Spartanman22's Fluval M90

[Spartanman22]

I was looking back at some old photos of my 80 gallon (RIP) I came to the realization that in the age of name brand LE this, designer that SPS, all of the most impressive or personal favorite acros I have had started as no-name browned out $10-20 frags from various LFS. Don’t get me wrong the name brand stuff are often impressive, but I’ve found myself on occasion caring too much about a name, potential resale value, or bragging rights as opposed to my actual opinion of the acro and it’s coloration. So here’s a tribute to those lesser loved Brown sticks that just may turn into something special.

These all started as totally brown frags that all showed hints of promise.

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[Spartanman22]

Time to get serious with this aiptasia outbreak. Have an order from saltyunderground.com for 6 large berghia and 2 egg strings. The big aiptasia are easy enough to manually remove, but there are dozens of very tiny ones popping up in the sand and rockwork. Hopefully these guys do the trick.


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[#theMatrix]

.... Have you considered a 3watt Lazer.
I have.

 

[tinman]

i say you are thinking too much ..

id do ..

get some nice dry rock ..
venegar/acid wash it ..
build a real nice structure ..
cycle it in a 30 gallon brute ..
swap the rock when ready ..

anything less than 50 gallon tank .. its easier to ditch the rock and go all new instead of trying to fix the problems ike aiptasia imo .. ..

 

[ultimatemj]

Berghia work....just slower than you'd like. It can take 1 to 3 months beore you know/see they are working!

Funny thing is, once they start working, you stop caring about seeing any aiptasia, because you know they are no longer a threat to take over your tank

That said, if you decide to follow Tin's advice about new rock, I've got a bunch of marco rock that I didn't end up using. Let me know~

 

[Spartanman22]

i say you are thinking too much ..

id do ..

get some nice dry rock ..
venegar/acid wash it ..
build a real nice structure ..
cycle it in a 30 gallon brute ..
swap the rock when ready ..

anything less than 50 gallon tank .. its easier to ditch the rock and go all new instead of trying to fix the problems ike aiptasia imo .. ..

If the berghia don’t work for some reason this will be the route I’ll go. With my tank being an AIO, I’m just hesitant to make large alterations with something like rock since I don’t have a sump full of chaeto, biomedia, or live rock. I’m just a bit nervous of making large scale changes with regards to my tanks bacterial and macro/micro biology but if the berghia don’t work that’ll be what happens.

Like you said, with a tank this small it’s pretty cheap and easy to just make a swap.


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[Spartanman22]

Berghia work....just slower than you'd like. It can take 1 to 3 months beore you know/see they are working!

Funny thing is, once they start working, you stop caring about seeing any aiptasia, because you know they are no longer a threat to take over your tank

That said, if you decide to follow Tin's advice about new rock, I've got a bunch of marco rock that I didn't end up using. Let me know~

I will keep you in mind if I end up going that route! I realize it takes a bit for them to settle in and start populating before you start to see any improvement. They really aren’t negatively affecting much at the moment. The coral are well enough established that they aren’t getting damaged by the aiptasia. They’re just ugly and annoying. So I can be patient.


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[tinman]

If the berghia don’t work for some reason this will be the route I’ll go. With my tank being an AIO, I’m just hesitant to make large alterations with something like rock since I don’t have a sump full of chaeto, biomedia, or live rock. I’m just a bit nervous of making large scale changes with regards to my tanks bacterial and macro/micro biology but if the berghia don’t work that’ll be what happens.

Like you said, with a tank this small it’s pretty cheap and easy to just make a swap.


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Make sure the rock is completely cycled though before you swap ..

 

[Spartanman22]

Saltyunderground had free shipping at $75, and my berghia order came out to like $73. So I checked the rest of their site, which didn’t have too much, but it did have a Tyree Montipora Undata for $15. The piece I got is way bigger than I was expecting. It’s on a 1.5” disk for reference. Not a bad pickup for $15. The undata is a classic and I haven’t had one for quite some time.

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[Spartanman22]

.... Have you considered a 3watt Lazer.
I have.

I have not you have one? How’s it work? My problem with that is I can only get to the ones that are visible. All the ones on the back side of the rock or underneath are safe.


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[Spartanman22]

Make sure the rock is completely cycled though before you swap ..

Right, so in theory it should be fine, but AIO’s just make me nervous with large changes to microfauna. In case you can’t tell I really dislike AIO’s...but happy wife = happy life


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[madjoe]

I used peppermint shrimp. I put one in fuge one in each over flow and one in each sump section zapped the ones in my tank haven’t seen none since they were in sump and over flows so kept coming back after i got them out of tank. Placeing one in each part of tank seemed to work for me

 

[Spartanman22]

I used peppermint shrimp. I put one in fuge one in each over flow and one in each sump section zapped the ones in my tank haven’t seen none since they were in sump and over flows so kept coming back after i got them out of tank. Placeing one in each part of tank seemed to work for me

I’ve tried this a couple times but my geometric moray keeps eating them all before they get a chance to do any real damage.


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[madjoe]

I’ve tried this a couple times but my geometric moray keeps eating them all before they get a chance to do any real damage.


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Yea I don’t put any in tank wrasses eat em to i put them in all the other areas of tank and manually zapped the ones in the tank . The shrimp ate all the ones in over flows and sump so they don’t make there way back into tank.

 

[Spartanman22]

Tested last night and the alk was down to 6.7 (normally 7.3-7.5). Growth has been picking up and things have been encrusting well recently. Slowly getting magnesium up too. Last night was about 1390. Noticing less bubble algae.


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[Spartanman22]

Ran out of room and had to add another piece of rock

This is a crummy photo but this is my new #1. It absolutely glows green and then has bright blue tips.

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[Spartanman22]

I was peaking around in the tank last night with a flashlight and was able to spot one of the six berghia nudis I added 2 weeks ago. Hopefully in the next couple weeks they start to develop a population and attack my aiptasia. It’s really getting out of control, but I’m trying to exercise some patience and let the nudis do their thing.

Other than the annoyance of aiptasia, tanks doing great. Acros are growing and I’ve been having to increase alk dosage about every 3-5 days. Colors could be better, but my nutrients are a bit low at the moment. Going to boost my amino dosings and fish feedings a bit to compensate.


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[goatous]

Tank’s looking great!

Re-Nudi’s breeding:
I don’t know this from personal experience, but I’ve heard that it is hard to farm Nudibranch in your display because the amphipods and maybe the copepods will eat their eggs…

I sure hope it works out for you, please keep us posted on how it’s working!

 

[Spartanman22]

Haven’t posted in a while, being summer time the tanks basically in autopilot. All my spare time is spent on projects around the new house.

Unfortunately this week had some major changes. I re-homed my eel as he was getting too big for my tank, and had to unfortunately flush the shredded remains of my blue gigantea.

Came home from a 2 day trip to Detroit to find the gig had moved and gotten caught in one of the vortechs. He’s done this 3 or 4 times in the past, but usually he just catches a small chunk on the fringes. This time he got caught up in the vortech real bad. I kept him in the tank with no flow for a week. He moved back to his original spot almost immediately, but quickly declined. This August would have been 5 years.

My clowns are really confused at the moment. Going forward I think I’ll try either a toadstool or euphyllia. Something that won’t move on me. Considering the costs of gigs I’m not sure I’m willing to pickup another one.

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[Spartanman22]

Well it’s been 4 months since adding berghia nudis and have noticed no impact on aiptasia. Nor have I seen the nudis since adding. I’ve got about 5 peppermints that don’t touch it, and just added a matted filefish who hasn’t shown any interest yet. Picked up a bottle of aiptasia-x this week as a last resort, but may be looking at a fresh start...


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