Jason's 300 gallons of frustration and fun

Radman73 · Dec 4, 2018

GC treatment is complete and water change is done. Just dosed Copper Power to what I thought would be 1ppm but came out to .89. Better under than over. What that does tell me is I dosed pretty much exactly half of my target at 8.85ml of Copper Power. So, 2.2ml of Copper Power am and pm for the next two days should put it right around 1.75ppm. The Hanna checker is a Godsend. I couldn't read the API kit to save my life, or the fishes for that matter. If all goes according to plan he should be ready to move over to the 60 cube on the evening of the 20th

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Forgot to add, nitrates at least registered this morning. To my eye, it was between 0 and 5ppm. Phosphate read .05 so my heavier feeding isn't affecting that too much, or is helping it stay relatively steady as I dose nitrates. I'll dose another 3.6ppm equivalent tonight and check again in the morning. Hard to say if the registered nitrates have had any impact, it's only been one day. It appears that the Dino's on the balk wall subsided a little bit, but the rocks are getting covered with what appears to be a type of yellow cyan again too.

Thankfully, I don't have many corals at this time so I'm not risking much beyond my pride playing with the tank right now. That being said, I do hope to improve the environment for the corals by doing this.

Radman73 · Dec 6, 2018

Tang was up to therapeutic level at about noon today. Acting perfectly normal though he completely freaks out every time I siphon out his poo.

Still fighting algae/bacteria issues in the DT. Will continue to trying to keep nitrates up and give it time to see if it can be effective.

Radman73 · Dec 19, 2018

DT issue was a bright green cyano strain. Chemi-clean worked as advertised

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Radman73 · Dec 24, 2018

Pretty good day or two so far. I placed acclimation boxes in the 60 cube Saturday in the hopes any of the fish would swim into them and I could easily transfer them over to the DT. The yellow-eye kole tang was the first so it got moved over Saturday evening and released early yesterday. Then, late last night I walk by the 60 and see both the potter's angel AND the black fin mccosckser's in one of the boxes. Twofer! So they got transferred over last night and released today.

The wrasse worried me some as it flopped like mad on the walk from the 60 to the 220, hung out upside down for a few minutes, and then cowered in a corner until about noon today. But, after a feeding, it really perked up so I opened the slider and it eventually found its way out and has been very active.

The melanarus and tang seem to have become buds, regularly swimming with each other and occasionally the potter's joins in.

The royal gramma found its way into another box this morning so I moved it over and released it around noon as well.

All that's left in the 60 is the yellow watchman and the cleaner shrimp. I'll catch those closer to lights out and release them straight to the DT.

The new fish seem to all be doing well. The yellow fin flasher and Lubbock's both hid for a while with all of the new additions. The yellow-fin is finally out and other than occasional flashing with the mccosker's has been fine. The Lubbock's has been much more shy though he's come out a couple of times. It's always been a bit of a recluse. My purple firefish hasn't been seen in days but that's also normal for that fish especially if ANYTHING has been changed in the tank. Don't think it's a bullying issue as much as a very timid fish issue.

Absolutely loving the potter's angel. Extremely active and not aggressive at all. My tailspin blenny doesn't seem to like it but the angel ignores the blenny. Extremely happy with these Christmas presents from my wife! We'll probably hold off from new fish for a bit as I have hardly any corals at the moment so we'll focus on getting some more softies, LPS, and some hardier SPS like Monti's while the take continues to mature.

Have a Merry Christmas!

Radman73 · Dec 26, 2018

Okay, I know I just wrote that I would focus on some corals next lol! But, I like corals whereas I love fish. So I have 6 lyre tail anthias, 1 male and 5 females of the Fiji variety, on order and should be here Friday. Figure it's best to get fish QT out of the way before any vacations. Corals are much easier to have in QT when away from home. That, and I'm a sucker for fish.

Radman73 · Dec 28, 2018

Got the anthias in. The male and 1 female were immediately swimming around. Other females are in hiding. From my experience, those that start swimming around right away have the best chance of survival so my initial expectations are not high.

On the bright side, they seemed to arrive at ~78 degrees for the temp so pretty happy with that. They were introduced after a 15 minute float to temp acclimate though the QT was already at 78. Salinity was already nearly spot on. I had the QT set to 1.020 and they arrived at 1.019. I quick dash of some RODI and they were good to go. I will turn on the lights and feed in a few hours to hopefully lure the rest out into the open and get them active.

Radman73 · Dec 28, 2018

Perhaps I was too quick to judge. 12 minutes later and at least 4 females and the male are active. All 5 females may be but hard to tell as they have plenty of hiding spots. Feeling a little better

. Yep, all 5. Last one just came out.

QT plan is to take this slowly unless I have to treat for something. Last time with the dispar's I was convinced that I needed to get them into copper ASAP because of the prevalence of ich and velvet so they were in copper within 2 days. With this group the plan is to wait 4-5 days to make sure they're easting and run General Cure, do the water change and run GC again 5 days later, do the water change and then start copper.

The females all look pretty small as asked for, so hoping 1 wasn't on the verge of changing or large enough to try and challenge the male.

Radman73 · Dec 28, 2018

Pic of them in QT

Radman73 · Dec 30, 2018

All 6 anthias are still alive and seem to be okay. Very difficult to see if there is anything wrong. I’m looking for discoloration that might indicate a bacterial infection or urenoma but haven’t seen anything yet. All fish are active. The females chase each other around a bit but that’s to be expected. None are hiding due to bullying.

All fish in the DT also seem healthy and happy. Fire fish is back to coming out and I’ve spotted the YWG behind the rock work. Getting what appears to be some cyano again on the sand bed. Yay.

Radman73 · Jan 1, 2019

Happy New Year!

Tried my hand at hatching baby brine shrimp last night. I was shocked at how many shrimp hatched. I was able to siphon most of them into a new container that got split between the QT tank and the DT. I have so many bubbles in my DT right now from letting my skimmer bubble over that I'm not sure how many of the fish actually saw them lol! Anthias seemed to like them. Anthias also seemingly all went after frozen brine shrimp this morning too which was good to see. Not the most nutritious but I'll take any gateway frozen food I can. They also seemed to like Nutramar Ova but it's so tiny I can't actually tell if they were eating the Ova or not. Did a WC on the QT for no other reason than my peace of mind. 1 female has taken to hanging out between the heater and glass. That one worries me. Doesn't seem to be due to bullying. Will do a significant water change tomorrow even though the ammonia alert badge looks fine and I dose 2 different bacteria in a bottle products plus a little prime daily. No meds in the water yet. She does come out to eat, so that's a good sign.

2nd batch of baby brine are going right now. It's fun to do.

For the DT. For the first time in my 8.5 years of reefing I kept my alk stable for a week lol! Calcium was stable as well. I think I finally have the DOS dialed in where it needs to be for now. My PO4 has risen to .1

with the skimmer offline since the chemi-clean application. That might explain why my cheato is growing again

. I also had cut back my fuge light from 10 hours on to 5 hours on. In any case, my efforts to increase nutrients have probably been more successful than planned or hoped for lol!

My jack-o-lantern lepto is starting to recede so I'll drop it down lower in the tank. Everything else seems to be doing okay. My one SPS doesn't really have any color but it does have decent polyp extension. Hopefully with some stability everything will at least begin to grow. I've been hesitant to open $ on coral until I got stable parameters and visual growth out of the corals I do have.

Fun times.

Radman73 · Jan 15, 2019

So, 3 of the female anthias have perished due to Urenoma. The male and the 2 remaining females appear to be okay and are about 1 week into a metro regimen.

The DT got ugly again, quick. I had not tested nitrate or phosphate in a while and they dropped to 5-10 for nitrate and .05 for phosphate. Pretty sure what I have now is dino's. I'll be breaking out the $15 microscope in the hopes of confirming what it is and if Dino's, what type. Some corals are covered and getting smothered. Fish seem fine. Just very frustrating. As soon as I get alk and calc stable, I lose track of nitrate and phosphate. Beginning to wonder if the remote fuge was a good idea. Perhaps I'm stripping nutrients out too effectively for the size of my tank?

Radman73 · Jan 18, 2019

Definitely was dino's. I ordered and installed a Jebao 55w UV sterilizer yesterday. Probably a little underpowered but the best I could get quickly and cheaply. I'll give it a week to see if there is improvement and, if not, probably order a second one lol!

3 anthias are still alive. The male and 2 females. One of the females worries me as she doesn't have consistent coloration, but she's eating and acting fine. All are now eating frozen mysis with metro/focus. Once the metro regimen is finished next week I'll transition them over to copper.

Radman73 · Jan 22, 2019

The 3 anthias have finished 2 weeks of metro in both the water column and food. They eventually all took to frozen mysis extremely well. The one female that had me worried is back to normal colors. They are now in copper and should be therapeutic by end of Friday.

Dino's are still a battle though. Ordered a 2nd 55w UV to put in series with the first one. I'm going to try dosing H2O2 as well and se if it helps. Not fun times. 3 acan frags lost and my anemone has shriveled up almost too small to be fed at this point, though I will be trying.

Radman73 · Jan 24, 2019

Boy I sure love the Hanna Copper checker. Makes treating with copper so easy. Anthias were at 1.7ppm as of last night. So the 14 day countdown has begun! All 3 are still out and acting normally, will be keeping a close eye to see if they start to show any signs of the urenoma again. The plan is to get these 3 into the 60 cube for a longer observation period and either pick up a female trio or more off DD or a LFS, put them through QT, and then into the 60 with this group. Let them hang out in the 60 together for a month or so and then move them all into the DT together.

The second UV is due to arrive today. May be my imagination or wishful thinking but the Dino's looked marginally better yesterday. Hopefully the 2nd UV pushes them over the edge into the abyss of Dino hell.

On the bright side, all the fish in the DT are doing well. The yellow fin flasher is flashing regularly but nothing more aggressive than that, and the McCosker largely ignore him lol! No chasing going on there. The tang chases the Potter's around occasionally but, again, the Potter's swims away and then back to normal. Pretty happy with the fish and hope to keep it peaceful moving forward.

Radman73 · Jan 26, 2019

Got my second 55w UV online yesterday afternoon and this morning was the first time where the tank visibly looks better. The sand especially was cleaner. Not perfect, but better. Hopefully the Dino’s are actually being dealt with.

Radman73 · Feb 7, 2019

The 3 remaining anthias, male and 2 females, have graduated to the 60 cube! They seem happy in their new surroundings, as am I. Plan is to find 4-5 more at a LFS in the middle of March, QT those, add them to the cube, and then later add them all to the DT at the same time. Praying to find a chrysus to QT and move over with them at the same time.

The dino battle continues. It appears I had a mix of ostreopsis and amphidinium. The UV, even the single one, likely cleared out the ostreopsis as there was some pretty quick improvement. But the sand and some rock based have hung around. Scoped it out and confirmed. problem is the amp's are much more difficult to get rid of, with many advocating complete removal of sand bed, waiting it out to make sure the dino's die, and then possibly adding sand back in.

However, there is a thread where some have successfully beat back amp dino's without resorting to 100% sand bed removal. A combo of dosing microbacter7, H2O2, changing out carbon weekly, dosing silicate, and siphoning the sand bed through 5 micron filter socks in combination with keeping nutrients up has had positive results for some. Since my dino problem isn't growing but rather staying pretty steady state, my hope is that adding additional strategies to what I'm already doing may help out.

The joys of reefing!

Radman73 · Feb 20, 2019

Still fighting dino’s in the DT but I might be seeing a slight improvement. Pesky buggers.

Anthias are still doing great in the 60 cube. Plan is still to buy 4-5 more females after our spring break trip, QT them, and then get them into the 60 with the other anthias for a month or so before adding them all to the DT.

And finally, clown fish eggs!!!! My pair are just shy of nine years old and this is the first time I’ve seen eggs. Too bad I can’t raise them, but exciting to see spawning behavior from the pair.

Radman73 · Mar 14, 2019

Clowns continue to spawn. And now I'm pretty sure my zebra bar gobies are spawning as well. They hang out in a cave, only come out occasionally near the entrance to grab snacks, before disappearing back into the cave. Every once in a while, like maybe 1-2 times a week, I see both of them out at the same time but they're always near the entrance to their cave. Sounds like spawning behavior to me.

My yellow watchman goby has finally made his/her way to the front of the tank. Still only see it at feeding time, but at least I see it. And it's grown quite a bit too. Nice to see that my Potter's angel and black fin McCosker's have grown as well.

Regarding dino's, the battle isn't won IMO but I am winning. Rocks look near to being perfectly clear. Sand is looking better by the week. This has been a frustrating battle, hopefully there isn't a resurgence. It's probably been close to 2 months since I did a water change. Corals, those that made it, are looking better. Some acan's are nice and puffy as is my hammer. My lone SPS is recovering lost or bleached tissue. I may even buy some new corals again.

Have 3 more female anthias in QT courtesy of Diver's Den. Was shocked that the local place wanted $45/each whereas I could get a trio from DD for $100. Only got them yesterday but the do seem healthy and well adjusted. They all eat voraciously. Plan is to observe. Knocking on wood, I have yet to have sick fish from DD, though I know it has happened. Considering TTM vs copper for these guys with the last transfer into the 60 cube with the other 3 anthias.

I also have a vermitid snail infestation. Probably as a result of raising nutrients quite high while trying to combat dino's. Hoping lower nutrients over time will reduce their numbers as there are way too many to super glue shut, probably close to a thousand. Seemingly no known predator though some haliochoeres wrasses may have eaten some. For sure, my melanarus doesn't touch them lol! I've wanted a yellow coris anyway so that may be the next fish, maybe a long with another halio or two.

Radman73 · Apr 1, 2019

Definitely time for an update.

Dino's seem to definitely be under control. This was/is a hard battle but if I have to dose MB7 and SpongeExcel for the rest of my days I'll take it lol!

1 male and 5 female lyre tail anthias finally added to the DT! This has been a long battle as well. They're a perfect addition as they add color and movement in the top half and I have a ton of swimming space for them. FTS to come in next post.

On a very sad note, we had to put down my daughter's 6yo dog due to neurological issues. I pretty much ignored the tank for a week while dealing with him and was very happy that the dino's didn't make a comeback. Losing a fish sucks, losing a dog is so much more. He had a great disposition and was always very protective of her, which I always appreciated. Now I'll need, and have time, to start paying the tank more attention again.