Jimroth's Big Ol' Tank

jimroth · Feb 26, 2009

It looks like the copperband decided that aiptasia were food finally. I just looked in the tank, and they were all gone, every stinkin' one of them! Some of the aips I couldn't reach were bigger than quarters. She's got the fever for the flavor of aiptasia! It happened like overnight.

Of course I have 4 peppermint shrimp arriving in the group buy today...figures.

_______MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH

JRWOHLER · Feb 26, 2009

That is cool ... hope you can find someone to take a couple shrimp off your hands.

JerseyWendy · Feb 27, 2009

The tank's looking great, Jim. I'm so in love with your CBB. ;D

pnoyreefer · Feb 27, 2009

I saw this tank in person and yes its a beast... I like the Aquascaping a lot.. In no time this will be a matured tank ... Im very impressed.. thanks again jim

jimroth · Mar 2, 2009

Newest resident, meet ELVIS!

Yes, he's a little thin right now, it's not as bad as it looks, and he's getting over some ich, but he's a good eater and really scrappy, so I think he's gonna be OK.

jimroth · Mar 2, 2009

Classic photo mistakes: Can you tell what brand of camera this picture was taken with?

JerseyWendy · Mar 2, 2009

LOL @ the last picture comment. It's a Canon, and there's nothing wrong with those.

Aren't you afraid your Longnose "Elvis" will pick on your corals?

Gorgeous specimen!!

jimroth · Mar 2, 2009

JerseyWendy said:
LOL @ the last picture comment. It's a Canon, and there's nothing wrong with those.

Aren't you afraid your Longnose "Elvis" will pick on your corals? Gorgeous specimen!!

Thanks Wendy!! Supposed to be mostly be a pod 'n' worm picker like the CBB. No problems yet, knock wood. Charles Delbeek said the yellow longnose would leave corals alone, in an article I read Marine Fish and Reef Annual.

I loves the butterflyfish. Some day I'm going to set up a FOWLR and just get a bunch of different ones.

Baxreefs · Mar 2, 2009

[/quote]

I loves the butterflyfish. Some day I'm going to set up a FOWLR and just get a bunch of different ones.
[/quote]

I think I may like the long nose over CBBs in general. Both of yours are very nice. I hope he works out!

jimroth · Mar 14, 2009

I have been using two Brightwell products, Koral Color and Potassion, with good results. I have always been against "snake oil" things like the Mark Weiss products ("Super Fantastic Reef Boosterama!") but the potassium-blue color link is true and seems to be reproducable. Today I picked up the dry potassium, which is way cheaper than the solution, and I just refilled my empty bottle. I also bought some of their Coral Amino ($$$) because my friend ordered it with the other stuff.

Having read some peoples' experiences with adding stuff, I have also gone back to adding lugols iodine, just 4 drops every third day, when I add the Brightwell stuff. I'm gearing up to dose vodka (VSV, actually) so today I took some "before" photos using a 2G aquarium as a top-down box.

In for a penny, in for a pound! I'm going to start with a whopping 1ml per day of VSV, and see how it goes.

The Fish Tank (store) has some trochus snails, so I bought a few.

Baxreefs · Mar 15, 2009

I stopped using the amino acids and other coral specifc addatives a while back due to climbing PO4. I don't know they were the source but I clamped down on all potential sources and it worked. So???

I just started using the potasium addative and just picked up the BW Potassion. Potasium seemd to help my monties color up almost immediately. I am pretty confident that Iodine, Magnessium, strontium, potassium All make a positive impact when dosed. These are also lacking in many salt mixes we use. I have been using IO and Reef Crystals and I have read they are low in all these elements.

jimroth · Mar 15, 2009

BW mentions testing for potassium, have you done that? I'm winging it for now.
One reason I stopped dosing iodine back in the day was I couldn't test for it.
By the way, what phosphate test are you using? I almost think it would be worth buying a colorimeter.

Baxreefs · Mar 15, 2009

The only potassium test I have heard tell of is Zeo, havn't found one yet though.

I use a colorimeter. I've tried Salifert and D-D I am much more comfortable now. You are welcome to borrow it so compare and see if you think it's worth it. I do.

jimroth · Mar 16, 2009

I wanted to take some pre-vodka dosing shots (pre amino and lugols too, I guess) so I picked up a tiny aquarium and stuck my camera in the fish tank! Some of the resulting shots were good, some are pretty bad, I think the flash issue is complicated, most of the close-ups are very washed out compared to what I see with my eyes. I need to play with the exposure a bit. Also bear in mind I use no actinics, this is under 12K Ushios only. Anyway, here's some pix of the corals in my tank, before dosing VSV.

jimroth · Mar 16, 2009

Pink and blue millie, this is looking better since potassium dosiung started, getting blue around the coralites. Doesn't coralites sound like a religious sect or maybe a motown group?

Cali Tort, slow growing but encrusting its plug...

This is "blue millie," believe it or not. It actually turned blue once. I'm currently blasting it with light, let's hope it changes!

Acropora abrotanoides, new purchase from AO, a fat stag.

A. Efflorescens, settled in nicely

Montipora hirstuta. Look how it grows in relation to the water currents:

jimroth · Mar 16, 2009

More underwater shots. Rainbow poccillopora;

The fast-growing brown thing was a tricolor when I got it in September. Oregon Tort on the left there, doing well.

The table I won in the club raffle on the right, P&B Millie on the left

This sad-looking thing is Sunset Mille, which has the potential to develop amazing color.

jimroth · Mar 16, 2009

Pink Stylo:

Pohnape Birdsnest, growing faster now:

Loisette, this was blue and green when I got it, then brown, now it's just starting to turn blue on the tip.

ORA Nathans Green Millie, lots of new growth:

Reef Cocktail, use in moderation!

jimroth · Mar 19, 2009

Interesting results from my new program of dumping all sorts of crap into the tank. As planned, the carbon dosing (VSV) caused an increase in skimmate, also more junk on the glass. I have a rapidly growing red and green cyano patch in the back of the tank, not sure if it's related. I siphoned out most of the cyano and it was back in 3 days. I'm probably going to end up siphoning out all the gravel in that spot.
Still seeing color improve in some corals, which I attribute to K and Koral Color trace elements. ORA Rose Millie is turning a beautiful red-orange-pink. Still not growing much. That's one I'm hitting with the amino acids, although it seems pretty silly to me.
Less polyp extension in a couple of corals though. Could be an individual thing.
Objectively, the water already seems clearer. It was pretty clear already, but then you have to do the crucial end-to-end look, that's where you can really see it. One day it was just like glass, invisible.
There's a thing I haven't mentioned because it's kind of embarrassing, but hey, my life's an open book. I recently calibrated my refractometer and, between the out of whack refractometer and a useless swing-arm hydrometer, I had been running my tank at .1030, very salty! I've been letting the salinity slide down slowly by skimming heavy without replacing salt. Jeeze. Friends don't let friends use swing-arms.
I'm already seeing some results of bad placement of corals! Both the monti caps have grown so much they will need to be moved. One's already starting to shade my green slimer, the other will grow over my efflo at some point. Oh well, at least they will grow back quickly. Another cool or nasty thing: My green table is starting to get close to my pink-and-purple millie, and it knows it! Last night it was launching those mesenterial filaments, trying to sting its neighbor. I can move the table a little, but the millie is planted in the rock, I can only frag it.
Based on the results of a recent survey, I am switching from my long-time salt mix of Tropic Marin to Tropic Marin Pro, hoping for a better reef-oriented chemistry and trace elements.

JRWOHLER · Mar 19, 2009

Rainbow poccillopora is really nice. Everything is coming along really nice.

Baxreefs · Mar 19, 2009

So Jim, let me get this straight. You dosing the tank with Potassium and Koral Color and AAs and you're dosing the vodka to yourself?

Is that right?

BTW just cut the P&P millie and move it it'll attach in no time once it's happy and it sounds like it's happy.

... Could be the vodka ???