OP
OP
Radman73
Valuable Member
Wow, been a while since I last updated. Tank is still largely on cruise control. Pretty sure I've beat the dreaded dino's but a side affect was an explosion of vermetid snails. Yay.
I did add a tuxedo urchin as I read they'll clean off the snails as the scour the rock. This has been proven true in my case, in case someone stumbles across this thread looking for vermetid snail predators. My melanarus wrasse hasn't seemed to have touched a single one either FWIW. However, the urchin is too large to get to large numbers of the vermetid's. I've read that emerald crabs are potential predators so have 5 of those coming in a CUC that should be here Thursday. Should those pan out I 'll probably start adding fish and corals again.
Fish have been fairly good. Been sitting at 15 total for about 6 months. 6 lyretail anthias with a beautiful male, a couple almost males, and a few females, my 9 year old clowns are still kicking, a melanrus, blackfin mccosker, and lubbock's wrasses, a yellow eye kole tang, yellow watchman goby, royal gramma, and my potter's angelfish which I love.
Corals have mostly died however. I have a green hammer that's actually growing and some acan enchinata that has assumed steady state. Most of the die off was likely due to no water changes while combating the dino's. I do dose 2-part and kept an eye on param's. I have to believe there was something else missing. The rare water changes I performed did see a visual rebound in corals. But also dino growth. The latest water change or two has not seemed to have any negative affects, so I'll plan on 3-4 40gal changes per month for the next few months in an attempt to get things back on track.
My garage based refugium has been working very well. The small clump of cheato I put in is now larger than a basketball. Probably time to get rid of about half of it. Pods are visually scurrying everywhere in it. The kessil A350 light really helped the cheato.
I worked diligently to QT everything that went into this tank. This means I have a near heart attack any time I see a speck of something on any fish. It's always seemed to just be a piece of sand or detritus that's clung to a fish. Gone after a day or two but still frustrating lol!
I did redo the equipment in the garage. The table my mixing barrel was on was not well built and my propensity to forget about the RODI making water and then flooding the table and garage certainly didn't help. So I built a new stand to put it up and over a freezer and spare fridge. I put a water heater spill pan under it and ran the drain for the spill pan to just next to the garage door. Haven't tested it yet, but I'm sure that day is coming. It also puts the barrel closer to the refugium to make water changes easier. This is important as my neck is telling me I may need yet another surgery. Need to make things as easy as possible before that time.
If you've made it this far, thanks for reading!
I did add a tuxedo urchin as I read they'll clean off the snails as the scour the rock. This has been proven true in my case, in case someone stumbles across this thread looking for vermetid snail predators. My melanarus wrasse hasn't seemed to have touched a single one either FWIW. However, the urchin is too large to get to large numbers of the vermetid's. I've read that emerald crabs are potential predators so have 5 of those coming in a CUC that should be here Thursday. Should those pan out I 'll probably start adding fish and corals again.
Fish have been fairly good. Been sitting at 15 total for about 6 months. 6 lyretail anthias with a beautiful male, a couple almost males, and a few females, my 9 year old clowns are still kicking, a melanrus, blackfin mccosker, and lubbock's wrasses, a yellow eye kole tang, yellow watchman goby, royal gramma, and my potter's angelfish which I love.
Corals have mostly died however. I have a green hammer that's actually growing and some acan enchinata that has assumed steady state. Most of the die off was likely due to no water changes while combating the dino's. I do dose 2-part and kept an eye on param's. I have to believe there was something else missing. The rare water changes I performed did see a visual rebound in corals. But also dino growth. The latest water change or two has not seemed to have any negative affects, so I'll plan on 3-4 40gal changes per month for the next few months in an attempt to get things back on track.
My garage based refugium has been working very well. The small clump of cheato I put in is now larger than a basketball. Probably time to get rid of about half of it. Pods are visually scurrying everywhere in it. The kessil A350 light really helped the cheato.
I worked diligently to QT everything that went into this tank. This means I have a near heart attack any time I see a speck of something on any fish. It's always seemed to just be a piece of sand or detritus that's clung to a fish. Gone after a day or two but still frustrating lol!
I did redo the equipment in the garage. The table my mixing barrel was on was not well built and my propensity to forget about the RODI making water and then flooding the table and garage certainly didn't help. So I built a new stand to put it up and over a freezer and spare fridge. I put a water heater spill pan under it and ran the drain for the spill pan to just next to the garage door. Haven't tested it yet, but I'm sure that day is coming. It also puts the barrel closer to the refugium to make water changes easier. This is important as my neck is telling me I may need yet another surgery. Need to make things as easy as possible before that time.
If you've made it this far, thanks for reading!
. I'll get some up today and include how I redid my water change station in the garage.
