Zach's 120 Gallon Reef Resurgence

[hiimsean]

xilez;1110185 wrote: Frag looks good to me. You have to be gentle with montis in order to not break them further, but your fingers shouldnt do too much damage.

For glue, I like to put a glob on the frag, dip it into the water, use a toothpick to mash the glue around, and then stick the frag to it. Getting it wet then airating it helps speed the curing process.

They also make an actual accelerator you can put on as well. Glue, then accelorator, then put coral on

This is kind of how I do it. I use a deep tupperware with tank water instead of actually putting it in the tank to help speed the drying process.

I've gotten away from mounting on plugs though. You can use the same process with super glue on rocks though but you are directly handling the frag more.

 

[zachxlutz]

xilez;1110185 wrote: Frag looks good to me. You have to be gentle with montis in order to not break them further, but your fingers shouldnt do too much damage.

For glue, I like to put a glob on the frag plug, dip it into the water, use a toothpick to mash the glue around, and then stick the frag to it. Getting it wet then airating it helps speed the curing process.

They also make an actual accelerator you can put on as well. Glue, then accelorator, then put coral on

Thanks for the tips, I'll try the dip and toothpick method next time and if that doesn't work I'll look into getting some accelerator.

 

[zachxlutz]

HiImSean;1110187 wrote: This is kind of how I do it. I use a deep tupperware with tank water instead of actually putting it in the tank to help speed the drying process.

I've gotten away from mounting on plugs though. You can use the same process with super glue on rocks though but you are directly handling the frag more.

Good idea with the tupperware. I only glued this one to a plug because it was late, the lights were about to go off and I wanted to get it stabilized. I almost always remove new frags from the plugs and glue directly to the live rock in my tank but this was a quick solution.

 

[zachxlutz]

New Fish!

I picked up two female leopard wrasses and a blue stripe threadfin fairy wrasse (Temminckii) today, acclimated them and tossed them in QT. The Leopard wrasses are out hunting pods like crazy and the blue stripe is a little more timid. All three ate frozen mysis at my LFS, so I'm hoping they all transition to their new homes without incident.

Leopard Wrasses:

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Blue Stripe / Threadfin (Temminckii) Wrasse:

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...and VIDEO!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=youtube]

 

[dapperjman]

Are you planning to treat them in any way or just going to observe?

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[zachxlutz]

Dapperjman;1111088 wrote: Are you planning to treat them in any way or just going to observe?

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I'll observe them for 7 days to make sure they're eating prepared foods and then do a profilactic treatment of prazipro for another 7 days. Two more weeks of observation after that and if no signs of disease/parasites/etc I'll be putting them in the display.

 

[zachxlutz]

Ho-lee mo-lee. That was stressful... My order from Tidal Gardens showed up this morning, so I spent my lunch break (plus some) acclimating, dipping and putting the coral in the tank.

A couple of notable things.
<ul>
<li>Looks like I got a couple of AEFW (acropora eating flatworms, Amakusaplana acroporae) to detach in the CoralRX dip.</li>
</ul>

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<ul>
<li>Spotted an aiptasia on the bottom of one of the chalice frag plugs. - broke the end of that frag plug off.</li>
<li>I didn't remove any of the corals from their plugs (my usual process) as I was already at a high stress level from receiving that many frags at once.</li>
</ul>

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Left to Right
<ol>
<li>Pink Sand Dollar Monti</li>
<li>Frogskin Acro</li>
<li>Neon Green Monti</li>
<li>Strawberry Patch Monti</li>
<li>Purple Haze Monti</li>
<li>Purple Bonsai Acro</li>
<li>Sunset Monti</li>
<li>Superman Monti</li>
</ol>

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Left to Right
<ol>
<li>Red Stripe Chalice</li>
<li>Hills Have Eyes Chalice</li>
<li>Pink Floyd Chalice</li>
<li>Hollywood Stunner Chalice</li>
</ol>

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I hope the CoralRX dip and the Bayer dip handled the AEFWs. I'm very stressed about this. What should my next steps be? I'm thinking I'll remove all the frags from the frag plugs tonight and reglue them all to new frag plugs to observe for a while before placing the corals in the rockwork? I realize I probably should have just done this before placing them in the tank.

Ugh. I really hope I didn't introduce any pests into the tank.

 

[xilez]

Eggs are usually at the base of the coral or on the plug, if removing is not an option, id scrub the **** out of that plug with a toothbrush, and then dip again.

I'd also probably let him know

 

[zachxlutz]

xilez;1111308 wrote: Eggs are usually at the base of the coral or on the plug, if removing is not an option, id scrub the **** out of that plug with a toothbrush, and then dip again.

I'd also probably let him know

I did send an e-mail with photos first thing. I was nice about it, just wanted to let him know.

I think most of the frags will be easy enough to remove from the existing plug and reglue to a new plug... I'm going to tackle this tonight for sure. I should have done it earlier.

 

[zachxlutz]

Last night, I mounted the Chalice frags on small pieces of live rock rubble so that I can move them around a bit once I see how far the sweepers extend. I placed them all on the lower part of the left island. I'll post a picture or two this evening. I still need to mount up the acros and montis but I ran out of time last night.

I'll be dosing Vibrant again tonight, I skipped last week and I'm moving to a bi-weekly dosing schedule rather than weekly. I didn't get any significant rise in Nitrates or Algae growth by skipping a week so I'm hoping this new dosing schedule will help even out the NO3 swings and reduce my dependence on KNO3.

Since picking up the Hannah ULR Phosphorus checker I've noticed that my PO4 levels are dangerously close to 0. I'm seeing very lower numbers than I'd like. .012 ppm last week and .003 ppm last night. To battle this I'm going to increase my feedings a bit more. I'm hoping that once I bring the three new wrasses over to the tank it'll help bring the nutrients up a little more.

I'm dealing with a bit of STN on the montipora Setosa, although it's showing decent color and growth otherwise. I may end up having to frag it to save it. Hoping to increase the phosphates some and see the recession/bleaching stop.

 

[zachxlutz]

Quick FTS 04/07/2017:

http://i.imgur.com/zPuaGUi.jpg?1" alt="" />

[B]Left Island:[/B]

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/iXKDVpu.jpg?1" alt="" />

See the chalices mounted on their shiny new start white rubble homes? Me too. Hopefully the rubble darkens up quickly, it's quite an eyesore now. The green psammocora refuses to look good under the full 8 bulbs, it just looks brown... Under the 2 bulbs of actinic and purple at sunrise and sunset it looks great though. :/ The Montipora spongodes is still regaining its color from when it bleached/browned out but it's well on it's way to recovery. The montipora setosa isn't looking great, to be honest. It's pale and has some STN. Not sure what's going on there.

[B]Right Island:[/B]

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/skUqYjL.jpg?1" alt="" />

Things look fairly good over here on this side, save for the Cyphastrea issues I've got going on. It's still showing great polyp extension but the blue/green base is bleaching a bit and the polyps don't have the color they once had. The chameleon acro, red planet and red digi are all showing great encrusting.

I'm hoping the tank is just going through some new tank swings still and things will continue to improve as I control the parameters and keep them stable.

Sorry the pictures aren't great. I'll need to bust out the DSLR for some better shots. That'll wait until I get the rest of the frags mounted up. Now I just need to decide where to put them.

 

[dapperjman]

It looks really good man. Once it grows out some it will be full of color!!

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[zachxlutz]

Dapperjman;1112156 wrote: It looks really good man. Once it grows out some it will be full of color!!

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Hoping so! I'm really looking forward to the tank continuing to mature and grow into something beautiful. I'm still trying to get a handle on how the tank likes to be dealt with for optimal coral health. I think I find what works and I keep tweaking it, some tweaks for better or worse, I suppose.

 

[zachxlutz]

I haven't updated lately and I apologize for that... The tank just isn't performing to the high level of standard I am holding it too. I'm still struggling with coral coloration and to some extent growth. I'm really struggling with some nuisance algae right now that I'm trying to ID.

I'm hoping you kind folks can help point me in the right direction to ID this.

Description:
<ul>
<li>Blows off coral/rock/sand easily but returns quickly</li>
<li>Stringy brownish color</li>
<li>Doesn't appear to create it's own bubbles within but will catch them occasionally</li>
<li>Appears to diminish with lights out and increase within the photoperiod</li>
<li>Covers some coral, lots of the rock and lots of the sand bed</li>
</ul>

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Tank:
120 Gallon Display
55 Gallon Sump
Total water volume 140 gallons
ATI Sunpower 8x54 watt T5 lights

Parameters:
Temp: 78* F
Salinity: 35 ppt
Ph: 7.82-8.14 (daily swing)
Alk: 8.5
Ca: 435-440
NO3: 3-5 ppm
PO4: .01-.03
Mg: 1380
(all parameters are very stable, I test very often)

Dosing (through dosing pumps):
BRS Alk/Cal: 20 ml daily each (.2 dkh Alk/1.39 ppm Cal daily consumption rate)
Red Sea Coral Colors ABCD: .3ml daily each

Dosing (manual):
Nitrate: KNO3 - as needed, usually 10-20ml (28g/150ml solution) weekly
Vibrant: Weekly
Water Changes: 20% Monthly

Feeding:
Dry: Hikari Marine S Pellets, 4x daily through auto feeder
Frozen: Mysis, daily or every other day

 

[xilez]

Sorry to hear about the issues.

Have you considered stopping Vibrant? I stopped for a while, was getting more diatom bloom on the sand, when I started it back up (one or two drops weekly) I now have some cyano in my sump area. Going to do a big WC and then just stop using Vibrant all together (except for disaster algae outbreak situations).

That would be recommendation.

 

[zachxlutz]

xilez;1114394 wrote: Sorry to hear about the issues.

Have you considered stopping Vibrant? I stopped for a while, was getting more diatom bloom on the sand, when I started it back up (one or two drops weekly) I now have some cyano in my sump area. Going to do a big WC and then just stop using Vibrant all together (except for disaster algae outbreak situations).

That would be recommendation.

Stopping Vibrant dosing seems to be the consensus. I'd been having great experience with the Vibrant until just recently when this popped up. It's appearing to get worse. I can't seem to positively ID it though. I'm unsure of whether it's cyano, diatoms, or dinoflagellates. I will be stopping the Vibrant dosing as of last dose. If GHA pops up again I'll look at adding some more clean up crew. I only added a sparse clean-up crew at the initial set-up of the tank 9 months ago. I'm sure it could use some more as I'm sure there was some die-off due to lack of algae for grazing. The tank has never really had a lot of algae. I certainly don't see too many snails out and about anymore... I'll pick up some next time I'm at the LFS.

The symptoms appear to be worsening. I'm seeing more and more of the stringy brown slimy substance on every surface of the aquarium, corals included.

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This picture pretty well illustrates the growth patterns. It's matting a bit where flow is low, but definitely stringy in high flow. It attaches to everything. Tips of hard coral included. IT SHOWS NO MERCY. It does trap some bubbles, but, I don't see the bubbles at the tips of the strings that I see mentioned when discussing dinoflagellates.

The color is best described as rust. It's not red or purple like most of the cyanobacteria I see discussed. I've dealt with cyano once before in an old tank and had good luck with Chemi-Clean. I've got some Chemi-Clean on hand and I'm going to consider dosing it if I don't see a decrease in this nastiness after I try manual removal, blowing it off the rocks and discontinuing the use of Vibrant.

Hmmmmm...

 

[zachxlutz]

All that being said...

I picked up a PMK (Par Monitoring Kit) from Neptune and tossed it in the tank just now before the lights dimmed and it was showing a PAR of around 390 in this location with all 8 bulbs on 100%. The lights just dimmed to 2 bulbs and it's showing a PAR of around 80. I'll move the sensor around to some other locations and see what kind of PAR I'm getting all over the tank and then make one of those fancy photos with the PAR numbers overlaid. Sorry about the rubbish picture.

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The PAR sensor is located in the "live rock" on the right island, if it didn't pop right out at you.

 

[zachxlutz]

New updates:

Phosphates are between 0 and 0.003 checking with the Hanna ULR phosphorus checker and have been reading 0-ish since 5/7/17. I took the first test on the 7th as a error and did a check with the Red Sea kit and it always comes up barely noticeable in the color range. I usually call it 0.03 or so... I made a note of this in my tracking log and just used the value from the Red Sea titration kit. I'm thinking my phosphates have bottomed out leading to a dinoflagellate bloom. Looking at the trend, the phosphates dropping and the rise in dinos seems to correlate.

I'm thinking about dosing up the phosphorus in the tank. I've perused through the Dinoflagellate threads on the forums and a common theme is low phosphates causing dino outbreaks and increasing phosphate levels seems to be the cure. It's natural, like dosing KNO3 has been and I think i'm going to give it a shot. I'll be picking up some SeaChem Flourish Phosphorus and bringing the levels up to around .03 ppm.

Thoughts?

 

[zachxlutz]

Furthermore, I've noticed a drop in calcium and alkalinity uptake since the phosphate levels have been dropping. Further reviewing my logs, I see that the phosphates began to drop around the middle of march, which is when I noticed the alkalinity rising and subsequent 5% drops week after week in my dosing schedule. I think this might have something to do with this bloom. I have been unhappy with the growth and coloration in the last few months and I really think I'm just seeing systemic effects of having an ULNS. The Vibrant dosing was masking some problems, I think. The tank looked clean and clear but it's really been struggling.

Plan of action:

<ul>
<li>Vibrant is off the menu.</li>
<li>Trimmed back the mass of chaeto in the refugium.</li>
<li>Feeding the fish a little heavier handed.</li>
<li>Acropower. I've been wanting to try this and I've seen Randy Holmes-Farley mention in some threads that aminos do help ULNS. I've already got this on hand and will start tonight.</li>
<li>Tuning the skimmer to produce less skimmate.</li>
<li>Possibly dosing some phosphorous product to jumpstart the process.</li>
</ul>

 

[jimmystephens]

I had dinos in my tank and I used h202. research it for yourself and make sure it would work for your needs. It worked great for me and finally got rid of the dinos for good. I experenced no negative effects.