Red Sea E170 max AIO mixed reef build - first reef tank

[kiswanson]

Video of Tank at 11 months - April 2022



#wiscoreefers

 

[kiswanson]

ORA durasa clam - under blue and white light

 

[kiswanson]

today I was noticing that a number of the zoa colonies in the middle of my zoa Island rock are gone or severely retracted.

salinity 35.1, nitrates 33, phosphate .66, dKh 8.5, ph around 7.7-8, ca 450, mag 1470. I do dose all 4 reef, NoPoX, live phytoplankton and Red Sea energy ab+, and some iodine (due to being low on Icp testing about two month ago). Also dose MB7. None of that is particularly new. Rest of the tank looks good.

there is one or two aiptasia, but that also isn’t new, I spot treat them with aiptasia x every so often abs have a file Fish. Also, where the aiptasia is, its next To happy looking zoas. I didn’t see any obvious posts moving around, but I’ll have to look closer. I haven’t added any new zoas for a long time

i don’t know why they would look like they are melting out dying off. Any thoughts would be appreciated

For reference, here is the same rock from a week ago

 

[kiswanson]

So I did another ~ 40% water change and rotated the zoa rock and moved it so that the toadstool leather would not be so close to the zoas. I wonder if there is some chemical warfare going on that is killing the zoas. The toadstool leather is much larger than when I first place it, and sometimes it was nearly touching the zoa rock. If things don’t look better I may also take out the whole zoa rock and do a coral dip, we’ll see.

 

[kiswanson]

It’s impressive how fast I’m losing zoanthids. I did find some asterina starfish on the rock, a first time I’ve noticed them in the tank, but I don’t know if they are the cause of zoa death, or they are just cleaning up already dying/dead zoas. I’ve checked a few times at night to see if I could catch my file Fish, emerald crab, a peppermint shrimp or something else watching them. I haven’t seen any spiders or nudibranchs, but I know they can be hard to see. I’m going to dip tomorrow with coral RX, maybe also iodine, see if I can get any pests off.

 

[kiswanson]

Pictures of the asterina starfish and then a small plug remnant that was covered with zoas a week ago abs what it looks like now

 

[kiswanson]

Middle of the night 100% white light, no blues full tank shot

 

[kiswanson]

Mandarin Dragonet under white light looking great



#wiscoreefers

 

[vetteguy53081]

Pictures of the asterina starfish and then a small plug remnant that was covered with zoas a week ago abs what it looks like now

iodine dip or even peroxide for 2-3 minutes. Cant stand asterinas

 

[kiswanson]

iodine dip or even peroxide for 2-3 minutes. Cant stand asterinas

Yeah, I’m going to do that tonight

 

[kiswanson]

My zoas rock, previously covered by good looking zoas, melted back and receded really significantly over the course of a week. All the rest of the coral (sps, lps, softies) and my BTA and clams look great

After doing a water change, changing carbon, moving the zoa rock away from a toadstool leather that was coming somewhat close, and looking to see any evidence of file Fish, emerald crab, or peppermint shrimp going near the zoas (none that I saw) and finding nothing but a few asterinas (which may just be around eating tissue of spray dead/dying zoas), I decided to dip the rock.

I did a coral Rx dip (4 capfuls per gallon x 10 min), rinse, lugols iodine dip (brightwell 40 drops per gallon x 10 minutes), rinse, soak in fresh saltwater with basting, additional rinse, then back in the tank.

This was in the water after the coral Rx rinse - amphipods and a few asterina starfish. I personally didn’t see any spiders or nudibranchs.

Hopefully it helps

Zoa rock dip - what was left in the water

#mandarindragonetMy zoas rock, previously covered by good looking zoas, melted back and receded really significantly over the course of a week. All the rest ...

youtube.com

 

[kiswanson]

No luck with bringing the zoas back even with dipping. Got this nice goniopora to go on the rock instead

 

[kiswanson]

Made it to one year! What a great hobby. Has some strikes and some gutters, but I’m really happy where things are one year in

 

[kiswanson]

Wisconsin Reef at One Year

 

[kiswanson]

That amazing goniopora got a sudden bacterial infection (like like brown jelly disease but for a goniopora) and was nearly gone in a day. Bummer.

 

[kiswanson]

Interestingly, my nitrates and phosphates are now under good control. Nitrates 0.5 ppm and phosphate 0.07 ppm (Hanna checkers). I would like to say it has been diligent upkeep, but my last water change was almost 3 months ago (may 8th, I’ll be doing a water change tomorrow). I think it goes to show the power of mechanical filtration and NoPox carbon dosing. Though I haven’t been doing water changes I have been rather consistently changing out filter floss and filter pads every 2-3 days so that stuff doesn’t have time to break down. I dose 5 ml of nopox, 10 ml all for Reef, 15 ml of oceanmagik phytoplankton and 7 ml of Red Sea reef energy ab+ daily and I keep the glass clean and ensure the water OSS topped off. I also was more vigilant about changing Chemipure elite and rowaphos gfo.

The tank overall has been doing really well, though I never got any of the zoas to turn around. My personal theory now is that the file Fish was eating them. No algae. I did lose that lovely goniopora to what I think was a bacterial infection. I got rid of the former zoa rock and placed a small cyphastrea rock in its place. The BTA is also doing great and I added a little Anemone crab. I also added a chalice coral to go where my struggling acan garden has been.

i will likely take some pictures after I clean it tomorrow. I’m happy with where it is and shocked that it seemed to have locked in during the time I wasn’t keeping up in water changes.

 

[kiswanson]

I’ve done well with avoiding algae and never had significant “ugly” phases in my saltwater tanks. I’ve attributed that to adding lots of copepods early on, feeding with phytoplankton, using precycled/cured rock from my LFS, Aquatics Unlimited, adding multiple different bacterial products, and using “live sand”. I also have focused on having utilitarian creatures in the tank to deal with problems before they get out of hand - Sea urchins and sailfin Mollies for algae, conches and sand sifting gobies to turn over the sand bed, emerald crabs for bubble algae, tile fish for eating aiptasia, lots of various snails.

This excellent reefapalooza talk by Ryan Batcheller of BRS on his biome tests is excellent and argues for similar strategies to successfully starting a tank without significant ugly phases. He has some very convincing info supporting early addition of copepods. Definitely worth a watch.
The case for copepods and dark cycled/cured rock when starting a reef tank.

 

[kiswanson]

Killed almost all my fish and shrimp!

Yesterday I did a water change, which I hadn’t done for awhile and cleaned all the power heads. I was feeling good with how the tank was looking. Today, all the fish except a yellow Watchman goby and all the shrimp had died. The sea urchins, conches, snails and hermit crabs are still alive as well. The major thing I noticed was a major drop in the ORP and the goby looking like he was gasping, suggesting low oxygen.

I had never seen a dip like this. Unfortunately I didn’t have an alarm turned in for that. I looked and found that my skimmer was disconnected and off, so it was probably off for 16 hours. I find it hard to believe that was enough to cause fatal hypoxia when I had a return pump and 3 power heads going, but that seems to be the most likely explanation

i thought about a chemical contaminants, but the corals look fine, and after restarting the skimmer the goby is swimming around normally. Man, I literally thought to myself yesterday, “a year in and I’ve finally got things feeling dialed in,” and BAM the reefing gods smote me for my hubris

 

[kiswanson]

Not looking to bad …except for no fish to be seen

 

[kiswanson]

My one lonely Watchman goby…looking as grumpy as usual, but now without his pistol shrimp friend