Skicat's JBJ28 Experimental Mixed Reef

SkiCatTX · Apr 30, 2019

Stopped Dino-X after 10 days as it seems to have done its job. Still a little bit of die off of some various algae, but otherwise it looks pretty clean. Started the UV and skimmer back up, did a small water change, cleaned the glass, etc.

Decided to take a quick FTS with my phone:

Still looking crowded even after selling a few hundred dollars of frags to a LFS the other day!

Going to take another batch once they heal up and are free of the recent chems.

SkiCatTX · Apr 30, 2019

Mystery acro is looking a little brown after the recent Alk and Phosphate spike and dino-x round. That's also an accidental frag as I bumped it the other day.

Interesting specimen, just showed up one day, no idea where it came from, though currently growing like a weed. I must have gotten a polyp tag-along on something at some point. It is green on the flat areas, yellow in vertical and new growth, red/pink on the tips with red polyps (though the polyps are a bit brown right now, they should color back up)

Anyone have any ideas what it might be? Not the best picture, I need to get a real camera...

SkiCatTX · May 2, 2019

SkiCatTX said:
My Apex ATK ATO had been acting up recently, so I took out the sensors and found this:

It's not even a year old! That's scary. I took out the sensors, this one is shot, but the other one, while it still works is showing signs of rusting as well.

I contacted Neptune, not sure if they'll do anything about it or not...will report back.

Neptune got back to me right away. I sent them the pics and they overnighted me new sensors. No problem at all!

I am very impressed. This is the kind of support I like to see!

revhtree · May 2, 2019

Great thread and the tank is looking good!

SkiCatTX · May 2, 2019

revhtree said:
Great thread and the tank is looking good!

Thanks! And thank you for stopping by!

SkiCatTX · May 8, 2019

Couple new pieces that I got at last week's frag swap (under whites, I'll try to get a good blue pic...once I get a new light):

ARC Fireworks (closed up, I'll try to get a pic after feeding...again, once I get a new light)

JF Enchanted Forest Birds Nest:

Green Torch

SkiCatTX · May 8, 2019

Success with the Naked Clown and Rainbow BTA! They'll go in the DT this week!

Taken with phone with the lights off, just room light:

SkiCatTX · May 10, 2019

Moved the Naked Clown and Anemone over from QT today!

So far he seems to be staying put, fingers crossed...

SkiCatTX · May 10, 2019

Lol, check this out...At the end of the day I have my Radions go to full blue for a bit before the go off for the night. Noticed the rainbow BTA was in full "rainbow" mode. Since the QT tank lights don't do this, the nem was always orange with a green body like in the pics above.

Tonight it was full on neon rainbow, wow! I quickly grabbed my phone and took a few pics. I had to adjust them a bit to get it as close to what I'm seeing as possible given the strong blue, but it really does look just about like this to the eye...

SkiCatTX · May 27, 2019

After a few weeks, the rainbow has lost many of its bubbles. Hopefully that's just going through QT and lower light levels. I have been feeding it mysis with acro power twice a week, and gradually increasing the light intensity. I am hoping that after it settles in it might plump back up. It otherwise seems quite happy, it is already considerably bigger when it stretches out than it was and the clown seems to love it.

Here are a couple daylight pictures in orange color mode. Crazy how different it looks than at night under blues...

SkiCatTX · May 27, 2019

Found some tiny Palys/Zoas, sorry about the graininess, they are super zoomed in on my phone:

SkiCatTX · May 27, 2019

And this mystery green monti or encrusting acro is impossible to photograph it's so bright green it washes out with any filter or setting. I'm going to have to experiment on the lighting, or filters to get a good image. It really is that blindingly bright green to the eye as well.

(And I believe that's a verminted snail sticking up out of it...going to have to super glue the tip of the tube or something...)

SkiCatTX · May 27, 2019

Mr Bojangles is out today as well.

That hammer on the bottom in this image is bright yellow, but no amount of tweaking with filters or photo app can get it right...the other colors in the image are about right though.

SkiCatTX · May 27, 2019

Trying hard to get good pics of my mystery green/yellow/red/pink acro with my phone. The green is mostly on the flat parts, fading to yellow on vertical growth, with slightly pink tips. The polyps are a deep red/maroon color. It appears mostly red when feeding, but if startled, the polyps quickly retract and it flashes bright yellow/green. It is just bright green under blues.

I have no idea what it is, if it has a name, or even where I got it, but it's been growing like a weed for the last few months.

Here are a couple pics of accidental frags, top down view with flow off.

SkiCatTX · May 27, 2019

This tank is absolutely stuffed with frags...going to head to the LFS this week to unload:

And boy that RFA in the back corner is getting huge. I got it a few years back about the size of the quarter, now it's probably 6-8". I'm a bit worried for the clowns, though they seem to know to stay away from it...

SkiCatTX · May 27, 2019

Got another couple pics of the green one. The rest of the images are a bit off, but you can see the polyps now at least...

And yeah, I think I'm going to have to deal with that snail in the center of it...and maybe several others now that I look closely...

SkiCatTX · May 30, 2019

Recently, when looking at my unusually low pH, it occured to me that I haven't calibrated the Apex pH probe in like 2 or 3 years... (I know, right?) At that time, I have bought some bottles of calibration solution, planning on calibrating regularly.

So, a couple weeks ago I cleaned the probe by soaking it in a light vinegar solution for a few hours and then rinsing it. Then I calibrated it using the calibration solution that I had. When I was finished, I was amazed at how much higher it was reading. Then, later that day it kept climbing, 8.3, 8.4, then I started to question just how calibrated it was.

Here was the before and after:

I figured that old solution must be bad, so I ordered a new batch and calibrated again a few days later. Testing the new solution, and the old after the recalibration shows it was only reading about +.1 at 7 and +.3 at 10, so not too bad. However, I stupidly decided to clean the skimmer on the same day, so the pH dropped significantly, and it was hard to look at the before and after:

But the cool part is a few days after that, when I put the skimmer back on, with the outside air intake connected. The daytime high wasn't much higher at about 8.17, but the nighttime lows were way higher at just below 8.0 rather than almost 7.75. So clearly the combination of skimmer air plus lower CO2 outside makes a measurable difference, and this is without a CO2 scrubber.

SkiCatTX · Jun 12, 2019

Got some slightly better pics of the two frags of my cool green, yellow, and red mystery acro. Still no idea what it is, but I'm liking the bright colors so far:

I'm going to need to move them down lower and use the tripod. Otherwise they are always blurry...

SkiCatTX · Jun 12, 2019

The Rainbow BTA is doing really well. In fact, since these pictures were taken last week, the bubbles have grown back even more!

They nearly went away after the QT, and then moving again to the DT, and finally, lowering the lights for the last few weeks to acclimate it and some other corals to the Radion XR30 Pros. I have been feeding large mysis shrimp with aminos regularly and it has almost doubled in size since I got it, and the colors are getting pretty bright.