Sauce's 40g Reef Diary

[Old Man Sauce]

3/27/25 (Top Shelf Aquatics)
6 - Nassaruis Snails
12 Cerith Snails
3 - Collinista Snails
5 - Micro Brittle Stars
1 - Candied Pumpkin Clove Polyps (5 polyps)
1 - Toxic Pinwheel Duncan (2 heads)
1 - WWC Pandora Zoanthids
1 - Green Bay Packers Zoanthids
1 - Hydra Lady Dragon Zoanthids
1 - Pinwheel Zoanthids

 

[Old Man Sauce]

04/02/25 (Water Tests)
Dosing 20ml of Aqua Forest Components 1+, 2+ and 3+ daily via Red Sea's ReefDose4. Individual adjustments made with B-ionic as necessary. Testing with Hanna Marine Master.
Salinity - 1.025
Temp - 79.3
Ph - 7.8
Nitrate - 8.2
Phosphate 0.10
Calcium - 456
Alkalinity - 8.0
Magnesium - 1195
Added a dose of B-ionic Magnesium to adjust and retested
Magnesium - 1255

 

[Old Man Sauce]

4/04/25 (World Wide Corals)
1 - WWC Speckled Leather Coral
1 - WWC Neon Polyp Toadstool Leather
1 - WWC Neon Cabbage Leather
1 - Jason Fox Frankies Hot Pink Rim Montipora
1 - WWC Wildflower Zoanthids
1 - WWC Sweet Tooth Zoanthids
1 - WWC Red Skirt Zoanthids
1 - WWC Whammin Watermelon Zoanthids
1 - Circus Zoanthids

I always plan my shipping/delivery to coincide with my days off. this time was no different, except that FedEx thought it would be a good idea to use their Memphis hub despite earlier (like 8 hours earlier) warnings of the threat of "generational flooding" and predictions of a "rare, high-impact, and potentially devastating event". So my shipment sat in Memphis thru the Tornadoes and ended up getting delayed in transit. Thankfully, the delay was only a day, and all of the corals seem to have survived the trip with little if any negative impact.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

 

[Old Man Sauce]

04/06/25
Went to the LFS today in hopes of finding either a pair of PJ Cardinals, a Royal Gramma, or a pair of Purple FireFish. The cardinals all looked a little lazy, a few of them looked a little off (cant really explain it), they had a small royal gramma that looked good, and no purple firefish at all. Since I'm pretty confident that all of their saltwater tanks are plumbed into the same system, I make a habit of looking at all of the tanks every time we go. I noticed that there was a very thin Foxface in one of the tanks that was flashing against a rock and upon closer inspection, noticed small patches of cotton like growth on a few of it's fins. I just don't understand why any LFS would leave that fish out in public view, much less still have it for sale. Is it snobbish of me to think that any fish in that condition should have been immediately removed, quarantined and kept in isolation until it was healthy? Needless to say, we came home with disappointment and a few packages of frozen foods.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

04/07/25
since the only real LFS we have in our area (that I know of) was a bust, I decided to try to get our fish from the inter"net" (pun intended). I've had great luck so far with WWC, TSA and in the distant past, LiveAquaria. Unfortunately none of them had the selection I was looking for. I took a gamble and tried someplace new. We ended up ordering a pair of PJ Cardinals, a Royal Gramma, a pair of Purple FireFish and a McCoskers Flasher Wrass from Saltwaterfish(dot)com. I dont really like adding that many fish at once, but given the cost of shipping, I wanted to make the most of it. We chose the smallest option for each and I'm going to hope for the best. Fingers crossed for me folks...

 

[Bohemian Waxwing]

Fantastic rockwork. I’ll be following your project.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

4/10/25

2 PJ Cardinals
1 Royal Gramma
2 Purple FireFish
1 McCoskers Flasher Wrasse

 

[Old Man Sauce]

4/17/25

Decided to buy the Orphek lens set for my phone to hold me over until I can get a decent macro lens for my Nikon. These things may be cheap, but they do a pretty darn good job. I was able to get some halfway decent shots to share.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

Update 05/08/25

I've often said " If I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all" and it tracks. 2 weeks ago, out of nowhere havoc ensued. Parameters were all in check, nitrates were around 8, phosphates were around 0.07 and the rest of the numbers were perfectly within range. A few days later, out of the blue, the tank started looking murky and then it hit. within a few hours the corals started looking off, and by the time i got home from work, everything was starting to get covered with what I thought was some type of hair algae. the Flasher Wrasse started acting oddly, and the brittle star came out of the substrate and died shortly there after. My initial thought was that there wasn't enough oxygenation and this was causing the algae growth. I tried hooking the skimmer up that came with the tank and lo and behold, the pump didn't work. A desperate search began for a suitable alternative and my wife discovered the Aqua Ready HOB 1.5. After some further research on her part and a brief talk with me about it, she ordered it and it was delivered the next day. She even went as far as to assemble and hook the whole thing up while I was at work. But by this time, the damage was already done. the flasher wrasse was struggling to swim, we had lost several frags, and the tank was a mess. water changes did little to help, BUT... the Skimmer was an absolute beast, pulling out the nastiest dark skimmate, and the water clarity was noticeably improved after only a few hours. With the water clearing up it was time to assess the damage. The algae looked much less like algae, but not like Cyano either. We had lost both Montipora frags, 3 brain coral frags, a 2 polyp zoanthid frag, and the rainbow pocillopora. 3 other brain frags looked as though they headed for the bone yard, and the Wrasse spent about half his time laying on the substrate. When he did swim, it was a struggle. Since then, we were able to identify the problem, and some of it is starting to make sense. A bit of research and a new microscope later, I was able to confirm my theory (one that most of you reading this have already muttered to yourself) Dinoflagellates. Osteropsis to be precise. Thinking back, I recognize a few mistakes that probably led to this headache. Cleaning the thickening algae from the back glass, running out of Phytoplankton, reducing feeding to try to curb the algae growth.

We are now on the mend, or at least it seems so (see my earlier remark about "luck"). We are about a week in from the time the skimmer was added. The hairy growth has been slowly regressing and the 3 nearly dead brains have some tissue left that seems is, at least, not getting any worse. All of the corals during this event had lost most or all of their fluorescence and the zoanthids stayed closed up, as did the leathers. They have all since opened back up, and everything that is still alive is back to glowing as brightly as ever. The water is as clear as its ever been and the sense of helplessness and frustration that i felt throughout most of this is starting to wain.

But I'm not out of the woods just yet. The dinos are still in there. I've turned off the white, green and red spectrums of light as a start, and that seems to be keeping the hairy growth at bay. I've got a new batch of pods coming and some fresh bottles of Phyto to help. Also looking at adding some microbacter7 and microbacter clean to the list. we've been tossing around getting a UV added, as I know that will be a big help, but for now, the cost is making that a hard pill to swallow. I'll monitor the steps we're taking now and decide soon how we're going top proceed for here on out. Ultimately, i think we'll end up pulling the trigger on the UV within the week. Who knows... I guess we'll see.

I'll post video from the microscope as soon as I can figure out how to get it onto my computer.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

UV Sterilizer ordered. Will be here tomorrow.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

Well, uv sterilizer didn't show up on time. And still wont be here until at least tomorrow. So much for Top Shelf Aquatic's free overnight shipping.

BUT.... on a positive note, I took a sample of hairy growth from where the Dinos were the most prevalent and it looks like the population of dinoflagellates is way down, the growth looks to be a hair algae of some type, and I'm seeing an increase in the populations of diatoms. Not that I really want to deal with hair algae or diatoms, but it's definite progress in the war against the dinos. I'm also seeing a big improvement in the appearance of the corals and have some hope in that a few that appeared to have been a complete loss may still have a tiny bit of flesh on them. Where there's flesh, there's hope.

For the record, the steps I took were as follows... As soon as the problem started we purchased a skimmer that was a bit more capable than the piece of trash that came with the aquatop. I researched the heck out of what could be the cause and based on others experiences, came to the assumption that the problem was dinoflagellates. I checked under my coin microscope which gave me confidence in my assumption. I started feeding with OceanMagik (which I had been slacking on). We ordered a better microscope to id the dinos. Got the skimmer up and running as soon as it arrived a few days later, and eliminated the green, red and white spectrums of light from the lighting schedule completely. Within a day after adding the skimmer and changing the lighting, we started seeing the gunk from the dinos receeding and the corals starting to recover. I ordered a fresh batch of microbacter7, pods and phytoplankton and also a UV sterilizer, none of which has arrived yet.

I will win this war!

I will never buy another all-in-one! EVER!

I WILL be upgrading to an Ultum Nature Systems r120 as soon as i can afford it!

I miss having a sump!

I'm done with my temper tantrum now.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

well, it's been a hot minute since my last update.

We've replaced a few of the corals that we lost. We lost the flasher wrasse. Not sure if that was due to the dinos or some other factor. We picked up two blue tuxedo urchins to help with the hair algae as well as several snails. That coupled with almost daily manual removal caused the dinos to return. So now i have the UV hooked up and running. The hair algae has been a major nuisance ever since, but there is very little signs that the dinos are holding any ground. We added a small purple tang (i know, I know.. the tank is too small for a tang, but thats going to be rectified soon) and we added a sea hare to try to help with the hair algae. So far, he's doing a fair job of cleaning things up, but it's been slow going. I've cut back on manually removing any hair algae except where it's threatening any corals so the sea hare can do his thing. and we're prepared to return or rehome the sea hare if we get to the point that we can no longer maintain a viable food source for him.

On a positive note, the wife is now totally on board for the tank upgrade, the r90 is a definite yes and even the r120 has gone from a hard "NO" to a "oh, i guess that's not really TOO big". she's even been online shopping for places to buy from. I think she's starting to enjoy the tank even more than I do. She sits there and talks to the fish like they were puppies. She's an odd duck, but i wouldn't trade her for the world.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

Well, the hair algae was a battle, but resilience paid off and we seem to have made it to the winning side of the battle. We had a few losses along the way, but I feel comfortable adding a few more corals to the tank now.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

Found this little polyps sitting on the substrate. Not sure yet what it is, but my hopes are that it's a rogue polyp from one of the corals we lost. More likely it's from either one of the brains or the acan that are still in there. I'm sure we'll figure it out after its grows out a bit more. Right now it's about as big around as a pencil eraser.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

So a few months back, I was fixing one of my brains to a larger frag disk and accidentally broke off a small edge that was smaller than a fingernail clipping. That tiny bit seemed to do well just sitting on the substrate, so I glued it to its own disk. A few months later and WOW is it doing well.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

Well, after just over a year, we've decided that it's time to call it quits on this 40g AIO. I've learned a lot about how much this hobby has changed in the years since I last had a reef. Some for the better, some not so much. That said, I'm looking forward to posting a new reef diary for the new tank soon. Moving on to bigger and better things.

 

[BigDangler]

Well, after just over a year, we've decided that it's time to call it quits on this 40g AIO. I've learned a lot about how much this hobby has changed in the years since I last had a reef. Some for the better, some not so much. That said, I'm looking forward to posting a new reef diary for the new tank soon. Moving on to bigger and better things.

What size and tank ya going with ya think?

 

[Old Man Sauce]

What size and tank ya going with ya think?

We went with the UNS r90. We actually have the new tank in place, filled and everything rehomed. I just didnt have the brainpower left to try to document the process. But So far, I absolutely love the new system, and it is SOOOO much better than the Aquatop. really wish I had found this tank/system sooner.

 

[BigDangler]

Did you happen to get the standard or the shallow? I love shallow tanks.. Might get one eventually.. Like a year or so lol