TheWB’s IM Lagoon 50

[TheWB]

Let us know how the a4r conversion goes. I am about a week into mine and after a bit of a spike found that 4ml per day seems to hold my alk steady. Tonight’s test will confirm.

I decided to go a different direction than all for reef. I’m not really using cal or Alk beyond what a weekly water change can replenish. I don’t have any SPS. Where I need a little adjustment is trace elements. I decided to get the small package of red sea ABCD and I’m going to dabble with that for a while. It much less $$ than buying the individual bottles of trace elements from ATI when most of it would just go to waste. If I see a positive reaction then I’ll keep using it and if not it’s only 20 bucks.

 

[TheWB]

Acclimation box is built and installed for tomorrow’s new arrivals.

 

[TheWB]

They are not rare or anything but I’m very happy with the way these two torches are coloring up and growing. I‘d never seen a torch with different colored tips before I got this one. Most are yellow, a few are pink.
The purple cristata is starting to show some differentiation in color.

You can also see where the branching cyphastrea is starting to encrust on the rock to the right.

 

[Jeffcb]

They are not rare or anything but I’m very happy with the way these two torches are coloring up and growing. I‘d never seen a torch with different colored tips before I got this one. Most are yellow, a few are pink.
The purple cristata is starting to show some differentiation in color.

They do look good!

 

[TheWB]

They do look good!

Thanks for checking them out.

 

[TheWB]

Shipment from Biota has arrived safely.

I’ve never ordered fish online before. Biota seems to do a very nice job of packaging the fish and both look healthy and are actively exploring the acclimation box. So far I’m very impressed.

 

[TheWB]

Just turned the new fish loose after a couple of days in the acclimation box. Neither one went and hid. Hopefully they both find a nice safe place to chill. I’m a little worried about clown and tang aggression. I guess I’ll see in the morning.

 

[TheWB]

Ok, it’s roughly 8 hours later and things seem to be going well. The tang and wrasse are out and about this morning and seem to be paying no mind at all to the file fish and goby. Both are still out in open water picking at stuff so no hiding or acting defensive at all. I’m still worried about the clowns but so far so good.

 

[TheWB]

The Filefish seems to be settling in well. Sticks his nose right into the fray during feeding time.

My son wanted me to send him a picture of the nem so I took a new one and it looked pretty good so I thought I’d throw it up here.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

The Filefish seems to be settling in well. Sticks his nose right into the fray during feeding time.

My son wanted me to send him a picture of the nem so I took a new one and it looked pretty good so I thought I’d throw it up here.

The filefish is so wonderfully alien looking. Has it shown any interest in aiptasia yet?

 

[TheWB]

The filefish is so wonderfully alien looking. Has it shown any interest in aiptasia yet?

Not that I’ve noticed so far. Its very small though, and a lot of the aiptasia is pretty big so it might not be ready for them yet. It does pick at the sand and I have a lot of aiptasia in the sand bed so maybe it’s getting really small ones. Hopefully as it grows it will take a liking to them. It does look very alien.

 

[Dj City]

I was not getting notifications. Figured I'd drop in to see what's up with your reef and how the filefish and everything else is doing.

 

[TheWB]

I was not getting notifications. Figured I'd drop in to see what's up with your reef and how the filefish and everything else is doing.

It’s a real bummer how that keeps happening on certain threads.
The filefish and rainfords goby have settled in nicely. I’ll try to get some pics soon. The filefish has decided it likes nipping at the long stalks of the orange/pink Zoas that the clowns have moved into. It’s a huge patch and can use some trimming but not like that. It hasn’t really shown any interest in aiptasia yet despite spending lots of time nose down right above the sand where there are like a million baby aiptasias just waiting to be eaten. Highly disappointing. The rainfords goby is pretty boring so far. It just kinda sits there in the front corner of the tank. It’s great to be able to see it all the time but I was expecting more activity. It doesn’t even join in at feeding time. It looks ok but I’d like to see it eat a little more aggressively.

In other news I have removed two giant colonies of Nirvana Zoas and one colony of the Orange/pink ones and traded them in at the lfs. They gave me $25 worth of store credit which I thought was $25 too much but I’ll take it. They immediately put them in a display tank with $100 price tags on all three. I thought that was just insane on a couple of levels but I guess there must be a market. I now consider both of those morphs to be weeds. The only reason I didn’t give all the Orange/pink ones the boot is because the clowns live in the big patch now and I didn’t have the heart to take away their home.
I bought a photosynthetic purple bottle brush gorgonian and a cleaner shrimp using the store credit to pay for part of it. My daughter has been wanting a shrimp that will be active since forever so I finally took care of that for her. I’ll get some pics soon.

 

[TheWB]

Here’s some pics of the new inhabitants and a new FTS.

Rainfords Goby chillin.

Purple Bottle Brush Gorg. Not sure I like it in this spot but it’s the right flow.

The Alien doing its thing.

Cleaner Shrimp hiding under the Frogspawn. You can also see that the torch has different colored tips fairly easily in this pic. Thats a pretty accurate picture compared to what my eye sees.

 

[happyhourhero]

That blasto is just bonkers!

 

[TheWB]

That blasto is just bonkers!

Thanks, it used to have a lighter teal center but its gotten darker over time. Believe it or not I’ve had that Blasto since July or August of 2019 and it’s the same as the day I got it, three heads. Not one new head In two years. It looks great but does not grow at all.

 

[happyhourhero]

Thanks, it used to have a lighter teal center but its gotten darker over time. Believe it or not I’ve had that Blasto since July or August of 2019 and it’s the same as the day I got it, three heads. Not one new head In two years. It looks great but does not grow at all.

That’s crazy. I have very little lps experience think that one is great.

 

[Dj City]

How is everything going?
Any improvement on the aptasia yet?

Your reef is looking great!

 

[TheWB]

How is everything going?
Any improvement on the aptasia yet?

Your reef is looking great!

Thanks DJ, things are going pretty good. There does seem to be a reduction in the little aiptasia that were populating the sand bed in large numbers. The file fish is always picking at the sand bed. I’ve never actually seen it specifically grab an aiptasia but there are definitely less of them. The bigger more established ones still seem to be unaffected but I’m hoping as the file fish gets bigger it will start going after bigger meals. There are also 3 peppermint shrimp in the tank but I doubt they are helping based on what was happening before the file fish arrived, which was nothing. It’s also possible the Berghia Nudibranchs are still alive and doing their thing but I very much doubt that as well. No sign of them at all since they disappeared into the scape.

 

[TheWB]

Picked up one of these from Satwateraquarium.com

I also got the calibration sets for the Hanna Phosphate and Alk checkers.
Phosphate checked out perfectly the first time. Reading was 4.0 and the certificate of authenticity that came with it was also 4.0 +/- .03
Alk tested at 5.1 while the cert of auth showed 4.9 +/- .3 so it was within the margin of error. Nice to know they have held their calibration after 2.5 years of use.