The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The title of a Clint Eastwood movie seems appropriate to describe 2020. My tanks have experienced all three in the last year…along with the world, I might add. The end of 2020 seems appropriate for a little tank reflection over the last year. Did I mention that I’m a huge Clint Eastwood fan? ;Happy
The Good
Compared to where the 90-gallon tank was in late 2019, I have to describe the tank as “the good.” Thankfully, it’s not covered in nasty hair algae now. My sandbed has never looked this clean. Another “good” was adding the 16 BioCube this fall. The intention was a grow-out tank for some corals, but I think it’s turning into a zoanthid tank! I’ve always had a thing for zoanthids, but I remember how quickly they could get out of control on my original 46-gallon bowfront tank and was hesitant to add them again. I finally settled on a zoanthid rock for the 90 (AKA Zoanthid World), which is currently growing out in the BioCube. I envision a rock with all different colors of zoanthids, which eventually will be moved to the 90. It will stay separated from the rest of the live rock so I can control the spread. I will also be adding a fish or two to the BioCube, but it has to get past “the ugly” first. I also got over my fear of dosers this year and am currently dosing alk and calcium. I replaced several pieces of equipment, which were original pieces when I started up the 90 in 2013. I figured I was pushing my luck and replaced the heater, ATO, light fixture, and powerheads. I’ll also be replacing the return pump soon, along with replacing the RO/DI filters.
The Bad
What a weird year for the entire world. I don’t have to say anything else about that. As far as “the bad” regarding the tanks, I think the 90 is almost too clean. I noticed some of my acropora fading recently. I’ve never been huge fan of checking multiple parameters, other than alk and calcium and occasionally magnesium. I run Chemi-Pure Elite in a filter sock in the sump. I’ve also never been a huge fan of additives, but I’m doing a little experiment now with Brightwell CoralAmino. I had a supply of some of the Red Sea aminos, but they seemed to make my skimmer go nuts for days so I stopped using them. So far, the Brightwell product hasn’t done that to my skimmer. I’m adding a small dose several times a day to high flow areas, after turning the skimmer off for about 15 minutes, and will see what happens over the next few weeks. I took some pictures yesterday and will take some comparison pictures soon. The acropora seem to be coloring back up, but I could be dreaming about that! Pictures will tell the story. I was reading about dosing nitrates/phosphates and overfeeding, but those options seem like an invitation for more problems. The BioCube has also started going through its own little hair algae problem recently. See “the ugly” for more on that. I also had the slight disaster yesterday when I burned out my Tunze pump by letting my ATO reservoir get too low. I take full responsibility for that one because I knew the reservoir was getting low and was waiting to run the RO/DI unit…lesson learned. At least Tunze ATO replacement pumps aren’t too pricey!
The Ugly
I HATE hair algae. I also HATE bubble algae. I’ve seen some of both in the BioCube. I first noticed a little bit of bubble algae on a zoanthid frag back when I had the zoa rock in the 90. I dealt with bubble algae in my 46 bowfront and eventually got rid of it with persistence and emerald crabs. I was never sure that the emerald crabs did much good, but I like them and usually have a few of them on hand. I didn’t have any in the 90 at the time I noticed the bubble algae, but it seemed to be contained to the one frag and I haven’t seen any bubble algae in the 90 since I moved the zoa rock into the BioCube. I just manually remove the bubble algae with tweezers when I see it. I also have a few emerald crabs on order…my LFS was totally sold out! I fully expected hair algae in the BioCube at some point….I figured it had to go through the new tank “uglies.” I used Vibrant when the 90 exploded with hair algae over a year ago during my tank reboot and think it helped. I didn’t have any horrible aftereffects. I did have a slight problem with what I think was dinos afterwards (stringy bubbles), but I raised my alk and it went away. Hopefully, the uglies will go away soon in the BioCube!
I’m ready to move on to 2021. It will hopefully be a great year for our tanks and for the entire world! Happy New Year, y'all! ;Joyful
