Whitereef's tanks over the years

On the cyano front, I was able to get it under control by maintaining my skimmer better and weekly 10% water changes. Also I slowed down the amount of phyto I was adding to just once a week. Now I don't have any that really show up, but I do have an occasional brown algae build up on the sandbed, but nothing serious.

The clam is still missing its foot, but it is hanging in there.

Also I continue to see the small parasitic snails in the tank. But I am not seeing very many snails die any more. the die off may have been more due to a lack of algae than the tiny snails.

On a sad note, I lost my wrasse today. I jumped out of the tank in the back where I have about a 2" gap between my screen and the edge of the tank. This is because the overflow I use creates the gap, and I did not build the screen to cover 100% of the tank. Now I am going to take care of it as this is the second fish that I have lost in the past year due to the small opening. Also I have not seen any of the peppermint shrimp or porcelain crabs for quite awhile, so I think they are all gone and dead. The crabs were probably killed by a single rock crab I have the hangs out by my purple tipped acro or it might be a mantis shrimp that took them out. The mantis shrimp I am uncertain of since I have not seen the entire beast, so it could be a mantis or pistol shrimp.

I have also moved my coco worm to a different location to give the purple stylophora more light. It is looking much better. Also I moved a frag of my lemonade acro and I am just waiting on the small frag to start growing faster. All of my coral are growing well and such.

For my yearly lighting change I switched from a phoenix 14K to an XM 20K bulb. It is a little bluer than the Phoenix, but not enough to make much difference, so next lighting change I will be back to a 14K bulb.

Also with the loss of my female clown fish earlier this year, I finally picked up a new clown fish. This one was only about 1" and hosting in the anemones in the LFS tank. As a result it taught the other one to host in my frog spawn.

My new battle is bubble algae, but it is not a big nuisance yet, but just a new project to get it more under control.

Current fish list:
Black&White clownfish
Ocellaris
green chromis
royal gramma
zebra tail blenny

Invert List:
green serpent star
emerald crabs 3+
rock crab
pistol/mantis shrimp
coco worm
derasa clam
yellow branching sponge
yellow ball sponge
blue sponge
several different encrusting sponges
red tunicate/sponge
flower anemones (2)
several different snails, worms, and hermit crabs

Corals:
blade gorgonian
Candelabra gorgonian
silver gorgonian
green palys
blundel buttons
several different zoanthids
frog spawn
green hydnophora
strawberry acro
purple stylophora
red milli
lemonade acro
tricolor acro
green montipora (not sure the exact name of it)
purple tipped acro
green w/purple tipped acro
orange montipora digitata
superman montipora
green acro (tabling in my tank)
acan sp?

Maintenance schedule:
Daily add top off water ~1gallon or more.
-part of the top off I add in 1 tsp seachem buffer (alk)
-part of the top off I add in 1 tsp seachem calcium
-add in iodine
Feed fish daily rotating between cyclopese, fish pellets, brine shrimp, and mysis shrimp
Every other day clean out the skimmer cup
1-2xs a week clean the glass
Once a week 10% water change (may change this later on as this was a to help resolve a nutrient issue)
Every week check the aqualifter to ensure it works properly to prevent flooding
Once a month replace carbon/phosphate material
About once a month pull out about half of the algae from the sump
Once every 3 months or so refresh purigen
Once every 3 months or so clean the skimmer
Once every 3 months or so clean the pumps and aqualifter

Pictures to come shortly

Edited by WhiteReef - June 01 2013 at 8:01pm

Front View


Side View


Purple Stylophora


Clam and tricolor acro


Green acro with blue tips


Green montipora sp?


Top Down


Lemonade acro and acan


Zoanthids


Tricolor acro


Top view of tricolor and clam


Red Milli


Green tabling acro


Green tabling acro top view


Top view

The yellow branching sponge is still in the tank, but it is no longer yellow and has sent out new growth in different spots. Where it is out of the light it is yellow, but the ones in the light get a brown exterior to them. Also I never found out what kind of worm that was, but it was crazy to watch.

After looking at some photos the green monti is an elkhorn montipora.

Sad new yesterday evening. My zebra tailed blenny died. I had him for 5 years, and it was sad to see him go. He was showing some white/discoloration on his fins, but nothing that looked to serious. He would still eat with the rest of the crew just fine, so I was not all concerned.

On another note, I stopped using my filter sock. The reason I stopped using it is I think it keeps the water to clean for what I keep in my tank. The sponges have been having issue for awhile and I feel that my pod population has suffered too. This is hopefully going to help out the situation. Also I started running my skimmer opposite my lighting schedule, and I have noticed a jump in the skimmate it produces.

Along with all of this I still am battling cyano and bubble algae. Also the chaeto in the sump/refugium is just not growing at all. My thought on the cyano is that the tank has been running hotter than normal the past few months due to the mild weather. The increase in the temperature is due to a reduction in the evaporation in the tank. Usually I lose 1 gallon a day, and I am at 2/3-1/4 of a gallon right now. Also the cooling fan in the sump needs a good cleaning as it greatly affects the whole thing. Bubble algae has been more of an issue lately due to a declining cleanup crew. Over the next while I plan on adding additional crabs and snails to help keep things in check. I am puzzled by the chaeto not growing well. The only thing that makes sense is that I have been using phosguard with my reactor, which I have been using for my activated carbon. The lower phosphates might account for the lack of growth from the chaeto.

I started to do weekly water changes to help improve some stability. By accident I increased the salinity in the tank by .002, and due to past experience that was an issue. I did another water change to help correct the slight increase, but some damage had already been done since it took me a few hours before I had it corrected. The only negative affect was my green table acro had to small areas turn white.

The other thing that started me doing a weekly water change is that I over dosed on CA for my tank. It was reading a bit on the high side ~550 and my Alk was a little low. Since that spike I have stopped dosing CA and I am waiting on it to return to normal to start monitoring things again. I have been dosing 30g of baking soda and 70g of seachem reef advanced CA (I miscalculated the amount to add for the CA).

On a success story, I really think that I under fed my tank in the past. I started to feed the tank daily with Phytofeast and I am seeing an improvement with the growth of the stony corals. What I am doing is taking 5-10ml of phyto and a cube of frozen, let it thaw, turn off the return pump, feed the tank, wait for about 5-15 minutes, and then turn the return pumps back on. The new lights and better CA & Alk levels probably played a part in this too.

Also I went back to the Phoenix 14k 250w DE MH bulbs. The tank is brighter and the colors pop much better.

Cool update

I have had some growth in my tank over the past while.  I added several corals, and things seem to be going really good. The water change schedule is still a weekly 5 gallon change to keep parameters in check.  I have found that by using just the chaeto algae for nutrient export, I get a fair amount of detritus build up in my sump, so the weekly water changes helps to remove that.  Also, I was using a sponge in one of the baffles to help remove particles from the water.  This was okay for the first bit, but over time it became a source of pollution in the tank, so it has been removed.  Aside from that, I feed the tank one frozen cube with Tahitian blend algae from brineshrimpdirect.  So far, I have only noticed a little bit of bubble algae and a few small patches of hair algae.  Since it is all in check, I have not added any more cleanup crew to help out with it.  I am thinking that I will probably add another emerald crab is the bubble algae starts to do more than it currently is.  Also, I have noticed that I have fewer hermit crabs in the tank, I still have several that are still doing good.  The small snails from IPSF have multiplied from 6 to dozens.

I have added some additional corals to the tank.  Also, I have been trying to control the xenia, but it is hard to just pull it out as some of the stocks are so small that I can't pull them out.  I tried Kalk and a needle to try and burn it in the tank.  That kind of worked.  I am just trying to use control methods on it as I like it, but I hate it at the same time.

Well, 2 weeks ago my tank had a corner seal fail, and it shot water out.  Luckily I was home and able to put all of the live stock in buckets and drain the tank.  I sold the 47 gallon tank and purchased a used 70 gallon cube tank.  Just working on getting it water tested, plumbed, hardware installed, and etc.  Once I get it in place and such I will add some more details.