Amoo's now 60 gallon Pasture (Closed)

[Amoo]

While I appreciate the vendor response, I would like to clarify a few specific things which were mentioned.

First being I did send more then 1 fuzzy picture of the suspected pest. The picture I posted here was part of the first set of pictures I sent as I only had my camera phone and a magnifying glass as my DSLR was on charge from taking all the coral shots. Additional pictures were sent shortly after, including pictures of multiple corals with RTN and a good shot of the "unidentified" pest on a whited out spot outlining the pest on said frag and a growing and healthy aptasia on the same piece but opposite side. I was unaware you had to be a marine biologist to properly identify an unwanted pest.

I'm not going to get into this any further in my build thread, as I don't feel it's the proper place, I just wanted to correct the incorrect information added by vendor response. We've both now given our account on what we feel happened with said order and I stand by mine, as I'm sure fishnreef does theirs.

 

[Amoo]

Update time

Here's how the SURF is doing as of today:

Sorry about the lighting, my sump lights were on and I thought the flash would bleed them out, but none the less, you can get the idea. I have not cleaned it out the first time yet. I would add the test pictures of my test rocks, but let's face it, they still look like algae factories, which is the expected response at this point for a scrubber that isn't doing much yet. We'll see, I'll give this until around Christmas time and if I'm unhappy I'll switch back to dosing organics or may even try giving ECOBack pellets a go as it's essentially the same theory. All the while though my Algae is growing well in my fuge and my Mangroves have sprouted roots so there's some positive here.

In other news I got a new "toy" in today.

Courtesy of Larry @ReefFrenzy . I got in both the regular 8oz for this tank and some of the Nano 4oz for the Nano tank. As Larry promises everything arrived well packaged and still frozen. The ice crystals you can make out are all on the outside of the packaging from the Dry Ice used in shipment. I opened it up and broke a piece off for feeding time and everybody was happy. My Softies and Nems grabbed them some free floating pieces and my fish all enjoyed it. They're used to PE Mysis so frozen foods are not foreign to them, but the feeding response was as expected, but I'll be honest my fish are pigs so it's really hard to tell with them. That said everybody got some and everybody seemed happy about it. I will have to be a little more conservative with the size chunk I mixed up as a little piece goes further then I expected, even with 9 fish. My hands now smell like I've been to the pier fishing and I'm pretty happy about that. I'm most interested to see if my clutch size goes up as my clowns have been laying regularly for quite a while, minus a one month gap after I screwed the pooch with a massive tank cleaning/re-scape.

After trudging along for a month or so now with these AI26s I realized it was decision time. The underside of a lot of my corals was starting to look faded and from everything I have seen and read this can happen with LEDs when you don't have enough angles covered. This was totally expected when I installed them so I'm not totally surprised here. So my options were to add more LEDs (Which I have two heatsinks leftover that I plan to use on my frag tank) or to add some T5s. I made the decision to go with the T5s and added 2 36" two bulb fixtures at an extreme angle along the front of the tank. Both are running 1 ATI Blue plus and 1 ATI Coral Plus. They've been installed for about a week now and I'm running them for 4 hours a day from 4-8pm in what would be "Noonish" time for my lighting schedule. Overall the response from my corals and creatures has been positive and now that I've got Photoshop reinstalled after upgrading to WinX a few weeks ago I am looking forward to shooting some shots in RAW again. I'm actually more happy with this combination then I thought I would be as it really seems to brighten up the tank without making things look washed out.

This weekend I'll be moving a lot of corals up off of the sand into their forever homes so we'll see how everybody handles the change, but I don't expect any surprises.

 

[ReefFrenzy]

Glad the food arrived safe and your fish enjoy it already. Keep us updated on any changes in clutch size from here on out.

Thanks again!

 

[rajkovich207]

I agree with you that the last vendor response was a bit rude and slightly uncalled for. But that's beside the point. The real reason for my posting is that I was wondering if you "seeded" your ats. When they first started getting really popular a few years ago it was just that plastic needle point mesh, you would sand paper it and if you had it, rubbed hair algae on it to seed it. If I'm not mistaken Santa Monica also said to do this in a diy plan he had on his site. Makes sense to me especially if your ats is after your filter sock, skimmer and other particulate removing objects. How can something grow if nothing gets to it?
Just a suggestion. I know how you feel. I've been in the hobby for 4 and a half years, battled just about everything you can think of and about to head to the tank to undergo a battle of the cyanos.

 

[Amoo]

I agree with you that the last vendor response was a bit rude and slightly uncalled for. But that's beside the point. The real reason for my posting is that I was wondering if you "seeded" your ats. When they first started getting really popular a few years ago it was just that plastic needle point mesh, you would sand paper it and if you had it, rubbed hair algae on it to seed it. If I'm not mistaken Santa Monica also said to do this in a diy plan he had on his site. Makes sense to me especially if your ats is after your filter sock, skimmer and other particulate removing objects. How can something grow if nothing gets to it?
Just a suggestion. I know how you feel. I've been in the hobby for 4 and a half years, battled just about everything you can think of and about to head to the tank to undergo a battle of the cyanos.

Hey buddy welcome aboard. Feel free to post a link to your thread if you have one, I don't mind if you or others do this. I enjoy getting to know folks and their tanks. Good luck with your Cyano battle. It's something I've never had the "pleasure" of having a serious problem with, but I theorize that to be because of flow and a positive NO3 to PO4 ratio, really hard to know for sure though as if we knew for sure nobody would have to battle it.

I actually grabbed a few chunks of algae out of the fuge and wiped it onto this thing when I got it. I followed the original waterfall scrubber thread on the other site for a few years and liked the prospect, but didn't want to deal with the noise as the tank is in my office/2nd bedroom. I ordered this SURF for my 125 which I did slightly seed and a Drop for my nano which I didn't really do anything too. Both have had about the same progress until the drop stopped working after 2 weeks... More on that in the nano thread though, as Santa Monica is making it right and I need to update.

 

[Amoo]

Glad the food arrived safe and your fish enjoy it already. Keep us updated on any changes in clutch size from here on out.

Thanks again!

Sounds good Larry, she's prepping her spot now for a fresh clutch and is about the size of a balloon, but I would have to look at the calendar to remember whether today or tomorrow is clutch day. Either way I should have a good reference of measurement in the coming months of before and after shots.

 

[rajkovich207]

Larry seems like a stand up guy, I was one of his lucky winners, his shirt saw me through a massive sumo breakdown and cleaning today, super comfy.
I don't really have a current tank thread on here. There is one somewhere but I don't remember the last time I updated it lol. I got a new job and work a ton and the tank has definitely seen better days because of it so there isn't a ton to be proud of other then it's my longest standing tank. Highly modded bc29 with external sump.
I've built various scrubbers and never really had any luck with it. I did battle hair algae with my first tank. I just ripped what I could off with a normal water change added a few blue legs and a zebra hermit and noticed an explosion of isopods. I actually credit those pods as my saving grace. Sadly a 5 day power outage in the dead of summer put an end to that tank..
My tank is also in our room but luckily the wife is very tolerant of the noise, finally able to figure out a mod to get my biopellets tumbling right and they sure are loud so we will see if she still feels the same way in the morning lol.

 

[rajkovich207]

Totally forgot to mention stomatella snails, the also played a big role in my fight with hair algae, not sure I've ever seen them for sale but any time I've ever added live rock there was an abundance of them. Would have added this to my previous post but it's rather long winded.

 

[Amoo]

Yeah when it comes to adding things for Hair Algae, the tank has 4 tangs, over 300 Cerith snails, a few Turbo Grazers, a couple of Chiton, hermits...etc. The only thing I haven't tried yet is a Dolabella, but I have considered it. Whatever type of hair algae this is, my fish seem disinterested in it. When the Chiton came in, they had some generic looking green hair algae on their backs and the fish and hermits demolished it in a matter of minutes, this stuff though they turn their nose up at.

Larry seems great. I got to talk to him on the phone for about 10 minutes when I was ordering food, as I live far away from anywhere that carries it. He seems like a guy very passionate about nutrition and very passionate and proud of his product and it's quality standards from collection to in the tank and everything that happens to get it there. I did manage to take an out of focus picture of the clutch that was laid yesterday and I'll add it here for reference so we can all look back in a few months and see how things are going. Please excuse as I did over-expose it slightly as the eggs are in a shaded area under the anemone. Truth be told I should have used Dad as the focal point for the shot and not the eggs and everything probably would have been in focus but....

 

[rajkovich207]

Could your hair algae maybe be byropsis?

 

[Amoo]

Could your hair algae maybe be byropsis?

I've considered it, but this algae shows no signs of bubbling what so ever. It also doesn't have any of the branch-like structure I've seen in most kinds of Bryopsis. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an expert on it by any means, far from it, but from everything I can tell it doesn't look like one of the kinds I have seen commonly pictured. Here's a picture taken of what I've been calling Test2 in the monitoring.

All the white spots you can see are simply sand that gets trapped in the algae at this length. I have a brush I use to manually remove it from most rocks in the tank, but I've been letting it grow on these test pieces.

 

[rajkovich207]

Byropsis doesn't bubble that I know of, dynoflagellats do though. It doesn't really look like byropsis from that pick though. What I might recommend trying is blowing it out the best you can, it looks like it's filled with sand and detritus, also it's too long to be eaten ime, hold your syphon hose in a way that would leave two fingers that you can pinch and pull with. Grab chunks and pull, when you let it go it will be sucked out. Often times if I'm just tidying up my tank I'll throw my syphon hose into the sock in the sump and just suck some stuff out. Change the sock afterwords and I wouldn't do this with sand or cyano, my sumo suffered after I sucked up thick blobs of old sand and cyano lol.

 

[Amoo]

Byropsis doesn't bubble that I know of, dynoflagellats do though. It doesn't really look like byropsis from that pick though. What I might recommend trying is blowing it out the best you can, it looks like it's filled with sand and detritus, also it's too long to be eaten ime, hold your syphon hose in a way that would leave two fingers that you can pinch and pull with. Grab chunks and pull, when you let it go it will be sucked out. Often times if I'm just tidying up my tank I'll throw my syphon hose into the sock in the sump and just suck some stuff out. Change the sock afterwords and I wouldn't do this with sand or cyano, my sumo suffered after I sucked up thick blobs of old sand and cyano lol.

You're absolutely correct, I meant to type something along the lines of I've considered it and Dinos, but re-reading what I typed I didn't type that at all. That's what I get for typing a post and stopping mid-way to take a picture then never proofreading.

All the rock in the tank gets the powerhead treatment once a week (minus this one now) and I typically do the recycle water through a filter sock trick with my siphon hose so I can scrub and scrub and am only removing the algae/detritus while recycling the water back into the tank. This algae has no root strength what so ever and brushes off with relative ease. Sump is cleaned on a regular basis including power heads in different chambers to keep the detritus suspended so skimmer/socks/UAS supposedly can do their thing.

The carbon dosing was working to keep it in check, but I was also starting to get bacterial blooms. I'm very cautious about what I put in my tank on a daily basis and don't feed more then a pinch of pellets and a few squares of Nori. I've now replaced the pinch of pellets with a dime sized piece of LRS.

 

[Rob.D]

I've enjoyed reading through your thread....I love the Picasso clowns.....keep up the good work and documentation!

 

[rajkovich207]

How are your parameters?
At the very least I think of manual algae removal as an ats of sorts lol

 

[Amoo]

I've enjoyed reading through your thread....I love the Picasso clowns.....keep up the good work and documentation!

Thanks Rob.D, and welcome aboard. They are my absolute favorite fish of everything in the ocean. Eventually I plan to try a Picasso Harem from one of my clutches. I was thinking this summer, but with all of the commotion in the tank recently I'm going to push that off and shoot for next summer. I have a 60G Frag tank (One of these short and wide things) sitting in my room empty. Original plan for it is an isolated frag system, but I may give in to my desires and turn it into a BTA/Clown tank even though I'm not the biggest fan of BTAs (They're cheap, colorful, spread like wildfire, and the clowns will usually accept them eventually).

How are your parameters?
At the very least I think of manual algae removal as an ats of sorts lol

I agree with you, I like to think of myself as a manual ATS. Since discontinuing carbon dosing and the UAS not doing it's thing my nutrients have obviously jumped up quite a bit I was up to NO3 - 14ppm and PO4 - .12 last weekend before I did a 60 gallon water change as I had to pull my sump to get to something behind the stand. My other numbers are 1.025, 425 Ca, 7.8 dkh, 1600 Mg, 0 Cu. Clean the skimmer and change the sock once every 3 days, usually remove about 1/3rd to 1/2 a cup (skimmer cup not physical cup), which has lightened in color now that I'm not longer dosing the organics. BRS ROX was changed this last weekend as well and usually goes 3-4 weeks.

 

[rajkovich207]

If you decide on btas either buy a hosting clown/nem or put clowns and nem into a brandy snifter it will "force" them into a host. Both my clowns and my dad's have refused to host for 3 years now. The local breeder suggested this trick he said he does it regularly when a customer wants a breeding set.
With how little you are feeding your problems have to be coming from something, first fingers are usually pointed at rocks. I've heard that kole tangs are very good at HA removal if you are interested, I've never had a tank big enough for one so I've never personally tried but no harm in adding more ammo to your arsenal for your assault.

 

[Amoo]

I have a Kole, Yellow, Powder Blue and FoxFace in the tank

 

[Amoo]

Just a small update here. Reduced lighting time on my SURF to 20 hours, still looking about the same. I would post a picture this week, but the difference in growth is not really worth the bandwidth.

In other news the power supply on my Gyre died....after less then 30 days...so my luck continues.

Good news is Amazon refunded me purchase price for it, and with this weekend being Labor Day and all the sales I got $30 off the new one. I'd rather have a working Gyre, but such is life, at least there is some positive. Hopefully the new one gets here early in the week next week.

 

[Tahoe61]

Uggg hope it turns around!!!!!

I would surprised if an Urchin would not put a dent in some of the algae.