Reef Safe With Caution

[FEED ME ZOAS]

Not a whole lot of adding to the tank under corona lockdown, so I printed a "random flow generator" style nozzle for my return. After 24 hours to adapt to the increased flow the hammers and frogspawns are really liking it, and are nice and fluffy. Eductors are working, but I think I can get some more performance out of it by reducing the twist rate of the flutes, so I may model and print another version and tweek some things. I really should do some CFD on it but the setup is a bit more work to appropriately model the eductor effects.

Seemingly happy Hammers and Frogspawns with the new flow.

Very cool. Would you be willing to provide an stl or even better a cad file? Thanks

 

[pcon]

Very cool. Would you be willing to provide an stl or even better a cad file? Thanks

yeah I will PM you with it. I am a solidworks guy so I can send the part and the STL files for you. It's built for a 1inch fitting. Anyone else who wants the files can PM me.

 

[FEED ME ZOAS]

yeah I will PM you with it. I am a solidworks guy so I can send the part and the STL files for you. It's built for a 1inch fitting. Anyone else who wants the files can PM me.

Awesome. Much appreciated!

 

[pcon]

Sorry for the hyatius, This has not been a good spring on my reef perhaps the summer will mark a turnaround. After just feeling better about recovering from the prior issues, about a month ago my sump sprung a leak in the corner of the refugium in the middle of the night. This dropped the water level in the display and killed all surface agitation. I woke up to a lot of water on the floor and a dead venusta angel shortly later; a rude awakening forsure. I replaced the sump with a 40 breeder.

Some ups and downs in the new sump, overall the corals I care deeply about are benefiting, though a couple are having a rough go. Had to rearrange the Fimbriaphyllia garden a few times now. Didn't intervene fast enough to one of the hammers getting shaded, luckily the newest layout gives all the hammers and spawns plenty of room to grow for a while.

The Burgess Butterfly was acting funny for a couple days hiding out most of the time and breathing heavy. this was several weeks after the tank leak craziness so I was concerned that a flukes infection might be lingering. So I put the tank through a parzi treatment. I just finished the second dose a couple days ago. The burgess was immediately better the day after the first prazi dose so I think this was the right course of action. Hopefully this will finally put the infection to bed, I think the last time I treated I did not do the second dose at the right time for the tank temperature. I used the marine parasites calculator this time and the day was selected to account for possible error in my temperature measurements. To deal with the potential oxygenation issues from prazi, I added a second airline into the display in front of the vortech, and left the skimmer running but pulled the collection cup. Because of the altitude here oxygenation is always a constant battle, I have found a skimmer is essential for just that reason and I run an airstone in the sump incase the skimmer accidentally shuts down ever. The corals don't love the prazi, one of the two bird nests is quite unhappy, and the burgess is taking advantage of it for some quick polyp snacks. Hopefully recovers as this dose is being cleared from the water. Reinforces the adage of keeping with caution fish with corals, keep the corals healthy or they will become snacks.

On the other side of the tank the Mystic Sunset covering the monti cap skeleton experiment is progressing nicely. Had to trim the mother colony again and added a couple frags to the cap. Probably needed to do more trimming of the mother colony, may continue to fill in the empty areas. I am excited to see how this ends up, fingers crossed it stays on track.

So in summary the first half of 2020 has not been great for my tank. The ups and downs of reef keeping.

The modesta is reaching its final stages of quarantine, dose one of prazi is done a little over a week left and dose 2 before it can be moved to the display. I still need to figure out a acclimation box for it, as I dont want the aculeatus and burgess to gang up on it.

He is fantastically conditioned at this point super social, eats flakes and pellets with gusto. Real inquisitive always coming right up to the glass to check me out.

In other news the puppy is happy, did not like the constant fireworks of 4th of july this year, decided that he would like to just sleep instead of listen to the loud noises.

 

[Wrangy]

Sorry to hear about the issues!! But I'm super glad to hear and see everyone is doing well

 

[pcon]

Thanks @Wrangy, Just the way these things go on the reef. Down some days up others.

DIY social acclimation box built and installed for the Roa which should be ready for the display tomorrow. hopefully it is deep enough for the height of the butterfly, the box is practically resting on corals so I unfortunately don't have room to make it taller. should be okay for a day or two but we shall see when the butterfly gets in there.

 

[pcon]

The roa is in the tank, really dwarfs the other two butterflies. Good excuse to upgrade to a larger tank soon.
The burgess is a little unhappy it seems, he was spazing out darting around the tank after he noticed the new butterfly. I distracted them by feeding the tank as I added the new butterfly. Hopefully the acclimation box prevents any conflict, when I let the roa out.

It is a bit unsightly but got to prevent fish jumping and it is only temporary.

 

[pcon]

Roa was doing better this morning. The other butterflies seem settled down. probably going to keep the new one in the box for another day just in case. But the Roa is eating well already so I am quite happy with how things are going.

 

[pcon]

Released the Roa last night seems to have settled in very well.

 

[Wrangy]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Love, love, love that shot with the three butterflies in it!! I might finally be getting another burgessi soon too!

 

[pcon]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Love, love, love that shot with the three butterflies in it!! I might finally be getting another burgessi soon too!

It was a bit blurry but I had to include it. Hard to get 3 fish to stay still for a photo. Burgessi are such fun, that's exciting.

 

[Wrangy]

It was a bit blurry but I had to include it. Hard to get 3 fish to stay still for a photo. Burgessi are such fun, that's exciting.

That shot was definitely worth it!! I'm just waiting for imports to be more consistent before I can really start adding anything again haha

 

[pcon]

Mr. Blenny, let this be public notice I do not appreciate finding bite marks shaped like your mouth on new fish. This is a habit which I think you should put some effort into breaking. you are several years old now and should learn not to bite new tank-mates.

 

[Wrangy]

Omg!! Haha glad to see the little guy looks mostly unaffected though haha

 

[pcon]

yeah the starry blenny is a bully. He left a similar mark on the burgess when I added the prior two butterflies. Aggression seems to die down after a few days. The Roa seems to be still swimming and eating heartily, comes right up to the front when it sees me coming up to the tank.

 

[pcon]

Did some work on the tank I had been putting off. Removed a section of the large monti cap which was dead and I wasn't doing anything with. Turns out that that section of monticap had become structural, and much of the upper left side of the rock work collapsed, as soon as I moved it. So tried to get back to what it was before and it got close but was not quite where it was before. Joys of keeping tanks. Sorry the pics are not great, I am still figuring out how to get good results with some orange gel filters on my phone.

Before:

After:

I have continued my project of seeding mystic sunset frags on the one section of dead monti cap. the mother colony was due for another trimming so I did that and used the frags to fill in some gaps.

I will try to get some better pictures tomorrow when the whites are on and things are a little more extended. hopefully the adjustments to the scape don't cause issues. Joys of reef keeping, those midnight rock juggling events.

 

[pcon]

Well things were still standing this morning. And look fine. So that is good. A couple large branches were knocked off the green montipora and I glued it back on and those have held. Hopefully grows back together. I have done this a few times on the sponginodes on the other side of the tank but not to this one before.

 

[Wrangy]

The tank is looking super happy mate!! Everyone is looking great too!

 

[pcon]

The tank is looking super happy mate!! Everyone is looking great too!

Thanks wrangy! there are some unhappy corals here and there as always but overall I am happy with where the tank is at.

 

[pcon]

Got some more free frags from my friend last night. hopefully this torch does better than the last batch of torches. this one is in better health to start at least.