Funlad3
Well-known member
Updates, because it's been a while!
I lost a few fish in an annoying chain of events that I ultimately attribute to the boxfish. Within a few days of adding the naso in July, it mysteriously died. I didn't think anything of it, as nasos are among the most finicky tangs. Then earlier this month, I added a Yellow and Kole tang that I kept in copper in QT for over a month. The yellow was pretty much instantly out and about, but the boxfish started to hide in the rocks with the Kole tang, which died within a day or two. The following day, the boxfish died. My best guess is that the boxfish got stressed out by the new additions and released ostracitoxin. I'm not 100% convinced of this, as both tangs had spent time in the 20g quarantine tank for extended periods of time with either one or both of the boxfish I've had, but the yellow tang and my scribbled angel never skipped a beat in the lagoon. I know it wasn't disease, but I'm never going to know for certain what happened. Now I have to track down more fish to get my bioload up.
Relatedly, since the tank has been settling, I finally got to go through an algae cycle. Because I've been collecting a ridiculous amount of acros, however, the tank has refused to keep any sort of measurable nutrients. The nutrient consumption is actually so bad that when I accidentally dumped in half a container of Reef Roids one night, my phosphates didn't even hit 0.04. I've been battling a minor case of dinoflagellates, which I've been siphoning every day. I've also been dosing the equivalent of 10ppm of nitrates each week by adding KNO3 to my top of reservoir, and I finally ended a week with detectable nutrient levels, .5 nitrates and 0.02 phosphates. With so much nitrate going into the tank, the rock and sand have had a touch of cyano in addition to the dinoflagellates, but by siphoning it all into my filter socks every day for the past two weeks, the tank is finally turning a corner.
Amazingly, the corals have all been growing throughout this process (despite having very muted colors due to low nutrients), and like I mentioned, I've added a ton of new pieces. I probably have more than 50 strains of acros glued to various tiles that are now taking up my entire sandbed, plus another 15 full colonies that I have on PVC. I've only glued pieces of a few of these 60+ corals to my rocks, as I'm waiting for things to settle in and color up before I give frags a more permanent home. With my low nutrients, things are refusing to color up, so my sand bed is going to stay chaotic for the near future.
Anyways, now that the tank is slightly presentable, here are some pictures of some of the more colorful pieces:
(Photo disclaimer: this tank is so damned shallow that it's basically impossible to shoot pictures under the water surface, so all of these are shot through the water and blurrier than I like. I'm still committed to finding a resolution.)
My purple and orange spath has picked up another color; now the polyps are green and pink:
View attachment 4919
Tyree Pink Lemonade, growing slow but showing *perfect* color:
View attachment 4920
Here's one of my newer wilds that I'm waiting to color up:
View attachment 4921
My Cornbred Valhalla has finally settled in after I almost burned it to death dipping it in over concentrated Bayer:
View attachment 4922
A sweet chunk of Bali Shortcake (I think?) getting ready to explode:
View attachment 4923
I lost a few fish in an annoying chain of events that I ultimately attribute to the boxfish. Within a few days of adding the naso in July, it mysteriously died. I didn't think anything of it, as nasos are among the most finicky tangs. Then earlier this month, I added a Yellow and Kole tang that I kept in copper in QT for over a month. The yellow was pretty much instantly out and about, but the boxfish started to hide in the rocks with the Kole tang, which died within a day or two. The following day, the boxfish died. My best guess is that the boxfish got stressed out by the new additions and released ostracitoxin. I'm not 100% convinced of this, as both tangs had spent time in the 20g quarantine tank for extended periods of time with either one or both of the boxfish I've had, but the yellow tang and my scribbled angel never skipped a beat in the lagoon. I know it wasn't disease, but I'm never going to know for certain what happened. Now I have to track down more fish to get my bioload up.
Relatedly, since the tank has been settling, I finally got to go through an algae cycle. Because I've been collecting a ridiculous amount of acros, however, the tank has refused to keep any sort of measurable nutrients. The nutrient consumption is actually so bad that when I accidentally dumped in half a container of Reef Roids one night, my phosphates didn't even hit 0.04. I've been battling a minor case of dinoflagellates, which I've been siphoning every day. I've also been dosing the equivalent of 10ppm of nitrates each week by adding KNO3 to my top of reservoir, and I finally ended a week with detectable nutrient levels, .5 nitrates and 0.02 phosphates. With so much nitrate going into the tank, the rock and sand have had a touch of cyano in addition to the dinoflagellates, but by siphoning it all into my filter socks every day for the past two weeks, the tank is finally turning a corner.
Amazingly, the corals have all been growing throughout this process (despite having very muted colors due to low nutrients), and like I mentioned, I've added a ton of new pieces. I probably have more than 50 strains of acros glued to various tiles that are now taking up my entire sandbed, plus another 15 full colonies that I have on PVC. I've only glued pieces of a few of these 60+ corals to my rocks, as I'm waiting for things to settle in and color up before I give frags a more permanent home. With my low nutrients, things are refusing to color up, so my sand bed is going to stay chaotic for the near future.
Anyways, now that the tank is slightly presentable, here are some pictures of some of the more colorful pieces:
(Photo disclaimer: this tank is so damned shallow that it's basically impossible to shoot pictures under the water surface, so all of these are shot through the water and blurrier than I like. I'm still committed to finding a resolution.)
My purple and orange spath has picked up another color; now the polyps are green and pink:
View attachment 4919Tyree Pink Lemonade, growing slow but showing *perfect* color:
View attachment 4920Here's one of my newer wilds that I'm waiting to color up:
View attachment 4921My Cornbred Valhalla has finally settled in after I almost burned it to death dipping it in over concentrated Bayer:
View attachment 4922A sweet chunk of Bali Shortcake (I think?) getting ready to explode:
View attachment 4923