Cirolanid Hunter's 75g New Tank Journal, Research, Pics and Hunting Tips

[BrianPlankis]

After this weekend I've now changed about 30% of my water back to Kent. I've already seen improvement in my colt coral. Before I started switching back to Kent it was a VERY pale pink with no signs of brown. Hard to see, but it looks like the brown is returning Here it was this morning:



I arranged one of my TBS rocks to make the white christmas tree worm a focal point in the center of the tank. After doing that I discovered I have a GREAT shelf for a coral to the left of the worm, now I need to figure out what kind of coral to put there, porites, hammer, cats paw? Anyone have suggestions for something that is bushy, but won't sting the worm?



Here is my zoa rock and my green softie seems to like the higher light already:


My shelf area, the zoas won't be staying, just temporary. This will be all SPS in the future.


My green acropora whocareswhatspeciesata. The polyps were out this morning


Coming up on the one year mark and it finally feels like my tank is getting to be where I want it.

Brian

[jnarowe]

Brian,

I gotta tell you I really like how you are making use fo available space and still keeping enough open area to look natural. I think this is a huge improvement interms of creating different zones for different corals.

[patsan]

Originally posted by jnarowe
Brian,
I gotta tell you I really like how you are making use fo available space and still keeping enough open area to look natural. I think this is a huge improvement interms of creating different zones for different corals.

So do I!!
Brian, how much rock is in that tank? I really like that open look!
Of course I love your zoas and candy canes. I don't know anything about sps, so I can't go there except to say they're nice looking.

[BrianPlankis]

Jonathan and Pat

Thanks, always good to hear what other people think How much rock? I started with 90# FLR and 50# TBS. I've traded away 10# of the FLR and dried out another 20#. I didn't weigh my new agrocrete rocks, but probably 15# between the two....sooooo....125 lbs or so.

Now I can sit back and watch things grow, unless my mantis starts killing too many things, then I might need to get him out.

I can't wait to get some more colorful LPS. I'm trading my fire coral colony for a small acan frag with blue and orange mouths

Brian

[melev]

I love the new look. It looks perfect.

You can put candycane near that coco worm without fear. Really, almost anything can go near a coco worm, including SPS as far as I know. The worm is a filter feeder, and SPS for the most part don't care about featherdusters.

[BrianPlankis]

Originally posted by melev
I love the new look. It looks perfect.

You can put candycane near that coco worm without fear. Really, almost anything can go near a coco worm, including SPS as far as I know. The worm is a filter feeder, and SPS for the most part don't care about featherdusters.

Marc,

Thanks for the answer, I might try putting a montipora Digitata there since it is lower in the tank and those keep their color better. I think any colorful acroporas will HAVE to go on my shelf.

Brian

[BrianPlankis]

Hey all,

I FINALLY found the flush valve kit that I ordered to install on my RO/DI unit.

Here are the step-by-step installation instructions. These instructions are for RO/DI units that have a non-adjustable flow restrictor installed in the waste line.

1. First identify where your waste line is on your RO filter. Here is a picture of my RO unit lines:


2. Remove the waste line from the RO filter, . Here is a picture of the flow restrictor still installed in the waste line. Please ignore the color difference in the lines between pictures 1 and 2.


3. Attach an extra piece of tubing WITHOUT THE FLOW RESTRICTOR to the waste line port on the RO unit and then attach the end of that tube to the T portion of the RO flush valve. First is a picture of the flush valve, second is a picture of the flush valve installed on the end of the RO waste line.

RO flush valve:


RO flush valve installed on end of RO waste line:


4. Then install the RO waste line WITH the flow restrictor on the other end of the T on the flush valve. The key to the flush valve working is it MUST be before the flow restrictor.


5. To flush the RO filter, all you have to do is turn the blue valve on the flush kit to open and then turn on your water supply to the RO/DI unit. This kit comes with a quick connect/disconnect that could be used to install more tubing, I chose not to do this.

6. Once you have flushed the water for a few minutes, you can just close the valve on the flush kit and you'll start making water.

Questions?

Brian

[jnarowe]

Thansk...much easier than I thought!

[ratherbediving]

Thanks for keeping up the thread with so many useful links and posts! This one's a keeper. I just returned from a 2 week
vacation in Australia-- the highlight of the trip for me was a 3 day liveaboard on the Great barrier reef! I managed to get
9 dives in and snorkle a few times. I'll have to post some more details on the trip in a separate post once I get my underwater pictures developed if any turn out.

My tank faired okay in my absense; I had a neighbor come by every other day and top off the water, and dump in some frozen food.

I decided not to test the DIY water top off you posted yet, but will keep that in mind in the future. I'd like to be home to monitor it when I try it.

All the fish survived, although most of my cerith snails are MIA for some reason. Algae was bad, but manageable. My only loss as far as corals go is that the rest of the tube corals that hitchiked are now almost completely gone, the cup corals don't look that great, and the sponges are in decline as well... however, that was well underway before I left. I'll resume feeding cyclopeeze and phyto, and see if that helps anything.

[BrianPlankis]

RBD,

Just trying to pass on all the useful info I find in threads in one place to hopefully help others.

Sorry to hear about your losses, but it could be far worse. When you have your underwater pics developed and posted on a thread, please post a link to that thread here The GBR is one of my MUST see sights that I haven't seen yet.

I understand not wanting to mess with the DIY top-off. I need to get a second good stopper for my back-up unit and I don't feel I have enough time to do that before my trip, so I'm just going to go with one.

phyto should help your sponges and such, but who really knows how to stop their decline? Difficult as they are used to a constant food source huh?

Brian

[BrianPlankis]

Days Without Cirolanids Spotted: 21 (tied the previous record for no sightings)

Well, it looks like my time battling Cirolanids might be over and I'm now focusing on my next project: Cleanup Crew Breeding Project

I have been frustrated at times at the number of inappropriate cleanup crew critters that are sold in this hobby and how they die so quickly in our tanks. I was guilty of purchasing a lot of them in my early reef career. Now I'm hoping to change that, at least a little in my local reef club.

I have been slowly collecting things that breed easily in reef tanks with the hope of breeding them and then trading/selling them to other people while spreading the word of how much better it is for the environment to support efforts like these by leaving the inappropriate species in the wild and buying tank raised livestock.

Crabs of any kind are notorious for eating snails, so I have reduced my crab population to a few porcelains(mainly filter feeders) and 2 scarlet reef hermits and a couple of stubborn gorillas. With the amount of snails in my tank I don't have any worries about algae growing out of control.

It seems to me that people don't want to spend money on snails or cleanup crews, they almost always seem to go for "astrea" or "turbo" snails that are .49 each or less. That way they can save their money for the more important fish, corals, equipment, etc. It makes sense, but I think eventually breeding efforts of better kinds of snails can replace these inappropriate types, if people can just be educated.

There are a few breeding projects out there, but plenty of room for more.

I've been collecting snails and other cleanup crew critters that easily breed in reef tanks in the hopes of trading/selling them to other local reefers and spreading the word.

What better way to keep your tank clean than to establish a cleanup crew that reproduces, and assuming a stable tank, will eventually form a stable population? Of course some will starve from too many babies, but if the population drops too much, then they can breed again.

I have so far collected the following:
Stomatella varia
Collonista sp.
potential trochoidean, possibly Turbo haraldi (As ID'd by Dr Ron)
Pictures:


egg mass:


Cerith sp. snail
Hair worms (commonly called(incorrectly) spaghetti worms)
Amphipods
Asterina sp. starfish
Mysid shrimp (suspected)

An interesting article on mysid:
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-02/rs/index.php

I have confirmed babies of the Stomatella, trochoidean, amphipods, Mysid and Asterina. I just added the ceriths but I have been assured by the owner they breed like rabbits. I suspect the Collonista are breeding, but I only started with 3.

What is nice is that the Stomatella and collonista prefer the rocks, the trochoidean clean both the rocks and glass and the ceriths seem to focus on the glass, rocks and sandbed. The Amphipods and Mysid go everywhere.

This is not a hard thing to do, I'm not a newbie, but I'm not an expert SW keeper either. I would guess once I have decent populations of each that I can harvest occasionally to keep the populations from crashing.

My only big concern that I don't know how to address is one species of cleanup crew out competing the others, with the cerith being my biggest concern. Once I move to a new house with a dedicated fish room I will attempt to have one tank for 1-2 species.

I'm interested in acquiring those misidentified strombus snails and small brittle stars that are sold by ispf.com at some point to increase my diversity.

Brian

[ratherbediving]

I've seen a few egg masses that my cerith snails have laid, but no babies. It would be nice if I could get the eggs to hatch and produce young; ceriths seem to be really nice snails.

[BrianPlankis]

Days without Cirolanids: 24

Approaching the 1 year mark and things keep looking better and better! I did a 5gal WC this weekend and all of my softies that reacted to the Crystal Seas salt continue to recover. My unknown neon green softie has never been bigger. My wife's favorite "colt" coral has stopped shrinking and even a few of my green meanie zoas have opened after being closed for 3 weeks! Kent sure has my loyalty now! (For their salt anyway)

I took a couple of pictures of the tank that just looked nice:

The frogspawn appears to be happy and so far the 2 fragments of the second head are surviving. I also liked all the TBS hitchhikers in the background.


I just liked this picture of my candy corn zoas next to the purple. They got a little irritated from the Crystal Seas as well and have been expanding again.


I also did some fragging this weekend. I made one porites frag(tiny), one peach zoa frag and one candy corn zoa frag to establish 2nd colonies of each in the tank. I tried super-glue on a red with blue dot mushroom, but it didn't hold. I made one extra peach zoa frag to trade/sell at the next frag swap:





A cool picture of my blue spot shroom:


Cleanup Crew Breeding Project Update

My larger species of cerith snails are breeding now. Not sure they will survive, but we'll see! I have four of these egg masses in the last 2 days.


I noticed another two egg masses from my trocus species as well and last night I counted 15 baby trocus(or possibly collonista, too small to tell on some of them) out and about.

More pictures and update in a minute....

Brian

[jnarowe]

great pics!

[BrianPlankis]

I also found a very happy reefer who took my fire coral colony from me and in exchange gave me two LPS frags. One is called a favites and the other is some kind of "Acan". Either way, they are both very pretty

The Favites is neon green and should have purplish ridges when adapted to my tank and the Acan is yellow/green with orange and blue centers.

Favites:


Acan:


I did keep one small frag of the fire coral because it has 3 embedded feather dusters and a horseshoe worm(blue). Of course 3 of them are retracted in this picture, but it is pretty when the are all out:


Need to do another 5gal WC later this week.

Brian

[patsan]

Brian, you have the nicest zoas. I just love that candy corn. You always find such colorful stuff that really pop! I think you should be nice and send me a frag of that since I just lost my favorite zoa.

[BrianPlankis]

Originally posted by patsan
Brian, you have the nicest zoas. I just love that candy corn. You always find such colorful stuff that really pop! I think you should be nice and send me a frag of that since I just lost my favorite zoa.

I try to be pretty selective with my corals since I only have a 75. I can't tell you how many times I've passed up an offer for a free or really cheap brown coral

There is a frag of them with your name on them...but my philosophy is to have two established colonies before I start fragging stuff out(it is much easier to maintain a regular supply of frags if you have two colonies). As soon as I have one, you'll get one

I'm going to start feeding the tank again soon to see if any cirolanids show up, that should help increase the nutrient levels in the tanks which should help the zoas grow faster

Brian

[patsan]

Well, I really hope for your sake, you're done with all of them, and you can start going in the direction you wanted from the beginning.

I'm glad the corals are liking the kent salt better for you. I know I like the Kent so much better than the oceanic.

[BrianPlankis]

Small update this time. I continue to do small WCs to return to Kent, did another 5gal WC last night.

Days without Cirolanids: 27

Tested a few things:
Salinity: 1.026
Temp: 81
Alk: 10.2
Ca: 310 - YIKES!!! Added some turbo calcium after that, will test again tomorrow and see where it is at.

I also woke up this morning to discover my acan frag was NOT playing nice Check out these mesenterial filaments! Please keep this in mind when placing your acans in your tanks.

One of my urchins pushed this favites into range! DOH! The favites is now on the other side of the tank.







Brian

[jnarowe]

that's a downright mean little acan! what great pics!

[patsan]

Originally posted by jnarowe
that's a downright mean little acan! what great pics!

He always does seem to get great shots, doesn't he?

[ratherbediving]

Looks like you came away with some nice frags! Those acans sure are expensive... the blastos are too for that matter. Still, I'd like to get one or the other some day. Beautiful corals!

I agree with everyone else-- nice pictures as usual.

[BrianPlankis]

Thanks for the complements everyone

I feel like a bad parent (just a little), my poor favites:

Before Attack:


After Attack:


At least some of it lived and it should recover.

My green nepthea has attached, still trying to decide if I want to keep this one:



Also, just have to add my green neon candycane shot. Both original heads have nearly split into 2 heads each now



Brian

[jnarowe]

I can't believe the color on that nepthea!! Wow!!!

[melev]

Brian, if I could use one or more of those images for my ID page as regarding the Acan Attack, that would be great. I usually need 640 x 480 pixels.

Looking good. I'm a Kent Sea Salt user as well.