Perseverance Reef

[Fishy888]

Well my nitrates are at 47 ppm. A water change is incoming soon.

The Nannochloropsis culture is doing nicely.

This image was taken Saturday night.

This one was taken tonight.

Another day or two and it’ll be ready for harvest. I’m going to start a second jar once the culture is ready. There’s 32 oz in the jar right now. That’ll be enough to put some back to dose for a week and to start two separate cultures, filled to the 64 oz mark.

Either tomorrow or Thursday I’ll be going to a different LFS than the ones I usually go to. I’m going to buy some fish most likely, and a Nardoa starfish or two if they have them. If they have any beginner acros for a decent price, I’ll get one.

Right now though my priorities are finding a diamond goby, maybe a yellow watchman goby and pistol shrimp combo. If they have them, a sea cucumber or two. Almost anything that’ll turn the sand bed over.

I’d go for a sand sifting starfish if I thought there was a reasonable chance they’d do well. My display has the footprint of a 300 gallon tank so there’s a chance it’d thrive, but a low enough one that I don’t want to risk it. Then again I haven’t researched them in a while. It might well be that there are reefers who have cracked the code with these guys. Maybe there’s a way to add food into the sand bed such that the starfish wouldn’t starve. I’m going to look that up tonight. If it’s still a bad idea I won’t push it.

 

[Fishy888]

I finally went to the LFS I mentioned in an earlier post. They had a few things I was looking for. I bought two feather dusters. One appears to be a Hawaiian feather duster. The other is the size of a Hawaiian feather duster, but it’s almost uniformly brown with a slight tint of red to it. They also had Bali Green Slimer frags and a few small Pocillopora frags. I came home with one of each.

The worms are doing great, and they’ll have plenty of food in my system. As for the corals, I got them both glued down. The Pocillopora is wide open. My Green Slimer is partially open. All its polyps are partially out. Both corals are glued to the same rock. It’s a decent sized rock so I don’t anticipate them getting too close for comfort anytime soon.

Sadly they were out of diamond gobies. They had a Golden Head sand sifting goby but it was overpriced. Still, I wanted a couple of feather duster worms. The Green Slimer and Pocillopora are beautiful!

I’ll get some good pictures tomorrow and post them.

 

[Fishy888]

I took a couple of pictures of the new corals. I’ll get some pictures of the worms later. All are doing well. The Slimer isn’t as open yet as it was at the LFS, but it’s got 90% of its polyps out. The Pocillopora has its polyps all out. Just like it was at the LFS.

I’m excited about how things look right now. I don’t think it’ll be long before the Slimer has full PE.

I’ll be doing a series of partial water changes to get my nitrates back down. I plan on adding a clam over the summer or early fall. I still plan on adding additional acros as well. They’ll all take up nitrates to some degree which will help along with water changes. I’m also going to get the blue lighting soon. It’ll be a busy summer at Perseverance Reef!

Oh, I did something totally crazy! I actually scraped a bunch of coralline off the front glass! Hey, for a coralline lover like me, that’s pretty crazy, but the spores should attach themselves to the rocks. Besides, I want to be able to see the new corals.

 

[Fishy888]

I tested for ALK and CAL yesterday. I knew I was getting low on both since I hadn’t dosed kalkwasser in a week or so. It turns out my ALK was 6.4. CAL was 425.

I started a drip this afternoon. It’s not fully saturated though. I’m not chasing numbers. I’m chasing stability. At least I’m trying to.

I’m slowly raising ALK to 9 dKh which is where I want it ultimately. It’ll be a while until I get there. My goal is to raise ALK by no more than 0.5 dKh per day. In fact I’ve actually only dosed 0.25 dKh in a 24 hour period so far. I’m happy going at that pace.

The Slimer and Pocillopora seem to be handling things well. PE isn’t perfect but it’s definitely there. No signs so far of RTN or STN. I’ll take it!

My feather dusters are doing well too. The fishes zipping by makes the dusters close up occasionally but so far they seem to be doing really good.

My phytoplankton cultures are doing great right now. My starter culture went from the original 15 ml (1 tbsp) to about a gallon’s worth. It’s entered the rapid growth phase.

I’ve seen a pod bloom since I started dosing phyto. It could also be that they’re eating biofilm too. I’m trying to get the back acrylic covered in coralline and there’s definitely a biofilm there. I’m seeing them on the front acrylic too though where there’s no biofilm. Most likely the pods are eating both.

My feather dusters are definitely eating it. One that had closed up started opening as soon as the phyto got around to it. The other was already open but instantly turned its crown towards the plume of phyto.

I’ve been dosing 1/4 cup of phyto every other night, just before the lights go off for the night.

Tonight I dosed 3/8 of a cup. I didn’t have a ton to spare this time around but I’ll have a ton of it soon. Not that I’ll be dosing a ton. I’ll eventually up the dose to around a cup daily, but I’ll work my way up to that slowly. If nutrients spike too much at any point I’ll cut it back. Most likely though it won’t be an issue, especially with water changes.

 

[Fishy888]

A lot has happened since my last post. Unfortunately, not good news either. My lighting, even in shadier areas, even 27 inches off the bottom, still burns tips. I’m going to build a system to allow me to block some of the light while acclimating coral. The Green Slimer has suffered the most although it’s hanging in there, barely. My Pocillopora has also gotten light-burned but not nearly as badly.

The worst news is that Jake, my American Eskimo mix who I’ve had for about 5 1/2 years, died this morning. I’ve known it was coming soon but I didn’t think it would be this soon. He had a very aggressive scrotal tumor. I’m grateful he’s not suffering anymore and that he died at home, with people who loved him.

It’s going to take time for me to get back in rhythm with my reef but I will in time. Other than the issues with the corals, everything is doing fine. I just haven’t scraped the acrylic in a while or cleaned the sand. I also need to do a water change. It won’t be today though.

 

[Minifoot77]

A lot has happened since my last post. Unfortunately, not good news either. My lighting, even in shadier areas, even 27 inches off the bottom, still burns tips. I’m going to build a system to allow me to block some of the light while acclimating coral. The Green Slimer has suffered the most although it’s hanging in there, barely. My Pocillopora has also gotten light-burned but not nearly as badly.

The worst news is that Jake, my American Eskimo mix who I’ve had for about 5 1/2 years, died this morning. I’ve known it was coming soon but I didn’t think it would be this soon. He had a very aggressive scrotal tumor. I’m grateful he’s not suffering anymore and that he died at home, with people who loved him.

It’s going to take time for me to get back in rhythm with my reef but I will in time. Other than the issues with the corals, everything is doing fine. I just haven’t scraped the acrylic in a while or cleaned the sand. I also need to do a water change. It won’t be today though.

Never easy losing fur babies. prayers for you and your fam but keep your head up im pretty sure there was a movie that convinced me that all dogs go to heaven