Reef Rehabilitation 29g cube and equipment room build

NY_Caveman

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I recently had some issues and an Alkalinity spike. My Miyagi Tort was one of the few survivors. Tough and beautiful. Even when I got it it was full color in the bag with polyp extension.

 
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AaronFReef

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I recently had some issues and an Alkalinity spike. My Miyagi Tort was one of the few survivors. Tough and beautiful. Even when I got it it was full color in the bag with polyp extension.


Bummer but glad the tort made it through. They’re an oldie but a goody!
 
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AaronFReef

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So after lights went out last night I flipped them back an hour to essentially moonlight mode and fed the coral as I do every two to three days based on my phosphate reading the morning prior. Side note: here’s what my phosphates do with coral feeding (probably my Polyp Booster).
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So anyways. After lights out I look in the tank with my wife with all the pumps switched off so we can look from above and here is what we see.


 
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AaronFReef

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So I had my first acro RTN on me. My green tabling acro has been browning out over the last week with minimal polyp extension and I figured it was still just adjusting to the light. I had been having a minor all swing. Once I started the UV for the Dinos, my alk climbed from 8.5->9.8 over a week or so before I cut my dosing drastically enough to stop it. I just didn’t expect how much I’d have to slow the dosing. I also had a phosphate spike after I pulled the hair algae in the fuge that was competing with the chaeto. Levels got to like 0.2ppm so nothing horrible. But like 5x my usual values. All these things combined could have stressed it but they were pretty slow changes and I corrected them slowly. My alk is still up around 9 as I bring I back slowly.

So I came home two days ago to see tissue sloughing off the acro, so I did some reading and gave it a CoralRx dip after fragging off the worst of it and fragging the healthy tissue in two to try and stop the spread. To no avail as next morning my two frags were RTNing too so I just threw them out before they spread to my other acros.

Luckily the mother colony is nearby and the seller will probably sell me another to try. Still would like to know what happened to the thing.
 
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AaronFReef

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The sunset mille has been browning out and losing PE on the side directly facing the powerhead so I moved it a little away from it and it quickly seemed to recover a bit but still worried it might RTN as this is just what the tabling acro did.

One of the types of zoas which has been one and now two small polyps the size of a eraser have been closed for a few days and the firefish have gone into hiding too so I’ve worried something is out of whack that I can’t easily test for. All easily testable Params are in check. Ordered a triton test again to look for trace element issues and did a large 25% water change yesterday. I have switched from Tropic Marin Pro to Brightwell for cost (regret that decision but it’s made) and so had to make this big batch of saltwater 50% of each brand so I don’t have a straight swap.

I worry that when I made saltwater last time I accidentally measured with the refractometer when the water was cold and mixed it up to 1.050 and may have precipitated out some trace elements or caused it to just be out of spec. Maybe that’s what caused this so I dumped my mixed water and made the new batch as described. Fingers crossed it improves. Most corals are still happy but the alkalinity usage has plummeted to 1/4 of peak.
 
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AaronFReef

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42f981a17556d0ec1b5bc1821ae7d5c6.jpg


Meanwhile, I had to leave for an early flight the other day and looked at the tank early in the morning to find my ORA Laura’s Purple Polyp is a tentacle monster as we now call it. This thing is ridiculously long. Never seen an acro look like this.
 

vetteguy53081

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Love the 3-D CAD drawings. This was well planned.
Turned out nicely
 
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AaronFReef

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Love the 3-D CAD drawings. This was well planned.
Turned out nicely

Thanks much!

So a friend, who had provided me with most of my nice SPS, gave me some more awesome corals yesterday. I added a ORA Red Planet, a strawberry shortcake, some utter chaos zoas, another try at the green tabling acro, and my wife chose out a nice blue acro with green tips. Hope they look anything like they did in my friends tank because they were gorgeous.
 
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AaronFReef

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Man, iPhone colors are off even with polyplabs lens but here it is today. UV sterilizer came out yesterday and water changes seem to be helping correct whatever was causing unhappy corals. The only things unhappy now are my chalice and the smallest zoa.

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AaronFReef

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Looking good! I wish I had a friend like that haha.
One thing I would consider is moving the encrusting montipora, it will kill that acro in no time when it starts taking of.
Those ******** spread like wildfire:
9b56e4192b530582e1faef0cd361b192.jpg

Thanks for the heads up. Sadly I lost all my encrusting montis from nudis a few months ago and this is a non-encrusting cap. The picture isn’t clear there and it’s growing out away from the rock mostly, but probably still a valid point if I don’t keep fragging it! Man it grows fast!
 
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AaronFReef

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Things still seem a bit grumpy in spots. The chalice hasn’t inflated big for a little while and I realized my acan hasn’t been super fluffy for a while. Some zoas haven’t opened for a week or two now also. No idea what it could be and the water changes haven’t helped too much. Odd thing is it’s everything but SPS that seem grumpy. Triton test is in Germany so hopefully I’ll know soon if that’s to blame. I’m thinking of lowering my intensity which is at like 94% now and reducing the UV from the 30% or so it’s at to like 15% again. The UV seems to be making anything and everything neon green too which I don’t always like. I liked the ORA Laura’s purple polyp being whitish-yellow and now it’s more light neon green as is my blue mille except it’s polyps.
 
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AaronFReef

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My chalice is receding and lots of unhappy softies. Oddly the SPS seem fine other than the green tabling acro (again!).

I may finally know why. I got a Triton test sent out a week and a half ago and it showed calcium at 520! My salifert is telling me it’s at 440 or so. I should have suspected something since my dosing is at like 9 mL of soda ash a day and 21.5 mL of calcium chloride. I don’t understand why I keep having a hard time with these darn calcium tests. The hanna was junk and now my salifert is way off. So I dropped my calcium dosing to 9 today to match alk until I can do some water changes and have someone double check my calcium tests to see what the deal is.
 

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My chalice is receding and lots of unhappy softies. Oddly the SPS seem fine other than the green tabling acro (again!).

I may finally know why. I got a Triton test sent out a week and a half ago and it showed calcium at 520! My salifert is telling me it’s at 440 or so. I should have suspected something since my dosing is at like 9 mL of soda ash a day and 21.5 mL of calcium chloride. I don’t understand why I keep having a hard time with these darn calcium tests. The hanna was junk and now my salifert is way off. So I dropped my calcium dosing to 9 today to match alk until I can do some water changes and have someone double check my calcium tests to see what the deal is.

Use Red Sea it’s easy and pretty consistent. Watch the BRS video on calcium test kits
 
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AaronFReef

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Meanwhile I used a new Salifert calcium test I had for when the last set ran out (which coincidentally was today) and it was off the charts so agreeing with Triton. Guess my test had just gone bad. What a shame Salifert!

Perhaps because I don’t store my Salifert tests upright and keep them on their sides in a drawer.

Did a 10% water change last night and will probably do another Sunday so I hope the corals start repairing. The chalice is at least receding quite slowly and it and the smallest zoa are the only ones really doing poorly.

I also added some Iodine in the form of Lugol’s solution again today since my iodine was near zero as expected from the amount of carbon I run. Probably doesn’t help from my reading but also doesn’t hurt and the zoas always seemed lusher when I add a little.
 
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