My 65G Shallow Reef Tank
- Thread starter DiscusHeckel
- Start date
Pife
Active member
Just an echo here. They're amazing.
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
Matt and Brandon, thank you.
The fish arrived at my local shop eight days ago and apparently started to feed the day after their arrival. I saw them eating red plankton before purchasing them.
They eat only small frozen food at the monent, such as tiny copepods, red plankton and small brine shrimp. Anything tiny seems to work. I will increase the feeding frequency from three times day to four from tomorrow I will also introduce tiny chopped frozen mussles and any other tiny frozen fish food I can find in my freezer.
If you are celebrating it, merry Christmas to you both.
The fish arrived at my local shop eight days ago and apparently started to feed the day after their arrival. I saw them eating red plankton before purchasing them.
They eat only small frozen food at the monent, such as tiny copepods, red plankton and small brine shrimp. Anything tiny seems to work. I will increase the feeding frequency from three times day to four from tomorrow I will also introduce tiny chopped frozen mussles and any other tiny frozen fish food I can find in my freezer.
If you are celebrating it, merry Christmas to you both.
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
As we get closer to the end of 2017, I would like to share the latest photos I took this afternoon for future reference. My reef looks livelier than ever. What kind of pressure this liveliness will put on my Acroporids remains to be seen.
P1110074 by DiscusHeckel, on Flickr
P1110075 by DiscusHeckel, on Flickr
P1110078 by DiscusHeckel, on Flickr
P1110083 by DiscusHeckel, on Flickr
P1110089 by DiscusHeckel, on Flickr
P1110092 (1) by DiscusHeckel, on Flickr
P1110117 by DiscusHeckel, on Flickr
P1110074 by DiscusHeckel, on FlickrP1110075 by DiscusHeckel, on FlickrP1110078 by DiscusHeckel, on FlickrP1110083 by DiscusHeckel, on FlickrP1110089 by DiscusHeckel, on FlickrP1110092 (1) by DiscusHeckel, on FlickrP1110117 by DiscusHeckel, on Flickr
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
Thank you.
I have 20 fish altogether. :hmm2:
Thanks Brandon.
Feeding the evansi anthias turns out to be more challenging than I thought. So, what I did was to make frozen food appealing to them by soaking it in Lipovit by Tropic Marin. The trick seems to have started to work. I have seen a few of them taking smaller pieces of frozen food in their mouth without respiting it.
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
Here is a short video I recorded earlier this afternoon with my iPhone in which you can clearly see evansi going for copepods. My aim is for them to show the same eagerness for other frozen food.
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
Thanks for the tip Ed. I will go to my local fish market and get some scallops and shrimp next week.
Happy new year.
Wow. It is always a pleasure to view your thread. I am always amazed at the volume of life, and the large corals that you maintain in a 65G tank.
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
Many thanks for your feedback. I am glad you liked this short video.
It is not easy to maintain large colonies in such a small tank. I have to do deforestation at least once a year in a big way. I have almost come to the end of the fragging process in the current cycle and have sold all the surplus frags. Phew. I thought I would never do it this time round as I left the frag sales too close to Christmas. As for the fish stock, as their population increases it puts more strain on my well-established nutrient balancing strategies. I am realising more and more that I need a bigger tank. I will be putting aside a proportion of the proceeds from future frag sales to save towards a new tank and equipment.
Happy new year
Thank you Matt.
No I have not. I predicted a spike in nutrients, especially in phosphates due to heavier than usual feeding. Today's test results confirmed my prediction. Surprisingly, NO3 remained more or less the same. It was between 5-10 ppm there days after I bought the new fish. It is 5 ppm today. However, phosphates climbed up from 0.14 mg/L to 0.25 mg/L. This is a big jump. Although coral growth continues in good speed, I can see zooxanthellae density on certain corals increasing.
I am considering a number of options to deal with phosphates. NP-Bacto-Balance is not going to help reduce phosphates when they are this high. It is most effective when phosphates are below 0.1 mg/L and are on a downward trend. The options I am considering are as follows:
1) Stop NP-Bacto-Balance and switch to Elimi-NP, which is essentially polyalcohols (According to Hans Werner-Balling, Elimi-NP is much more effective in reducing phosphates than Bacto-Balance);
2) Reduce NP-Bacto-Balance and add Elimi-NP to the mix. Both Bacto-Balance and Elimi-NP are perfectly miscible;
3) Continue to use NP-Bacto-Balance and supplement it with aluminium-based phosphate remover, such as Fauna Marin Ultra-Phos;
4) Do nothing for the time being and reduce feeding to normal levels as soon as evansi start to take what every other fish take.
By the way, I have restarted to dose TM Reef Actif after a two-month break. I am doing 1/2 of the recommended dose for the volume of my tank once a week. By boosting the coral growth, I am anticipating that proportionally more phosphates will be removed from the water column as they are integrated into the corals' skeleton.
I think I will delay option (3) until it becomes absolutely necessary to choose it.
Happy new year.
Hi Bulent, Mike from UR.
I know how you feel ref phosphate numbers going up, l use Nopox, great for No3 but not so hot on Po4. I've tried phos medias passively, that method has little effect, l always find myself filling a reactor with phosguard or something to get the Po4 in check.
I see KZ have a new product, Coral Snow Plus, standard Coral Snow with a liquid phos media, 1ml to 100 liters once or twice a week is meant to keep Po4 in check. I shall order some, if it clarifies the water and looks after Po4 it's gotta be worth a go.
Happy New Year
Mike
I know how you feel ref phosphate numbers going up, l use Nopox, great for No3 but not so hot on Po4. I've tried phos medias passively, that method has little effect, l always find myself filling a reactor with phosguard or something to get the Po4 in check.
I see KZ have a new product, Coral Snow Plus, standard Coral Snow with a liquid phos media, 1ml to 100 liters once or twice a week is meant to keep Po4 in check. I shall order some, if it clarifies the water and looks after Po4 it's gotta be worth a go.
Happy New Year
Mike
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
Hi Mike,
I believe that my recent high phosphate readings are not going to be a permanent issue. I do not feel comfortable with any liquid phosphates adsorbers like lanthanum chloride. That said, I would be very interested in the results of your experiment with the new Coral snow. Please keep me posted.
Organic carbon dosing methods have an inherent issue with phosphates in that once nitrates are lowered to a certain level, heterotrophic bacteria struggle to consume nitrogen and phosphorus, thus leading to rises in phosphates. Bacto-Balance counters this problem because it has added phosphates in both organic and inorganic forms as well as inorganic nitrates. In my case, although phosphates are rising, nitrates remain fairly stable and are therefore not driven to really low levels. I really should increase Bacto-Balance dose, but my M. setosa reacts to a high dose, once it reaches to 2 ml per day.
I have already actioned Option (2) I stated in my previous post. Instead of dosing 1.7 ml of Bacto-Balance, I have started to dose 1.2 ml of Bacto-Balance and 0.5 ml of Elimi-NP. Furthermore, I have reduced feeding to normal levels. In addition, I have re-started TM Reef Actif. As the corals start to grow faster, more phosphates will be taken out of the water column. I am also thinking about increasing the adsorption efficiency of dissolved organics by fluidising GAC instead of using it passively. If I go down this route, then I will use smaller amount of carbon and replace it more frequently. As Reef Actif will be transforming inorganic nutrients to their organic state, it makes sense to me to remove as much organics as possible and as quickly as possible. This should then go some way to address the current phosphate issue.
Happy new year to you and family Mike.
Bülent
I believe that my recent high phosphate readings are not going to be a permanent issue. I do not feel comfortable with any liquid phosphates adsorbers like lanthanum chloride. That said, I would be very interested in the results of your experiment with the new Coral snow. Please keep me posted.
Organic carbon dosing methods have an inherent issue with phosphates in that once nitrates are lowered to a certain level, heterotrophic bacteria struggle to consume nitrogen and phosphorus, thus leading to rises in phosphates. Bacto-Balance counters this problem because it has added phosphates in both organic and inorganic forms as well as inorganic nitrates. In my case, although phosphates are rising, nitrates remain fairly stable and are therefore not driven to really low levels. I really should increase Bacto-Balance dose, but my M. setosa reacts to a high dose, once it reaches to 2 ml per day.
I have already actioned Option (2) I stated in my previous post. Instead of dosing 1.7 ml of Bacto-Balance, I have started to dose 1.2 ml of Bacto-Balance and 0.5 ml of Elimi-NP. Furthermore, I have reduced feeding to normal levels. In addition, I have re-started TM Reef Actif. As the corals start to grow faster, more phosphates will be taken out of the water column. I am also thinking about increasing the adsorption efficiency of dissolved organics by fluidising GAC instead of using it passively. If I go down this route, then I will use smaller amount of carbon and replace it more frequently. As Reef Actif will be transforming inorganic nutrients to their organic state, it makes sense to me to remove as much organics as possible and as quickly as possible. This should then go some way to address the current phosphate issue.
Happy new year to you and family Mike.
Bülent
Hi Bulent, I had the same issue of stable nitrates and rising phosphates and opted for option (3). Jusg a small amount of Fauna Marin Ultraphos and it has worked in keeping phosphate stable. I use just 10ml of ultraphos weekly in my 180 gallon in addition to 2ml daily of bacto balance
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
This is really useful information. Thanks. Do you fluidise the media?
Bulent. Should my " localish " webshop get back to me in time to despatch the Coral Snow Plus with my original order l shall let you know how it goes.
Having no experience with liquid phos absorbers l'm not up to speed with lanthanum chloride. Are there issues with the stuff?
Having no experience with liquid phos absorbers l'm not up to speed with lanthanum chloride. Are there issues with the stuff?
