Lily's first reef! - updated

I also meant to mention that I have mine under T-5 actinics for 12 hours a day and 250W MH for 3 hours a day. I originally started with only Power Compacts and T-5 bulbs. my original zoos and palys did really well.
Under my clown you can see some of my zoos that almost took over my tank! I wish I was a better photographer than I am a zookeeper.

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Wow, you do have alot of light. I see you have a crazy paly issue too lol.
Isn't it funny how some palys just take off and wanna take over the tank, while some are so delicate they die when they get too much light.
I've lost some of my favorite, most colorful colonies of zoas. Some gold zoas that were ridiculously metallic much like rastas, i lost a fierce red metallic colony of palys, and i lost a big colony of the pinkest zoas i've seen in my life. Basically all my favorite ones and all three were the biggest colonies i had in the tank. Most due to those damn spiders, there were two colonies that i lost to light shock. And one other i had that was the first colony i had in the tank....i didn't know then that i had to feed them. Those green palys you have are cool.
 
Muy bonita!!
Thanks! I can't get over how each kind of zoa is so wildly different in color. And then when the day lights go off and the moonlights come on it's even more crazy with the colors right? I don't know if it was before your time but remember that toy called 'Lite Brite'. That's what zoas remind me of when only the moonlights are on. :lmao:
 
I've only had them for 3 weeks, I just looked at them and I think I see a third one starting to "bud". :celeb2:

What I've noticed is that too much light makes the green really pale, almost like a lime color. So unless you'd prefer that, I would say less light would allow them keep those rasta colors. I don't feed them.
Oooh a new baby. Cool!
Thanks for the tip about the light. I wanna keep those popping colors so i'll put them in low/medium light.
My fruit loop is growing a bud. I was almost jumping up and down like a little girl lol. There was only one fruit koop on this frag of eagle eyes. So i was worried the eagle eyes would crowd the fruit loop out, so i'm over the moon now :)
 
I named him scooter....RIP

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Awww...poor little guy :-( They're so cool to watch.
 
Why you no feed??? I feed mine about twice a week with cyclopeze. Just a quick blow with the baster. I don't want mine hungry when I stick my hands in the tank. I already get attacked by my percs.
lol i wish you could see these two peppermint shrimp, whenever we first got them i put the turkey baster in to feed my corals, hoping it wouldn't scare them, and they came at the baster and one was riding around on it grabbing the food in it. Once in awhile we hand feed them pellets. They're crazy and funny :lmao:
 
I had a fire shrimp a bunch of years back. He had a cleaning station set up on the back side of the tank. When I stuck my hands in, he'd leave his station and craw up and down my arms picking at them. He was a blast.
 
So...these new zoas i got:
I don't go for 'names' or 'tyree this or jason fox that. I go for color. If a zoa has an intense color and has crazy fluorescence i wouldn't care if it was called 'ugly awful zoa", i'd have to have it.
So keeping in that mindset, i'm kinda dissappointed with the space monster. I'll wait and see if it grows and looks better. Unfortunately for the space monster, it looks just like my rose nebulas, except with a green skirt.
Great. As you guys know, the last thing i wanna see is something that looks like a rose nebula. :lmao:
All the zoas in our tank have WAY more bright and colorful fluorescent colors. I can see them all fom across the room.
The only ones i Can't see from across the room are my rose nebs, and the space monster. :lmao: The irony is killing me.
Space monsters are gorgeous, don't get me wrong, i just already have palys that look like that, and i'm trying to get those out of my tank. Pictures i've seen of them always show them more pink or bright purplish. But they're more of a dark burgundy color.
 
I had a fire shrimp a bunch of years back. He had a cleaning station set up on the back side of the tank. When I stuck my hands in, he'd leave his station and craw up and down my arms picking at them. He was a blast.
lol, they're so cool!
 
okay, maybe i was too hasty about the space monster paly :D
It has more color, and is a bit brighter color than the rose nebs. And then there the crazy skirts.
Speaking of palys.....
Help me.
(not really)
I can't stop.
I aquired more types of palythoa. So on one rock i'm going to have inverse color patterns; one type of paly with pink skirts and yellow/green faces, and then palys with yellowgreen skirts with pink faces.
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I've got a huge cyano and byropsis problem.
I don't know what else i can do at this point.
I've tried all suggestions; more flow (Doug bought an expensive vortech), but we can't turn it up
because the euphyllia are dying because the flow is too strong.
I've changed lights, flow, feeding. I do manual removal, syphoning, water changes, i use phosban, gfac, a very good ro/di and a very good skimmer.
I don't even feed anymore. But i clearly still have nutrients. Where the hell the nutrients are coming from, i do not know.
I can physically no longer keep up with manual removal of the cyano and byropsis. I used to be able to manually remove so much a day that it was visually noticeable. Now it doesn't look different after working on it for 30-60 minutes a day. The corals are slowly becoming choked out or covered up by the byropsis that is growing faster than i can pluck it out.
I can't just watch everything get covered up but that's exactly what i'm having to do, and it's making me so very sad.
 
Have you tried to raise your Mg level using TechM?

It worked for me. I raised my Mg using a DIY recipe and it did nothing but found that the TechM must have something in it that the bryopsis doesn't like.

I still get cyno but it's contained to the sump where I run a much lower kelvin light so I can only speculate that if it's going to grow in the system it prefers low flow and a lower kelvin

I also notice that on my 300 and now my 29g when my bulbs get older that I get more cyno. It could have been due to other reasons but seems to fit the light theory. I also found in my 300g that if it wasn't old lights and I was getting nuisance algae it was time to add to my CuC. Not that the CuC consumed cyno but they cut down on the nutrients at some level be it in solid waste or something else.

I'm also a believer that nuisance algae is part of a multi year cycle the systems have to go through before hitting an equilibrium.

Just some thoughts "“ hope you get past it.
 
You might have to change out GFO weekly or more at first, since your rock has now absorbed a lot of phates....

If you have a skimmer, try vodka or vinegar dosing to lower trates ...

Otherwise, for cyno use chemi clean exactly by instructions, works great.......
For bryopisis use Kent Tech m and raise mag to 1600 (100 per day) for a few weeks..many people have success with that, I did not however.

What I did was treat my rocks for ten minutes outside the tank with 3% H2O2..... Worked like a charm.....pita, but worked great....
 
Abril,
Seems like you and I are in the same boat with cyano, I have been battling it for some time now and it's getting to the point that I hate blowing the rock off with the turkey baster just to get the tank somewhat pleasant to look at.

There are a lot of good treatments that use erythromycin to rid the tank of the nasty bacteria such as chemi-clean. However, one thing that I know for sure is that personally I don't want to treat my tank with an antibiotic to kill this stuff that is just going to come back in 6 months (it’s the whole cliché, “treat the problem not the symptom”)

About 3 weeks ago I went to one of SFVR monthly meeting and they had a guest speaker by the name of Dr. Tim, his expertise is in bacteria. He has many papers written on reef bacteria as well as he also has a line of products for all types of aquariums and ponds. One in particular that I think will help us is he has a schedule of products that a lot of local reefers swear gets rid of cyano bacteria. I remember meeting him before at another gathering and discussed other things but not cyano (it wasn’t a problem for me then). Like I said,many local refers with far more established tanks than I have had great success. Before the meeting, I was able to talk to Dr. Tim and we discussed these products and based on what he said as well as everyone’s testimonials, I am ready to try these products.

The products are Re-Fresh and Waste-Away, it seems that you first use the re-fresh to clear the water using live beneficial bacteria, after that you would use waste-away which also uses live bacteria to remove accumulation of junk that has settled in your tank that the cyano uses to populate the consensus is that in about 4 weeks time the cyano will be completely gone.

I haven’t used the product yet, I was planning on meeting up with him this weekend to get a couple bottles of this stuff and hope to put this chapter behind me. One thing I’m not sure of is if I will have to continue to add waste away in the tank or after the cyano is gone I can stop. If you want I will report back with my results.

Jimmy
 
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