Here I Go Again - Office 10g

[Dustin07]

so for the sake of my documentation.
the little 10g in my office is still largely empty, with just a orchid dottyback who's still doing well, and a frag of zoas that are not. I dipped the zoas in some revive today for the first time, and a TON of crud came off them. I wasn't able to necessarily identify any living creatures like zoa eating spiders but I did have a bunch of debris come off and little bits of green algae etc that is nowhere else to be seen in the tank so we'll see. Revive has done wonders for all my other corals so far.

originally I just wanted this to be a zoa garden tank but geesh, it's the one coral I usually have great luck with at home and zero luck with here!

 

[Dustin07]

I'm trying something else.
I have those stick on temp / thermometers on this tank. They were already there when a co-worker gave it to me and I had no reason to think they were wrong, it showed 78-80f.

I just looked at the heater though and it says 72. so I'm turning it up to 77.5 to see what happens. Maybe my zoas are struggling because the water is cold and I didn't realize it....

 

[reefing102]

Yea those stick ons can be pretty inaccurate

Not sure what you can/can’t do but it may be worth to invest in a temp probe

 

[Dustin07]

Update, the zoa's are doing worse now lol.
I brought my thermometer from home in and have the temp at 77 now. Looking to hit 78 and leave it there.

Must be something missing in my water quality that I can figure out. Even with lights off my home zoa's open....

 

[reefing102]

Maybe run an ICP test to see if there’s something there?

 

[Dustin07]

Maybe run an ICP test to see if there’s something there?

I might have to, right now I have the water dialed at 78f.
I snagged a little GSP from the bargain bin today since it's the hardiest thing on earth, I'll see if it gives me any hope....
I had this pie in the sky idea that this would be a zoanthid only garden but that's not panning out.

Edit;

The "rescues" started opening a tiny bit after I added my bargain bin zoa's

 

[Dustin07]

Grabbed a bargain bin zoa and they're already opening:

 

[Dustin07]

gave my water another test, ph looks good but nitrates are zero... going to try bumping that up....

 

[bradleym]

Yeah, for softies, 10 or higher is kind of a requirement.

 

[Dustin07]

Yeah, for softies, 10 or higher is kind of a requirement.

what's funny is it's the one thing I hadn't thought about. Tank has stayed crazy clean though, which I enjoyed. but didn't really connect 1+1 there... so I'll work on that and see if I can improve that over the next few days/week(s).

 

[Dustin07]

kinda funny. Very little algae in my office tank, zoas are struggling with decent 35w light.
seahorse tank at home is quite a bit dirtier, gets fed twice a day, very cheapo horrible light
I dropped a zoa frag and some gsp from my DT in there a few days back and they're thriving, lol.
seems like nitrates are my issue in this tank. it's too clean!

 

[Dustin07]

everything looks worse in this tank today lol. leaving it alone for the weekend.

 

[Dustin07]

It's gotta be the water source. I might buy some water and do a water change

 

[griss]

It's gotta be the water source. I might buy some water and do a water change

What’s the water source again?

 

[Dustin07]

What’s the water source again?

just filtered local tap water, but from a different town than my DT and seahorse tank.
It hasn't been a problem for freshwater or SW fish, but....

in other news, monday morning finally had a fair amount of brown to clean up on the glass so things are starting to change. I might get a new test kit cause nitrates still show 0 and I'm wondering if that's accurate.

 

[Dustin07]

Did a partial water change today with water I brought from my display tank this morning. I might do that a couple times this week and see what happens...

 

[griss]

Did a partial water change today with water I brought from my display tank this morning. I might do that a couple times this week and see what happens...

It will be interesting to see if that makes a difference.

 

[Dustin07]

It will be interesting to see if that makes a difference.

I'm cautiously optimistic, I don't see how it could make things worse other than introducing things I've fought in the DT, but I've had success fighting them off so I'm optimistic that I could deal with it at the time. I had seeded my 4g AIO with DT water to kick start it's cycle and with a cheapo hygger light on it I have 2 zoa frags in there and 2 GSP frags that are absolutely thriving....

maybe I'm fooling myself but one of the new frags I put in this office tank is showing green coloring already. not opened up, but seems happier. I used a clean 1/2 gallon container this morning to introduce the new water so in a 10g tank that's probably somewhere between a 5-10% water change when you account for rock, sand, filter space etc... we'll see.....

 

[Dustin07]

but the little 4g AIO has been so incredible simple to set up, it's a perfect office tank lol. this 10g SHOULD be a beautiful zoa garden start already...

 

[Dustin07]

added another 1/2 gallon of DT water today, which of course justified giving my DT a little refresher in water last night.
My zoas aren't open and thriving yet, but they are starting to show color and my GSP I threw in there because I was board of the bareness in my tank is looking very good lol.