My sps journey

[sam.veilleux30]

Little update, the necrosis did not progress, the acro might make it out alive!
I will add calibration of my dosing pump to my biweekly maintenance( water change, tests...).

 

[sam.veilleux30]

I'm presently dealing with an asterina invasion, so far they dont seem to bother anything but i grew tired of watching them all over the reef (easily over 100).
To take care of the problem i did add an harlequin shrimp last month.
This is the tank the morning after the addition.

The little lady (i thought she was a male so i added a female last week, only to see her being chased around the tank. Things have settled for now but i plan to remove the second to get a male, my lfs agreed to make the change). For the long term, when the asterina problem willbe a thing of the past, i plan to buy frozen starfish at my lfs and give 2 pieces (1/2 cm ) per week. Edit: well it turned out that the remaining shrimp did not like frozen food. The first one went missing early december and the second +- 1 month later.
On a side note, i think there was an unexpected effect to the removal of the asterinas.
Now i have a lot of small tubular worms all over the tank, maybe the starfish were doing some predation on them or they just fill up the space they left (nutrient).

 

[sam.veilleux30]

October update

My purple tang killed my scopas earlier this week.
They were fine since april, it's sad.

I added a copperband 2 weeks ago (no qt, dont follow my example) and he is eating well and seem healthy, pics to follow.

The asterinas are less visible so i bought a frozen dead starfish (6$) to my lfs and one of my harlequin (i have the couple but they dont stay together, the male is way bigger than the female, i think he scare her) seem to like it.

I stopped dosing the zeovit products because of the stn on some of my acros. This is not over, stn still in progress on my blue tort.
I manage to stabilize my kh around 7 dkh, will try to keep it at 7.5.

I decided to change my brand of salt from fauna marin to fritz (70$ instead of 120$).

Also i changed the schedule of my radions, i had a custom one but switch to sps ab+ (more blue). They run for 12.5 hr at 75%. Edit, this lasted 2 days, too blue for my taste.

 

[sam.veilleux30]

Some coral pics under blue light
Pink floyd

Walt disney

Rainbow monti

Pink cadillac, second pic with flash

Cherry blossom, second pic with flash

 

[sam.veilleux30]

Some images of my copperband and of the clowns laying eggs.

 

[sam.veilleux30]

Ok, as i'm somewhat lazy and i wanted to have a build thread without having to start from scratch... Mr crabs mcjones agreed to change my thread from the sps to the member tank forum.
Thanks!

Update of the necrosis on the blue tort, i'm almost certain that the kz products did not produce the situation (althought i still have to clarify their impact on n and p).
While going hrough my photos i realized the necosis started prior to the start of the dosing. It was probably due to an alk swing.
The following pic is dated of the 10th of september, the products arrived the 11th. The red circles show the early stage of the stn. This piece was the first and most affected, now over 90% of the blue tort show the same early sings of degradation.

To remedy the sitation i removed the most affected corals.
I kept some pieces barely affected and i have some frags intact to regrow the colony.
So i went from a mainly purple acros to a mainly red acros tank (red planet still kicking).
I took the opportunity to redo my aquascape, espicially the middle, there was too much rocks to allow good flow.
This is what i removed, the hammer went to a friend and the big miyagi was frag to be sold to my lfs.

I like the new look of the tank, will post pictures tomorrow.
Lastly, i founded an interesting app that transform pics into paintings. I posted in the photography forum but will show some pics in this thread.

The name of the app is prisma, i used the free version.

 

[sam.veilleux30]

Stressed out fish...
I had to remove a big rock yesterday, and yes as you can guess a fish was hidden inside without my knowledge.
2 minutes later i saw my blenny on the table having a hard time, try to catch him, he fell to the floor, get him before the cat does and into the tank.
He seem ok and i saw him eating but he wont leave the upper corner.
Edit: the little guy did not make it, one day he was at the bottom of the tank barely moving and emanciated. I didn’t saw is loss of weight and assume he was ok until then.
Took him in a separation box for one week to hand feed him, but he was too weak.
First time i had a midas, really like his personality/comportment, might try another one someday.

Something interesting i found out moving rocks, my springeri damsels are laying eggs again, maybe they never stopped but i was unaware of it. The eggs are under a half shell.
Bad pics 1 entry to the home, 2 upside of the shell

The fishs seem to like the new aquascape, they have more place to swim.
Old

New

 

[sam.veilleux30]

Present fish population
1 yellow tang
1 purple tang
1 tomini tang
3 springeri damsel
2 ocellaris clownfish
1 midas blenny
1 six lines wrasse
2 lyretail antias
1 neon dottyback
1 copperband butterfly

 

[sam.veilleux30]

List of equipement
Sump:
Skimmer jns model co-2
2 tunze return pumps model ?
Ato tunze
Chiller jbj artica 1/8 hp
Heater Cobalt Neo-Therm 300W
Dosing pump kamoer 3 channels non-wifi

Tank
2 radion xr30 pro g4 set on high growth at 75% from 12:00 to 24:30, without the 3 hours moonlight.
Vortech mp40 with battery backup
Tunze stream 3
Tunze controllable model?
Small tunze model 6020

That's about it for the equipement presently in use.
As stated earlier, the tank is custom made (48x24x20),
The sump also, simple box with no separation (20x20x20)
Ato reservoir (20x17x10)

I made the stand with 3/4 russian birch plywood (more layers).
I decided to make it higher (41/2) to have easy access under and be able to see the reef standing, without having to bend too much.

 

[sam.veilleux30]

A new home for the springeri damsels!
They are fun to watch, in and out all day long.
I think this might become the new spot for theis eggs. Edit: it is!

 

[sam.veilleux30]

Update on some corals , edit 23 oct: aefw confirmed on the pink cadillac, just found 5 after a dip.

 

[sam.veilleux30]

Polyp lab lenses
No lens

Yellow lens

Orange lens

Yellow lens + magnifier (10x)

The product seem of quality and so far i love the results.
Images taken with my ipad.

 

[sam.veilleux30]

This is what they look like.

 

[Michael Naegeli]

Polyp lab lenses
No lens

Yellow lens

Orange lens

Yellow lens + magnifier (10x)

The product seem of quality and so far i love the results.
Images taken with my ipad.

I actually like the “No lense” first pic best

 

[sam.veilleux30]

Still nice (less blue than dawn/dusk) but more blue than what i really see.
Thanks for your impression.

 

[sam.veilleux30]

Anyway, i gave the lenses to a friend who doesn't have a dslr, i figure it will be the kind of things i never use as i prefer my real camera.
He was happy of his gift.

 

[Michael Naegeli]

Anyway, i gave the lenses to a friend who doesn't have a dslr, i figure it will be the kind of things i never use as i prefer my real camera.
He was happy of his gift.

I use em w my iPhone 6s and makes a Huge difference. Your camera far nicer obviously.

 

[sam.veilleux30]

March update
It has been some time since my last post and a few things have changed in my setup.

New equipement- clarisea and ai pump nero 5, so far i like both of these products, the clarisea filter work well and it feel good to see all the crap it remove from the tank. The little pump is quite powerful and really easy to setup with their app.

Aefw- yep, still an issue. After seeing bite marks on my walt disney i decided to go with a treatment with melafix for all of my acros (1/week for 6 weeks).
This was a lot of work and i reduce the amount of corals in the process.
Now (the fifth dip) i was able to streamlined the process and complete it within an hour.

On the first treatment i saw more or less 10 fw, some quite huge (4mm).
The three next, there was no sign of them and then yesterday i saw another one, so i feel that i need to carry on with the weekly dip for a few more weeks, at least to the end of march.

 

[sam.veilleux30]

Livestock- last week i bought 2 angels, a majestic and a regal.
They were doing fine in the lfs, the regal since 2 weeks and the majestic over a month.
Back home the yellow tang gave them quite a welcome, enough to decide he has to go.
I seriously doubt the angels would have make it and i saw a few "angry welcomes" over the years, this one was particulary intense.
So back in the shop with my angry fish i speak with the owner and ask him if he would be willing to exchange his little purple tang for my adult one ( i thought of this last summer in the idea of reducing the bioload on the system but never decided to get on with it).

This is quite a change for the ambiance in the tank, you can see that the stress level is down by a few notchs.
The tangs were always chasing one another and the other fishs were more on the watch.
So far the angels seem to behave with the corals but i'm prepared to say goodbye to a few of them if i have to.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Tank is looking great! Sounds like you are winning the AEFW war. A real nightmare, but you are doing the tough work to battle it for sure.