Fishroom Reality Check

Victoria M

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That tank is so subtle and understated. I luves it!
You better have something to share tomorrow to show for your absence this week. I have high expectations now. ;Shamefullyembarrased
 
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That tank is so subtle and understated. I luves it!
You better have something to share tomorrow to show for your absence this week. I have high expectations now. ;Shamefullyembarrased

Re: My absence this week.. to (badly) quote an 80’s classic...

I picked the wrong week to stop smoking crack.

No update tomorrow since usps suck and can’t deliver on time, but by end of week for sure!
 

Victoria M

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Re: My absence this week.. to (badly) quote an 80’s classic...

I picked the wrong week to stop smoking crack.

No update tomorrow since usps suck and can’t deliver on time, but by end of week for sure!
Please avoid the crack. It really bad for you.
 
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So,currently awaiting parts from amazon and eBay to finish a project, but I’m in a dispute with an eBay seller because of the quality of some stuff I got. Way below par (wait, below par is good, right? Sports metaphors suck) . This means that, while I was able to tinker test something today, I’m unlikely to get it finished up until end of next week. Whatever- plenty of stuff around here to do.

Anyway- here’s today’s teaser pic...

2141148B-FCD7-42E8-957A-AE20F4EA50CB.jpeg



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Lol!

That’s 15w, 1600 lumens of 6500K goodness right there. And that’s 1 of 4...
 
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@Dubs83 @Victoria M @NY_Caveman

This happened!! Long time coming, figured I’d get it done rather than wait for my ever present algae issues to recede completely

Pulsing Xenia in its own big rock isolated by 8” between next nearest rocks

3 headed Duncan in main arch, biased towards the office side. Removed it from old plug, superglued onto a piece of pukani then used a small -grape sized- piece of water weld epoxy to hold it onto the main rock

Still to do-

Ultra green branching hammer
Purple capped hammer

GSP is getting cut and placed on a long thin rock and isolated in the living room side corner

Ps- my sand isn’t really that purple- it’s the lights vs iPhone. I do have cyano, but nothing like what it looks like

A3D41527-F16A-4726-A2A6-1F28A592349F.jpeg
8D9A4233-78CB-4224-BF62-42D937A181BA.jpeg
3E091A91-E4C2-4899-884B-E2A555D44CF7.jpeg
 
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Lol, of course, I put my gorgeous ultra green hammer under a brace... looks kinda muted now, but that might also be due to the change in lights.

But he is fully extended, and the Duncan is fully extended saving his little arms around. Yay!
 
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So, I’m calling KIA on my Randall’s goby, and probably the Randall’s pistol shrimp too.

No sign of Toby since the blackout, and I’m only hearing 2-3 big clicks from the bigger tiger pistol in the evenings.

Super frustrating considering the blackout only appears to have been partially successful against the Chrysophytes.

There are two pieces of rock that have a heavy cyano burden along with a smattering of resurging Chrysophytes. These particular pieces are independent- meaning they aren’t attached physically to the main rockwork, but just lean against it.

I’m thinking I’ll pull them out and scrub them clean, then put them back in. That’ll get some of the white clean color back, to match the two big chunks with the Xenia and (added later today) the GSP. It’s weird seeing the clean rock alongside the ‘established’ grungy looking stuff. Once I’ve cleaned a bunch of the rock I might throw in the ARC coralline and see if I can get it established on the clean stuff.

Did I mention I kinda regret the Pukani? It’s just colored up something gray, black, plus it is super fragile. I’m constantly seeing small chunks fall off the main rockwork, and they get scattered around the tank. I’m going to leave it, since I like the scape, but the rock itself ended up being a bit disappointing.

And since notifications still don’t seem to be working- @Dubs83 @Victoria M
 

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@Dean Smith - I’m calling you out man, come say hi!

Still following your thread each and every post! I'm pretty OCD myself and the detail in your build & setup is what attracted me in the first place. No stone is left unturned with this one! I think that's what I admire the most about it to be honest.

Too bad about your goby. We picked up a midas blenny on the weekend and he's in my 13.5 observation tank right now. He hid in the rocks for day 1, and for day 2 and day 3 he seems to have wedged himself inside my Flipper Magnet algae scraper. He's wedged right in the tiny void where the blade curves up. I spent about 5 mins looking in the tank and assumed he was hidden in the rock, until I spotted him wedged in that weird little spot! Maybe there's some hope for your goby - wedged in some strange crevice you didn't know existed. Trying to stay positive for you :)
 
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SO, got some time to frag and set the big ultra- GSP cluster. I thought maybe it had grown around a frag plug and completely surrounded it. I was wrong

As far as I can tell, this thing started off on the sand and encroached over a large jawbreaker candy sized chunk of rock. I trimmed away the loosely attached tissue, but it had grown down into the pores of the rock and I couldn’t peel it off. I was tempted to take a chisel and break it in half, but I was worried about crushing the lower portion.

Anyway, I got 5 large postage stamp sized pieces and the ‘sphere’ and glued them down onto their new home. They are in position in the DT- just hoping I see some polyp extension later tonight.

image.jpg


I found (9 x) 1/4-1/2” bristleworms in the central node, and was able to remove 5. After confirming they are good guys- I rinsed then 6 times in saltwater then added them into the DT. Nice addition to the biodiversity and s good cuc member. They landed scattered around the tank and quickly buried themselves in the substrate. The other 4 I couldn’t remove I guess will just hang out in the gsp.

I also removed the purple cap hammer from its plug, glued it to a small piece of rock, then epoxied that onto a small ledge on the archway, living room side. Michael J Bumble-fox then proceeded to swim into it, dislodging it, so I doubled up on the epoxy and quickly put her back in place. An hour later, she’s got good extension, butvthe bleaching she underwent in QT is very obvious with the change in lighting. And the big blob of epoxy under her kinda annoys me. But fingers crossed, she’ll grow and it won’t be visible.

image.jpg


I also placed the war favia and the favites on rock pieces, and placed on sand bed in a partially shaded spot. I’ll adjust once I get a better idea of their condition in the DT.

My first fungia has been in the sand bed since Friday, and has started gaining color and puffing up a few times in the day to feed. No tentacle extension that I’ve seen yet, but this particular specimen didn’t have any real tentacles to begin with in the store.

I’m going to broadcast 1tbsp of reef roofs later this evening once lights out to see how everyone is doing.

I also pulled out one of the ‘legs’ of the archway and scrubbed it free of cyano and Chrysophytes. Looks much better now, but the colour difference is very jarring. I’m planning to clean 2 more legs in the coming week, just don’t want to cause a mini cycle by having so much rock out at once.

image.jpg

So, currently, I only have 2 neon green pinwheels in QT. Guess I need to go shopping for some torches and micromussa...
 
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I also put the three tiger conchs in on Thursday of last week, and haven’t seen a single hint of them since then. Just going to trust that they are doing their thing, churning the sand
 
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Also tidied up the basement, including qt area and fishroom, then ran some tests.

Salinity: 1.025
PH apex: 8.15
Alk: 11.7
Calcium: 398
Magnesium: 1245

Nitrate: 0 (fail- dosed 6g kno3, to 5ppm)

Phosphate: 0.3ppm (with most of the Chrysophytes gone, theres nothing consuming it now. With the nitrate boost, I hope my 3 tufts of GHA take off...)


Dosed 120ml of Dr Tim’s waste away. Going to run this and keep po4 and no3 elevates for the next 2-3 weeks to see if it gets rid of the cyano. If not- chemiclean dose. I want to try a non chemical method first

Rest of the week- some major work on ‘The Project’... looking forward to this!
 
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I forgot to mention-

When I was giving the serpent star a look over prior to QT, I noticed a tiny embedded pyramid snail about 2” down one the arms, away from the body. I pinched it off and got rid, and could see a small wound on the arm. Little red lines.

Anyway, today, I’m rinsing it 5 times in order to move it to the DT and that arm detached right where that snail was formerly attached. I’m assuming it rejected the arm due to the irritation from the snail. So, I have a 4 armed harlequin serpent star in DT (immediately went in search of a dark book and for herself situated) and an arm in a cup of water.

Anyone know if a serpent star arm can regenerate a new body? I know some starfish arms contain each bough vital organs that the can, but unsure if serpent stars are in that class.

Cheers
 

Victoria M

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I forgot to mention-

When I was giving the serpent star a look over prior to QT, I noticed a tiny embedded pyramid snail about 2” down one the arms, away from the body. I pinched it off and got rid, and could see a small wound on the arm. Little red lines.

Anyway, today, I’m rinsing it 5 times in order to move it to the DT and that arm detached right where that snail was formerly attached. I’m assuming it rejected the arm due to the irritation from the snail. So, I have a 4 armed harlequin serpent star in DT (immediately went in search of a dark book and for herself situated) and an arm in a cup of water.

Anyone know if a serpent star arm can regenerate a new body? I know some starfish arms contain each bough vital organs that the can, but unsure if serpent stars are in that class.

Cheers
Hi Neil,
Have you thought about Vibrant for the chrysophytes?
And part of the central disc is required for the star to regenerate, generally.
 
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Hi Neil,
Have you thought about Vibrant for the chrysophytes?
And part of the central disc is required for the star to regenerate, generally.
I have, abd havecread 3 reports on its success against Chrysophytes in that big thread. However, when contacted by pm, 2 out of the three doubted the vibrant really had any effect because they were also doing things like blackouts, peroxide, nutrient boosting.

I’m going to be more rigorous with my scrubbing abd keeping nutrients high. Fortunately, at this point, I’m not seeing any continued growth, but I do have a several patches. My feeling is that scrub and dose will eventually win. Hopefully via GHA and cyano colonization. Then I can hit it with more waste away and/or chemiclean and the tangs will enjoy the GHA.

Sorry if that’s not coherent- bad migraine today and I’m seeing sounds right now, lol
 

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