illumnae's SPS shallow reef

Thank you! He actually has a slightly deformed mouth, but he's eating well!

I actually have 1 more fish but he's being harassed by the eternally agressive polyzona tang. I won't announce him till he's an accepted member of the tank. Wrangy would love him, but I don't think he follows this thread.

My parameters are very stable now except kh for which consumption keeps increasing. I'm slightly over double the consumption of 2 months ago.

I'm still experimenting with the amount of FM Ultra Phos I'm refreshing weekly to maintain stable Po4 levels - it's currently 0.01 when Ultraphos is refreshed on wc day but rises to 0.05 and stays there by mid week. I don't necessarily want to maintain it so low but I want to achieve stability first.

Corals are not paling out despite nitrate being rock solid at 0.2.

No3: 0.2 (daily)
Po4: 0.01 - 0.05 (daily)
KH: 6.3 - 6.7 (daily)
Calcium: 440 (weekly)
Mg: 1410 (weekly)
K: 400 (weekly)
 
Seems like there's not really much interest in my tank :(

Oh well, things are trucking along pretty well. Acros are continuing to encrust, grow and colour up; fish are doing well. Over the past couple of weeks I've added a mitratus butterfly, 2 marginalis butterflies and 9 randall anthias. I trapped out the polyzona tang and he's in isolation for the next few months while I round up my fish list. I'm sourcing for a pair of Hawaii yellow anthias, a joculator angel, a tigerpyge angel and a white tail bristletooth tang. Maybe a couple of Liopoproma basslet like eukrines, africanum or fasciatus, and a pair of candy basslet.

I've also dosed fluconazole for bryopsis and hair algae. I'm pretty sure it was part of the uglies stage of my tank, but I was really getting tired of spending an hour before each water change plucking the algae out. I've been doing it for a month and it wasn't getting any better. It's day 10 since dosing the fluconazole and the algae is dying off. There's cyano feeding off the dead algae but it doesn't seem to be spreading.

My camera is out for repair - turns out my blurred photos and video weren't wholly due to my lack of skill - so no photos or videos till I get it back.
 
I recently finished a fluconazole treatment. Worked like a dream! Although cyano followed pretty quickly.
I found it had some long lasting effects.. film algea was dramatically reduced for many weeks after treatment and I also had a die off of cheato. Not complete but significant.
That fluconazole certainly has some underlying effects on the system that aren’t fully understood.. but in general it’s pretty positive..
Did it affect nutrient levels in your tank?
 
Hey man ... that's a real cool tank. :wavehand::thumbsup:

I'm unable to view videos ... unsure why. But I would sure appreciate more fish pics.

Can you elaborate more on your nutrient export and NO3 dosing ?
 
reefmutt said:
I recently finished a fluconazole treatment. Worked like a dream! Although cyano followed pretty quickly.
I found it had some long lasting effects.. film algea was dramatically reduced for many weeks after treatment and I also had a die off of cheato. Not complete but significant.
That fluconazole certainly has some underlying effects on the system that aren't fully understood.. but in general it's pretty positive..
Did it affect nutrient levels in your tank?
Click to expand...

The fluconazole no doubt works well. I noticed cyano in my tank too but it's restricted only to growing on the dead strands if bryopsis and hair algae. I think it's feeding off the nutrients being released by the dead algae. No outbreak of it (knock on wood!)

My chaeto was entirely out competed by caulerpa and hair algae in my refugium. The fluconazole killed off all my caulerpa too. I'll need to repopulate the refugium after treatment is over. I did notice nto needing to clean the glass too!

Nutrients wise I noticed phosphate rise from 0.03 on day 1 to 0.08 on day 3. I continued dosing carbon via TM Bacto Balance and nitrate actually zeroed out, probably due to the increase in phosphate. I dosed calcium nitrate and installed an ultraphos reactor and nutrients are now back to normal.

Corals aren't visibly affected but growth seems to have slowed abit based on slowly rising kh levels.

insaneDynamix said:
Hey man ... that's a real cool tank. :wavehand::thumbsup:

I'm unable to view videos ... unsure why. But I would sure appreciate more fish pics.

Can you elaborate more on your nutrient export and NO3 dosing ?
Click to expand...

Thank you! Camera is still not back from repairs. I'll try to get more pictures when it's back.

Not taking into account the abovementioned temporary measures due to the fluconazole treatment, my nutrient control is just 2ml daily dose of Tropic Marin Bacto Balance. It has been keeping my nutrients stable at 0.2 nitrate and 0.03-0.05 phosphate. I used to dose nitrate whenever it hit 0, but after awhile nutrient ratio balanced out and I didn't need to do it anymore
 
Man I love the mexhanical light bar idea, everyone I see one I get so jealous. You have a beautiful tank my friend.
 
So the camera came back from repairs and I was looking at the tank top down to decide which corals to photograph. Noticed a couple of the corals didn't look so hot so I plucked one out and flipped it over... guess what I saw? Yup... bite marks. Removed all the unhappy corals for a dip and yup... the dreaded aefw fell off. Into the bin they went. The other corals in the tank look happy, coloured up and with great polyp extension but I'm not taking anything for granted. My tank is infected.

Absolutely no idea how they got into my tank. Every wild colony was dipped and inspected and every frag came from a clean trusted source. I only have one maricultured piece and that piece was cut well away from the cement base, and also dipped and inspected. No new colonies have gone into the tank for over 2 months.

There's no way I am going to be able to do the 5 week dip routine. I have well over 50 wild colonies and 20 frags, all well encrusted on the rocks. Ripping them out to dip will likely kill them anyway. I plan to just stock up on natural predators of the flatworm and keep them in check using KZ flatworm stop and coral booster. Will not share any frags from trims - they go straight into the bin. Hopefully the tank will do well with the pests under control for a couple of years till its time for an upgrade... next planned upgrade is in maybe 3 years. Will restart from scratch and just transfer the fish over at that time.

Feeling totally deflated at the moment... Things were going so well and the tank was just starting to look good.
 
These beauties and a few others are coming into my tank very soon! I've been waiting for nice Tigerpyges since January when my last one ate dinos and got poisoned. It's a beautiful Christmas :rollface::rollface::rollface:

IMG-20171213-WA0007 by Yi Xiang Lye, on Flickr

IMG-20171213-WA0013 by Yi Xiang Lye, on Flickr

IMG-20171213-WA0009 by Yi Xiang Lye, on Flickr

Photo credit to @LemonLemon, who snapped these lovely pictures when the fish just arrived at Iwarna Aquafarm.
 
First, sorry to hear about your flatworms. Flatworm Stop and frequent basting to blow them into the water column to be eaten by fish can work if you keep at it.

Second, love the tygerpye! You have a very nice collection of fish.
 
Thanks Bulent! It's hard to find motivation to update my tank online. Noone seems interested, so when I post I feel like I'm talking to myself. Good to know that you still drop in :)
 
illumnae said:
Thanks Bulent! It's hard to find motivation to update my tank online. Noone seems interested, so when I post I feel like I'm talking to myself. Good to know that you still drop in :)
Click to expand...

I understand what you are saying and your feeling. My observation is that less and less people post on reef forums compared to past. People say that Facebook is to blame.

I will follow your tank thread more closely from now on.
 
acesq said:
First, sorry to hear about your flatworms. Flatworm Stop and frequent basting to blow them into the water column to be eaten by fish can work if you keep at it.

Second, love the tygerpye! You have a very nice collection of fish.
Click to expand...

Thank you, flatworm problems are still present but much slowed down. I just threw away another 2 colonies that had bite marks and eggs, but it's been a month since the last time I had to throw anything away. I know it's wishful thinking for it to be gone without any painful action on my part, but I hope it slows down to manageable levels so that I can enjoy my tank with minimal disruption for the next 1-2 years before it's time for another upgrade.

I started off being a "fish person" before I started on any corals, so I'm staying true to my roots - I enjoy collecting nice fish still.

DiscusHeckel said:
I understand what you are saying and your feeling. My observation is that less and less people post on reef forums compared to past. People say that Facebook is to blame.

I will follow your tank thread more closely from now on.
Click to expand...

Thanks Bulent, I appreciate that :) I just get the feeling that my tank seems inferior to others' tanks, as I see other threads with so much traffic but mine gets ignored :sad2:
 
Photo dump time! Took these pictures before Christmas, but got caught up with work and preparing the Christmas video, so got delayed in posting them.

Pictures are a little on the blue side this round - still learning my new camera. Will tweak the white balance next time.

First up, here's an updated FTS:

FTS by Yi Xiang Lye, on Flickr

I have quite a number of coral top down shots, so I'll try to categorize them according to source.

1. Sulawesi wild colonies

I got this one as a "Indo SSC", but it has morphed from pink and green with red polyps to purple with red polyps
SPS 23 by Yi Xiang Lye, on Flickr

This piece was totally browned out when I got it, but it's since turned into quite a beauty
SPS 17 by Yi Xiang Lye, on Flickr

Acropora selago? It has a very pretty golden sheen under actinics
SPS 14 by Yi Xiang Lye, on Flickr

Recent acquisition - looks like it will turn into either a Watermelon millie or a Sunset millie
SPS 12 by Yi Xiang Lye, on Flickr

Another "Indo SSC" variant - this one retained the green, but the polyps morphed into a very interesting shade of dark pink, not the usual red
SPS 11 by Yi Xiang Lye, on Flickr

Is this a Paletta Pink Tip? When I first got it, the corallites glowed yellow/orange under actinics, but it seems to have lost that colouration. It paled off recently but is starting to darken up again - hopefully the glowy corallites come back too
SPS 7 by Yi Xiang Lye, on Flickr
 
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