A Calm Blue Ocean - IM Fusion Pro 50 Gallon AIO Lagoon

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Things are looking good. Which Pocilipora is giving you trouble with the sweepers, the green or the fallout? I can’t really tell the difference lol.

They really do look similar in the picture. The green one is actually more of a lime green IRL and the Fallout is dark green. Of course that still makes them both green!

It's actually the frag plug that I broke the green one off of when I moved it to the 50 from the nano that's going crazy. It's just an angry encrusted frag plug lol. But the current colony pretty much grew out of a nub on the frag plug so I threw it back on the frag rack to grow out again. All was good until it made contact with the monti cap I had next to it. Note to self, don't let anything touch the poci!

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

The frag plug of doom! ;Hilarious

He's got his sweepers reined in for the moment but once the lights go down it's gloves off!

 

[jcolliii]

That blenny is adorable! Must be self fertile under some circumstances? Some fish are strange indeed!

Wow, never thought of poci's as having sweepers. I had a green-tipped purple one back in the day that I got from Steve Garrett (of Garrett's Acropolis). Never saw sweepers of any sort come from that coral. My Platy's have some fairly long sweepers like that when they sense either 1) food, or 2) coral damage (like me ripping things off of plugs).

Sorry to hear about the Montipora. Do you think it was dying and the amphipods were cleaning up?

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

That blenny is adorable! Must be self fertile under some circumstances? Some fish are strange indeed!

Wow, never thought of poci's as having sweepers. I had a green-tipped purple one back in the day that I got from Steve Garrett (of Garrett's Acropolis). Never saw sweepers of any sort come from that coral. My Platy's have some fairly long sweepers like that when they sense either 1) food, or 2) coral damage (like me ripping things off of plugs).

Sorry to hear about the Montipora. Do you think it was dying and the amphipods were cleaning up?

That blenny hid for months, it's nice to finally see her more active in the tank lately. The egg incident was unexpected, though lol. I found one other person here on R2R who posted about they single blenny laying eggs (different species, though) so I guess it happens, just not often, or perhaps we just don't catch them in the act! Fly Little Wing!

The two little poci colonies in the 50 have yet to show any aggressive behavior and the one gets regularly picked over by the peppermint shrimp that lives next door (fortunately it appears she's not eating the coral, though, she's taking food that the flow happens to lodge there). I wonder if the monti left some of itself behind and the frag is still reacting to that. One of my projects for today is the clean up that frag rack so I'll give the poci a little trim around the edges while I'm in there.

That monti was a series of unfortunate events that snowballed to it's demise. Darn thing had just finally recovered from it's last disaster. Shortly after I got it I burned it somehow, whether parameters or lighting, I'm not sure, but it browned all through it's old growth. Months of patience...and my darn urchin decided to take a trip through the center. Algae started growing on all the chewed parts and the algae started winning. I finally moved it back to the frag rack for some TLC but it continued to lose ground. Then I saw what looked like a "bleached" section one morning. That night I saw the amphipod party going on. I hoped they were maybe just cleaning up the damaged parts but I guess the whole thing was damaged. The final result was slime flowing off it.

There is a bright spot here. When I moved it to the frag rack I clipped a little corner off it. That little corner is in the nano and shows me some little polyps every day. Just like the tiny piece I saved off my dying Starburst moni cap, it could come back but it will be a slow road.

I just don't have luck with montis.

Starburst Monti Cap - Looked nice for months although it had minimal growth. Then started to turn brown and grow algae in the old growth area (similar to what initially happed to my most recent casualty). Eventually lost out to the bad (although I saved a polyp and that frag is starting to look pretty nice although still tiny)

JF Red Hot Setosa - Actually put on some growth initially but then halted and faded. Still one of my more successful montis. I might be imagining it but it may be coloring up again. In the tank since April.

RRC Red Roses Monti Cap - My one success story. Smashed it taking it off the frag plug to mount it and tried gluing it back together. Darn thing totally healed itself. Threw one little chip on a frag plug and put it in the nano and it's already as big as the original (this is the coral that fought with the poci). Color is great and it has nice structure.

Forest Fire Digitata - I think this guy is a victim of bad location. I put it at a bit of an angle so it's shading itself a bit. The unshaded side has been happy polyps, though, and it initially went to work encrusting the frag plug. Until suddenly it started to unencrust the frag plug and got algae on its tips.

JF Fruity Pebbles - Looked great for a couple months although growth was slow, then slowly stopped opening, then dropped all it's color. Recently decided to frag it and put the bigger piece in the nano leaving the frag plug in the 50. It's been at least partially open for the past week in the nano so we might yet save it.

I've done ICP, I've tested PAR, and I check dKH every two days. Nutrients are high but things have been mostly stable since the spring. Not sure what the monti issue is, why they will look good for several months and then decide they don't like it in there anymore. No obvious damage like from pests, just initial success then gradual decline.

The weirder thing is the fact that I can often turn things around in the nano. I've tested PAR in the nano but I test nothing else other than salinity and temperature. I once did nitrate and phosphate. Nitrate was extremely low to undetectable and PO4 was off the chart, hardly ideal. Maybe corals recover there because they don't get irritated by the amphipod army? A difference in light is one thing but you'd expect bad things in the nano. Inexpensive light, it stays on with at least low blues all night (still probably too strong for a moonlight). It has very little adjustment. They get lots of flow. I use the same salt as in the 50 and do big water changes every two or three weeks (when I feel like it, the tank of benign neglect) so parameters probably swing all over. Why do corals love that tank? My birdsnest put on almost all it's current growth in there. I just know, sick corals go to the nano to be saved. It's a mystery. Wish I'd moved the other monti cap sooner.

Wall of text, blah blah. If I had room in the nano, I'd move my blasto wellsi over for a miracle. It's been in slow decline after being smothered by a sponge. My green toadstool is coming back strong, though, after a battle with some sort of infection. Don't disappoint me little green guy!

 

[TheWB]

That blenny hid for months, it's nice to finally see her more active in the tank lately. The egg incident was unexpected, though lol. I found one other person here on R2R who posted about they single blenny laying eggs (different species, though) so I guess it happens, just not often, or perhaps we just don't catch them in the act! Fly Little Wing!

The two little poci colonies in the 50 have yet to show any aggressive behavior and the one gets regularly picked over by the peppermint shrimp that lives next door (fortunately it appears she's not eating the coral, though, she's taking food that the flow happens to lodge there). I wonder if the monti left some of itself behind and the frag is still reacting to that. One of my projects for today is the clean up that frag rack so I'll give the poci a little trim around the edges while I'm in there.

That monti was a series of unfortunate events that snowballed to it's demise. Darn thing had just finally recovered from it's last disaster. Shortly after I got it I burned it somehow, whether parameters or lighting, I'm not sure, but it browned all through it's old growth. Months of patience...and my darn urchin decided to take a trip through the center. Algae started growing on all the chewed parts and the algae started winning. I finally moved it back to the frag rack for some TLC but it continued to lose ground. Then I saw what looked like a "bleached" section one morning. That night I saw the amphipod party going on. I hoped they were maybe just cleaning up the damaged parts but I guess the whole thing was damaged. The final result was slime flowing off it.

There is a bright spot here. When I moved it to the frag rack I clipped a little corner off it. That little corner is in the nano and shows me some little polyps every day. Just like the tiny piece I saved off my dying Starburst moni cap, it could come back but it will be a slow road.

I just don't have luck with montis.

Starburst Monti Cap - Looked nice for months although it had minimal growth. Then started to turn brown and grow algae in the old growth area (similar to what initially happed to my most recent casualty). Eventually lost out to the bad (although I saved a polyp and that frag is starting to look pretty nice although still tiny)

JF Red Hot Setosa - Actually put on some growth initially but then halted and faded. Still one of my more successful montis. I might be imagining it but it may be coloring up again. In the tank since April.

RRC Red Roses Monti Cap - My one success story. Smashed it taking it off the frag plug to mount it and tried gluing it back together. Darn thing totally healed itself. Threw one little chip on a frag plug and put it in the nano and it's already as big as the original (this is the coral that fought with the poci). Color is great and it has nice structure.

Forest Fire Digitata - I think this guy is a victim of bad location. I put it at a bit of an angle so it's shading itself a bit. The unshaded side has been happy polyps, though, and it initially went to work encrusting the frag plug. Until suddenly it started to unencrust the frag plug and got algae on its tips.

JF Fruity Pebbles - Looked great for a couple months although growth was slow, then slowly stopped opening, then dropped all it's color. Recently decided to frag it and put the bigger piece in the nano leaving the frag plug in the 50. It's been at least partially open for the past week in the nano so we might yet save it.

I've done ICP, I've tested PAR, and I check dKH every two days. Nutrients are high but things have been mostly stable since the spring. Not sure what the monti issue is, why they will look good for several months and then decide they don't like it in there anymore. No obvious damage like from pests, just initial success then gradual decline.

The weirder thing is the fact that I can often turn things around in the nano. I've tested PAR in the nano but I test nothing else other than salinity and temperature. I once did nitrate and phosphate. Nitrate was extremely low to undetectable and PO4 was off the chart, hardly ideal. Maybe corals recover there because they don't get irritated by the amphipod army? A difference in light is one thing but you'd expect bad things in the nano. Inexpensive light, it stays on with at least low blues all night (still probably too strong for a moonlight). It has very little adjustment. They get lots of flow. I use the same salt as in the 50 and do big water changes every two or three weeks (when I feel like it, the tank of benign neglect) so parameters probably swing all over. Why do corals love that tank? My birdsnest put on almost all it's current growth in there. I just know, sick corals go to the nano to be saved. It's a mystery. Wish I'd moved the other monti cap sooner.

Wall of text, blah blah. If I had room in the nano, I'd move my blasto wellsi over for a miracle. It's been in slow decline after being smothered by a sponge. My green toadstool is coming back strong, though, after a battle with some sort of infection. Don't disappoint me little green guy!

Ya know, who knows why some stuff does great in our tanks and others don’t? I have trouble with micro lords and anything lps that encrusts except for one branching cyphastrea. Other corals look great and seem fine. I believe it was @mywifeisgonnakillme who brought this up to me recently on my thread, there’s so much going on in our tanks that we don’t know about that its impossible to really know what’s going on. I think you just try and keep the most stable parameters you can and hope stuff adapts and survives. I thought that was good advice. If your fish are happy and most of your coral is happy there’s no easier way to mess that up than to try and make adjustments for one species. My 2 cents, ymmv.

 

[jcolliii]

Have either of you guys done PAR measuremtns? I have not measured, but have estimated based on published charts, and upped my light output based on those estimates. Sometimes I think I need to increase maybe even a bit more, but my open brain already needs to be shaded... Just curious.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Have either of you guys done PAR measuremtns? I have not measured, but have estimated based on published charts, and upped my light output based on those estimates. Sometimes I think I need to increase maybe even a bit more, but my open brain already needs to be shaded... Just curious.

Only with a Seneye so I'm not sure how accurate. With the shallow depth of the tank there isn't a huge difference going top to bottom but I've settled around 250 at the top of my rock structure. That said I was just thinking I might give it another check. I am wondering if perhaps changing from ROX 0.8 in a reactor to ROX 0.8 in a bag then to Chemi-pure Blue maybe changed the clarity of my water on a level I can't see and had an effect on the PAR?

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Ya know, who knows why some stuff does great in our tanks and others don’t? I have trouble with micro lords and anything lps that encrusts except for one branching cyphastrea. Other corals look great and seem fine. I believe it was @mywifeisgonnakillme who brought this up to me recently on my thread, there’s so much going on in our tanks that we don’t know about that its impossible to really know what’s going on. I think you just try and keep the most stable parameters you can and hope stuff adapts and survives. I thought that was good advice. If your fish are happy and most of your coral is happy there’s no easier way to mess that up than to try and make adjustments for one species. My 2 cents, ymmv.

Well said. I actually did an AquaBiomics test on both tanks but can't say I understood the differences between them but they were definitely different. A lot of invisible stuff going on. Fact is, most of the corals are happy so I don't have too much to complain about. A good 6" of snow fell last night and I just lounged around and enjoyed watching the tank today. Even with its warts it's a wonder.

 

[TheWB]

Have either of you guys done PAR measuremtns? I have not measured, but have estimated based on published charts, and upped my light output based on those estimates. Sometimes I think I need to increase maybe even a bit more, but my open brain already needs to be shaded... Just curious.

I have been offered the opportunity to use a PAR meter and I just haven’t had or made the time yet to go pick it up. Definitely on my to do list though.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

So, something not good has been going on with some of my SPS corals recently. Bleaching, polyps not fully opening, even receding.

Even though I've had these lights running since June/July I turned them down this morning and set to acclimate for 30 days at least while I figure out what's going on.

Did some water tests and it looks like I fell off the PO4 wagon again and we're back up to 0.5, that's a 0.1 increase last week and the week before. Nitrate up from 24 to 27 so not huge but trending up.

I had knocked down my carbon dosing because I thought it might be feeding some cyano patches but they look the same as ever (possibly a bit worse). Guess I'll start ramping up again and probably do a big water change or two in the meantime.

Hopefully we can avoid any lasting harm to my SPS. Just went they were looking so good!

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Just walked past the tank and had epic heart failure. Picture me, flashlight in hand, "WHY IS THE TANK CLOUDY?!?!" Repeating over and over. "WHY IS THE TANK CLOUDY!!!!!"

All of my trochus snails are spawning. No kidding! ;Hilarious

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Friday FTS

 

[jcolliii]

I've had some PO4 issues lately as well. Been trying lanthanum chloride to drop PO4 a bit. The new rock in my tank is slowly letting it out and it tends to stabilize around 0.5ppm. Have been adding 3-4 drops of solution to my skimmer and it reduces PO4 amazingly quickly without removing NO3. Usually, I have trouble maintaining NO3 between 10-20ppm, but it's also been climbing somewhat. The chemiclean elite is definitely good at lowering PO4, but it does not do anything to NO3 that I can see. The LACl I have been using is the small bottle of solution from Blue Life.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

I've had some PO4 issues lately as well. Been trying lanthanum chloride to drop PO4 a bit. The new rock in my tank is slowly letting it out and it tends to stabilize around 0.5ppm. Have been adding 3-4 drops of solution to my skimmer and it reduces PO4 amazingly quickly without removing NO3. Usually, I have trouble maintaining NO3 between 10-20ppm, but it's also been climbing somewhat. The chemiclean elite is definitely good at lowering PO4, but it does not do anything to NO3 that I can see. The LACl I have been using is the small bottle of solution from Blue Life.

I actually just got a bottle of lanthanum. I haven't had tried it yet but that's how I thought I'd go about using it (in the skimmer), I was just waiting for a day when I know I'll be around all day to observe the results. I'll start conservatively and hopefully knock it down enough to relieve the stress on the SPS then move back to more conventional means of dealing with the PO4.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Merry Christmas everyone.

Wish I could get a nice picture to celebrate the moment (she's being a clownfish today and doesn't want to come out for pictures), but I noticed that my Red-Lined wrasse no longer has spots on her dorsal fin. My little fish is growing up!

Another wrasse thing I thought I'd share. Anyone else have a wrasse that's "potty trained?". I always see Risky swim up to the top corner of the tank just before bedtime but never thought much of it other than being an odd habit. Until I realized she was going up there to poop in the perfect spot to get it flushed right out the overflow. I knew she was my favorite fish for a reason! ;Hilarious

 

[TheWB]

Merry Christmas everyone.

Wish I could get a nice picture to celebrate the moment (she's being a clownfish today and doesn't want to come out for pictures), but I noticed that my Red-Lined wrasse no longer has spots on her dorsal fin. My little fish is growing up!

Another wrasse thing I thought I'd share. Anyone else have a wrasse that's "potty trained?". I always see Risky swim up to the top corner of the tank just before bedtime but never thought much of it other than being an odd habit. Until I realized she was going up there to poop in the perfect spot to get it flushed right out the overflow. I knew she was my favorite fish for a reason! ;Hilarious

Merry Christmas CBO. That’s pretty cool what the wrasse does. Never seen anything like that in my tank.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

After having a number of unhappy looking corals (fading colors, lackluster PE) and seeing my numbers go flying off the charts I decided to take action. Of course, I couldn't change just one thing, so anyone's guess which thing was the real solution!

1) LaCl. I did two days half minimum dose of LaCl. This at least brought PO4 back into a range where the Hanna Checker could measure it without dilution. However, after almost all of my crabs and shrimps molted together the next day, I decided to discontinue use. Was this bizarre molting event tied to the LaCl? Who knows? It didn't seem to effect my amphipod population (like cockroaches) but I decided to be safe.

2) Water changes! I did a series of 20% water changes. One after another after another. Got nitrate back down into the 20s. Went back to a weekly water change schedule (but still 20% instead of 10%) this week. As of today, we're down to 14! Last time my nitrate was anywhere near that was August. Now if the right teams can win the football games today, I'll really have a reason to celebrate.

3) Turned my lights UP! I got the par meter out again and I think I made a mistake. Where I thought both tanks had similar par it now appeared that the nano had much higher par numbers. I then went back and watched the BRS video on the xr15 Blues and they were recommending 60% for LPS. Oops. Set to acclimate from 45% to 60%.

4) Carbon Dosing. I'll be honest, I didn't think it was doing much and I found it annoying, so I'd started cutting back. Mistakes were made! We're back up to 0.6ml per day.

5) Stopped dosing phyto. For whatever reason, live phyto seems to make my PO4 go up (I know many people have the opposite experience). I hope once I get things back under control, I can resume at perhaps a reduced schedule because corals seem to like the stuff.

Results? Almost immediately my Kryptonite Candy Cane started inflating properly. I'd blamed hydroids and amphipods but apparently it doesn't actually care about those things. I had started to think I'd lose the coral but it's now starting to split off new heads. Right on! My JF Fruity Pebbles frag plug that I'd left on the sand after air lifting the main part of the coral to the nano is now growing and showing great color! I was sure that thing was dead. The Forest Fire Digi is starting to reverse course, including the beginning of new branch growth from the frag plug. Even the Green Slimer is starting to look like it might want to go vertical at long last.

I'll keep watching for any signs of stress but so far so good. I'll keep up 20% water changes for the weeklies until things start stabilizing. I'll be sending out an ICP test tomorrow.

Ok, time to go feed everyone. If you've ever been stared down by a hungry Yasha Goby you'd know there is only so much you can delay feeding time!

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Crabby No-Claws, my blue Red-Legged Hermit, is now Crabby One Claw. Second molt after having both front claws ripped off by an aggressor.

Risky starting to show male coloration, Halichoeres biocellatus

 

[jcolliii]

Weird on the LaCl and molting. In my tank, 2 drops will reduce PO4 by 0.1ppm. The most I've ever done was 4 drops in a day. Never noticed anything strange with my CBS afterward. How many drops did you add when you observed the mass molting?

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Weird on the LaCl and molting. In my tank, 2 drops will reduce PO4 by 0.1ppm. The most I've ever done was 4 drops in a day. Never noticed anything strange with my CBS afterward. How many drops did you add when you observed the mass molting?

I went with 2 drops per day with the hopes of getting 0.1 over the two days and got pretty much expected results, which was cool! I can't find anything where anyone has mentioned a similar side effect with their inverts. It very much could have been a coincidence given that I was doing so many things at once. The next candidate would be the lighting change, after all, just tweaking the moonlights a bit made all my trochus snails spawn for like 45 minutes one night so light is a powerful drug! Still, crazy thing, all three male hermits, the pistol shrimp, and a peppermint shrimp. Definitely not normal.