9/10/2005

It’s been a while since the last update. Summer weekends are spent at the Jersey Shore. In fact, this is the first weekend spent at home since June. Right now, the tank is doing OK, but I am battling hair algae. I just replaced my MH bulbs, which is long overdue. I am trying out the EVC 250 watt DE bulbs, which are suppose to put out a lot of PAR.

I did manage to finally acquire three pyramid butterflies this summer, but they are still in quarantine because they came down with ich.  Treating it has been a struggle, mostly because of the amount of time we have been away in August. Three weeks of copper treatment failed to eradicate the pest, probably because the appropriate level was not consistently maintained.  I didn’t want to continue this somewhat toxic treatment any longer, so I am now treating with hyposalinity, which is much easier to maintain. If all goes well, it will still be until mid-October before they can go into the display tank.

Next week is MACNA, so I will be headed off to Arlington for the conference.  It should be fun. My last MACNA was in Baltimore and I had a great time. There will be some folks from the New Jersey Reef Club there to hang around with. I’m taking my camera with me and will try to get some pictures to post here.

I lost a couple of corals over the summer. In June, my red lobophyllia bleached out for reasons unknown and slowly declined until I gave up on it and removed it from the tank.  I also lost my stylophora just last week. It never really seemed to thrive, with very little polyp extension. It lost tissue in patches over the last few months and was overgrown by algae.  I guess I will try to find some new corals at MACNA to fill the holes left by these losses.

On the positive side, I had some acropora frags that have been in the tank since June, 2004 that had shown no signs of growth other than some encrustation.  All of them have started to grow at the tips just in the last month or two.  The green slimer I got from Gene is growing quickly, but in all sorts of odd directions. Hopefully, it will sort itself out, but it looks pretty goofy right now.

5/1/05

After three treatments, the tank is getting back to normal.  After only a few weeks, I am seeing much improvement in the apparent health of the acroporas. My tricolor has colored back up and several others that had shown little or no growth for months are taking off.

3/20/05

BUGS!!!  I discovered the reason that some of my corals have not been looking happy. The dreaded red bugs have invested my tank. I don’t have a great camera, but the nasty critters are cleary visible in this picture.

3/14/05

I bought a bucket of Instant Ocean and have done 3 water changes with it.  It has made a noticable difference in the brown slime algae that had coated the rocks and sand. I still have a fair amount of nuisance algae that is not subsiding. Instant Ocean has dropped my calcium levels, which had been holding steady at 410-420. It is now hovering between 360 and 380. It doesn’t help that I am having trouble maintaining a consistent bubble rate on my calcium reactor. I suspect that I may need to soon refill the CO2 tank.

2/18/05

I have been bothered by the amount of detritus floating around in this tank, which has only been exacerbated by the addition of the sand-sifting goby. I decided to remove the bioballs from the first chamber of my EcoSystem sump and add a filter sock to each drain.  It took some head-scratching, but I figured out a way to use acrylic brackets to hang the socks. I ordered 20 filter socks from www.filterbag.com. This is much cheaper than buying them in a store, only costing about $2 each. I am using 14” 100 micron socks. I plan to replace them once a week.  Filterbag discourages cleaning and reusing them, but I must take that advice with a grain of salt. Hopefully, this will clear up the tank.

1/31/05

I am following the current controversy regarding Oceanic salt’s  propensity for low alkalinity, tests showing measurable phosphates in some batches, and reports of brown slime algae that crops up only when using this salt.  I, too have been experiencing brown slime, mostly confined to the surface of the sand. I am going to finish up the 2 buckets I have left and reevaluate my choice of salt at that point.

1/12/05

I moved the tiger sleeper goby to the display tank.  I am hoping that he will keep my sand stirred up.  It has been getting clumped up by a bit of algae (diatoms, I think).

The next fishes on my stocking list are some reef-safe butterflies.  What I really am trying to find is a trio of pyramid butterflies (Hemitaricthys polylepsis). I also found out that the lemon butterfly (Chaetodon miliaris) is pretty much reef safe, so I may end up with a butterfly tank.  The other possibility is a big longnose butterfly (forcipiger longirostris). A couple of these species in the tank will pretty much preclude the addition of an angelfish, but a reef dominated by butterflyfish sounds pretty cool to me.

12/28/04

Added a crocea clam on Christmas Eve.  The tank still looks sparse, but allowing room for growth of the corals in the tank right now, I am starting to run low on prime spots for new ones.  I have a few more items on my “must have” list, but I am trying to be very picky about new additions.

I had some trouble with my RO/DI this month. I put my TDS meter in the container and it read 450 ppm. Yikes!  I did some checking and determined that the reading was not a mistake. I discarded the water and checked the output from the filter, which measured about 40 ppm, still way too high.  I pulled out the DI cartdrige and checked the RO output, which was 33 ppm.  I replaced the Kent 60 gpd with an Aquatic Reef Systems 50 gpd membrane.  I ran it for a while and checked the output without DI and it is now reading 5 ppm. Much better. With a new DI, it is measuring 0 ppm.  I guess my membrane went bad after only about 8 months of operation.  That doesn’t make me happy.  The good news is that the Aquatic Reef Systems RO membrane, made by Dow, is half the price of the Kent Hi-S.

I had been having reliability problems with the AquaController II pH probe, which seem to have been resolved by moving the probe to the growout tank. I had followed the Neptune recommendation of keeping it at least six inches from the ORP probe, but either this was not sufficient or something else was interfering with its operation.

11/21/04

Attended my first New Jersey Reefers Club meeting. I came home with several frags: a green slimer acro, a tricolor acro, and a blue millepora. A great group of people and a lively and well-attended meeting.

11/12/04

Spent a considerable amount of time removing caulerpa from the main tank. It is insidious. pH has been running a bit low. I am using up some old B-Ionic to bring it up, but will use baked baking soda when it runs out.

10/24/04

Moved hippo tang to display from qtank.

10/23/04

Changed all filter cartridges on RO/DI. I hadn’t paid much attention to it since setting the tank up. When I took a TDS reading, it was up to 50. After putting on the new cartridges, it was down to 2. Much better.

10/21/04

Added ASM G2X skimmer.