60g Cube

[twentyleagues]

Looks good! I cant wait til 3/5 to see whats in store.

 

[Rjukan]

 

[Rjukan]

Teaser..

 

[Rjukan]

Tested Alk with my new hanna alk tester and it was pretty low at 5.3, so I have been adding 2 part over the last few days and there is a noticable improvement with my zoas. Going to pick up the calc tester soon, I love how easy they are to use.

It was 5 years later.. almost to the month, when I got around to buying that Calcium tester lol.

 

[Rjukan]

Idk where it came from but one of the only corals that lived through the bad years was a type of encrusting coral that looked like it had gorgonian polyps. I thought that was odd since gorgonians only branched not encrust, I was wrong lol. I looked into it today and yeah, it's considered a miserable pest like clove polyps. So I just removed the rock it was on, and then used bone cutters to remove the rest that was on a large rock I wasn't going to remove.

Just enjoying the hobby and not getting too worked up over anything. Staying consistent with maintenance, and I've got several corals from the weekly POTO auctions since they are local.
Mantis Tank is doing great, and she made it through first molt no problem. Now she knows the feeding tube and comes out and holds on to it lol.. I've got a nice order of snails and crabs coming from @reefcleaners tomorrow for her too.

 

[Rjukan]

Found 1 of these guys on 2 separate zoas.. I guess they are the bad ones, so I pulled out a few this morning. I really can't imagine how many I have in the tank since I've always left them alone. Might consider picking up a harlequin shrimp today if the LFS has any.

 

[twentyleagues]

Found 1 of these guys on 2 separate zoas.. I guess they are the bad ones, so I pulled out a few this morning. I really can't imagine how many I have in the tank since I've always left them alone. Might consider picking up a harlequin shrimp today if the LFS has any.

I know people say this from time to time but I caught them eating zoas. No the zoas were perfectly healthy and not in decline. In fact they were spreading and looking great. Multiple nights I found one or more of these on zoas or palys in different colonies and when pulled them off the coral there was a little hole where the star had been. A pair of harlequins were employed and they handled business quite rapidly. In fact I had to pick stars from locals or buy them from lfs's once they found out why. Eventually I had to put them in their own tank and feed them chocolate chip stars. They rapidly deplete the stars once they get used to the tank.

 

[Rjukan]

I know people say this from time to time but I caught them eating zoas. No the zoas were perfectly healthy and not in decline. In fact they were spreading and looking great. Multiple nights I found one or more of these on zoas or palys in different colonies and when pulled them off the coral there was a little hole where the star had been. A pair of harlequins were employed and they handled business quite rapidly. In fact I had to pick stars from locals or buy them from lfs's once they found out why. Eventually I had to put them in their own tank and feed them chocolate chip stars. They rapidly deplete the stars once they get used to the tank.

Yeah, and I would easily be able to keep them going since I have the asterinas in my sump as well... But after some research, my flame hawkfish would probably make a nice quick expensive meal of them. So that's not going to happen.

 

[twentyleagues]

Yeah, and I would easily be able to keep them going since I have the asterinas in my sump as well... But after some research, my flame hawkfish would probably make a nice quick expensive meal of them. So that's not going to happen.

Yeah the hawkfish is probably a deal breaker. Dont underestimate the power of the harlequin though you would be out of stars in no time. If anything took care of pests as well as them I would buy them in a heart beat. ie peppermint shrimp-aipstasia, emerald crabs-bubble algae, whatever else you can think of except some wrasses and flat worms.

 

[Rjukan]

It's wild they can be so effective, I'd love to know how many they can take out in a night.

At any rate I'm not too broken up over it.. I don't see the stars on the zoas that often, and I see good growth in most cases. I'll work on manual removal every day before the lights turn on.

 

[twentyleagues]

It's wild they can be so effective, I'd love to know how many they can take out in a night.

At any rate I'm not too broken up over it.. I don't see the stars on the zoas that often, and I see good growth in most cases. I'll work on manual removal every day before the lights turn on.

After they wiped out the ones in my tanks I added about 100 a week and at the end of a week there would be no sign of any stars. It was kind of horrifying what they'd do with cc stars. They would eat off a leg and just ride around on it until they decided to eat again. I eventually sold them to someone with a star issue for like a 1/3 of what I paid. I think they went through 3-4 tanks before I lost track of them.

 

[Rjukan]

Having to to update build thread for supporting member giveaway. Eh seems pointless on both fronts lol.

I'm dealing with .90+ Phosphates, I had them down to .60 something but they shot back up after being away for a couple days on auto feeder. Using LC seems to have been working while using a scrubber bringing down nitrates. But since I took the scrubber offline phos doesn't budge even upping LC dosage. I'll put the scrubber back on line soon.

I went through a period there after my last post with my zoas closed up tight. Thought I would lose them all, but after seeing my salinity was down to 1.023 I started raising it and they began to open again. Things are still not great, since I can't get my nutrients in check. I'm not going to lie, I'm feeling sort of defeated and I need to get my head back in the game. I just added a used MP10 today for cross flow and that looks really nice. Torch is flowing much better than it was. Meh.

 

[twentyleagues]

Having to to update build thread for supporting member giveaway. Eh seems pointless on both fronts lol.

I'm dealing with .90+ Phosphates, I had them down to .60 something but they shot back up after being away for a couple days on auto feeder. Using LC seems to have been working while using a scrubber bringing down nitrates. But since I took the scrubber offline phos doesn't budge even upping LC dosage. I'll put the scrubber back on line soon.

I went through a period there after my last post with my zoas closed up tight. Thought I would lose them all, but after seeing my salinity was down to 1.023 I started raising it and they began to open again. Things are still not great, since I can't get my nutrients in check. I'm not going to lie, I'm feeling sort of defeated and I need to get my head back in the game. I just added a used MP10 today for cross flow and that looks really nice. Torch is flowing much better than it was. Meh.

Keep your head up! Hope you win.

 

[Rjukan]

Turning the tide!! Will update soon :D

 

[Rjukan]

Soooo... I've been working hard at the tank in the last month since I posted. I've been trying to get the phos down with daily 2ml LC doses into my skimmer neck, and now that my ATS is back online and has a good coating of algae, I'm seeing positive results. Here are some tests:
5/4
Nitrate 34.6
Phos .63
(Was away for 5 days during this period, had the ATS offline and no dosing of LC. Also had a auto feeder running while I was away)

5/16
Nitrate 39.8
Phos +.90

5/25
Nitrate 43.3
Phos +.90
(ATS cleaned up and spent some time fixing the plumbing for it, dropped the height of it in my sump by an inch. Back online soon after this test.)

6/9
Nitrate: 43.5
Phos: +.90
Alk 8.6
SG: 1.026
Cal: 490
Mag: 1410
pH: 8.22

6/16
Phos: .69
Nitrate: 56.5

6/21
Phos .62
Nitrate 41.8

6/25
Overflowed skimmer container reading right after: 0.58
(The skimmer cup had like an inch of dark phos bound skimmate accumulated over a couple weeks, and I was really afraid it would spike the phos again. I accidently turned my return pump off while cleaning, and didn't turn my skimmer off first, so it overflowed everything back into the sump.)

6/26
Phos .59
Nitrate 41.7

Here are some pictures taken today..


Side view:


Mantis tank:


I'm feeling really good about the direction of the tank, GHA is struggling to come back after I toothbrush them out. The zoas are all doing much better, and I've been picking the asterina starfish out over the last few days. Removed somewhere between 100 and 200, and today I was only able to find a few. This was from 2 days ago, a usual catch before lights came on..

 

[Rjukan]

My pictures are terrible, I really need a solid way to take good tank shots again. I have a couple older cameras that I'll have to use. I can't get this phone dialed in. Anywhere here are a few more:

 

[twentyleagues]

My pictures are terrible, I really need a solid way to take good tank shots again. I have a couple older cameras that I'll have to use. I can't get this phone dialed in. Anywhere here are a few more:

Looks good! I have that same issue with my phone. I have an older camera I need to probably break out at some point. New computer doesnt have a card slot on it and not sure if that camera can be hooked up to usb or not lol. I think I got the camera in 2006. My phone will need to be replaced eventually also, maybe that will be a purchase point. I can just see it now "yeah thats great it can do all that stuff but how does the camera do at taking pics of coral in my tank?"

 

[Rjukan]

My first video lol



Idk if that works

 

[Rjukan]

I will be breaking this tank down in the coming months, and I won't post again to this thread. Thanks @twentyleagues for stopping by and interacting with me. I wish you the best with your tank!

 

[twentyleagues]

I will be breaking this tank down in the coming months, and I won't post again to this thread. Thanks @twentyleagues for stopping by and interacting with me. I wish you the best with your tank!

Whoa! What? Why are you breaking it down? Is everything alright?

It is nice when people stop by but I dont reef for them. I hope thats not why. I get discouraged when I post and no one says anything but then I think **** em! lol