Justin's Waterbox 130.4 Mixed Reef
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Well, that didn't take long. The chalice declared war on it's neighbors. Guess I need to be more careful about where I put stuff on the frag racks in the future.
Photos were taken mid shuffling things around. I also moved the frogspawn away from everything else out of an abundance of caution.
Photos were taken mid shuffling things around. I also moved the frogspawn away from everything else out of an abundance of caution.
I'm back. I haven't posted an update in ~7 months. Life got in the way. Much of what I had from the frag swap is gone. Some of the frags brought in green hair algae, bryopsis, and aiptasia. My cleanup crew could not keep up. I added a few emerald crabs, which cleared a rack of zoas trying to get the algae in there. Seriously, I had really clean empty frag plugs. Some peppermint shrimp seem to have taken care of the aiptasia.
May 2021
I ignored the warning signs. I should have cleaned the frags better. I only did a coral rx dip.
The tank saviors?
May 2021
I ignored the warning signs. I should have cleaned the frags better. I only did a coral rx dip.
The tank saviors?
June 2021
I started using an automatic feeder with pellets because I was going on vacation.
The emerald crabs were not the tank saviors. They did had an expensive tasty buffet midnight snack.
The pellets really fueled algae growth by throwing extra nitrates in the tank.
I started using an automatic feeder with pellets because I was going on vacation.
The emerald crabs were not the tank saviors. They did had an expensive tasty buffet midnight snack.
The pellets really fueled algae growth by throwing extra nitrates in the tank.
July - August 2021
We had a family emergency, and the tank got very neglected because of other obligations.
Begin takeover by green hair algae. The bottom two photos were on different dates, a few days after repeated heavy manual removal. Just could not get it cleared up.
We had a family emergency, and the tank got very neglected because of other obligations.
Begin takeover by green hair algae. The bottom two photos were on different dates, a few days after repeated heavy manual removal. Just could not get it cleared up.
September 2021
Bring in the chemicals. I gave up on only doing manual removal. Enter fluconazole.
Heavy water change, add Flux Rx, wait two weeks. Minimal progress.
Heavy water change, add Flux RX again, wait two weeks. Hair algae is gone (or at least at a level where the clean up crew keeps it in check).
October 2021
Not long after celebrating the eradication of the green hair algae, enter my next challenge. Cyanobacteria. Everywhere. On Everything. I don't have many photos of this because it was not pretty, and I didn't think to take any photos.
Did much of the same to try to eradicate. Blow off the rocks, clean the sand. It's back the next day. Rinse and repeat for about a month.
Early November 2021
Did a heavy water change, completely vacuumed the sand. A few hours later, it's back.
Enter ChemiClean. It turned my tank magenta for a few days, made my skimmer completely blow up, but the tank cleared up. Once again, I have measurable nitrates and phosphates. No more false zeros.
With the tank cleared up and my schedule starting to free up from prior obligations, it's back at it. I picked up a fluval evo 13.5 pretty cheap on sale and set it up next to my tank and started cycling it. It's now for coral quarantine. Nothing is going into the display tank again until it's fully quarantined.
Bring in the chemicals. I gave up on only doing manual removal. Enter fluconazole.
Heavy water change, add Flux Rx, wait two weeks. Minimal progress.
Heavy water change, add Flux RX again, wait two weeks. Hair algae is gone (or at least at a level where the clean up crew keeps it in check).
October 2021
Not long after celebrating the eradication of the green hair algae, enter my next challenge. Cyanobacteria. Everywhere. On Everything. I don't have many photos of this because it was not pretty, and I didn't think to take any photos.
Did much of the same to try to eradicate. Blow off the rocks, clean the sand. It's back the next day. Rinse and repeat for about a month.
Early November 2021
Did a heavy water change, completely vacuumed the sand. A few hours later, it's back.
Enter ChemiClean. It turned my tank magenta for a few days, made my skimmer completely blow up, but the tank cleared up. Once again, I have measurable nitrates and phosphates. No more false zeros.
With the tank cleared up and my schedule starting to free up from prior obligations, it's back at it. I picked up a fluval evo 13.5 pretty cheap on sale and set it up next to my tank and started cycling it. It's now for coral quarantine. Nothing is going into the display tank again until it's fully quarantined.
Last Saturday I spun the fish QT back up, and picked up:
- 5 Dispar Anthias
- 1 Filament Fin Flasher Wrasse
- 1 Lubbock's Fairy Wrasse
- 1 Blue Sided Fairy Wrasse
7 of 8 are behaving and eating well
The Flasher wrasse has been hiding a lot and laying around. Every now and then I catch him swimming when no one is looking I've read that they can be difficult / act up in quarantine. I'm thinking I'm probably going to move him over to a separate 10G quarantine with a thin sand base and see if he is a little less stressed. I haven't started copper treatment yet because I was worried about causing more stress for the flasher. Once I move him, I feel safer to start ramping up the copper.
- 5 Dispar Anthias
- 1 Filament Fin Flasher Wrasse
- 1 Lubbock's Fairy Wrasse
- 1 Blue Sided Fairy Wrasse
7 of 8 are behaving and eating well
The Flasher wrasse has been hiding a lot and laying around. Every now and then I catch him swimming when no one is looking I've read that they can be difficult / act up in quarantine. I'm thinking I'm probably going to move him over to a separate 10G quarantine with a thin sand base and see if he is a little less stressed. I haven't started copper treatment yet because I was worried about causing more stress for the flasher. Once I move him, I feel safer to start ramping up the copper.
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And Today (well, yesterday now), I picked up 9 new frags from The Reef Gallery during their Black Friday sale. I may take the wife and pick up so me more tomorrow if she sees anything she wants.
I'll grab some better photos when things start to open up more. Everything was still angry from the coral dip and being moved. I'm also not sure if this little tank has enough flow. I may either upgrade the return pump or get a small powerhead to supplement.
I'll grab some better photos when things start to open up more. Everything was still angry from the coral dip and being moved. I'm also not sure if this little tank has enough flow. I may either upgrade the return pump or get a small powerhead to supplement.
Fish Quarantine day 17
I lost the flasher wrasse and the lubbock wrasse. They were swimming funny and eventually died. Had been treating with Prazi first because I did not see any signs of ich or velvet. The flasher seemed to be doing better after the first round of prazi, but in the last day or two just laid on the bottom glass.
The third wrasse is starting to act the same way, I pulled it and put it in a separate QT tank. It is currently not medicated, trying to determine what my plan of action is there.
The 5 anthias appear to be fine, loving life, and eating like there is no tomorrow.
Coral Quarantine Day 11
Everything looks good and healthy and growing, except for the deep water acro. It shed it's flesh within the first day or two. Upon doing research, apparenly I should not have dipped it in CoralRX. The don't handle dips well.
I lost the flasher wrasse and the lubbock wrasse. They were swimming funny and eventually died. Had been treating with Prazi first because I did not see any signs of ich or velvet. The flasher seemed to be doing better after the first round of prazi, but in the last day or two just laid on the bottom glass.
The third wrasse is starting to act the same way, I pulled it and put it in a separate QT tank. It is currently not medicated, trying to determine what my plan of action is there.
The 5 anthias appear to be fine, loving life, and eating like there is no tomorrow.
Coral Quarantine Day 11
Everything looks good and healthy and growing, except for the deep water acro. It shed it's flesh within the first day or two. Upon doing research, apparenly I should not have dipped it in CoralRX. The don't handle dips well.
The wrasse is still hanging in there. I saw some definite stringy poop today. I lowered the salinity of the tank and dosed some general cure. We'll see what tomorrow brings. He's not eating, so I hope he can get enough general cure in. If he starts to eat, I'll switch to gc medicated food.
All of the fish in quarantine have died. Not entirely sure what killed them, but I'm suspecting it might have been brook. I didn't see lots of white spots on the fish, but in the last day or two, I noticed an area of fine white spots around the forehead of the last two anthias.
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Beginning / End of year update.
DINOS.
Once I learned they were large cell amphidinium, and shouldn't be toxic, I ordered some more snails to try to help clean the sand. Been dosing MB7, N03, PO4, H2O2. Added copepods and have been feeding heavy along with feeding phyto. I have Sodium Silicate on order to try to help knock them down as well.
I ordered some 5 micron sediment filters and rigged together a little siphon setup.
After sweeping with the new filter:
The zoas that survived all the cyano and gha are exploding on my frag rack now. I'm going to need to frag them to even get them off. Most of those frags were two or three heads.
Picked up a few more frags on New Years Day and re-arranged the coral QT with a new frag rack.
Lastly, I've only been running my refugium for about a day a week to keep the chaeto alive. It needs trimmed back as it is taking up pretty much the entire sump section, including top to bottom.
DINOS.
Once I learned they were large cell amphidinium, and shouldn't be toxic, I ordered some more snails to try to help clean the sand. Been dosing MB7, N03, PO4, H2O2. Added copepods and have been feeding heavy along with feeding phyto. I have Sodium Silicate on order to try to help knock them down as well.
I ordered some 5 micron sediment filters and rigged together a little siphon setup.
After sweeping with the new filter:
The zoas that survived all the cyano and gha are exploding on my frag rack now. I'm going to need to frag them to even get them off. Most of those frags were two or three heads.
Picked up a few more frags on New Years Day and re-arranged the coral QT with a new frag rack.
Lastly, I've only been running my refugium for about a day a week to keep the chaeto alive. It needs trimmed back as it is taking up pretty much the entire sump section, including top to bottom.
Trident Woes
My trident was way out of calibration. I used their calibration fluid, which I'm assuming was wrong. I had been dosing soda ash daily for about two months now, but my calcium was still on the high side, so I never worried about it.
CALCIUM
Ideally, I'd be around 440. I ran a Red Sea test and got a much much lower number
Trident: 470
Red Sea: 390
Way too different. I needed a tie breaker so I went out to the LFS and found a Salifert Calcium test.
Salifert: 415
I ran both the Red Sea and Salifert 3 times and got the same results each time. When BRS did their testing, Salifert read a little higher than red sea, so I think both of thos test kits are good.
I split the difference, and manually calibrated the trident to 400.
MAGNESIUM
My Red Sea magnesium was spot on with the trident (well, within 10ppm ), albeit they were both low at 1220 and 1228.
My goal is to get to 440 and 1350 over the next week. I set the dosing pumps to get me there in about 7 days. The trident should hopefully keep me updated on the progress.
Dosing / Testing Setup
Fairly standard. Neptune Trident and DOS. Got them on sale months ago.
My dosing containers are just mason jars with plastic lids. Way cheaper than the Neptune containers.
I was dosing neither calcium nor magnesium up to this point, but they now need it. I was able to look at the historical values and see the trendline down on the magnesium levels since I stopped water changes.
My trident was way out of calibration. I used their calibration fluid, which I'm assuming was wrong. I had been dosing soda ash daily for about two months now, but my calcium was still on the high side, so I never worried about it.
CALCIUM
Ideally, I'd be around 440. I ran a Red Sea test and got a much much lower number
Trident: 470
Red Sea: 390
Way too different. I needed a tie breaker so I went out to the LFS and found a Salifert Calcium test.
Salifert: 415
I ran both the Red Sea and Salifert 3 times and got the same results each time. When BRS did their testing, Salifert read a little higher than red sea, so I think both of thos test kits are good.
I split the difference, and manually calibrated the trident to 400.
MAGNESIUM
My Red Sea magnesium was spot on with the trident (well, within 10ppm ), albeit they were both low at 1220 and 1228.
My goal is to get to 440 and 1350 over the next week. I set the dosing pumps to get me there in about 7 days. The trident should hopefully keep me updated on the progress.
Dosing / Testing Setup
Fairly standard. Neptune Trident and DOS. Got them on sale months ago.
My dosing containers are just mason jars with plastic lids. Way cheaper than the Neptune containers.
I was dosing neither calcium nor magnesium up to this point, but they now need it. I was able to look at the historical values and see the trendline down on the magnesium levels since I stopped water changes.
