Bruno's Waterbox 20

[AlyciaMarie]

Looking great! Following.

 

[BrunoL]

I love a good reefing gear delivery!

I got some assistance in battling the algae. The GKM has been running for 3 days now and honestly it's looking much much better. I also finished dosing H₂O₂, at the rate of 1ml/10G for a period of 5 days.

My softies look stressed out and some of them arent opening well. The Zoas and Rhodactis arent opening fully and the Euphyllia is still pretty much fully retracted. That said, I did notice this last night:

It would appear the Euphyllia is splitting from 2 heads in to 4 heads. I'm not sure if that's what is stressing it out as well or otherwise caused it to drop polyps but combined with the dinos covering it, the H₂O₂ dosing and the filefish nibbling on it 2 weeks ago, I think it's safe to say it's going through a rough time. I hope the coral additives and food can give it the strength it needs to pull through. You can also see the sand bed and the rock is looking much better and most of the dinos are almost gone. Thanks a lot to everyone who reached out to me with tips and advice on how to battle them!

On a sidenote, I tested water again, mid-week this time, and a full cycle:

Temp 25C (-)
Salinity 1025 (-)
dKH 8.2 (↓)
Phosphate 0.09 (↓)
Nitrate 10 (-)
Calcium 380 (↓)
Magnesium 1230(↓)

I'm upping my All for Reef daily dosage as it appears my alk, calc and mag are getting consumed faster than I'm currently dosing for. That Kamoer X1 came just at the right time. :D

I'll wait a little bit with the NitroPhos Minus until the algae problem is completely sorted.

That's it for now!

 

[BrunoL]

Couple of updates. The Dinos (it was the Ostreopsis variant in the end) are almost gone. I've not had to syphon for a few days and the sand bed and rock work is staying clean. So far so good ... A few more interesting things happened though. I'm not sure the Euphyllia will pull through though and one of the Zoa frags is looking rough as well. The rest appears to be pulling through.

On a different note some other interesting stuff happened.

I found a hermit's corpse outside of a shell the other day, right where the clowns always chill out. I figured they roughed him up and got a little too intense. But then in the evening, I noticed I still had 2 hermits. Guess one shed his skin.

I also had a little clicking sound in the tank, I'm not sure what it is and I thought it was the filefish or maybe a snail tapping against the glass, but I heard it the other day in a somewhat quick repetition and it's not that. So my question is, what creature can make this kind of sound? I didn't buy a mantis or pistol shrimp ... Did a tiny one maybe hike back on the live rock all those weeks ago?

And then finally, I was checking last night if my bristle worm was still good (and he is) but I found another type of worm I hadn't seen before. Looks like a black-ish work, with white section and when I shined my light on it, it seemed to move by folding in. I'm guessing some sort of a fanworm?

I managed to get a blurry picture, not sure if anyone can identify from this? You can see the black worm sticking out through a hole in the coralline.

 

[BrunoL]

I normally add some Aqueforest Purefood during lights off, but decided to give some today, with the white light on and the flow turned off. I wanted to see if I could maybe lure some critters out and get some pictures.

The fanworm didn't show it's body so not sure on that, but I'm pretty sure there's 2 decent sized bristleworms and bristle stars in pretty much every crevasse. I also noticed some movement on the back, behind the Tunze frag holder. It was hard to see but I'm pretty sure I saw some pods walking there, possible amphipods. I'm thinking they've installed themselves in the rock; around the magnet holding it in place on the back of it. That area is completely safe from every kind of threat. It's pretty cool as I never really dosed or added any, so I'm curious where they came form. That said, should they wander out, I'm pretty sure they'll get turned in to clown food ...

Finally, I still don't know where the clicking sound comes from, I didn't see any kind of shrimp or mantis ... The mystery remains.

 

[BrunoL]

Little update - Dinos appear to be gone now. Not had any resurgence since last update 2 weeks ago. Also took the time to check parameters again.

Temp 25C
Salinity 1025
dKH 8.4
Phosphate 0.07
Nitrate 25
Calcium 420
Magnesium 1320

The tally from the dinos is a Tectus snails, a clown and 1 Euphyllia. Kind of sucks but could have been worse. Also hard to say if they're really related. Could have been something else at the same time too.

So my nitrates have gone up a little, but still acceptable. My dKH, Ca and Mg all have gone up a tiny little bit, which means that upping the daily All for Reef dose is working.

There's been a lot of action lately. One hermit went homicidal on the other one. Last time one stole the shell from the other one, throwing him out. A few days later the same thing happened again, but the other way around except this time the one getting kicked out wasn't able to find a new shell in time, I found it dead a few hours later. RIP.

I also managed to find some GSP, I've glued it to the back panel, we'll see if it takes. I got a small 1/2 inch square from a local reefer here, we'll have to see. It's a pretty small frag but considering GSP's reputation I'm not too worried about it not taking well.

The clicking sound is still there, but I've still not seen where it comes from. There must be something hiding in there somewhere ...

Finally all the corals are doing great now, I have nice polyp extension on everything, except for the Rhodactis Forest Fire and the Euphyllia. The Rhodactis may pull through, however, I'm pretty sure the Euphyllia won't. I'm keeping it in the tank as there's still some fleshy bits down in the skeleton but I'm not holding my breath on it making a full recovery.

 

[BrunoL]

Little update, I managed to see the source of the clicking noise!

Last night while looking around with a flashlight, I saw what appeared to be a little pistol shrimp. Pistol on the left claw, and kind of transparent with a blueish hue, somewhere around 1/2 inch in size.

I'll try and get a picture next time I manage to see it, as I'm curious to identify the species. I also noticed, I had some white stuff stuck to the panels and floating in the water, I wasn't sure what it was until I found this.

I think it's at least the 2nd load of eggs, as I've got a small snail crawling around as well. It looks like a Nassarius snail, it has a little trumpet.

I'll try and catch that one out as well so I can get a picture of that too. :)

 

[Texx]

Lookin' good!

I just set up my WB20 yesterday (transferred from larger tank). How is the InTank basket working so far? I'm going to see how the filter sock works out for now, but params and maintenance will ultimately decide if I keep it. I also have the Axis 40 and Nero 3...they are PERFECT for this size tank.

 

[BrunoL]

Hey, thanks for the comment Texx.

So far I'm really liking the InTank basket, I prefer it over the sock. There's a few reasons. I bought a square of foam from which I can just cut little sections that fit perfectly in the basket. I don't have much bio load in it, so I can change it out once a week. I find this much easier and faster than cleaning the sock. I had also noticed that it kept restricting flow, only 2-3 days after cleaning it, causing issues for the ATO and Skimmer water levels. I figured I didn't clean it well enough but scrubbing it or cleaning it more, seems to damage the sock material ...

I have Purigen & SeaGel (the premade 100ml bags fits perfectly) in the middle section and I use the stock Waterbox Filtermedia bag in the bottom one, filled up about half way with Seachem Matrix instead of the plastic bioballs that came with it.

I'm really happy with this setup. Best thing is that if I want to add something like ChemiPure, I can just add it in the middle basket with the other stuff without hassle.

 

[BrunoL]

Couple of updates!

Went to Ikea this week and DIY'd myself a little storage cabinet.

The DIY part is the additional, half sized shelf. The idea is to have my dosing pump there and a little control board in the back behind it. I've not finished the control board for the 3 remotes yet, but the half sized shelf is in there. I still need to think about how I'm going to do the mini board.

For now I'm only dosing All for Reef, on a single Kamoer, but I may swap over to a 2 or 3 part system once this bottle is out. I find that my magnesium gets absorbed faster than my calcium, so every so often I need to manually dose extra mg.

On a different note, I got some new coral yesterday from one of the local reefers here. This gentlemen has a huge tank and took out like a 30-40 pound Acro. That beast will be the center piece for another tank but it was too big so several pieces were sawn of. Together with a piece of acro the size of my palm, I also got 2 smaller corals.

Little top view of the tank as of this afternoon:

So the cool thing is that I was able to take the piece, and essentially make an arch with it. I fixed it to the left rock, creating an overhang over the middle section. I'm not sure of it's really clear from the photos though. In the front you can see the 2 Montiporas, red digitata and a bicolor, forest fire digitata. I think They'll add some nice contrasts once they're fixed.

So the bad thing is that I had to take the rock out of the tank and fix the coral using the glue - epoxy - glue method, and then let it settle for a good 15-20 while holding it in place before adding it to the tank again. It was just too heavy to fix underwater. I suppose it's fairly visible, but it should be fine once it gets covered with algae and coralline.

My water did get a little cloudy for a few hours, and the Rhodactis on the back of the rock hasn't fully opened up yet, I think it's still angry from its time outside. The candy canes and other SPS's didn't seem to mind at all. I did add a little bag of activated charcoal to help filter out the residue and clear up the water. Surprisingly, the skimmer didn't go crazy ...

On a different note, my hermit whose mostly been very chill helped himself to a trochus snail house. I saw a snail making odd movements, went to check it out and saw 2 blue legs sticking out of it ... I think this is his 3rd victim now, after the 2 Cerith snails he evicted earlier.

I also noticed the GSP I had super glued (with Tunze Coral Glue) kind of completely dried out and calcified where I had the drip of glue. Since the GSP was a gift and the piece was only very small, almost all of it kind of dried up. There's a tiny bit left that's hanging on, with 3 polyps on it ... Has anyone else had that issue with Tunze's glue? Is it supposed to dry out the coral like that?

And finally, but this is more for a later stage, I did notice that in some areas, especially at the bottom of the corals and under the branches of the Acro I'm getting some receding tissue. I think the cause of this is the fact that these areas never get any light. With my single Prime16 fixed in the center, there's just some areas that now are in perpetual shadow. I think In the long run, I should probably upgrade my lighting game to a Hydra32, AI Blades or maybe even a Radion XR15, if I want to have better diffusion of light and more light coverage.

Anyway, that's all for today!

 

[BrunoL]

New update! As always, lets start with the parameters.

Temp 26C - It's been hot here!
Salinity 1025
dKH 7.9
Phosphate 0.02
Nitrate 25
Calcium 420
Magnesium 1150

So it would appear that the All for Reef is doing a good job at keeping the Ca stable ... but the Alk and Mg levels aren't. I have about 1/2 of my AFR bottle left, I may go to a 2 or 3 part dosing system after. It would appear that the consumption rate of different nutrients isn't the same on all of them. So with that said, I'm open to recommendations on which 2 or 3 part to use!

Went to my LFS yesterday, before they close for the summer holiday and naturally I got home with some new stuff, some magnesium to get those levels up amongst others, some new snails and empty shells as the hermit has been growing steadily, and also some new inhabitants!

I brought back another clown, so my single one isn't as lonely, a juvenile six line wrasse and a juvenile yellowtail damsel. I know, I know, damsels can be a real pain but this one seemed somewhat chill. I observed him in the LFS for quiet a while he seemed to be tolerant to sharing his space.

So far it's been all dandy. The wrasse is really liking my stacked rockwork and has a great time swimming through the different layers and holes. It also gives him plenty of spaces to hide or sleep. The damsel appear to have claimed the shadowy area under the overhanging acro. The 2 clowns, well they're just doing clown stuff and wobble all over the place. They've still not found the BTA, despite it being right there in the center. :)

My LFS told me that they've never had a wrasse jump, but I did get a glass cover cut just to make sure. I'll be ordering a net cover soon. I wanted to get a Kraken one, but it would appear there's no EU retailers and there's no international shipping? The Waterbox cover is an alternative, but it really lacks in style ...

So outside of that, the corals are doing pretty well. I have new coralline on the back rockwork and the pump. I also have some new darker coralline growing over the old lighter patches. That said I did fish out some asterina stars as there were quite a lot of them and I have the impression they were grazing on the coralline as well.

I thought the GSP wouldn't make it but a small patch seems to still be there on the back, and is growing new polyps. All 3 of the zoas have sprouted new heads. The montis are doing well and growing steadily too. I have had a head split on the candy cane, so it's filling up nicely as well and finally, the acros have great polyp extension and appear to be growing nicely. The seriotopora as well has had great growth and has several new branches. My rhodactis on the back of the rockwork is covering more and more as well. I just have the rhodactis in the front that isn't doing great. He's been shriveled up for some time, however I do see polyps on there and at times I do see the mouth, so it looks like he's eating, he's doing things but he's just not opening up. I'm not sure why he's been like that, considering the others are doing great...

I've also had snail eggs almost every 2 to 3 days on the side panels. Them nassarius certainly get busy a lot. Finaly, I sadly found an aptasia on the side, a single one. I pried it out with tweezers. I think it must have come in on one of my recently acquired frags. I got some Aptasia X just in case but since removing that single one, I've not seen more. The advantage of a smaller tank is that it's somewhat easy to just look closely at all sides and really inspect the rockwork. :)

That's it for today!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Couple of updates!

Went to Ikea this week and DIY'd myself a little storage cabinet.

The DIY part is the additional, half sized shelf. The idea is to have my dosing pump there and a little control board in the back behind it. I've not finished the control board for the 3 remotes yet, but the half sized shelf is in there. I still need to think about how I'm going to do the mini board.

For now I'm only dosing All for Reef, on a single Kamoer, but I may swap over to a 2 or 3 part system once this bottle is out. I find that my magnesium gets absorbed faster than my calcium, so every so often I need to manually dose extra mg.

On a different note, I got some new coral yesterday from one of the local reefers here. This gentlemen has a huge tank and took out like a 30-40 pound Acro. That beast will be the center piece for another tank but it was too big so several pieces were sawn of. Together with a piece of acro the size of my palm, I also got 2 smaller corals.

Little top view of the tank as of this afternoon:

So the cool thing is that I was able to take the piece, and essentially make an arch with it. I fixed it to the left rock, creating an overhang over the middle section. I'm not sure of it's really clear from the photos though. In the front you can see the 2 Montiporas, red digitata and a bicolor, forest fire digitata. I think They'll add some nice contrasts once they're fixed.

So the bad thing is that I had to take the rock out of the tank and fix the coral using the glue - epoxy - glue method, and then let it settle for a good 15-20 while holding it in place before adding it to the tank again. It was just too heavy to fix underwater. I suppose it's fairly visible, but it should be fine once it gets covered with algae and coralline.

My water did get a little cloudy for a few hours, and the Rhodactis on the back of the rock hasn't fully opened up yet, I think it's still angry from its time outside. The candy canes and other SPS's didn't seem to mind at all. I did add a little bag of activated charcoal to help filter out the residue and clear up the water. Surprisingly, the skimmer didn't go crazy ...

On a different note, my hermit whose mostly been very chill helped himself to a trochus snail house. I saw a snail making odd movements, went to check it out and saw 2 blue legs sticking out of it ... I think this is his 3rd victim now, after the 2 Cerith snails he evicted earlier.

I also noticed the GSP I had super glued (with Tunze Coral Glue) kind of completely dried out and calcified where I had the drip of glue. Since the GSP was a gift and the piece was only very small, almost all of it kind of dried up. There's a tiny bit left that's hanging on, with 3 polyps on it ... Has anyone else had that issue with Tunze's glue? Is it supposed to dry out the coral like that?

And finally, but this is more for a later stage, I did notice that in some areas, especially at the bottom of the corals and under the branches of the Acro I'm getting some receding tissue. I think the cause of this is the fact that these areas never get any light. With my single Prime16 fixed in the center, there's just some areas that now are in perpetual shadow. I think In the long run, I should probably upgrade my lighting game to a Hydra32, AI Blades or maybe even a Radion XR15, if I want to have better diffusion of light and more light coverage.

Anyway, that's all for today!

That storage cabinet is a great idea! My wife converted one of her old storage cabinets into the storage cabinet for our tank, haha.

 

[BrunoL]

Thanks hah, I'm in 2 minds about getting a door for it, we'll see but as of now, I'm kind of liking it this way.

I did have another update though, one of my clowns went MIA. Last night when I went to bed, both were in there chilling out, this morning only one came around when I wanted to feed them. It sucks because it's my original one that's missing and I was making great progress with handfeeding him. I looked everywhere but I've been unable to find him. I stirred the sand bed as well, but nothing. Honestly I'm pretty puzzled. I guess my CUC may have gotten to him but I'm not sure why, or how, a completely healthy fish would go down and how it could get vaporized in like 6-8 hours ...

 

[BrunoL]

New stuff arrived! Leaving on vacation soon and they're forecasting a heat wave while I'm out, so I bought some cooling gear. Got an Inkbird ITC308S, a Tunze Aquawind and a new skimmer, a BM MiniQ.

I had installed the skimmer last week and man, I really prefer this one over the Tunze 9001. I'm running it very rich, oxygen completely open for now but after just 1 week I have about 1/2 inch of wet, dark brown skimate in my cup. I'll have to dial it in a little more to get it to produce dryer skimate but it's definitely pulling out all kinds of stuff. I had the Tunze for several months and it never really managed to get decent skimate, wet or dry.

Installed everything else earlier, I suppose the tank is ready to be left alone for 2 weeks now ... Cross fingers everything goes well. I got a little Blink camera as well, but that one only arrives tomorrow. Just in time to hit the road saturday morning.

Besides this, everything is still dandy in the Waterbox. I'm seeing some good growth on the corals. The anemone is starting to fill up nicely, I'm happy it's not moved since it picked its spot. ;)

I'm really happy with the Acro growth. I have new growth on all branches and I'm seeing really nice polyp extension. Even the 1/2 inch branch that got damaged and cracked off in transport, has grown and is starting to expand nicely (you can see it on the rock scape, top right). I had initially planted them straight up but they're slowly expanding horizontally. It's pretty cool to see.

My other SPS are doing great as well, the Forest Fire Montipora is slowing growth on all branches and the Seriatopora is bulking up really well, there's half a dozen new branches on that one.

Recently the candy canes split as well. I had one huge head on the right hand side, that's turned in to 4 little ones.

That's all for now, let us hope that everything runs smoothly while I'm on vacation!

 

[BrunoL]

Like many people, I got back from vacation this week. The Waterbox has been running pretty much unsupervised for 2 weeks. As always, things didn't go as planned. This is what the tank looked like. It was really had to see what was going on inside.

Little parameter update first

Temp 26.5C - It's been hot here!
Salinity 1024
dKH 8.2
Phosphate 0.15
Nitrate 25-50
Calcium 390
Magnesium 1050

All in all not too bad considering nothing has been done for 2 weeks, I'm surprised the DkH, Ca and Mg levels are where they are with only All for Reef being dosed (6ml daily). I was expecting them to be lower, as generally I manually dose Mg & Ca once a week. Nitrates and Phosphates are a little high but not problematic. After checking these, I did a 20% water change.

The temperature, well, it's been really hot here while we were gone, we've had several days of 36-37C and overall the ambient temperature remained around 30-31C. We obviously didn't leave the airco running during these last 2 weeks, with no one at home.

I had the inkbird hooked up to the fan, which worked pretty well. However here is where the problems start. The increased temperature, and the fan working overtime, meant I had more evaporation than I had water in my ATO reservoir. I figured that would happen so I had planned for someone to come have a look and refill the reservoir. She did so using the RODI water I had prepared just in case and I thought, all is good. That said, I think she must have pulled the reservoir a little too far and the pump was floating around, meaning that somewhere after refilling half of my RO reservoir (3-4L), it started sucking in air and turned off.

When I got home the water level was a good 3-4cm lower than usual. I did slowly let it drip back up using the ATO before taking the above measurements. However, because it had dropped so much, the inlet was no longer taking in water which means that the return pump pretty much drained the return compartment and then sucked in air for I don't know how many days. It also means the skimmer and my UV have been sitting dry for a few days at least. Not having the return pump means losing half of my flow and it's kind of a cascading effect on everything else. The Nero thankfully was still submerged, so there was still some flow in there.

Anyway, I was expecting to find a bunch of dead fish and corals, keeping in mind that the salinity has probably been sitting pretty high and the temperature has been around 30, but after cleaning the glass, this is what everything looks like. I'm honestly really impressed. I have new coralline growth in several places, and new polyps / branches / heads on pretty much all corals.

In the filter section, the return pump (Ai Axis 40) seems fine, however, since turning the skimmer on again, I'm getting a lot of microbubbles. I guess they'll go away in a few days. Hard to check the UV, but it looks like it's fine as well.

Finally, my hermit has gone berserk on my snails while I was away, and I found 2 empty Trochus shells. From the 3, only one is still alive. I suppose that could explain the increase in No/Po. I did leave him some shells before leaving but I guess he didn't like those. Finally, It looks like the Wrasse has a tiny bit of his tail missing, I'm thinking my Damsel had a go at him. That said, it doesn't seem to affect his swimming at all, nor is it infected or anything. It looks like it's just a bit of the 'mesh' so I'm confident it'll regrow.

I did see some funky new growth, I was unable to identify. I hope these are clear but it looks like a tiny bump with polyps that look very much like the polyps on my Seriatopora. It's hard to make a good picture but in the first one it's the little green bump in the middle, on the 2nd one it's the 5 little heads in the middle.

Overall, no losses if I'm not counting the 2 snails, everything else seems to be in order. I'll be doing 2 water changes this week, just to get nutrients in balance again, instead of 1 but I really can't complain. :)

 

[BrunoL]

Little update on the above pictures.

After posting on the forums here we've come to the conclusion that my Seriatopora Caliendrum popped babies. I'm super excited to see these develop and grow.

On that note of popping babies, my Sunburst BTA decided to split as well. It happened really fast and I honestly didn't notice it until I checked yesterday morning and there were 2 BTAs.

The main one is kind of staying in it's original spot and I'll give the other one some time to find itself a nice spot as well but that said, I think he'll probably end up getting traded for something else as I don't really want the BTAs to overrun the tank. There's a lot of cool SPS now that are doing really well and I'd have to see them get burned out because a BTA decided to sit in the same spot. ;)

I'd like to get a few more Zoas for my garden, so I'll check if I can trade one of them for some AOIs, King Midas or Eagle Eyes or something.

 

[BrunoL]

Good news, bad news and 'I don't know yet' news.

Good news first!

After my Seriatopora, I'm a daddy again. My Sunburst BTA decided to follow suit and give me another bundle of joy. Now if only the clowns could find their way in to them ...

Let's move on to the 'I don't know yet' news. There's 2 things here. My Sixline Wrasse had a bit of a pot belly but after posting in that specific fish subsection, it's apparently not uncommon for them to have a big belly if there's a lot of food around. I did have a lot of pods, so I didn't think much else of it. I dropped a few boiled pees in the tank just in case he was constipated and that's it. However, today it looks like he's not so well. He's come out of his hiding spot in the rocks twice, when he normally swims around as soon as the lights come on. His belly is still pretty big as well. When he swims he does appear to swim very well and he doesn't have any balance or floating issues. I must admit that my Damsel isn't the nicest of fish to him and has been a bit of a bully as soon as he drops too low, close to where the Damsel usually hangs around. Will keep you posted but I think from experience, once fish are lethargic, the outcome is often bad. I hope he pulls through but we'll see.

Second 'I don't know yet' news. My Damsel cleared a little tunnel under the rock work, he likes to scoot in and out, under and over the rocks. I thought it was funny and the Wrasse and Clown from time to time did the same. That said, two nights ago after lights out I saw something weird I couldn't identify on the sandbed in the tunnel. It looked like a feather duster or some sort of anemone or something but it was really hard to see, as soon as I took my torch it disappeared. Now I'm not supposed to have anything like that in the sand and the only thing I can think of that makes a star shaped form on the sandbed at night ... is a bobbit worm. It didn't come back after I had put some light on it, so I went to bed and called it a night.

Last night ... I checked again and sure enough, it was there again. This time I didn't want to leave it hanging and got out the big guns. I got on my gloves and took out the rock under which that tunnel passes. I got a little plastic rake out and shifted through the sand bed, but I couldn't find anything. I pretty much turned over half of the tank's sand without any trace of a worm. I called it a night after 5-10 minutes and decided it was time to put the rock (and corals) back in the tank. Naturally the acro was upset and decided the slime all over the place. So I still don't know what was in the sand and again, we'll have to wait and see. But if I do have a bobbit, it would explain the 2 clowns that just vanished overnight. I'm not sure how to get it out, other than actively chase it and pull it out.

Bad news now, while putting back the rock I accidentally, as you do, chipped a few things. I broke a few small branches of pretty much every SPS.

The good side of the bad news is that the branches are small, about 1/2 of an inch. I got some plugs out, sadly I only had big ones, and dropped the broken branches on a frag rack. We'll see if they take. They're very small so I'm a little skeptical. I do need to get some smaller plugs though.

Finally, in terms of bad news, I think I saw dinos in the tank, there were some stringy algae, same as I had before that reappeared on the branching coralline. I tested phophate and nitrate, 0.04 and 10, so I'm not doing much else for now. The values look OK and to be honest, I think there's just always some dinos in there but as long as the nutrients stay in check, so will the dinos.

That's all for now, more updates to come!

 

[BrunoL]

It's been a while since I last posted an update, and there's a good reason for that. I wish it was because some new upgrade project but it's not sadly. Our house was flooded last month during hurricane Kirk here in Europe. We had a good 30-40cm of water inside the house, and a good 70-90cm outside. As you can imagine, there's a lot of damage. Since the flooding we've removed the bottom half of the drywall all around the ground floor and we've placed some industrial sized dehumidifiers and we're playing the waiting game now. Once everything is dry, we'll have to redo the drywalls, repaint and basically redo the entire ground floor.

I wasn't too worried about the fresh water tank, but I was worried about the reef tank. More so because power was cut in my area for a little over 48 hours. The cold ambient temperature combined with the lack of flow and so, I was certain to find dead corals & fish once I get back.

However ... everything appears to be great. I don't fully understand but somehow everything survived the power outage, and what's even more curious is that it's basically been running now with just the lights, heater and powerhead for 8 weeks and it's still doing great. I lost my water changing station in the flood, my RODI compressor took water and is trash as well, so I've not been able to do any water changes. I was able to refill using some jerrycans of RODI I had stored but that's about it.

I have some epic thick algae growing on the glass, but it seems very soft and the snails seem to love it. The corals are still looking great, and even the tiny frags I had made and mentioned in the last post, grew in size.

This is what everything looks like:

The epic algae on the panel. It comes off very easily and the snails seem to love it. That said I appear to have lost a few snails though, I think my hermit may have gone berserk at some point in the last weeks.

Top view, I'm impressed with how everything held up. All the SPS show great growth and my Zoas extended nicely as well. One of the BTAs moved to the other side of the tank while the other one moved up a little. It's rubbing a bit on the Monti next to it, but it seems OK for now. Even if it wasn't, I don't have anything to deal with it at the moment so the Monti will just have to take it like a champ I guess.

Sadly a few power supplies took water in the cabinet, so I did have to replace some things. I have some other items that are trash as well, such as the Kamoer dosing pump and ATO but I'll replace those later.

The good news is that I have great insurance and once everything is settled, I'll probably upgrade to something slightly bigger. Now that all the dry walls are torn down, I'm seriously considering running a RODI hose from the garage on the other side of the wall directly in to the ATO reservoir. It would be a good time to do some more structural upgrades now that all of that needs to be redone regardless.

In terms of tanks, I'm currently looking at stuff like the Cade600/900 and the Waterbox 60.2/90.3. I'll have to see what size I can negotiate with my wife, keeping in mind there's still the 325L freshwater tank that will need to be replaced as well ... since it suffed the same fate. I may consider a Red Sea Reefer G2, but I'm a little concerned about the front panel leaking stories. That said, I do like that they're Rollermat ready and how the Red Sea stuff fits so well with it.

Anyway, that's it for now. I'll try and get some water somewhere nearby and do a water change next week. I think I'll try and do a 100% waterchange, but I'll do it at 25% per day, over the span of 4 days. I'm concerned that changing it all at once may cause a bit of a shock and stress the already stressed out system. :)

 

[BrunoL]

After the waterchanges things are looking a lot bleaker than before. I did have to take the rocks and corals out of the water for about 30 minutes, but I don't think that had any impact. From the looks of it, it looks like most SPS aren't going to pull through. The Acros seem to be hanging in there, but the Seriatoporas and Montiporas aren't looking great.

The Seriatopora has bleached in a whole bunch of different areas. It was already bleaching under the algae covering it, but now that I've cleaned that off, it's not looking good at all. Several branches have lost skin and are completely white. The Caulastrea looks rough as well and I'm not sure it'll recover and the Montis are really faded. It's surprising as they were looking OK 3 weeks ago.

The sudden restoration of correct alk, ph, ... was perhaps too rough on them. Either way, they were looking rough before I did the water change, so I don't think there was a way out of it. The areas where those long stringy algae touched the corals were dying so the tank had to be cleaned. I figured doing 4 times 30% over 4 days wouldn't cause too much of a shock but alas. It may also just be an aftereffect of the tank not having power for 24-48h. Hard to tell but for now I'll keep a close eye on the damaged pieces and hope they recover.

 

[BrunoL]

Time for another update!

Again we have some good news and some bad news ...

Bad news is the tank is getting torn down. There's been several more coral losses, I think the flooded house and the time the tank was without flow and heater ultimately caused their demise. My biggest 2 corals didn't recover. The Seriatopora and the largest Acropora colony both lost their skin. I also lost 2 of the montis and the remaining corals aren't quite there yet. They're still a little bleached but they appear to be recovering. I'm finally getting decent extension again on their different polyps but we'll see.

Good news is that I've made use of this opportunity to upgrade! In good old reefing fashion I'm now firmly in that category of people who upgrade their tanks after 1 year.

Stay tuned for more updates to come! :)