90g Sw Build...eek!

Think we have some coral warfare going on in the tank, the xenia, zoas and cloves all look angry. The leather got stung by the torch a few days ago and a chunk has literally melted off the top of it have now moved torch to a corner on it's own away from literally everything lol. Only noticed this morning, gave the leather a blast with the turkey baster to get the dead bits off, swiped the bits coming off with the net so they couldn't melt into the tank and chucked a couple of bags of carbon into the sump, all on my way out the door to work this morning lol.

Gonna give the leather a bit of time to see how it heals up but if it struggles surgery may be imminent lol. Maybe a water change tonight depending on how tired I am!

Always something to deal with in a marine tank lol

On the plus side Toby the goby hasn't been eaten by the elegance coral yet

 

Been chasing kh this week, bit odd as all other levels have remained stable but multiple tests have confirmed it’s too low (was down to 4.5!!). The sps are NOT happy. Everything else ok but also struggling with heat at the moment. Slowly been raising over the last week and hopefully things will improve.

Toby the goby has gone missing. He used to live on the weir as the talbot would chase him out of any cave he made but haven’t seen him, even at night so now wondering if the catalaphyllia has eaten him after all

Need to find a way to catch the talbot. Keeps digging everywhere and burying my acans, it’s driving me mad!!

 

Been chasing alkalinity myself lately. Just started dosing two-part and am getting into a good schedule, though there's been an aggravating amount of testing to do along the way.

How long has it been since you saw Toby? Hoping he's just hiding really well, kinda like my firefish Scorch has been doing since I added a totally non-aggressive clown. Poor Scorch is terrified of just seeing the clown and sometimes he'll stay in his burrow avoiding things for days.

Ugh... been hearing from a few of my reefy friends lately about how they had to tear out the rockscape so they could catch a fish. Is the talbot an aggressive eater? Seems like there are two options. If you're as quick as lightning with that net, perhaps you could catch him while he's eating. If not... dang, I really hope you don't have to tear into things. Wishing you luck!!!

 

Tomorrow I am pulling everything out to catch the talbot. I am beyond furious with it. Today he ripped up an ultra clove polyp colony that cost me £120 because it was in his corner. I am soooooo mad. Feel like flushing the little punk down the toilet when I catch it. I won’t, it’s the rage talking. But ugh!

Toby the goby is still missing so we’ll see if he pops up when I tear it all down tomorrow, I’m guessing not as it’s been a couple of weeks now.

Argh!! Why did I buy a damsel?! I knew it was a bad idea and I did it anyway, why? Why do I do this to myself?? I am so stressed out at the moment it’s ridiculous!

Oh, and the coral beauty has been attacking my cleaner shrimp, no idea why, the shrimp are doing ok all things considered but man I am seriously debating just hauling him and dum dum out too tomorrow and getting rid of all the tank aggressors coz I have had enough! Or maybe just dum dum so I can get my fairy wrasse. I’ll sleep on it and see how I feel in the morning/see who I can catch tomorrow as I’m guessing my clown will hulk out again if she becomes top dog again.

Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhhh! *pulls hair out*

 

Wishing you luck!

Try not to feel too bad. We all screw up sometimes. I felt like adding a clown was probably a bad idea but did it anyway. Never did I imagine that the goby added at the same time would be a problem, but he is indeed the jerkiest watchman goby I've ever heard of.

 

I probably won’t buy another goby if we can’t find Toby. Though I don’t know how much of it was the talbot not allowing him to come down off the weir...that was probably fairly significant. Planning to put corals in buckets tomorrow, one “aggressive” bucket and one “non aggressive” bucket. Live rock is gonna go in a large round tub thingy I have, in a base of water with a towel soaked in salt water on top to try and stop it drying out. It’s gonna be super hot tomorrow so fairly concerned I’m gonna have to do everything quickly. Any thoughts on anything else I can do to try and preserve the cycle?

Or I could put coral in the sump? Or some of the live rock? Hmmm.

 

I don't imagine the sump will be running normally, but if you can put a little pump or something in for circulation, I'd recommend you keep your most sensitive coral species and any live rock that will fit there. Let's not forget that corals aren't as sensitive as we often consider them to be. After all, the go through all kinds of things before we get them... thinking about saws and glue and all, lol. I'd think the corals will be mostly fine, but yeah, if I'm remembering correctly, you have sensitive corals like the goni, and for that, I'd think sump would be best.

Do you have a bin of some kind that you mix your saltwater in? I'd try to keep your live rock in flowing water as much as possible for cycle preservation. Flowing water will keep things cool as well of course.

If none of that is possible, then you've already got the right idea. Keep things wet and move as quickly as possible. It's going to be a big job I'm sure, but you will feel so much better when it's all done.

 

Talbot and wrasse are out, rescape done, minimal casualties! The royal gramma is missing, assuming hiding (hopefully lol), all of the corals have bounced back and are fully out except for the bubble. I am a little concerned about it, pics below:






Hopefully this is a sulk and not a horrible injury...it was out of the water for about 3 seconds total...thoughts? *bites nails*

 

I'm glad to hear things went pretty well.

Wish I could help on the bubble.. hubs hates 'em though, so I never even looked into them. I really hope it's just a sulk too. Fingers crossed!

 

All is well in the tank, the gramma came out of hiding, the clowns are in love, the coral beauty cruises constantly and the blenny spends his days admiring himself in the glass reflection lol.

The bubble still has his mouth open but it’s much smaller and his bubbles are nice and inflated so looking promising for a recovery. All the other coral has settled in like nothing ever happened and tank is looking fab I will post a new fts and some new pics when bubble has recovered.

Now debating wrasses to replace dum dum and the talbot. My three main contenders are c. solorensis, c. JordanI and c. Lineatus. Ideally would like wrasse that are bright and don’t bury themselves so think these fit the bill

 

We now have an exquisite wrasse and a itty bitty baby solon fairy wrasse in qt. they’re adorable

 

Yay!!! Congratulations! Can't wait to see them.

 

Still having problems with alkalinity, haven't been able to get it above 6dkh and it drops as low as 4.5 if I'm not completely on it dosing every 2 days. Getting frustrating because I want to get this back up but can't rush it without shocking the coral but the coral is also starting to look a bit off, the bubble isn't recovering and the catalaphyllia is sulking. Using seachem reefbuilder as my calcium is at 450 so don't want a 2 part system, does anyone have any bright ideas?

Oh, and we have ich again!ead:

EDIT: this alkalinity thing is really hacking me off coz I can't buy coral while it's all unstable and awful. The struggle is REAL.

 

What are you dosing it with and how much?

 

I’m using Seachem reefbuilder and following standard instructions on the back at the moment, it’s 6 gallon dissolved in RO before adding

 

Errrr... don't ask me to explain dosing. I'd watched BRS videos several times before beginning a dosing schedule, and like you, I only wanted to raise alkalinity, because calc was fine at 440. Alk wasn't terrible at 7.5, but it would get down to 7.2, so it was really riding the low end and we wondered if we'd get faster growth around 9. So, we bought two-part, but only dosed alkalinity for several weeks. I also scratched my head at the varying doses needed and why it would always go right back to 7.2 dKH. I finally tried wrapping my head around some Randy Holmes articles. Again, don't ask me to explain why, but I finally got it through my thick head that calc and alk should be dosed as a two-part... meaning, use both of them. For several weeks now, I've been dosing equal parts of calc and alk to my tank, (20-30 minutes apart to avoid precipitation), and wouldn't you know it... calc is not rising, it is staying stable at 430, alk is also stable at 9, and most importantly, corals are happy and growing.

 

How is everyone doing?

Got some bumblebee zoas and a little lilac rhodactis mushroom last weekend. Couldn’t stop myself, I was in proper withdrawal lol.

The catalaphyllia didn’t make it, 99% sure it had ECS. Oddly enough the bubble has been improving by the day since we took it out, so wondering if that had been upsetting it. The montipora has also coloured up really really nicely and the two goniopora, frogspawn, torch, hammer, Orange mushrooms and pretty much all other corals seem to be flourishing, though I’m not sure why as my kh is still too low (currently sitting around 6). Sincerely considering getting a hanna alkalinity checker as I’m not 100% sure I trust the test kit, my results and the coral behaviour isn’t adding up. The only thing not happy now is my cats eye zoas who haven’t opened in a couple of days (I mean, out of everything in the tank, and it’s the zoas that act out? Seriously?)

Ich is clearing up and all being well the wrasses can move over in a few weeks. Want to make sure stress levels are down as much as possible and am fattening the wrasses up in case the move makes them susceptible to ich. Wish I had a qt big enough or even space to put temporary tubs to let the DT go fallow but it’s just not an option at the moment. That being said, a house move might be on the horizon so maybe something can be worked out then.

Happy ish with things at the moment. Need to do a full regiment of testing soon as haven’t done it in a while and wanna make sure I’m not missing something.

Oh my gosh and I purchased a pump that literally pumps water out of the 25 litre Jerry can thingys into the sump...no more hauling buckets up high to start siphons! My back is so relieved!!! It’s the little things in life haha

 

Sorry about the elegance. I do love those but have been too afraid of them for these very reasons.

Glad to hear everyone else is doing well.

Zoas can be a pita. In my experience, it's not as easy to keep them happy as one would think. Some varieties are easier than others, and I couldn't get my first 7, (that's right... 7) zoa purchases to thrive. Some were even decent frags with a dozen polyps, but all of those first 7 died eventually. I didn't even try again for many months, and am having better luck now, but still only have 2 little colonies and am unwilling to pay top dollar for these little beauties... as much as I'd like to. Don't even get me started on Rastas.

All and all, a great update. Indeed... the little things. I use an MJ1200 to avoid lifting water up high... even for the little 7.5g betta tank. I think even the fish prefer water being pumped in rather than poured.

 

sorry about the elegance they are finiky at times. glad to see the rest of your friends are starting to perk up. what test kit are you using? I have two test kits for that exact reason, my doubt kicks in and I can't sleep.

 

sorry about the elegance they are finiky at times. glad to see the rest of your friends are starting to perk up. what test kit are you using? I have two test kits for that exact reason, my doubt kicks in and I can't sleep.

I'm using the Red Sea test kits at the moment, reviews on them seem pretty good but could have picked up a duff test kit I guess? I've scheduled in to do a full volley of tests when I get home from work today so will post results later

 

I like the RedSea test kits for the most part. Only test I might complain about is mag and only because I saw too much variance in the strict daily testing regimen I followed when starting to dose. I did learn something though, as for once, I could compare test kits. I do also have Salifert for mag, and I wouldn't say it's any better. I don't believe any home test kit is perfect, and of course, human error comes into play, even with Hanna checkers to some extent. So, I just go with the one I'm most comfortable using. For me, that's RedSea because of the testing equipment that comes with it... and the handy storage box.

 

Well, did a couple of tests and nitrates were at 2 so not concerned about any ammonia spikes etc. Kh is at 6.5 still. Bit confused but too tired to faff with calcium and mag tests, did a water change and now I’m off to bed!

 

I haven't updated this in a while!

Sooooooo...baby solon fairy wrasse is in the DT now and is growing at incredible speed lol. She is a little piggy, and I love her <3 the exquisite wrasse unfortunately didn't make it, I'm not sure why but suspect internal parasites. The baby solon was treated for parasites before she went into the DT so hopefully that's the end of that. Stock in the tank is currently 2 x clowns, 1 royal gramma, 1 coral beauty, 1 firefish, 1 solon fairy. The blenny we had didn't eat, I'm not sure if he just starved or what but I never saw him pecking or eating anything so think he must have starved to death. I've told my dad no more blennies unless we find one that eats in the store and only into the DT after it's been QTd!

Coral wise, the bubble is still going and it's mouth still isn't closed. It improves dramatically every week after I pull the hair algae off it's skeleton, but won't close it's mouth properly (although it's improving, slowly). Still a lovely colour and it's started putting out stingers/sweepers so guessing it's feeling a bit happier?
My bumblebee zoas vanished without sight, plug and all. One of the urchins must have picked it up and moved it but god only knows where. One urchin is now in the sump, need to find the other one to relocate him too. The cats eye zoas have come out of their funk, and are now beautifully open and growing new heads like crazy (gone from 8 polyps to 15 in the last 3 months). I have some rastas arriving today which I won on a facebook auction for £24 (BARGAIN!) so hopefully they will do well too.
The clove polyps that the damsel utterly destroyed died down to 2 heads after the damsel had ripped his way through them. We now have 2 heads and a baby, so fingers crossed they will grow back.
The gonioporas have been doing amazingly, and I now have a pinky lilac coloured one as well as the purple and green ones. They are still my firm faves, on the hunt for a red one now

The rest of the corals are all doing great, which I think in part is due to me buying the red sea kh titrator test kit, and dosing the red sea reef foundation b (alkalinity/kh) daily.
The only thing I am finding now is that I am still getting algae which is starting to drive me a bit mad. Now have gha, bubble and wire algae. Manually removing the bubble algae is fine, but the gha is driving me mental. I'm using gfo and changing it regularly so hopefully it'll die down soon, gonna have to keep pulling it out and hope for the best. Not sure what to do on the wire algae, not had it before and that stuff is tough!! Levels remain constant at 0/0/2 and been toying with the idea of dosing nopox (as I already have it) but don't want to run my nitrates too low, I like having a few just so I know my cycle hasn't stalled.

Any thoughts/comments appreciated

 

Showing a feeding response does make me think the bubble coral is feeling better.

You lucky dog! A deal on Rastas and success with gonis??? I'm totally peanut butter and jelly.

I'm not familiar with RedSea's dosing products, and please don't ask me to explain reef chemistry... it gives me a headache. lol Here's the thing... in it's simplest form. Alkalinity and calcium go hand in hand and one should not really be dosed without the other. You've heard of 2-part dosing, yes? Ever wondered why they call it that? 2-part is what I use but in the beginning, I only knew that alk was low and calc was fine or even a little high, so why would I dose for it? I was dosing alkalinity only and wondering why it was not stabilizing at my desired level when I dosed the correct amount to get there. Every day, the dosage I was getting from a reef calculator was different because alk was not behaving as it should. This whole dosing thing really threw me for a loop before finally getting it through my thick head that because of their relationship, alk and calc need to be dosed at fairly equal amounts. After watching a lot of BRStv and struggling through some Randy Holmes Farley articles I finally understood that the alk needed the addition of calc to stabilize at my desired level. My tests showed that I didn't need calc, but I started dosing both daily. You know what happened? Calcium dropped for crying out loud. Yes, it's actually lower than it was before we started dosing, but that's not a bad thing because it was a little high before. Anyway, we've been dosing calc and alk for a good while now and all is well.

I too am struggling with hair algae, and it is a beast to say the least. I don't think you want to drop your nitrates. Mine are always zero, and that's not helping with anything. I'd actually like a bit of NO3 myself, for a few reasons, not the least of which being that some corals like a little nitrogen availability. The algae struggle is real though, and I hope you'll forgive me for not getting down to the nitty gritty here. You can find some deets on what I and Culprit are doing about it in recent posts on both of our salty threads.

 

Stella you are absolutely right; my only hesitation is that I don’t fully understand the interaction between the two yet and am reluctant to start dosing something I haven’t wrapped my noggin around! I fully intend to start dosing calcium and will likely sit down and properly hammer this into my brain when the bottle of kh buffer is up and I have to buy replacements, and get the calcium one then (it’s only a small bottle and is almost up so should be soon). I keep trying to read articles on it at work or after work and really need to just dedicate proper time to concentrate on it. I will...eventually lol!

In other news, I now have a Lubbock’s fairy wrasse and Midas blenny in qt. I visited the amazing store that’s an hours drive from my house today (unexpectedly) and came out with an orange clove polyp frag, a dark green goniopora and a gold inferno goniopora. My goniopora garden is rainbow coloured and utterly gorgeous also managed to score a 10% off loyalty card coz they keep seeing my face there (and taking all my money LOL)

I have a new phone arriving on Monday which should mean I’ll be able to take pics with proper colour showing up so I can show you guys the true colours of some of these bad boys. I am excited!

 

Wow! GonI garden sounds amazing. Can't wait to see them.

 

Here are a couple of shots of the gonis - I’ll take better pics tomorrow as my lilac and gold ones looks very blue!



This is the new dark green one, lovely size



This is the lilac frag (won this on a Facebook auction lol!)



This is the gold inferno frag, by far the most expensive GonI in the tank even though it’s the smallest!

In other news, we may have a leaky sump. We are watching and waiting. Cross your fingers for me

 

Turns out it wasn't a leaky sump but still not sure where the huge puddle of water came from??

I've taken action on the gha and have ordered some flucanazole to treat over 21 days. In theory this should kill the (suspected) briopsis patch near my gonI garden and hopefully will knock out some of the gha too.

New phone arrived last night so will be snapping pics when I get home tonight. You'll have to excuse the gha haha

 

New phone has arrived! Still playing with camera settings so bear with me while I take endless photos of all the same things haha but think you can see the proper purple and green of my purple Goni, and the difference between the two green ones. The gold one is still too blue but I'll work on it

That finger leather has grown from the "Christmas tree" leather I got a while back. It's still adorable lol. Finding it quite interesting to see how it's growing it's in the middle of a clump of different leathers. Think they are massively under rated corals personally

 

After lots of research I decided the best way to treat my GHA and the little patch of briopsis was to treat with flucanazole, which I did yesterday. I will report back on success rates in 3 to 4 weeks time!

Following on from the leak scare, was thinking it may not be the best idea to have the heaters touching the glass in the sump. I have eheim jager heaters and they are huge, so impossible to get underwater without them touching the floor of the sump. So, I'm thinking I could either put something between the heater and the glass (but what??) or just get new heaters. Culprit I think I saw in your thread a while back you went for smaller heaters, can you remind me what you went for please?

 

Culprit and several of our other salty members use Cobalt Neotherm heaters. Idk if they are much shorter in length than the Jagers, but they are flat and have some kind of plastic casings. So, they still may fit neater and easier than the bulky Jagers, (I use a Jager too.)

 

Culprit and several of our other salty members use Cobalt Neotherm heaters. Idk if they are much shorter in length than the Jagers, but they are flat and have some kind of plastic casings. So, they still may fit neater and easier than the bulky Jagers, (I use a Jager too.)

Thank you stella1979 I think even if they are the same size, the casing will stop the heated element from touching the glass so looks ideal, I will have a shop around to see if our UK shops sell them paranoid about cracks in the sump now! There's been no sign of further leaking but still have no clue where that huge puddle came from

 

I use the Cobalt Neotherm as Stella said. They are shorter, not by too much, but extremely low profile, black, and look good. Very easy to set the temperature at the push of a button and no annoying calibration. I trust mine way more then a Jager.

 

I use the Cobalt Neotherm as Stella said. They are shorter, not by too much, but extremely low profile, black, and look good. Very easy to set the temperature at the push of a button and no annoying calibration. I trust mine way more then a Jager.

Thanks Culprit, sounds like a good option. I never did much like the temperature dial thingy on the jagers, found them quite tricky initially to set right but they've been fine ever since thank goodness. Looks like I will be going shopping when I get paid this month...again....lol

 

The Jagers always seemed to need recalibration whenever the temps changed with the seasons.

 

The Jagers always seemed to need recalibration whenever the temps changed with the seasons.

Hmm well I didn't have any problems over the summer but will keep an eye on things now it's starting to turn colder here, thanks for the heads up!

 

I use 2 aquatops in mine. Both are titanium cased with controllers.

 

I use 2 aquatops in mine. Both are titanium cased with controllers.

Thank you, I will have a look at those too

 

Well, flucanazole treatment is almost 3 weeks in and can safely say it has done nothing for GHA but has cleared the briopsis. I'm going to do a massive water change and rip out as much of the GHA as I can tomorrow as the tank just looks awful. New GFO media in and skimmer back on too. I'm itching to get my hands in the tank actually ops: Fishies all happy but mushrooms are angry, two have popped off (no idea why either, I've been too lazy to test...maybe tomorrow before the water change if I can be bothered lol).

 

Haven't checked in here for a while. The flucanazole didn't work as id hoped and the gha is starting to die back a bit now anyway, I think thanks to persistent manual removal and running lots of gfo. Corals have been sulking, though readings have been good - mg 1500, ca 450, alk 9.1 dkh (which also stabilised by itself, strongly suspect link between this and gha dying off). Having exhausted testing, I hired the PAR meter again and think my problem may be the glass lid. As soon as it's closed PAR readings halve. Super frustrating. Debating getting rid of the glass lid and getting some sort of jump guard mesh top thingy but need to look into this. Fish all bopping along quite happily thank goodness lol.
If anyone has used a jump guard/mesh top would love to hear about it

Otherwise, hope you all have a lovely fishy Christmas and thanks for all your help this year!