Viking_reefing’s 1000L upgrade. Risky fish and sps in Sweden.

[Viking_Reefing]

Right. Since I’m apparently a sucker for punishment I’ve started a new project: keeping obligate corallivore butterflies.

I managed to acquire a trifasciatus and melapterus in good condition straight from an exporter in Kenya and I’m seeing some initial success.

At first I kept them in my observation tank just to make sure there here no issues with flukes/velvet/uronema. Did several fw and formalin dips and nothing came of. The Arabian has a wound on its side which is concerning (it’s not uronema) but I think it’s starting to improve.

They are now bit in my DT and I’ve sectioned of a corner to keep them on their own whilst I train them in to prepared foods.

Like I said I’m seeing some initial success. They are both feeding fairly well on oysters and clams. The Arabian also eats masstick and angel formula. They have pecked at pellets but no great interest as of yet.

Wish me luck!

 

[reef_ranch]

Beautiful fish. I hope they do well in your tank.

 

[NanoJHB]

Butterfly fish are some of my all time favorite marine fish. Wish you all the best with them, one day I'd love to follow in your footsteps

 

[Viking_Reefing]

Beautiful fish. I hope they do well in your tank.

As do I mate!

Butterfly fish are some of my all time favorite marine fish. Wish you all the best with them, one day I'd love to follow in your footsteps

Mine as well. I sure hope I can manage to achieve some long term success with these things.
They are progressively getting better at feeding. Now they are devouring oysters

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I just wanted to see how your tanks were doing!

 

[Viking_Reefing]

I just wanted to see how your tanks were doing!

I’ve hit a bit of a slump in terms of my passion for the hobby (not the first time) but I’m slowly digging myself out of the hole. I’ve got new lights coming today, going to redo the sump and I also have a new corallivore butterfly that I’m working on.

 

[Miami Reef]

I’ve hit a bit of a slump in terms of my passion for the hobby (not the first time) but I’m slowly digging myself out of the hole. I’ve got new lights coming today, going to redo the sump and I also have a new corallivore butterfly that I’m working on.

I watched the video. The microscope photo (3rd one) looks like diatoms to me.

In my short testing, GFO worked significantly better for phosphate than for silicate. In fact, it brought down phosphate to almost undetectable before lowering the silicate (5ppm+).

I would not use GFO to remove silicate.

I purposely dose a lot of silicate, and I hardly have much diatoms. Perhaps you have a high nitrogen input (from ammonium) and maybe iron or other trace element from dosing something.

Maybe too much red light in combination with the above is the recipe for the heavy growth. This is just me tossing some ideas around.

 

[Northern Flicker]

I’ve hit a bit of a slump in terms of my passion for the hobby (not the first time) but I’m slowly digging myself out of the hole. I’ve got new lights coming today, going to redo the sump and I also have a new corallivore butterfly that I’m working on.

Cool vid dude. This will be you in a few months when you've overcome your issues:

I had a tank in my home office, the problem I ran into was the blue lighting was a bit distracting and hard on the eyes 8 hours a day for me. I run my tanks much more white than most (and I see you do too) but even just as it was ramping I found it distracting.

I do miss having a reef in that room, though.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

I watched the video. The microscope photo (3rd one) looks like diatoms to me.

In my short testing, GFO worked significantly better for phosphate than for silicate. In fact, it brought down phosphate to almost undetectable before lowering the silicate (5ppm+).

I would not use GFO to remove silicate.

I purposely dose a lot of silicate, and I hardly have much diatoms. Perhaps you have a high nitrogen input (from ammonium) and maybe iron or other trace element from dosing something.

Maybe too much red light in combination with the above is the recipe for the heavy growth. This is just me tossing some ideas around.

Yeah I mean everything would point to diatoms except the fact that they shouldn’t be growing out of control given the conditions they’ve got to work with. However, I’m also thinking something similar to you: a high amount of organics in the water column which won’t register on test kits but the algae are able to utilize. I’m going to get some media that’s specifically made to remove DOCs and see what that does.

In terms of light I do run my tank heavy in the full spectrum range but that has never been an issue before. However, that in combination with something else being out of whack might be a contributing factor.
I’be actually changed my light to the deep sea version of the Aurora v12 which leans more heavily in to blues. Should be interesting.

Cool vid dude. This will be you in a few months when you've overcome your issues:

I had a tank in my home office, the problem I ran into was the blue lighting was a bit distracting and hard on the eyes 8 hours a day for me. I run my tanks much more white than most (and I see you do too) but even just as it was ramping I found it distracting.

I do miss having a reef in that room, though.

Hahaha without the long hair though. After two years of being bald I finally have in to my wife’s wishes of growing out my hair again…but this is as far as I’ll go haha.

Interesting. I’ve also been thinking about perhaps setting up a small tank in my home office to have something to look at…apart from performance data of my team lol.

Did you have it right smack on your desk?

Oh yeah and the new lights has arrived. Two giesemann aurora v12s. My old light was 150cm and these are two 90cm ones. The coverage is just insane!

 

[Northern Flicker]

Yeah I mean everything would point to diatoms except the fact that they shouldn’t be growing out of control given the conditions they’ve got to work with. However, I’m also thinking something similar to you: a high amount of organics in the water column which won’t register on test kits but the algae are able to utilize. I’m going to get some media that’s specifically made to remove DOCs and see what that does.

In terms of light I do run my tank heavy in the full spectrum range but that has never been an issue before. However, that in combination with something else being out of whack might be a contributing factor.
I’be actually changed my light to the deep sea version of the Aurora v12 which leans more heavily in to blues. Should be interesting.


Hahaha without the long hair though. After two years of being bald I finally have in to my wife’s wishes of growing out my hair again…but this is as far as I’ll go haha.

Interesting. I’ve also been thinking about perhaps setting up a small tank in my home office to have something to look at…apart from performance data of my team lol.

Did you have it right smack on your desk?

Oh yeah and the new lights has arrived. Two giesemann aurora v12s. My old light was 150cm and these are two 90cm ones. The coverage is just insane!

I had it off to my left, about 1.5m from where I sit. It was a great distraction during boring Teams meetings but I eventually upgraded and moved it downstairs. I've since started running my tanks a little whiter so I think I might try again.

The new light is looking fantastic. I don't think I've even seen one of those for sale here in Canada. Hope it works out better for you. You'll have lots of time to tinker with it once fishing and canoeing season ends.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

I had it off to my left, about 1.5m from where I sit. It was a great distraction during boring Teams meetings but I eventually upgraded and moved it downstairs. I've since started running my tanks a little whiter so I think I might try again.

The new light is looking fantastic. I don't think I've even seen one of those for sale here in Canada. Hope it works out better for you. You'll have lots of time to tinker with it once fishing and canoeing season ends.

Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking as well. Something to do during boring meeting haha.

No, they haven’t made it across the pond yet. However, BRS will carry them and from what I understand the launch should happen early fall.