Mr. Knightley's Planet 125 The Culmination of Indecision

[Mr_Knightley]

It's been a while, hi. I felt like it was the time to do an update, so hang tight. This'll be a long one.
So over the months of August and September, I've been getting my reefing act together. I stepped up on maintenance and started dosing and feeding more frequently. I installed the AI HMS light bar to replace my dodgy wirejob and tuned my lights up a little bit, much to the enjoyment of my acros. I took some hearty frags and cleaned up some nuisance algae, and all the likes of it. I was feeling really good. My acros have all doubled since my last post here (especially my Miagi) and my BC Bonfire grow out piece took off, forming four new branches and is now encrusted 1" to the rock in every direction. My anemones were doing fantastic and there were no problems with my fish, and I even got a new possum wrasse and added him without any trouble.

But, you may ask, why haven't you shared any other pictures of the tank?
Well, that's because the first part of this message is from a week ago. Since then, I made one of the biggest oopsies a hobbyist can make:
I did a water change with RO.
It's a very long story, but the long and short of it is that I just asked for the wrong thing. I told the LFS that it was for a water change but they must have assumed I was going to mix it myself. Anyways, I brought it home and did the change, then went to bed. The next morning I had lost two anemones (one of which, go figure, was the blue & red one) and most of my corals were unhappy. After some in depth Sherlocking (smelling and tasting the water) I discovered my mistake and nearly **** myself. My salinity had dropped from 1.026 to 1.018. Thankfully, I was able to get to the LFS the same day to get more water. They gave it to me for free & the guy who filled my jugs gave me a giftcard, which was really nice of him. Here are some pictures from after the 'event':

My hammer colony.

A bunch of frags.

My Sebae (right) and Perfect LTA (left), both dead.

And an FTS.

I also replenished some sand during the water change, as I didn't get quite enough at startup.

SO yeah. It's now been four days, and overall most of my animals have recovered. I've slowly raised my salinity back up to 1.024, which I'll leave for now. It seems that the re-salting of the tank was more stressful to the fish than the initial incident was, and I lost my cleaner wrasse of 4 years because of it. It was sad to see him go, as he and a single PJ cardinal are the only survivors from the first 220g. Pedro (Cleaner) will be dearly missed.
The only other casualty from the event was a colony of green anacropora. Thankfully my acros are coming back around, so I hope none of them bail on me halfway. On a side note, Miagi torts are amazingly tolerant of salinity swings xD

So that's where I am right now. This summer, leading into autumn, has been a hectic mess for me but I've still been able to consolidate more time on the tank. I hope by next week this event will just be a memory, but for now I'm still dealing with the aftermath. I really and truly hope to keep this thread updated in the future, so stay tuned for that. With all said and done, have a beautiful evening and God bless you all.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Sporadic, inconsistent update time!
It's been a bit.
First off, I want to update with an FTS. But I forgot to take an FTS so it'll have to wait until later.
Second, I want to give an update on the Battlebox I recently got. Almost everyone is mounted in their final position, and they are all doing great. The Wonder Woman table & Nasuta were both stung by freelance hammer tentacles, the Nasuta barely took notice, but the WW started to STN at the spot. However I was able to disinfect the area and it is already growing back over the dead skeleton. I may need to move the Raindrops on Roses further down, it bleached a bit at the tip but still gives fantastic PE at night. On the topic of PE, every frag has extends their polyps over 1/8" from the skeleton every night!
Ok, no more talk. Time for pictures.

In order of appearance:
Blue Moon Humilis
Blueberry Nasuta
Pink Lemonade Pocci
Sky Parade
Raindrops on Roses
Shaggy Stag
Kermit Granny
Marty McFly Millie
(I just now realized I forgot to take a pic of the Wonder Woman. ;Facepalm)

So overall everyone is getting along great. No tissue loss and all of the frags have colored up beautifully. I'm thinking on switching to Kalkwasser sometime soon in preparation for increased Alk consumption.

And now we get to the real meat & potatoes of this update. In addition to the many, many flatworms & fields of Bryopsis, I also have a rather stable bristleworm population that, while not detrimental, make removing algae rather hazardous because the worms hide at the roots. The role of 'worm eater' (if it can even be considered one) has been empty since the beginning, so I was hoping to find a copperband or similar fish to fill that role. What I found was better. The LFS had gotten a mated pair of Longnose Butterflyfish last month, and they were still there & eating heartily when I went today so I took the pounce and bought the both of them. DO I have regrets? No. Will I? possibly. Am I happy? Absolutely. My only concern is that my LPS may become a target for the fish, but I'm hoping that they'll adjust to the tank just fine.

And finally, I have a question. Have any of you used Flux RX (Flucanozole) with success? I'm debating whether I should use it to eliminate bryopsis from the tank permanently, however I want to find the cause of the issue before I try and fix it.
SO yeah, if anyone has any thoughts as to what approach I should take it would be highly appreciated.

So that wraps up today's update. Thanks for those of you who follow along, I know it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things but keeping a log like this helps me to stay motivated. Have a wonderful evening and God bless.

 

[TDiefRN]

Love your persistence, keep going! Saw you around this week...any updates?

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Love your persistence, keep going! Saw you around this week...any updates?

Hey, thanks. Nothing really great to report, I've been having some fish troubles and algae has been just as bad... I'll do a full update tomorrow, thanks for reminding me. Sometimes, writing a to-do list (such as on this thread) helps me to actually get on top of things.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Alright... Pulling on the gloves for this one, it'll be a long update.
When was my last update, December? I'll try and catch y'all up.
Since the last post, I've added some more live rock (from a system at my LFS) to fill in some 'negative space' that I had initially scaped in. Though I think it looked a bit better with the gaps, my fish now have 20% more real-estate to hide in, which is always a plus, and I also have a lot more space for coral to grow.
Here's an FTS from today, compare with one from a few months ago and you'll see the new rocks added.

In addition to the new rock, you'll probably see the abundance of Bryopsis. I took out most of it in the left side of the tank before I too the picture, but the right side is still unruly. Some of the algae growth on the large branch of rock is shading out my Litho and hammer colonies, so that will be addressed today at some point.
But you may also notice another thing missing.
Neither of the longnose butterflies survived longer than 2 months in the tank, which is really heartbreaking. The first of them, the supposed female, died the day after introduction, suspiciously close to the Condylactis anemone. after that, the supposed male seemed lonely for a bit but adapted otherwise well and began eating like a pig in just a few days. Since then, that thing ate like a boss and even investigated my hands when they were in the tank. It was the only fish to ever have made direct eye contact with me, and he held it for several seconds. But one day, he lodged himself in the rocks after not eating that morning, and passed away the next day. No signs of disease (though my tank has a low population of ich at all times), and it died without warning. However, my biggest clue was the presence of several raw welts and some severe discoloration on the sides of the fish- which indicates to me that it must have been stung by the nem, and gone 'back home' to his hidey-hole to die. I also come to this conclusion because, a week before, one of my smaller skunk clowns had tried to swim in the nem and, shortly afterwards, stopped eating and died. my other small clowns steer clear of it, and only my big female can safely go near the nem. Another similar thing happened sometime last autumn, a rabbitfish was just dead one morning. No signs of disease, except for skin discoloration near the liver area of the fish on both sides. Interestingly, Condylactis venom seems to have a particularly strong effect on the liver (as shown in the only known case of a condy killing a human), so it may be that all of these fish survived the initial encounter, but then succumbed to liver failure hours later.
So, I can calculate the total net losses this monster has brough me. 7 fish, 3 slugs, and 5 corals. After looking back at the initial costs of the animals in question, it ends up totaling at $900.
for a $40 no-ID straggler, that's a pretty darn impressive kill count.

And here I am. Out nearly 1K from an anemone I didn't really want that terrifies the living crap out of me (remember, they have been recorded to kill humans!), without anywhere to put it (all stores in my area refused to re-home it for me). Thankfully, I accidentally found someone in Florida who is willing to take her, so hopefully I can get her ripped & shipped my next weekend. Then I'll finally be free to stock my tank how I want! Now I'm just hoping I can recoup some of the lost money, somehow. It's definitely a big sting. No pun intended.

To change the subject, my coral growth has been really phenomenal recently, as well as color. Particularly so with my acros, the frags from my recent battlebox have grown exponentially since introduction. Only two of them have yet to be mounted, mainly because I don't really want to glue them in a sea of algae. Only one frag didn't make it, and that was the Wonder Woman table (incidentally, the most valuable in the pack ;Facepalm). A stray hammer tentacle messed it up day 1, and afterwards it didn't last long. Sad, but everything else from the pack is looking amazing so I'm not too disappointed.
Here are some acro pics, both from last evening and this morning.
Blue Moon Nasuta

Shaggy Stag

Kermit Granny

BC Bonfire

Sky Parade

Blueberry Nasuta (super blurry, sorry)

Marty McFly Millie

Raindrops on Roses (also blurry, the colors didn't show up very well)

No-Name invincible acro


The Millie Bottle

The Pink Caddy bottle

That's it for acros. Last night, I bumped a few of them (bonfire and Raindrops) which removing algae, so they aren't too happy today.
Flatworms are still an issue in the tank, though populations have been dwindling. Hopefully I can safely add a wrasse to help control them once big mama nem is gone.

Another thing dragging me down is a surplus of frags, which may sound like a good thing until you realize that my entire sandbed is overrun with them. Sadly, my LFS doesn't have room for them and another local store hasn't gotten back to me about it. So, if anyone is local to the north Atlanta area, hit me up.

So, yeah. Not much else to report. I'm stoked that the new MACNA Aquatics Expo will be happening about 1 & 1/2 hours from my house! The ARC is also holding a frag swap in March, I plan to attend and maybe bring some of these chunks along. My biggest issue is that I'll need to dip & Quarantine these guys before I even think about giving them out.

That's all for today. Thank you all for following along and God bless!

 

[Mr_Knightley]

New arrivals! At noon I picked up a package from my local FedEx office labeled "LIVE TROPCIAL FISH". As you would expect, it contained live tropical fish xD In total, I ordered:
x2 Blue Velvet Slugs
x5 Huchtii Anthias
The heat pack was a bit cold when I opened it up, but in total I only lost one fish (and it seemed to have been dead for a while), which I have already been refunded for. I'll probably re-order it tonight, since I'd prefer to have an uneven number of fish.



(forgive the dirty acclimation box, the tangs can't reach the side against the glass lol)

Three of the four fish have shown interest in eating, two have eaten a tiny bit of flake and calanus. They are already showing amazing color, and it appears that one is on the way to transitioning!
Also, Velvet slugs are impossible to photograph. Here's a sample of my attempts:


These two were the best shots I could get! They move fast & the blue color just seems to mess with the focus. Weird little animals!

In other news, I've discovered a secret to getting acros to encrust that I *may* share with y'all if it proves to be replicable. It's super exciting. After less that a week, I've had 20-odd fresh frags adhere & witnessed 1/8" of encrustation on one of my millies. Super neat!
That's all for today. I need to do a water change this week, and afterwards I need to prepare for an upcoming swap on the 12th of this month. A lot to do over here!

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Small update. The new fish are doing well, three of them have eaten so far in front of my eyes. One has stringy poop, but I feed medicated foods bi-weekly so hopefully it'll pass. One of the fish hasn't emerged from hiding yet, so I may pull it out for another dip. It doesn't have any marks or spots on the body, it's just lethargic.
In other news, I picked up a frag tank from a member of my local reef club (ARC) today! I'm going to be using it over the weekend at a small frag swap that we're holding. I'm just borrowing it for now, but I may ask about purchasing it at some point if the owner doesn't end up using it herself.
Otherwise, the tank is looking happy. I did a big deep clean a few days ago (too late for pics, I'll try tomorrow) and removed most of the bryopsis, and my tangs have been keeping up with the roots enough that I can get a new grip on it.

 

[DiefsReef]

Just went through the whole thread. Cat believe my wife has been following and I haven't. Dont know how I missed it
Everything looks great! Wondering who you asked (lfs) to take some frags? You have the greater majority on your side of town. We really like the Reef Shack. Enjoy going in there and chating and as I know you've seen my latest post, @TDiefRN will always come away with something

Hopefully we'll get to meet you at the next meeting!
Oh and looking forward to the update on the encrusting acros. Hope thats going well for you.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Just went through the whole thread. Cat believe my wife has been following and I haven't. Dont know how I missed it
Everything looks great! Wondering who you asked (lfs) to take some frags? You have the greater majority on your side of town. We really like the Reef Shack. Enjoy going in there and chating and as I know you've seen my latest post, @TDiefRN will always come away with something

Hopefully we'll get to meet you at the next meeting!
Oh and looking forward to the update on the encrusting acros. Hope thats going well for you.

Family is good at keeping secrets, even unintentionally xD

Thanks! I asked PureReef, the reason they couldn't take them was because they had just taken a tank breakdown and didn't have the space. They've probably got enough by now, but I kind of want to store these frags up for the next ARC swap! I've still been to embarrassingly few stores in this area, and I only really go to Pure and Creation for various reasons. It would be fun to go on an LFS crawl with some local reefers!

I hope so too! A really big part of my attending the swap (besides, or course, selling frags) was meeting reefers and forging new relationships. 'Twas a super-bummer when we got iced in!
The results are looking promising! The millie that has grown onto the surface went from 3 to 7-8 axial tips in about 2 weeks, with some really good PE to boot. I'll share some pics soon, I also wanted to bring some tiles and bottles of the stuff to the swap but it'll have to wait until next time.

 

[DiefsReef]

Family is good at keeping secrets, even unintentionally xD

Thanks! I asked PureReef, the reason they couldn't take them was because they had just taken a tank breakdown and didn't have the space. They've probably got enough by now, but I kind of want to store these frags up for the next ARC swap! I've still been to embarrassingly few stores in this area, and I only really go to Pure and Creation for various reasons. It would be fun to go on an LFS crawl with some local reefers!

I hope so too! A really big part of my attending the swap (besides, or course, selling frags) was meeting reefers and forging new relationships. 'Twas a super-bummer when we got iced in!
The results are looking promising! The millie that has grown onto the surface went from 3 to 7-8 axial tips in about 2 weeks, with some really good PE to boot. I'll share some pics soon, I also wanted to bring some tiles and bottles of the stuff to the swap but it'll have to wait until next time.

I like Pure Reef as well. Located right next to my office in Alpharetta but since I'm not going to the office anymore I never get to just pop in anymore. George is great! Mrs. Dief and I did a run around lft stores a while back. Was fun but expensive

 

[Mr_Knightley]

I like Pure Reef as well. Located right next to my office in Alpharetta but since I'm not going to the office anymore I never get to just pop in anymore. George is great! Mrs. Dief and I did a run around lft stores a while back. Was fun but expensive

Yeah, I've been going to Pure for the past 8 or 9 years, they have got to be my favorite. Prices lately have been pretty steep, but every shop around here is experiencing the same issue. Jorge has been a massive help over the years and I'm friends with many of the employees. 10/10 shop IMO.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Ok. Sneak peak of the encrustation experiment.
Marty McFly mille as of 2/17.

Marty McFly as of 3/17.

Pretty stellar growth for one month.

As a control, here's my Raindrops on Roses on 2/17:

And here it is today, 3/17:


Thicker, but not much growth.
These corals are mounted about 3 inches apart in similar light & flow, the only difference is the substrate.
The substrate in question is very simple. Baking soda and super glue! I heard that coralline grows on it easily, so I thought that maybe organisms can draw the carbonates out of the material. It seems to be the case! I did a similar test with some fresh frags, and after only 3 weeks they have regained growth and encrusted a few milimeters.

I'll keep this experiment running, it seems very promising!
Thanks for tuning in.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Got some new livestock in this morning from www.ReefBeauties.com. Super fast shipping and the box was packed tightly with newspaper! I intended to just get a couple of velvet slugs (As the ones I recently got perished due to my own error), but I went ahead and added some other things to hit the free shipping threshold. In total:

x4 Velvet Slugs
x1 Red Linckia
x1 Red-Tipped Hermit
x1Green LTA


The star came in larger than I expected, and the nem came in a little bleached and a bit smaller than I expected. I won't be able to put her in the main tank until she's a couple inches bigger, I'm afraid my clowns would beat her to death!
Here are some pics if the animals. As y'all know, velvets are incredibly difficult to photograph so I'll pass this time lol




That wraps up this update. I'll keep tabs on all the animals and update with their progress as they grow!

 

[Mr_Knightley]

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Update planned for tomorrow. Too tired to do one now lol But suffice to say, I had a wonderful time at the MACNA Aquatics Expo and can't wait to do it again.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Update time!
Yesterday, I visited the MACNA Aquatics Expo down in Atlanta, about an hour south of me. Needless to say, it was an absolute blast and I don't think I've had that much fun in years! I met a lot of amazing, insightful people and my love for the hobby is more solid than it ever has been.
Now, I know what y'all are here for. Here are my snags from the show.
For the full haul, check out my threads here & on ARC that have something to do with a lot of the livestock:

Cynarina lacrymalis breeding project & study

Hello there. This thread will be documenting a research/passion project that I have been developing for the past year or so, involving the coral Cynarina* lacrymalis. All of my spawning data is collected from this one research paper from the 90's, so I've not got much to work on besides egg...

atlantareefclub.org

Cynarina lacrymalis spawning project & setup.

Hello there! I' preparing this thread for a project I plan to start this spring, which will be a spawning attempt for the coral Cynarina* lacrymalis. C. lacrymalis is a broadcast spawning species that begins oogenesis & spermatogenesis in August-September, after which they release eggs & sperm...

www.reef2reef.com

First off, the first ever FRS (Fish Room Shot) I've shared!

And now, here are my snags from the show for the 125:
Biota captive bred squamosa. I've been looking for a squammie for years, and I've finally found a nice one for a decent price. Super excited to see this guy grow. (Cameo from the red Linckia lol)


Next is a stellar double-headed orange hammer from TRSC Aquatics. The pics don't do it justice, this thing is one of the brightest hammers I've seen!


This one is a captive-bred tuxedo urchin from The Reef Farm. he may-or-may-not be destined for another tank in the future.


This one is a fat little Iconaster from Ocean Realms. This one may also be destined for another tank.


And finally, the worst pic of the bunch. Some of you may remember that, in October, I did a faulty water change and killed my previous blue LTA. Well, at the show there happened to be a vendor selling nems, among them being this absolute unit:

It's not bleached! Solid, opaque white and blue, which seems to just be some sort of mutation in the species. My clowns literally broke into the breeder box to get to it!!
And that is where my crumb trail ends. Thank you all for keeping up with the thread, if you want to see what else I got at the show then you'll have to pop over to my other threads, linked above.

Have a nice day and God bless!

 

[Mr_Knightley]

@Nemguy123 you might want to see this!
Took a pic of the blue LTA before lights out, moved both of them to cups of sand to see how they'll do, both seem happy. What's great is that the nem doesn't seem bleached, but rather has a solid white pigment to it! Super weird, something I've only seen in in-situ pictures.

 

[Nemguy123]

Looks great the blue guy will get more red as it colors up! This was him when I first got him

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Looks great the blue guy will get more red as it colors up! This was him when I first got him

That's super neat! I've heard that some red pigments can look blue in low concentrations, so I wonder if that's the case here? I just remember seeing pictures of giant blue nems 2'+ across when I was a little kid lol

 

[Mr_Knightley]

@Nemguy123 These are some of the pics I remember seeing! I wonder what makes the color hold like that?