No More

I do not desire to maintain two blogs, so this blog will no longer be updated. Thanks for your readership.

Good Day

I have been making fine adjustments since I added the first coral. With the addition of the 2nd coral, it has actually been easier to decide what I like and what I don't. I have been adjusting water flow primarily. It is not enough to have a lot of flow. The flow has to benefit the livestock, keep the detritus in the water column, and not blow sand everywhere. I can finally say I am happy with what I have done. Water moves around the tank seamlessly.

The flow is primarily a circle around the tank. In the area with coral, the flow is erratic but not forceful. It is just what I want.



I decided to lower the lights an inch as well. It appears to have worked. The green staghorn has more polyps open than it ever has.

Before

After

Clownfish, Coral, and Purigen

Tuesday ended up being as busy as Sunday and Monday, but with a slight change. Due to advice from multiple people, I decided NOT to buy an anemone yet. I still bought a clownfish though, a tomato clown (Amphiprion frenatus). She looks good and is eating. She is not all orange like you would expect. This fish has a shadowed midsection. She is a very nice looking fish.

I also decided that a bubble tip anemone is not the going to be the best choice for me. It would appear that bubble tip anemones like to be near the surface, by my acros. A better choice is going to be a long tentacled anemone, which like to be lower in the tank. I know each animal will behave as it will, and there is still a risk to my acros, but a clown fish needs an anemone.

The quarantine process worked out better, but not good enough for me yet. Due to an undetermined factor the pH in my quarantine tank is acting crazy. It is not steady at all. I know enough about fish to know they need a steady environment whether in quarantine or in a reef. The ammonia was not a problem this time, and I am happy about that. I won't let the unsteadiness go on much longer. The quarantine tank matches my tank, because it is filled with water from my tank. The difference is that my reef pH is steady. We shall see.

I bought another piece of coral too. It is a blue tipped acro that looks something like this:


(This is a picture from Liveaquaria.com.)

Corals are so unique, it is difficult to find one that looks just like the one you have. It will take a little time for mine to adjust, but you get the general idea.

If all this weren't enough, I also bought the Koralia and a phosphorus reducer. I bought a product called Purigen. I don't think I have a problem with extra organics or phosphates. But with the extra bioload the new fish will bring and because I am going to be adding more and more coral, I want to make sure that I don't develop a problem.

My little tank went through a lot in the past couple of days. I am going to let things settle and adjust. I won't add another fish for a while, probably 2-3 months. I only intend on adding one more fish. I see more acros in my future, and a pH meter. It's my birthday this week, so we will see. Maybe I will have a pH meter sooner than expected.

Quarantine II

Today and yesterday have been and are going to be big days. (How about that sentence, LOL). Here is an overview.

Sunday
Sunday morning I mixed 5 gallons of salt water to prepare for my water change. I initially thought I was going to do the water change Mon, but felt the quarantine tank would be best set up ahead of time. So Sunday night, around 10pm, I decided to do a my water change. I checked the specific gravity of the water from the morning and it was a little high (1.031). I diluted it down to 1.025, which is what I am running in my tank. I pulled 5 gallons out of my tank, put 4 of it into the quarantine tank, and topped off the quarantine tank with RO/DI.

The quarantine tank was now set to s specific gravity of 1.021. I want the specific gravity in the quarantine tank close to the specific gravity of the store, which will be lower than what is in my reef. Since I don't know what store I am buying the clown/anemone combo from, and each store has their specific gravities set a little different, I think 1.021 is low enough for now. I put the hang on filter and heater into the quarantine tank, refilled the main tank, put the bio wheel that has been churning in my sump since I bought the coral beauty into the hang on filter, and turned everything back on. The whole process went smooth and I didn't even loose a degree of temp. That is great because I didn't run a heater in my mix water and was hoping I wouldn't have too. I let everything churn in both tanks for about an hour and a half and checked ammonia and pH to make sure nothing was array.

It was a good thing I did because I had detectable ammonia in the quarantine tank. Damn. After I sorted out all the crazy thoughts in my head about my filter being contaminated, the quarantine tank being contaminated, and the buckets being contaminated I stopped and tried to rationalize the situation. Contamination, always a possibility that you can never rule out 100%, was unlikely. I decided what I needed was time. But, a little extra prevention couldn't hurt either. You know the saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

So I grabbed my nearest bucket, my nearest live rock, a long screwdriver and a hammer. Using the screwdriver as a chisel I cut off a smallish piece of rock and tossed it into the quarantine tank. If I have to medicate the fish, I will take it out. Satisfied with my nights work I cleaned everything up and went to bed.

Mon
It is still early and I have not began my aquarium store adventures yet. What I plan on doing is purchasing a Hydor Koralia power head because I have convinced myself that I need more flow. Not a lot, but more. I am going to purchase the Koralia 1 or 3. Something small that will give me 200-400 more gph of flow.


I am also going to purchase a clown and an anemone. I would like a red bubble tip, but we shall see. A paired set would be nice. Jen, my wife, will have the choice of what clown she wants. The fish will go into quarantine and the anemone, after a few ours of acclimation, will go into the tank. The power head will go in first, then the anemone.

I will quarantine the clown for two weeks probably. I will update later with pictures. Oh yeah, non detectable ammonia in the quarantine tank this morning.

What's Next

I happened to be gazing at my aquarium today and noticed something. I have coralline algae growing everywhere. I am very pleased. Algone.com describes the importance of coralline to a reef system in the following article, Coralline Algae.

My little frag is doing ok. It has not colored up yet. I don't know how long it will take; maybe a few weeks. It is not bleaching and does not appear to be browning any further however. Under all five bulbs the polyps are out and visibly bright green. But, the skin is still brownish. Under the two actinic bulbs, or my dawn/dusk lighting, the coral is almost completely flourescent green. As I have been saying, all it needs is time.

I will be doing a water change early next week. I am going to be adding some more livestock, and trying another adventure in quarantining. I will probably add a clownfish and an annenome. I will quarantine the fish, but not the annenome. I want to buy an annenome before I get too much coral in the tank so it can find its home and not destroy the coral in the process. I am going to try to buy a "paired set", but I would also like to buy a captive bred clown. The problem is that many of the captive bred clowns do not host well to annenomes. That does not mean a captive bred clown won't host to an annenome, however.

I would like to add another piece of coral as well.

Movin On Up

The acropora frag seems to be doing ok. It tolerated the week at the bottom of my aquarium well. Before moving it up, I moved my rocks around. (I should have moved the rocks before getting the frag, but oh well).



After moving the rocks, I placed the frag a few inches above the sand bed. I don't think the coral liked this because after a few days it started browning out a little. I think I deprived it of some water flow, and it may have been a little shadowed. After three days I moved the frag to what I hope will be it "final resting place". I am going to make sure there are no adverse effects and then I am going to glue it down.

The frag is sitting 8 inches below the light. It has some color, but is not vibrant. All it needs is time to grow.

My First Frag

I have never been someone to shy away from a task simply because it may be difficult. If anything, that is motivation for me to see how well I can do. My reef tank, for example, is more than something pretty to look it. It is a challenge. I know I can keep a tank healthy, grow soft coral, and keep fish alive. What I have not done is kept hard coral. Because I want to keep SPS and LPS corals in this tank, it becomes a whole new challenge. I researched lighting...exhaustively. I researched water flow, water parameters, and hardware. I still have much more to learn, and I am sure that I will make mistakes along the way.

The true test has began. On my last trip to the fish store to buy water, I happened to notice a smallish, obsucure sign on a frag tank.

Corals, first two rows, $12.95.

I am still learning coral speciation, but the tank holds mostly SPS coral. Most of the $12.95 frags were acropora that normally sell for $25 and up (depending on size, branching, and coloration). The specimens looked healthy, so I thought why not. They are half price afterall. <----- This is why I need to stay away from the fish store. At this point, everything in my tank matters.

• Is the lighting the right height off the tank?
• Is the skimmer set right?
• Is there enough water movement?

I am excited about my little frag. It is actually not little as frags go. It is about a 4 inch tall piece of coral. It is probably better that it is a little taller. It should be a little more resiliant to any mistake I may make.

Here is the plan. Right now the frag is at the bottom of my tank. It is a piece of green, staghorn acropora. I am reducing the photoperiod so that I can photoacclimate the frag to my lighting. Each day for a week I will increase how much white light it receives, while still keeping the frag on the bottom of the tank. If it happens to bleach while down there, I will raise my light. If not, I will raise the frag to a higher rock. It will stay at that position, under regular photoperiod, for about a week as long as everything goes well. The third week I will place it where I would like it to go. If everything goes well, I will cement it into place at that point.

This will tell me how strong my light is. How the coral grows and reacts will tell me everything I need to know. Who knows, I may have to lower the light a little. We shall see.