Kyle's Reef

Kyl · Aug 11, 2018

Today was invert re-stock day for the frag/qt tank:

2x Orange-lipped conch
3x Emerald Crab
2x Feather Duster
1x Tuxedo Urchin
1x Candycane Pistol Shrimp

LFS also got in some possum wrasses, but discretion got the best of me and I had to pass for now. Need to focus on getting these current guys out of QT and into the DT, which hopefully should be soon. I'm just taking it really slow and want to make sure I don't see any signs of aberrant behavior or physical spots from ich. I'm hoping by next weekend the tank that had been under therapeutic copper for longer, will be transferred out (blue flasher, springer's damsel, redhead goby).

Kyl · Aug 22, 2018

Update day:

All three of the QT emerald crabs have died off, wondering if there was something amiss with their water vs my tank. All other inverts bought are doing great including both feather dusters
Nitrates were still reading undetectable a day after dosing
Took the refugium lighting offline shortly after the last update, and removed all the Seachem Pond Matrix from the sump
Nitrates the past week have started to read detectable between dosing
Cyano / dinos are receding almost in lockstep
SPS frags have lost a bit of colour, I will lay it on the nutrient issue. No tissue loss / bleaching, still great polyp extension
LPS are holding well, the torch is showing better extension than when in the frag tank
Clams are doing excellently, now I have to figure out the final position for their rocks
Being paranoid about ich so still fish are in final observation mode with the QT tanks.
Picked up some more SPS (Purple Bonsai acropora / Mystic Sunset montipora), and have made a bit of a list of my final non-crazy priced pieces
Tigger pod culture sort of crashed but I still have a number of them and am not worried, did a big water change on the culture tank
I broke down and picked up that white possum wrasse, it's in the beginning dosage of copper now with the yasha goby. Eating like a pig, looks so cute
One of the sunblaster T5 fixtures on the frag tank isn't working, it was one of the original brand new ones.
Almost the same timing, I'm on the verge of picking up another Aquaticlife hybrid fixture, 24" for the frag tank. Just waiting on a final check

purple_bonsai_acro by Kyl, on Flickr
Showing a nice purple with lighter tips and that classic fluorescent green polyp. Mystic monti is behind it sort of hidden. Really need to get a proper camera, this thing has awful contrast everything is sort of purple tinted now.

My want list for SPS is getting smaller, pretty much only this left:
Red Planet Acropora
Blue Matrix Acropora
Sunset Millepora
Some other non-insanely priced Millepora

That should about do it

NY_Caveman · Aug 22, 2018

Kyl said:
Update day:

All three of the QT emerald crabs have died off, wondering if there was something amiss with their water vs my tank. All other inverts bought are doing great including both feather dusters

Nitrates were still reading undetectable a day after dosing

Took the refugium lighting offline shortly after the last update, and removed all the Seachem Pond Matrix from the sump

Nitrates the past week have started to read detectable between dosing

Cyano / dinos are receding almost in lockstep

SPS frags have lost a bit of colour, I will lay it on the nutrient issue. No tissue loss / bleaching, still great polyp extension

LPS are holding well, the torch is showing better extension than when in the frag tank

Clams are doing excellently, now I have to figure out the final position for their rocks

Being paranoid about ich so still fish are in final observation mode with the QT tanks.

Picked up some more SPS (Purple Bonsai acropora / Mystic Sunset montipora), and have made a bit of a list of my final non-crazy priced pieces

Tigger pod culture sort of crashed but I still have a number of them and am not worried, did a big water change on the culture tank

I broke down and picked up that white possum wrasse, it's in the beginning dosage of copper now with the yasha goby. Eating like a pig, looks so cute

One of the sunblaster T5 fixtures on the frag tank isn't working, it was one of the original brand new ones.

Almost the same timing, I'm on the verge of picking up another Aquaticlife hybrid fixture, 24" for the frag tank. Just waiting on a final check

purple_bonsai_acro by Kyl, on Flickr
Showing a nice purple with lighter tips and that classic fluorescent green polyp. Mystic monti is behind it sort of hidden. Really need to get a proper camera, this thing has awful contrast everything is sort of purple tinted now.

My want list for SPS is getting smaller, pretty much only this left:
Red Planet Acropora
Blue Matrix Acropora
Sunset Millepora
Some other non-insanely priced Millepora

That should about do it

Always been a big fan of the GARF Bonsai Acropora valida. A classic that has withstood the test of time.

Sorry about your Emeralds

Kyl · Aug 23, 2018

NY_Caveman said:
Always been a big fan of the GARF Bonsai Acropora valida. A classic that has withstood the test of time.

Sorry about your Emeralds

Not sure if it's a true GARF clone, but it looked very close in the guys tank. It was lit with AI primes and when I got it home the dark purple is really vibrant. Love the colour, good polyp extension today too after getting home from picking up more frags after work.

--------------------------------------

Speaking of which, another update I'm in acro hoarding mode right now, three more pieces tonight:

Red Dragon Acropora (mini-colony, about 2.5 - 3" round)
Purple Valida Acropora (2" with a few stems)
No-name sort of pinkish acro with a tiny bit of yellow on the end of the tips, and a really fuzzy looking polyp (2" but a thicker piece).

I'm sure this no-named piece will colour up into something else, the lighting they were under was pretty washed out from some really budget looking LED's, and they weren't black boxes. The red dragon was pretty bland looking but in the frag tank now it has a nice subtle red/pink glow under the blackbox/blue+ T5's.

Also lining up the finishing touches for my SPS list as noted earlier, they're all locally sourced and I just have to arrange visits to pick up now. I know that there's been rants in some of my posts about being on the wrong side of the border, and I still do envy what the US market has access to for livestock/coral, but I do feel lucky to have a lot of local hobbyists that seem to span the gamut from low end no names to the higher end pieces if your wallet is ready. And the newest importer guy around has had a bunch of Indo millepora for a few months so perhaps this weekend or next I'll take a drive out there and see how they're looking.

Regardless, this is a lot of sticks in total and I'm going to be waiting intently as they run through 76 days fallow. I'm figuring they'll be in the DT by Christmas. Frag tank is getting fuller, and I should have some better pictures happening.. soon...

Kyl · Aug 23, 2018

Now to learn how to use this thing.. At least Facebook bidding sites become useful for once! A six month or so old Olympus TG-5 snagged for $190. Some kid got it for a birthday present, liked her phone camera better. Never seen water, yet

Behold the bubble algae I hope starts to whittle away soon.

tank_test_1 by Kyl, on Flickr

frag_test_1 by Kyl, on Flickr

frag_test_2 by Kyl, on Flickr

frag_test_3 by Kyl, on Flickr

Kyl · Aug 26, 2018

Almost done the collection..

Added:

Red Planet Acropora
Ice-Fire Prostrata
Vibrant Pink Millepora
Sunset Millepora
Superman Montipora

Overlooked picking up the blue matrix yesterday ;Facepalm, but aside from that I think the stick list is done. That rock will be packed, and aside from something like a trachy or similar for the sand, I think the coral list is going to be done.

Still learning this whole new world of a real camera, and what happens when you take it off of automatic.. too purple versus the other shots.

frag_test_4 by Kyl, on Flickr

Kyl · Aug 28, 2018

Think I found a possible explanation for some of my troubles the last while. I was getting low on Hanna ULR Phosphorus reagents and picked up a new pack today. Upon looking closer at the last two of the previous box, they were marked EXP 09/17... Not sure how I missed that, but I tested twice with new reagents since getting home, and even went over to another reefer who lives close by and my water samples are all testing within 2-3 points of 40 on both our checkers and his reagent, ie. 0.12 ppm PO4. I tested again after returning with the last two remaining reagents and they both read 7 twice. For the last number of months all my testing has shown 7-8, or .02 - .03 ppm after conversion, and I have to assume this has been false for a while.

It didn't make sense with some things showing up, the birdsnest tanking and a few other things, but I'm hoping it has all been PO4 related. All this elevated feeding to get detectable nitrates has obviously had an accruing affect on PO4, which I thought was fine, but thankfully it's fairly easy to correct with materials on hand. Normally I wouldn't use lanthanum chloride but I haven't had GFO since running out when the nano was online and prefer a variant that isn't stocked locally. Going to space the reduction over the week with a couple drops of LaCl3 per day, with 14-15 total it should be back around .04ppm PO4. Four drops this evening and the tank is reading right around .1ppm now after two tests.

Now some better news, KNO3 hasn't been dosed since Friday morning and NO3 is still reading around 3ppm, so perhaps I've hit the consumption wall with that and will only need to periodically top it up now. SPS in the frag system are all doing great, no pieces are showing any tissue loss and my first re-stock from earlier this month are finally starting to encrust over the glue. There was also a small emerald crab attached to the underside of my green hulk, so at least 1/3 of them did survive and I must have just mistaken one molt for a true body.

Kyl · Aug 29, 2018

My copepod sieves finally arrived today after 7 weeks, stuck in mail limbo somewhere between England and Vancouver.

stacking_sieves_1 by Kyl, on Flickr

stacking_sieves_2 by Kyl, on Flickr

Going to cross-post instead of re-writing from the tigger copepod thread:

Hoping this makes things much easier, 250 / 125 / 50 micron, stack-able sieves. I wanted to be able to simply take one of these, swish it through the tank and go right into the DT. While the little shrimp net from petsmart worked, they'd get stuck in the seams and it was just a hassle. This is about as simple as you can get. Could have made something similar, but after factoring in sourcing the mesh and my time, it was worth the 15 bucks to buy a set.

More sad news, I hadn't seen the Yasha in a few days and it was usually in a spot of the small QT tank. I had done a water change in the tank on Sunday, and I'm guessing in a small window between me taking the lid off and getting the siphon tube in, it must have jumped. I found a crispy Yasha behind my desk, I guess it wasn't just meant to be with me and shrimp gobies. The crappy thing now is I already have the pistol shrimp, so kind of need to get another shrimp goby. That Yasha was on a wait list for over a year, so I may just get a more common goby to go along with it. Possibly a hi-fin, Randals.. still not sure. Fallow on the frag tank hasn't started yet, so I have a while to decide.

The good news for that tank though is the white banded possum wrasse is really starting to fatten up, though its colours are still faded.

Wetmorella_albofasciata by Kyl, on Flickr

It's being fed small mysis soaked in selcon every day, and I'm adding just a tiny bit of PE calanus to the mix as well. Really almost the exact same behavior that my pink streak wrasse had when in my nano tank, love those buggy cryptic eyes. It's almost at therapeutic levels of copper now, 1.2ppm, but have been doing a very slow ramp of about .3 ppm per day. That's what that water change was primarily done for, to get the water as good as I could for the next four weeks of therapeutic. I have not seen any signs of flashing, scratching or any specs, but it's not worth risking my DT to short cut a few weeks.

DT PO4 is down to .04ppm, had a bit of a loose drip on the last of the dosing drips so it dropped a bit faster than I wanted, but nothing appears to be shocked. I can already tell a difference with the euphyllia in the tank, fully inflating again and the polyps on the gorgonian are super big again. It had previously been fighting off that slime film algae, thankfully I didn't lose any tissue on it.

And now the final musing, AWC. There is a DOS locally for $150 that I've already secured but haven't picked up yet. Strongly considering setting up an automatic water change system with tanks in the other closet, to the tank and running the waste line into the RO waste line on the laundry drain. I want to keep on top of water changes for the 60, about 10% weekly, and I know at least for the summer that has been put off some weeks, or pushed to later in the week, etc etc. That and the whole bucket routine doesn't play well with laminate flooring. If not, that dos was still cheap and can be put to use in other ways, but it's very tempting to give this a shot. Still need to do some more research on things, but I think it could work out very well.

Kyl · Sep 2, 2018

Sort of not related, but very related story from last night. The new Android ApexFusion app came out and ugh, OS 6.0+ required. This Galaxy S4 is stuck running on 5.0.1 and any updates are long since abandoned on this old platform. I've wanted to root my phone and try and get rid of the OEM crapware for a while but really never got into it. Well now I was motivated to see if I could breath some new life into this phone, and get that darn app working.

Pretty technically inclined by nature having built the headless storage server / vm station / all the various systems here, but the phone arena is something else. A few hours of trials, half an hour of disgust at bricking my phone, and then jubilation as it wasn't bricked but just a quirk required to get things going and poof. About 10 minutes of loading, a scorching spot on the phone and there was a pristine, welcome to Android final setup process. So, in a round about way, thank you @Terence and the software guys at Neptune. Hello Android 8.1 (via LineageOS 15.5), Apex Fusion app and holy $)@* this phone is fast again.

Now, back to the tank. After a lot of reading and feedback from some pm's I'm convinced AWC is the way to go, so it's time to source a 50 gallon Norwesco #41865. The DOS will be located in the RODI closet and linked by a ~30' USB cord to the unit so when the heads are running it's not audible to the tank room. Waste line can feed into the washer drain, seems like a plan.

Lastly, was cleaning out the frag tank of some "dead" skeletons tonight and saw a spec of neon green on the cyphastrea frag from the clam order earlier this year. I guess something did survive, that's about ~2mm of tissue regenerating. Similarly, some birdsnest dead skeleton I threw in there as well, tiny polyps are returning.

cyphastrea_reborn by Kyl, on Flickr

birdsnest_reborn by Kyl, on Flickr

Kyl · Sep 4, 2018

Least you can't really see the bubble algae at night!

FTS_September_2018 by Kyl, on Flickr

Not sure why Youtube butches the quality so badly, guess it's their codec.

NY_Caveman · Sep 4, 2018

Kyl said:
Least you can't really see the bubble algae at night!

FTS_September_2018 by Kyl, on Flickr

Not sure why Youtube butches the quality so badly, guess it's their codec.

Did you upload with desktop or WiFi? Did you change it in the setting on YouTube? Sometimes it takes a while after uploading to be able to go in and change the quality settings.

Kyl · Sep 4, 2018

Wired, high bitrate. Just started messing with resolve but it seems a lot less crisp than what I'm seeing via YT.

NY_Caveman · Sep 4, 2018

Hmm... Strange. If it means anything, I just rewatched it and the quality seems MUCH higher.

Kyl · Sep 11, 2018

Project for the rainy months ahead:

t5h_24 by Kyl, on Flickr

It's key parameter testing night:

DT

2018-09-11 18:03 Alkalinity 8.2
2018-09-11 18:19 Nitrate 2.5
2018-09-11 18:44 Phosphate 0.02

F/QT

2018-09-11 18:09 Alkalinity_30 7.9
2018-09-11 18:40 Nitrate_30 5
2018-09-11 18:52 Phosphate 0.02

The note for both tanks is I have not dosed KNO3 for over a week and the DT remains detectable, and the QT is actually increasing. PO4 for both is also where I want it, and I can tell the frag tank is much happier from stabilizing earlier than the DT just from the monti colouration, and that some of my new sps sticks are showing some pretty quick encrusting already especially the bonzai and the superman monti pieces.

Set to pick up some more indo millie cuts on Thursday, and also hoping to find a nice LPS show piece for the sand while I'm out at our newest importers place again. Close to there is where the 50 gallon Norwesco tank is too, so now to figure the best way to design the stand for it and the 25 gallon RO tank.

Kyl · Sep 11, 2018

And who doesn't like some rockflower babies:

Rockflower Babies by Kyl, on Flickr

Rockflower Babies by Kyl, on Flickr

Not actually a rockflower, but a super glowy shroom

Rockflower Babies by Kyl, on Flickr

This guy is living on the Tunze magnet

Rockflower Babies by Kyl, on Flickr

Almost looks like some zoanthid, but it's a rockflower that should have a very vibrant mouth area

Rockflower Babies by Kyl, on Flickr

Rockflower Babies by Kyl, on Flickr

Better shot of the tray they live in

Rockflower Babies by Kyl, on Flickr

Kyl · Sep 21, 2018

trachy by Kyl, on Flickr

NY_Caveman · Sep 21, 2018

Kyl said:

Wow! Nice one!

Kyl · Sep 21, 2018

That's day1 of being home, super inflated now. Really hate that cement crap they mount it on, have to cut it off somehow.

NY_Caveman · Sep 21, 2018

Kyl said:
That's day1 of being home, super inflated now. Really hate that cement crap they mount it on, have to cut it off somehow.

Ugh! I hear that. Frag plugs bug me too. I always remove them immediately before dipping the corals. I understand the purpose they serve, but I never want to see them in my aquarium. I do use rubble and shelf rock a lot for things that need mounting.

Kyl · Sep 21, 2018

I only buy fresh cuts of acropora, else I cut off the base and start it anew. Some LPS that's not an option, like this which has that aquaculture cement sort of base.