Perseverance Reef

[Fishy888]

The tide is most certainly turning in the battle with dinos. There are still some but nothing like there was. I’ve been able to be less aggressive with manual removal, especially yesterday.

I’ve ramped up my ammonium dosing. I started at 1 ml twice a day at first. I’m up to 4 ml twice a day. The GHA looks much greener and the dinos are taking much longer to reappear than before.

So far I see no signs of stress from any of my animals. In fact one of my normally reclusive coral banded shrimp have started coming out in the daytime!

Speaking of inverts it turns out that I have at least two chitons! That’s awesome news considering that they’re awesome janitors. Both of mine were under the sand but on the glass. There are a ton of pods in the sand bed too. I took a picture of one of the chitons as well as videos of both.

Once I get the videos ready I’ll link them. It’ll likely be today or Monday.

 

[Fishy888]

Things still look good although I still have no nitrates. How that’s even possible I really don’t know since I’ve been dosing 8 ml per day of ammonium chloride! I ordered some calcium nitrate from BRS which will get here on the 2nd. There will be detectable nitrates!

I know the GHA is using the ammonium but still I’d expect there to be SOME detectable nitrates. Phosphates are officially through the roof which is fine for now.

GHA isn’t the only user of NH4Cl right now. Of course the corals are taking it up, but so is coralline. I don’t have tons exactly but I’m seeing new spots that weren’t there before.

 

[Fishy888]

I finally got my calcium nitrate yesterday, and per the instructions I dosed 1 ppm worth. I also dosed the usual amount of ammonium chloride. I’m going to back off of the ammonium chloride. I’ve backed off the sodium silicate dosing because I have plenty of diatoms. I won’t let my silicates go to zero but I don’t want to have them ridiculously high either.

As a test to make sure I really did get rid of the dinos I scraped the front glass and one side panel last night. If I still had the dinos I’d have had strings on the freshly scraped glass within 30 minutes or less. After another 6 hours of light the glass was completely clear, not even the slightest hint of a brown string!

Now I have to battle some bubble algae and aiptasia but compared to dinos, they’re a walk in the park!

My corals look great! I’m also finding more small spots of coralline on the glass. I scraped some off so hopefully the spores will settle elsewhere and grow.

 

[Fishy888]

Things are looking better at Perseverance Reef tonight.

The dinos have been steady losing the battle to survive, or at least to thrive. Most of the visible brown spots are diatoms but I still find strings here and there.

The key word is “steady”! I know some swear by algaecides and other “magic” chemicals but they cause more harm than good. Nothing happens fast in a reef tank. Period! Ask me how I know… ;)

I’m starting to think I lost a snail and an urchin to the dinos unfortunately. I still have a Trochus snail, even my chitons, doing well but one Trochus died and I haven’t seen the urchin in almost 3 weeks. I haven’t seen its test though so there’s still a slight amount of hope.

My emerald crab is doing quite well. I hadn’t seen it in almost a month, and I’d have missed it except for finding it hiding in plain sight, blending in perfectly with the rock! The fish are as perky as ever, and boy can the female sergeant major damsel eat! They all eat like pigs but the female damsel eats aggressively, trying to shake the GHA looking for food, even eating the algae itself, and I don’t mean a little!

All three shrimp are doing great! The fire shrimp comes out at night every so often but the coral banded shrimp come out by day!

 

[Fishy888]

After almost a month I got a glimpse of the urchin! It didn’t stay out long but I know it’s alive!

There are less brown spots each day, being replaced by healthy GHA and coralline. I’ve got a pod explosion happening too. The ammonium and nitrates are helping. All my soft corals and mushrooms are growing like weeds. What’s not to like?

Of course too much of a good thing is too much but for now I’d say things are just right. That said I’m going to continue testing frequently because I don’t want to go to the other extreme.

The coralline growth, one of my favorite metrics when it comes to tank health, is ramping up. I can see the white edges springing up around old growth, while new spots are forming and spreading at a decent clip now (at least by coralline standards).

My rock came from a previously established system so there was coralline already on it. That’s no doubt helped quite a bit. One thing is for certain though. This is the fastest I’ve ever seen coralline grow in any of my systems!

I think the coralline really like the ammonium and the nitrates! Of course so does everything else, with the exception of the fish and inverts. Then again the fish and inverts benefit indirectly via the food chain. The biggest losers are the dinoflagellates thankfully. Some might be natural, perhaps even healthy in extremely small numbers where pods can feed on them, but if you can see them with the naked eye, you have too many!

 

[Fishy888]

I restarted my YouTube channel (Perseverance Reef is the channel name as well as the name of my system) about a month ago after having been away for so long. I would love it if you would check out my recent content! That said…

Things are looking up! My two coral banded shrimp, while still timid, come out on the daytime to forage. I just hope the fire shrimp will too soon! It’ll help once I get some more since there’s only one now.

The water is nice and clear and my animals are all doing great! The only fly in the ointment is that I now have 3 aiptasia. Dealing with them won’t be easy but I’d rather have aiptasia than dinos any day! I’m going to order some kalk from BRS soon and hope that works!

I’d try berghia but my damsels might eat them, and I’m going to add a couple of yellow Coris wrasses before long. I’m also thinking about getting a dottyback or two. We’ll see though. The fish I’ll be going with will be semi aggressive to aggressive in nature so I don’t see myself trying berghia.

 

[Fishy888]

It’s been crazy busy since I started my new job. I’ve been working overtime because we’re going to get my wife a yorkie pup tomorrow!

Things have markedly improved! The dinos are dunno! I’m headed to a LFS right now. I have an idea of what I want but I need to see if they have it!

Admittedly I’ve also been working on my channel. My video quality has a way to go yet but it’s getting better as I gain confidence and skills.

I’ll do a more detailed update later on.

 

[Fishy888]

So….. I was going to get a blue-eyed kole tang today but it sold. I ended up getting this beauty… pun ABSOLUTELY intended!

He’s acclimating now. The bag was at 1.019 so he still has a bit to go yet. My water is at 1.023 because I recently topped off my system.

I also bought two more Trochus snails and a beautiful Zoa frag! Pics will be incoming tomorrow.

My wife decided she wanted to focus on her pup so she gave me her two clownfish, a Trochus snail and a Zoa frag whose name I can’t remember. I added the two clownfish. My “female” is still a male after all! The pair had been together for several years before we got them. The female dumped her “mate” for my Picasso clownfish! I suspect she’s a true percula. The other male has thinner shadowing around his bars. I’ll try to find more Ocellaris males to keep him company.

The crazy thing is that the Ocellaris male was bullying the Picasso at first. The Picasso was hiding in a cave for about 24 hours but the next morning I noticed that the Picasso was with the female! The Ocellaris male took some chunks out of the Picasso’s tail but now HE’S the one hiding in the cave! He’s still looking healthy though so that’s a good thing.

I’ll be adding the live rock from my wife’s tank to my system as well as the gyres.

I’ll take new pictures tomorrow. By then the coral beauty should be well-rested and more relaxed.

I’ve wanted a coral beauty for a while now. I know some nip at corals but I’ll be watching that!

 

[Fishy888]

A few weeks ago our van bit the dust. I would never have dreamed that not only would we get a car as fast as we did, but that I’d be going to pick up a new tank. Not just any old tank mind you but a 150 gallon tank. The dimensions are 6’ L x 30” W x 16” H. BOY have I got plans for this tank! It’s drilled through the bottom so that’ll help! I believe they used 1 1/2 inch PVC, maybe 2. It’s at least 1 1/2 inches in diameter from the pics. The tank is a little southwest of St. Louis.

The tank might only be a 150 but it’s an upgrade that in some ways is better than the 210 was! It’ll be easier to work in and is 2 1/2 feet wide! Being only 16 inches tall I’ll be able to have the rocks singly stacked and still have room for corals and my ritteri! Tangs will love it too! I might add a hippo tang again but I would like to have at least a trio of yellow tangs. We’ll see though. I’m stoked! That’s all I know!

 

[Fishy888]

Well all the dimensions are right except the height. It’s actually 14 inches tall. That’s still great for what I want to do with it!

This will make an awesome SPS tank! It’ll have a top down view as well as being able to view everything through the acrylic.

I’m going to get the wood for the stand tonight. I can’t wait to see this puppy come together! Oh the tangs I will have!

 

[Fishy888]

It’s been a busy week, that’s for sure! Here are the fruits of my thus far.

The lights are 400 watt halides. Of course I’m going to replace the “reflectors” with REAL reflectors once I can find three decent ones. I have a third socket and transformer but I need a capacitor for it. Since I really need new capacitors for the other two anyway I’m going to get all three at once.

The lights will eventually be mounted horizontally into a canopy. I’m going to stagger some T5s and LEDs in the canopy as well. I’m not big on windex tanks but I want some pop, plus at 30” of width I’d need more light to fully cover the reef since halides give 2’ x 2’ of coverage each.

I still want to get a magnificent anemone but I might go in a different direction. I want tangs again (I want a small school of yellow tangs and a hippo tang or two) and I don’t want them to become anemone food. I’m thinking of getting a decent sized school of chromis. I’d like some tabling acropora to go with my Montipora.

At this point I’m still going for the mag but whatever direction I go this new system will be my best yet!

 

[Goaway]

I am glad to see you are able to get back into the salty world.

There's still a few pages back i haven't read. But, these last few seem to hold most of the info so far. I think?

 

[Fishy888]

I am glad to see you are able to get back into the salty world.

There's still a few pages back i haven't read. But, these last few seem to hold most of the info so far. I think?

Yes, you are correct. I’m sorry for the slow response but it’s been busy. I’m working on my canopy now. I took apart the old lighting system and took the T5s, their reflectors, and their ballasts to mount in the canopy. I’m going to take apart an older T5 light and use the reflector for my metal halides. The reflector will get cut into two pieces. It’s a pretty big reflector. I’m going to take the halides I’m using currently and remove the “reflectors” from them and the halides will be mounted horizontally.

The T5 reflector on the left (the back of the canopy) is mounted and in place. The one on the right (the front side of the canopy) is partially mounted. You can see where the top furring strip still needs to be attached on the front reflector.

The reef is doing well for the most part. My powder blue tang is putting on weight. He loves caulerpa! He won’t touch chaeto though. Nori doesn’t thrill him either. I’m working on that however. I lost a clownfish however. I have to clean the inside acrylic. My purple digi is doing well but I had too much light on the rest of the digis. They didn’t make it.

The lights are going to sit higher than they are now. The supports are 6 feet tall, and the canopy will sit atop the supports. That’ll put the lights about 2 feet above the top of the tank.

It’s been a lot of work thus far but it’s so worth it! Knowing that I built the stand and canopy makes it even more special to me. It’s being built exactly the way I want it and it looks good too. I’m getting close to finishing the canopy and I’m excited! Plus there’ll be some blue light in there! I have some super old lamps in there now. They’re ATI actinic blue. I’m going with 4 new ones as soon as I’m able.

 

[Fishy888]

I finally got the canopy built in place. It’s not perfect but it’ll work. I hope over the summer to take it back down again and stain/polyurethane it and the stand. At that time I want to add higher quality trim around the T5 reflectors where I have furring strips currently.

Here’s how it looks now.

I’ll tack the cables onto the canopy when I get a chance. You can’t really tell from the image, but quite a bit of blue light is making it into the tank, especially given that the lamps are quite old and one of the ballasts is bad. I’ll replace that hopefully within a few weeks, and start replacing the lamps in a month or so. Hopefully I can snap a quick image of the tank with just the two actinics. You can see the pop even with such old lamps. I can’t wait to see the tank with four actinic blue lamps!

Although not perfect, it came out quite nicely given that I don’t have a workbench, vises, or even a table saw since my last one died. It’s almost garage sale season around here so I’m sure I’ll find a decent replacement.

It’ll look much better sanded, stained, and finished of course (both stand and canopy together of course) but I think it looks good even now.

As for the animals, so far so good. My powder blue is doing really well and not a spot of ich thankfully! He’s a pig, a caulerpaholic in fact. It’s not regular caulerpa though. This stuff grows much more slowly. I wish it would grow faster. I’m going to ask my friend if I can get a little more from her. At the rate the tang eats it I’ll be out quite soon. I’m not complaining though! I’m grateful that he’s eating that well! He’s putting on some weight too.

Some of the coralline I lost after upgrading seems to be coming back. Spirorbid worms are starting to proliferate as are feather duster worms. I’m glad I have high enough nutrients to support them but I’m not looking to go hog wild either. I’m going to test my parameters this weekend and post them here.

 

[Goaway]

which calupera? Feather or grape?

 

[Fishy888]

Grape

 

[Fishy888]

I haven’t posted much lately because, well, not too much has happened lately. I did a 66% water change about 3 weeks ago give or take a few days. The water cleared out significantly but I lost some coralline. Not tons but some. It’s since started coming back like gangbusters overall, just not in the same exact places it died back. That said I have more coralline than I had before the dieback. It helps that my new CUC is doing an awesome job exposing the coralline which was growing under all that hair algae. Which brings me to….

My new cleanup crew is coming together! I bought 4 Mexican turbo snails this week. (Two of which I suspect are actually zebra turbo snails given the striped pattern and larger size. I’d put them at 3 inches.)

I also bought a tiger conch and a fighting conch this week as well as an astrea looking snail that doesn’t quite come to a point like normal astrea. Instead it has these knob like projections where the point would be, making it look flattened. I’ll get some images of it as well as the other CUC members I got this week so far. I plan on getting one more fighting conch Tuesday when they come into our LFS.

I purchased all the snails on different days so I could make sure they were acclimated properly and doing well in my system before buying more. I lost all but two Trochus snails and one hermit crab over the last few months. I originally had five. The two that are left are doing pretty well and it turns out they had at least one baby because now there’s a third that I just discovered this morning! It’s maybe 3/4 of an inch! I’ll post pics later today. I’m noticing more spirorbids and micro duster worms. In fact, after not seeing any limpets for several months dating back to late January or early February, I started noticing more of them! I’d say things are looking up!

That said though I’m dealing with dinos again. Thankfully I saw the writing on the wall before they showed up. I’ve been dosing more calcium nitrate. That’s kept the stringy dinos at bay. They’re in the sand bed and on the glass.. errrr… acrylic. Just not nearly to the degree they were when I had them the first time. I see cyano starting to replace the dinos. Hoover and Dyson (The tiger conch is Hoover and the Fighting Conch Is Dyson) are decimating the dinos in the sand bed. They grow back rapidly but my living vacuum cleaners have voracious appetites! I’ve noticed that the dinos take longer to come back than they did before introducing the two conchs.

Like I said earlier I plan on getting another fighting conch on Tuesday because I don’t honestly know if or when she’ll get them in again. This is the first time I’ve ever seen them there. I’m also planning on adding another tiger conch as well as a few nassarius snails and perhaps some astreas. That won’t be for quite a while though. I’m also going to get another urchin this weekend since my other one died after the transfer from the 75 to the new system.

Water parameters have been pretty stable with the exception of the large water change. Things look much better than they did before the big water change though. I’m going to be doing smaller, more frequent water changes now that I can take a couple days a week off. Mondays and Tuesdays are my days off. That’s when I do maintenance tasks such as making RODI, mixing ASW, and water changes. I typically clean the glass whenever it’s needed during the week whether I’m off or I’m working. The same with topping off the tank.

One final note. It’s always been rumored that our apartment complex was on backup power because of the nursing home next door and because we always had power when everyone else had none. Well, for the first time we had an extended power outage last night. It went off and right back on like it always has during the storms last night but about 5 hours later, just after midnight, it went out. The nursing home had power but we were without power until 4:30 this morning. It’s times like these I’m so grateful that I not only have the upgraded DT but that I have the upgraded sump as well! The water temperature only dropped 5 degrees in that time! We keep our apartment at 68 degrees. I normally keep the tank at 82. It dropped to 77. Not too bad. If this was the 75 gallon DT and 20 gallon sump the temperature likely would have dropped 8 degrees or so. My current DT holds 120 actual gallons and the 75 gallon tank is my sump now. Granted my total system water volume is about 140 actual gallons but I STILL haven’t patched the hole where the return bulkhead went in the old DT turned sump. I’m going to get that done today. That’ll only take a couple of hours to cure, then I’ll be able to add about 30 more gallons to the system! I’ll have 170, maybe even 175 actual gallons of total system water volume once done.

Overall I feel pretty good about how things are going. Even though I am about to have a good sized CUC I’m prepared to supplement them with Nori and Caulerpa Racemosa. Eventually the tang, and likely the CUC will have Ulva and Gracillaria too once I can buy it and grow enough of it.

Once my last hermit crab dies I won’t be replacing it. The snails are doing such an awesome job and I don’t want anything to happen to them. I also have limpets, chitons, and Colonista snails as well as various worm species. I’ll eventually add several emerald crabs and/or ruby crabs to the mix.

It sounds like I’m cramming these guys in my DT, however despite “only” holding 120 actual gallons, the footprint of the DT is 6’ x 2.5’. That’s the footprint of a 300 gallon tank! I’m going to add probably another 50 lbs of sand. I’ve mixed sugar sand with special grade sand and eventually I’ll get crushed coral too. After all, sand on the reef is NOT oolitic so it’s not going to be oolitic in my DT. I won’t go super crazy with the crushed coral but I’m going to have crushed coral mixed with rubble rock in the high flow areas between the Bommys and on the side of the tank where the return line comes in. That’ll help the turbo and astrea snails to go between the bommys without falling down and not being able to right themselves.

I know I’ve written a book. An entire volume of books in fact! I’m getting more excited about the progress that’s been made and the future of Perseverance Reef though! After the dismal start of the year when it looked like I was going to have to shut my 75 gallon reef down altogether, I now have three times the reef I had in terms of footprint, and it’s coming along great. By many measures, it’s healthier than ever! Perseverance Reef was absolutely appropriately named! It’s taken perseverance, determination, and plenty of work but it’s been fun and oh so worth it and then some!

 

[Fishy888]

So it’s with a heavy heart that I must report, for those who may read this and don’t know yet, that a friend who ran the best LFS in the region had to close down due to life issues. I think the world of him and hope things get better for him. Please pray for him!

Today was the last day of operation for the store in question. There was a liquidation sale. I went and bought a beautiful white short spined urchin.

I also bought a hippo tang that’s slightly larger than a quarter. My powder blue initially bullied her, much like my biggest sergeant major damsel did with my sulfur damsel when I first introduced it. The powder blue wasn’t in the reef then.

The sergeant major damsel bullied the sulfur damsel to the point where it would only hang out in one corner of the tank under some rock. The bullying gradually lessened over the next several days and the sulfur damsel started swimming a few inches out of the corner. The sergeant major damsel would still chase it back into the corner every once in a while but eventually the sulfur damsel gained confidence and the sergeant major damsel allowed it more swimming space. Within a couple of weeks the sulfur damsel could finally swim and wasn’t being bullied anymore.

If the bullying picks up in intensity and frequency I’ll catch the powder blue and give it a time out in the sump for a few weeks. Then again he’d probably think he died and went to Heaven with all the caulerpa in there. :rolling-on-the-floor-laughing:

It seems like it’ll go that way this time too. The hippo tang is eating good and seems surprisingly at ease despite the bullying. I think it helps that as soon as I started the acclimation process I totally rearranged the hardscape. That makes the fish think it’s in a new place (in theory) and can make it think a fish it was actively bullying before changing things up was actually there the whole time. In theory. It doesn’t always work, however the bullying became a little less severe after I moved the rearranged the rocks. Another factor that I feel is helping matters is that the powder blue is still a juvenile so the two fish should have a chance to grow up together.

Rearranging the rocks also let me pick up some debris that accumulated under them. It also allowed me to make a more flattened single island offset to the left of the tank. There is a good sized area of just sand and no rock on the right hand side. I want to put some Hawaiian feather dusters in the sand perhaps. I might get a squamosa clam to put there too or even keep a derasa for that area. I still want two maximas, or two croceas, or one of each.

I still want a ritteri anemone but I might change my mind on that. It just depends on what things look like when the system’s ready for acropora. I’m starting to think that having a fish-eating anemone might not be the best idea I’ve ever had exactly. Especially not in a 14 inch tall space.

The urchin has pretty much stayed in the same spot since I introduced it. It has its tube feet out though and doesn’t look too bad otherwise. I originally thought it was a purple short spined urchin because I could have sworn it had purple tips. Purple short spined urchins have white quills with purple tips. it a white short spined (pincushion) urchin. Interestingly its tips have pale pastel green tips under my actinic blues. I’m willing to bet it’ll start mowing some rocks overnight though.

The urchin’s about 3 inches in diameter. I’ve read that they typically grow to 4 inches in diameter but can get to 6 inches according to some. There are even reports of them getting to 8 inches in diameter but I’ll believe it when I see it.

Normally I run my algae grow light at night to help keep pH up but I turned it off too. The light reflects off the off white walls into the DT and I wanted to discourage the powder blue from messing with the hippo tang. I also want the urchin to “explore” its surroundings overnight.

Hopefully I’ll have some pictures later today after I clean the glass.

 

[Fishy888]

I’m sad to say that the urchin went to the great algae bed in the sky. It was already on the way out during acclamation but I told my friend (the LFS owner) who’s going to replace it for me. He truly is an awesome guy! Again, please pray for him! He needs it right now!

The hippo tang (I want to name it something other than Dory on one hand, but on the other hand I can’t help but call her Dory) is doing great! The bullying has totally ceased! I’ve increased the frequency I feed the tank so that is most likely helping. They’re getting more food as a result.

I noticed some spots on my powder blue tang tonight. The hippo tang doesn’t have any spots on her thankfully. It’s quite possible, maybe even probable, that the increased maintenance I’ve been doing combined with the new fish coming into the picture stressed out the powder blue. That said though it might not be ich but I’m pretty certain that’s what it is.

I’m going to likely run my system in ich management mode. I don’t have the room for the tanks I’d need for all the fish in my system and I only see a couple of spots. I’ve had the powder blue tang about 2 months. This is the first time I’ve seen spots on him. He was quarantined and treated with copper before I got him.

The LFS I got him at was NOT the same one I got the hippo tang from. I know the owner of that store as well. He’s passionate about all things reefkeeping and works hard to make sure people get quality livestock. I trust that he used the full therapeutic dose of copper (I assume copper power or maybe copper safe). Still, not showing spots doesn’t mean a fish doesn’t have ich. It just means the ich is being suppressed.

That said, I’ll be monitoring things closely. No other fish are showing spots and all of them are very active like they usually are. All fish including the PBT are eating like pigs! None of them are swimming erratically or flashing. I’m going to do everything I can to eliminate potential stressors. If I can’t I’ll try to reduce them as much as possible.

 

[Fishy888]

So good news. What I saw wasn’t ich. I think it was maybe it’s more gut coloring as the lights had just come on and his coloring was more pale. I haven’t seen anything like spots on him. No spots on any of my other fish either.

I stumbled across a thread of @Paul B ‘s that discussed boosting the immune systems of fish through diet and not completely sterilizing everything, allowing the fish to be exposed to pathogens. That way they can build immunity to things like ich. The subject of ich is what led me to Paul’s article. It makes perfect sense considering that’s how our own immune systems work. Plus, Paul is truly a pioneer in reefkeeping! I have nothing but respect for him and what he does!

I bought conch number three yesterday. I now have a tiger conch and two fighting conchs. The new fighting conch is doing well so far. I’ve read that conchs can breed in captivity. I need to research the breeding part. It would seem to me that conchs in general, being intertidal, would be able to handle changing water parameters. Within reason of course. That should make it easier to breed I would imagine but I might be quite wrong in that assumption.