Tank moved to new house. Dinos mostly gone. Hair algae outbreak beginning in its place. To be fair, the tank was reasonably neglected for quite a while.
Starfish doing a thing. Any ideas what? Pls tell me. I assume it's not good?
Added palythoas. The shop image & them in my tank:
Also new blastos:
You can see those xmas party acans here. They have their proper colouration back- orange in the middle, green around the outside. Up the top is an SPS frag I tried. Still a nope.
Hi my name is Chester and welcome to my crib
17 July 2018
Tank params:
Alkalinity 6.3dKH
Calcium 400ppm
Magnesium 1400ppm
Dappled in dosing for the first time. Dosed bicarb soda for alkalinity and calcium chloride for calcium. I figured out the amounts using an online calculator. The calculator advised to add slowly. I took this to mean over an hour or two.... I am now assuming it probably meant over a few days?
18g bicarb soda took the alkalinity from 5.3 to 10.9
33g calcium chloride took the calcium from 400ppm to 450ppm
Alkalinity remained at 12dKH
Also got an NPS gorgonian. One of my favourite things ever. So beautiful! Here is a general coral & tank-wide update:
Also got another Heraldi, aka B2.
He wasn't too healthy when I got him. I didn't think much of it, but he was kind of hovering in one spot in the stock tank, instead of swimming around the rock. In the bag on the way home & at home he kept resting on his side. I thought it might just have been stress. I know tangs can sometimes 'lie down'. But he kept doing it in the acclimation bucket. I added a heater and air pump and he perked up a bit. When I put him in the tank he hid all night and was dead by morning. RIP B2 :'(
Also got a scooter blenny, aka scoot, scooter, scooty. Here he is blending into the sand.
Home made food. Bits and pieces of raw seafood, mysis shrimp, seaweed, garlic, and a bit of water in the blender (they have their own mini blender/electric chopper). Silicone tray from eBay- makes the perfect sized cubes.
Hate this light. Wiped off the dust with a damp cloth and it's permanently stained. Porous plastic.
Fromia starfish was cool but fell to pieces in the first 24 hrs
Chester got a friend
But chester's new friend liked to eat acans
So the acans had to be retained for their own safety
Happy as Larry in the isolation chamber. Loving the iPhone X camera.
Of all the possible places & things to host, Chester has chosen.... This piece of hair algae. Seriously. He nuzzles into it and everything. I didn't have the heart to clean it off.
Chester lookin cute
Chester & his new friend were getting along ~swimmingly~. They liked to hang out together.
They also liked photobombing the GSP together.
One tiny little head of blastos remaining. Why do you hate my tank so much, it's not that bad is it? You're so tiny Chester's new friend doesn't even want to eat you.
This... needs no explanation
Chester came to see what all the fuss was about. Still my all time favourite photo of my lil guy
Chester's friend came to see if Chester had found a way in (sorry if this bores you, I did warn you it was ~photo heavy~)
This lace coral died a loooong time ago, but I still like the look of it. It's now being enveloped by coraline algae.
Everything was going well, they were the best of friends, newcomer was eating well (despite also enjoying my corals), the corals he liked to eat were ready to go back to the store to exchange for others he didn't want to eat...
And then suddenly, overnight, for literally no apparent reason....
*Trigger warning- sad things, dead fish friend
Nitrate & phosphate tested 0 (although I'm fairly sure I have a faulty Red Sea nitrate kit, but I wasn't behind on water changes or anything)
So, I was very sad. So was Chester.
No more WITSEC. Corals returned to their homes. :'(
Light dancing on the ceiling. I have always loved open top tanks, largely for this reason.
Sorry to hear about the loss of chesters friend it seemed like you really loved him.
as for the r2r question, I havnt noticed it missing but I’ll check my build thread and edit this post if it’s gone for me too
edit: I think it was just renamed to cover instead of thumbnail
Wow, that was quite a ride! Your tank has obviously been through a lot with a couple of moves, battling dinos and losing fish and corals. I appreciate you sharing the good and the bad as some people tend to avoid sharing the negative aspects of owning a reef tank and it's great to see you sticking with it through all of those challenges.
Despite the issues you had with your AI Prime I really love the colors it brings out of the corals with the blue lighting. My Kessil A360 just doesn't seem to quite get that much "pop".