Build and Progress of my RSM Nano Tank

[Reefmack]

Laurent - no updates lately. I hope all is well.

[LaurentSeattle]

Hi Reefmack and Hello all...

I am just emerging from a very very bad cold that kept me in bed the whole week.

More tomorrow...

[Reefmack]

Sorry to hear you've been ill Laurent. We'll wish you a speedy recovery.

[LaurentSeattle]

Month 5 - Week 21 - Day 143 - Sunday November 18th - Around 8pm

Back to life after a very bad cold...

- Tested the water yesterday:

. NO3, PO4: Both zero
. pH: 8.2
. Alk (using Red Sea test): Normal, low range
. Ca: 480 (still very high)

This morning:

- Replaced PhosBan and Active Carbon with one unit of ChemiPure Elite.

- Rinsed (in Salt water) the ceramic balls and clean the bag. Syphoned out water from the filtration chamber removing a massive amount of dirty stuff in the process.

- Replaced 3 gallons of water.

Tonight:

- The feather duster is growing a new crown!

- The sea star reappeared after hiding for almost one week. Three arms are badly damaged: like amputated.

- The gramma is still not doing well.

- Xenias are grown a huge lot and have now reached and encroached on the neighbouring rock. Green Star Polyps are multiplying.

- Zoanthids seem to do better, expanding more.

- Green hairy algae is back a bit along with bryopsis.

[pbukow]

Good to hear you, and most of your livestock are doing better. Any pics of your flourishing system?

[Reefmack]

Hi Laurent & welcome back! That's good on the feather duster. What's wrong with the gramma - still hiding & rubbing against the rock? The Xenia is doing what Xenia do so well - spreading. Watch out it doesn't take over the tank like my elongata type did. I hacked off more of the elongata type Saturday and moved my original Red Sea pom pom frag (3 colonies on it now) to the top of the tank, leaving behind 2 pom pom colonies that grew off the frag nad attached to rock above where the frag was.

The sea star sounds like it's showing signs of starvation. I had a sand sifting star months ago that starting losing arms and just falling apart. My serpent star and Fromia seem to be doing fine, but I think my Linkia is getting thinner now - not a good sign for the Linkia, but it's typical of all that I've read about the stars - the Fromia and Linkia types usually starve, but the serpent types do well.

What kind of dosing were you doing with the Kent Tech M - the weekly dosage or the daily? I added the recommended weekly dose Saturday, and started the daily dosage on Sunday, but cut it back from the recommended 1ml/g (34 ml in the RSM) to 20ml to make up for a lot of rock volume. I haven't seen much affect yet on the patches of bryopsis, but haven't noticed any adverse effect on the fish, inverts or corals.

[LaurentSeattle]

Hi ReefMack, Thanks for the info on the sea star.

The Gramma is hiding and rubbing. But it shows signs of starvation. It does eat: Cyclop-Eeze, Brine shrimp and even pellets. But it seems to be thinner everyday. I feed twice a day. In the meantime, the yellow wrasse gets fatter and I have the feeling that the whole tank gets too much of food because pest algae is gaining ground.

About Tech M: I ended up with the same calculation: 35ml. I started to add 5 ml in the morning and 5ml in the evening always diluted in about one pint of tank water. I was using a serynge to dose the product. I was pouring the mix in two or three steps before the skimmer so that hopefully the addition would happen slowly. I started to see negative effects on the Gramma after four days and immediately stopped, then made water changes every five days or so.

[Reefmack]

Thanks for the info. on the Tech M Laurent. I did the recommended weekly dose the first day, followed by 2 daily doses of 20ml. No negative effects on anything seen yet, but no positive effect on the bryopsis either.

I hope the gramma starts looking better.

[LaurentSeattle]

Month 5 - Week 21 - Day 146 - Wednesday November 21st - Around 6pm

- Removed and cleant the skimmer then followed by a thorough cleaning of the bottom of skimmer chamber: Removed a lot of dirt in the process.

- Three gallons water change.

- The feather duster is growing his new crown quite fast!

- The sea star: Still in very bad shape.

- The gramma is still not doing well.

- Other fishes and the shrimp all doing good.

- All corals are doing very well, expanding nicely.

- Pest algae is back...

I will post some pictures tomorrow.

[Reefmack]

Hi Laurent. On the pest algae I upped my daily dose of Tech M to 50ml today & may try 100ml tomorrow. No negative effect on life in the tank. I'm hoping when I get to 1600pm Mg that I'll see the bryopsis begin to die off.

Good news on the feather duster!

[mikellini]

Any recent pics?

[LaurentSeattle]

Month 5 - Week 21 - Day 147 - Thursday November 22nd - Around 6pm

- Did nothing special today except removing quite a lot of algae from the GSP and bryopsis around the mushrooms.

- Finally a few pictures!

FTS:



Pest algae is clearly back on the front left rock. And the gramma look sick and starving.

Mushrooms:



This mushroom rock had three big polyps and a small one when I bought it. All the other small guys were borm in the tank.

Green Star Polyps:



These ones are quite healthy and they grow fast, especially in the back of the rock but that cannot be seen on the picture above.

Xenia:



Amazing growth! The little rock only had five stalks when I got it. Now it has doubled in size with a dozen stalks. One of them has expanded enough to encroach on the neighbouring rock and it is already starting to split in two!

[pbukow]

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!!!!!! Your corals are looking great btw.

[Reefmack]

Hi Laurent. The Xenia really does grow quick! Same with mine. Good luck with the algae. Do you have both hair & bryopsis? Hard to tell from the FTS but it looked like still some of both. I think I'm starting to see some patches of my bryopsis beginning to die off after the Mg additions, but it hasn't been quick, and I hope I'm not upsetting the water chemistry too much with the amounts I'm adding.

What's that branching coral (or macro) between the Ricordea yumas and the mushrooms?

[LaurentSeattle]

pbukow:

Thanks!

Reefmack:

Yes, I have back both hair algae and bryopsis. I read you add one hundred ml per day of the Kent M with positive results while I got sick fishes with about 40ml dosed along one week... I don't understand...

The "thing" between the mushroom is a macro algae. Maybe some kind of Gracilaria or Scianaia according to this page: http://www.saltcorner.com/sections/g.../algaepage.htm

Arrived as hitch-hiker, it started to grow significantly when I started to supplement some Calcium, same for the Halimeda on the very top of tank.

[Reefmack]

Hi Laurent. I was going by the directions in that bryopsis post. It said several were adding 100ppm/day (5ml/g) so I figured I'd use 20g as the amount of my water & try it. Today is the first day I added a full 100ml. Yesterday I added 50ml. So far things seem OK. It definitely had no effect at all on any of my fish, and i was adding 20ml/day the first 2 days. Maybe the gramma is ill for some other reason? Are the others OK?

[LaurentSeattle]

Month 5 - Week 22 - Day 148 - Friday November 23rd - Around 11am

- I fed the tank early this morning, and did it again around 11am.

- Made a two gallons water change,

- Tested again for Ca and finally got a result lower at 460ppm. (Since quite a while, actually when starting dosing Magnesium, Ca readings were stuck beyond the scale of the test!)

- Removed white pad and sponges and set the "black gate" a bit below normal position.

All the above because I am leaving for the weekend.

Next update on late Sunday night.

And hopefully remember that today is "I BUY NOTHING" day...

[LaurentSeattle]

Month 5 - Week 22 - Day 150 - Sunday November 25th - Around 8pm

Back from the weekend... Everything seems to be fine. Fed the tank with cyclop-eeze and re-establish mechanical filtration. Topped-off with fresh water.

One day without food and it seems like there is a bit less bryopsis...

[pbukow]

You should try to leave your tank dark for a couple of days. I've read great things about it, there was a thread that was actually thread of the month on reefkeeping.com a few months ago (i'll try and find it). It clears the water up real nicely and is actually more natural to the animals to have a couple days a month with little or no light. Just like it being overcast in the wild.

I would think if you did this then the day you turn your lights back on, pull out as much dead/dying bryopsis as you can and do a water change, you could really help cut back your algae problem. Just a thought.

[pbukow]

Here it is:

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1078532

Here is also one of my favorite nano threads also, very clean and simple setup.

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...5&pagenumber=1

[LaurentSeattle]

Month 5 - Week 22 - Day 151 - Monday November 26th - Around 7pm

- Bad news: Back home tonight and found the gramma dead. All other animals are doing well except the sea star that is nowhere to be found...

pbukow: Quite interesting: I will try that possibly next week. I will let things settle a bit.

[Reefmack]

Laurent - sorry about the gramma I have a feeling that the star may have just disintegrated, since it was losing arms, but maybe it will show up. Not an update that I wanted to hear, but hopefully things will get better from now on.

[pbukow]

Sorry to hear about the gramma, maybe he had some sort of internal parasite, so there might not have been anything you could've done anyway. Not a good update

[LaurentSeattle]

Month 5 - Week 22 - Day 153 - Wednesday November 28th - Around 9pm

- Done a lot of work earlier this afternoon at cutting and removing a lot of bryopsis and red and green hairy algae.

- Followed with a 3g water change.

- Moved the Xenia to the top of the tank to avoid colonisation of the GSP rock.

- Moved the palys a bit more to the center.

- Cleant the filters

- And finally took this FTS:



There is still a lot of bryopsis and other algae in the tank!

The feather duster is growing its new crown very fast and now be seen on the above shot.

There is a hitchhiker mushrooms on the Xenia rock. Hopefully, it will like the new spot.

[LaurentSeattle]

Month 5 - Week 22 - Day 154 - Thursday November 29th - Around 7pm

- Nothing special tonight, except the daily routine of topping off, cleaning the white pad, etc.

- Tested Calcium: Now at 450ppm. Top of the scale but now within the range of "normality".

- Looks like some specy of Caulerpa is growing in one of the zoanthid colonies: I removed it. I have learnt that Caulerpa can quickly become a trouble because the stolons are able to "pierce" the coral tissues.