Hey guys the tank looks real good congrats
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Our 45g cube
- Thread starter mnat
- Start date
Go for it!!!
So for quite some time, the corals in this tank have looked pretty and been growing, the fish have been fat and healthy, and mike and me have done nothing but water changes and pretty minimal maintenance. If something was not doing well in the 12g or the 57g, we typically put it in this tank and it made a speedy recovery.
So we were assuming (keep in mind the three letters that begin that word) that all in this tank must be fine.
Bad move on our parts.
Well, if you read my post about the 57g, you know we we more than slightly out of wack, and I called in Aquatic Obsessions for help.
It turns out that request for help was made none to soon.
In testing the 57g yesterday, and learning from Ethan that I had calibrated our refractometer wrong, so our SG was low, that our phosphates in the 57 were high, and our alk was low, I was at least smart enough to ask for help with the 45g too.
The ugly, really ugly, and just plain awful: specific gravity in ts tank was 1.022, alk was 6.1, and phosphates were (I am embarrassed to say) .18. No, I did not forget a zero there. .18.
So why am I telling you this?
The corals, fish, and inverts all looked healthy, but eventually, we would have had a problem with this tank.
Part of our problem stemmed from the miscalculated refractometer, part from our failure to clean the skimmer (it was barely skimming at all Ethan tells me- I got a lesson in how to take it apart, clean each of its parts, and reassemble), and our laziness- we had not been testing because the tank LOOKED fine.
The solution: calibrate refractometer properly, 15g water change to bring Alk up to 8, SG up to 1.023, and clean skimmer so that it can do its job of helping remove phosphates, plus 10 g of water changes and reconstituting our testing regimen.
So we were assuming (keep in mind the three letters that begin that word) that all in this tank must be fine.
Bad move on our parts.
Well, if you read my post about the 57g, you know we we more than slightly out of wack, and I called in Aquatic Obsessions for help.
It turns out that request for help was made none to soon.
In testing the 57g yesterday, and learning from Ethan that I had calibrated our refractometer wrong, so our SG was low, that our phosphates in the 57 were high, and our alk was low, I was at least smart enough to ask for help with the 45g too.
The ugly, really ugly, and just plain awful: specific gravity in ts tank was 1.022, alk was 6.1, and phosphates were (I am embarrassed to say) .18. No, I did not forget a zero there. .18.
So why am I telling you this?
The corals, fish, and inverts all looked healthy, but eventually, we would have had a problem with this tank.
Part of our problem stemmed from the miscalculated refractometer, part from our failure to clean the skimmer (it was barely skimming at all Ethan tells me- I got a lesson in how to take it apart, clean each of its parts, and reassemble), and our laziness- we had not been testing because the tank LOOKED fine.
The solution: calibrate refractometer properly, 15g water change to bring Alk up to 8, SG up to 1.023, and clean skimmer so that it can do its job of helping remove phosphates, plus 10 g of water changes and reconstituting our testing regimen.
OK time for some more updates. Some good news in here and some bad news in here:
Let's start with the good:
Corals look very very good. The bi weekly water changes have really helped stabilize the tank and the corals are loving it. Everything is happy and the corals that were burned in the 57g are recovering at a remarkable rate. Chalices that were almost completely bleached a few weeks ago are not almost fully covered up. SPS is colored up and happy with great polyp extension. There is a little stinging going on but that is what happens when you add two tanks worth of corals into a 45g. Zoas are growing as asterinas are being pulled out with much gusto.
Equipment: Picked up one of those frag trees to help with the amount of coral on the sand bed and these things are really really cool. Got it from Greg at Reef 2 Reptiles today and may pickup another one. You essentially have 10 corals aligned vertically so they take up much less room than a frag rack.
http://reefbuilders.com/2012/01/17/thrive-aquatics-coral-frag-plug-tree/
Bad News:
Fish: I lost my female black and white clown that was the first fish I bought in this hobby roughly 4 years ago. She was completely healthy and there is no disease in the tank. We have not added a new fish in here in a long time. Right after that we see our dracula goby floating by with a big gash on its side and our helfrichi disappeared. This all happened essentially while we were sick and were not checking the tank regularly. All water params are fine (again twice weekly water changes) and all the inverts are fine.
Solutions:
We feel we have a predator. We had gotten some wild branch rock in and maybe something very small on there finally grew big enough to poach fish (Crab or mantis). Second theory: We had a pistol that was in there that was all green and just might not be reef safe. We saw some tunnels and digging and knew there was a pistol in there at some point which made us think that is the more dominant theory.
Step 1: Empty the tank completely of all rock and corals. This took a few hours and was done by Nikki. We then let everything setttle out and no signs of the predator. The sandbed in this tank was setup for a blue spotted jawfish so it is pretty deep (over 3 inches in areas), so we could not just go combing through it all willy nilly as we would have crashed the tank. Nikki then went through all the live rock and did not find anything. This liverock in not very porous but even so she could not find anything. The tank gets put back together and actually does look better now. We were able to save a couple of frags and spin the nem to the back of the tank to free us up more rock work to play with. Hopefully he stays there.
Step 2. Go out and buy new female black and white clown. Mission accomplished at Trop (along with another spiralis (buy what you are good at)) and we acclimated her to the tank. Good news is they are swimming together and hosting them nem even though it was an ORA clown.
Step 3. See burrow under the live rock several hours after the tank is settled and break out the shrimp trap. Have a cold beverage (neither of us have had alcohol in a week with the darned flu thingybobber) and wait until we can trap or figure out wth is in our tank.
Pictures coming in a few days.
Let's start with the good:
Corals look very very good. The bi weekly water changes have really helped stabilize the tank and the corals are loving it. Everything is happy and the corals that were burned in the 57g are recovering at a remarkable rate. Chalices that were almost completely bleached a few weeks ago are not almost fully covered up. SPS is colored up and happy with great polyp extension. There is a little stinging going on but that is what happens when you add two tanks worth of corals into a 45g. Zoas are growing as asterinas are being pulled out with much gusto.
Equipment: Picked up one of those frag trees to help with the amount of coral on the sand bed and these things are really really cool. Got it from Greg at Reef 2 Reptiles today and may pickup another one. You essentially have 10 corals aligned vertically so they take up much less room than a frag rack.
http://reefbuilders.com/2012/01/17/thrive-aquatics-coral-frag-plug-tree/
Bad News:
Fish: I lost my female black and white clown that was the first fish I bought in this hobby roughly 4 years ago. She was completely healthy and there is no disease in the tank. We have not added a new fish in here in a long time. Right after that we see our dracula goby floating by with a big gash on its side and our helfrichi disappeared. This all happened essentially while we were sick and were not checking the tank regularly. All water params are fine (again twice weekly water changes) and all the inverts are fine.
Solutions:
We feel we have a predator. We had gotten some wild branch rock in and maybe something very small on there finally grew big enough to poach fish (Crab or mantis). Second theory: We had a pistol that was in there that was all green and just might not be reef safe. We saw some tunnels and digging and knew there was a pistol in there at some point which made us think that is the more dominant theory.
Step 1: Empty the tank completely of all rock and corals. This took a few hours and was done by Nikki. We then let everything setttle out and no signs of the predator. The sandbed in this tank was setup for a blue spotted jawfish so it is pretty deep (over 3 inches in areas), so we could not just go combing through it all willy nilly as we would have crashed the tank. Nikki then went through all the live rock and did not find anything. This liverock in not very porous but even so she could not find anything. The tank gets put back together and actually does look better now. We were able to save a couple of frags and spin the nem to the back of the tank to free us up more rock work to play with. Hopefully he stays there.
Step 2. Go out and buy new female black and white clown. Mission accomplished at Trop (along with another spiralis (buy what you are good at)) and we acclimated her to the tank. Good news is they are swimming together and hosting them nem even though it was an ORA clown.
Step 3. See burrow under the live rock several hours after the tank is settled and break out the shrimp trap. Have a cold beverage (neither of us have had alcohol in a week with the darned flu thingybobber) and wait until we can trap or figure out wth is in our tank.
Pictures coming in a few days.
So the tank has stabilized out incredibly well with the twice a week water changes and the corals are loving it. I took my own advice to someone else today and went and bought a tripod. I am still getting used to it, but here are some pics:
These guys were turned a bit so I could not get a clear shot, and when you turn them they close, so here is the best I could get:
Acans:
Favia from AO:
Scolies:
Little group shot:
I love, love, love this chalice:
These guys were turned a bit so I could not get a clear shot, and when you turn them they close, so here is the best I could get:
Acans:
Favia from AO:
Scolies:
Little group shot:
I love, love, love this chalice:
Playing with the camera/tripod a bit more. We reaquascaped yet again.
AO fallen sun:
WWC League of Legends (This was completely bleached out in the 57g and has made quite a recovery)
Acans:
Rainbow Acans from our own montepora:
Babies Breath:
Cornbred 3G:
More acans from WWC:
Spiderman chalice, now off the sand and in a good spot:
The FTS showing all our friggin frag racks:
AO fallen sun:
WWC League of Legends (This was completely bleached out in the 57g and has made quite a recovery)
Acans:
Rainbow Acans from our own montepora:
Babies Breath:
Cornbred 3G:
More acans from WWC:
Spiderman chalice, now off the sand and in a good spot:
The FTS showing all our friggin frag racks:
Everything's looking great Mike! Is that a new Scoly (the orange one behind the green one)?
I know what you mean with the frag racks. I almost have more frags on the racks than I do on my rocks, lol.
I know what you mean with the frag racks. I almost have more frags on the racks than I do on my rocks, lol.
Cool, thanks Nikki. Glad to hear it's recovering!
Looks good as usual. LOL, that reflection makes it appear like you are hanging frags like CRF.The FTS showing all our friggin frag racks:
Well now that ain't good
I was looking for this thread, and realized it has been quite a while since we posted when I couldn't find it in the threads from the last month. So. . . it is update time. This will likely be one of the last updates for this tank; we are planning on using it as a QT in the future.
We have been working on this tank for the last month or so; we ordered some frags, and didn't QT them, just dropped them into the tank, so of course we ended up with pests. We have been treating for AEF for more than a month, and for red bugs for 2.5 weeks. We have one more dose of interceptor to administer, which we will be doing over the weekend. The tank, of course, is a bit of a mess because we removed all of the clean up crew and relocated it to the 57g. That said, I cannot WAIT for Sunday when I get to add the clean up crew back in.
Despite the tank looking a mess at present, the smooth skinned acros are starting to recover. We have been very lucky so far, with no coral losses. We had one stag start to RTN, and had significant color loss and some flesh loss on the blue tenuous, the hitchiker acro, and the red planet, but all are recovering thankfully. We had a scare with the two stars. We moved the red linkia to the 12g (there is a Harlequin shrimp in the 57g), and it did not take the move well. It lost an arm, and started to lose flesh on a second, but it has recovered nicely and is actually starting to grow back a new 5th arm. The serpent star likewise didn't do so super with the transition (it went into the 57g); it had tissue loss on the ends of 3 arms, but it has recovered, growing new tips on the 3 arms where it lost them. It is going to stay in the 57g until it is broken down, and then it will go into the 210 when it is set up. The linkia will stay in the 12g for at least the next several weeks, i don't want to move it from the 12 to the 45 and then into the 210.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same with fish. We lost our other black and white clown at the beginning of may, and decided to move the bali picaso clowns into this tank (they were in teh 12g). We are not sure what happened; we went away for the night on May 3rd, he was fine before we left, missing in action when we returned. However, the bali clowns have settled into their bigger space nicely.
The action plan:
All fish in this tank will be moving into the 210 when it is set up, except the yellow watchman goby, who will go up for adoption. The SPS will go into the frag tank in the Fish Room Ethan is designing for the basement (to continue AEF treatment), the acans, favias, and larger chalices will go into the 210. The smaller acan frags and the smaller chalice frags will go into the frag tank in the basement.
We have been working on this tank for the last month or so; we ordered some frags, and didn't QT them, just dropped them into the tank, so of course we ended up with pests. We have been treating for AEF for more than a month, and for red bugs for 2.5 weeks. We have one more dose of interceptor to administer, which we will be doing over the weekend. The tank, of course, is a bit of a mess because we removed all of the clean up crew and relocated it to the 57g. That said, I cannot WAIT for Sunday when I get to add the clean up crew back in.
Despite the tank looking a mess at present, the smooth skinned acros are starting to recover. We have been very lucky so far, with no coral losses. We had one stag start to RTN, and had significant color loss and some flesh loss on the blue tenuous, the hitchiker acro, and the red planet, but all are recovering thankfully. We had a scare with the two stars. We moved the red linkia to the 12g (there is a Harlequin shrimp in the 57g), and it did not take the move well. It lost an arm, and started to lose flesh on a second, but it has recovered nicely and is actually starting to grow back a new 5th arm. The serpent star likewise didn't do so super with the transition (it went into the 57g); it had tissue loss on the ends of 3 arms, but it has recovered, growing new tips on the 3 arms where it lost them. It is going to stay in the 57g until it is broken down, and then it will go into the 210 when it is set up. The linkia will stay in the 12g for at least the next several weeks, i don't want to move it from the 12 to the 45 and then into the 210.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same with fish. We lost our other black and white clown at the beginning of may, and decided to move the bali picaso clowns into this tank (they were in teh 12g). We are not sure what happened; we went away for the night on May 3rd, he was fine before we left, missing in action when we returned. However, the bali clowns have settled into their bigger space nicely.
The action plan:
All fish in this tank will be moving into the 210 when it is set up, except the yellow watchman goby, who will go up for adoption. The SPS will go into the frag tank in the Fish Room Ethan is designing for the basement (to continue AEF treatment), the acans, favias, and larger chalices will go into the 210. The smaller acan frags and the smaller chalice frags will go into the frag tank in the basement.
Wow, AEF and Red bugs?!?! Having one is bad enough, but to have both... I wish you the best of luck in your battle and hope you are victorious without any casualties!
