Kyle's Reef

Kyl · Aug 29, 2017

Shrimp has really taken to the anemone, hopefully the clowns won't kill it.. I had hoped it would host on the plate coral, but what can you do..

Actually, the porcelain crab won't leave the anemone either!

Fish back in this coming Monday

hockeyhead019 · Aug 30, 2017

The nem is looking great! Did it move around a ton when you first put it in? 20g seems kinda small for a nem, any concerns?

Side note, I picked through your flickr, awesome pictures!!

Kyl · Aug 30, 2017

It's moved two times, but all on the same rock. One was induced by removing the MP10 and adding two Jebao SW-2's, then the clowns started being hosted and it moved again to the current area. It has killed a few things moving, but the purple monticap it brushes against all the time now seems to be doing completely fine. I can't seem to open flickr right now, but there should be a picture to show it's size growth that shows where it was originally. It's killed two acros, forced me to remove another encrusted one (pink lemonade mini colony) and stun the duncan down to barely two heads.

* here's the photo showing the original location before it started moving:

Moved to #2 when changing powerhead flow in tank
Moved to #3 after hosting clowns

In total during the two moves it killed or forced relocation of:
1 x Cali Tort frag (dead)
1 x Red Planet frag (dead)
1 x Pink Lemonade mini colony (moved)
1 x Forestfire Digiata frag (lost most, salvaged base, moved)
1 x Duncan frag (lost 5 of 7 heads, moved)

As to having them in a nano, I've had zero issues with water quality for the anemone, but space is a concern. I can't really do much with that rock now, when it expands the whole top is taken up. When the clowns are back in it will probably go back to it's very large inflated size.

Kyl · Sep 12, 2017

Fish are back in for a week so far and life is almost back to normal. The assessor has been hiding for most of the time back, but is slowly coming out to swim in the open. Unfortunately I think the pompom crab must be smacking him around as he's been getting pretty haggard, and I don't see any of the other fish picking on him when he's out and about. The little cave he's sitting in, upside down, is where the pompom frequently hides during the daytime, so for now I'll chose to blame her..

The female clown hasn't taken to fully being hosted again, but the male sure has. He's been sitting at the edges and underneath the the front of the anemone for the past couple days, kind of comical as the female darts around the back looking for him then he'll come out and do his little submissive wiggle routine for a bit then rush back under. I am glad to see that the porcelain crab hasn't been harmed yet, nor the anemone shrimp.

Some frags were moved out to the 65 gallon with ich fallow having been completed, and I'm setting to re-grow the birdsnest from a tiny frag of the second now ~6" colony, that was also grown from a single stick of the initial frag - turned colony. I still can't believe that there's about 13 - 14 total inchs of growth from that birdsnest in just under 18 months, it would probably be the side of a volleyball if never fragged and lost. There's still far too much clutter in the tank, lots of snail shells and rock rubble to remove, but I haven't gotten around to trying to re-attempt the frag tank again and I don't want to litter the 65 either. I think the reality of things is I have corals that are just getting too large to co-exist well, coupled with the anemone taking up most of the rock when it feels like extending.

This has all been leading up to a big reason why I've sort of been letting things stay somewhat stagnant, build plans are being finalized for a major tank upgrade this winter. While it will no longer be nano in dimensions, it will remain nano in livestock stature. The character many of these small fish have would just be lost in a sea of giants..

Kyl · Sep 15, 2017

Design plans have been sent to the tank builder..

Probably going to have to move build threads when that's done!

On a livestock note, I may have figured out what's been happening to the assessor. There is a tiny crevice below the red montipora that he's been squeezing through to get into a little pocket behind it. I've observed it about four times this evening, so I think this dumb fish has been causing himself those injuries!

Kyl · Sep 16, 2017

The clowns have been losing the anemone battle to the porcelain crab, they look like two sad puppies hiding out below the anemone now.

And the monti cap is really going strong, starting to overgrow itself into the tiered platform look so common to the larger colonies.

Kyl · Sep 19, 2017

Put the request in with the LFS for more nano stock. If they come in early, I have a 20 long that will be fine for a few months (post QT).

1x White Banded Possum Wrasse (Wetmorella albofasciata)
1x Yasha Ray Goby (Stonogobiops yasha)

Candycane pistol shrimp are quite common, I may just get a 10 gallon running for inverts again and pick one up.

Stocking goal when in the 60 gallon will be:

2x Ocellaris Clownfish
1x Pink-Streaked Wrasse
1x Tailspot Blenny
1x Gold Assessor Basslet
2x Greenbanded Gobies
1x White Banded Possum Wrasse
1x Yasha Ray Goby

Still thinking of what smaller things would be a good fit..

Syoung · Sep 19, 2017

All these corals look great! Especially pictures taken on an S4.

To keep such a stocked tank, especially with SPS, what sort of dosing were you doing for the 20?

Kyl · Sep 19, 2017

Hah, believe me the tank has had more ups and downs, it really has been a challenge for some stretches with more losses than I have been comfortable with. I still believe it’s in the tail end of recovery, dosing was re-started again maybe two months ago. Up to around 8ml/day of DIY 2part ALK / Ca, manually dosing Mg if I find it starting to drift. I test ALK bi-weekly, Ca/Mg weekly, aiming for 8.5 / 420 / 1350, PH is around 7.9 – 8.2 daily. It’s run on Aquaforest Reef Salt, which mixes close to that. I did slow down on water changes about four months ago and that seemed to really help get things turned around. Now I do about 2 gallons every two weeks, previous it was about a 5 gallon bucket every week.

The small water volume really makes things tricky, I’ve learned to get better testing consistency and made some changes kit wise that I think have made a difference. The largest hurdle has been lack of room, and the former inability to share coral between both of my tanks easily due to disease concerns (velvet & ich) since this tank never had any type of quarantine done on it, and just coral dips for frags.

That said, it should be getting a large upgrade within the next 6 months, and there will be a ~30 gallon stand-alone frag tank for invert and coral QT so I can start splitting frags and getting new pieces. The S4 I had nothing but trouble with until a local reefer did something to the camera white balance and told me not to touch it. Now it looks almost perfect depending on the actinic strength when the picture is taken, but those settings are all foreign to me.

Kyl · Oct 5, 2017

After some hiccups I had a nice long talk with the tank builder today and things are just about set. A few changes to my design that will work better, some other upgrades and a time frame of 4-6 weeks, so it should be arriving just before Christmas. This weekend I think it's time to tear down and clean up the coral skeleton graveyard in the 10, get the last of my marco rock set up and start to get it cooking with coraline.

There is also a Canadian Thanksgiving livestock sale starting Saturday at the LFS, so I'm going to be picking up a few fish for the upgrade:

p. Cyaneus - Blue Flasher Wrasse
p. Mccoskeri - McCoskers Flasher Wrasse
Elacatinus oceanops x E. figaro - Hybrid Cleaner Goby

Along with the stock on order, the list for the 60 gallon upgrade should look like this:

2x Ocellaris Clownfish
1x Pink-Streaked Wrasse
1x Tailspot Blenny
1x Gold Assessor Basslet
2x Greenbanded Gobies
1x White Banded Possum Wrasse
1x Yasha Ray Goby
1x Blue Flasher Wrasse
1x McCoskers Flasher Wrasse
1x Hybrid Cleaner Goby

Still debating something like a yellow-head jawfish, or a few barnacle blennies. Going to be a lot of real estate with almost 4x the display volume, will have to see how things settle out.

Kyl · Oct 17, 2017

I have been having some phosphate creep in the tank and it's been causing some SPS recession. It had been holding at about .03ppm, but has crept up to .05 in the last couple weeks. I had been letting slip the carbon/GFO change, which is probably where that is coming from. A bit of lanthanum chloride and it's been knocked back down to .025 over the last week or so. Alk consumption continues to increase though, up to 10ml/day now, most of that can probably be attributed to the plating montis.

The assessor is visibly fully healed now and its yellow colouring is starting to get a bit more pronounced. The clowns are still somewhat evicted from the RBTA, both the porcelain crab and anemone shrimp are keeping them out of it during the daytime. Still look like sad puppies sulking underneath the bubbletips disc, especially the male. I did finally see the flame lip conch this past weekend, I hadn't seen it for weeks and assumed it had died under the rockwork. What accessible sand there is has been looking a lot better than it had prior to the conch additions.

Took a while but the nano-tank upgrade is officially under construction! I'm being given a 4-6 week time frame for production, hoping it turns out to be a very nice looking tank. 48 x 18 x 16 rimless, a shallow tank with black back glass and an external weir overflow, big sump, and a 36" steel stand. There's been some minor functional changes with the sump and stand, but the gist of it is in my Flickr album. Going to be an early Christmas present to myself, and will also have a stand alone frag tank (30 x 22 x 10) to grow out trimmings and quarantine all incoming coral and inverts. Now to work on the life support equipment, it's probably going to be similar to my 65 gallon tank..

Wankell · Oct 18, 2017

Im curious how you do the Seachem Matrix in the chambers, do you use a caddy?

Kyl · Oct 18, 2017

I have two of the intank caddies, with the middle "shelf" removed and just put in there. Every few months I'll take them out and give a quick RO rinse just to get any junk that's gotten settled in them out.

Wankell · Oct 18, 2017

Kyl said:
I have two of the intank caddies, with the middle "shelf" removed and just put in there. Every few months I'll take them out and give a quick RO rinse just to get any junk that's gotten settled in them out.

Nice, thank you.

Kyl · Oct 27, 2017

2017-10-26 20:06 Magnesium 1600
2017-10-26 19:53 Calcium 430
2017-10-26 19:44 Nitrate 0.5
2017-10-26 19:28 Phosphate 0.03
2017-10-26 19:19 Alkalinity 7.5

Magnesium seems to be creeping up again, either the consumption is really low or the AF reef salt is spiking it a bit, or both (1600ppm). There continues to be SPS bleaching on the red plating montipora, but visually it looks free of anything. Surprisingly my nitrates is visibly reading at zero or near zero on the RedSea kit, wondering if that can be some of the problem source as well. The last test for it was done on the 7th and it was around 2ppm.

Also been giving serious thought to upgrading the lighting by adding T5's with the new Aquatic Life hybrid fixture and focusing the middle of the tank on a pure acro rock, but that will probably be something for early in the new year. Everything new will have to be run through 72 days in the fallow frag tank first. In going with the T5 upgrade though, it may allow me to salvage one of the A160's for the frag tank and run the same setup (but with a 24" fixture). Still undecided on how to light that tank..

Kyl · Nov 3, 2017

Moving on with new equipment for the tank move, it's looking to be rounding out similar to my other tank.

Tank: Concept Aquariums 12mm Rimless with external weir overflow (48"L x 18"W x 16"H)
Stand: 48"L x 23.5"W x 36"H powder-coated steel stand
Sump: 44" x 18" x 16" custom, with a single 7" filter sock and a very large refugium area
Heater: Finnex Deluxe Titanium 300W
Skimmer: IceCap K2-160
Powerheads: 2x Maxspect XF230 Gyre

I'm going to over-size the skimmer somewhat with an Icecap K2-160, if it doesn't work out the K2-120 on the 65 gallon tank will be swapped in since it's running a higher bio-load. The gyres are a no-brainer, but I'm still hoping that Maxspect and Neptune get their stuff in order and get the ICV6 hub control for Apex released. I will not be spending $350 on two gyre modules, that's for sure.

The lighting has gone back and forth, and the plan is still to think about picking up one of the new AquaticLife hybrid T5 fixtures, and run 2-3 of the Kessil A160WE's with it. The T5 addition would be a big help going forward with what's intended for the tank, shadowing is the largest issue and T5 would solve that. Just because the fish are to remain small doesn't mean the SPS ambitions are. The current rock work will be split towards the ends of the tank, and a new middle portion will be an arch topped with multiple types of acropora. The return pump and refugium light are still up for debate, but the tank won't be here for at least 5 weeks, and the chaeto lighting is even further off for a requirement.

There hasn't been much luck with new livestock in the past few months, QT has been rough with losses of a yellow-head jawfish and McCoskers flasher wrasse. I'm changing things up and going to resume having new arrivals in a 20L to acclimate and get feeding well for a bit, then start them on copper (unless ich/velvet break out immediately). Tank-transfer might just be too stressful on the current fish I'm trying to acquire, or the general health is just lower. The inverts in QT are still doing great, the Candycane pistol has molted once, but he's so tiny I don't want to lose it in the 20G until the Yasha goby arrives.

Thankfully the tank is doing better than last update, tissue loss has again stopped and starting to grow, the monticap's colour is also starting to bounce back. Fish are all doing great, the clowns are still mostly evicted from the RBTA, and I've seen the conch quite regularly now. DKH has also stabilized at 9ml/day, calcium 6ml/day. Magnesium is elevated at 1580, but it will continue to drop with water changes.

Always something on the go!

Kyl · Nov 15, 2017

Getting closer!

build_1 by Kyl , on Flickr

Daniel@R2R · Nov 17, 2017

Cool! Following the tank move. Also, that nem is a beauty!

Kyl · Nov 17, 2017

Thanks. Perfect time of year (aside from being the worst possible for my job) to get the new tank going with all the sales that will be here imminently. I'm really interested to see how the sump comes out, it was quite specific.