1.6Gal (6L) Leptastrea dominated pico

Adiantum · Mar 20, 2021

The equipment list I never added:

Tank - UNS 16T with homemade glass lid
Filter- Aquaria Masters nano (currently using poly floss and carbon)
Heater - 10W Topfin (mediocre, but ok for now)
Light - Nicrew 30W Reef LED
Stand is simple homemade wood, spray painted black + foam leveling mat under the tank

The sympodium is opening up!

Adiantum · Mar 21, 2021

FTS 03/21/21
The light is about 8” above the water surface, running at reduced intensity. The diatoms and other film algae are going strong, unfortunately. I added two Astrea snails about a week ago but they just don’t do that great of a job compared to the nerite. And my hermit seems very determined to try and pry them out of their shells when they fall on the sand.

The pavona encrusted plug I had glued to the back glass popped off. Haven’t glued it back yet.

Adiantum · Mar 23, 2021

Well, I don't have a good update. The Pavona appears to have bleached since yesterday. I may have screwed up somehow. I'm still a noob at this. Only thing I can think of is that I did a large water change and the heater was off for some time while I cleaned glass before adding fresh tank water. Maybe temp shock? I don't know. I thought a big wc was in order as the pest algae has been real bad and I am trying to get that under control. Not really sure what went wrong since it's looked good until today, and now it is white.

Everything else is acting ticked off, too. I tested water for the first time in weeks and nitrate/nitrite were both undetectable, and everything else was normal. So no excess nutrients, at least after the wc. I am wondering if that's the issue, since I've been feeding 1-2 times a week, perhaps we went down to too few nutrients too suddenly... Did not think to test before as I was due for one anyway. Crossing my fingers that everything else looks better tomorrow and the Pavona may recover. But still a bummer to potentially lose a coral that was doing well for the past month.

The hermit and snails are fine. Though the astrea snails falling upside down has been driving me nuts.

Adiantum · Mar 26, 2021

The pavona is a goner. Everything else is alive but still looking ticked off. I just did a 1gal water change in case of anything lingering, affecting water quality though my test strips indicated all was fine. I guess I could consider I had a sort of mini-crash? I think everything remaining will probably recover. I’m picking up some more frags locally on Monday.

The astreas are ex-snails. Not sure what happened, but the hermit sure wanted to eat them. I found an empty shell a couple days ago and they were eating the other this morning. Quite possible that the hermit did kill them. Not really sure.

Adiantum · Mar 30, 2021

Everything is still not looking great, and I can’t figure out what’s wrong. I am battling some slimy algae right now, and I’m afraid it might be smothering them despite my efforts. I haven’t seen the hermit much for a couple days. I found what I think was a molt on Saturday. Can anyone possibly have an idea what’s going on with my corals? I think they’re all alive, but are staying retracted tightly. I do think the Leptastrea might like higher nitrate/nitrite.

Brady4000 · Mar 30, 2021

Looks like red slime Cyano the green kind. I had it in my tank once. It spreads fast and upsets coral.

Brady4000 · Mar 30, 2021

Also following because I think your tank is cool! Lol

Adiantum · Mar 30, 2021

It is similar to cyanon I’ve had in freshwater tanks. Any tips on how to get rid of it? Scrubbing everyday isn't doing it. More snails?

Brady4000 · Mar 30, 2021

More than one way to skin a cat. Me personally, I would just use Chemi-clean or “Red slime”. Others stay away from chemicals to not harm the tank.

Funny, I was just having a conversation about this today.

This algae is a nightmare

I had great success recently with brightwell razor in combination with microbacter 7. I would also toothbrush my rocks every night. My tank has never looked better its quite amazing The before and after shots are night and day different and dramatically better !! Time to look for a brush, I...

www.reef2reef.com

Start on page 2.

damselindistress · Apr 16, 2021

Any update on this tank? I have a pico myself and it's surviving but not thriving notbsure why

Adiantum · Apr 16, 2021

It’s doing okay. All the lps seem to be recovering after I did a treatment of chemiclean. Not happy still, but alive. The other residents are doing fine. My hermit molted a couple weeks ago. The nerite is cleaning away. The P. grandis are looking good living in here because I don’t have a light built on my jar that they’ll be going in yet. Here’s a fts from today.

Adiantum · Apr 23, 2021

I don’t know what I keep doing wrong. Everything was looking great and recovered yesterday and now today they’ve gone to bleaching. Only thing I can think of is actually reducing nitrates by too much? I did a water change of ~3/4 of a gallon yesterday because I was overdue. And I believe the Leptastrea prefer water that isn’t super “clean.” So what the heck. I’m not ready to give up on anything yet and hope I can get everything coming back.

Kaisentlaia · Apr 23, 2021

Was the new water at the same temperature as the tank water? My corals usually get a little upset when I do a big wc even when I match temperature. I'm a noob myself but everyone tells me that matching temp is essential especially for bigger water changes.

Adiantum · Apr 23, 2021

Yeah, it was close. I’m definitely still a noob so fixing problems is hard when I don’t have the expertise. On a brighter note, my frags from unique corals came today! They aren’t fully open yet but are looking pretty good so far. The stylocoeniella is an enormous frag!