D's Solana

[JimmyR1rider]

Well, I see you've had your fair share of critters.

While you're doing you're dip of zoas they'll obviously be closed. That's the perfect time to really inspect it. Look for nudi's and for eggs. The eggs you have to pick off, dipping will not cause the eggs to fall off. Look really close at every frag before you put it in your tank. Once the frag is in especially when you have aptasia you give the pest free realm to sprout all over your tank.

If you let an aptasia be even for one day they have the chance to multiply heavily. Your lights will come on the next day and you'll notice 2 or 3 that weren't there the day before. Irradicate all pests that you can find before ever introducing the frags.

Another pest to lookout for is bryopsis-once you have that if you don't get rid of it immediately it will be a nightmare. Heres a link to read about it, I know it's a freshwater fish link but it tells about bryopsis, what it is and has a pic of what it looks like:

http://heatherallan.suite101.com/bryopsis-a-common-pest-in-aquaria-a51078

 

[Djbetterly]

Well its been over 12 hours since I treated the frag with aiptasia-x and I have yet to see anything return yet. Upon close inspection there were also these little white polyp looking things attached to one of the zoa polyps. They were uber tiny and the only way I could remove them was with a tiny scissors. Not sure what they were but I decided to remove them anyways.

Hopefully the little buggers are all gone now, I'm keeping a close eye on the frag though.

 

[Djbetterly]

Well I'm pretty confident the aiptasia is gone. I've been keeping a close eye on that frag as well as the tank and I don't see anything. Hopefully this is a good sign.

I glued the frag into place as well. My tank is slowly coming together.

I need to figure out what to get next? I have one colony of eagle-eye morphs, a new small frag (the one treaded for aiptasia) but I'm not sure what it is. When it opens back up I'll take a pic. And lastly I have two small colonies of green clove polyps.

I've been looking at frags locally, both MA and Fauna and haven't seen anything that sticks out. Any suggestions? For now I prefer corals that are relatively easy and spread relatively fast. I'm open to suggestions!

 

[akma]

GSP, kenya trees grow pretty fast. But it gets to be a pain later on cause it takes over your tank. Annoying when it starts sspreading on your rock.

 

[Djbetterly]

So about three weeks ago a friend of mine had picked me up a juvenile Mimic Lemon Peel Tang from Manhattan Aquariums. I was a bit skeptical of taking it in, but she had bought it for me for my birthday and they told her at MA that it would be fine based on the aquarium I had. Obviously its a beautiful fish and it was hard to turn it down. I double checked with MA and they did say it would be fine.

Anyways, so I always kept a very close eye on him because I loved this fish. I always make sure he eats, and am always looking for signs of stress. Well this morning I woke up and he was stuck to my power head. I did do a water change yesterday and like always I'm meticulous about checking my parameters before putting the new water in. Even the temp was within a few tenths of a degree. The two clowns seem fine and so do all the inverts. I ran a full line of tests this morning on my tank and nothing was out of order. I hate not knowing whats going on and as you all know, losing a fish SUCKS!

I'm keeping a close eye on things the next few days just to double check.

:shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked:
:banghead: :help:
:frown: :frown: :frown: :frown: :frown: :frown:

 

[Djbetterly]

Looking for answers

Trying to understand a few things, hopefully someone can help.

My tank has been running since mid January and I have had a few problems, but nothing I would deem as being serious, mostly just newbie/startup issues.

So here are my questions.

1. What is a normal amount of light algae on the glass? I clean it daily, but there is always a light dusting. Will this ever go away? If not, is there a way to control it a bit more?

2. I'm running a Tunze 9002 skimmer with the airline modded. I'm trying to get a good dry skimmate, and when I look in the skimmer I see a nice froth being produced, but it never seems to build up to the point that I have to empty the reservoir. When I make it a bit more wet, the cup fills up in about 3-4 days. What I want to know is, which is method is truly doing the better job? I was wondering if this maybe had something to do with my algae as well??

A couple of notes about my setup. In the second chamber, I have as follows, in this order from top to bottom:

two layers of filter floss
purigen
phosban
chemipure elite.

My AI Sol is about six inches off the water line. I also switched the optics out to all 70 degree optics (noticed a lot better coral growth after I did this). The lighting schedule is as follows:

T1: 9am 60m ramp, W-0, B-20, R-20
T2: 12pm 20m ramp, W-65, B-35, R-35
T3: 2pm 30m ramp, W-65, B-75, R-90
T4: 330pm 10m ramp, W-60, B-90, R-90
T5: 430pm 15m ramp, W-40, B-80, R-80
T6: 530pm 30m ramp, W-35, B-40, R-50
T7: 6pm 70m ramp, W-15, B-30, R-50
T8: 950pm 20m ramp, W-0, B-0, R-10
T8: 1130pm 10m ramp, W-0, B-0, R-0

I test all my parameters roughly 2-3 times per week. Right now I'm doing water changes 1-2 times per week as well, mostly to keep my nitrates around or below 10. Not sure why, but it seems my nitrates creep up to 20 or a bit higher if I don't do the water changes at least once a week.

Right now I'm feeding once a day, just a few flakes of crushed up aquadine.

I appreciate any and all feed back, good or bad is welcomed.

Thank you!

 

[noelskii]

I've never really seen that skimmer work THAT much.. That's why I went skimmerless. I only run filterpads and CPE in my solana now. PO4 ranges from 2-4 (Hanna).

Why the two layers of filter floss? Maybe just cut down to 1 layer and change more often...

Also, try cutting down on the light. Seems like the light is on all day.

 

[akma]

I think the tunze 9002 is a total waste of money. Useless. Sold mine when I had my solana and went skimmerless.

 

[Djbetterly]

Akma and Noelski, can you give me a bit more detail about your filtration setup please? I'd love to know! Also, what is CPE?

 

[noelskii]

mine is:

prefilter - blue/white pad

1st chamber - heater.

2nd chamber - blue/white pad and Chemi-Pure Elite (CPE) & MP10 dry side.

3rd chamber - return pump and ATO.

weekly or biweekly 5 gal WC. change out CPE once a month or so...

 

[Djbetterly]

Had an interesting day. Bought a small two head piece of golden torch coral today at MR, great price on it, almost considered buying more. Also picked up a Yasha Haze Goby. I had bought one a few months back and he just disappeared over night. Hopefully this one does better.

Tonight while I was doing a water change, I didn't notice, but my splendid dotty back had swam in the cage of my vortech while it was turned off. I think it may have nicked him when it turned back on, I'm not sure. I haven't seen him since. He's the bully of the tank so I was surprised to not see him after the incident, has me a bit worried.

I really need to upload some new pics, its been a while and the tank is coming a long nicely, I'm very happy with it so far. This hobby can be so gratifying, I love it!

 

[akma]

Any new pics?
My blenny always goes into my vortech when I have it turned off for water changes and stuff. I always double check when I turn it back on to make sure he's not there.

 

[Djbetterly]

I need to get some new pics. I keep forgetting my GF has my camera, need to get it back from her.

 

[Djbetterly]

Got a webcam up, of course the quality isn't great, as expected from a webcam. For me its more about being able to see that the fish are swimming, the lights are on and the water is flowing.

Here's the link
user: guest
pass: reefer

 

[Djbetterly]

A few new things. Last week I picked up a gold torch with two heads on it. I placed it in the sand bed over night, planned on leaving it there for a few days to acclimate, well when I woke up the next morning it looked like a snail or hermit knocked it over. I should have known this was possible, I didn't even do that with my hammer. Anyways, since then it looks like one of the heads has died, the other head is only extended about half way today. What do you think I should do? If one head dies is the other likely?

Also picked up my jawfish today. What a cool fish! I built him a home but he obviously didn't like it, and decided to build his own. He's been busy but doesn't seem skittish at all. The top is on tight so I'll check on him in the AM.