Waterbox 100.3 Orphek Back to SPS Reef Madness
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I didn’t think you knew this tread existed.... I’m in trouble now!
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Got a tux urchin and bazooka joe from DD today, they switched to Fed Ex, which is worse here as they don't even have packaged loaded on the truck by 10:30, but they did come in fine shape. urchin is moving around the tank already and had minimal spine loss in bag.
This isn't the DD pic, just a general DD bazooka joe, but I have wanted one since I shut down my 120, that pink was really amazing and the 1st coral people noticed. Excited to have another one.
My old one:
This isn't the DD pic, just a general DD bazooka joe, but I have wanted one since I shut down my 120, that pink was really amazing and the 1st coral people noticed. Excited to have another one.
My old one:
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I guess update time.... I made a pretty big change several months back. Decided to remove all the rock nems and make new structure with stax rocks. Took out the old rock and put in sump until I decided to chisel out the nems which was quite the process! I detailed it here.
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Build Thread - 5g Rock Flower Sexy Shrimp Tank
This build has a bit of a backstory. I had wanted to convert my 70g to all rock flowers and had around 130 in there at one point, I had previously had a 30g and they made babies like crazy, but in this larger tank they didn’t thrive. Some did ok, but even with 300 par or more on most they seem...
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The elegance has been quite the ordeal. I had totally written it off as dead months ago but I saw a thread on FW dips so I tried it a few times. It looked a bit better after each but pretty much totally retracted in the skeleton after it got fat like you normally see when they die.
I didn’t take any photos when it looked really bad as I thought was no point.
I left the date on the screenshot I think the 1st recovery pic was December 10, my bday, and despite how poor it looked it was so much better than it had been. Eventually it started accepting pellets and I think now it’s in the clear
recent video:
I didn’t take any photos when it looked really bad as I thought was no point.
I left the date on the screenshot I think the 1st recovery pic was December 10, my bday, and despite how poor it looked it was so much better than it had been. Eventually it started accepting pellets and I think now it’s in the clear
recent video:
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I redid the scape as I said with stax in later October, here is the result early November with the battlecorals 1k pack along with a dozen acros my amazing friend gave me. I don’t seem to have kept any of the photos of the original staxs. Perhaps I can find a photo elsewhere.
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I am not even sure where to start with updates since it was so long. Few months ago I had a worry some event where a couple acros bleached and others turned brown - they looked as some have said in other threads, dry.
After really scratching my head and doing tests the thing I finally settled on was phosphate deficiency as I had some detectable nitrate. I had thought this impossible if feeding fish, which I do via auto feeder several times a day plus at that time daily easy sps food and phyto. My old 120 I always shot for 0 phosphate and I had coral that would brown up with just a few ppm, but different systems I guess....
I suspect the clams are heavy consumers and are the reason it was so depleted. I took my chaeto offline and started dosing phosphate. It took an entire 250 bottle of neophos (slowly of course) before I was able to maintain detectable levels of phosphate and even now I keep it on a doser to maintain low levels. I would like to target 0.05 to 0.1 but I can’t quite get there after a few months. However with no other changes it totally reversed the system, browns went away and coral health returned. Just amazed me.
After really scratching my head and doing tests the thing I finally settled on was phosphate deficiency as I had some detectable nitrate. I had thought this impossible if feeding fish, which I do via auto feeder several times a day plus at that time daily easy sps food and phyto. My old 120 I always shot for 0 phosphate and I had coral that would brown up with just a few ppm, but different systems I guess....
I suspect the clams are heavy consumers and are the reason it was so depleted. I took my chaeto offline and started dosing phosphate. It took an entire 250 bottle of neophos (slowly of course) before I was able to maintain detectable levels of phosphate and even now I keep it on a doser to maintain low levels. I would like to target 0.05 to 0.1 but I can’t quite get there after a few months. However with no other changes it totally reversed the system, browns went away and coral health returned. Just amazed me.
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Some fun photos. My Ora red goni and unique corals glitter goni were getting too big. I kept putting frag plugs under them so wouldn’t attach to the bottom but it was a matter of time. My one friend has a coral saw and cut them in quarters, idea being I would keep 1/4 and give the other 3 of each away to my other friends.
Well the one guy is a frag master and since the frags were so large he made some micro frags of the 1/4. They are doing quite well in his system!
Well the one guy is a frag master and since the frags were so large he made some micro frags of the 1/4. They are doing quite well in his system!
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Here were the goni fresh cuts just a couple hours later! Two of each as I put one set back in display and the other friend took his set, these were waiting for my other friends.
I was super lucky to be a recipient of the "frags" he cut. In all honestly, they were mini colonies....
I trimmed the red goniopora he gave me into 2 large frags (~2''x2'') and 9 microfrags (~1/4''x14''). I also trimmed the green goniopora into 1 larger frag and 3 micro frags of similar dimensions to the red one.
For a sense of scale of how small the micro frag cuts were, here's how big the larger goniopora frags are.
Despite the aggressive fragging, the goniopora have proven to be really hardy/healthy. Here's a updated pic from Feb 2021 of the microfrags. As you can see, massive growth over the past 3 months when compared to the initial fragging pics @hart24601 posted.
I trimmed the red goniopora he gave me into 2 large frags (~2''x2'') and 9 microfrags (~1/4''x14''). I also trimmed the green goniopora into 1 larger frag and 3 micro frags of similar dimensions to the red one.
For a sense of scale of how small the micro frag cuts were, here's how big the larger goniopora frags are.
Despite the aggressive fragging, the goniopora have proven to be really hardy/healthy. Here's a updated pic from Feb 2021 of the microfrags. As you can see, massive growth over the past 3 months when compared to the initial fragging pics @hart24601 posted.
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Since I dose ammonia I thought would be fun to buy some new slides for the seneye and see what the readings are. Needs 24hr to soak before they are accurate though.
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Clams have been doing well. Here is a shot of them with the sump and DT all together. Also got a cultured snake skin teardrop and a green squammy (no pic) and a unique purple spot derasa (no pic).
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Since I dose ammonia automatically daily I was curious what the seneye would read. Very low levels in the 8-9ppb range of ammonium. This is right where is was hoping it would be, a constant state low level for the clams and to keep the eventual byproduct of no3 from bottoming out. @brandon429 I thought this might be of interest to your experiments of dosing ammonia in a heavy stocked tank.
I am using the formula from Lasse of 152g NH4Cl in 4L water. 1ml of that will bring NH4 to 0.1ppm in 100l, approx 4ml per 100g. He adds approx 5ml in 80g. I add 10ml in approx 160g however I made the solution half strength so it's more like 5ml of the solution above.
I am using the formula from Lasse of 152g NH4Cl in 4L water. 1ml of that will bring NH4 to 0.1ppm in 100l, approx 4ml per 100g. He adds approx 5ml in 80g. I add 10ml in approx 160g however I made the solution half strength so it's more like 5ml of the solution above.
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With such low levels of ammonium I was wondering if my dosing container had evaporated the ammonia although unlikely.
I took some of the dosing liquid in a bowl and added the seneye. Clearly there is ammonia! It seemed to max the meter out at 0.5 which is too bad I can’t confirm the potency without serial dilutions which I don’t want to do.
In other news nitrate tested 5-10ppm and phosphate at 7ppb aka 0.021ppm, a bit lower than I want but it’s ok. Wont make any changes to either ammonia or phosphate dosing based off those numbers.
I took some of the dosing liquid in a bowl and added the seneye. Clearly there is ammonia! It seemed to max the meter out at 0.5 which is too bad I can’t confirm the potency without serial dilutions which I don’t want to do.
In other news nitrate tested 5-10ppm and phosphate at 7ppb aka 0.021ppm, a bit lower than I want but it’s ok. Wont make any changes to either ammonia or phosphate dosing based off those numbers.
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The unique derasa and squammy from PEA site. Look similar in tank. The derasa is particularly interesting with purple spots. Normally just see the tiger and stripped derasa.
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This is interesting. I have had orange plate for a couple years. Started it in a pico jar:
It then nearly died of totally - bad pic I cropped as I didn’t bother taking a real photo of a dying coral:
Then as the tank recovered so did the plate. Each little color area growing it seems a new plate. I have been able to give some to 3 of my friends so far. Don’t give up on them!
It then nearly died of totally - bad pic I cropped as I didn’t bother taking a real photo of a dying coral:
Then as the tank recovered so did the plate. Each little color area growing it seems a new plate. I have been able to give some to 3 of my friends so far. Don’t give up on them!
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