LPS IM Nuvo 38... EXT?

[Kodski]

Bicolor frogspawn is just down right LOVING life after yesterday’s water change. I might have to move the hammer a bit further away.. lol

 

[Kodski]

The aquatic version of the grass is always greener on the other side. The conch is REALLLY reaching for it. Lol

Ps. Don’t judge me about the algea on this side panel. I leave it purposefully for the algea blenny so I know he always has food. Not much grows on the rocks really. I clean it off about once a month.

 

[Kodski]

I've thought it weird that the tank is doing so well, but yet I really haven't achieved much noticeable growth yet. Every time I test ALK and Calcium they are relatively the same. I've only really dosed ALK twice and I haven't needed to dose Calcium yet. Then I noticed over the last week and a half or so may of the corals don't look as fluffy and happy. Nothing seriously wrong, just some corals half open/closed. I figured if anything my phosphates were still a bit high and I've give it a week and test. My assumption that maybe my nutrients just haven't been consistent causing lack of growth. I've been keeping an eye on things and things are still kinda half open/closed. I tested a few things tonight and discovered the issue.

Alk: 9
Just like it has been for three weeks now. So I skipped the Calcium test.


NO3: 0.00 ppm
Nitrates: 1 ppm

Welp, looks like I was kinda correct with my assumption behind growth.. Just the opposite reasoning I guess. I'm trying to come up with a way to increase nutrients but not too drastically. I think I'm going to just shorten the Refugium lighting period from 12 hours to 10 hours and see if that helps at all. I did this once before for a week along with heavy feedings and thats how my phosphates went a touch high. So I think for now I'll just cut back on the refugium lighting period 2 hours a day and test again in a few days to see where its at.

 

[Kodski]

Well I decided that I'd stop by a LFS and see if they had any fish that would work well with my current stocking to attempt to add more of a bio load to the tank. Turns out they had a few to choose from. I love all angel fish, so that was a somewhat easy choice. I decided to also bring home a flasher's wrasse and a red headed solon wrasse. I really wanted to add some more active swimmers to the tank. I decided to add both wrasses at once because I was worried about the talbots damsels picking on one new fish constantly. So fingers are crossed that adding all three fish at once will mitigate aggression from the damsels. In truth I'm not worried about the pygmy or solon wrasse, I'm mostly worried about the flasher wrasse. The pygmy I know can be a tyrant in its own right, and the solon is quite a bit larger than the talbots along with being quite a healthy looking fish. The flasher wrasse was also very fat and healthy looking and combine that with my plan of adding all three at once, I'm hoping everything will work out.

I acclimated them once I got home and added them to the tank. I watched for a couple minutes before turning off all the lights for the night. The angel squared up with a talbot immediately and the talbot noped out of that standoff pretty quick despite being the same size if not larger. The angel picked a spot and seems to be hiding for now. The red headed solon wrasse seemed to not back down and held his own the a talbots would chase him. The flashers wrasse held his own as well to my surprise. He flashed a few times and the talbots would back down. I did see once where one of the talbots chased him and nipped pretty hard, but he seemed to turn around after a few seconds and give it right back. So hopefully everyone can find a nice place to live and learn to live in peace together.

 

[Kodski]

Well wrasses are kinda hard to get a decent picture of. But the important bit is that everyone is out and about, eating healthily, and there isn’t too much aggression between anyone.

 

[Kodski]

The tank is doing ok.
Things like the hammers and zoas are looking better everyday. Also over the last month coraline algea growth has really taken off. The rocks are slowly being covered but the glass has spots everywhere. Unfortunately my goni’s and alvea are not doing well for some reason. Parameters seem stable enough, I’ve been thinking it might be a flow issue due to some unwelcome cyano in a few places. Tonight I went and got a Jebao SOW-8 and added that to the tank, plenty of flow now! I’m sure I’ll be tweaking position and settings for the next few weeks trying to get it dialed in. So far a couple corals are closed up a bit in the increased flow but I’m hoping they’ll acclimate and puff up again soon.

A few shots tonight just before the lights went out. The haziness is from the AquaForest Ammino Acids I dosed right before taking the pictures.