Malacoda's 65g Long from Crystal Reef Aquatics

[CL_]

So far I love the sump. Fitting a pair of Eheim Jager heaters was a little tight ... just because the Eheims are a bit long. Other that, the only potential drawback I see is that the small 'chamber' the overflow pipes empty into will be a PITA to clean any settled detritus out of. (Not sure but that might be intentional since it was designed for use in a Zeovit system ... which I'm not using it for.) I was aware both might pose a little difficulty for me though when I was choosing between their Triton and Stealth series sumps. But I really wanted some of the other options the Trition sump has -- particularly the adjustability of water level in both the refugium and skimmer chambers.

Overall, everything else in the sump is easy access. And it's really nice to be able to just drop a strip of filter floss down into the 'basket' that feeds into the return chamber.

I did order equipment through them as well: 2 Oprhek Compact V4s with gateway and an eFlux DC return pump. They them shipped to me direct from their suppliers.

Excellent, thank you for the details! My wallet is still limping along but I’ve got a few weeks until my tank will be getting ready to ship. Looking forward to more updates!

 

[malacoda]

Time for an update: the tank is Dino-mite!

As in, currently going through a case of dinos. (No idea what kind as I haven't bothered to get a microscope.) Not a major one though. And the sudden nutrient imbalance that triggered it is gradually being corrected.

What really gets my goat is that was caused by a couple of bonehead moves on my part just when the initial 'new tank' hair algae burst burned itself out and the tank was looking good.

The cause was two-fold:

1. I got several colonies of coral a few weeks ago. The air-freight flights were horribly delayed and it was HOT. The extra 12 hours of delay didn't bode well for some of the acro colonies. A couple were DOA and a few more were quite stressed. Despite my best efforts, two lost their flesh within minutes of being in the DT water flow. Two more lost their flesh by the next morning.

2. Because of the delay the stressed condition I tried to get them out of the shipping bags, dipped and into the DT as quick as possible. I thought I had given them enough time in a large enough volume of post-dip rinse water to remove all of the Bayer dip residue from the colonies. I was wrong. After putting the first 3 into the tank I saw a paralized sexy shrimp go drifting by. Gave the rest more time and 'swishing' in the rinse tub but the damage was already done. A little bit of Bayer apparently did get into the DT.

Result: between the bit of Bayer that got into the DT and all the dead flesh from the 4 colonies that disintigrated in the DT, phosphates shot off the chart. >1 ppm of PO4. My test kit chart tops out a 1ppm but I'm sure it was higher.

The biofilter handled the NO3 just fine. Too fine in fact. Never got higher than about 3 ppm and was back down to 1 ppm within a day.

Only took about 2 days of such a severe imbalance for a good thick mat of cyano and dinos to cover the sand. Burgundy, teals, and green matts ... and green-brown snot strings. Quite the mix.

If I were smart, I would've had a rubber maid tub DT water, a powerhead, and a heater ready to go to put the new corals in. I don't have room for an actual frag tank, but that would've at least let me monitor and nurse the corals for a 2-3 days before putting them in the DT.

Aside from the colonies that didn't survive the trauma of delayed summertime shipping, I lost 2 skunk cleaner shrimp and 3 out of 4 sexy shrimp due to the bit of Bayer residue that made it into the DT. All the fish and other inverts are fine.

Lesson learned.

Now that PO4 is back below 0.05 ppm, I'm slowly dosing nitrate to get NO3 up to ~3ppm to try and re-establish a bit of nutrient balance in the hope it will eliminate the remaining dinos.

Also added my second batch of fish a couple days ago per my original stocking plan. The added bio-load should also help to maintain a slightly detectable bit of NO3.

Previous FTS from May 31:

Tank shots from today:

 

[SkiCatTX]

It's getting there! The algae phase is such a pain. Looking forward to things getting back on track!

 

[Bleigh]

Wow! Looks amazing! You have some awesome wood working skills. Any chance you loan them out for fellow club members?

 

[malacoda]

Wow! Looks amazing! You have some awesome wood working skills. Any chance you loan them out for fellow club members?

Afraid the best answer I can give you is ... possibly.

All I have is basic hand power tools. And I have to use my garage as the 'workshop'. So it would depend on a variety of things including my work schedule, time of year (e.g. being able to open the garage for ventilation), the size of the project, etc.

 

[malacoda]

Talk about overdue for an update...

Some big changes over the past year...

My wife and I moved from VA to NC this summer. So I ended up transferring the fish and inverts from my 24g into the 65g, took the 24g down, and moved the 65g with us.

The transfer of the livestock means no more Java Sea biotope since the transferees included a blackline blenny (Meiacanthus nigrolineatus, which is found in the Red Sea) and a scarlet hermit crab (Caribbean).

Three fish did not survive the move due to me having to keep them in the transfer buckets for 3 days rather than the planned 1 day: the pink-streaked wrasse, one of the Smith's blennies, and one of the dispar anthias.

I put in all new sand so, as expected, I did see a bit of a dino outbreak. But it was very minor, and very brief. Within a few days of bring my UV back online, it cleared up.

The blackline blenny was showing signs of 'hollow belly' so I feed food mixed with General Cure + Focus twice a day for three weeks. Unfortunately at week two my tangaroa goby had some kind of adverse reaction and was found dead one morning. A week later, the same happened with the tailspot blenny. I thought the tangaroa may have just died from old age since it was fully grown when I received it and I had no way of knowing how old it was. Once the tailspot kicked the bucket, I immediately stopped treatment (it was week three, the final week anyway).

Both fish appeared very healthy and active right up to the evening before they were found, so I can only assume each experienced some sort of complication from the medication.

Time will tell if the treatment was enough to stop the blacklined blenny from withering away or not.

And the last of the bad news: my hi fin red banded goby (Stonogobiops nematodes) jumped. As it grew it became bolder and bolder, venturing higher and higher into the water column to feed. I suspect that after I walked away from the tank after that morning's feeding one of the active fish ... an anthias or wrasse ... darted past between it and the shrimp burrow, spooking it. Not sure if it squeeze through the lid gap ... or just managed to fit through the lid mesh ... but it was floor jerky by the time I found it.

New additions to replace the fish lost during the move are:

• a coral banded pipe fish (Doryrhamphus dactylophorus )
• splendid pintail fairy wrasse (Cirrhilabrus isosceles)
• Exquisite wrasse (Cirrhilabrus exquisitus)

New additions to replace the lost blenny and gobies:

• bonded pair of orange striped prawn gobies (Amblyeleotris randalli)

Some tanks shots taken this morning:

 

[Bleigh]

Sorry to hear the news, but the tank looks incredible. Not sure how close to Charlotte you are, but Nemo's is my go to fish store. We are lucky because there's a couple of other really good ones in the area. They just aren't as close to me.

 

[malacoda]

Update time: tank is still doing well.

Lost one of the orange-striped gobies to injuries he suffered after hitting the lid while chasing his reflection all the way up the glass and out of the water. But the two little clown gobies have really delighted me...

I was expecting them to be rather timid and not out-and-about much with all the activity of the anthia, blennies and the exquisite wrasse. But, once they settled in they've become quite brazen ... moving about from coral to coral and up into the water column quite a bit throughout the day.

And despite how pretty the gold hammer coral was, I decided to re-home it. It had gotten so big, it's stingers were starting to reach some of my SPS. And, rather than having to frag it regularly, I decide to replace it with some new SPS instead...

Now difficult part: deciding what SPS I want put in that spot.

FTS from today:

 

[malacoda]

Update time.

Tank is rocking. Was starting to see a hint of dinos, I believe due to a rise in PO4 - from 0.12 o 0.23. Brought PO4 down to 0.12 and NO3 down from 10 to 3 and it has cleared up.

Out of curiosity, I began to try some KZ products a few days ago. Intrigued to see if they produce any noticeable effect on coral color and growth.

FTS from today:

 

[malacoda]

Time to start tracking noticeable changes in the corals to log any improvement since beginning the use of KZ products (Zeoback (50% dose), ZeoStart3 (50% dose), sponge power, coral vitalizer, flatworm stop).

Can't know for sure if any changes I see are due purely to trying them, but they will be the only major change to my routine.

So, first picture log - a quick, slightly out of focus shot of my stylo:

For the longest time my stylo frag wasn't growing downward toward the base after being moved to this tank. Upward growth has been good laterly, but nothing downward.

Now, in the past week, there has been ~4 mm of downward growth. Hopefully it will continue. I'd really love for it to base out onto the rock so the glue bond won't give out a the upper branch structure grows.

 

[malacoda]

It's a wavy kind of day today...

This may be the longest I've seen the plate's polyps out yet.

 

[malacoda]

Time to put a halt on at least one of the KZ products: ZeoStart3.

Even at half the recommended dosage of ZeoBak and ZeoStart, my NO3 bottomed out quite a bit lower than expected. Went from ~10 to 3 then down to 0. Been 0 for the past five weeks per two ATI ICP tests. PO4 has come down from 0.23 to 0.12 and then to 0.06 where it's currently at.

The tiny hint of dinos I was seeing two months had disappeared, but ... they've returned. Before they were about a 1 on a scale of 10. This time they're a 3 on a scale of 10.

A lot of changes are likely responsible...

• The decrease of PO4 to 0.06 and zero NO3,
• upping my lights from Atlantik V4 Compact to full-size Altlantiks and ...
• Perhaps most of all, stirring things up a bit when I cleaned out a ton of turf algae from my OF weir which probably upset the tank balance a bit

To get back to a known point of control, I'm dosing nitrate to up it to around 5 ... and feeding Reef Roids to lift PO4 back to around 0.10.

That means no more ZeoStart3. But still plan to continue with the other KZ items until they run out.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Some very, very nice corals going on there!

 

[malacoda]

Looks like fish maturity is starting take its toll...

Last week, Sunny the yellow clown goby decided that he had grown too big and mature to share a 4-foot long 65g tank with Sonny, the other yellow clown goby ... and started to beat the heck out him.

So, Sonny has officially become the first resident of the new 'Left-Over Bling' 10g I finished setting up this week.

And then, day before yesterday, one of my two female Dispar Anthias began hiding in the rocks all day ... dashing out only to eat.

It's the larger of two females. And I also have one male.

I suspect that, after two years, it may have reached a point of starting to transition to male despite there already being a dominant male in the tank ... and has begun to see enough increased bullying from the male.

I'll give it a few days to see if anything changes ... or if it starts to come back out ... before I try to figure out if/what course of action to take.

Anyhow, time for an FTS...

 

[malacoda]

It's official — this tanks days are numbered.

Just put an order in with Envision Acrylics.

Come fall, the inhabitants of this tank will be upgraded to a 120g kingdom.