Turtle's Fairy Tale

[SashimiTurtle]

Soo... we caved. We got a new squishy. The indo bug was biting really bad and we had to scratch it. I ordered a small 4" Trachyphyllia radiata. My huge radiata completely dwarfs it right now, but it will grow. It's red, purple and green.

Just out of acclimation, still closed up

Clownfish checking out the new addition

Hour and a half later, opened up pretty well...

Size comparison with the metallic green monster

 

[Magellan]

Soo... we caved. We got a new squishy. The indo bug was biting really bad and we had to scratch it. I ordered a small 4" Trachyphyllia radiata. My huge radiata completely dwarfs it right now, but it will grow. It's red, purple and green.

Just out of acclimation, still closed up

Clownfish checking out the new addition

Hour and a half later, opened up pretty well...

Size comparison with the metallic green monster

The clowns got an extra bedroom

looks great man!!

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Before going to work... looks like it's opened all the way.

 

[Scurvy]

Beauty!!!

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Quick mid maintenance cycle update...

Alk holding steady at 7.8dKH @ 4.1ml dose a day. Switched to new reagent for the Hana alk tester and it was 0.1dKH low when we did a comparison before our last vial ran out. I upped the dose to 4.25ml a day to see if we can get it back up closer to 8.0dKH.

The vibrant is still on 2.5ml a day dose. I haven't seen any progress with the ulva, actually quite the opposite, but the skimmer cup was GREEN today. Like huge green flakes in the cup green.

ATI ICP results are back for the test we sent off one Feb 13. Most major elements are in line, trace are all but depleted and we have a few things elevated. Particularly sulphur. Not sure where that could be coming from. May be a dirty sand bed. Next maintenance day I'm going to siphon it really well and get any detritus out of the dead spots in the back of the tank. Nutrients are bottomed out. I cant detect any with my kits and ATI is showing .01 and .02 ppm NO3 and PO4.

With the trace elements depleted, and the nutrients all but bottomed out, I decided to toss the chaeto. Yep, I shut down my refugium. It was too effective, and out competeing corals for the good stuff. The vibrant might have killed it off anyway, and I'm not going to put it back in after eventually clearing up the ulva and not treating the chaeto also. I've been tossing around the idea of a cryptic zone and I think that's which way I'm leaning right now. I'm going to downsize skimmers to the Curve 3.5 but I have to trim some acrylic to get it to fit in the front of the sump, then the large chamber will be a dedicated cryptic zone. I'll put some mud down, and add some live rock for some structure, then look into seeding some sponges for filtration. Also KZ has a product to dose for sponge growth. Eventually I'd like to run sockless with this set up, little to no carbon and no GFO.

ATI Aquaristik Lab

 

[crusso1993]

Quick mid maintenance cycle update...

Alk holding steady at 7.8dKH @ 4.1ml dose a day. Switched to new reagent for the Hana alk tester and it was 0.1dKH low when we did a comparison before our last vial ran out. I upped the dose to 4.25ml a day to see if we can get it back up closer to 8.0dKH.

The vibrant is still on 2.5ml a day dose. I haven't seen any progress with the ulva, actually quite the opposite, but the skimmer cup was GREEN today. Like huge green flakes in the cup green.

ATI ICP results are back for the test we sent off one Feb 13. Most major elements are in line, trace are all but depleted and we have a few things elevated. Particularly sulphur. Not sure where that could be coming from. May be a dirty sand bed. Next maintenance day I'm going to siphon it really well and get any detritus out of the dead spots in the back of the tank. Nutrients are bottomed out. I cant detect any with my kits and ATI is showing .01 and .02 ppm NO3 and PO4.

With the trace elements depleted, and the nutrients all but bottomed out, I decided to toss the chaeto. Yep, I shut down my refugium. It was too effective, and out competeing corals for the good stuff. The vibrant might have killed it off anyway, and I'm not going to put it back in after eventually clearing up the ulva and not treating the chaeto also. I've been tossing around the idea of a cryptic zone and I think that's which way I'm leaning right now. I'm going to downsize skimmers to the Curve 3.5 but I have to trim some acrylic to get it to fit in the front of the sump, then the large chamber will be a dedicated cryptic zone. I'll put some mud down, and add some live rock for some structure, then look into seeding some sponges for filtration. Also KZ has a product to dose for sponge growth. Eventually I'd like to run sockless with this set up, little to no carbon and no GFO.

ATI Aquaristik Lab

You are the third person I have read about today that has pulled their fuge. I, for one, have always had a hard time understanding why people run a fuge and then have to dose back in what has been pulled out. Don't get me wrong, I understand the thoughts, theories and applications of a fuge but have not much agreed on running one. However, I'm a longtime believer in cryptic zones and everything that accompanies them. Please keep us posted when you start one and as it progresses.

 

[Magellan]

You are the third person I have read about today that has pulled their fuge. I, for one, have always had a hard time understanding why people run a fuge and then have to dose back in what has been pulled out. Don't get me wrong, I understand the thoughts, theories and applications of a fuge but have not much agreed on running one. However, I'm a longtime believer in cryptic zones and everything that accompanies them. Please keep us posted when you start one and as it progresses.

+10000 but Robin already knew that

Quick mid maintenance cycle update...

Alk holding steady at 7.8dKH @ 4.1ml dose a day. Switched to new reagent for the Hana alk tester and it was 0.1dKH low when we did a comparison before our last vial ran out. I upped the dose to 4.25ml a day to see if we can get it back up closer to 8.0dKH.

The vibrant is still on 2.5ml a day dose. I haven't seen any progress with the ulva, actually quite the opposite, but the skimmer cup was GREEN today. Like huge green flakes in the cup green.

ATI ICP results are back for the test we sent off one Feb 13. Most major elements are in line, trace are all but depleted and we have a few things elevated. Particularly sulphur. Not sure where that could be coming from. May be a dirty sand bed. Next maintenance day I'm going to siphon it really well and get any detritus out of the dead spots in the back of the tank. Nutrients are bottomed out. I cant detect any with my kits and ATI is showing .01 and .02 ppm NO3 and PO4.

With the trace elements depleted, and the nutrients all but bottomed out, I decided to toss the chaeto. Yep, I shut down my refugium. It was too effective, and out competeing corals for the good stuff. The vibrant might have killed it off anyway, and I'm not going to put it back in after eventually clearing up the ulva and not treating the chaeto also. I've been tossing around the idea of a cryptic zone and I think that's which way I'm leaning right now. I'm going to downsize skimmers to the Curve 3.5 but I have to trim some acrylic to get it to fit in the front of the sump, then the large chamber will be a dedicated cryptic zone. I'll put some mud down, and add some live rock for some structure, then look into seeding some sponges for filtration. Also KZ has a product to dose for sponge growth. Eventually I'd like to run sockless with this set up, little to no carbon and no GFO.

ATI Aquaristik Lab

Amen!!! Really interested to see how the cryptic zone does.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

You are the third person I have read about today that has pulled their fuge. I, for one, have always had a hard time understanding why people run a fuge and then have to dose back in what has been pulled out. Don't get me wrong, I understand the thoughts, theories and applications of a fuge but have not much agreed on running one. However, I'm a longtime believer in cryptic zones and everything that accompanies them. Please keep us posted when you start one and as it progresses.

I dont think anything can compete with it for nutrient removal. I was feeding 2 cubes of the San Fran Bay brine, plankton and or PE mysis and a thicc chunk of LRS a day, and nutrients were dead zero. Fish were happy af, but couldn't get nutrients to show up. Unless you are dosing extra trace on top of what your corals use, then you'll have problems.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Had a great time at Reef Dreams this Saturday. Not gonna let a little mass hysteria keep me from buying coral... @Magellan brought it to my attention I may have a little problem with that. Not even 3 full months into the year and I've already added double digit numbers to the tank.

Anyway, we had a limited budget this year compared to the previous years, but still managed to get some nice pieces. The main coral I wanted even if it took up my entire budget was Gonzo's XXX goni. (DO NOT GOOGLE THAT)...

It ended up only taking half of our budget, so we got a handful more from Brian at JamRock corals. I've always enjoyed doing business with him and he had some fire in his frag tank. We got a tall 1.5-2" Bali Slimmer, an even taller elkhorn branching monti, what the heck Bubblegum digi, a sunset encrusting monti, and a rainbow acan.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Lol... what the heck digi... its ***** without the dashes.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

And I got censored. Wet Thumbs Frags... lol

 

[SashimiTurtle]

So, remember how SPS(especially acros) was hard and I couldn't keep them alive for long...

 

[Magellan]

Had a great time at Reef Dreams this Saturday. Not gonna let a little mass hysteria keep me from buying coral... @Magellan brought it to my attention I may have a little problem with that. Not even 3 full months into the year and I've already added double digit numbers to the tank.

Anyway, we had a limited budget this year compared to the previous years, but still managed to get some nice pieces. The main coral I wanted even if it took up my entire budget was Gonzo's XXX goni. (DO NOT GOOGLE THAT)...

It ended up only taking half of our budget, so we got a handful more from Brian at JamRock corals. I've always enjoyed doing business with him and he had some fire in his frag tank. We got a tall 1.5-2" Bali Slimmer, an even taller elkhorn branching monti, what the heck Bubblegum digi, a sunset encrusting monti, and a rainbow acan.

16 new corals halfway through March, seems reasonable!

pulled the fuge and your corals are doing significantly better, strange...

 

[SashimiTurtle]

16 new corals halfway through March, seems reasonable!

pulled the fuge and your corals are doing significantly better, strange...

Water change tomorrow(due this past saturday) and trimming the sump to fit the smaller skimmer in the front chamber. Still going to run the larger Curve 5 for now. Then comes planning for the cryptic zone.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Oh, I also dosed some ATI iodine. 0.4ml twice... seems I saw a difference in acro tissue color shortly after dosing that. I changed a few things in a short amount of time so I cant say exactly what did it, or if it was a combination.

Refugium is shut down. Chaeto removed and Kessil H80 unplugged.

Kessil AP700 moved from 75% max intensity to 50%.

Dosed iodine supplement.

 

[Magellan]

Are you going to put some
Polyfilter in too?

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Are you going to put some
Polyfilter in too?

Ehhh, not sure. Probably just keep up biweekly water changes.

 

[siggy]

Super nice trachy, I'm waiting for a nice one that is not stupid money

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Update time, I've been slacking. Biweekly waterchange came on Wednesday, instead of Saturday... but it got done. We also trimmed the sump so we could fit the smaller 3.5 skimmer in the front chamber. The eurobracing around the top needed about an ⅛" cut off so it would fit in. It's running dead silent, and pulling skim. It's a little wetter than I'd like but I think that was from some old funk in the skimmer and mixing ul some dead spots in the sand. I'll probably make a stand for it anyway.

Here is the home of our future cryptic zone. I'm thinking about adding a base layer of some refugium mud, a few pieces of live rock and then maybe seeding a few sponges.

Nutrients are still next to nonexistent even with removal of the fuge, but the tank still looks fine. Maybe a slight improvement. NO3 tested below 0.25 but detectable color with the Red Sea test. The Hanna Phosphate LR checker showed 0ppm. No issues with dinosaurs or cyano, so I'll just keep doing what I've been doing. I have a feeling the vibrant is eating up nutrients.

Speaking of vibrant... it's junk for algae removal. Should have just gotten fluconazole to start with and had this algae dead by now. I might keep it set up on the doser as a small maintenance dose, but that's about all it's good for. I may have noticed a slight reduction in the amount of film on the glass, but it's still there after a day or so.

Corals! We glued some new ones, moved some old ones... I'll just share some pics.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Corona virus update... still working like normal... for some reason people still expect electricity right now.

Tank tested at 7.6dKH the other day during maintenance. Forgot to add that little bit in. I upped my dose to 5ml a day, but have a feeling it will need more than that now that we have some SPS growing.

I backed the Vibrant off to 0.5ml a day, where I was at 2.5ml a day... roughly a quarter of what I was dosing or the recommended dose for a "clean" tank. I ordered some Fluconazole and am going to nuke the ulva, while maintaining the maintenance dose of Vibrant.

After doing some research, all Vibrant is, is a heterotropic bacteria and a carbon source, which is vinegar. The heterotropic word just means an organism that uses carbon for energy instead of sunlight. Its basically ramped up carbon dosing by also adding the bacteria in the bottle, instead of relying on the bacteria in the tank alone. Sp that's exactly where my excess nutrients have been going.

I've also found 2 buckets of Walt Smith Fiji Mud. This stuff was discontinued after the Indo ban 2 years ago... I have 12 lbs of it on the way to put a base layer in my cryptic fuge. Along with the Fiji Mud, I also got some KZ Sponge Power. It's supposed to be a food source that boost sponge and clam growth and also enhances colors for SPS. I also plan on dosing phytoplankton and some oysterfeast to really load the water column up with available food without completely blowing up my nutrients. Heavy in, heavy out.

Once I get the mud I'll add a few pieces of live rock with sponges plus some more bare rocks to grow new sponges.

My current sump flow is main drain to dump chamber, thru a sponge filter, cryptic fuge chamber, probe holder/skimmer chamber, bubble trap/large sponge filter, return chamber. As you can see I've removed the filter sock and only have the large cell sponge filters in place.

Since doing the few changes that I have done, the tank is looking a little happier. I checked the acropora this morning with a flashlight and they both have healthy tissue with good polyp extension. All other SPS is happy and showing growth. LPS has been super fluffy lately also.