110g Seahorse Softy/NPS Reef

[Jon Fishman]

Yeah, can’t help, but I am now following along. Very tidy build

 

[Samina]

Thank you!!

I ended up taking a few samples of the brown stuff and putting it under a microscope and confirmed it was Diatoms. So that was a huge relief. I only was concerned because my nutrients were low and there were areas that looked like they had bubbles attached to it, definitely had me questioning Dinos. Looks like that phase is winding down anyhow. Rocks and sand is looking much cleaner now compared to just a couple days ago.

That was how a few days ago. Here is how it’s looking now. Sorry about the blue

I cleaned out the algae reactor and only left a small handful of chaeto and a couple pieces of red algae in there. I have the skimmer running at night only and it’s hooked up to a CO2 scrubber. So because of that, I didn’t want to turn it off completely. So I am still letting it run but I’ve opened the collection chamber tubing, so it’s pretty much running open with no collection. I ended up dosing Seachem Phosphorous and some Nitrates (saltpeter) for a few days. Between doing that, running skimmer open, and removing some macro algae from the reactor, I was able to get PO4 at 0.04ppm and NO3 at 8ppm over the course of a few days. I wouldn’t mind raising the PO4 a bit more, but now I’m just going to monitor and see if hopefully it raises a bit on its own.

A few new additions also to the tank! A male lyretail anthia and a trio of females. Added a Derasa and Hippopus clam as well. Of course some more euphyllia and a Birdsnest. Birdsnest was from Live Aquaria and came looking pretty bad, most tips broken, and bleached. Had tons (actually like 8-9) acro crabs in it too. But it looks like it is getting better slowly so hopefully it’ll turn around. I thought it was going to be a goner for sure so that’s a nice surprise. Everything else has been doing great thankfully!

 

[Samina]

So things have been chugging along nicely! Diatoms cleared out and my kole does an awesome job keeping the rock clean while the Diamond Goby keeps the sand looking nice. Nutrients have been doing good and staying within NO3 10-12 ppm and PO4 0.08-.012 ppm range. Alk has been stable between 7.7-7.9 dKH, Ca 340-360 ppm, Mg at 1320-1360 ppm. I am only dosing 4mL of each part of Triton Base Elementz and it is able to keep this range consistent. I would imagine, as more coral are added and they begin to grow that will change but it’s working for now.

I added some easy SPS frags since the Birdsnest I added a couple weeks ago made a good turn around from how it arrived and is coloring up really nicely. A couple of poccliporas, stylos, and slimmer are in now on a frag rack. I decided to give @AquaSD a shot to see how their stuff is and I have to say, I was really happy with the sizes of the frags, the fact that all but one (which was starting to) was already well encrusted on the plug, and the colors were nice and full bodied.

I haven’t been running a sock on this system and have noticed a good bit of particulate and floaties in the water column. What do people that don’t use socks or pads do to lower that so the water looks clearer? I don’t want to run socks because I feed phyto and I feel that would be counter productive. But I could be wrong. I used socks on past systems and I had clearer water but I always wondered how much I am possibly taking away food wise for the little critters and filter feeders in the tank. I only run carbon (in a reactor off manifold) maybe once a week for 24 hours.

Anyhow, I’m happy with how it’s going right now. Sorry for the grainy pic, my phone doesn’t take the best pics. Also, I moved one of the MP40 a little lower and you can clearly see where it was on the back wall of the tank before haha! Thank you film algae!!!

 

[raylinds]

The tank is looking good- I hope my 110 tall looks that good some day. I plan on growing pods in my refugium so would rather run without socks. I removed mine a few days ago when I added my first fish and, so far, have not noticed the water clarity being affected. Is that a Lyretail Anthia near the top of the tank? I am thinking of getting one because they are supposed to like to swim in the upper part of the tank and I would like that in my tall tank.

 

[Samina]

The tank is looking good- I hope my 110 tall looks that good some day. I plan on growing pods in my refugium so would rather run without socks. I removed mine a few days ago when I added my first fish and, so far, have not noticed the water clarity being affected. Is that a Lyretail Anthia near the top of the tank? I am thinking of getting one because they are supposed to like to swim in the upper part of the tank and I would like that in my tall tank.

Thanks! I think yours is going to come along really nice, your scape is really nice! Yes, I have a male lyretail and 3 females. They don’t usually swim together and mostly do their own thing. But yes, they all usually hang around the middle to top part of the tank. I also have 5 green chromis that were part of a little school at my LFS and they are always together for the most part and hang out in the middle to top part of the tank.

Hey I wanted to ask you, did you get that live rock you were talking about from Tampa Bay? I was really interested in doing something like that to better seed more diversity. I do plan on getting a cryptic sponge seed rock pack from Steve Tyree’s site but I was thinking about how a little bit of live rock from either Tampa Bay or Gulf would do also. The only thing that worries me are the potential hitchhiker gorillas and other bad stuff that might be in those rocks because getting them out of the rock work and trapping them in such a tall tank won’t be quite that easy. But the benefits of using rock like that are pretty obvious and worth it in my opinion.

 

[Samina]

Well well well... wish I had an awesome update on my tank for you guys but this is a documentation on the journey of this tank and so, even the bad has its place.

So here’s the short story. I inadvertently introduced velvet and possibly ich into my tank. I removed the dead fish from the tank and soon realized what I was dealing with with the awesome help of the folks on this forum. I then setup a QT and proceeded to move the remaining fish into it but I am guessing that they were too far gone. So after losing all of my fish, I am in my fallow period.

Wait, it gets better!

I noticed over the past couple of days, I was seeing signs of possibly dinos on the back wall of the display. I have a pretty good rhythm of testing my parameters and they fall into these ranges:
pH: 8.26-8.08
Salinity: 1.025
dKH: 7.10-7.25
Calcium: 420-440ppm
Mag: 1290ppm
NO3: 4-8ppm
PO4: 0.04-0.08

I had nutrients bottom out around the end of October but things have been stable since then. Even with being fallow, I am still feeding the tank so the inverts do not starve. However, I took some samples of the areas where I believed were possibly dinos and viewed them under a microscope today. So indeed, turns out I am dealing with Ostreopsis for sure. Coral are all retracted and look unhappy.

So things have gotten a bit troublesome in my reefing world but I refuse to give up. I love the hobby way to much. I have started the battle against dinos and plan to use an aggressive approach. Manually removed as much as I could. I have Dr. Tims waste away on hand and have dosed some. Have the skimmer on with collection cup off. Decreased my lighting. Debating on a blackout. I also have Dr. Tims One & Only and also Refresh on hand and plan to dose that tomorrow along with a carbon source (vinegar or vodka). Might just dose the vinegar to the tank so I can dose the vodka to my mouth. Yep that’s the plan. I will alternate days of dosing waste away and then one & only/ refresh until I make some headway in this fight. I have a UV plumbed and may start that up depending on how things go this week. I may also add some ocean magik, pods, more ISPF sand activator or wonder mud, and possibly more Garf. But I am going to see how things go.

So there’s the update. Cheers

 

[YMRreefer]

I understand the vodka to the mouth on a personal level! hah. This hobby can stress us out like no other! So sorry about your recent struggles. How has dino cleanup been?

 

[Samina]

I understand the vodka to the mouth on a personal level! hah. This hobby can stress us out like no other! So sorry about your recent struggles. How has dino cleanup been?

Haha yes it can be.

Thanks for asking. So it went really well. I decreased my lighting to only blues on the T5’s, turned the radions off. Manually removed a bit (honestly not much). I kept the skimmer going with the collection open and just let it overflow. PO4 crept upto .12-.16 ppm and NO3 to 10-16 ppm. That helped quite a bit but I could still see it in the display. I started dosing half dosage of Dr. Tims Waste Away. Next day, half dosage of Refresh, then a break for a day. I didn’t end up Carbon dosing. I did that for a week and that really started knocking it back. I kept the skimmer running open the whole time. Decided to do a 3 day black out and kept dosing waste away and refresh on the same type of schedule (alternating days with a day break in between). After the black out, I noticed an explosive growth of amphipods. When I say explosive, I mean, they were all over. I attribute them for cleaning up the dying dinos and the massive cleaning they did. If you look at the pic of the gyre in my post above, you’ll see how much crud was on there. I did not clean the pump at all or even blow off the stuff on it, but after the black out, it still looked like that but the crud was a bit grayish. Next day, I woke up and this is how the pump looked:

I haven’t turned the radions back on because I don’t even feel like I need them but I use the T5’s (blue +, purple +). Once I need higher lighting, I’ll gradually switch on the radions but I just don’t have the need for them right now. PO4 stays around .12-.16 and NO3 around 10-16 now. Skimmers cup is back on and ATS is doing a good job keeping gha out of display. No dinos in sight! (Knock on wood)

I’ve started a rotifier culture a couple days ago and plan to start harvesting that daily once it’s ready and putting it in the tank because I think it would be good for the NPS corals and filter feeders I have in there and also, rotis feed on dinos. So kind of like also a preventative natural way going forward to keep that in balance.

 

[YMRreefer]

Fingers crossed for you! Seems like your tank has been responding well to your treatment and you haven't had to do anything too drastic... like start over! Also, did you do all the initial plumbing etc. by yourself? Looks good!!

 

[Samina]

Fingers crossed for you! Seems like your tank has been responding well to your treatment and you haven't had to do anything too drastic... like start over! Also, did you do all the initial plumbing etc. by yourself? Looks good!!

Thank you!! Yes, did the plumbing and everything else by myself. It was the first time I plumbed anything so I was pretty nervous doing it! I might set an AWC station, but haven’t gotten around to it.

 

[Samina]

76 day fallow period is nearing an end! Yay!!

Have a few Chromis, Engineer Goby and a Firefish in qt ready for display. I should be done by the end of next week so will add them slowly beginning of the following week. Also have 6 Erectus that will eventually call this display their home as well. They have been doing very well in their observation tank.

Made a few additions over the past couple of months. Starting to come together a bit more now. A healthy population of pineapple sponges has begun proliferating on the back wall of the tank. I’m still on the hunt for more NPS and the more uncommon softies!! I wish there was more availability out there.

Oh and don’t mind the photo, some of the softies are of course shedding and elegance just ate.

 

[YMRreefer]

I very much relate to your trials! For some reason the first time I read about your struggle with dinos I missed the entire velvet/ich part. We are currently going through the same struggle with our fish and setting up QT tanks as I speak. Fingers crossed some can be saved, but at least we will have a QT station if we have to purchase all new fish when the 76 days are up. It seems like this was still helpful for you, even though you had to start with new fish. On the brightside, your corals are looking lovely!! Can't wait to see the fish in their new home.

 

[Samina]

I very much relate to your trials! For some reason the first time I read about your struggle with dinos I missed the entire velvet/ich part. We are currently going through the same struggle with our fish and setting up QT tanks as I speak. Fingers crossed some can be saved, but at least we will have a QT station if we have to purchase all new fish when the 76 days are up. It seems like this was still helpful for you, even though you had to start with new fish. On the brightside, your corals are looking lovely!! Can't wait to see the fish in their new home.

Thanks!

And oh noooo I’m really sorry your going through that. It is really tough. Makes you just feel horrible and is such a set back. But I’m glad you guys got those qt’s setup and hopefully your remaining fish will make a turn around. It’s really disheartening and hard, believe me I know but hang in there!! There is a light at the end and in the long run, I guess it’s a lesson learned so it helps going forward.

 

[Samina]

A few goodies on order can’t wait!!

 

[Samina]

Just thought I’d share an update and some pics. Everything seems to be doing good! Have cyano here and there that will recede on its own after tapering down on the particulate feedings. Parameters all within their usual normal range. Seeing growth and am pretty happy with how the tank is coming along.

Here’s some pics of the ponies doing their thing, feeding time, and also FTS.

 

[Samina]

Thankfully everything is chugging along nicely. I have been very busy with work lately so I have just been doing the basic maintenance (cleaning out ATS and harvesting chaeto wvery 10-14 days. No other tinkering.
Still dosing live phyto (nanno & tetra) and rotis throughout the day. Have the AWC hooked up (10% weekly) and has been running for about a month or so now and the tank seems to be responding well to the routine. I feed the heck out of this tank. Seahorses are fed twice a day at the feeding station, mysis with selcon. I have 2 ponies that still refuse to come to the feeding station so I have been still working on training them. The others come right away as soon as they hear the tap on the glass. The fish eat LRS Frenzy twice a day. Will sometimes give TDO pellets to them. And the coral get a mixed alteration of BW Reef Snow, Oyster Feast, MB7, Reef Roids, Coral Frenzy, and Parcoccus Bacteria. Also will add KZ Sponge Power and RS Energy a couple times through out the week. Parameters are within a good range. NO3 around 10-16ppm, PO4 around .12-.16ppm. Alk has been getting consumed more and so is Ca, so I have increased dosing on those. But I like it around 7.2-7.5 dKH and it’s swing is at 6.92-7.1 dKH, so gotta tune that in again. Ca has been hovering around 410-ish. Was staring to see aptasia here and there so I added 5 small Berghias. I haven’t actually seen them munching but the aptasia is definitly being chopped on because a lot of them are missing tentacles.

 

[Samina]

Some pics, just because