20 long AIO build

[dansyr]

Catching up on a few updates:

I picked up two green clown gobies from my LFS maybe 3 weeks ago. They were in pretty horrible condition, severely emaciated. You could see the shape of the skull. One passed within a few days, but I was able to coax the other one onto frozen food and he's fattening up nicely now. So food prep! The most enticing food seems to be fish eggs, next mysis shrimp although some are too big, and lowest-preference are "reef plankton" that look like calanus to me. Current blend (just made up today) is 3 cubes calanus, 3 mysis, 5 fish eggs, 0.5 freeze-dried hikari brine shrimp, and a scoop of brs reef chili. Add a few drops of vitamins, dilute in some DI and tank water, and then aliquot out into about half the tray.

 

[dansyr]

Also documenting first coral disease issue last week, one of the ASD goni's (toxic frills I think) suddenly started melting. It was OK the day before, or at least not visibly brown and mushy, but just before work on Friday I noticed about half the polyps were brown mush. Was in a rush to get out to work so no time for photos or a real treatment, but in an attempt to not let it spread to the tank I put it in a ridiculously strong iodine solution. Didn't even measure, maybe 100 ml in a whisky glass with ~5 mls iodine. But scraped off all the mushy tissue with a knife in the iodine, then pipette-blasted it for about 5-10 mins before i absolutely had to run out the door. 2 days later, it seems stable with the remaining polyps having some extension and showing no sign of disease, but time will tell.

 

[dansyr]

The build continues! Calcium consumption increased beyond what kalk could do in such a small tank without pH issues, so I switched to a DIY 2 part (Randy's). Dosing that frequently enough without making alk swings was getting to be a pain, so I built a doser! Overall cost about $30 including gratuitous display + about 10 bucks for the tubing. Tubing was the most expensive single part actually... Put the whole thing in an old p1000 tip box to have nice separation of electronics from motor.

Parts list:
Seeed XIAO esp32c3 i had picked up awhile ago (not using wifi yet but have plans)
Cheap L298N motor controller
2x of cheapest Kamoer peristaltic pump/motor combos (not stepper, just regular)
cheap 12v powersupply (kind with free jack to screw terminal adapter)
about 3m of 2mm ID silicone tubing
gratuitous lcd for fun

 

[dansyr]

Picked up a two-spot goby a couple weeks ago, and he's doing great. Eating my frozen blend really well, sifting sand, pooping regularly. And so much fatter! I am aware these sometimes seem healthy then take a sharp downturn several months in, but I felt so bad for him and was pretty confident I could get him eating so I took a risk and hope has a happier time in here than in the barebottom LFS tank. He was in much better shape than when I got the clown gobies but his stomach was definitely sunken in.

 

[dansyr]

New FTS and documenting a few new critters:


On my wishlist for a while now, I got a couple ORA tridacnas rescued from Petco. They are not in the best shape, especially the maxima, as it was very underlit for a couple days there and in a tank with a dwarf angel (!). You can see the bite marks where nips got taken out of the mantle. It was definitely malnourished the first couple days but seems to be appreciating the better lighting and opening better, damage is still not great. So far it's been a little over 2 weeks, the derasa is showing some growth already.


It was also macroalgae harvest time! The leafy red Halymenia sp. on the left rock needed trimming, so traded some to a couple awesome local reefers for some other macros and phyto. The reef diversity grows!

 

[dansyr]

Overdue on the log here, but a first for this tank - comparative progress shots!

Got some birdnest frags from a local reefer (thanks again @mattzang ) in late April. And it's been going gangbusters once it got settled.

2023.04.30 (freshly glued):

2023.06.27:

2023.10.07:

 

[dansyr]

New year, new updates! Tank is coming along nicely, no real new coral additions except a MIMF Hammer I found, focusing on growing things in and nailing steady nutrients. I've had a pesky non-hair algae come up lately I'm trying to beat, it is a really tough, arborescent (not "feathered" like bryopsis) that attaches firmly to rock or coralline at a single point. With manual removal and better monitoring of parameters post holiday chaos it seems to be on the retreat, fingers crossed.

Livestock additions have been happening though, up to 4 sexy shrimp now courtesy of local PetCo. Quick shout-out to my local petco, the guy running aquatics there is solid.

Photo updates for future documentation:
FTS:



Clown gobies are the best, perching everywhere. Older one might be aging, there seem to be some territory shifts going on and some signs of dominance so lympho flared up and is recovering as they're settling into the latest pecking order, fingers crossed it goes well.



Clams are doing great:


Torch is getting huge and trying to murder everything:
sexies doing their thing:



Halimeda is just such a beautiful green:

Conflict incoming, hoping this convinces the acro to start going UP

 

[LegalReefer]

Looking absolutely phenomenal!

 

[dansyr]

Looking absolutely phenomenal!

Thanks! This has been an awesome journey. 20 longs are truly great sizes, i peeked over at your build thread and noticed you got one going too! how do you have flow in yours? I tried adding a 3rd but smaller wavemaker on the AIO side, but it's a little much for the bubble coral so the back wall is a bit hard to get flow given it's so far away from either end.

 

[LegalReefer]

Thanks! This has been an awesome journey. 20 longs are truly great sizes, i peeked over at your build thread and noticed you got one going too! how do you have flow in yours? I tried adding a 3rd but smaller wavemaker on the AIO side, but it's a little much for the bubble coral so the back wall is a bit hard to get flow given it's so far away from either end.

Thanks for giving my thread a look! I really oughta update it here, it's been a while. I have a wavemaker on the far right dialed up to max, filterhead in the middle to add some chaos to the flow, and a HOB filter on the left for a bit of flow there, but I feel like I need more flow, especially since I've been battling cyano and have clear flow 'dead zones' causing issues. I also recently took out all my Kenya trees as they were dropping babies nonstop and causing a general nuisance, so that might be part of the reason for cyano outbreak. That bubble tip of yours is absolutely stunning btw!

 

[dansyr]

Thanks for giving my thread a look! I really oughta update it here, it's been a while. I have a wavemaker on the far right dialed up to max, filterhead in the middle to add some chaos to the flow, and a HOB filter on the left for a bit of flow there, but I feel like I need more flow, especially since I've been battling cyano and have clear flow 'dead zones' causing issues. I also recently took out all my Kenya trees as they were dropping babies nonstop and causing a general nuisance, so that might be part of the reason for cyano outbreak. That bubble tip of yours is absolutely stunning btw!

Good to hear i'm not alone with flow balancing. I recently swapped out my return VCA and it's helping. How's your nutrients? I have super low stock (2 clown gobies) so nutrients are always low and that keeps getting me cyano, but raising NO3 and PO4 seem to help.

Do you mean the torch? I have no BTA's in my tank, I swore off them awhile ago, their tendency to split and move irritates me. This is top-down torch (excuse the glare). It's great, the gobies and sexy shrimp love it.

 

[LegalReefer]

Flow balancing is rough, I wish there were some easy way to have enough power in a single powerhead to flow across the length of the tank without absolutely blasting corals. Nutrients fluctuate, I've got two clownfish, a six-line wrasse, and a big banded coral shrimp, so the tank is certainly stocked, but I've also managed to bottom out nitrates before. How do you normally raise NO3 and PO4 for your tank?

Meant bubble coral, not bubble tip! I have a bunch of the little buggers and am too used to writing bubble tip. They definitely move all over the place quite annoyingly, I started with one and I have somewhere between 10 and 15 now, and none of them seem to want to get big to host my clownfish. That torch is absolutely gorgeous too, it looks like it's putting on new heads rapidly! It's grown quite a bit from when you first added it, I can bet your clown gobies love to perch!

Also, how have you managed with your clams? I've always wanted to try them, but not sure if my light is sufficient. Yours look great!

 

[dansyr]

Flow balancing is rough, I wish there were some easy way to have enough power in a single powerhead to flow across the length of the tank without absolutely blasting corals. Nutrients fluctuate, I've got two clownfish, a six-line wrasse, and a big banded coral shrimp, so the tank is certainly stocked, but I've also managed to bottom out nitrates before. How do you normally raise NO3 and PO4 for your tank?

Meant bubble coral, not bubble tip! I have a bunch of the little buggers and am too used to writing bubble tip. They definitely move all over the place quite annoyingly, I started with one and I have somewhere between 10 and 15 now, and none of them seem to want to get big to host my clownfish. That torch is absolutely gorgeous too, it looks like it's putting on new heads rapidly! It's grown quite a bit from when you first added it, I can bet your clown gobies love to perch!

Also, how have you managed with your clams? I've always wanted to try them, but not sure if my light is sufficient. Yours look great!

I dose sodium nitrate and K2HPO4 (manually). Had a bottle of neonitro early on and that was good but ran through it. One outstanding project is to automate nutrient dosing.

BTAs can definitely fill in a tank but man your situation is why they scare me. Are they the regular short tentacle kind or the spidery CSB types?

Clams are great! I run a pretty white-heavy spectrum, aesthetically it looks around 10000K, maybe under, and I think that rally helps PAR. They're strategically placed near the larger white diodes, so they get extra punch. Theoretically my lights aren't that strong but they're very efficient lumen/watt wise and a roughly sun-like spectrum so im really crossing my fingers things keep working out.

 

[dansyr]

My wife broke out the DSLR today so got some glamour photos of tank critters! Very proud she caught some of the sexy shrimp mid poop haha. No post editing, a couple might need it as they look a little darker/ more dramatic than by eye.

I really like how the teal maxima came out, that color is pretty true and the little pale blotches are so tricky to get on the phone

 

[Gumbies R Us]

My wife broke out the DSLR today so got some glamour photos of tank critters! Very proud she caught some of the sexy shrimp mid poop haha. No post editing, a couple might need it as they look a little darker/ more dramatic than by eye.

I really like how the teal maxima came out, that color is pretty true and the little pale blotches are so tricky to get on the phone

Those are some good pictures!

 

[dansyr]

New addition - got a baby ORA Hippopus (via aquasd). Suuuuuper stoked about this guy, they're such a funky clam and I can't wait for this guy to turn into a bowling ball! 4 clams now in this tank: 2 maximas, 1 derasa, and now this hippo. It's still quite small, I would guess about 1.75", small turbo for scale in one of the photos.

Top-down photo is digitally zoomed so it's darker, but the green patches are visible in person. Edge dots are a beautiful light blue/mauve, and dots ring the incurrent siphon too.

 

[dansyr]

Hippo update! Still doing well I hope, got this photo earlier today; top down is slightly zoomed in so slightly darker than true but not corrected

 

[dansyr]

Overdue update on the documentation, but here we are! no new additions, but growth keeps happening! the MIMF monti is really starting to sprawl, the one tabling acro frag is finally starting to shoot branches now that it's hemmed in. Nutrients were pretty much 0 for several weeks while I was out of town and some cyano set in, so things are a bit pale but I'll take the growth.

 

[dansyr]

Less positive update - BJD struck this tank and still dealing with the ramifications several weeks later. Unknown cause, no new additions to this tank since ~March? With summer in Los Angeles area, my bet would be temperature swings. Also was trying to bring up N + P (from zero) in the week or two before first disease symptoms showed. N + P adjustments were manual and slow, aiming for never more than a 5ppm NO3 increase and a 0.05 ppm PO4 increase. Sometimes two doses per day, morning and night, but never ended up registering any NO3 above 10 or PO4 above 0.05.

Didn't take any photos of this system during because it was too sad, but documenting for posterity and in case anyone comes across this later to see symptoms. I noticed alk consumption dropping (i.e. dkh rising) about a week before symptoms showed, in retrospect that should have clued me in something was wrong. What was confusing was despite alk slowing, everything looked happy - good PE on LPS and SPS, growth tips extending on acros, etc. Tiny bit of tissue recession at base of torch, but my torch heads were a good 6+ inches tall and flesh extended all the way down to the base, and a goby liked to hang out at the base so figured he just nipped it or something and it would grow back.

Few days later, say Weds night, I noticed tissue at base of torch was starting to look loose. Not torn or receding, just looked more like a shirt sleeve than skin-tight. In retrospect, I should have dipped then and there. Work was busy next day or two so I skipped it til the weekend. BAD MOVE. I noticed actual infection, like shredded-looking tissue at the base Friday night, not yet to the heads and figured it could wait until sat morning water change. WORSE MOVE. This was a 10-headed colony, grown from ~3.5 heads over 2 years, figured it had the resources to hold off 12 hours. there were literally inches of tissue to go through. Nope. Woke up and recession / infection had reached the full polyp on one or two heads and made a lot of progress on others. So pulled colony and dip in extra-strength iodine, big water change, siphoned off all mucus/tissue shreds I could, put it back in and hoped for the best.

At this point I stopped automatic alk/calcium dosing, obviously no nutrient additions, and dropped temperature down to 77F (normally run at 79F)

Next day another polyp bit it (pulled & iodine dip). Things slowed down the next day, but following day another polyp bit it (another iodine dip, & 25% water change). Crazy thing is everything else in the tank looked GREAT - PE on acros, other Euphyllia happy, etc.

This pace continued about a week until I realized no amount of dipping and removal of infected flesh could work it, surgery was needed. Fragged to separate polyps, thought I could save 5 polyps (1 + 2 + 2 heads) but the end one of the double-headed ones had infection inside so I scrapped it and left with 3 polyps. They were obviously angry after the fragging but recession seemed to pause so I thought I made it out.

Foolish me.

Some bit of infected mucus/tissue must have gotten into my birdsnest colony and fallen into the middle of it. With how dense it grows, it was hard to see it until a few days later when it had gotten to multiple branches. Much easier to frag, but it's of course on the largest rock that has another 3 otherwise happy corals encrusted on it so removal, while possible, was avoided.

Cue another two weeks of every 2-3 days siphoning any sign of sloughed tissue, fragging off diseased branches, and 20% water changes. Lost about 1/3 of the colony by volume, but recession has slowed. Not positive I have it stopped in this coral yet, every once in awhile I see some recession or necrosis, but hard to tell with just how prone these guys are to random debris/etc falling into them and making a dead spot.

and it continues.

Had a quick weekend trip for a wedding, noticed some recession on the edge of my favites mini colony (4" diameter, edge encrusted onto a base rock) but figured it was some sand the conch kicked up onto edge. You'd think I would learn. Get back two days later to find 2/3 of tissue lost. Broke it off, fragged what I could (about a 0.5 x 1" piece), and kalk pasted over what looked questionable but was encrusted on the rock. Ended up losing its frags.

Last issues were spotted about 3 weeks ago, nothing confirmed since but I'm not believing it's gone yet.

Losses so far:
7/10 torch heads
entire favia colony
1/3 of Seriatopora colony


Current FTS:

 

[LegalReefer]

I am so sorry dude, hopefully the losses have stopped since then and everything is under control?