Stanleo's 120 gl mixed reef

[stanleo]

20% biweekly water change today. Temp matched and salinity. Did my tests before water change and they are as follows

pH 8.2 (API)
Nitrate 2ppm (Salifert)
Phosphate .03ppm (Salifert)
Alkalinity 10.4 (Red Sea)
Calcium 500ppm (Red Sea)
Magnesium 1600ppm (Red Sea)

Magnesium is higher than it was on Friday (1440 to 1600) Not sure why. Is it because of the alkalinity dosing I have been doing for the last three days? That is where I want to be. I always do the tests twice to ensure accuracy.

I am going to do the tests again tomorrow to see where these levels are after a water change.

 

[stanleo]

Did some tests today.

Alkalinity 9.8
Calcium 500
magnesium 1440

I'm going to do the tests again tomorrow to see where the magnesium is mostly since it is different than yesterday but consistent with the previous test. Maybe I screwed something up yesterday.

Positive note, my GSP have all opened again finally.

 

[stanleo]

I went to the LFS for some fish food and came with new coral. Green Hairy mushroom and a kenya tree on a rock for 90$. I'm in trouble but I love them.

 

[stanleo]

Broke out the good camera today.

 

[stanleo]

Ran the full battery of tests today and these are the results.

Temp 78F
Salinity 35 ppt
pH 8.2 API
Alkalinity 9 dKH Red Sea
Calcium 500 ppm Red Sea
Magnesium 1440 ppm Red Sea
Phosphate .03 ppm Salifert
Nitrate 2 ppm Salifert

Test results are still consistent. I test Alkalinity every morning and have been dosing part 2 of the Seachem 2 Part every morning to keep this number stable at 9 dKH. It does bother me though that calcium and magnesium never move. I don't have a ton of stuff but there are five soft corals, one LPS and one SPS. They seem to do really well, full polyp extension (except for the toadstool) and I'm pretty sure they are growing so I would have expected some drop in the calcium and magnesium numbers, right?

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Following! It's coming along nicely!

 

[stanleo]

Last couple days I have had a white blizzard going on in my tank. Tiny white particulates floating in the water making it look cloudy and settling on the pumps, rock and over flow box. Corals and fish seem happy. I believe it is a bacterial bloom. Started after swapping filter socks so I think that might have something to do with it. I switched the fuge light to come on opposite the main tank but I'm leaving it off tonight. Tomorrow is water change day so I am going to give the rocks and pumps a good scrub and as always test for everything pre water change to see if any of my levels have changed. Beyond that not sure if there is anything else I can do.

 

[stanleo]

I did my biweekly water change today and cleaned the pumps and brushed off the over flow box and rocks. Didn't seem to be much on the rocks at all compared to the equipment in the tank. I ran my tests before water change and:

Temp 78F
Salinity 35 ppt
pH 8.2 API
Alkalinity 9 dKH Red Sea
Calcium 470 ppm Red Sea
Magnesium 1440 ppm Red Sea
Phosphate .1 ppm Salifert
Nitrate 2 ppm Salifert

The increase in phosphates could definitely by the reason for the sudden onset I am thinking. I am going to remove some chaeto from the fuge. And until yesterday I had the fuge light on at the same time as my display tank. I just now changed it to run opposite to the DT and run for 8 hours. I also had the thought of putting filter floss in a filter bag and shoving it under the bubble trap in the return compartment of the sump. What is your idea on that? I always keep filter floss on hand for my freshwater tanks but have never used it on a reef tank. DT lights are two Red Sea ReefLED 90s. Ramp up is an hour starting at 8am to 100% on blue and white lights and ramp down is an hour starting at 6pm.

I took a sample and looked at it under a micro scope at 100x and 600x magnification and it does look like green algae. I also found the sample teaming with microscopic life! I was fascinated.

 

[stanleo]

Added a ruby fin wrasse (Cirrhilabrus rubripinnis) and two cleaner shrimp yesterday. I drip acclimated the shrimp for an hour taking out a cup of water every 15 minutes. One of them died in the night, not sure why. Hopefully it was just a bad specimen. The long spine black urchin is taking care of the body for me.

The floaties in the water seem to be getting better but they are still there. Alk was 9 dKH this morning. Not going to dose for a few days and monitor the alkalinity. I want to see if it balances out on it's own. I read that with higher calcium and magnesium the alkalinity should be lower. We shall see.

The hammer coral is splitting off two new heads so that is growing. The new wrasse was a little feisty when I first put him in but he is peaceful now thank goodness.

Next I will try a fox face and a fireshrimp. Might also get another cleaner because I wanted two. Might call the LFS and see if I can get another one because this one died.

 

[stanleo]

I did my regular biweekly 24 gallon water change on Tuesday, the test results before the water change are in the previous post. I haven't dosed anything to the tank as I want to see if how much is actually getting used. So I did the full battery of tests today and these are the results.

Temp 78F
Salinity 35 ppt
pH 8.2 API
Alkalinity 8.4 dKH Red Sea
Calcium 440 ppm Red Sea
Magnesium 1520 ppm Red Sea
Phosphate is between .03 and .1 ppm Salifert
Nitrate 2 ppm Salifert

Calcium and alkalinity seem to be getting used more than magnesium. Is that to be expected?

Nutrients seem pretty stable. I still have a lot of floaties in the tank. But the fish and corals seem to be doing great.

I put the pumps in the upper front of the tank facing each other to get a less direct flow over the whole tank and to try and help with floaties. It hasn't helped with the floaties but the corals seem to appreciate it. The pump on the right is on a timer that goes off randomly. I made a little video to demonstrate the flow.

 

[stanleo]

Got a monti pora coral today. 80$ but it is big, maybe a little too big to start out but I like it.

Came with some critters that I hope are harmless. Going to look at one under the microscope to try and ID.

A couple small pieces came off so I placed them higher up on the rock to see if they take off. would be cool if they do.

 

[stanleo]

I looked at the little wiggly worms with fan heads under a microscope and they are quite beautiful actually. The fans radiate out from the head and are striated black and brown. They open like a flower and each tentacle is lined on both sides with about 100 hairs. it is segmented and each segment has tiny spurs that contract out of the body. The tail is white and shaped like a cone. They are almost completely opaque except for the segment spurs.

I have been trying to ID them and having trouble. They may be some kind of hydroid which would not be ideal but I will see what develops in the tank. If they are, hopefully my wrasse will deal with the few I saw go in the tank. They maybe some kind of feathered worm that hasn't made a shell yet. It does match closely some diagrams I found with a google search of feather duster worms except for the protruding tail piece which does make it appear to attach to something like a hydroid would. I am fascinated by all this microscopic stuff.

Anyway, I drew a picture of what it looked like under the microscope.

 

[Jason boles]

possibly feather dusters.

 

[stanleo]

Totally exciting development today. My husband put in a dedicated GFCI outlet behind the reef tank connected to a 30 amp circuit with four ground outlets. (If I said any of that wrong, sorry I am not good with this stuff.) Before the reef tank and my 110 gallon freshwater were on the same 20 amp shared circuit and it had me worried. Now my circuit won't trip while we are at work, causing a flood which will destroy the house, killing everything in it including, ironically, the fish. Oh, and I can have a grounding probe!!

Also in order for him to do this I had to remove the refugium so while he did that I scraped the hair algae off the sides and vacuumed it out and cleaned the chaeto. Looks cleaner I just hope I didn't kill all the pods in there.

 

[stanleo]

Did my water change today. 24 gallons as always. Gave all four sides of the DT a good scrape and then vacuumed out as much of the loose algae as I could. There are two rocks that have been having a brown algae outbreak so I scrubbed them good too.

As always, did a full battery of tests before water change and the results have me perplexed.

Temp 78F
Salinity 35 ppt
pH 8.1 API
Alkalinity 8.4 dKH Red Sea
Calcium 470 or 440 ppm Red Sea
Magnesium 1440 ppm Red Sea
Phosphate is between .03 and .1 ppm Salifert
Nitrate 2 ppm Salifert

Why did my calcium go up from nine days ago? I ran the test four times with two different syringes and cleaned everything with RO water. Two of the tests came back 440 and two 470. So at the very least it didn't go down and it should. All my corals are growing except for a stubborn toadstool leather coral and I think that is just because I kept moving it. I also added a montipora since the last test. I don't dose calcium because thus far I haven't needed to. I do dose alkalinity because that does drop and I am keeping it where it is. I am going to start a thread to see if anyone can explain this to me.

I will run all tests again tomorrow to see what the water change has done, if anything.

 

[stanleo]

Got curious what my test results would be the day after a water change.

Temp 78F
Salinity 35 ppt
pH 8.1 API
Alkalinity 9.2 dKH Red Sea
Calcium 480 ppm Red Sea
Magnesium 1520 ppm Red Sea
Phosphate .03 ppm Salifert
Nitrate 2 ppm Salifert

This is what I would expect from my salt mix being so high so I think I am right on the money for this tank.

I have been having two rocks get a brown algae and the back wall of the tank getting covered and I think it started when I changed my light for the fuge to go on opposite the DT so I changed it back to being on while the DT lights are on. I think the back wall had something to do with the fact that at night while the light is on the fuge under the tank, the light shines through the back of the tank and glows giving that algae a light source at night. Maybe, we will see. Could be a flow issue over those two rocks.

 

[stanleo]

Weekly tests performed today. Phosphate is on the rise. I am not seeing an undue amount of algae in the main tank and the chaeto is growing nicely. I have been seeing algae growth but I don't think it is too much. Regular scrubbing of the rocks once a month seems to keep it under control. I am going to wait to see what the phosphate reading is next week and figure out what to do from there.

Temp 78F
Salinity 35 ppt
pH 8.1 API
Alkalinity 8.4 dKH Red Sea
Calcium 450 ppm Red Sea
Magnesium 1480 ppm Red Sea
Phosphate >.1 ppm Salifert
Nitrate 2 ppm Salifert

This monti is not doing so hot. The rest of the corals are doing well but this guy seems to be bleaching. I put it lower in the tank to get less light to see if that will help. I first noticed it on Sunday and yesterday it looked worse so yesterday I lowered it. Hopefully it will bounce back.

Sunday

Monday blue and white lights

Sunday white light only

This is where it is currently. About four inches from the bottom. I need to get my hands on a PAR meter.

 

[stanleo]

Biweekly water change complete. Cleaned the algae on the back of the tank and scrubbed the other sides as well. Also scrubbed the rock on the right side of the tank that gets algae on it. The other rocks on the right side don't get algae but that's the dry rock I bought that the LFS said was resistant to algae. The rock on the left side of tank was wet live rock. Tests results before water change:

Temp 78F
Salinity 35 ppt
pH 8.1 API
Alkalinity 9 dKH Red Sea
Calcium 450 ppm Red Sea
Magnesium 1440 ppm Red Sea
Phosphate .03 ppm Salifert
Nitrate 2 ppm Salifert

Think I over dosed alk this week but I'm not sure why the calcium is the same. Phosphate went down this week so that's good I think. All other numbers are to be expected, I think. I say I think because I am still learning.

I cleaned the socks and in the process found several amphipods trapped in the floss so now I know I have them! I thought I saw one a couple months ago in the DT but wasn't sure. Most were dead by the time I saw them but I managed to save two and put them in the fuge.

I also took out a handful of chaeto today. The fuge was looking rather full. It's also full of mysis shrimp and several are carrying eggs. So cool they are breeding. I think I am ready for a mandarin IF I can find a good specimen.

 

[stanleo]

I have decided to start testing everything every Wednesday and continue to test alk every day and dose that if it's below 9. I am also going to take a full tank shot every Wednesday to track the growth of the corals. I think I'm doing pretty good.

Temp 78F
Salinity 35 ppt
pH 8.1 API
Alkalinity 9 dKH Red Sea
Calcium 470 ppm Red Sea
Magnesium 1520 ppm Red Sea
Phosphate .03 ppm Salifert
Nitrate 2 ppm Salifert

 

[stanleo]

Weekly tests done today.

Temp 78F
Salinity 35 ppt
pH 8.1 API
Alkalinity 9 dKH Red Sea
Calcium 470 ppm Red Sea
Magnesium 1440 ppm Red Sea
Phosphate .03 ppm Salifert
Nitrate 2 ppm Salifert

All seems ok, calcium didn't go down though. I ran the test twice to make sure and got the same result.

The monti is still struggling. The bleaching is slowed but seems to still be spreading. Not sure if it is going to make it. I fragged a couple pieces and put them in the rock hopeful that something will take off. All the other corals seem to be doing well except that toadstool leather coral. I don't know what to do with him.

I got a couple new corals yesterday. An acan and a torch. The torch is already extending so I think it will do well. The acan I am having difficulties getting it in a spot that it won't get knocked around. I glued it down with super glue so I hope it will be ok there.