bt's 40B upgrade

[btmedic04]

The tank is evolving nicely! Cool aquascape and SPS frags too.
I'm kind of doing something similar, but SPS doesn't seem to do well here. And I'm battling dinos. I did a blackout and they were gone for like 3 weeks, but it looks like it's coming back. It sucks bc my acros are showing good signs now.
Anyway, that ICP test may be something I have to try. I have a ton of marine pure balls, maybe I also have aluminum idk.
Also, I really want an anemone, but so many people told me not to bc of the sps frags. IDK. Have you had any accident?
And tridacna, but I can't find one nice looking blue maxima for a reasonable price.
Another thing I wish I had is a chaetomorfa refugium, but my sumpis tiny and full with the skimmer and the marine pure.
following!

Thank you for your kind words and for following! Good luck and I wish you victory with your battle with dinos. If you haven't already, make sure your phosphates and nitrates are not 0 and dose a bacteria (I alternated between Dr Tims waste away and vibrant.) I did that in addition to running a UV sterilizer and a blackout on my 20 gallon and it removed them for me. Now I'm just dealing with hair algae in that tank.

At first, I was hesitant to spend the money for an ICP test, but I'm glad that I did. Its definitely a useful tool to get a better idea of what is going on in your tank.

I think I have been very fortunate with my anemones because they haven't moved from their spots since they went in the tank. Unfortunately I couldn't tell you what I've done to make that happen because I don't have a clue lol. The more forward anemone occasionally touches one of my green slimers branches, but there's no tissue recession. I'm still keeping a close eye on it and will deal with it if things start to go south.

I'd love to try a clam one day, but I'm afraid that my pistol shrimp will bury it or use it as a door. That's why my scoly and acans are mounted to the rock.

Have you considered using a chaeto reactor or algae turf scrubber? The chaeto reactor can sit outside of your sump if you have space for it and a small feed pump in your sump, and the ATS doesn't take up too much space and can be mounted above your sump.

 

[btmedic04]

Another round of weekend maintenance has passed. Everything is still looking good too. @wilsonline its funny that you asked me about my anemones the other day because the rear one split off 2 babies and walked to the back side of the rock that my pink pocillopora colony is on. It doesnt look like anything was touched but that is really cool that it split. I'll have to keep an eye on the babies and see if they decide to move.

Speaking of anemones, I found 2 aiptasia that I promptly covered with nyos reef cement. Maybe not the best stuff to use because it clouded up the water for a bit, but it's what I had on hand. Today I discovered 2 more, one on the rock work and another on the sand. So it might be time to add a peppermint shrimp or two. Hopefully I can find one nearby before things get out of hand.

 

[btmedic04]

One of the baby BTA'S decided to take a stroll on friday night and I was around to see. It wasnt heading towards any corals, but I decided to remove it and place it in my 20L so thr clowns could have a nem in the future. After a little research and a lot of apprehension, I successfully removed it by rubbing the foot in about 5-10 minutes. The other baby has stayed in the same location as has the mother colony.

 

[ReefGrammie]

The babies are so great!!

 

[btmedic04]

Wow, I can't believe its been 2 months since my last update. Things are still coming along nicely though I do have a few issues that I'm working on.

Firstly, I got a little lazy and started doing bi-weekly 10% water changes. As a result, nitrates began to creep up. I caught it when I noticed a bit of cyano and decided to test nitrates. They were somewhere between 20 and 40 on the API kit that I use for quick spot checks. For the last 3 weeks I've been doing 20% weekly changes and its slowly lowered nitrates down to between 10 and 20.

My next issue is my "clean" chaeto had aiptasia in it. I still love the company I got it from and understand that its impossible to guarantee every item they ship is free of pests, especially if they're microscopic. So for the last several weeks, I've been hitting them with aiptasia x. The big ones are gone, but i still have a few stubborn medium and small sized ones hanging around. With that said, I've ordered peppermint shrimp from algaebarn to help give me a hand with the hard to reach ones. Hopefully they do the trick and don't eat any corals in the process.

I met up with a local hobbyist over the weekend and we swapped some frags. I now have tons of baby acros, millies, birds nest, and stylos. He can buy from a wholesaler, so we decided to pick up a few things and are toying around with the idea of starting a little side business just to see how things go. I'm excited to see what happens with that. Anyway, on to the pictures!

 

[ReefGrammie]

Looking great!! ;Joyful

 

[btmedic04]

Looking great!! ;Joyful

Thank you!

 

[revhtree]

Wow, I can't believe its been 2 months since my last update. Things are still coming along nicely though I do have a few issues that I'm working on.

Firstly, I got a little lazy and started doing bi-weekly 10% water changes. As a result, nitrates began to creep up. I caught it when I noticed a bit of cyano and decided to test nitrates. They were somewhere between 20 and 40 on the API kit that I use for quick spot checks. For the last 3 weeks I've been doing 20% weekly changes and its slowly lowered nitrates down to between 10 and 20.

My next issue is my "clean" chaeto had aiptasia in it. I still love the company I got it from and understand that its impossible to guarantee every item they ship is free of pests, especially if they're microscopic. So for the last several weeks, I've been hitting them with aiptasia x. The big ones are gone, but i still have a few stubborn medium and small sized ones hanging around. With that said, I've ordered peppermint shrimp from algaebarn to help give me a hand with the hard to reach ones. Hopefully they do the trick and don't eat any corals in the process.

I met up with a local hobbyist over the weekend and we swapped some frags. I now have tons of baby acros, millies, birds nest, and stylos. He can buy from a wholesaler, so we decided to pick up a few things and are toying around with the idea of starting a little side business just to see how things go. I'm excited to see what happens with that. Anyway, on to the pictures!

Man it is beautiful! You should be very proud!

 

[btmedic04]

Man it is beautiful! You should be very proud!

Thank you rev! The success of this tank is a direct result of the community here!

 

[btmedic04]

The battle against aiptasia continues. 3 peppermint shrimp from algaebarn were added and i have not seen them since. Continuing with aiptasia x but it only seems to slow them down for a little while. Ill be ordering some berghia nudibranchs once they come back in stock. Hopefully they don't become an expensive wrasse meal.

 

[ReefGrammie]

Good luck with the berghia nudis! They were the only thing that eradicated aiptasia in my first reef tank. Release them at night after lights out and after turning off pump and powerheads. Try to release them in the same area so they can find each other and make baby nudis. They are nocturnal, so hopefully your wrasses won't have insomnia and find them! I had several wrasses in my tank at the time I introduced the nudis and didn't have a problem with them turning into wrasse food.

Good luck!! Tank looks beautiful! ;Joyful

 

[btmedic04]

Good luck with the berghia nudis! They were the only thing that eradicated aiptasia in my first reef tank. Release them at night after lights out and after turning off pump and powerheads. Try to release them in the same area so they can find each other and make baby nudis. They are nocturnal, so hopefully your wrasses won't have insomnia and find them! I had several wrasses in my tank at the time I introduced the nudis and didn't have a problem with them turning into wrasse food.

Good luck!! Tank looks beautiful! ;Joyful

Thank you! Awesome news, I feel a lot better about placing an order for some now. My wrasse is in the sand almost like clockwork at 7:45 every night so I should be ok then. I'll be placing an order soon. How many would you recommend?

 

[ReefGrammie]

Thank you! Awesome news, I feel a lot better about placing an order for some now. My wrasse is in the sand almost like clockwork at 7:45 every night so I should be ok then. I'll be placing an order soon. How many would you recommend?

I have bought from saltyunderground before and I think their website will tell you how many to order for your tank size. @TopShelfAquatics also has them.

 

[btmedic04]

Things are still going well, though I had a hiccup. I noticed my milles haven't fully extended their polyps for a while so I did some testing. Nitrates were 10, po4 was a tad low at 0.01 so I dosed it back up to 0.8. Alk was 8.5. Hmm the big 3 I check for were good, so I began thinking it may have been my salt. I had switched from tropic marin pro reef to hwmarinemix due to availability and had good luck with hw in the past. I checked the parameters of the new saltwater and they were within normal range for that salt.

As I was doing this, thats when I noticed the potential culprit. A staple was sitting on the bottom of my container rusting and releasing lord knows what into my mixing container. So the staple was removed, 15 gallons of saltwater disposed of, container cleaned, put back into service and 20 new gallons of saltwater were mixed. I completed my first 10 gallon water change this weekend, so I'm hoping in time, my milles will get their polyp extension back. I may toss some cuprisorb in the sump too.

On to the good news, I'm making progress against the aiptasia battle and I saw 2 of my 3 peppermint shrimp after lights out. It looked like one of them had a clutch of eggs under her belly too.

 

[btmedic04]

My 40b got wet one year ago today. Here's then compared to today. Its crazy how time flies by

Then

Now

 

[ReefGrammie]

Wonderful progress!! I'm coming up on my one year since the very ugly reboot. It's amazing what a difference a year makes! ;Joyful

 

[btmedic04]

Wonderful progress!! I'm coming up on my one year since the very ugly reboot. It's amazing what a difference a year makes! ;Joyful

Thank you! I look forward to seeing how your 90 is looking a year later!

Westley and buttercup say good morning!

 

[btmedic04]

I decided to scrape the coralline off of the back glass last night and didn't realize I had temporarily turned the water pink!



Next, I've noticed a bit of STN on my montipora spongeodes and one of my millies. Checked parameters and they were as follows:

Temp 77.7
Ph 8.1
Phosphate 0.03
Nitrate 12
Alkalinity 8.4
Calcium 480
Magnesium 1540

Nothing too far out of spec. Anyone have any ideas?

Couple pics of the stn

 

[btmedic04]

Phew today was a pain. This morning started off with me switching out my mp10s for nero 5s. I decided to switch because in the last year, I have shattered the ceramic on 3 different wet sides. I believe it to be due to running them at 80%. So far the Nero 5s seem pretty awesome and I'm only running them at 35% pulse during the day and 10-20% random at night. We'll see how they hold up in the long run.

The STN continued on my millie and started on another, so that prompted me to dip my frag rack to see what came loose. Much to my initial dismay, a few AEFW came off. Everything gets dipped before it goes in, but I learned that its a mistake to keep the frag plug. I believe some AEFW eggs were on one of my last additions frag plug. Going forward, all frags will be removed from the plug and put on a sterile one before going through QT. With that said, here's the game plan and why today was a pain.

Remove all acros from DT
Dip using melafix every 7 days for the next 6 weeks and evaluate if I need to continue for 8 weeks
Rinse dip from frags in clean saltwater
Attach to sterile frag plugs/discs
Place in frag tank
Dose KZ flatworm stop and coral booster to frag tank
Add sapphire damsel to frag tank
Add six line to DT
Epoxy over all encrusted growth on rock work.

As you can see, I'm not playing around with this and I'm hopeful in 8 weeks, my acros and DT will be AEFW free. Wish me luck!

AEFW has entered

State of the 40B after acros were removed

Death to the intruders

Wreckage on the battlefield. Saw a few but not too many AEFW, so maybe I caught it early.

Frags in the frag tank for some R&R

 

[ReefGrammie]

Sorry to hear about that! It sounds like you have a good game plan, though. I hope for the best!