OP
OP
Medical_Reef
Active Member
Well it has been a little bit since my last update, so let’s get down to it.
The first big update is that upon coming back from my little break and even through today, I haven’t really seen a regrowth of the stringy, nuisance algae. The last time I scrubbed the rock off in the sink seems to have done some good. That being said, I am seeing a regrowth of the ulva algae on the rocks. This was something I noticed earlier on and now the blades are getting decently long. I am considering pulling out the rocks and doing a hydrogen peroxide scrub and rinse, as I have heard that has excellent results. My risk is very low since I have no corals on the rock. Again, sure wish I had a tang to toss in there, they would love it.
https://youtu.be/tb8ltWK6rr8
The second big update is that I hauled a lovely pulsing-xenia rock half way across the country and it seems pretty happy in my tank! I endured plenty of weird stares and questions during the travel through the airports, but it was pretty straightforward to get the coral on the plane. It also has a couple branches of Kenya tree that dropped onto the rock in my parent’s tank. I grabbed this rock for two real purposes: first and foremost, I need some coral and xenia are pretty hardy, so this is a great way to start. More importantly though, I am hoping to help seed my tank with a mature rock and encourage the rock I have to move along in its development. The algae has been killing me, so I am hoping this biodiversity addition can help out. I also read that the David Saxby schedule has more reds and yellows then some and may be contributing to algae growth, so I switched to a BRS adapted AB+ spectrum and have stuck with that.
The GSP frag I added slowly got covered in algae and disintegrated into little bits, so that was a sad loss; however, the little zoa frag is still hanging on. Only three heads still, so no growth, but we’ll see how that goes. Also, our little hermit got tired of his shell and murdered an astrea snail for his. The blood shrimp jumped in and helped him clean it out. Poor guy. Here is the whole crew as we stand today!
My dad tried to convince me to abandon the dry rock I started with and start over with reef rock, and while it is tempting, I am getting pretty short on time before I need to move, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to try and start this whole process over. It also slightly defeats the purpose of this build. The whole point was to start with dry reef saver rock and follow the BRS/WWC cycle and see what my results were. My thoughts on the matter so far, though, are that in such a small tank I have very few options to try and control any algae issues outside of manually scrubbing the rocks. On a bigger tank where you can add in a couple different tangs, they would presumably keep large outbreaks of algae at bay and give the rock time to establish itself. If I were to start over, I probably wouldn’t use the reef saver rock purely because it can stack the algae-odds against you. Live rock is just too expensive to consider, plus it carries the risk of pests, so I would definitely lean towards one of the manufactured rocks that offers coatings to help the rock along its road to maturity. I’ll definitely try that for the next experiment.
For now, my new goal is to see if I can get the xenia growing and propagate onto some of the smaller rocks in the tank and see if I can find some gsp that will grow in my tank. I have about a year until I move, so instead of trying to get a ton of little frags to grow, I’m going to try and find a couple more softies that grow extremely fast and add some nice color and movement to the tank. So, if you are reading this, and you have a big gsp rock you’d like to ditch, or a mat of gsp you will be trimming and tossing out, send it my way instead. I’ll even pay for shipping!
The first big update is that upon coming back from my little break and even through today, I haven’t really seen a regrowth of the stringy, nuisance algae. The last time I scrubbed the rock off in the sink seems to have done some good. That being said, I am seeing a regrowth of the ulva algae on the rocks. This was something I noticed earlier on and now the blades are getting decently long. I am considering pulling out the rocks and doing a hydrogen peroxide scrub and rinse, as I have heard that has excellent results. My risk is very low since I have no corals on the rock. Again, sure wish I had a tang to toss in there, they would love it.
https://youtu.be/tb8ltWK6rr8
The second big update is that I hauled a lovely pulsing-xenia rock half way across the country and it seems pretty happy in my tank! I endured plenty of weird stares and questions during the travel through the airports, but it was pretty straightforward to get the coral on the plane. It also has a couple branches of Kenya tree that dropped onto the rock in my parent’s tank. I grabbed this rock for two real purposes: first and foremost, I need some coral and xenia are pretty hardy, so this is a great way to start. More importantly though, I am hoping to help seed my tank with a mature rock and encourage the rock I have to move along in its development. The algae has been killing me, so I am hoping this biodiversity addition can help out. I also read that the David Saxby schedule has more reds and yellows then some and may be contributing to algae growth, so I switched to a BRS adapted AB+ spectrum and have stuck with that.
The GSP frag I added slowly got covered in algae and disintegrated into little bits, so that was a sad loss; however, the little zoa frag is still hanging on. Only three heads still, so no growth, but we’ll see how that goes. Also, our little hermit got tired of his shell and murdered an astrea snail for his. The blood shrimp jumped in and helped him clean it out. Poor guy. Here is the whole crew as we stand today!
My dad tried to convince me to abandon the dry rock I started with and start over with reef rock, and while it is tempting, I am getting pretty short on time before I need to move, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to try and start this whole process over. It also slightly defeats the purpose of this build. The whole point was to start with dry reef saver rock and follow the BRS/WWC cycle and see what my results were. My thoughts on the matter so far, though, are that in such a small tank I have very few options to try and control any algae issues outside of manually scrubbing the rocks. On a bigger tank where you can add in a couple different tangs, they would presumably keep large outbreaks of algae at bay and give the rock time to establish itself. If I were to start over, I probably wouldn’t use the reef saver rock purely because it can stack the algae-odds against you. Live rock is just too expensive to consider, plus it carries the risk of pests, so I would definitely lean towards one of the manufactured rocks that offers coatings to help the rock along its road to maturity. I’ll definitely try that for the next experiment.
For now, my new goal is to see if I can get the xenia growing and propagate onto some of the smaller rocks in the tank and see if I can find some gsp that will grow in my tank. I have about a year until I move, so instead of trying to get a ton of little frags to grow, I’m going to try and find a couple more softies that grow extremely fast and add some nice color and movement to the tank. So, if you are reading this, and you have a big gsp rock you’d like to ditch, or a mat of gsp you will be trimming and tossing out, send it my way instead. I’ll even pay for shipping!
