Update:
First , the not so good:
A couple of frags that took it in the shorts during the metal poisoning issue are on their last legs. Luckily one was a free frag and the other was 20 bucks. The rest of the newest frags are doing well and basing out. All except one - a blue tenuis that I got in December, and that had grown over its base, started receding a bit. I dipped it and fragged it and distributed it to two plugs in different parts of the tank. I have never had luck with Tennis but the recession was not major so hopefully it won't come back.
I have a lot of montis in the tank, but haven't added a new one in a very long time(well over a year and a half). I had a battle with Monti eating nudibranchs over a year ago, and they plagued the rainbow monti. I lost almost the whole colony until it was a couple of square inches, but with dips, scraping, and straight peroxide washes of the rock I thought they were wiped out.
I monitor all the corals very closely and haven't seen any evidence of the nudis for that whole time. Then four days ago, a big white patch in the Rainbow monti in the center of the tank. Each night, another chunk would disappear. The affected coral was all encrusted over rocks so i pulled it out last night with the aid of a chisel, and then chiseled off a perimeter of the monti on its rock to leave no eaten or affected part there. I then dipped it and finally soaked each side of the dead rock with peroxide. The coral's rock went into the small tank. Any vestige of the monti was removed from the big tank. No nudis were seen through all this:angry fire:
The green wrasse has been doing a lot of digging, and when you mix fine sand, digging wrasse, and Gyre running at 80% the wrasse has been making a mess. A couple of corals were moved to prevent them from getting sand in their branches. One tricolor lost a little tissue due to the sand but I'm sure it will grow back.
During the metal poisoning incident, I put a pouch of Unltrasorb metal ion remover from Two Little fishies in the sump. I left it in there as an insurance policy. I took a look at it a couple of days ago and lo and behold, it is pink! The resin in these changes color based on the ion adsorbed, and pink corresponds to Manganese. I add Iron and Manganese supplement from Kent twice a week, only about one mL each time, which is lower than the recommended dose. The fact that it had enough to change the resin to a color indicates to me that it is too much. No more of that stuff. Im not sure I need to dose Iron anymore at all but time will tell.
And now the good:
I seem to be bottoming out on nutrients but I can't check for sure as I am out of both Nitrate and Phosphate test material, If i have a moment to breathe tomorrow at work I will need to order more
A little bit pale on a few acro shady sides, but not much more than that. Many of the rocks look like they just got out of cooking with almost no green algae visible.
I have been slowly raising my magnesium up using homemade Magnesium chloride and have it a bit above 1800 now. Coraline algae has started appearing rapidly in the past few days, which was one of the purposes of doing this. The other desired effect of killing off any other straggler algaes in the tank will hopefully show itself soon. There is very little Bryopsis left, and with a fresh batch of emerald crabs the bubble algae is going bye bye too.
After making the most recent bulb adjustment, I ended up missing the actinic goodness. It just seems like If I had a 10 bulb fixture I could get every bulb I want in and get it bright at the same time. I tried different things to work the Actinic back in to the mix and finally was able to by doing something I normally don't do. My normal set up is to use a blue and/or actinic in both slots for the dawn/dusk bulbs. I am trying using the AquaBlue Azure in the front of these two slots and the Actinic in the back one. Mixed together they work really well and blend to make a bluish purplish light. The new arrangement is as follows, from front to back:
B+, B+, Aquablue Azure, Fiji Purple, ABS, Super Actinic, ABS, B+
I will see how it does for a few weeks. I do a lot of changes to the bulbs but the corals don't really get all that much different of a combined spectrum from combo to combo, most of the change is for my eye only. Plus it keeps me from messing with something else on the tank that could have a bad impact
Corals for the most part are doing well. Here are some shots of the tank and corals, new computer so I don't have the photo editing software installed yet to de-blue them:
The pink dragon and SSC:
New pink Acro with blue tips:
Newest frag, long way to go for this one:
Full tank from tonight:
I think ill do Starboard bottom to keep the white though
