Abs
Abs
Hello everyone,
I would also like to thank everyone for all the long replies and info in this thread. I wanted to pass on information I have had in keeping these alive so far. I purchased a colony 8 months ago. Initially I lost quiet a few after the first month passed. I did do some fragging after I first received colony just to spread them around in case I was not fortunate. I watched a few LFS's fail at keeping any alive and believe i'm the last in my area with these. I tried high lighting and high flow, med lighting and med flow. <-- much to my disbelief this caused the retraction of my colony or so it seemed at the time. Now I should point out that I take a very natural approach to reefing, if it does not do well without dips etc I do not expect it to last the duration. So I do not dip etc. Only Lugal's is added to tank when I think about it. Until 5 weeks ago I never supplemented anything alse as many reefers do. Polyps normally do well in my tanks and I have not used more then a Q-tip to treat anything. I just brush off the brown stuff and everything returns to normal within a few days. I believe this also helps the animal build up immunity. I run a constant 78.2 degrees temp and natural seawater salinity. I also run dirty tanks. I only use carbon in my canister filter and do not have a sump. I have a cheap phos-reactor and an oversized skimmer. Water changes have been weekly until recently. <-- That is all nothing special. System is old also so very stable.
Ok well enough about my brutal way of reef-keeping and back to the ABS. I had two diff types of Ding-Dangs from Hawaii that are in 2 seperate tanks. Both have been half-open for a few months. No necrosis or dying off has occurred. I mentioned this to another reefer and he suggested I use suppliments. He told me strontium and calcium. so I grabbed what was needed and left without arguing. <-- I'm just reluctant because of bad experience with suppliments 12 years ago when I started all this.
Ok so 5 weeks has gone by and I changed water changes from weekly to bi-monthly and have been supplimenting. Looks like the Ding-Dangs are doing better but are not quiet right yet, With this observation I noticed the ABS started bouncing back. The yellow which had been absent from the plate has returned and they are looking larger. Mine are on the bottom of the tank approx 30 inches below 320 watts of T5 geisemann bulbs.
I still feel like i'm having a suppliment issue and i'm looking for further recommendations. What I feed is so random, it must be 10 diff things mysis, oyster, etc, etc...
So with all this being too much info, what other success is out there?
sorry if anyone gets confused ABS= African Blue Steele = African Blue Hornet. Mine came from Ghana also, I tracked the colony from there...
Thanks everyone,
Tom
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