Kodski's 80gal office lagoon

[Kodski]

Ever since I got my female Spotbreast swallowtail angelfish I've been searching for a male. I even tried adding another female to the tank in an attempt to create a pair where one would turn male. Words cannot describe how excited and happy I am to announce that after having my LFS search for one for months my male spotbreast swallowtail angel fish finally arrived today and is now in his acclimation box. He will remain in his box until I can guarantee minimal aggression and that he is eating well. So far, no aggression from any other fish, including the female swallowtail, which is awesome.

 

[TheWB]

Ever since I got my female Spotbreast swallowtail angelfish I've been searching for a male. I even tried adding another female to the tank in an attempt to create a pair where one would turn male. Words cannot describe how excited and happy I am to announce that after having my LFS search for one for months my male spotbreast swallowtail angel fish finally arrived today and is now in his acclimation box. He will remain in his box until I can guarantee minimal aggression and that he is eating well. So far, no aggression from any other fish, including the female swallowtail, which is awesome.

I’m upgrading soon and I would like a pair of those as my centerpiece fish. That one looks great.

 

[Kodski]

I’m upgrading soon and I would like a pair of those as my centerpiece fish. That one looks great.

After having my female spotbreast since the start of the tank, I have to say she has been and always will be one of my favorite fish which is why I couldn't wait to get a male to have a pair. Very easy going but doesn't take anything from anyone if she doesn't want to. She often times breaks up fights between other fish. I look at her as the tank's mother of sorts. I'd say anyone who hasn't had a swallowtail angel in the past should definitely keep one. They are simple but beautiful fish, always swimming elegantly through the tank. Mine has tail streams over an inch in length. Always a favorite of guests and visitors.

The picture really doesn't do his colors justice, he is a wonderful specimen, I don't think I could have asked for a better fish honestly.

 

[TheWB]

After having my female spotbreast since the start of the tank, I have to say she has been and always will be one of my favorite fish which is why I couldn't wait to get a male to have a pair. Very easy going but doesn't take anything from anyone if she doesn't want to. She often times breaks up fights between other fish. I look at her as the tank's mother of sorts. I'd say anyone who hasn't had a swallowtail angel in the past should definitely keep one. They are simple but beautiful fish, always swimming elegantly through the tank. Mine has tail streams over an inch in length. Always a favorite of guests and visitors.

The picture really doesn't do his colors justice, he is a wonderful specimen, I don't think I could have asked for a better fish honestly.

I’m jealous, They look really good. I can’t wait to get a pair. I had the opportunity recently to get a female that was about 4” but my tank is just too small and I didn’t want to do that to the fish. It was tempting though. Looking forward to seeing yours together.

 

[Kodski]

I’m jealous, They look really good. I can’t wait to get a pair. I had the opportunity recently to get a female that was about 4” but my tank is just too small and I didn’t want to do that to the fish. It was tempting though. Looking forward to seeing yours together.

I see females all the time and honestly I'd recommend just finding a pair right off the bat. Angel fish aggression is a real thing. As my LFS guru put it, "you're giving her the mate she doesn't know she wants."

 

[Kodski]

Its been a long week. I'm very sad to report that the male swallowtail did not survive. I'm unsure of the cause of death but it just seemed to be stress related. Also, randomly the tribal blenny passed away. I'm really not sure what happened. He was fine and eating well per usual and later I noticed he was white and stiff as I walked by. Such a sad week.

On the bright side, it seems after a few months of slower growth due to fluctuating phosphates, growth seems to be on the up swing again.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Guess who has the day off and guess what the plan for the day is? Here, a picture or two might help!

Dang thats a big ol' hole in the floor, is that going to be used for the 180g tank too, that tank is looking to permanent to be temporary.

Looks sweet great build process!

 

[Kodski]

Dang thats a big ol' hole in the floor, is that going to be used for the 180g tank too, that tank is looking to permanent to be temporary.

Looks sweet great build process!

I cut the hole to fit a 10"x4" floor register cover. That way in the event that I move I wont have to redo any flooring. The plan is down the road to replace this tank with a 180 or larger utilizing the same hole in the floor. We are getting married in October and I plan on upgrading shortly after. I'm thinking a tank that 72"x30"x24".

 

[Kodski]

Added a new addition to the tank this weekend. A male pintail fairy wrasse. He is eating well and getting along with everyone just fine. Love his coloration and pattern.

Everyone else is doing well. Coral continues to grow as well.

 

[Kodski]

Some changes to the tank are coming. To prepare I picked up this 6-bulb Ati fixture for $125 shipped. I’ve been wanting to try out T5 as I’ve never actually had a T5 light before and I just couldn’t pass up a deal like that.

 

[Kodski]

Well its been a tough last few months. I woke up one day and lost about 75% of my SPS and over the course of the next few days my losses continued until I was left with only about 6 sps frags which continue to barely hold on. I also lost several acan's and goni's. As many can imagine and many can sympathize, I lost motivation and the tank just received the bare minimum attention. I can't explain the losses and have no clue what happened. My last batch of Tropic Marin Salt was from Turkey, but I had used that batch over the course of 6 months without any issue. I did do a water change a few days before the loss with the last bit of the salt from Turkey, but everything was fine for a few days before it took a down turn. Since my last post, I also lost, my fox face, one anthias, tribal blenny, and possum wrasse. It seems everything has been stable for the last few weeks now and (knock on wood) I haven't seen a lost coral or fish either.

I've spent the better part of the day, going through things in the tank and sump. Cleaning, pulling out dead corals, ect. I still need to do some testing to figure out where my parameters are at so I can go from there. I'm hoping to get all the corals happy and healthy again before they get moved into the new 190gal tank that will replace this tank.

 

[Projects with Sam]

Well its been a tough last few months. I woke up one day and lost about 75% of my SPS and over the course of the next few days my losses continued until I was left with only about 6 sps frags which continue to barely hold on. I also lost several acan's and goni's. As many can imagine and many can sympathize, I lost motivation and the tank just received the bare minimum attention. I can't explain the losses and have no clue what happened. My last batch of Tropic Marin Salt was from Turkey, but I had used that batch over the course of 6 months without any issue. I did do a water change a few days before the loss with the last bit of the salt from Turkey, but everything was fine for a few days before it took a down turn. Since my last post, I also lost, my fox face, one anthias, tribal blenny, and possum wrasse. It seems everything has been stable for the last few weeks now and (knock on wood) I haven't seen a lost coral or fish either.

I've spent the better part of the day, going through things in the tank and sump. Cleaning, pulling out dead corals, ect. I still need to do some testing to figure out where my parameters are at so I can go from there. I'm hoping to get all the corals happy and healthy again before they get moved into the new 190gal tank that will replace this tank.

Oh man; I'm sorry to hear about your losses. excited to hear about the tank upgrade! Makes me leary about getting more SPS... really need to stay on top of it.

 

[Kodski]

Well my upgrade tank didn’t pan out so this tank is going to stick around for a while longer. In the meantime, since I lost almost all my sps, I’ll be converting this to a LPS tank. The plan is to change the lighting over the ATI 6 bulb T5 and use the ReefBright actinic strips for color pop. I want to do this to get a little better par distribution towards the ends of the tank as even for lps it seems to be lacking on the ends. I also hope this will allow me to lower the average par in the tank to accommodate more lps. Currently it’s quite high (some of my lps is currently under over 200 par) and I think this is why my lps isn’t doing as well as it could be. The tank is so shallow that it’s either too much light or not enough light. Which is why I’ve decided to focus more on lps than a mixed reef.

On a side note, I decided it was time to clean up my powerheads since I can’t remember the last time I did so. Looks like it was well past time to do so.

 

[Kodski]

I decided to hang the T5 lights over the weekend. I hung them pretty high to keep par levels down. I watched and read BRS’ testing on the ATI 6 bulb fixture and estimated that I wanted the fixture roughly 12 inches above the water to hit my par goals throughout the tank. I also had to keep in mind that I wanted to use my ReefBright 30” Actinic bars and that they add a bit of par as well. I really thought I’d miss the Kessil shimmer of my AP700, but honestly.. I’m loving the look. I went with blue+,actinic,blue+,blue+,Coral+,blue+ For a bulb combo and the ReefBright make the color just that much better. Over the last couple days the LPS have been extended more than I’ve seen in a while. I think they are responding well to the lower par.

the only downside is how bright the fixture is. It floods my office with light and even spills into the dining room. I’m sure in part to how high above the tank I have it hung. So my fiancé asked me to make a hood for the light to help a bit with the light spill. I just made a simple pine hood and burnt it with a blow torch to add some contrast to the white stand and wall the tank is against. I think it turned out nice for a quick two hour project.

 

[Projects with Sam]

looks good! neat finish

 

[Chlorinated]

I decided to hang the T5 lights over the weekend. I hung them pretty high to keep par levels down. I watched and read BRS’ testing on the ATI 6 bulb fixture and estimated that I wanted the fixture roughly 12 inches above the water to hit my par goals throughout the tank. I also had to keep in mind that I wanted to use my ReefBright 30” Actinic bars and that they add a bit of par as well. I really thought I’d miss the Kessil shimmer of my AP700, but honestly.. I’m loving the look. I went with blue+,actinic,blue+,blue+,Coral+,blue+ For a bulb combo and the ReefBright make the color just that much better. Over the last couple days the LPS have been extended more than I’ve seen in a while. I think they are responding well to the lower par.

the only downside is how bright the fixture is. It floods my office with light and even spills into the dining room. I’m sure in part to how high above the tank I have it hung. So my fiancé asked me to make a hood for the light to help a bit with the light spill. I just made a simple pine hood and burnt it with a blow torch to add some contrast to the white stand and wall the tank is against. I think it turned out nice for a quick two hour project.

You did that in 2hrs? Great work!

 

[Kodski]

looks good! neat finish

Thanks! I've been doing a lot of the burnt wood finish lately. I did an enclosure for our bearded dragon and threw together an island for a friend with similar finishes.

You did that in 2hrs? Great work!

Yup, nothing too complicated but I do tend to hammer things out once I have a vision in my head. The bearded dragon enclosure took me a weekend, but that was much more complicated and I had to let silicone dry. The island for my friend only took about 8 hours with a few interruptions.

 

[Kodski]

Well the tank is slowly but surely back on the right track after the big SPS die off. Two pieces remain, a teal stag and red monti cap. We will see if those will turn around in the coming few weeks.

As far as issues with the tank, the ALK had dropped significantly from where I usually like to keep it. Dropping to 5 DKH at one point. I've been testing and dosing to bring it back up over the last few weeks and today finally I think we are back around the 8 DKH mark. I've been keeping my doser on a constant schedule to try and keep it consistent and dosing by hand to bring the overall level up.

Calcium has been over 500 for some time so I took the doser off line for the time being. I can't seem to figure out how the heck the tank uses so much ALK but almost no calcium since the corals are not not growing right now. Coraline algae grows like crazy but I figure that would use a bunch of calcium. Today I tested calcium and it tested right at 500, so it seems like its finally dropping. I'll continue to monitor.


Nitrates and phosphates... with such a large skimmer on the tank you wouldn't think I would have issues with N03 and P04, but I do. P04 hit a max of 0.3 ppm and N03 hit 40 ppm. I did start using some rowaphos and eventually transitioned to Brightwell's X-port. While they worked at lowering the levels, I felt that it was too difficult to maintain any sort of target level. So on August 3rd I threw some cheato in the sump and put a 32watt LED grow light from The Home Depot over it. August 17th I tested P04 at 0.2 ppm down from 0.3 ppm. Today I tested P04 at 0.1 ppm. HORRAY! Nitrates seem to still be hovering around 40 ppm though and don't want to budge. I'm fine with higher Nitrates as long as the corals don't seem to care. I do plan on doing a 30 gallon water change in the next day or two so hopefully that will help lower the nitrates some. Ideally I'd like to see nitrates around 20-25ppm.


In other fish related news, I had to remove the coral beauty from the tank last night. The last two months I've noticed I hardly see the coral beauty at all, to the point where I keep thinking she is dead. This is really odd as she has always been a very active fish, constantly swimming back and forth and one of the first fish to eat at feeding time. I for the life of me couldn't figure out why she was basically hiding away in her hole and never coming out. Well last night I got my answer. During feeding time I noticed she was actually out for once and I watched her to see if she was eating. She was completely ignoring the food which is unlike her. Then out of nowhere the swallowtail angle dives in and starts viciously attacking her. She was so weak that I scooped her up with a net without a fight. I put her in the sump for the time being. She appears to be doing a bit better today, but her fins are in taters and she has sores all over. Looks like she will have to go back to the LFS. All in all, its weird that the swallowtail would do this as the coral beauty was always the one to beat on the swallowtail. I'm not sure what changed in the tank dynamic that would cause this as both have been about the same size since introduction to the tank. I'm thinking the tank is ultimately just too small to keep two angels safely. I'm sure looking forward to an upgrade in the future.

 

[Projects with Sam]

Check your Magnesium; I think Corals' ability to uptake Calcium is dependent on some Magnesium. Sorry about your Coral Beauty.

 

[Kodski]

Check your Magnesium; I think Corals' ability to uptake Calcium is dependent on some Magnesium. Sorry about your Coral Beauty.

Great point. I do actually monitor Magnesium, I test twice a month. The last two tests have been 1470 and today tested at 1350. Usually its somewhere above 1400 naturally. I rarely have to dose any magnesium. Which just makes me even more stumped as to why my calcium uptake is so low currently.