Pete's 110 build

[psteeleb]

Do you know what cause the snail die off? I ask because I need to order new snails for my tank very soon.

It was a new shipment that came in with out a heat pack. When they got to the house my wife indicated the snails were very cold but we acclimated all of them anyway. I ordered 100 astrea snails and 100 blue leg hermits and some rics. I bet 60% or more of the snails were dead or died within 48 hours. I suspect a few hermits didn't make it as well but not in noticable numbers. I consider both the blue legs and astrea's as self consuming fodder anyway. There were no issues with the rics, as a mater of fact they all look great and he gave me extra and the price I got was so good I'm not pressing the issue.

 

[psteeleb]

Its amazing how much Nitrates SPS can handle and still look wonderful if everything else stays in check. Hopefully the water changes bring everything back in line.

I was surprised to see the huge spike in nitrates as the corals (other then a few) all looked great. I took 3 readings just to make sure and believe me it was over 25 in each reading. I can only suspect the corals can tolerate high nitrates for a short period of time, how short is a wild card and may vary between species, heredity etc. And it may be why my new acropora plana isn't looking good, before last night thought it was a mariculture to an aquarium long term acclimation issue.

I'll do a 40% water change over the next 2 nights in 5 gallon increments per hour (I like to spread them out to minimize potential shock), and may repeat later this weekend.

 

[ThreepwoodMD]

Pete!!! I´ve noticed you´ve got a back and forward current movement how did you get that effect? What kind of flow are you using inside the tank to do so.

 

[psteeleb]

Pete!!! I´ve noticed you´ve got a back and forward current movement how did you get that effect? What kind of flow are you using inside the tank to do so.

the back and forth motion is generated by a Tunzi nano wavebox. It sits nicely hiden along side the overflow on the back side of the tank yet provides the back/forth motion all over. It was between that and adding a closed loop to try ang get some motion on the far side of the tank. Other then that I have two modified maxi jets and a Mag 12 return pump that splits into 2 returns each with a flow accelerator on the end.

 

[ThreepwoodMD]

thanx. amazing tank. i love your tank.

 

[psteeleb]

thanx. amazing tank. i love your tank.

thanks
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while waiting for a backoder of tlf biopellets to come in I decided to try this to reduce my nitrates (water changes got them to 10)

 

[psteeleb]

The nitrates are coming down from water changes, they are now reading somewhere between 10-25 on a Salifert test.

I know the Seachem denitrate is nothing more then a media to harbor anaerobics and will take a couple days to kick in I just hope it does so soon.

Several corals are already looking better but not back to 100%. The corals that seem to be impacted most:

The orange gorg has been closed for the past week and shedding a slime coat but today for the first time I see several polyps opening up

The purple with yellow polyp gorg, has been mostly closed, only opening a little durring feeding but today there were several areas with polyps open for most of the day

The red gorg with white polyps wasn't affected as much as the other gorgs but is back to looking 100%

Goniopora, was closed and was what triggered me to check for nitrates about last week, after water changes it's opened up again.

the Acropora plana is still closed but looking better. I'm not sure the nitrates did this one in, but it's a maricultured coral and I'm sure the hight nitrate count didn't help it while trying to adjust to an aquarium lifestyle.

One of my 3 duncans has been partially closed the past couple days, I'm not sure this is a nitrate issue as the other 2 look fine.

Both of my St Thomas mushrooms are looking pretty bleak, and to date are not recovering.

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FTS to start the year

and a partial FTS

 

[birdman1979]

What's your secret to keeping the purple rim monti so vivid? Everything in my tank looks terrific except my green w/purple rim monti. It grows but lost it's purple rim and turned olive green... frustrating.

 

[psteeleb]

What's your secret to keeping the purple rim monti so vivid? Everything in my tank looks terrific except my green w/purple rim monti. It grows but lost it's purple rim and turned olive green... frustrating.

not sure but I'd start with checking 3 things that may cause what you are describing

1) light bulbs getting old and shifting color

2) low Mg - from my experiance plating monte's seem to loose color with lower levels of Mg

3) nitrates

or it could be any number of other things but those are what I'd check first

thanks

 

[syedjilani]

Beautiful..... :thumbsup:

 

[sahin]

Beautifulk tank!

 

[Trini 2D Bone]

I just added one more New Year resolution. Thanks Psteeleb.

 

[Atela]

lets see whos paying attention

what is this?
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/K6opd-FmaB8?hd=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I'll post an answer shortly

One of your limpets feeding? Do they munch on coral? Hi Pete, I finally found your thread regarding your 110g tank that you have the video posted over on Youtube. Almost all of the zoas that I had inquired about in a pm there, have all been identified by reading through this blog of yours. There are still a few corals that I can't quite figure out what they are though. This is one incredible tank journey! I thank you for sharing it. I hope that you have won some sort of Reef Central recognition for all of the time that you have invested into this. :thumbsup:

Lady from the Nile

 

[psteeleb]

Beautiful..... :thumbsup:

thanks SJ, I think I found one of those gorgonia like you have in your Avatar, it's a pinkinsh red with white polyps. Any updates on your tank?

Beautifulk tank!

Thanks

I just added one more New Year resolution. Thanks Psteeleb.

thank you

One of your limpets feeding? Do they munch on coral? Hi Pete, I finally found your thread regarding your 110g tank that you have the video posted over on Youtube. Almost all of the zoas that I had inquired about in a pm there, have all been identified by reading through this blog of yours. There are still a few corals that I can't quite figure out what they are though. This is one incredible tank journey! I thank you for sharing it. I hope that you have won some sort of Reef Central recognition for all of the time that you have invested into this. :thumbsup:

Lady from the Nile

thanks Atela and welcome to Reef Central
yes that limpet (and one other) decided they like coral soe they were sent to the sump. I still have at least one large on in the tank that never seems to bother coral and lately I've seen a couple little babies, maybe 3/8" long. I suspect the spawning event must have actually produced something.

I posted another video on youtube where I walked through the corals and named them all (at least the ones that have names), so if you still have a questions please feel free to ask. And thanks

 

[SDguy]

:lol: I love how the BN is growing to the shape of the water flow!! The tank really looks amazing... great job.

 

[psteeleb]

:lol: I love how the BN is growing to the shape of the water flow!! The tank really looks amazing... great job.

thanks Peter, considering all the mechanics are at one end of the tank I thought I did pretty good with water flow but the I will admit the top of the tank only goes from left to right and the birdsnest points the way to the overflow

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My Acropora Plana didn't make it. I'm not sure if it was a mariculture to aquarium thing, an aclimation issue or the slightly elevated nitrates I have right now, or more likely all three.

I think the elevated nitrates are due to a combination of events;
1) removal of the 1 year old GFO media probably eleminated a nice anearobic bacteria culture
2) death and decay of 2 linka stars
3) death of a bunch of snails that were part of a clean up crew update I made but they came in with out a heat pack
4) slightly higher feeding to keep the gorgonias fed
5) change out of GFO could of caused a starvation of anearobic bacteria cultures reducing system capacity to deal with converting No3 to N2

I plan to add bio pellets once my order of supplies comes in (items are on backorder)

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in the mean time here is some new eye candy I picked up form a local fish/coral store

 

[spazdic]

It is all looking great I hope my new build just gets half way as nice as your tank is doing.

 

[psteeleb]

It is all looking great I hope my new build just gets half way as nice as your tank is doing.

thanks and welcome to RC

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I think I'm finally past my nitrate spike, it has been droping steady for the past several days without water changes and is now below 5

most corals are looking awesome and have had steady growth.

I thought I was going to loose my red ball sponge but it looks much better today then the past couple weeks and is sheding some of the dead stuff.

The tree sponge never did seem to be affected nor the many small outcropings of blue sponges (and many others) I have all over the aquarium

I did loose the acropora plana, it's too bad as it was a great purplish color, but I knew I was taking a risk on a maricultured coral. I also lost my xenia colony but not entirely sure it was nitrate related. They were fine through the peaks and just melted away over the past 3 days, they went from looking fine, to burnt up stubs, to nothing.

I also lost my St Thomas mushrooms, they were an unexpected loss.

The only other questionable coral right now is the orange gorg, it's hanging in there but doesn't look as stong as it did in the past.

On a brighter note, moving the acropora efflorence seems to have helped as the colors are coming back nicely

 

[psteeleb]

couple close ups from tonight

 

[sahin]

Those last two photos are amazing! Great colour on that acro!