My 75 gallon reef

[Fishy888]

I moved my xenia colonies back a tad so the rocks they are on are not right on the glass. I noticed also that my little single polyp GSP colony seems to have been knocked loose sometime between when I finished the tank cleaning last night. There are still 20 polyps out despite a hermit crab that is standing on them.

There are 7 hermits I can account for currently. As much sand as got moved around during the vacuuming and water change I hope none got buried. There were 10. I do know that there are some hiding because they were alive and kicking as of last night when the shrimp went in so those 3 could be hiding as well. I did my best to make sure nothing got buried under rock or sand but the more I vaccumed the clouding the water got so it's possible something got buried.

Well it turns out that clownfish love stuffed shells. Definitely not the cheesy kind however. I stuffed some shrimp into two different shells and the clowns went to town. I am going to leave the shrimp in there for a few hours so the hermits can get some and maybe the shrimp though I expect them to stay in their cave.

I am going to try to breed the peppermint shrimp. I have had success with freshwater ghost shrimp and from what I understand the peppermint shrimp larvae should be easier to raise than freshwater ghost shrimp. I am going to use the tank I was going to use for the hermits temporarily to raise any peppermint shrimp larvae. I have two so technically they could breed but to have better success I am going to get at least 2 more.

 

[tbrown]

I moved my xenia colonies back a tad so the rocks they are on are not right on the glass. I noticed also that my little single polyp GSP colony seems to have been knocked loose sometime between when I finished the tank cleaning last night. There are still 20 polyps out despite a hermit crab that is standing on them.

There are 7 hermits I can account for currently. As much sand as got moved around during the vacuuming and water change I hope none got buried. There were 10. I do know that there are some hiding because they were alive and kicking as of last night when the shrimp went in so those 3 could be hiding as well. I did my best to make sure nothing got buried under rock or sand but the more I vaccumed the clouding the water got so it's possible something got buried.

Well it turns out that clownfish love stuffed shells. Definitely not the cheesy kind however. I stuffed some shrimp into two different shells and the clowns went to town. I am going to leave the shrimp in there for a few hours so the hermits can get some and maybe the shrimp though I expect them to stay in their cave.

I am going to try to breed the peppermint shrimp. I have had success with freshwater ghost shrimp and from what I understand the peppermint shrimp larvae should be easier to raise than freshwater ghost shrimp. I am going to use the tank I was going to use for the hermits temporarily to raise any peppermint shrimp larvae. I have two so technically they could breed but to have better success I am going to get at least 2 more.

Keep in mind that when shrimp and crabs are molting they can/will hide. Don't lose hope!

 

[Fishy888]

Thankfully I didn't give up hope. All 10 hermits are accounted for. The shrimp I stuffed in shells brought out a bunch of hermits who were still eating it as the lights went off. I took half of it out but I decided to leave the other half in for them. The peppermint shrimp might come out for some too. If I go down for a snack later I'll see if either the hermits or the shrimp are still nibbling on it. If they are I'll leave it in but if not, out it comes.

Later today I will do a little more sand vacuuming. As good as the sand looks there are spots I totally missed toward the back. I also have to clean the impeller in one of my emperor 400s. They make a lot of noise when the impeller gets dirty. I may do a thorough cleaning on both of my 400s while I'm at it.

 

[Fishy888]

I completely dismantled both filters and cleaned them. I knew they were bad but they were worse than I expected them. Now that they are clean though they are working better except for the micro bubbles coming from one of the filters. The filter that had the noise still has it but not as loud. It is also the one that seems to have the cavitation problem. I have the media baskets to both filters but since I don't run media currently I don't have the baskets inserted. Air is getting in somewhere and I have my suspects. This filter had the same issue when I got it and I seem to remember that I switched the two filters around and it got better. Whether that works again remains to be seen but I am reluctant to mess with it currently.

Since Thursday night when I cleaned the filters I noticed my GSP were coming to life like I hadn't seen in some time (hence my reluctance to mess with switching the filters around). There are a good 30 polyps. Many are a shell of their former selves but for a while they all were. The first 10 or so that started opening regularly are 2 to 3 times larger than they were. I expect that to happen for the rest. Some of the newest polyps are from the area I damaged a month or so ago while trying to clean them. I have cleaned them a few times since then but I have been using a solution of half tank water and half 3% peroxide to clean them. I let them soak a minute or so and brush them as gently and slowly as possible. I have read of people using small paintbrushes to clean GSP like one would use for watercolors. I may try that so I could get in between dense stolons without damaging them. Later today they will need another cleaning but considering how much they like the new flow pattern and how aggressive (by reefing standards anyway) I have been with cleaning the sand bed and performing water changes; I think soon the need to clean algae off the GSP and cyano off the rocks should subside drastically. I have to clean them once a week or so now. I hope in short order to get that down to once in 2 weeks. Of course I intend to get things to where I rarely have to clean algae off any coral in this system if ever. It will happen but it will take time.

My cabbage leathers are trying to adjust but there has been no PE in a month if not more. The hermits haven't been as persistent in walking on them. Even when they do they don't sit on them for hours like they were. They likely don't like the stronger flow. I just hope they recover. It is not unheard of that leathers in general recover after several months without polyp extension. Given how well the GSP are doing I expect the leathers will both recover.

The xenia seem to like the even more turbulent flow. They had real good polyp extension. I wasn't expecting that, at least not that fast. When the filter came online Thursday night the xenia did the thing where they close up but pulse. Yesterday when I came down those polyps were wide open. They weren't acting like they were stretching for light either. In the last reef I kept I had xenia in high flow. They too had polyp extension like this within a few days of being moved from lower flow. They began to grow like gangbusters. They went from 2 inches tall to 8 inches tall in a month give or take a week. I had a skimmer and a sump on that tank though and was moving over to LPS and easy SPS at the time. About a month after my 2 xenia colonies shrunk and melted. This tank is a different animal. I really wanted to go SPS when I started this tank but with prices being so high I think my reef will ultimately consist of softies, LPS, and easy SPS. That should mean conditions will stay favorable for xenia and other corals that like "dirty" water. Then again I really want maxi mini anemones or rock flower anemones and I am not sure I will be able to have them in such a tank but if not that's OK. Either way this tank will be beautiful.

My fish and inverts are still doing well. The shrimp stay in their little cave. I can see their antennae and sometimes their heads poking out of holes in the rock that form the roof of the cave. The hermits have been enjoying the cave structure as well. They still climb all over the rock the cabbage leathers are on (the rock the shrimp are living in/under). The bottom is accessible now however so they spend as much time there as they do grazing on the green algae on top. The hermits do explore the open area of the tank also. They pick through the shells on the right side of the tank opposite the rockwork. They get their shrimp stuffed in the shells on that side of the tank.
The clownfish are still their usual ornery selves. I wouldn't have it any other way. You would never know they were 10 years old. They are good and strong. While they have taken over the area under the circulation pump on the right side of the tank and seem disinterested in going elsewhere; when it's feeding time they are on it. They will follow me around also whether or not my hands are in there. If they’re in there they get bitten. They are definitely damselfish.
I hadn't seen any pods in a while until I started cleaning the rocks Tuesday evening. I almost dumped about 5 of them out of the bucket after brushing all the rocks off. As murky as the water was by that time and with the clownfish close by I don't know if they were eaten or not but I am pretty sure they made it safety back into the rockwork. I didn't see any bristle worms however but I assume they are still doing well.

 

[Fishy888]

I got some pics of the shrimp who ventured out of their cave today. I guess blowing the dust off of their rock may have had something to do with it lol. Sorry the pictures aren't the best. I need to clean the front glass later.

 

[Fishy888]

I found one of my peppermint shrimp out and about at lights on today. It promptly went back into the cave. About an hour ago I finished doing some more cleaning in the tank. When I took my hand out of the tank I saw a shrimp come out of its cave and venture out into the open. I got a good picture of it. I have identified it as L. Boggessi. I suspected that was the correct identification because they both had the dark, almost black tails. Now that I could see the striping pattern on the shrimp that came out I know for sure. It is rumored that they are coral eaters but so far these 2 have been behaving. I will see how they do. If these 2 can behave I will attempt to breed them.

 

[Fishy888]

We just found out that the long-awaited renovations are beginning March 15th. The project is slated to last a year. There are about 100 townhouse style apartments here and they'll do 5 apartments at a time. Since these will be one way moves (they'll first renovate 5 empty apartments and move us into an already renovated apartment and that becomes our new apartment) the tank is going to have a much easier time with the move than it might otherwise have had. I fully expect there to be no mini cycle or anything. I'd much rather move this tank during its ugly phase honestly. There just aren't a lot of corals or other animals yet. If this was full of sticks and nems I would be quite anxious.

The cabbage leathers looked the best I have seen them look in a month or so as of yesterday. Even the smaller one looked much better. It even looked like a polyp was trying to extend but the polyps most likely shrunk back like on my GSP so there may actually be PE but until they grow back more they won't be visible. I will check on the corals later today when I get a chance.

The GSP are making more progress each day. I did have to clean them again but they look good and there were already polyps out even before lights on.

The xenia is as beautiful as ever. I cleaned that rock also last night before lights out. The cyano will form these wispy threads that get caught in the xenias' polyps.

The xenia rocks, including a third empty rock I am trying to seed with more xenia, and the GSP rock all got a 3% hydrogen peroxide bath and a very gentle brushing.

All of my inverts and fish are doing awesome. Both shrimp come out more though not for super long yet. I still think they’re doing great considering there are only 2 of them. The hermits do like to pick around where the 2 cabbage leathers are but they haven't been parking on them like they were. The two clownfish follow me around whether my hands are in the tank or not. They know if I am there to feed them or if I am just working in the tank. When it's the latter they'll bite at me like clownfish do. When it is to feed them they will act like they are going to bite me but then they act like a cat that's about to get wet food. Suddenly it's OK for me to have my hands in there.... for 5 seconds lol.

I have been battling cyano in this tank for a long time now. The good news is that I am starting to get the upper hand but it has been a slow process. I have actually seen small spots of coralline growing on a few of the rocks I cleaned last night. Hopefully those spots can hold on until I get my RO/DI system. Once I get that going I'll finally be able to get those pesky nitrates and especially phosphates down. Of course the rocks and sand have probably absorbed tons of PO4 and NO3 over the 3 months since the start of this system. It will take time for it to leach out of the rock and sand after I start using RO/DI but that's fine. I also hope to start on my algae scrubber once we move so that will speed things along hopefully.

The RO/DI WILL happen whether we have to wait the full year to move or not however. It is that necessary to me. I intend to get a garden hose adapter. It will be a temporary hookup until we are in our new unit but even then I already know they won't let me make permanent hookups in their plumbing. I will hook the unit itself in a cabinet I will build for the purpose. It will also house a brute trash can for pre-mixing the saltwater and an ATO reservoir. The hookups to the kitchen sink can be done such that it would not affect the apartment's plumbing in any way. It will also allow me to not have to heft buckets to do water changes. I might even put the cabinet on casters but we will see.

I originally wanted to get my RO/DI system setup in March but we have to get new tires so the RO/DI system will happen in April. In the meantime I noticed they had one of those machines with either RO water or distilled when we were out shopping last night. I am considering using it to do a water change or two until April when I actually get the RO/DI. I just don't know if it is any better than tap water since usually there is no DI to go with the RO in the water from the store. If there was a LFS anywhere near here or even within 30 or 40 miles that sold RO/DI water I would have been using that this whole time. Either way I AM getting the RO/DI system in April.

 

[Fishy888]

I got a chance to look in on things and it seems my big xenia colony has melted back quite a bit. A second smaller colony exists and though I treated/cleaned it in the same solution it looks just like it did before treatment. In the pics you can see just how bad it is. The GSP were cleaned in the same solution as the xenia colonies and it too is doing well. There are 10 or so polyps out right now but my GSP always sulks a little right after a cleaning. By lights out I wouldn't be surprised if 20 polyps or more come out. At least for now the big xenia colony hasn't totally melted but I expect some hermits to come pick at the polyps that have melted already. I know they'll bounce back but I will have to wait a while.

There is a family emergency right now so I will check in when I can.

 

[Fishy888]

Thankfully things are looking better than they were a couple days ago. While my newborn granddaughter looks like she'll survive after all she isn't totally out of the woods yet but things are looking much better than they were. I am extremely grateful for that.

I guess my xenia was in the peroxide solution too long. A few polyps melted but most survived. They aren't inflated all the way though. Hopefully soon they will snap out of it.

So far the cabbage leathers are looking good and they aren't shedding like they were.

My GSP are looking a bit better each day. Some of the polyps are almost the size they were before I accidentally damaged the stolons while cleaning them. It has a ways to go yet but things are looking up.

All the animals are doing well. So far my L. Boggessi have not messed with any coral but they love it when I feed frozen food. They like flake but they love frozen.

 

[ying yang]

Hi there,just spent last hour reading through your thread and one thing that sticks out to me is you seem to be a very well grounded polite courteous man which is encouraging to see these days ^_^

Good luck on your tank and hope you and your family get great enjoyment from it and goodluck with finding a job that suits also

 

[Fishy888]

Thank you. Hopefully it didn't put you to sleep lol. I really appreciate your advice. Depending on how things look tomorrow I will try to restart the second pump again and see if I can find a happy medium that won't kick up sand and provides the flow the corals want.

 

[Fishy888]

I have posted about my battle with cyano quite often but I have been dealing with sand blowing everywhere. It was blowing high into the water column, getting into and all over my circulation pumps, corals, you name it. The flow was turbulent enough that little "tornadoes" would spin up and pull sand up to be scattered by the pumps.

I turned off one of the pumps. Fortunately 1 of my emperor 400s is running (on the left side) which intersects the flow from the circulation pump I left running (on the right side). It is giving me turbulent flow although not to the degree it was with both pumps running.

As I expected cyano is now growing on the sand bed but the sand is not blowing around either. The cyano isn't all bad though. As long as it doesn't overgrow the corals life is good. On the other hand, while the corals look good this morning, I wonder if the decreased flow will be a bad thing longer term. I am going to see if I can restart the second pump and get the "tornadoes" to spin up on rock where there are no corals. That should keep sand from being kicked up so much. As long as the corals have adequate flow and all the animals are happy I am happy.

 

[Fishy888]

Yesterday afternoon I restarted the second circulation pump and reaimed the 2 pumps. After about 20 minutes I got the flow to where very little sand is being blown around. There is less surface agitation now but there is still a decent amount. The flow is turbulent but no "tornadoes". So far the corals all seem to like the flow. I took some pictures tonight a couple hours after adjusting the flow.

The GSP are doing amazing considering what they've been through. It's hard to see in the pictures but there are tiny polyps coming out of some of the "stumps" left behind where the damaged stolons broke off. There are at least 4 such polyps and I suspect a couple more are trying to grow back. Counting the 4 polyps there were 30 out altogether last night.

The two GSP frags, which are just small pieces of mat that have no polyps yet, still have their color. I don't know how long it will take the frags to develop stolons and polyps (assuming the frags survive but so far no melting and they are still purple) but it will likely be a while. That said I think they'll do quite well and thrive as the system matures.

The xenia are bouncing back quickly. They aren't as large as they were before I cleaned them in the peroxide solution but they were inflated about twice as much as they were on Thursday.

The corals I was most concerned about flow wise were the cabbage leathers. I fully expected them to shrivel up and start the shedding process again. I suppose they might still shed but the larger one only shrunk slightly after the flow change. Even then it was pretty much its normal healthy size. The smaller one did not shrink at all. It was its normal healthy size also. Neither had polyp extension although there were times I thought I saw a super small polyp out on the larger one. Most likely it was wishful thinking.

All the animals are loving life it seems. During the flow change I knocked some cyano off of the pumps and rocks. I used a net to strain out as much of the cyano as I could from the water column (which was a lot but there's much more to eradicate. Nutrient export and all). That stirred up all the detritus and other morsels that were on the rocks and sand bed. The shrimp and crabs went for it of course. My clownfish ate flake today but they'll get frozen food tomorrow.

Now that I have no more snails I have decided to start dosing vinegar again. My plan is to dose 1/4 of a teaspoon once a day for a few days. Once I see how things look I'll dose another 1/4 teaspoon of vinegar at night as well for several days. I will then add 1/4 teaspoon of sugar per day to the regimen split up between morning and evening.

I want to get a balance struck between green algae and good bacteria in the hopes that there will be much less cyano. When I see the balance I am looking for I will maintain that dose. Of course I will be watching the condition of the animals first and foremost. The corals will benefit also from the bacteria that multiply in the water column.

I actually started dosing vinegar on Thursday so it has been two days of single doses so far. The water is clear and so far I haven't seen any cloudiness or anything.

 

[Screwgunner]

1 through those used heaters out and get a new one replace it yearly. If one of those old ones sticks and frys your reef I do not want to hear you cry about it . Use 2 smaller ones that way if one does stick you have time to catch it.
2 if you are running a algea turf scubber you do not need a skimmer! Not unless you plan on alot of fish. You only need your filters for a couple months to start out .
3 do not think about putting sps in a tank that is not at least a year old.
4 pulsating exenia will take over a tank very fast keep this in mind.
5. That is just my two cents take it how you will. Some people get away with doing sps before a year. And I do have alot of fish. But at 10 months my sps are dead. I did a 25 % water change and it raised my alkalinity from 8 to 9.5 sps do not like that.

 

[Fishy888]

1 through those used heaters out and get a new one replace it yearly. If one of those old ones sticks and frys your reef I do not want to hear you cry about it . Use 2 smaller ones that way if one does stick you have time to catch it.

I agree with you actually. I do have two heaters in there now bur I know they won't last forever. I am planning on getting a controller and 2 or 3 heaters as soon as funds allow.

2 if you are running a algea turf scubber you do not need a skimmer! Not unless you plan on alot of fish. You only need your filters for a couple months to start out .

I still plan on building a scrubber. I also plan on a sump. I found out a month after starting this tank that we have to move to another apartment in our complex as they renovate these 40 year old apartments. It will be a lot less stressful to set all that up after we move. Hence the reason I was thinking about a skimmer in the short run. I agree that running both at the same time is redundant.

3 do not think about putting sps in a tank that is not at least a year old.

In my case it will be no sooner than a year and it may be a year and a half from now. I want to be able to do SPS but this system is nowhere near ready for that. For that matter it is nowhere near LPS ready.

4 pulsating exenia will take over a tank very fast keep this in mind.

I actually want it to try to take over. I have it on "islands". If it looks like it's getting out of hand I'll trim it back and give away the frags. That will also help with nutrient export.

5. That is just my two cents take it how you will. Some people get away with doing sps before a year. And I do have alot of fish. But at 10 months my sps are dead. I did a 25 % water change and it raised my alkalinity from 8 to 9.5 sps do not like that.

Actually this is great advice. I am only going to keep soft corals until I get my phosphates down to reasonable levels consistently. Admittedly I have made the mistake of rushing things in past setups and I paid the price. I know that for most here my tank isn't much to look at but the day is coming where it will be. I still have a lot to learn and I am willing to do so. I am sorry if it sounds like I am "crying about things". I am merely trying to admit my mistakes and journal both my mistakes as well as my successes in this thread. I do enjoy my tank and I know that as long as I work hard at it everything will turn around. There are some amazing tanks on here and I look up to a lot of you. I hope to learn all I can from as many of you as I can. Thank you for the advice. I appreciate it.

 

[Screwgunner]

I'm glade to hear that you are off to a good start . But dinos are a bi--- to get rid of . Lights out for 3 days will help.

 

[Fishy888]

These are actually dinos? I thought I was dealing with cyano. That is a whole other world then. Like I said I still have plenty to learn. Thank you.

 

[ying yang]

These are actually dinos? I thought I was dealing with cyano. That is a whole other world then. Like I said I still have plenty to learn. Thank you.

I was going to mention have you confirmed it's actually cyano bit I'm sure you said you starter a thread on the cyano so thought had it confirmed ummmm

 

[Fishy888]

I will have to see if I did. I don't remember doing so but that doesn't mean anything lol. After researching it for an hour or so I am now learning toward dinos also. It did look a lot like cyano lol.

 

[Fishy888]

So it looks like I have dinos. I have been reading up on dinos and how to eliminate them but there's a bunch of conflicting methods. Some say not to clean it up because it causes bacteria populations to become unstable. They also say not to do water changes either. Another camp says to do the exact opposite. Screwgunner gave good advice about leaving the lights off for 3 days. I might try that. As it is the tank only got 5 hours of light today. I am going to cut back further on lighting for a while. I don't have anything that could block all light but I will try to find a way. Then I could do a 3 day blackout.

In the meantime I decided to go with a single dose of 1/2 teaspoon of vinegar instead of 1/4 teaspoon. When I dosed vinegar/sugar the dinos started to disappear. Because I was worried about the snails having nothing to eat I stopped the dosing and the dinos came back. At one point I was dosing 1/2 teaspoon each of sugar and vinegar twice a day. The fish, inverts, and corals showed no signs of oxygen deprivation or other stress so I know I can dose half that amount twice a day.

I got some super glue today and at long last I took a couple larger frags of GSP from the original colony. I was going to use the tiny frags I took the other day but they were so small that I got super glue on the frags themselves. Before they cured I quickly pulled the tiny frags off of the rubble pieces and cleaned the super glue off of them. I then took the new, larger frags and glued them to the now cleaned rubble pieces. After they were glued I began on the mother colony. I glued it down especially around the edges so that new growth adheres to the contour of the rock. Now the mother colony looks more like it grew on that rock from the beginning. It is nice to see it without rubber bands. I expect it to take a while for polyps to re-emerge but emerge they shall.

The xenia and cabbage leather corals seem to respond to the vinegar dosing by opening up more. Usually it takes about 15 to 30 minutes. They open up a bit more. In fact the xenia in particular grew quite a bit while I was dosing vinegar/sugar before. The GSP also seems to open a bit more but not as much as the other 2 corals.

I took some pictures of the tank and corals again today. They were taken about an hour after I dosed vinegar today.