The Garden -- Rakies shallow SPS cube

najer · May 25, 2019

Katrina71 said:
@Rakie and @najer I always read your thoughts and opinions. Your coral/tanks speak for themselves. There is more than one way to reef successfully. Thinking outside the box is never a bad thing to me.

I am going to post a bit about this on my journal, I'm getting my nitrates and phosphates checked by my lfs tomorrow!

Katrina71 · May 25, 2019

najer said:
I am going to post a bit about this on my journal, I'm getting my nitrates and phosphates checked by my lfs tomorrow!

I'll be sure to read it.

RichtheReefer21 · May 25, 2019

najer said:
I am going to post a bit about this on my journal, I'm getting my nitrates and phosphates checked by my lfs tomorrow!

If its API they only read down to .25ppm ... u should be hovering around there I would imagine by the looks of your S tank.

najer · May 25, 2019

They use salifert.

RichtheReefer21 · May 25, 2019

najer said:
They use salifert.

What's the low end range on it? Never gave it a try.

drawman · May 25, 2019

@Rakie just verifying that this is the pond melafix you use? I was thinking it probably kills vermetid snails as well so I may use it on existing coral in QT right now.

https://www.amazon.com/API-MELAFIX-...=melafix+pond&qid=1558802852&s=gateway&sr=8-4

Rakie · May 25, 2019

drawman said:
@Rakie just verifying that this is the pond melafix you use? I was thinking it probably kills vermetid snails as well so I may use it on existing coral in QT right now.

https://www.amazon.com/API-MELAFIX-...=melafix+pond&qid=1558802852&s=gateway&sr=8-4

Yes it is! If it's a long dip, and a heavy dip, it can kill vermatids. But honestly I've never paid attention to that.. I usually remove them with a sharp knife and dip after removal.

I will say I use chalk powder (calcium carbonate) which is very similar to KZ Coral Snow to kill vermatids. They try to eat the chalk and slowly starve -- this is a daily treatment for awhile, but it definitely works for vermatids. This won't help for a dip of course, but if your tank is infested with vermatids give it a shot. It will take daily treatment for weeks on end to slowly starve them out.

Rakie · May 25, 2019

Spent about 10 hours today at a buddies tearing down for AEFW. Glad it wasn't just the two of us, my leg is still messed up and it would have been pretty rough.

Anywho -- 265g tank with AEFW. Pulled out all the rocks and chiseled all the SPS off including as much encrusted bit as possible. Anything that didn't come off the coral was removed and tossed. Rocks were cleaned of ALL encrusted SPS -- anything that was too challenging to move was put into an acid wash to peel everything off the rock like the skin of a potato.

About 1/3 of the rock was permitted to stay in tank as it was base rock with nothing on it, everything else was taken to a holding tank for a few days to make sure no missed bits of SPS start growing back.

We used about 120 2" discs today, and a 295mL bottle of coral glue. Everything from mini frags to colonies were placed on these discs (except the 4x4"+ colonies) and will be dipped weekly on a 2x1' frag rack for 8 weeks. We found a bonus besides AEFW -- Polyclad worms!

We also saved about 50-60 Berghia.

I was gifted some small and struggling/unhappy Warpaint Scolly, and Bleeding Apple Scolly. Now I have a small scolly garden I guess, I have had good success with them and if they lived for months in the shadows (they fell behind his rock structure) they should do well in my tank with hand feedings, and light.

Hella_Reef · May 25, 2019

Rakie said:
Spent about 10 hours today at a buddies tearing down for AEFW. Glad it wasn't just the two of us, my leg is still messed up and it would have been pretty rough.

Anywho -- 265g tank with AEFW. Pulled out all the rocks and chiseled all the SPS off including as much encrusted bit as possible. Anything that didn't come off the coral was removed and tossed. Rocks were cleaned of ALL encrusted SPS -- anything that was too challenging to move was put into an acid wash to peel everything off the rock like the skin of a potato.

About 1/3 of the rock was permitted to stay in tank as it was base rock with nothing on it, everything else was taken to a holding tank for a few days to make sure no missed bits of SPS start growing back.

We used about 120 2" discs today, and a 295mL bottle of coral glue. Everything from mini frags to colonies were placed on these discs (except the 4x4"+ colonies) and will be dipped weekly on a 2x1' frag rack for 8 weeks. We found a bonus besides AEFW -- Polyclad worms!

We also saved about 50-60 Berghia.

I was gifted some small and struggling/unhappy Warpaint Scolly, and Bleeding Apple Scolly. Now I have a small scolly garden I guess, I have had good success with them and if they lived for months in the shadows (they fell behind his rock structure) they should do well in my tank with hand feedings, and light.

Very tedious and time consuming work. But at least u got paid In scolymias lol

drawman · May 26, 2019

Rakie said:
Yes it is! If it's a long dip, and a heavy dip, it can kill vermatids. But honestly I've never paid attention to that.. I usually remove them with a sharp knife and dip after removal.

I will say I use chalk powder (calcium carbonate) which is very similar to KZ Coral Snow to kill vermatids. They try to eat the chalk and slowly starve -- this is a daily treatment for awhile, but it definitely works for vermatids. This won't help for a dip of course, but if your tank is infested with vermatids give it a shot. It will take daily treatment for weeks on end to slowly starve them out.

You dose to the tank or try to target the vermetids? Can't say I've ever heard of using it.

Katrina71 · May 26, 2019

Rakie, you can make anything grow beautiful

Janci · May 26, 2019

Rakie said:
Spent about 10 hours today at a buddies tearing down for AEFW. Glad it wasn't just the two of us, my leg is still messed up and it would have been pretty rough.

Anywho -- 265g tank with AEFW. Pulled out all the rocks and chiseled all the SPS off including as much encrusted bit as possible. Anything that didn't come off the coral was removed and tossed. Rocks were cleaned of ALL encrusted SPS -- anything that was too challenging to move was put into an acid wash to peel everything off the rock like the skin of a potato.

About 1/3 of the rock was permitted to stay in tank as it was base rock with nothing on it, everything else was taken to a holding tank for a few days to make sure no missed bits of SPS start growing back.

We used about 120 2" discs today, and a 295mL bottle of coral glue. Everything from mini frags to colonies were placed on these discs (except the 4x4"+ colonies) and will be dipped weekly on a 2x1' frag rack for 8 weeks. We found a bonus besides AEFW -- Polyclad worms!

We also saved about 50-60 Berghia.

I was gifted some small and struggling/unhappy Warpaint Scolly, and Bleeding Apple Scolly. Now I have a small scolly garden I guess, I have had good success with them and if they lived for months in the shadows (they fell behind his rock structure) they should do well in my tank with hand feedings, and light.

Don't forget to dip your new scollies!!

Rakie · May 26, 2019

Thanks @Katrina71 !

drawman said:
You dose to the tank or try to target the vermetids? Can't say I've ever heard of using it.

I just dose the tank. DIY Coral Snow <--- LINK

@Janci they both got a nice long heavy dip. Some solid green amphipods that were eating some leafy algae was all I found. Kinda wished I had saved them! They are pretty small, and the war paint scolly is pretty annoyed and weak. I'm looking forward to watching them grow and heal.

I'll be using them as free fragging exercises when they grow up and get healthy. The common warpaint is destined for the saw.

Rakie · May 26, 2019

@drawman --

Dosing Instructions for Coral Snow -- So you'll be dosing pretty much every evening. You'll dose a lot, and it's completely inert in your tank and safe. If you read the thread, it will ALL be removed from your skimmer. The calcium carbonate will bind to anything free floating in your tank and scrub your water clean. It will also get caught up in the nets of Vermatids. You will have to do this for awhile to starve them out. It works, but it will take some time. Nothing is quick!

Dipping Instructions for Vermatids -- Shatter their little shells as much as possible, and as close as possible to the base so they can't seal up like a snail. Then dip as usual, if you keep them from protecting themselves they'll most likely die to the dip pretty easily, but that requires you breaking their shells at the base where the animal is living.

Alternatively -- Get a very sharp knife and just scrape out the entire organism one at a time. This sucks, and takes time, but works perfectly.

Rakie · May 26, 2019

So this showed up today -- thanks bubba!

Wrangy · May 26, 2019

Rakie said:
So this showed up today -- thanks bubba!

Wooooooooooo

I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it man!!!

Rakie · May 26, 2019

Wrangy said:
Wooooooooooo I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it man!!!

I won't be using it right away, first I gotta get the corals happy and stable. THEN I'll start some very light dosing.

I'm currently using the Trace A, B, and C in my ATO container, at about 1 drop per gallon of my ATO. That's about 1/3 the daily dose of ABC I should be using, but since it's tied to my ATO, better safe than sorry. They suggested putting it all together and setting a bit of ABC on a single dosing pump to get a controlled dose, but honestly I prefer putting a couple drops in the 10g ATO instead.

I need to get a pic of those scoly's too. They shrunk pretty badly from months of neglect in my buddies tank, but they will grow back. They're surprisingly healthy and puffy just a day after transfer to my tank.