New hobby I've found, time for a huge thread.

[BrianKC]

Woop woop! Looking good. The jellies will go away over time; despair not. If you want to cut their number, you could siphon them out. Normally with stuff like that I wrap the end of my siphon hose with a media bag and drop it in the sump; instant infinite filtered siphon hose. But, I think I remember you don't have a sump. You could do the same thing with a bucket. Siphon those bad boys out with your hose with the end wrapped in a media bag. When the bucket fills, just dump the water, sans jellies, back into the tank. Repeat until they're all gone.

Only other suggestion I have is for zoas, a lot of times I like to peel them off the plug and just glue them to the rock. That way they'll spread evenly without a round bulge in the middle of the colony. If you decide to attempt this, wear gloves and eye protection. Zoa can be toxic.

Last, when you add the LEDs, start with the output dialed way down (like 20%) and up it 10% every few days til it's where you want it. If you see any signs of bleaching, just dial back for a bit longer.

Otherwise, I have no suggestions right now. Looks like you're doing great!

 

[leviburns89]

Thanks Brian!! That's pretty much what I thought on the leds. Slowly and very slowly introduce them. I've read a ton of articles on oxygen radicals forming when too much light is introduced too quickly.

As far as the jellys, I've read they will just go away over time. I feel like every time I siphon them out, I'm just starting the process all over, so maybe for the next few weeks I will just let them go, and hopefully die off.

Key element being, Monocultures never survive in nature. Each organism on this planet has a specific balance of elements required to thrive, and once they reach a certain population, they starve, or succumb to disease. I hope both happen to these things. I like my front glass clean, and as of late, it's like looking at a herpes infection.

 

[BrianKC]

Thanks Brian!! That's pretty much what I thought on the leds. Slowly and very slowly introduce them. I've read a ton of articles on oxygen radicals forming when too much light is introduced too quickly.

As far as the jellys, I've read they will just go away over time. I feel like every time I siphon them out, I'm just starting the process all over, so maybe for the next few weeks I will just let them go, and hopefully die off.

Key element being, Monocultures never survive in nature. Each organism on this planet has a specific balance of elements required to thrive, and once they reach a certain population, they starve, or succumb to disease. I hope both happen to these things. I like my gfront glass clean, and as of late, it's like looking at a herpes infection.

Haha, gross.

Yeah, I think just letting them run their course is the best move. Or you could name them all and then you'll feel more attached to them.

 

[leviburns89]

Lol there aren't enough names to do that. For real tho, there are approximately 10 per Sq inch. So on a 4tf long tank that's 23 inches tall, that's like 5 billion total.

Obviously my math isn't correct. It's just how I feel.

 

[sde1500]

So after finding out that my torch coral was injured via shipping, I ended up losing it to BJD (brown jelly disease).

Luckily the company I bought it from (vivid) is amazing, and refunded my money immediately.

I then took that money, and bought this hammer

And this zoa (unknown)

The zoa is tiny, the polyps are the smallest I have ever seen, but the colors are electric. It was a no name, but like I said, the polyps are smaller than an airsoft BB.

Do polyps grow in size? or just in number?

There are some micro zoas that are smaller than normal zoas. These may be some. They look pretty cool.

 

[leviburns89]

There are some micro zoas that are smaller than normal zoas. These may be some. They look pretty cool.

Yeah they have opened up fully now, but are still very small in comparison.

They are super beautiful.

 

[leviburns89]

Quick update:

This past weekend was my birthday, and my wife and myself treated me to some corals and tank stuffs

I got a gorgeous RBTA on craigslist for $30. It moved around the tank for about 24 hours, then found its home in the perfect spot, away from everything else.

New corals include

2 heads blue n gold Duncan
1 head snow white torch coral
10 polyps rasta zoa
3 polyps unknown blood red Palythoa

1 freebie blue ricordea?
1 freebie Montipora stuck on a zoa frag

Everything is doing amazing, all corals have fully opened with the first few hours. Except the torch, it's only about halfway extended after 4 days, but it looks healthy and plump.

and en route is a nice new 4 bulb t5 fixture, and a full line of ATI Coral+ and Blu+ bulbs.

Not bad.

Following post is pics of this week's bounty.

 

[leviburns89]

 

[BrianKC]

Amazing! And Happy Birthday!

 

[leviburns89]

First fish today!!!

Got a pair of fancy clowns, 1 bar connected, also know as "davinci" clownfish.

Acclimated them via drip for 45 mins, luckily, the salinity from the vendor was 1.025, so I only needed to change out water and temp them.

Recently added a 4bulb t5 setup. Running 2 ati blue+, 1 actinic, and 1 coral plus.
Also upgraded my heaters to two 100w neo-therm heaters, they are amazing, keeps my tank at 78.2 all day long.

Corals are loving it. Duncan's have plumped up fiercely, zoas are all open and loving it, everything seems happy.

I am introducing a new salt mix as well, going to be mixing a 50/50 mix of red sea coral pro, and io standard salt mix, then after a couple months, pure coral pro.

Here are some pics of my new family members

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[BrianKC]

Awesome! Best of luck on the happy couple! Out of curiosity, what prompted the salt change?


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[leviburns89]

Calcium levels were consistently a little low, and I wasn't getting the best coloration and almost zero growth from most of the corals.

I know the tank is still new and corals take time to grow, which is why I'm very slowly adding it in.

Plus it was on sale dirt cheap, and I needed to get salt within the next month anyway.

I may even run a 50/50 mix indefinitely. I read a ton of great results about coral pro, and a few not so good ones mostly user error.

I figured the added key nutrients might help out. We shall see

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[sde1500]

Nice pair of clowns! That torch coral looks pretty bleached in that picture, hows it doing so far?

 

[leviburns89]

I was definitely starting to think it was bleached. Probably why the guy gave it to me for $5... here I thought i had a cool white torch lol.

It's alive that's for sure, extends partially during the day, and tucks in at night. Off of the tenticles seem to be plump, but it never fully extends, I just moved it a bit lower in the tank, with slightly less flow.

Is there anything I can do to help it recover?

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[sde1500]

My torch was pretty tricky to get it to settle it. I left it on the sandbed for at least a month to let it get used to the tank and lights. Then moved it to where I wanted it a bit higher and it took again a couple weeks to settle in. That one probably would benefit from some supplemental feedings. I just use a turkey baster and shoot a mysid shrimp into it every so often. Not sure what you run your lights at, but dimming them for a bit could help to. As long as it doesn't look like it is getting worse thats good.

 

[leviburns89]

That's what I figured. I will give it a spray of food once a week, and see if it reacts nicely

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[BrianKC]

FWIW, I have a new trachyphyllia that declined pretty rapidly. Put it on the sandbed yesterday and it's already doing better. A move down lowers light as well as flow and reach from nipping crustaceans.


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[leviburns89]

Been a couple weeks since I've posted, so here's a quick update.

I've been battling a wicked nasty algae bloom. The right island is pristine, and almost algae free, the left island looked like a swamp.

Had huge mats of hair algae on the sandbed and glass, and entire left rock island, it was terrible.

Started to choke out some corals too. My euphylia began to shrink, and zoas/polyps were staying closed for a couple days.

It freaked me out, the bloom started just before adding my clownfish, and once they added poo and food, it only exacerbated it.

I have since purchased a 30g cleanup crew from reefcleaners and added a lawnmower blenny. I also added 4 more scarlet hermits, and 3 large turbo snails. (My goodness are turbos destructive)

The biggest addition was a GFO reactor. I got the TLF 150, and am running about 55g of phosban.

Now (10 days after new livestock, 1 week after GFO) the algae has receded exponentially, and corals have begun to pop back out.

My phosphates were at .1, stupid high I know. Still don't know where that came from as I wasn't feeding the tank at the time of the bloom. Probably the rock leaching. Currently the phosphate sits at .02, and it is showing very positive results.

The lawnmower blenny gets the award for MVP tho. The first few days, he poked around at the algae, now he is eating mouthfuls at a time, and is fat as a hog, seriously looks pregnant, when I got him, he was a skinny little thing with pale skin and brown bands. His color is almost black now, I can't find him most of the time because he looks so much like the rock.

I highly recommend reefcleaners, they have great prices, and give extra due to die off. In total it was like 35 snails, mostly tiny. But with the addition of the turbos, and some extra asterea snails, it has put in work on the algae.

I still have a lot of algae in the tank, but now it is starting to reach its balance point. If it gets to where I have to supplement the livestock with nori, I will just trade a handful of snails and hermits to my lfs for a coral or credit.

Lemme know what everyone thinks!

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[BrianKC]

New hobby I've found, time for a huge thread.

Sounds like things are settling in. Unless you start with totally alive live rock (e.g., Tampa Bay Saltwater) where they ship it in water with all the live intact, every tank goes thru the "uglies" around this point. You've got the right stuff in place to be successful. You can manually remove the algae as well, but sounds like the blenny has it in hand. You might also research carbon dosing. I give my 65g 4.5ml of vodka every day and it keeps nitrates at zero and GFO keeps the phosphates at bay. If you do start carbon dosing, start small. Here's a table for how to ramp up vodka dosing.

Measure phos and nitrates on the journey. When you hit your targets, back off 25%. If you hold at the target, back off another 25%. If it creeps back up, add back half of what you cut. Pretty much just dialing it in. Go slow tho.

Credit to Melevsreef for the chart.


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[leviburns89]

Time for an update.

There are a couple questions sprinkled in, so keep your eyes peeled.

Tank is doing great. After a couple weeks of fighting with algae and phos issues, I have installed a gfo reactor, and algae has almost completely disappeared.

Since then, I notice little red flatworms with forked tails on the glass. So I have done 2 treatments with Flatworm exit. Followed by 10%wc and running fresh carbon.

I lost my first fish a lawn mower blenny went carpet surfing, it was terribly sad.

I replaced it with a juvenile six line wrasse. I recently had a weird run in with some savage amphipods that were eating my zoas, and all over the place. This sixline was the perfect cure. He got a little testy with my female clown, but she's a monster and put him in his place. Now he swims with the 2 clowns like he's mated with them, it's totes adorbs.

Stock list is as follows.

-Corals-
Rasta Zoas
Saurons eye zoas
Eagle Eye zoas
Yellow unidentified zoas
Fizzy Lizzy zoas
Sunny D palys
Fairy Dust Palys
Hells Kitchen Chalice
Alien Brain Favites
Fiji Yellow Toadstool Leather
Orange ricordea
Hairy? Mushroom
Blue Spot Red discosoma
Aussie duncans
Rose Bubble Tip anemone
2 heads frogspawn/hammer euphyllia

-Fish-
2 mated DaVinci Clownfish
Six line wrasse

-Inverts/CUC-
10 Scarlett Hermits
1 Micro white leg hermit
15 Dwarf Cerith snails
8 Nerite Snails
4 Nassarius snails
4 Asteria snails
4 Trochus Snails
3 Large Mexican turbo snails
+/- 3 brittle starfish (came on frag)

Next post with pix will include questions

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