Seems like everything is l looking up. Make sure to keep all your parameters in check. That way those new frags have a long future. Good job
Beginner in need of help with a picoreef
- Thread starter Kaisentlaia
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OP
OP
Kaisentlaia
Active Member
Week 3 update
The pico is officially out of the woods! The parameters are pretty stable, I didn't see any more of that slimy dyno/cyano/algae that was chocking everything, the wounded mushroom is now completely healed, I got a feather duster worm and two new corals (ricordea florida and GSP) at the LFS and they're doing really well. Those two frags I got a while ago melted but at this point I'm pretty sure it's because they spent two days in shipping, when they arrived they were all closed up and the water was smelling nasty.
Since there was quite a bit of GHA growing on the zoa rock and some other small rocks:
And since the tank was feeling a bit cramped after the new additions:
I decided to take out the smaller rocks, remove at least some algae from the zoa rock (brushed/scraped some) and dip the other small rocks that had nothing growing on them in a strong peroxide dip to get rid of the algae.
Since I was moving stuff around I rescaped a little to leave some more space in the front of the tank. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out:
It's now looking better from the side too:
I glued the leather on the rock so it will stay out of harm's way when I clean, and I wrapped the striped mushroom on a small rock with some fine net since the darn thing kept floating around. I hope it will attach, but even if it doesn't at least it will stay put when I stir the sand.
There's another coral which I thought was a goner for sure that instead is still kicking and even split. No idea what it is, rhodactis maybe? It's small but looks like it's doing well!
Despite the GHA surrounding them, a couple of zoa polyps were even beginning to show some skirts! (Now they're all closed up of course, they hate brushing)
Current parameters:
Overall I'd deem the rip cleaning a huge success. The tank isn't a mess anymore, the small amount of leftover GHA is absolutely manageable, the old corals are recovering and the new corals from the LFS are doing very well! Thanks again to everyone for your advice, and especially to @brandon429 for suggesting the rip cleaning and guiding me through it.
My poor pico would probably still be a swamp without you guys.
The pico is officially out of the woods! The parameters are pretty stable, I didn't see any more of that slimy dyno/cyano/algae that was chocking everything, the wounded mushroom is now completely healed, I got a feather duster worm and two new corals (ricordea florida and GSP) at the LFS and they're doing really well. Those two frags I got a while ago melted but at this point I'm pretty sure it's because they spent two days in shipping, when they arrived they were all closed up and the water was smelling nasty.
Since there was quite a bit of GHA growing on the zoa rock and some other small rocks:
And since the tank was feeling a bit cramped after the new additions:
I decided to take out the smaller rocks, remove at least some algae from the zoa rock (brushed/scraped some) and dip the other small rocks that had nothing growing on them in a strong peroxide dip to get rid of the algae.
Since I was moving stuff around I rescaped a little to leave some more space in the front of the tank. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out:
It's now looking better from the side too:
I glued the leather on the rock so it will stay out of harm's way when I clean, and I wrapped the striped mushroom on a small rock with some fine net since the darn thing kept floating around. I hope it will attach, but even if it doesn't at least it will stay put when I stir the sand.
There's another coral which I thought was a goner for sure that instead is still kicking and even split. No idea what it is, rhodactis maybe? It's small but looks like it's doing well!
Despite the GHA surrounding them, a couple of zoa polyps were even beginning to show some skirts! (Now they're all closed up of course, they hate brushing)
Current parameters:
- sg 1024-1205
- Mg ~1500ppm (yeah I know still a bit high, but not that bad though)
- Ca ~470ppm
- alk 8.6 dKh
- nitrates 0.02
- phosphates 0
Overall I'd deem the rip cleaning a huge success. The tank isn't a mess anymore, the small amount of leftover GHA is absolutely manageable, the old corals are recovering and the new corals from the LFS are doing very well! Thanks again to everyone for your advice, and especially to @brandon429 for suggesting the rip cleaning and guiding me through it.
My poor pico would probably still be a swamp without you guys.
OP
OP
Kaisentlaia
Active Member
Thanks for the tip! I thought about it but since the zoas have been through hell and are still recovering I didn't want to stress them too much so I just brushed and scraped some of the algae off. Maybe I'll try some peroxide when they'll be looking better.
For the other small rocks since only GHA was growing on them it was easier to just do a full dip.
OP
OP
Kaisentlaia
Active Member
Since the tank is now doing well and most of the problems are now fixed I started a build thread and I won't update this one anymore. Thanks everyone for helping me fix it!
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