Mixed Reef Fluval Evo 13.5 with Natural Sea Water

[jfoahs04]

I don’t love dealing with the extra algae scraping, but having my tank in a room that gets bright morning sun also has its perks. I think my coral responds well to the natural light and I love the way it looks:

 

[jfoahs04]

Fallow isn’t fun and I had a phosphate spike that I believe causes RTN in two of my acros. I believe I mentioned the wolverine already, but the purple tort which is the oldest one I had in my tank quit on me too. I think the spike was caused from leaching out of new “cured” live rock I bought from an LFS. I don’t think it was fully cured. It spiked up to .3 (from .03) in the span of two weeks. I don’t want to drastically eliminate it, so I’ve swapped my carbon for Chemi Pure Blue, and left the rock in there. It’s back down to .22, and coral looks happier. Hopefully it continues to slowly decline, but for now I’ll live with stable.

on a happier note, my clown and the dottyback are doing fine in QT. The coral is looking better, and without fish to bug them, there are pods EVERYWHERE in the tank (video below).

 

[jfoahs04]

Just a quick monthly update tracking the growth of my Bali Green Slimer.

Feb 16 on the left, Jan 16 on the right. Still not much growth, but PE this month is great. I’m hoping for clear evidence of encrusting by next month:

On another note, I sent my Triton test back today. Really excited to see the results. I expect higher p04 (been struggling with that), but no idea what to expect otherwise. I’ll post them when they come back.

 

[jfoahs04]

Just before lights out tonight:

 

[jfoahs04]

I finally did an ICP test, as promised. The results are more or less what I expected. Here’s a link. Most of the data is pretty positive. I’m at the lower end of “acceptable” for Calcium and Magnesium which is because that’s how natural sea water comes. It’s fine. My phosphorus and phosphate are too high. This has been a battle for me since I started my fishless fallow period. It has everything to do with my feeding habits (I feed way too much), and nothing to do with the water source.

The interesting thing is that my Hanna checker is reading MUCH higher phosphate levels than the ICP test. Yesterday I tested 0.23 ppm. I believe that mg/l is the same as ppm, so Triton is saying my phosphate is 0.101 which is still high, but not nearly as high as I’m reading on my end.

the results in images:

 

[jfoahs04]

Our newest inhabitants arrived today. This was the second attempt after a shipping debacle ended with a DOA order. I’ve always wanted pom pom crabs, but never thought it was worth it in a larger tank (they’re tiny). One came with eggs, though I have zero hope/expectation that they’ll survive. Anyway, here’s Becky and Barb (fiancée named them):

 

[rmorris_14]

Our newest inhabitants arrived today. This was the second attempt after a shipping debacle ended with a DOA order. I’ve always wanted pom pom crabs, but never thought it was worth it in a larger tank (they’re tiny). One came with eggs, though I have zero hope/expectation that they’ll survive. Anyway, here’s Becky and Barb (fiancée named them):

I plan on sourcing a Pom Pom crab for my evo when I get back from vacation! I just love them. Please share more posts on how it is going with them along the way. Love the names!

 

[jfoahs04]

I plan on sourcing a Pom Pom crab for my evo when I get back from vacation! I just love them. Please share more posts on how it is going with them along the way. Love the names!

Will do! These are my first and they're already fun to watch. Reef Cleaners overnight shipping with UPS worked well. None of my LFS could source them apparently (I've been asking around since September).

 

[rmorris_14]

Will do! These are my first and they're already fun to watch. Reef Cleaners overnight shipping with UPS worked well. None of my LFS could source them apparently (I've been asking around since September).

ok thanks for the heads up! I'll try them if I can get one locally.

 

[jfoahs04]

Just a top down and a FTS:

 

[jfoahs04]

3 months into tracking this coral and I’m starting to see some noticeable growth in the tips, albeit slight (March 16, 2022 on the left, December 16, 2021 on the right). I should start using a ruler in the photos, but the two branches to the right of the frame in each photo are clearly longer now than they were in December. There’s still very little in the way of encrusting though. I’m not as worried about that, however. Green Slimers tend to base out minimally. The montipora digitata on the right of each pic has exploded over the past few months and is growing new branches left and right. I may have to trim it back in the next few months if this continues.

And speaking of obvious growth, my Red Planet has also exploded. The lighter tip has shot out (and added corallites) over the past few weeks, and the base as encrusted over the plug and onto the rock:

 

[najer]

I cooked my evo summer last year, entirely my fault for taking my eye off the ball, what you are doing in here is inspiring, go you, red planet looks great.

 

[jfoahs04]

I cooked my evo summer last year, entirely my fault for taking my eye off the ball, what you are doing in here is inspiring, go you, red planet looks great.

I've been there before (my fault too)... But thank you! This is a labor of love. I was out of the hobby for way too long leading up to this. I'll be even happier when I can begin adding my fish back in (fallow period ends March 29, I'll start adding in early April).

 

[jfoahs04]

“Prepping” my water change water this morning. It’s still pretty cold out here, but it’s getting warmer and the sun feels great. Collecting water wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected this winter. I think there were only 4 or 5 times where weather or rough surf prevented me from collecting on my day (Tuesdays if possible).

 

[jfoahs04]

I’ve had this Pipe Organ coral since about September and it’s been one of my favorite “active” corals (I love how it moves in the flow). When I went fallow around the Holidays and rearranged my rockwork in a big way, it closed up and never opened up apart from the occasional polyp just barely showing enough to let me know it wasn’t completely dead. It weathered the big phosphate spike that claimed two of my acros too, but still never looked like it was any better than just “not dead.”

So yesterday during my water change, I decided that it’s been almost 4 months and I should try another spot or just give up on it. I moved it off the sand bed and onto the rock about six inches to the right. After securing it, polyps started to open up in a matter of an hour or two. I took the picture below today. This is by far the best it’s looked since before the rockwork move (though still a ways to go before I’d say it’s “happy”).

Some things in this hobby are mysterious. Slight tweaks can make a world of difference (for better or worse). I don’t think this is one of those things… as soon as I moved the Pipe Organ, I noticed this monster Aiptasia right behind it. I never saw it before. It was clearly bothering the coral for some time. I’m relieved the coral is responding so quickly… now to just deal with the aiptasia. I don’t think my peppermint shrimp will touch it.

The happier coral:

The monster aiptasia (1+inch across the disc):

 

[jfoahs04]

So in other news, my fallow period officially ended March 29th. It’s been a long couple of months, but it has allowed me to dial some things in and stabilize the tank. While that’s great, I’ve REALLY missed having fish. These two little ones (about 1.25 inch each) will be moving into the display on Wednesday of next week assuming everything continues the way it is:

and:

 

[jfoahs04]

We’ll, the day is finally here. After almost 3 months, I have fish in the tank again.

 

[jfoahs04]

Just some evening shots:

I run a modified version of the AI Signature David Saxby setting (everything ramped up about 10%). While it’s whiter for most hours than a lot of people run theirs, you do get the real actinic in the evening and early hours. I like getting both.

Finally, you can see where I trimmed my zoas back on the rock just below the green montipora digitata. They started encroaching real bad, so I hit them with aiptasia x. I have to do another round just below where the Monti is growing out, but the Aiptasia X works really well if you have some pest zoas/palys.

 

[jfoahs04]

Monthly update tracking green slimer growth. This thing is finally starting to grow in obvious, visible ways. The top left branch has obvious growth and the bottom is basing out quite a bit more. Still, this is a relative slow growing Acro for me which is surprising since it grows so fast for some. My Red Planet, Microlades, and PC Rainbow are all growing much faster.

 

[jfoahs04]

We had oysters tonight. It was also a treat for the tank: