Hello reefers!
I hope you are managing to keep yourself, as well as your families safe during these unfortunate times we are all going through.
It has been a couple of months since my last tank update, so I thought I would take the time to post one today!
Since my last update, I have been working a lot, but have managed to keep a routine maintenance schedule going. The tank is currently around the 7 month mark since it’s start up back in October. I am still testing all parameters, but have only been testing salinity, ALK, and phosphates on a super duper regular basis. I usually test ALK and phosphates 3-5x/week since I have a smaller water volume. Testing my phosphates before feedings tells me if I might have overfed on the last meal. They have been consistent between 0.03-0.1. As far as ALK levels, the tank stays between 6.8-7.2. Whenever I have a couple of readings below 7.0, I add 5mL Kent’s Marine A&B with good results. I have found that adding 5mL, will add 0.3 to the ALK levels. When it comes to nitrates, calcium, and magnesium, I have changed my testing to once every two weeks. I am still doing the same water change schedule weekly of 5 gallons with Red Sea blue bucket salt and home made 0 TDS liquid gold (RO/DI.) For those of you that might have seen, I recently won a raffle from
BRS...woohoo! I was able to add between $500-600 worth of stuff to my cart and it would all be shipped for free. Yea! I couldn’t believe it either. Somehow, someway, I won. When I was adding things to my cart, I started thinking about maintenance items, including Hanna reagents for ALK and phosphates. I ordered 20 of each, 3 buckets of Red Sea blue bucket salt, Red Sea carbon, filter floss, and other misc items! The reagents will last me a year. So yea, I definitely have no excuse for not testing. I am still running only filter floss, carbon, and UV in the back chambers.
I feel like the tank is doing well, I’m getting some good growth from the zoas. Some seem to have exploded with growth over the past few weeks. The Nirvanas particularly! Also, the God of War zoas always amaze me with their WOW color. Another one I like is the JF poison potions. They are super bright and edible looking, even if they are poisonous haha. The best growth has come from Nirvanas, psychosis, frozen apples, God of War,
WWC whammin watermelons, sunny D’s, Helter Skelter’s, and most recently, JF Kung fu fighters and CC bowsers. The KFF’s have been in the tank for almost 5 months and just now exploded with growth. Tripled in size! The bowsers started with 2 polyps, and are now about 10+ in the last month. They have been in the tank for about the same amount of time as the KFF’s. The plate coral perched himself up on a rock and has been doing even better than before. I moved him over to make space for the trachy, placing him flat on the sand. The next morning, he decided he wanted to claim the rock. Because of this, I moved the ricordea a few inches to the right. He seems to like his new spot, and has actually changed his shape to adapt to his new home. So cool!
A few weeks ago, I noticed I had the dreaded aiptasia anemones growing. I spotted 5-6 that I could see. After talking myself out of the flamethrower, I managed to purchase 3 nudibranchs from saltyunderground.com. I actually just received them today. I am hoping they work better than my flamethrower idea. They are so tiny and weird!
Other than all that, probably not too much else. Just trying to keep things as stable as possible, while continuing with the husbandry aspects. Thank you all for reading! Here are a few pics! :)
