BioCube 16: Schitt’s Reef

[ZzyzxRiver]

Well. He was sitting like that because he was dead. Found the bumblebee snail chowing down on him this morning. RIP Roland Schitt the Conch, cause of death: eating dinos.

 

[BristleWormHater]

Well. He was sitting like that because he was dead. Found the bumblebee snail chowing down on him this morning. RIP Roland Schitt the Conch, cause of death: eating dinos.

This is so sad

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

This is so sad

At least he went out like he lived: looking like an absolute weirdo

 

[Fishy Guy]

Well. He was sitting like that because he was dead. Found the bumblebee snail chowing down on him this morning. RIP Roland Schitt the Conch, cause of death: eating dinos.

Oh no...

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Big Upgrade Update!
Waterbox AIO 50.3 has been ordered. Backordered 6-8 weeks, though.

Still to buy:
2 AI Blades
50lb Marco Shelfscape kit.
Clear acrylic lid. (Any recs?)

Not planning on getting a protein skimmer or a fleece roller. They come above the glass line, and we're going for a no-visible-equipment look. That's OK, I'll figure out what I can manage without them. Keeping macroalgae in the 16 seemed to be the secret sauce for me, I'm sure the same thing will apply again.

Current aquarium update:
I miss my conch. But I don't want to make any new livestock purchases until the new tank arrives, especially while I deal with the dinos. I added @Reef By Steele copepods and am dosing phyto daily. Also avoiding cleaning the glass too much so that there's more competition. I removed a massive chunk of blue hypnea that I think was acting as a too-powerful nutrient sink (exponential growth as the circumference size increased). It was like six inches across, absolutely crazy. That should bring my nitrates back up to the 10-15 level they were at before dropping super low recently. Also finally got a phosphate test from salifert (After all that money I spent on the new aquarium, feeling a little too cheap to get a Hanna LOL).

Feeding a bit heavier and leaving the pumps off longer so that Alexis the Red Scooter Blenny has more time to eat. Hopefully between the copepods and the extra frozen she recovers from being so thin. I'm ashamed of my blenny stewardship

Used boiling water and a turkey baster to destroy all my little xenia colonizers. Worked like an absolute charm, strongly recommend.

 

[Reef By Steele]

Big Upgrade Update!
Waterbox AIO 50.3 has been ordered. Backordered 6-8 weeks, though.

Still to buy:
2 AI Blades
50lb Marco Shelfscape kit.
Clear acrylic lid. (Any recs?)

Not planning on getting a protein skimmer or a fleece roller. They come above the glass line, and we're going for a no-visible-equipment look. That's OK, I'll figure out what I can manage without them. Keeping macroalgae in the 16 seemed to be the secret sauce for me, I'm sure the same thing will apply again.

Current aquarium update:
I miss my conch. But I don't want to make any new livestock purchases until the new tank arrives, especially while I deal with the dinos. I added @Reef By Steele copepods and am dosing phyto daily. Also avoiding cleaning the glass too much so that there's more competition. I removed a massive chunk of blue hypnea that I think was acting as a too-powerful nutrient sink (exponential growth as the circumference size increased). It was like six inches across, absolutely crazy. That should bring my nitrates back up to the 10-15 level they were at before dropping super low recently. Also finally got a phosphate test from salifert (After all that money I spent on the new aquarium, feeling a little too cheap to get a Hanna LOL).

Feeding a bit heavier and leaving the pumps off longer so that Alexis the Red Scooter Blenny has more time to eat. Hopefully between the copepods and the extra frozen she recovers from being so thin. I'm ashamed of my blenny stewardship

Used boiling water and a turkey baster to destroy all my little xenia colonizers. Worked like an absolute charm, strongly recommend.

Thanks for the shout out. Excited for your upgrade.

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Fun video of my spaghetti worm getting lucky with where the food landed today (sorry about the dirty glass, trying to let system restabilize from dinos):

 

[mariano]

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Moira! The wonderful namesake for my female clownfish.

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Houston, we have a problem.
Nitrates dropped to 2. Phosphate test arrived: it’s a zero, baby.

Here’s what the worst patch of cyano currently looks like, and new patches are appearing elsewhere. The slimy brown stuff I assumed was dinos (but don’t really know) has mostly faded away.

Solutions I’m pursuing:
-Adding some algae wafer every day on top of heavier feedings.
-Heavily trimmed back my macroalgae a lot to reduce uptake.
-Not replacing my conch or the Astraea snail which just died.

I also continue to have the weird self-destruction disease on my firework cloves. A whole back I made some incisions on the rhizomes so that when the disease continues on its way, it hits a dead end and can’t continue spreading to the rest of the colony. It is just about to hit the points where I cut it, so hopefully that resolves the problem. Very strange though.

Aside from fretting about my inverts, everything else in the tank (fish and other corals) seem fine. A bit scary to get these issues so close to when I’m upgrading my tank. It would be stupid to transfer rock with cyano or dinos on it into a new tank with dry rock in it, right?? Good thing the tank is back ordered 6-8 weeks!

 

[Fishy Guy]

Sorry to hear of your recent troubles but I wouldn't worry too much. I went through a few cycles of it myself as my tank matured. The cyano I was able to manage with manual removal weekly during water changes. Chemiclean is another option if it gets really bad. I also run UV but unsure of what affect it really has. I'm looking forward to the new build thread!

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Sorry to hear of your recent troubles but I wouldn't worry too much. I went through a few cycles of it myself as my tank matured. The cyano I was able to manage with manual removal weekly during water changes. Chemiclean is another option if it gets really bad. I also run UV but unsure of what affect it really has. I'm looking forward to the new build thread!

What does manual removal look like- toothbrush to the rock, dispersing it into the water? That won’t spread it?
I thought one of the reasons cyano bloomed was low nutrients, so I didn’t think to do a water change for it. Was I mistaken?

 

[Fishy Guy]

What does manual removal look like- toothbrush to the rock, dispersing it into the water? That won’t spread it?
I thought one of the reasons cyano bloomed was low nutrients, so I didn’t think to do a water change for it. Was I mistaken?

If you have low nutrients I wouldn't do excessive water changes but I had it with higher levels of nutrients. You don't want to just disperse it into the water, I used a small diameter hose to siphon it out. I'll add to this that I'm just coming up on 1 year as a reefer so far from a expert ha.

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

If you have low nutrients I wouldn't do excessive water changes but I had it with higher levels of nutrients. You don't want to just disperse it into the water, I used a small diameter hose to siphon it out. I'll add to this that I'm just coming up on 1 year as a reefer so far from a expert ha.

We all end up experts from the amount of time we spend in this forum, I think. I’m going to chill out and do my usual thing and see if it falls back into balance. My sand is ugly and some parts of my rock are a weird reddish pink. The world isn’t ending. I’ll report back!

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

I might be jumping the gun on announcing it, but there hasn't been any additional spread of the cyano, and a patch has disappeared from in the middle of the largest area of it. Did I just solve a problem using the top R2R advice ever given? LEAVE IT ALONE??? Brilliant.

Just posted this thread asking about these weird white tentacles that appeared today. Nothing's been added since the starfish 7 weeks ago so I'm curious what took this long to make an appearance.

 

[Fishy Guy]

Great news about the cyano!

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

My sand bed couldn’t function without a conch, so although I wanted to avoid buying any new livestock before the new tank arrived, may I please introduce you to Shawn! We’re out of Schitt’s Creek characters, so all new livestock from this point will be taking their names from The Good Place. Shawn got to work within seconds of landing on the sand bed.

 

[Fishy Guy]

My sand bed couldn’t function without a conch, so although I wanted to avoid buying any new livestock before the new tank arrived, may I please introduce you to Shawn! We’re out of Schitt’s Creek characters, so all new livestock from this point will be taking their names from The Good Place. Shawn got to work within seconds of landing on the sand bed.

Let's go Shawn! Do you have an estimated ship date for the new tank?

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Let's go Shawn! Do you have an estimated ship date for the new tank?

They said it was back ordered 6-8 weeks, so latter half of December. I will probably have it all set up in early January!

Oh, and good news! I don’t think I’m imagining it, but both my Cyphastrea and favite are making a recovery? Things are a bit tenuous for the Cyphastrea because it’s got cyano all around it, but that seems to be very slowly abating.

Also: my tank’s in trustworthy hands (reefer neighbor), but I am officially out of town for the next ten days. The first time I’m away from the tank! I’m gonna miss it!

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Reefer's Log, Tankday 223.

The Interim Reefkeeper maintained operational capacity during my holiday absence, but faced several personnel issues culminating in today's mutiny.

The cyanobacteria splinter group turned into a moderately powerful faction, and seemed to have triggered an expansionary assault by the xenia population, who swiftly settled several new rocks in the tank center. Cyano forces defeated the entire string of pearls macrolegion, but the hypnea troops suffered no losses.

I returned with a list of things to address but found myself inundated with external affairs, forcing me to put off corrective action. Unfortunately, by the time I was able to focus on internal issues there was already a protest action, causing a major Duncan figurehead to ritualistically bail himself out near Clownfish territory. Shrimp activity along the border increased, causing defensive actions from the clowns.

Despite a prolonged barrage of bites from the female general who leads the clowns, my attempts to root out cyanobacteria sympathizers made progress, I was able to airlift out macroalgae casualties and evacuees, and perform a boiling water bombing campaign on the expansionist xenia forces. In the process, there was a structural collapse that was unable to be remedied, resulting in the relocation of a pipe organ colony to the substrate refugee camp.

Peacekeeping missions are scheduled to occur several times a week until the construction of the new tank, which is looking on schedule for a January completion date.

FTS: