Today marks the first anniversary of my first ever saltwater tank:
Typical parameters are:
Nitrate: Between 2 and 7
Phosphate: Usually .1 ... Spiked to .35 after I started feeding reefroids as my zoas were dying (more on that below)
DKH: 8.5 - 9
Calcium: 420-450
Salinity 33.5
Temperature: 77
Everything else: Don't know
Equipment: return pump for flow. floss for catching debris (I change it weekly). tetra preset heater. Nicrew 50W light: 9am to 9pm ramps up to 45% intensity at the highest; don't know how much par it produces.
Inhabitants: 2 clown fish; 1 peppermint shrimp, 1 emerald crab, lots of hermits, lots of snails.
Maintenance: I do a 50% water change once a week.
Food: once a day frozen brine shrimp (Artemia spp.) and after my zoas started dying I started feeding reefroids once a week
What's doing well: All my SPS are thriving, chalices, montis, lepto and blasto are growing. Shrooms are doing good too. GSP is getting out of control.
What's hurting (help!): I introduced utter chaos and exosphere zoas. They went from 1 polyp each to around 20 on the utter chaos and 6 on the exosphere. Then randomly they started to melt. I assumed I had some nutrient scarcity so I started to feed reef roids. Not sure that's helping. They still seem very weak. Any suggestions? (the zoas on the right are a new frag I just introduced, they seem to be doing ok.. for now...)
What I can't seem to keep: I've had 2 small torches and 1 small hammer, they seemed to do ok, and after 2 months they just melted away.
Here are some white light pics. As you can see I've lost almost half my utter chaos and all but 1 exosphere polyp
Thanks for reading! feedback welcome
Typical parameters are:
Nitrate: Between 2 and 7
Phosphate: Usually .1 ... Spiked to .35 after I started feeding reefroids as my zoas were dying (more on that below)
DKH: 8.5 - 9
Calcium: 420-450
Salinity 33.5
Temperature: 77
Everything else: Don't know
Equipment: return pump for flow. floss for catching debris (I change it weekly). tetra preset heater. Nicrew 50W light: 9am to 9pm ramps up to 45% intensity at the highest; don't know how much par it produces.
Inhabitants: 2 clown fish; 1 peppermint shrimp, 1 emerald crab, lots of hermits, lots of snails.
Maintenance: I do a 50% water change once a week.
Food: once a day frozen brine shrimp (Artemia spp.) and after my zoas started dying I started feeding reefroids once a week
What's doing well: All my SPS are thriving, chalices, montis, lepto and blasto are growing. Shrooms are doing good too. GSP is getting out of control.
What's hurting (help!): I introduced utter chaos and exosphere zoas. They went from 1 polyp each to around 20 on the utter chaos and 6 on the exosphere. Then randomly they started to melt. I assumed I had some nutrient scarcity so I started to feed reef roids. Not sure that's helping. They still seem very weak. Any suggestions? (the zoas on the right are a new frag I just introduced, they seem to be doing ok.. for now...)
What I can't seem to keep: I've had 2 small torches and 1 small hammer, they seemed to do ok, and after 2 months they just melted away.
Here are some white light pics. As you can see I've lost almost half my utter chaos and all but 1 exosphere polyp
Thanks for reading! feedback welcome
