Many ways to skin a reef, this is mine. (54 Litre/14 Gallon)

[hotashes]

I’ve just recently been getting into the thick of things and got to chat with some friendly hobbyist over the pond in the USA. I’m glad to now be part of the sticker gang, I will share the ones I manage to collect as and when I receive them. Oh and if we ever get conventions reef shows here in the uk like those happening in the USA then I’ve even got myself some billy pipes orange filtered glasses

Here are some pictures of the tank using the glasses as a filter

Thank you to @bonnie.klassen1 for sending me one of yours

Others I’ve got are

I’m going to have to think of a design and create my very one sticker and share the love.

Thanks again for my stickers gang.

A.

 

[bonnie.klassen1]

I’ve just recently been getting into the thick of things and got to chat with some friendly hobbyist over the pond in the USA. I’m glad to now be part of the sticker gang, I will share the ones I manage to collect as and when I receive them. Oh and if we ever get conventions reef shows here in the uk like those happening in the USA then I’ve even got myself some billy pipes orange filtered glasses

Here are some pictures of the tank using the glasses as a filter

Thank you to @bonnie.klassen1 for sending me one of yours

Others I’ve got are

I’m going to have to think of a design and create my very one sticker and share the love.

Thanks again for my stickers gang.

A.

Great collection. Glad to be a part of it!

 

[NY_Caveman]

Looking good!

 

[hotashes]

So......... This morning I get awoken with the words we all dread, “The tank is all cloudy”. Believe me, it was like I’d just **** the bed how fast I jumped up, not that it’s a regular occurrence honest

Anyway I was peering into the nano at what looked like somebody had poured a pint of milk in. I know brsTV recently released a video of mention about maybe milk would be a beneficial addition in reef tanks :bigeye:

In future i will have to wear headphones when I’m watching YouTube so my little boy doesn’t hear the words ‘fish tank & milk’ combined.

With all seriousness I immediately thought ok, no water made up for water change need to look for damage limitations. Ok so no sign of death, everything alive hmmmmmmm. Ok snails near the surface I must test ammonia!!!! Darn salifert test kits, will never give complete zero on ammonia, however the 0.25 reading shows all is good. Then I notice this;



Then.......



Naughty snails, yet I guess it’s free fish/coral food and even some baby Trochus snails.

Oh, I also now have become an owner of the waterproof Hanna salinity pen. Always exciting getting new equipment

A.

 

[NY_Caveman]

That is great! I posted this a while back

Had to have a talk with the kids after, LOL.

 

[hotashes]

Where was we....... I have just purchased two new fish for the nano, a Pyjama Cardinal and Yasha Goby. They're currently in qt and will prophylactically go through Chloroquine Phosphate for 30 days at 10mg/l. As a precaution I will slowly ramp the dosage and not add the full amount immediately, more so in a sequence of 2-3 days until I hit therapeutic level.
Oh I also have added TWO new 1" Tonga Tridacna Maxima clams. Long story short, I got them mail order (not a regular occurrence) and they had flatworm as I found it in the transported water. I was not happy, cleaned them up and put them into a freshly set up qt using mature water from my display. I wasn't happy keeping them in the qt as I knew there wasn't enough elements in suspension for the clams to survive let alone feed. So I re examined them after 3 days in qt and all looked good to me. Into the display they went :touchwood:
I must add, when I examined the clams thoroughly I used h2o2 on both occasions to clean the shells to the point they actually came up pristine white shells
The calms were added on 13/4/2018 and are looking well to date, so just to keep a close eye on their progression
For those of you who have followed my thread since day 1, you'll remember I had a torch coral early on, and had knocked it around accidentally then it lost tissue/flesh around the edges of the heads. Well I managed to keep it going until very recently where it finally perished
As noted my no3 and po4 have been sitting at 0 for a while and I have decided to add them to my system in form of Tropic Marin NP + so at least I know my system is not bottoming out now. After all having 5 clams I'm sure I'll need some kind of nutrients to keep them all happy, or growing

Currently dosing at 15ml/day both Alk & Cal with 15% WC bi-weekly.

Happy reefing,

A.

 

[eggplantparrot]

So......... This morning I get awoken with the words we all dread, “The tank is all cloudy”. Believe me, it was like I’d just **** the bed how fast I jumped up, not that it’s a regular occurrence honest

Anyway I was peering into the nano at what looked like somebody had poured a pint of milk in. I know brsTV recently released a video of mention about maybe milk would be a beneficial addition in reef tanks :bigeye:

In future i will have to wear headphones when I’m watching YouTube so my little boy doesn’t hear the words ‘fish tank & milk’ combined.

With all seriousness I immediately thought ok, no water made up for water change need to look for damage limitations. Ok so no sign of death, everything alive hmmmmmmm. Ok snails near the surface I must test ammonia!!!! Darn salifert test kits, will never give complete zero on ammonia, however the 0.25 reading shows all is good. Then I notice this;



Then.......



Naughty snails, yet I guess it’s free fish/coral food and even some baby Trochus snails.

Oh, I also now have become an owner of the waterproof Hanna salinity pen. Always exciting getting new equipment

A.

I woke up to a cloudy tank one day too, it was one of my feather duster having a good time by itself lol.

 

[Mike Lemming]

[emoji1366]

 

[hotashes]

[emoji1366]

Sup my man, just watching pat’s Saturday night life live. Where you at bro

A.

 

[Mike Lemming]

Sup my man, just watching pat’s Saturday night life live. Where you at bro

A.

About to get to bed. My daughter slept over tonight so I typically go to bed around 10 when she’s here..

 

[hotashes]

About to get to bed. My daughter slept over tonight so I typically go to bed around 10 when she’s here..

No doubt. It’s been a while since we hung out also, don’t leave it too long.... Enjoy your weekend with your daughter anyways and we’ll catch up soon enough [emoji1363]

A.

 

[hotashes]

It’s been a pretty flat month regarding updates, however today marks 1 month of having my two recent additions, the Maxima clams. Both are still looking fine, appears to have signs of new shell growth and mantle extension is good.
Corals looking healthy, and some new growth. Please that my frag of strawberry shortcake recently added has now coloured up with pink tips and even slight polyp extension. Only two negatives right now is my red tipped green base goniopora seemed to have taken lost its recovery battle, I’ve left it in the tank for now as it’s still got very slight colour in places. Other is that my yasha which was in QT didn’t make it for some unknown reason. It didn’t feed the first two days I had it and died the night after, my mistake was not asking to see it feed in the LFS. I’ve sourced another now and will pick it up sometime soon

Other than the general tank maintenance there is not much else to report.

A.

 

[SKYHIGGh]

Love the clams I need another my self.

I also need to grab a strawberry shortcake frag my self.

Man us small tank guys I think would give those big 500G systems a run for there money I think.

 

[hotashes]

Love the clams I need another my self.

I also need to grab a strawberry shortcake frag my self.

Man us small tank guys I think would give those big 500G systems a run for there money I think.

For sure, livestock to water volume ratio were pushing boundaries and I’m sure the big tankers can learn a thing or two from us.

@brandon429 has a great pico reef, I learnt a lot.

A.

 

[hotashes]

Nearly a year has passed since I last updated, Wow. Apologies to those who enjoyed my ramblings, or for those who have now got to put up with me posting again
I will touch base with my sticker collections and other things alike in the future. However for now my main aim is to get my tank back into it's original state. A tank that I have control of, one that I'm not afraid to get my hands wet and give it some CPR action as and when needed. Make short work of what the original urchin succumbed to, although I've no proof, yes my tuxedo urchin began to move around the tank less and shortly after lost all of its spikes I was hoping it would recover as it still managed to spawn and release the white cloud after losing it's spikes...... Few days later, empty. (Could this be the Ostreopsis)?
I had let my husbandry slip some time ago mid 2019 and towards the latter part of that year my tank really took a nose dive because of it, I could barely see through the glass and hadn't done water changes for upto 3 months. I was literally feeding and making sure the ATO had enough RODI water, of course I kept my eye on the temp controller, not so much the parameters as my doser had been set up to dose Alk and Cal in equal parts for a year by now and had stayed pretty accurate as in consistency. I learnt early on not to chase numbers, thanks to @brandon429 however I just never kept on top of my WC as he taught me, darn..... In the time since my last update here, over the whole period I lost my Bluestripe pipefish (I purchased it from the LFS already eating frozen, which indicates it may have not been a juvenile. Not sure how long their life expectancy is, so I imagine it could have been around 3 years old). I plan to get another one or maybe two Pipefish, either Bluestripe or maybe Janss, once I've got my tank how I want it. Coral wise, I have only lost the seriatopora caliendrum that I had grown from a frag, this was some time ago now and I think that was in too much direct flow as it had grown pretty big. Gutted really as I remember when I purchased that and watched it grow. Not too bad really considering I had let things slip.

Fast forward 2020, mid March I thought enough is enough and wanted to start the operation of getting the tank back to it's best. Corals began to recover, slowly, they are still a work in progress but it's an ongoing battle. My duncan (Dendro) was always extended previously, and to be honest was my main indication that I needed to take action. It began to stay closed up, flesh began to recede... Not my duncan I thought it may have been where I switched out my MP10wQD for a Nero 5, IMO the Nero has a wider flow spread and I prefer it, which I why I moved the duncan because I initially thought that was what was causing skin recession. As I hand't known where my parameters where, I took reading, they were respectable and if they had been consistent I discarded that being the issue. Anyhow, more on that shortly as we're going to bring the duncan back to it's former glory

Now, let me take this time to wish everyone well during this ongoing pandemic, yes the disease/virus keeping us all on restricted activities. Also any of you who are key workers and helping to fight it back I respect that 100% and may good fortune come your way. Here in the UK I have done my part and signed up to be a NHS volunteer responder (National Health Service), which is basically where I go 'on call' and respond to those most vulnerable during these times; my attitude is giving back costs nothing, even if it's a little something. Of course I take precaution now and do my best to keep clean/healthy. (This enables me to get out on my motorcycle Honda cbr600f)
I mention this merely as like quite a few appeared to have, I sensed slight chest wheezing symptoms since April time iirc, so I got the cod liver oil on order to boost my vitamin D, got my juicer out and racked up the fruit shakes with natural yoghurt (my white worm cultures weren't happy I was sharing their food) I got the lemon juice, steamed my lungs etc and till date have not been tested, however all seems to be alright. I will have to wait, just like everyone else to get tested.....
Now this is where it got interesting for me, I had spare time on my hands to get more water changes done so I did. The indicating factor here was I had not had any chest symptoms for 3-4 consecutive days, until the eve I administered a WC. I became very wheezy, it was going around in my head 'was it the tank that had sparked the reaction'? 'Did it happen previously on the days I tinkered with the tank'? Who knows? So after looking up how I could identify my algae, I used my scope to reveal I had dinoflagellates! Digging deeper, I came across this thread https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-–-are-you-tired-of-battling-altogether.293318/page-452 and found @taricha who confirmed I had Ostreopsis strain :mad: (Thank you)
As we all do, I stumbled across the fact this strain contains the same toxins as palythoa (I specifically didn't collect them corals because I wasn't prepared to deal with the complications). Now here we are, I have a tank full of them, mad. I stand to be corrected, however I also noted that symptoms of this toxin could be causing my breathing to be triggered. Again, I cannot prove any of the symptoms other than explain my experience.

This is all antidotal of course so please do not take my word on the cause, as I have not any way of being sure. Also I believe what is most important for me right now is to get them gone from my tank (or as much as possible gone, as they're waiting in most tanks for that right time to pounce), enabling me to enjoy my reef once again, also importantly keeping the livestock in a suitable environment as well as my family of course

I will upload some images that may have not been added during my absence and any that are required to establish best plan of action for my tank

NOTE: wait until you see the ones of my young child, you'll see what I mean when I get them posted. You'll know which ones as Than from Tidal Gardens will be present. Keep your eyes peeled ;Watching

Happy reefing people.

 

[hotashes]

@Daniel266jz here you go buddy.

 

[hotashes]

Pictures

April 2019 additions, 2 Tridacna Maxima clams

May 2019 top down & clams

June additions 2019 & Clownfish in segregation for attacking the new Cardinal

@WWC merchandise recieved, with thanks @SKYHIGGh for forwarding it on.

August 2019 FTS

Trumpet coral happy.

 

[Daniel266jz]

@Daniel266jz here you go buddy.

Great thread!

 

[hotashes]

Great thread!

Thanks man, I've yet to get it up to date. Stay tuned

 

[hotashes]

Let's see the one you've had the longest that'll be neat to see new scutes ha/age scales/umbrella mantle

As it’s you b, here they are.

Maxima

Crocea

Derasa

Apologies for the late night photos.

A.

Gosh these clams have grown, don't you agree?