Here we go! TinCanHero's First SW build - 93 gal 30" x 30" x 24" (LxWxH) Cube :)

[dantimdad]

Sorry for your loss.

 

[TinCanHero]

Sorry for your loss.

Thank you, @dantimdad. I feel pretty upset about this one
Its going to be a while before i think of replacing it.

 

[dantimdad]

I understand completely.

Something about certain fish you get. You become attached.

 

[NY_Caveman]

That is a real bummer about the Clownfish and the timing.

 

[TinCanHero]

Hey guys, back for a small update.

Ill start with hardware. The new fan system i ordered is - to put it politely - a load of crap. The airflow is low and useless, i could barely feel what side of the fan was actually pushing the air.. like standing there and blowing over the tank would probably do more.

I called the company i got it from to return it and while i was on the phone i talked about the apex trident and apex in general. Ive been looking into reefing for years so i know quite abit about the apex and ive had the goal of buying one, Ive also been looking at the trident for the last few months, i think i may get one in a few months when there available in the UK, well unless we get screwed somehow like apple pricing, $600 != £600. Anyway, ive been a little more eager to buy a apex since im not 100% sure my temp controller is reading accurately atm (Its cooling alot atm and it cant be 25c) and if i need to replace that i may aswell just get a apex. I was going to get the full system but after talking to the guy on the phone for a while he basically said the ORP probe is pretty crap with accuracy and it pretty much trends opposite to PH? and the salinity probe isn't very accurate either and isn't really that useful. He recommended just getting a EL and dumping the rest of the cash on the trident when it comes or a DOS, I mean this is the guy that's going to take my money, im assuming this is honest advice?
I haven't made the net cover yet, ill do it this "weekend" when i have some time as its not as urgent now.

Onto livestock, All coral is looking great, I think its time to start feeding once a week with reefroids etc? The hammer is also looking great today.

Fish on the other hand.. both the Bangaii and firetail are doing okey, however my tang is spending alot of its time in its cave and my male clownfish is still spending all of its time in the top corner. Im getting worried to be honest, im not really sure whats going on, there both feeding still but not as aggressively as before. I also cannot see any external signs of trouble, im at a slight loss here.
I think im going to try and get a webcam tomorrow after work and see if i can set it up to have a FTS, not only would that be awesome for me and a possible live stream for you guys too but it would also be pretty valuable to watch back at a faster speed to see tank activity.

Last of all Nem, Im pretty sure nem is dead. Its totally dissolving in the bag now so im gonna bin it. I guess the injury was a bit much to heal back from. looking back i think cutting it in two would have been a better option at the beginning, maybe not with my tank, who knows.

Kind regards,
TinCanHero.

 

[TinCanHero]

I understand completely.

Something about certain fish you get. You become attached.

Its unfortunate, ive been thinking about it all day. I have to admit, this female clown was becoming my favorite fish ive ever owned, second to my tang - and that's after owning many, many FW fish for most of my life. Im not sure if this is a correct observation, but SW fish seem to have more personality and character than most FW.

That is a real bummer about the Clownfish and the timing.

Yeah, I feel really guilty for not ordering it sooner or from the start. I just spent to much time trying to work out the perfect solution and one could argue i was playing with fire from the start, or atleest the first time it happened.

 

[TinCanHero]

Hey guys, back for another small update.

I'm 99.9% sure my Temp controller was or rather is faulty. It was reading in the 26's with the fan on flat out and the tank not feeling anywhere near it. I reset it a few times and the temp dropped right down to 24. Since that last heatwave a week or so ago i don't think its been working correctly. Ive been resetting it a few times a day since but it needs replacing. Long story short the tank has been cold... im running it with my heater set at 25, ive tested with a bunch of ebay ones and there all +-11 c :/

I decided to order the Apex EL in the end since i planned on going the Apex route, ORP and Salinity didn't seem to useful for myself atm but temp and PH is great. Hopefully ill order the Trident this year, when it is available in the UK.

As you may think the coral haven't been to happy one bit with the fluctuations, like really its bad.. hopefully we can get some stability back on Wednesday. i was also wondering why my XL Pally wasn't opening fully, turns out the Goni was stinging it on the rack, ive moved it over to the other rack but the side that was getting stung docent look to good.

The fish have been alot better in the last few days, i wonder if it where a temp issue?

Anyway, its certainly been a rough week for the reef, hopefully we can resolve the issues this week.

Kind regards,
TinCanHero.

 

[TinCanHero]

Hey guys, back for another small update.

The Apex arived today, thank god! I also bought the most expensive bit of plastic i ever have (Probe holder) & a new ehim 250w heater.

I haven't bothered mounting it yet, that's going to take a few hours i just don't have today. i've set it up inside the sump just as a temp controller for now. The setup was easy

The temp was sky high this time 27.2... Apparently i don't own a single correct thermometer. So in hind site my reefs gone from stable 25 to 20 to 27 in a few days.. crazy swings but hopefully now im all sorted.

Ill do a proper update on all the damage etc this weekend

Kind regards, TinCanHero.


--after setting up my temp probe

 

[TinCanHero]

Hey guys, Back for a small update.

I will be setting up the Apex today (PH), its still not mounted but ill get that done this weekend since i need to pick up or order some smaller power strips (2 + 3 sockets).

Thankfully the temp has been stable at 25c since last night, i let the reef cool down slowly through the night. In this update ill talk a bit about the coral, and how its effected them.

So, first up, my acros hated the swing, the nice frags are bleaching out but don't look any worse than yesterday.
My "kenya tree" is looking worse since the temp has come back up, id never seen it so big when the tank was "cold", fully extended with all polyps out.
My green Cyphastrea has lost some of its colour along with my tiny blue/orange one.
My large lime green porites has lost some colour around its edges .
my chillipepper monti (the 5 polyp one) has bleached completely today, not sure if its just bleached or dead atm. I got home yesterday to find that 2 polyps had bleached out, last night before bed there was only one left and today there is none.

Everything else is okey, maybe slightly duller this week than last but all alive.

On a somewhat positive note my Lime green finger coral has reattached to the rock. I'm not sure what happened today but when i got home i found a small bit of it on the sandbed, it looks like the rubber band cut through it but i'm 99% sure it wasn't tight enough to do that.. maybe i was wrong.
Either way it seems like ive made my first frag.. even if its by mistake I can tell its reattached itself to the rock since the band is no longer holding it
-- To add to this, i kept the original rock it was attached too in the tank. I did this because i could feel a small "bump" of flesh like stuff still attached to it after it came off. Im pretty sure that little bump of flesh is growing. i guess time will tell but it looks that way.

So to sum it up, im super glad the Apex is here and we are back temp stable. The coral took a huge bashing due to being so cold and then hot for a week, i can see why the Great Barrier Reef is suffering with the heatwaves Australia has been having

One last thing, I didn't pay attention to my dosing line for a few days, i had no idea this could happen!

Ill try and make the next update more interesting, or positive atleest. Ive been meaning to do a update on my sump before i clean it out for the first time. My Chato is growing well, but the "fuge" is pretty funky with Cyano.

- Oh and before i go, the fish are doing alot better in the last few days. Im still medicating the food, maybe its that or maybe its the temp. Either way im not concerned for them anymore

Kind Regards & Happy reefing.
TinCanHero.

-- alot of the coral pics i just took quickly, i have to go back out to work now

 

[TinCanHero]

Id also like to point out that these Montipora Digita are crazy hardy.. My red one didnt budge during the swings but what i find amazing is the 2 green ones that came to me bleached, you would swear they where dead if they wherent extended. both the one on the sand bed and the one on the rack are fully extended green polyps on a pure white skeleton.. Crazy!

 

[TinCanHero]

Hey guys, Back for a update

It feels like a while since ive done one again, alot has gone on but the main thing is we are back stable

I'm in love with my new Apex! ive been playing around with the more advanced software features of it and i have to say its pretty sweet! I have a idea on how im going to mount it and wire it all up, just have to find a evening this week to get that done.
The probes are awesome too, the temp has been pretty stable, 24.9-25.1. Id like to get that 0.2 swing out of there, i think ive managed to get it to be 0.1 but that seems as good as i can get?
PH has been pretty awesome too! it seems my tank sat at 8.04 by the end of the night and 8.14 by the end of the day. I opened a small window in my room and ive left it open for the last few days, thats bumped my PH to 8.06/8.16, pretty sweet - i think im going to run a airline from my skimmer outside this week to help further up my PH.

Fish are all doing well, Still feeding with Focus and Metroplex.

On to Coral. The coral have started to bounce back, or atleest there not as ticked off as they where last week. the acro's have paused, or atleest slowed down bleaching. My cyphastrea has gotten a bit of its colour back. My chillipepper monti is toast. My XL pally is looking better, still holding its stung side in a little. My goni is loving life trying to kill everything close to it , i actually cought it red handed trying to kill the sytlo next door, i blasted it a few time as it didnt want to let go! time to move it off somewhere everything else is doing good, my euphillia is really out today, ive noticed that it opens up fully for most of the morning then closes up more in the afternoon or evening, i wondered if it where light but its random when it closes up, i wonder if my tang ticks it off swimming by. everything else is looking good, maybe a little colour loss but better than last week for sure.
One last coral to mention, i was looking at some pics of my 1st coral when i got it (monti digi red) i can't believe how much its grown! its thickened up alot also and its now 3-4mm encrusted past its plug! also some of my single head zoa's are putting out baby heads

I guess General tank condition is next. The tank is looking not to shabby, The diatoms or whatever it was is on the down for sure, still some grimy patches in the tank but every manual clean its looking better. The filter socks have helped no end to water clarity. i can get away with 2 days before the sock needs to come out now. My skimate is also much darker, almost black now.

My sump is looking quite funky too, i can count 4 or 5 different shades of Cyano, there is green, pink, purple, blue/green and some in-between. Im not really bothered about it in the fuge, the light is on 100% of the time so id expect some funky stuff there, and that's cool, im a fan of bio diversity as long as the diversity bit sticks true and i don't get a bloom. The only downside is i have to rinse my chato when i do WC's as it likes to grown on that. Its one of the reasons i haven't cleaned my sump yet, as long as it doesn't become a neut trap im happy to let it do its thing, i mean isnt that the point of a fuge? to let nature go wild so your main system stays clean / benefits without being ugly. The chato has grown alot too, i started with a golfball and i now have well over a tennis ball.

No new equipment this week i still have to assemble my net, return that fan and mount and cable manage the apex. I think a new ATO and breakout box is on the horizon thou I added my new heater to the sump, i placed this one in the fuge over the return section just encase it "runs dry" again.

As goes for coral. I may have purchased a few new ones recently without telling you guys. but there safe and sound waiting my nod to be sent. that wont be for another month hopefully and no acros!

Im still waiting for the rest of my coral to be shipped from that last guy i wasn't to happy with. im still expecting alot from him and he keeps saying he will ship "this week" but never dose. Im going to give him another week.

Kind regards, TinCanHero.

 

[TinCanHero]

.

Ive been watching the coraline grow on this guys back since i got him, he's almost fully purple now

Goni stinging...

 

[TinCanHero]

hey guys, back for a small update, noting to interesting more of a note for myself.
Im stopping feeding Mteroplex & focus today, its been 3 weeks since i started and i believe that is the recommended safe time to feed. I haven't noticed any stringy poop since the first time so ill call it good for now.
Nitrates are <10 right now so its a good time to bump feeding a little too.

Ive also released why my Hammer is sometimes open and sometimes closed. ive been overthinking it this whole time... its just my tang swimming past it fast going back to his cave. I had planned since the start of my scape for that rock to be a Euphillia garden, i guess that will have to change, or at least until the tang is to fat for his home

One last thing, i did a WC last night.. im a total maniac with the siphon hose.. I managed to suck up one of my Zoa frags right from the plug.. i also managed to take a good chunk of another Zoa colony off. I didn't find them after looking for a hour.. Last week i almost sucked up my "kenya tree" lucky it was so big, it didn't like me I need to pay more attention, its not like hoovering over plants

Kind regards,
TinCanHero

 

[TinCanHero]

Hey guys, back for a small update again.

I ordered another frag rack the other day, I ordered again from London Aquatic Design. This time i ordered one of there new 2019 racks in orange that is folded rather than glued, i also ordered it from there main website rather from ebay.

I'm totally glad i ordered it from there site this time, the package came with some extra goodies, i got a nice buisness card but the cherry on the cake that put a huge smile on my face is the free mini fragrack key chain they sent me... such a cool little thing! it went right onto my keyring )

Again, its a great rack! the holes are hexagons instead of being round and the rack is one piece over two, thats the main difference i can see right away.

Id also like to give them a shoutout! on my invoice i noticed my invoice number was very low, number 21... I'm not sure if that's 21 ever, this year, this month or week but id bet its probably yearly or possibly 21 is the all they have done. Either way its low and that's not cool for a company making such awesome products. So if you live in the UK (not sure if they ship international) and your in the market for a new rack, look no further than LAD.

I stuck a few zoas that where close to my goni down so i could move the goni to the end of rack 1 away from the other sps. I also decided to move my cyphastrea down some more as i think there getting a little to much light where they where to be fully happy.

-- One last thing, now its in the tank i'm not so sure if i personally like the "table" of the rack being so bright, its literally glowing under my lights, I'm a little worried it will take away from the coral, and not blend in as well as my colored backed, black top ones.

Kind regards,
TinCanHero.

 

[TinCanHero]

Hey guys, back for another update.
I haven't been feeling so great the last week, with being burned out from work and having the flu/cold i decided to take a day off sunday, being a little bored i decided to pop to Madenhead aquatics to see what freshwater stuff they had.
I had no intention of buying any SW fish and coral didn't cross my mind since its all usually poor. Anway, the fresh water stuff didn't intrest me and the SW fish where extremely poor in health (torn up bodies and fins, what looked like flukes, stringy poop etc) yeah - no.
They had some nice coral in thou, and i almost walked out.. almost. I ended up buying a few bits, i bought a monti plate frag, a large Superman encrusting monti colony and a random sps frag he offered cheep, (now i can see it up close it looks like a browned out acro with green polyps). I was also cheaky and talked him into fragging a little bit of his orange Gorgonia from the DT (the DT with the massive elegance i forgot to picture AGAIN).
Anyway, i only really wanted the plating monti cap the rest where spur of the moment things, although the encrusting monti was going for silly cheep money for its size, you can easily frag this thing into 10-20. Now its home and under my lights i can see why it was so cheep, its dead in a few small parts and bleached in other areas, some bad, some not so bad. The plan is to frag it up but im going to give it a month or so to recover
Anyway, i got them home, did the whole dip and tank thing i found a bristle worm this time, next up i glued the gorg onto one of the DOA plugs.

Everything is looking okey today, and my other coral is doing great too. the bleeched monti's and that half bleeched acro are starting to brown out nicely so im guessing there on the mend. The XL pally that was stung by my the goni has recovered and opened up nicely now The only problem m having with the coral atm is the algae on there plugs, when i had my hand in the tank last i moved one of my hermits up to see if it would eat it for me, unfortunately it wasn't interested. If it gets much worse im going to have to take the plugs out one by one and toothbrush them clean i think.

The tank is looking good thou, still seeing diatoms(?), but its almost gone. I'm seeing a little film algae for the first time since the bloom, so that's a good thing, balance is returning. Im thinking of trying a bubble scrub next WC to try and lift the diatoms im missing, unsure if i will try it yet although i read its not harmful to coral.

I don't think there is much more to report, im still getting home really late, so i still havent gotten the cover and apex mounted yet :/ i also noticed a little red cyano on one of my plugs that i removed (you can see it on the green stylo in the pics)

Kind regards, TinCanHero.

 

[TinCanHero]

Hey guys, back for a update.

Some good news, some not so good.

Had a bit of a disaster again today. I went to my LFS to pick up some more salt, everyone was doing great this morning but by the time i got back home i noticed my clown wasnt present. Unfortuantly he must have jumped out of the tank sometime in the last few hours, he didn't make it I feed bad about this again.. I have my new net cover waiting for me to put it together, ive just been to busy, i took a day off today with the idea of hitting my LFS and doing both the net and Apex.. Blah I even reserved a pair of clowns today to make a trio and joked that i better not take them home until i get my net done..

Everything else is doing great thou, coral is growing, fish are happy. My montipora digitata is starting to really take off now, its growing quite quickly, i'm seeing the start of 6 new branches The rest looks good, the mushroom i received has started to colour up from a dull grey/ blue to a turquoise with a orange mouth and grow, its also gained many more bubbles - almost looks like a bounce mushroom. The zoas are growing too, most of the single head frags have pups now, one even has 4 new pups The kenya tree is growing like mad too, it was ment to be in that place only temporary but its gown onto the rock work so fast i guess i wont be moving it for a while now.. All of the frags i received bleached have browned out nicely, apart from the digi on the rack in more light, thats still bleached but alive. My Hammer is also doing great, it fell over the other day and i left it thinking id right it when i do my WC, ive never seen it so open since its fallen over so ive just left it - it may be due to my tang hanging out in the bottom of the tank more recently too thou.

I also found what looked like two dead hermit crabs, i suddenly realized there was no shells to be found and got wondering if they malted like some inverts do. Apparently they do and after doing a headcount i can safely say it was indeed leftover malts

I did another WC the other day, the rock is pretty good in terms of diatoms, there is still some growing in the sandbed, ill do another smaller WC tomorrow hopefully and hit the sandbed hard with a gravel cleaner. I also have some small patches of hair algae? growing on some of the rock, i removed most of it last time around but i missed some and the frag plugs are still covered in it (ill be cleaning them today hopefully) I also tried a "bubble scrub" i didn't do it for long, more of a trial, i didn't like running my powerheads partly dry to do it thou :/

I said earlier i hit my LFS, i managed not to buy any coral or fish but i did decide to get one astrea/turbo snail and a cleaner shrimp. maybe a little early still for the shrimp but i seem to be impatient still :/ I also took note of all the coral i purchased recently online, most of it is coming this week while im still holing off on my other shipment. I have some GSP coming along with a new BTA that i purchased in a moment of weekness before the last one even started going downhill at the end there. I also went a little crazy last week and bought every cyphastera the UK and EU had to offer, ive just fallen in love with them! Last of all i bought a few frags of plating monties since one of the cyphastera sites had some nice bits going cheep.

Not sure if there is anything else to cover right now, i tend to forget thing that have happened recently.

-- one last thing that made me laugh, i read before buying a cleaner shrimp that they have a habbit of stealing food from coral. Well i bought a some formula 1 pellits to try this time around and fed only 3 to the tank, to see if the fish would eat them, one landed in my euphillia and within a minute of so the shrimp was on its scent, found it and took it right from the euphilla and eat it

Kind Regards,
TinCanHero.

 

[TinCanHero]

Hey guys, back for a update.

Again, been a pretty quiet few days.
I finally got around to building my net cover Monday evening. What a hassle that turned out to be, I built the frame fairly easily and it goes together pretty well. However when it comes to adding the net.. jesus.... All i can say is what a load of nonsence that turned out to be, personally i didn't find rolling the rubber into the groove difficult the annoying part is getting the net tight and aligned. I taped the frame down to the table so it couldn't move as best i could. i added the net and cut it out when it was all done, however when i went for a test fit the frame had warped out of squareness and no longer fitted. I redid it again and have pretty much the same problem just not as bad. I really wish they sold bracing bars separate, i cocked up one of my cuts so i didn't have a bar long enough to go across the tank i could do with a + shape bracing system i think.
Anyway ive come to the conclusion that the kit covers are just rubbish on large tanks. I have looked into a lid from ClearView Lids but shipping is $80 and that bumps the price way up, paying £250 for a tank cover is a hard one to swallow, one i don't think i can right now. Ill look into other options.

What else is new? Well i went to pick up my clown fish from my goto LFS and had a really bad experience. I was told on Monday that a pair of clowns i fancied where £70 same price as before. Anyway i reserved them and went home, while i was there i also asked the price of a fungia coral and was told £100. So i went back Monday to get the clowns, the owner bagged them and we went to the till, total bill was £100-something. I was like erm.. what? he told me - even after i said "ill take the £70 clowns down the bottom end i reserved yesterday" - oh there £100 there some "insert upselling crap here". Anyway, after some back and forth discussion he wouldn't budge finally offering me £95 seeing how ticked off i was, i was and am still offended by the experience. Also when i asked about the fungia again i was told £120 this time. Long story short i feel totally scammed, while they may have been £100 fish and the other store guy got it wrong (Im doubting this) I just feel like its bad business practice, We would never do that to our customers and it happens regularly where a plant may have a wrong label or has been quoted at a wrong price. Anyway after spending thousands with them i don't feel like i can use the store as my main goto any longer after this except if im in a pinch, ill be ordering online from now on and taking the odd trip to Cardiff as there is a good livestock shop there.

Last of all, a few lifestock updates. I cleaned all of my plugs off with a toothbush in a bowl of tank water, there much cleaner now I came home the other day and noticed my little green finger coral frag has vanished, like gone. i found it a day later under the rock it was attached too, its wedged in there so good i just cant get it out. They seem like weeds tbh so im not bothered as it will either grow or die - in a way id like to to die as it would be a nightmare to remove. That reminds me, the tiny bump from my original kenya tree is still alive and growing, from a tiny bump its like a 5p coin just a little longer now.. One of the tiny acros i got with the "crap" order i did has started to get its color back too, i received it as a brown frag and its now a pinkish red Also the 2 other acros i had that where mostly brown with a hint of green at the top are prettymuch back green! The other 3 acros haven't recovered from the temp swings yet, still partly bleached.

Along with my clown i also added 2 more turbo snails, maybe a little overkill on the cleanup crew now so i think im done for a while. (Yeah i know most of you will laugh at my 2 x blue Hcrabs, 2 x Rock Hcrabs 1 x conch 1 x nusarrius and 3 x "turbo" as overkill )

I did a WC today as i wanted to get that sandbed cleaned up before tomorrow. Went well as usual, i used the gravel cleaner and it did a pretty poor job overall but it hoovered the dust and deposited the crap on the surface. I used my hose to pick most of that up at the end. I did however change up the way i refilled the tank, usually i keep the hose on one rock so the flow is controlled - Today i used it as a mini powerhead and blasted all the crap from the cracks and holes in the rock.. jesus it worked -maybe a little to well.. in some areas it looked like a volcano of sand, algae, diatoms and detritus erupting from the other side when id find a "tunnel" The tank is super cloudy right now... Doh!
I don't like making my water column that dirty, its just a silly move.. hopefully it will sort itself in a few hours, its already improving.

Well, i think that's about it for me today. Tomorrow will be a cool day of coral, ive had my emails 2/5 are on there way with 1 refund 1 coming next week and the other being that guy that keeps messing be about.

Before i go, i haven't been able to get any good pics of my clowns but on my receipt it says "mocha snowflake clownfish" they - kind of - maybe look like them but im no expert. Id feel alot less buthurt if i knew they where worth what i paid.

-- One last thing I picked up "Book of Coral Propagation" by Anthony Calfo on ebay for a tenner, looks to be a good book! My copy was signed too

Kind regards & happy reefing.
TinCanHero.

Still no colour in the center apart from the orange mouth but look at that blue / turquoise that its changing too

After cleaning

Is it just me or dose this thing grow silly fast?! My god i can see the difference day by day almost!

30mins after WC, i can see the back again :O

 

[TinCanHero]

Hey guys, back for another update.

Coral came today, Both packages, one just before 9am and 1 around 1pm.
I received my new BTA, GPS and a cyphastera in one, and two cyphasteras in another, usual process of dipping and tanking - apart from the BTA, that guy was bag acclimated and tanked.
The BTA looks great, it was open in the bag and its foot was inflated and looks clean and undamaged, i tanked it and turned off the flow for a few hours while it got settled in. I placed it by "acro mountain" thinking it can move from there to where it likes, it seems its moved all of a inch or so and opened up
2/3 Cyphasteras looks good, one of them looks badly bleached. To be fair when i looked back at the pic on the site i got it from you can see brown patches, the photo was taken at a good angle to show the healthy middle bit.

Packaging this time around was all good. The BTA GPS and cyphastera came in a polly box with papper packing. double bagged with the inner bag heat sealed.
The two cyphasteras came in a small polly box with glossy paper packing, both frags where in there own specimen cups held in place with one of those eggs you a toy or something in out of those machines you stick a quid in and turn the handle around. the egg has a star shape cut into it to hold the frag, there was also some carbon pellets in the cup.
Both had heatpacks with the BTA box having two? while the other only one, the BTA box was still hot while the other wasn't, the pack was slightly warm but because it was on the lid and under alot of paper it wasn't that effective i feel.

Overall im happy, Bummed about one of the Cyphastera bleaching but there we are.

One last thing before i go, I keep forgetting to say that im seeing alot of Spirorbid worms growing now

-- Well, what can i say, i went to feed my tank and check up on everything to take some photos for you guys and the meteor cyphastera is melting away, its flesh is all hanging off and its looking 20x worse than earlier. The "banana" cyphastera is also showing sines of loosing its flesh on edge.. im actually watching them strip
The cyphastera i got with the BTA and GSP is doing great thou, polyps out too

Kind regards & happy reefing.
TinCanHero.

 

[TinCanHero]

One last observation, I was sent the wrong banana frag, its a WYSIWYG site and there was two available, i picked no 1 and got send no two :/

 

[TinCanHero]

Hey guys, back for a update.

Its been a week since my last update, Ive just been that busy with work etc that i haven't had a minute to stop and post something for you guys.

So how is everything? well its all looking okey for the most part
Lets start with the new stuff. The BTA is doing great! fully extended and loving life.. I placed him at the bottom of "Acro mountain" with the idea of him being able to move to where it likes, funny thing is he's decided to stay put Its been doing great thou fully extended and plenty of colour I fed it once but it gave me quite the fight the following night when i found it deflated with a white chunk sticking out of it, i blasted the chunk from it and it was a hard ball of mysis, a hour later it was back inflated. Its also been catching food itself while ive been feeding the fish and eating it.
The GSP is doing great too, going to glue it all to the back glass soon. Infact everything from my M.O.C Order is doing great, the only bad news it the the cypastera that i ordered from another place isnt, once is dead and the other has been peeling from the edges, i expect that will die too.

Everything else seems to be doing okey, well for the most part that is. I do have a issue with some of my Zoas, one of them looks to be shrinking, i shrugged it off as myself being crazy but i noticed that one or two other zoa's have lost some mass, my GAS zoa looks like the stem has gotten thinner along with my XL pally, Not sure whats going on tbh, everything else seems to be okey, the only other coral that i can see a issue with recently is my Goni, it seems to have closed up most of the way in the last 2 days.

One other thing i should update you guys on is my new livestock, I went for a trip to a Madenhead store close by, I didn't plan on getting anything but when i got there they had one of the fish that are on my list, a 6 line wrase. Naturally i couldn't resist and i purchased him - even after saying when i got the clowns "this really is the last fish you tank with out QT'ing it. Anyway, the little guy looks good and hes settled in and gets on with everyone nicely, my tang dose "chase" him out of his cave when he tries to go inside it but its nothing aggressive. If anything, since ive added him everyone is swimming around alot more and having fun. All that ia left now fish/invert wise is:
1 x watchman + pistol shrimp
1 x mandarin (a while yet, i want pods to get established first)
1 x kole tang (starting to rethink this one - will be a while until my hippo is large enough to get a small one anyway)
1 x urchin (maybe - i keep coming back to them, there so cool! )

So, onto some more problems.
The GHA / bryopsis has been a pain, some more small patches have popped up on the rockwork and ofc whatever i clean off is growing back again in a few days, im not so bothered about it blooming, my tank is still maturing and its quite a natural thing, its just a bloody pain in the but when it comes to coral, the plugs i cleaned where back coated in a few days, i almost pulled them to clean them but one day when i got home i noticed they where clean again, when looking around the tank i also noticed a few patches of that algae was gone, im gona guess a snail got up there and did some work for me I guess it was a good idea to get two more afterall
What else? Hmm? Time, i have to admit im not testing as much as i should be, sometimes once a week only in the last few weeks, that's not good & needs to change. - although i stopped chasing numbers and just let my KH sit where it likes, that's around 9.5 and that's fine.
My PH has been a little wacky thou. im really scratching my head on this one, im gona guess its my probe playing around, if im honest i stopped testing PH manually since i have had the APEX, its a bad idea i know..

im not sure if im missing anything else here, everything else is going great. I have my last coral order in tomorrow, i cant remember everything it if im honest, infact ill go look now and make a list

2 x XXL Indo Candy Cane
1x Ultra Cyphastrea
1x Ultra Cyphastrea
1x Favia 1 XL Head 1inch
1x Acan Lord 1 Head on Disc.
1x Catalaphyllia Elegance

Not as much as i thought, still thou Elegance time! - RIP Snails - on that note what about my conch?

I'm going to do a full set of tests when i get out of the shower and ate, hopefully its not to late its 21:30 already and i aint long got in :/

-- a few ending notes as usual, if you made it this far i owe you a beer
- the "superman" monti is looking so much better now its been in my tank for a few weeks
- What you know, that tiny bit of finger coral made its way out of the rock it was stuck in and is now floating around the sand bed until i stick my hand in next to attach it again.
- and last of all, my conch is a butt whole, it just bulldozes all my frags on the sandbed, nothing is safe from this mad little guy Lol!

Kind regards,
TinCanHero