HiBRiD's Fluval Evo 13.5
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HiBRiD109
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Oh it really made him even more mad. He was staring at me and headbutting the side. I had to put a paper plate over the top of the container. He calmed down after a minute. After I put him back, I gave him a little bit a mysis for his troubles. He seemed to forgive me for the ordeal. He has more personality then my 8" gold red severum who stares at me all day from my 75G fresh.
HiBRiD109
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I got two new pieces this weekend. A (was) beautiful green tipped purple torch and nice portion of GSP. But in my inexperience and, family-friendly term, "ignorance" I damaged the torch. I was going to just break off the frag plug so I can attach it to my LR but decided it would look better if I could just remove the coral from the entire plug. As I went to "pop" it off, the torch's skeleton broke into 4 pieces. I quickly scrambled and looked online on what to do as the torch fully receded into what skeleton it had left. One piece just fell off and was more of the outer part but I could see inside the coral between the other pieces. I don't believe I tore anything as I kept it all together in my hand. I gently set it back into the dip container and mixed some coral epoxy that I wrapped the torch's skeleton in it. I then glued it the my live rock in a medium flow area as it seemed every link I read was saying either high flow (to keep it clean from infection) or low flow (to keep it from damaging it more). An hour later the torch was out but looks halfway deflated. Its been two days and it is I would say about halfway extended and there is no white or brown slime. I really hope it pulls through. I still am kicking myself for it. I got the GSP attached to the little island out front and it looks happy as can be. I'll just stay on top of water changed and hope the torch makes a quick recovery. I'll post pics when I get a chance. Any advice or criticism would be welcomed.
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Torch are pretty tough. From an infection perspective, some people may have used iodine.
I have a small gold torch myself and I can tell you that torch in general are very slow grower; unlike a frogspawn for example. Don't be alarm if it just does not seem to grow back to it original size anytime soon. I keep mine in a medium flow are which all that means is that there is enough random flow to keep it's tentacles flowing freely without hindering tissue expansion. Too much flow and it does not expand as much.
I have a small gold torch myself and I can tell you that torch in general are very slow grower; unlike a frogspawn for example. Don't be alarm if it just does not seem to grow back to it original size anytime soon. I keep mine in a medium flow are which all that means is that there is enough random flow to keep it's tentacles flowing freely without hindering tissue expansion. Too much flow and it does not expand as much.
NY_Caveman
likes words, fish and arbitrary statistics
HiBRiD109
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Added in some more coral. LFS cut me a deal on a football sized piece of montipora and a little kenya tree. The kenya tree actually had a small eraserhead sized node next to it and a few hitch hiker zoas so I think I made out ok. The monti broke in the bag during transport. I just glued them to the live rock.
The torch looks happy and fully extended most of the time. Still dealing with slime/diatoms. I just pull it off the sandbed like pealing tape.
I noticed my alk dropped to 6 dkh from 8 dkh. I do about a 25% water change a week with RSCP salt. If it keeps dropping below 7 after a week, is there an easy way to keep it up? I really was hoping just doing weekly WCs would keep me from having to dose.
The torch looks happy and fully extended most of the time. Still dealing with slime/diatoms. I just pull it off the sandbed like pealing tape.
I noticed my alk dropped to 6 dkh from 8 dkh. I do about a 25% water change a week with RSCP salt. If it keeps dropping below 7 after a week, is there an easy way to keep it up? I really was hoping just doing weekly WCs would keep me from having to dose.
HiBRiD109
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Update
Added two more coral. A neon green hammer and a frag of Sunny D zoas. Wife told me no more coral for now so this looks like this will be it for a while. However there is a swap next week, Springfest in Des Moines that I might talk her into going.
The acan has 3 tiny heads around the base. The torch seems to have made a recovery and is growing more skeleton. Not sure what the hitch hiker Zoas are. There seems to be one polyp of one type and 5 polyps of another. Once they grow a bit I hope to identify them.
Alk got down to 5 dkh. I added 1 gram of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). It didn't change any so I did a 30% water change as my weekly and got it to 7dkh but I might need to either do another water change in a few days or dose it to get to about 9. Seems that I lose 1-2 dkh a week between the water changes.
Added two more coral. A neon green hammer and a frag of Sunny D zoas. Wife told me no more coral for now so this looks like this will be it for a while. However there is a swap next week, Springfest in Des Moines that I might talk her into going.
The acan has 3 tiny heads around the base. The torch seems to have made a recovery and is growing more skeleton. Not sure what the hitch hiker Zoas are. There seems to be one polyp of one type and 5 polyps of another. Once they grow a bit I hope to identify them.
Alk got down to 5 dkh. I added 1 gram of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). It didn't change any so I did a 30% water change as my weekly and got it to 7dkh but I might need to either do another water change in a few days or dose it to get to about 9. Seems that I lose 1-2 dkh a week between the water changes.
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Nice. Looks like frags are liking it and doing good. Exciting!
I noticed you had brown algae. I realized it's normal especially on new tank. Idk if the ugly phase has passed yet. If not, you may want to see how your tank stabilize before adding additional livestock. Fighting brown algae with new frags is a pain imo.
I noticed you had brown algae. I realized it's normal especially on new tank. Idk if the ugly phase has passed yet. If not, you may want to see how your tank stabilize before adding additional livestock. Fighting brown algae with new frags is a pain imo.
HiBRiD109
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Thanks. The tank has been up and running for almost 2 months, 6 weeks since cycling. So I would assume just new tank uglies. I found that vacuuming the sand bed was making it worse. The only time my hands are in the tank now are to fix any frags a snail may have pushed over and manually pull any algae/slime. It hasn't got much worse, i'm just hoping the snails will get to it. My CUC is pretty small, 2 margarita, 2 astrea, and 1 cerith. I should bumped it up a bit. I wanted to get a hermit but afraid it will go after my snails some day.
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HiBRiD109
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Weekly update
All the coral look good. The purple tip hammer has 2 tiny new heads starting to grow. The Acan has 3-4 new heads growing. All the montipora are growing very quickly.
I picked up some Seachem Fusion 2 part. I am struggling to keep alk up. It keeps going down to 5 dkh. I am only dosing enough to raise 1 dkh a day. Hopefully I can get it up to 9 dkh. I am watching for precipitation. I think the monitpora is the culprit as it growing noticeably every day.
I found that I have aiptasia. I haven't decided how to tackle it. I have about 7-8 of them all on the rock the toadstool came on. I bought a syringe and lemon juice but they are so small (5mm) that I can't even get near them before they shrink. I got near a cluster of 3 and before I could pierce one, they all closed up so I sprayed just a bit which was probably a bad idea and just made them mad and reproduce. I am thinking of taking that little rock off if I can break it from the epoxy/super glue. I might either try to treat the rock with the toadstool attached or just cut the toadstool off and toss the rock.
All the coral look good. The purple tip hammer has 2 tiny new heads starting to grow. The Acan has 3-4 new heads growing. All the montipora are growing very quickly.
I picked up some Seachem Fusion 2 part. I am struggling to keep alk up. It keeps going down to 5 dkh. I am only dosing enough to raise 1 dkh a day. Hopefully I can get it up to 9 dkh. I am watching for precipitation. I think the monitpora is the culprit as it growing noticeably every day.
I found that I have aiptasia. I haven't decided how to tackle it. I have about 7-8 of them all on the rock the toadstool came on. I bought a syringe and lemon juice but they are so small (5mm) that I can't even get near them before they shrink. I got near a cluster of 3 and before I could pierce one, they all closed up so I sprayed just a bit which was probably a bad idea and just made them mad and reproduce. I am thinking of taking that little rock off if I can break it from the epoxy/super glue. I might either try to treat the rock with the toadstool attached or just cut the toadstool off and toss the rock.
HiBRiD109
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2 Month update. A lot of ups and downs.
Finally got my alk up to 9dkh. It was user error for as why I couldn't get it to raise with dosing. I used the calculator on Seachem's website and thought I needed 0.8ml to raise 1 dkh. It was actually 4ml OR 0.8 of the cap. So I dosed 2ml of both parts twice a day to raise it 1 dkh a day until I got to 9.
I am noticing a lot of tiny critters under my corals and live rock. I found that I have a vermetid snail infestation. I pulled my hammer frags and crushed/scraped the snail bases. The ones in the tank I crushed and the cleaner shrimp took care of the rest. There was a small worm and things I have yet to identify. I was hoping I wouldn't have a lot since I started with dry rock but I guess its what I get for not dipping. I see that what I believe is Forminferans? Little tiny bright pink things under my torch. A tiny feather duster on the under side of the monticap. I have a good amount of Spirorbis also forming.
The slime and brown algae has slowed down to a crawl. I hope to get the gunk on the live rock off next water change. I have some green hair algae forming under the kenya tree.
After I got my alk above 7dkh, I have noticed what I believe is green coralline algae forming on the live rock so thats exciting. The pink/red coralline on the hammer frags and plugs I got are starting to spread so it looks like iIam finally getting my parameters dialed in, for now anyways.
The aiptasia havent grown or have spread from what I can tell. The aiptasia x should be arriving today. Hopefully it kills them and doesn't make their population explode as some have experienced. Some users just say you need to make sure that the aiptasia x covers the entire mouth.
Finally got my alk up to 9dkh. It was user error for as why I couldn't get it to raise with dosing. I used the calculator on Seachem's website and thought I needed 0.8ml to raise 1 dkh. It was actually 4ml OR 0.8 of the cap. So I dosed 2ml of both parts twice a day to raise it 1 dkh a day until I got to 9.
I am noticing a lot of tiny critters under my corals and live rock. I found that I have a vermetid snail infestation. I pulled my hammer frags and crushed/scraped the snail bases. The ones in the tank I crushed and the cleaner shrimp took care of the rest. There was a small worm and things I have yet to identify. I was hoping I wouldn't have a lot since I started with dry rock but I guess its what I get for not dipping. I see that what I believe is Forminferans? Little tiny bright pink things under my torch. A tiny feather duster on the under side of the monticap. I have a good amount of Spirorbis also forming.
The slime and brown algae has slowed down to a crawl. I hope to get the gunk on the live rock off next water change. I have some green hair algae forming under the kenya tree.
After I got my alk above 7dkh, I have noticed what I believe is green coralline algae forming on the live rock so thats exciting. The pink/red coralline on the hammer frags and plugs I got are starting to spread so it looks like iIam finally getting my parameters dialed in, for now anyways.
The aiptasia havent grown or have spread from what I can tell. The aiptasia x should be arriving today. Hopefully it kills them and doesn't make their population explode as some have experienced. Some users just say you need to make sure that the aiptasia x covers the entire mouth.
HiBRiD109
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Weekly update.
Aiptasia has returned around the same areas, I assume I didnt get enough over their whole mouths. I only saw 3. Applied more Aiptasia X.
Added 2 Tonga Nassarius snails. They instantly hid and havent seen them until I did my WC last night.
Slime still hasnt grown much, what ever is left is turning black. I used airline hose to vacuum some out after the pics during the WC.
Brown and green algae is growing on the tops of the rock near the light. I may need to dial back the light hours. Just wish the stock light had more function.
All the coral look good. The new heads on the Acan are coming along. The two hammers' tentacles look nice and plump, I assume if I had better a better light the colors would look much better.
Aiptasia has returned around the same areas, I assume I didnt get enough over their whole mouths. I only saw 3. Applied more Aiptasia X.
Added 2 Tonga Nassarius snails. They instantly hid and havent seen them until I did my WC last night.
Slime still hasnt grown much, what ever is left is turning black. I used airline hose to vacuum some out after the pics during the WC.
Brown and green algae is growing on the tops of the rock near the light. I may need to dial back the light hours. Just wish the stock light had more function.
All the coral look good. The new heads on the Acan are coming along. The two hammers' tentacles look nice and plump, I assume if I had better a better light the colors would look much better.
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HiBRiD109
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Weekly Update
I noticed last week when I took photos, that the hammers looked translucent or possibly bleaching. I think it was a mixture of too long of the white/blue light period (9.5 hours) and having possibly almost 0 phosphate and nitrates due to weekly 25% water changes and being very stingy on feeding (eraser head sized portion of LRS Reef Frenzy Nano every other day). I say almost because I only use the API test kits which are high range.
After feeding a little more heavy by doubling the portion and setting up a timer to only run 8 hours of white/blue, they look a little better.
The 2 Tonga Nassarrius snails have done a very good job stirring the sand bed. Slime/Cyano is almost gone.
Green algae is slowly moving in, I may consider getting a blue legged hermit and 2 more astrea snails to up my CUC.
May consider getting a BTA.
Looking to add a Tailspotted Blenny soon to finish my fish and ride out adding any livestock till another coral swap event or if the LFS gets anything that tickles my fancy.
Ordered 2x 12" Blue LED strips to add to the inside of the stock lid to give more blue lighting and to have a blue only period before and after the white/blue light period.
I noticed last week when I took photos, that the hammers looked translucent or possibly bleaching. I think it was a mixture of too long of the white/blue light period (9.5 hours) and having possibly almost 0 phosphate and nitrates due to weekly 25% water changes and being very stingy on feeding (eraser head sized portion of LRS Reef Frenzy Nano every other day). I say almost because I only use the API test kits which are high range.
After feeding a little more heavy by doubling the portion and setting up a timer to only run 8 hours of white/blue, they look a little better.
The 2 Tonga Nassarrius snails have done a very good job stirring the sand bed. Slime/Cyano is almost gone.
Green algae is slowly moving in, I may consider getting a blue legged hermit and 2 more astrea snails to up my CUC.
May consider getting a BTA.
Looking to add a Tailspotted Blenny soon to finish my fish and ride out adding any livestock till another coral swap event or if the LFS gets anything that tickles my fancy.
Ordered 2x 12" Blue LED strips to add to the inside of the stock lid to give more blue lighting and to have a blue only period before and after the white/blue light period.
HiBRiD109
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Weekly Update
Added two 12" knock off "Reef Blue" LED strips to the hood. I used four 4mmx8mm bolts to secure them to the hood as glue/epoxy worried me that they would fall in. I was able to tuck all the wiring in for a nice clean look. It made a noticeable difference and make the corals "pop" more than look dull. Below are two photos, the first with just the stock white/blue light and the second with the stock white/blue with the strips on. They are supposedly waterproof with being sealed with silicone. I shall see what it does to the corals and if they last running from 7am to 7pm.
I added a new fish. The LFS got in to Two Spot Blenny. I wanted a Tail Spot but after seeing how small the Two Spot stays (half of a Tail Spot) and that he has a reflective silver stripe similar to a Benggai Cardinal, I decided to pick him up.
Added another Astea snail to help clean the rocks.
Stock:
Stock + Blue LED strips:
LED strips mounted:
Blenny:
Tank shots:
Added two 12" knock off "Reef Blue" LED strips to the hood. I used four 4mmx8mm bolts to secure them to the hood as glue/epoxy worried me that they would fall in. I was able to tuck all the wiring in for a nice clean look. It made a noticeable difference and make the corals "pop" more than look dull. Below are two photos, the first with just the stock white/blue light and the second with the stock white/blue with the strips on. They are supposedly waterproof with being sealed with silicone. I shall see what it does to the corals and if they last running from 7am to 7pm.
I added a new fish. The LFS got in to Two Spot Blenny. I wanted a Tail Spot but after seeing how small the Two Spot stays (half of a Tail Spot) and that he has a reflective silver stripe similar to a Benggai Cardinal, I decided to pick him up.
Added another Astea snail to help clean the rocks.
Stock:
Stock + Blue LED strips:
LED strips mounted:
Blenny:
Tank shots:
HiBRiD109
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6 month update.
Sorry for the hiatus. I wasn't getting any growth or change to the tank. I decided to pull the trigger and get an AI Prime HD. I got it used from a member in my state's reef group. It works and looks great. All the coral's colors are coming back. I will have to get an ATO as I have to dump 1-2 cups a day of RO and if I forget it could be disastrous.
The two spot blenny disappeared one day and didnt see him for weeks. I never found a corpse and I had the lid on.
I replaced him with a tailspot and I like him much more as he is larger and more colorful.
Added a few frags I got from a local guy. I dont remember the names but 3 different zoas, lava lamp mush, green hairy mush, and a tri-color acro that has bleached and I thought was dead but after I got the AI Prime, I'm seeing traces of green polyps so it maybe making a comeback.
My 2 margarita snails died but that was expected as they are not meant for warm reef temps. The 2 nassarius snails had a large meal.
Sorry for the hiatus. I wasn't getting any growth or change to the tank. I decided to pull the trigger and get an AI Prime HD. I got it used from a member in my state's reef group. It works and looks great. All the coral's colors are coming back. I will have to get an ATO as I have to dump 1-2 cups a day of RO and if I forget it could be disastrous.
The two spot blenny disappeared one day and didnt see him for weeks. I never found a corpse and I had the lid on.
I replaced him with a tailspot and I like him much more as he is larger and more colorful.
Added a few frags I got from a local guy. I dont remember the names but 3 different zoas, lava lamp mush, green hairy mush, and a tri-color acro that has bleached and I thought was dead but after I got the AI Prime, I'm seeing traces of green polyps so it maybe making a comeback.
My 2 margarita snails died but that was expected as they are not meant for warm reef temps. The 2 nassarius snails had a large meal.
NY_Caveman
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Looking good from all angles!6 month update.
Sorry for the hiatus. I wasn't getting any growth or change to the tank. I decided to pull the trigger and get an AI Prime HD. I got it used from a member in my state's reef group. It works and looks great. All the coral's colors are coming back. I will have to get an ATO as I have to dump 1-2 cups a day of RO and if I forget it could be disastrous.
The two spot blenny disappeared one day and didnt see him for weeks. I never found a corpse and I had the lid on.
I replaced him with a tailspot and I like him much more as he is larger and more colorful.
Added a few frags I got from a local guy. I dont remember the names but 3 different zoas, lava lamp mush, green hairy mush, and a tri-color acro that has bleached and I thought was dead but after I got the AI Prime, I'm seeing traces of green polyps so it maybe making a comeback.
My 2 margarita snails died but that was expected as they are not meant for warm reef temps. The 2 nassarius snails had a large meal.
