticed that it takes a lot longer for the brown algae coat to form on the glass. I used to have to clean it every 2 days or so, but it's been 4 days now and there's still barely any algae on it.