Perseverance Reef

[Fishy888]

The Dino situation is indeed improving but I expect it to take a couple of weeks to truly resolve.

Unfortunately, my beautiful wave maker took a poop. The ceramic rod broke. I’d been noticing decreased output lately. I went to clean it and discovered the issue just now. That takes out most of the flow. I’m going to try and figure something out. My nems and acros are counting on some kind of flow. I’m definitely worried about it to an extent, but I know I likely have a few days to get something figured out before things go south.

The new fish are doing great thankfully. All the fish are, for that matter.

 

[Fishy888]

Here’s another picture of Angel the Copperband Butterflyfish.

Kathy calls her an angelfish so her name is Angel.

Despite making a ton of progress, there’s still a lot to be done as far as the dinos go.

As for the wave maker, I’m going to get another one in a few weeks. In the meantime I’ve already readjusted the return flow so the nems have flow. I’ll make sure to keep the detritus and dinos off of the acros. I’ve had to do it before and everything ended up ok.

I just hope this one works long term like my older Jebao did. In fact I’ll get two budget permitting. Eventually I want to get a couple of smaller wave makers for the back wall of the display as well. That was the plan originally. I just didn’t expect the wave maker I just bought to already break. If this happens again though I’ll be looking at some other brands.

 

[Fishy888]

I’m not sure if I should be worried yet, but when I went to bed around 2:00 this morning, the CBB was hunting pods. I couldn’t sleep so I came down and noticed she was MIA around 6:00 AM. All the other fish are out now, except for the cleaner wrasse and the CBB. The wrasse often comes out for a few hours in the afternoon and promptly heads back to the rocks. The CBB is usually the last to sleep and the first to wake.

I’m certainly worried but not in full blown panic mode yet. The rest of the fish look great. It’s possible she died, but she was eating just fine and everything. I only have 3 hermit crabs in here so I doubt they could have eaten her that fast. She didn’t jump either. I checked to make sure she didn’t take a ride to the sump. I also checked the drain itself to make sure she wasn’t lodged in there. Considering how big she is, I don’t see how she could have fit in there anyway.

I suppose time will tell. When I look for the cleaner wrasse I usually can’t find it either, but it always appears each day nonetheless. I’m not giving up hope yet, but long before all hope is lost?

 

[Fishy888]

I’m pretty sure that Angel is with the angels sadly. On a positive note, the cleaner wrasse comes out earlier each day and stays out later each night. I thought for sure that if one of the two fish would die right away, it would have been the cleaner wrasse.

I just fed the tank and all the fish ate like champs, including the cleaner wrasse. Although there’s the occasional brief chase, all the fish are getting along. The juvenile hippo tangs stick close together with the near-adult.

While the death of the CBB was discouraging, there’s still so much life in this reef. Seeing the new fish settling in nicely, that’s encouraging!

As you might expect, I’m still dealing with dinos. After I get the new wave maker, I’ll be buying copepods. Thinking about it, the decreased output from the wave maker probably caused some bacteria to die off, setting the stage for where I’m at now.

Since my nitrates are high and my phosphates borderline high, at least that’s one less thing to worry about. Of course, I’ll monitor my levels closely.

 

[Fishy888]

Our extreme drought is about to come to an end thankfully. The rain is almost here. It’s the perfect day to do the maintenance tasks I need to do today, which include rearranging the rock as I take a toothbrush to each rock. It’ll help big time with the dinos, and I’ll be able to confirm what I'm already 95% sure of regarding Angel.

I’ve gone back to using filter socks again, at least for now. It’s making a huge difference already, but there’s much more crud that needs to go. My plan of attack on the dinoflagellates consists of using filter socks, brushing any dino strings and other crud off the rocks, and eventually adding pods to the display. I’m half tempted to grab a huge lump of chaeto and throw it in the display in the hopes that the pods in my chaeto will repopulate it. I just want to make sure that I don’t get strands of chaeto all over the display, but if it’s that or dinos… I think I’ll pull the trigger and throw some chaeto in the display. There’s a lump a bit bigger than a softball. In fact I might add back some of the rock that’s currently in the sump. The more pods the better!

 

[Reefering1]

You can also throw a couple rocks in the fuge for a while then move back to display. Phyto increases pod population...

 

[Fishy888]

You can also throw a couple rocks in the fuge for a while then move back to display. Phyto increases pod population...

I was planning on swapping rocks between display and fuge. I had a phyto culture going but it crashed unfortunately. I’m going to try again soon though.

 

[Fishy888]

Between oversleeping and a power outage, I didn’t get the maintenance done today that I originally planned. That’s going to be tomorrow.

I’ve noticed something interesting. It seems that the cleaner wrasse will go into the rocks when the lights go out, but if the lights come back on within an hour or so he stays in the rocks. All the others come out like nothing happened.

The cleaner wrasse actually came out this morning about 15 minutes after the lights came on. That’s a first for the little guy. He was out until the power outage. He’s fitting in nicely, and isn’t afraid to eat when the other fish are out.

The juvenile hippo tangs are also doing great. They eat like champs. They’re very active.

The maroon clownfish is doing excellently, although she hasn’t taken to the nems yet. With time though she’ll get there. I’ve tried letting her see videos of other maroon clownfish in anemones, but she moves away, acting scared. There are other things I can try but I’m going to move slowly. There’s plenty of time.

 

[Fishy888]

Good news. At least for now, the dinos are being overtaken by cyano. The rocks are free enough from dinos that I decided to just bring up a decent sized rock from the sump, which just happens to have caulerpa on it.

I moved a rock that prevented me from seeing all the way into the cave in the left hand bommie. No sign of Angel. I also checked the sump one last time while I refilled the ATO. Not there either. She’s definitely gone.

I’ll tell you what though, the juvenile tangs went to town on their breakfast today like I’ve never seen them do yet. My cleaner wrasse comes out within 5 minutes of the lights coming on, and doesn’t head for the rocks until the lights go off. In fact, I thoroughly cleaned the glass, turned the sand over, and the wrasse stayed out. Awesome stuff!

All the others are doing well. The tang gang hangs together pretty much the whole day. Come to think of it, I think I already see some growth, particularly in the one that was quarter sized. She’s almost as big as her sister. The Sgt. Major damsels are almost the same size now. They patrol the tank like they’re in the army so there’s that. The powder blue is growing slowly. He and the male Sgt. Major damsel are the undisputed bosses of the tank, although the tang gang will likely surpass them eventually. In several years, I expect the maroon clownfish to become the ultimate boss. We’ll see how that pans out. If she ever kills any fish though she’ll be a sump dweller. She’s very docile for her size. I wonder if it’s just an age thing. It might also be that she’ll be more assertive when she gets a mate. We’ll see how it goes.

 

[Fishy888]

One year ago at about this time, I was putting the finishing touches on the framework of a stand I was building. I placed the tank on the stand and made sure everything was level.

At midnight on the 6th, I started transferring everything over from the 75 gallon display, which would become the sump for the new system. It was epic! A 120 gallon frag tank turned reef!

It’s had plenty of ups and downs, great successes and great failures too. It’s been a learning process. I went from dinos to Cyanobacteria, GHA and turf algae covered rocks, finally to coralline and… dinos? Thankfully the dinos are decidedly on the decline. There’s new coralline growth again.

When I started this reef, I had 5 fish. My two Sgt. Major damsels, the coral beauty, and my two clownfish. Now I have 11 fish. I also have three acropora that are looking good, even with the dinos. I also have the toadstool leather, which was one of three corals I started this system with. The toadstool, my mushrooms, and some GSP. I still have some of all three.

There’s still room for more fish, corals and other invertebrates, including anemones. I still have great plans for this system!

 

[Fishy888]

It seems that the dinos are diminishing rapidly. I haven’t even had to do much. I know that it can take a while for something like a nutrient crash or, say, a large water change to trigger something like a dinoflagellate outbreak.

The fruity pebbles has some PE this morning. My RR The Vinh had one or two polyps out, but I can see new growth too so I’m not as worried as I would be. The tri color valida didn’t have any PE this morning, but it has great color and signs of new growth.

I’m going to try to grab a little more pod rich rock from the sump today to put in the DT. I want to add more caves and to get some pod depleted rock from the DT into the sump. I think the two juvenile tangs will appreciate it. So will the sailfin tang my friend is giving me as soon as she gets the time to catch it.

 

[Fishy888]

Well, it seems I have another mysterious fish death on my hands. One of the juvenile hippo tangs went missing. Just like the CBB, it was healthy, actively feeding, actively swimming, with no indication of disease.

There was no flashing, no spots, no appearance of any dulling of color and no gill inflammation or heavy breathing. Since the CBB death, I’ve been watching my parameters. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I’m wondering now if there’s a predator taking these fish. When I go to bed, the fish are healthy as horses. When the lights come on and I look, they’re gone. Like, “poof”. I didn’t get back until after the lights went off for the night.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had two fish die in a week. I suppose it could be uronema or some other disease but I should have seen at least SOME sign. I’m home most of the day, so I have time to observe my reef and its inhabitants closely.

It could also be that while hunting pods, the fish that died might have ingested dinoflagellates along with the pods. The dino problem resolved itself although there’s quite a bit of cyano. That, I suppose, could be part of the problem although I doubt it. I’ve had worse cyano than this with not even seeing a single fish death.

Tomorrow I’ll start rearranging rocks. I’m going to make one large bommie instead of the two I have now. I want to add more hiding places in case something is indeed being territorial.

Tomorrow will be a better day. With the storm coming, it’ll be a perfect day to tidy up the reef some and do some early spring cleaning.

 

[Fishy888]

Ok. So no new fish deaths! I’ll take my wins where I can get them.

This was what my tank looked like earlier today.

It looks like this now.

I haven’t cleaned the back acrylic, and I intentionally left some mats of cyano so that the dinos won’t come back so easily. I’m getting my diatoms back which is a great thing. My RODI is high in silicate so I get diatoms. I don’t even have to dose waterglass.

Tomorrow I’ll pick back up. I’ll add some rocks from the sump into the display. I’m also going to rearrange much, although not all, of the rocks. The rocks on the left make up the cave area my fire shrimp lives in. My tri-color also lives in that area.

Instead of totally breaking that area down, I’m going to expand on it, and place my fruity pebbles acro somewhat near the tri-color. That coral colored up nicely, so much so that you can really see the color even in my white lighting. I think it’ll do the fruity pebbles some good.

The wave maker got delayed until Thursday. Thankfully I’ll have my system ready by then.

 

[Fishy888]

The wave maker got here today after all. Silly Amazon. I can already see some differences, most notably with the anemones. They’re moving back into the flow and, although they aren’t back to their former glory yet, they’re looking better.

Hopefully, now that there’s flow the anemones will grow more and the maroon clownfish will realize that she’s supposed to make a home in it. Perhaps the reason she hasn’t claimed one yet is because honestly, with the lack of flow the anemones weren’t looking as good as they normally do.

The flow had been declining even before the whole broken ceramic rod thing. As far as flow goes, I’m getting another wave maker in a couple of months. Since I have to change out the RODI pre-filters and resin, and buy more salt, the budget won’t allow for more toys this month.

I ended up getting the SCP-180 instead of the 180M. The only real difference is the controller. It was a little less expensive so I thought I’d give it a shot. Since it takes the same voltage and current, it’s likely that the graphic controller would work with this wave maker, but I’m not willing to risk it. The one it came with is fine by me.

All my fish are still alive. They’re getting used to the flow again. When I first started up the wave maker, the fish were getting blown around like ragdolls. They’re quickly getting used to it though. Now they’re not getting blown around so much.

There’s still some aquascaping to do but I’ll get going on it tonight.

 

[Fishy888]

I wasn’t planning on posting even more than I already did, but for the first time my maroon clownfish is showing some interest in the anemones. I’m almost certain it’s because of the flow and the rearrangement of mount nem.

Unintentionally, it looks a bit like Nemo’s cave now. There’s a nem at the peak, and the maroon has been checking out all the nems. She’s realized that they get fed from time to time.

If you look closely, you can see a couple of tentacles in the cleft of the rock near her head.

Here’s another picture.

There are three nems on that rock that are out of view from the front, but can be seen from the right side panel.

More rearranging is coming later but right now I don’t want to mess this up.

 

[Fishy888]

So I found the second tang juvenile in the tentacles of an anemone today. I think it might have been the flow being too strong for it. Of course I might be wrong. After all, three fish deaths in a 2 week period just seems strange. They were all from same LFS, bought at the same time.

My maroon clownfish however has figured out that she can take refuge in the nems when she feels frightened.

I blew the cyano off the sand and rocks, and I added some more rock from the sump to the display. When I did this, she went right to the black widow anemone. As soon as I get the video edited, I’ll post the link.

She’s near the nem but not in it right now. She’s beginning to chase off some of the fish that frequent that area, including the sulfur damsel which is already somewhat aggressive, even at less than 2 inches in length!

I’m pretty sure my cleaner wrasse and maroon clownfish will live and thrive. Both fish are more active than ever. The cleaner wrasse eats well and the others have started to let him clean them. The maroon clownfish, well, she’s picked out a territory and is getting more brave by the minute.

I’ll be watching everything closely but I think the worst has passed. Hopefully I’m right.

 

[Fishy888]

There’s been no loss of life at Perseverance Reef the last 48 hours, unless we’re counting pod size and under.

I started my scape reset in earnest today. I sent a rock with a good bit of coralline to the sump, and my biggest Kenya tree to my 20 gallon tank. One of the rocks I moved had the brittle star in it that I got a month or so ago. So despite the mini-crash there’s still a ton of life.

I moved the fruity pebbles acro into more light and flow. Same with the Vinh. Both are near enough to the tri-color that they’re getting similar flow and light levels. They’re far enough apart that they’re not in danger of touching one other anytime soon.

Later on I’ll test my parameters. I have a feeling my nitrates shot up with the two fish that died and I couldn’t find the bodies of. I doubt my phosphates went up appreciably, but I could be wrong.

I intend to try again with the hippo tangs, and possibly the CBB. The tangs likely needed better hiding places. That’s something I’m addressing with the somewhat new scape.

I stayed with the dual bommy idea, and left some of the rocks where they were, while changing others. The idea is to have an even cleaner look while maximizing the amount of caves and small crevasses. I’ll have to beef up flow that much more to make up for any new dead spots.

While not much fun exactly, some good things will come out of the mini-crash. I don’t consider myself out of the woods yet, but I think I see civilization up ahead. The dinos didn’t help anything, and I’ve been manually removing the cyano that’s taken the place of the dinos. As long as I can keep the cyano under control relative to where they’ve been without the dinos coming back, things will be much better.

 

[Fishy888]

Although a few of my parameters are low, (and one is sky high) everything seems to have stabilized once again. There haven’t been any more deaths thankfully.

The cyano has gotten better too. Diatoms are growing again instead of dinos. Having flow again is almost certainly the biggest reason that the mini-crash wasn’t a full on crash.

At some point soon I’m going to be getting the sailfin tang from my friend. I expect it’ll do well, since it will have much more room.

 

[Fishy888]

Now I’m 100% certain as to what caused the recent mini crash. I did a major water change about a month ago. Besides adding major and minor elements, the water change dropped my nitrates almost by half. The influx of these elements fueled a surge in coralline growth.

The coralline kept on coming, and my acros kept on growing. Until they didn’t. I started noticing more cyano growth than usual. The lack of flow from the broken wave maker didn’t exactly help matters, but it wasn’t the only issue.

It turns out that both my system and my coralline consume quite a bit of CAL and ALK considering how few corals I have currently. Thanks to @Minifoot77, who gave me about 7.5 lbs of dry kalk, I was able to start a drip. It turns out my system consumes literally 1 ppm of CAL and 0.1 dKh of ALK per hour.

I’m still dealing with the dinos and cyano, though it’s mostly cyano now. There’s less than there was at the height of the mini crash but it’s still there. Since my coralline is ramping up quickly once again, I’m going to do everything I can to keep it going. Not only is it beautiful, it may well be the secret weapon against both the dinos and the cyano.

Of course, manual removal, pods, keeping the sand bed as clean as possible, getting my nitrates down to a reasonable level, etc all need to be done as well to insure success.

Thankfully the tide has turned in favor of Perseverance Reef! Pun absolutely intended!

 

[Minifoot77]

Lol glad I could help @DJF helped me so keep it going if possible