My Reef Journey Begins!
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Brew12
Electrical Gru
I had one of those 
moments last night.
Spent a lot of time working on my DT. First I did a water change and a little light algae removal. Then I changed my powerheads because I have never been thrilled with the flow. I took one of the Hydor powerheads and put it on one side where I had an MP40. I took the MP40 and moved it to the back wall in the middle. I think I may finally like my flow, huge improvement!
So then I went to work in the sump. I did a little rearranging and then went to clean the glass. My DT tank scrubber has too strong a magnet to work well in the sump so I grabbed the smaller one out of my QT. Yup.... you heard that right. Pulled it right out of my QT water and started using it in my sump. Once my brain kicked in half way I thought I was going to be sick to my stomach. My immediate thoughts were that I may have just wasted the huge amount of time and energy I have used making sure my tank was clear of any parasites. I thought I was going to be sick.
So I start thinking things through and trying to decide just how likely it was I had infected my DT. I start thinking through the Ich and Velvet lifecycles. And that is when my brain kicked in the rest of the way. The scrubber came from my invert QT. I dried it off to keep it from dripping while moving between tanks. Nothing has been added to my invert QT in a few weeks so unless I get incredibly unlucky I think I'll be fine.
Not my smartest move by far, but not nearly as bad as I first thought.
moments last night.Spent a lot of time working on my DT. First I did a water change and a little light algae removal. Then I changed my powerheads because I have never been thrilled with the flow. I took one of the Hydor powerheads and put it on one side where I had an MP40. I took the MP40 and moved it to the back wall in the middle. I think I may finally like my flow, huge improvement!
So then I went to work in the sump. I did a little rearranging and then went to clean the glass. My DT tank scrubber has too strong a magnet to work well in the sump so I grabbed the smaller one out of my QT. Yup.... you heard that right. Pulled it right out of my QT water and started using it in my sump.
Once my brain kicked in half way I thought I was going to be sick to my stomach. My immediate thoughts were that I may have just wasted the huge amount of time and energy I have used making sure my tank was clear of any parasites. I thought I was going to be sick.So I start thinking things through and trying to decide just how likely it was I had infected my DT. I start thinking through the Ich and Velvet lifecycles. And that is when my brain kicked in the rest of the way. The scrubber came from my invert QT. I dried it off to keep it from dripping while moving between tanks. Nothing has been added to my invert QT in a few weeks so unless I get incredibly unlucky I think I'll be fine.
Not my smartest move by far, but not nearly as bad as I first thought.
OP
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Brew12
Electrical Gru
Live food would be a challenging option for me other than what I can raise in my tank. One major reason I worry about having a diverse pod/micro fauna population. Otherwise, I work hard to keep their stress to a minimum and quality of feed as high as possible. LRS fish frenzy is a hit in my tank. Although my silly clowns prefer pellets. Clowns are strange.If you needed an excuse to feed the fish in there more or better, you have it.
Other than my Hippo Tang, I'm pretty sure I could have Ich in my tank and never notice. Best insurance policy you can do. Proper nutrition and stable conditions.
mcarroll
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You could try ocean nutritions baby brine shrimp in a jar just to see if your fish and or coral go for them.
If they do, newly hatched brine shrimp are one of the easiest to manage live foods. You can even simply decapsulate the eggs (or buy pre-decapsulated eggs) and feed them directly without hatching.
If you have to mail order black worms, the quantity can be a little daunting. (@Paul B has a DIY keeper that makes it much much easier.) A small portion of worms from the local fish store in the fridge is pretty easy, if that is available.
Short of that, I would recommend lots of reef nutrition's ROE and similar.
I'll keep you in the loop if I get a chance to finish the set up, but I have a aqua medic plankton reactor that I hope to hatch baby brine shrimp and have them drip or dosed into the tank. I won't have time to manage anymore than that, so it will have to work...or it won't.
If they do, newly hatched brine shrimp are one of the easiest to manage live foods. You can even simply decapsulate the eggs (or buy pre-decapsulated eggs) and feed them directly without hatching.
If you have to mail order black worms, the quantity can be a little daunting. (@Paul B has a DIY keeper that makes it much much easier.) A small portion of worms from the local fish store in the fridge is pretty easy, if that is available.
Short of that, I would recommend lots of reef nutrition's ROE and similar.
I'll keep you in the loop if I get a chance to finish the set up, but I have a aqua medic plankton reactor that I hope to hatch baby brine shrimp and have them drip or dosed into the tank. I won't have time to manage anymore than that, so it will have to work...or it won't.
Jeffdstafford
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I had one of those
Man I've been there a time or 2 these past couple months with my QT setup...that terrifying moment when I was about to reuse something from one system to the other..luckily I haven't done anything dumb...yet. But it's pretty easy to do, especially if it's all in the same room. Luckily my stuff is in totally different spaces, so it's harder to do dumb things. Not impossible, but just takes a little more effort
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Brew12
Electrical Gru
My grandma could have provided more velocity with a hand fan!Did the Hydor provide more velocity
The wide flow pattern of the MP40 really works well on the back wall though.
mcarroll
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Just some more thoughts....do you run UV or a diatom filter? That's another pair of options in a case like yours.....don't even have to run the UV all the time so you're burning through bulbs constantly...use as-needed on a fairly stable system like yours.
I guess everyone makes a UV unit these days, but I've liked Lifegard/Emporer units and their support the best. Just make sure you understand the dosage rate for the unit you end up looking at....useless if you get the dose (power+flow rate) wrong.
The diatom filter will have a much lower running cost if you wanted to run it all the time, but I imagine it would be best on an as-needed basis too.
The old Vortech XL line is still for sale, including a pumpless/canister version. Marineland has their new polishing filter. Both seem like great options and pretty economical for what you get.
Of course doing both would be perfectly fine too.
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Brew12
Electrical Gru
Hydroids.
Yes, they will apparently live through both an H2O2 dip and a Bayer dip. Fortunately, they are still on the zoa frags in my coral QT. Unfortunately, I am about to get too busy at work to try to deal with them. Hopefully they won't multiply in my QT before I can deal with them next week.
At least the H2O2 dip crushed the bryopsis that was on the frags.
Yes, they will apparently live through both an H2O2 dip and a Bayer dip. Fortunately, they are still on the zoa frags in my coral QT. Unfortunately, I am about to get too busy at work to try to deal with them. Hopefully they won't multiply in my QT before I can deal with them next week.
At least the H2O2 dip crushed the bryopsis that was on the frags.
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Brew12
Electrical Gru
I've tried taking a few pics but I can't get it to show up. I have 2 zoa frags, each with one single hydroid. Unfortunately, all the pictures I have taken make it look like a piece of algae.
mcarroll
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Are you sure of what it is? I'm only asking cuz this is a pest you read about online, but (IME) never shows up in reality. First-hand pics would be great!
But I understand how things just don't come through in pics sometimes. I can barely take a passable tank photo....actual luck is required.
But I understand how things just don't come through in pics sometimes. I can barely take a passable tank photo....actual luck is required.
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Brew12
Electrical Gru
Well, they are safely in QT for now. When my maintenance outage is over next week I'll pull out the good camera, clean up the tank, and see if I can get a good picture.
OP
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Brew12
Electrical Gru
This was a very busy weekend. I cleaned out the garage which was in horrible shape. Too many projects without a good cleaning meant stuff everywhere. That took up most of my day yesterday.
Today was build day. I got tired of filling a 5 gallon bucket in the laundry room with RODI every night to be able to do a water change that is still smaller than what I should be doing. It took the better part of the day, but I now have a mixing station.
Today was build day. I got tired of filling a 5 gallon bucket in the laundry room with RODI every night to be able to do a water change that is still smaller than what I should be doing. It took the better part of the day, but I now have a mixing station.
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Brew12
Electrical Gru
I decided that I wanted some Anthias to go in my system. Wanting to end up with 1 male and 3 females I ordered 4 of them. It turned out the purchasing a Kole Tang was going to get me free shipping and cost less then paying for the shipping. So, I saved some money and bought the Tang, too.
Was all excited when the package arrived this morning. Opened the box and the only thing that shipped was the Tang. I'm guessing the Anthias were out of stock. Had I known I would have gone with a different species. I would have even had them hold shipment so they all arrived at once and saved them the extra shipping charge. Not exactly stellar communication.
Was all excited when the package arrived this morning. Opened the box and the only thing that shipped was the Tang. I'm guessing the Anthias were out of stock. Had I known I would have gone with a different species. I would have even had them hold shipment so they all arrived at once and saved them the extra shipping charge. Not exactly stellar communication.
