DaJMasta's 45G AIO Cube Mixed Reef

[DaJMasta]

Today was much less remarkable in the tank, but there's some notable progress.  I hit a few aiptasia last night with some kalk paste, and so far they seem to be done with, though I suspect there will be more to find yet, not sure if they were on the new rock or maybe just the original LFS live rock, but I knew there were a few around, so good to do.

 

Today I had a new filter arrive, a Santa Monica Filtration Drop 1.2x, and dropped it in the back.  Not really having the space for a refugium, I had looked into turf algae scrubbers for a bit to augment the skimmer, and while the Drop series seemed like an ideal form factor, they're at least 50% more expensive than they probably should be.  I looked at other options and nothing was really the right size for my tank (relatively narrow rear chamber, no external plumbing, close to the wall), so I eventually just went for it.  I toyed with DIYing it as well, but with a dark back glass pane, external lights would be harder to install and would need glass cleaning (annoying in the narrow back chamber), and the submersible high power red LEDs are not that available so they're quite expensive to just buy on their own.  The unit is a perfect size for the top of the media rack in the back, and with a fairly quiet air pump, it's not noisy so long as you keep the water level a little below the hole in the top of the unit.  Still waiting on a timer for the internal lights, but with the air and LEDs on for a few days, I hope to get it seeded well enough that it starts proper operation next week.

 

After lights off I spotted a new likely hitchhiker, what appears to be a tiny rock boring urchin.  Not 100% on the ID, but it has spines in all directions that move independently, but it's only like 4mm across or something, very small and it was only today that I even spotted it.  In any case, got it on video, sped up 8x, so that the slight movements are clearer.

 

 

 

Oh and I missed this when it was first posted, but this is the non-corner version of the printed isolation boxes I'm using for the mantises: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4834450

 

The original one also has a lid added to the thing page - important since these mantises will try to poke their heads above the waterline.

Edited April 22, 2021 by DaJMasta

[DaJMasta]

Just a little update for a new FTS, gradually getting a feel for making white balance work.

 

I didn't do a water change last night, first day without one, and all the parameters are about the same today.  No growth on the Drop 1.2x, but that's expected, did a little more small scale cleanup but nothing big, and put in the battery backup to help with short term power outages - will test for runtime at some point, but haven't yet.

The mantises are getting bolder in exploring their boxes, and there is a chorus of snaps in the daylight to twilight hours with them smacking on the box or the fittings in it, but no signs of damage - the softer plastics seem to hold up much better than harder, more brittle shells and things.  Feeding them a bunch of mysis every other day and they take them eagerly enough - all three hide when I open the tops, but today all three had eyes peering out when I went to feed them, whereas last time all three were fully hidden, and the first mysis that gets down near them gets snatched into the hiding spot to be consumed.

Given the unchanging parameters, whatever cycle I may have had, I'm willing to call over, here at like 2.5 weeks from the first water.  It's definitely not fully settled, and nitrate and phosphate levels are a bit high, but I'm getting little growth of those nasty-stage organisms that make the rocks dark, the diatom 'bloom' was never that bad and has mostly subsided, and there's a bit of green algae on the dry rock, but the only stuff on the established rock is what it came in with.  With that, I placed an order for a bit of a clean up crew to arrive next week, and hopefully I'll have a couple of corals or fish in first week of May, provided everything still looks normal.

Gotta get moving on the controller design soon enough, but since it's very central in the house and I don't have vacation coming up, manually managing things shouldn't be too bad for a bit.

[therootcause]

Wow what a roller coaster! Excited to see more. The mantis (manti?) are beautiful and also make my skin crawl! Great build progression, keep sharing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DaJMasta]

Thanks!  There is definitely something..... creepy?  about them.  I think it's that they mostly hide like other things, but when they're feeling more comfortable they can be quite bold and quick, and seeing them run around on the rocks hunting is interesting because they can do that bug thing where they run in a straight line at normal speed while running over the underside of a rock, so they can sort of spring up on the other side quickly.

The tube anemone I'm trying to train to be out during the day (daytime direct feedings), but it still prefers night time, so under the moonlights I used a flashlight to snap a picture:

 

Under the sponge covered rock you can see that flatworm I spotted last week, it's still alive and kicking and best I can tell, it's a Pseudobiceros splendidus, which has some confirmation that it lives in the Gulf and it eats tunicates, which are still pretty plentiful on the rock.  Hope it can stick around.

 

While I haven't yet properly spotted it, I definitely have another digger in the tank after isolating the mantises, and I'm hearing some snaps that aren't hits on the plastic boxes (and after dark when the mantises aren't active) that suggests that it's probably that pistol shrimp I saw adding the rock initially.  I've shined a light down the hole a few times and saw whiskers or an eye, but never enough of a body to confirm what it is for sure.

 

Did a 5G water change today and will probably do one every other day or so for the next week, nutrient levels are still high and there is actually still some amount of a dieoff - I think it's specific kinds of sponges, but there are some that seemed to either hate being exposed to air or were physically damaged in transit, so while most of the encrusting sponges seem fine, some things are still flaking off a bit.

Ran a full panel (all the test kits) of water tests today and the phosphate and nitrate are up a tad, suggesting that the day or two without a water change did have some effect, albeit a small one.  No visible algae seeded in the Drop 1.2x yet, but I assume I'll see at least some in the next few days.  A bit more green growth on the dry rock, but still not dense or fibrous growth.  I bought a strontium kit because it was cheap and I was curious, but I don't know if I did it right.  I got to the Calcium readout part seemingly fine, and it agreed with an earlier calcium only test, but when waiting for the next portion, the solution seemed to separate/precipitate.  When I did the final titration stage, it took more drops than were on the chart to get a strontium reading (0.13mL, which on the scale given is like -5ppm Strontium haha), so I'll have to give it another shot at some point and see if I can get a usable baseline.

Things continue, and plans for the future continue to mull around.... we'll see what comes to fruition and when.

[DaJMasta]

Today I shipped off the first and the second of three mantises!  Traded one of them for the very first frag for the tank, a bit of bubblegum digi that was described as "bulletproof"... and which lived up to its name by having a bit of polyp extension sitting in the plastic bag it was handed off in, and then coming out something like half way within just an hour or so in the tank.  It's the little bit sticking out on the left!

 

 

Today also marks the first day I'm not testing daily for normal cycling parameters.... because ammonia and nitrite have been zero for a couple weeks now.  Nitrate and phosphate are higher than I'd like, and I'll maintain testing as the algae scrubber comes online, but it's nice to be progressing.  The green algae on the rocks is starting to come in a bit more, not in more places, but lengthening for sure, so I'll be happy to get the scrubber taking up some of that and the clean up crew (maybe tomorrow, maybe delayed a day by the postal service?)  In the interim, a little manual removal on longer bits and around the corals that could be bothered will have to suffice.

Speaking of, one of the montastraea that came as a hitchhiker and looks particularly photogenic was the first thing I pointed my new camera lens at... and it does not disappoint!

 

 

Now that things are starting to be settled and the routine seems to be going along, I've turned my sights to what potential stocking I want to have... and while the list needs to be narrowed down and certainly won't be added all at once, since I may have fish inside a couple weeks, I want to know what trajectory I'm going for.  As I do want some ornamental inverts, everything's got to be reef/invert safe, and since everything will be frag sized for a while yet, potential coral nippers may have to be delayed a while.  Right now, I'm considering:

Flame angel (never had anything this large, wouldn't be against trying something else of similar size)

Rainford's goby

A pair of clowns maybe?  Maybe only if I find a bigger nem for them

Atlantic sailfin blenny

Mandarin dragonet (a definite priority, but one that needs some time or needs to be captive bred)

Hector's goby

Diamond watchman goby (a few of the shrimp gobies would be good choices, I think this is my favorite look, and I've definitely still got a pistol shrimp for it to pair with)

A few chromis (green, Caribbean blues?) - some other small damsel would be neat, but it seems like none are going to leave other critters alone

A yellow cucumber (everwhere I see lists as a filter feeder, which I should be able to support given the multitude in the tank now, but Ideally I want a smaller sand sifter, and I've seen these sift sand before)

A fire cleaner shrimp or two

Maybe some sexy shrimp?

 

The list is too long, but I think those are all generally peaceful enough to fit the bill, so I'm looking forward to sorting through the options and getting some real movement in the tank.

[DaJMasta]

Thursday came and went without particular interest, then Friday came and my clean up crew had finally arrived!  Two days late from the estimate on the label and a day later than tracking had said, but no casualties en route.  I think I may have missed some nassarius snails, but I think I got enough bags so I think I just got five of another variety, and in usual ReefCleaners fashion, I bought like 6 dwarf ceriths and got around a heaping tablespoon.

The new critters, my first intentional livestock aside from the first monti frag, were settling into their new life of eating stuff that looks bad in the tank, when the power went out.  Friday was windy, but barely more than that, and I got my first test of my backup power options.  The outage seemed pretty small, just a zig-zag through the neighborhood among a sea of normally powered homes, but it took 10 hours to come back.

The 1500VA lasted almost exactly 3.5 hours with the return pump and a 50W heater on it - though I'm pretty sure the tank was warm enough that the heater was never really on.  After a few minutes of setup, I rigged my eventually-to-be ATO pump, a Tunze osmolator pump, to a 12V sealed lead acid (I used a series diode to reduce the voltage a tad, but the pump says it's good to 12V), and got about 3 hours out of however full its charge was (cutoff the pump at 11.8V read under load, discharging too deep will permanently damage the battery).  Towards the end of that time, I filled a 2 liter bottle with RODI (and a little air), and then cooked it on the stove (gas!) on low heat, also in a pot of RODI, until it was hot, then put it in the tank to try and keep it warm.  I rotated it out of the tank and back into the pot every 20 minutes or so for a while, including after the pump was shut off.  I tried to keep a tiny bit of flow going with a turkey baster and by moving around the bottle a bit, but it was sort of a token gesture more than it was probably effective.

 

At almost 2am and with some people with flashlights finally showing up to look at the power lines, I went to sleep.  The reality was I needed to work in the morning a bit and the stuff in the tank was about as hearty and understocked as it will ever be, so the tank sustaining dress rehearsal came to an end.... and I was woken up an hour later with all the lights coming back on and the tank starting to get back to normal.

The next day comes, the final of the three mantises gets sent off to its new home, and the tank is basically back the same as ever.  A bit of brown on the sand and more than a bit of green on the back glass, but on the track it was on before, at least.  This coming week marks one month since it started and while I'm getting a bit of ugly phase while the clean up crew gets to work and the algae scrubber gets seeded, I'm keen on some proper stocking this week.  I'll see from where and what - fish would be great, but there are some great looking corals around - but I definitely want to get something.

[howaboutme]

That's a great idea about heating the 2 liter bottle, very resourceful! Glad the outage wasn't too bad. Looking good.

[DaJMasta]

Thanks, it probably scales up well too, 2-3 bottles and a bigger pot would let you rotate and always have something warming the tank, though it starts becoming more of a stable job at that point, it could be viable for a larger tank.  I had considered taking some tank water in a bucket, then warming it over a less-than-boiling pot, but the chance to cook whatever was in it and then dump it back in didn't seem like a great option, even if I could watch it to keep it from getting too hot.

I went to teach this morning and spotted a not-before-seen nudibranch on the rockwork, so I sucked it up in a baster, put it in a bucket in the tank, and got it under the microscope.  I think it's an Aeolid, but I don't have any real guess on the ID:

 

[DaJMasta]

The tank turned one month old today and quite a few things have been happening - most notably, I have fish!


 

The sort of usual brown diatoms and green algae have come and gone a bit in the last few days - I actually cleaned most of the algae off the back glass and five hours later diatoms were all over the sand instead - but it seems when not significantly disturbed, they don't change a ton.  A bit of manual removal persists, especially around the couple of corals I've got growing to prevent irritation, but I've been especially impressed with the nerite snails.  I dropped them off on the little shelf on the right side and not only did they clean off a good patch, they did a pretty complete job of it.  Complete enough that I moved a couple elsewhere to balance out the algae removal.

Monday was the big day for fish, I picked up three from another club member then went to the fish store and my eyes lit up for two more - a very large bioload addition, but at least in the subsequent two days there have been no nutrient spikes - and all of the larger adult size fish, with the exception of the diamond watchman goby, were relatively young and small.  I got the aforementioned diamond watchman goby, a yellow goby, a banggai cardinal, a juvenile flame angel, and a mandarin dragonet.  Some perhaps ambitious stocking choices for a 45G tank, but from their behavior and peacefulness, I think I can be successful with them.  The biggest concern is the mandarin, but there are a few things that suggested I could make it work:
I have tons of pods in this tank.  Between lots of mature live rock, dumping in the grunge from the end of the live rock bag, and three weeks without pod predators in the tank means they definitely multiplied - when the circulation and lights were out because of the power outage, I could see easily a thousand copepods on each pane of the glass with a flashlight.  That gives me a starting food source, but what about continuing?  I have a lot of rock with a lot of crevasses and a deeper sand bed that I won't be vacuuming, both of which will help, and then there should be some habitat in the algae scrubber in the back as well as some marinepure balls I intend to add to the media rack (will take time to get going).  I also won't be using a filter sock, so there won't be manual pod removal and there will be somewhat more detrius for them to eat.  Most importantly, I want to try to train it to eat frozen food.  At the shop the staff dropped some frozen brine in and there was definitely an interested feeding response (not 100% sure I actually saw any consistent eating) for the mandarin I ended up taking home, whereas another the shop had didn't even pay attention when the same was added to its tank.  Finally, the one I got was fairly small, so I have some extra buffer time to build up some pod production in the back compartment as well as train it to eat at least some prepared foods.  I look forward to making it fat!

Speaking of the algae scrubber, I haven't been wowed by its performance so far, but I think I've found out why.  It's been in the tank just shy of two weeks and only has some brown (looks like the same diatoms) and a few specks of algae that made their way in there, but not real growth.  I went looking around for recommendations and found that on one of the pages for the Drop 1.2x, the Tetra Whisper AP150 air pump is recommended.... one suitable for a 150G tank (whatever that means), whereas the one I had running on it was designed for a 10G tank.  It would be much more helpful if manufacturers of air pumps (and Santa Monica Filtration, for that matter) published nominal air volume and pressure specs for their pumps reliably to give you an idea of the actual performance of the unit to see if it's suitable for your application.  It seems like my pump was not at all suitable, so the recommended one is on the way.  Maybe another week to go, but I'm hoping all that green algae on the glass and rocks can be taken up by the scrubber.

Today my flatworm decided to take a tour of the tank with the lights on, unusually, and I caught a bit of it in action on video:

 

 

I also spotted an odd anemone-looking thing grabbing particles from the water and after some research found that it's a filter feeder sea cucumber's appendages, so I squirted it with water and prodded at it to see how it would react.  Yet another hitchhiker I didn't know came in three weeks ago!

 

Oh, and it's worth mentioning: those striped anemones like the one bottom center on the video that I have probably a dozen of from the rock, they aren't warty anemones.  They look the part, but they don't have the characteristic lines of bumps on the outside of the foot, so it seems they are most likely "light bulb anemones", which there doesn't seem to be a ton of information on, but which seem to be common on gulf rock and don't replicate with a speed that makes them a pest.

Edited May 5, 2021 by DaJMasta

[DaJMasta]

A little update that's really more a continuation of the last post, albeit with a couple more days to monitor things.

I don't have space for a proper quarantine, but I know about the risks of bringing new fish in and wanted to do something to mitigate them, so in looking around I stumbled on Safety Stop, a two part acclimation/dip before introducing the fish to the tank.  None of the fish I had gotten had any visible signs of disease and were acting normally when I got them, but it's good practice to medicate and quarantine, so I went for it.

Setup for the dip is pretty easy, you need a couple of buckets, a heater, an airstone with pump, and some extra water.  I put the two buckets for the dip in a larger bin with some water (actually the wastewater from the initial drip acclimation) and the heater so I could keep both heated for the duration.  The basic procedure is:
Drip acclimate the fish to temperature/pH, they recommend about 30 mins and a driprate that makes that two doublings of volume in the container
Catch the fish and put into the first dip - a gallon of tank water and the green part A of the packet - and let them sit in it for 45 minutes with the air bubbler going and monitor for signs of stress

Then transfer the bubbler to the second dip - a gallon of tank water and the blue part B - catch the fish and transfer them to the second dip for another 45 minutes worth of monitoring
From there I caught them again, briefly dipped them in some plain tank water (really to rinse the net and minimize medication in the tank) and released them into the tank.

All told, the dip went great.  It was fairly inexpensive, easy to do, and gives you a bit of prophylactic treatment even when you don't have the space or equipment for a proper long term quarantine.  Maybe not safe enough for some, but definitely better than nothing and as much as I hope to need for this relatively small tank without any really expensive fish in it.  I ended up doing the full 45 minutes worth of dip in each because the fish showed no signs of distress, though the diamond watchman goby jumped out two of the three times I tried to net it to get it to the next bucket....

The next morning, however, I found a problem, and it actually didn't have anything to do with the dip: the yellow goby had two parasitic isopods attached to it.  The goby definitely didn't have them on it the day before and definitely acting less energetic than the day before, so I read up and prepared for treatment.  I had actually seen a larger (half an inch or so) isopod in the tank that came in as a hitchhiker, but I've had isopods that were detrivores before and never bothered things, so while they always looked a bit creepy, I let it be.  I also saw after a couple weeks in the tank a handful of very small isopods - maybe a dozen - after lights out when looking with a flashlight.  None of the other fish have them (to this day, though I haven't been able to see the watchman goby up close yet because it's still mostly hiding in the back), and I think I have an explanation.  Basically, the only time I've really observed the isopods is after lights out, near the front of the tank, where they sort of zip around near the glass.  The yellow goby was the only fish to spend any time in that area of the tank on the first day, and actually perched for a bit on the front and side glass when moving around that first evening, so it may have just been in the wrong place when they were active and was latched onto.

In any case, I wanted to act quickly because though the isopods were small, so was the goby, and the visible signs of stress are never good, especially after a new introduction and not a lot of feeding.  It hid most of the day in places I couldn't get at, but around lights out it actually came back to the front of the tank to hunt, and I scooped it up in a net.  I had read that a freshwater dip was the way to go, so I prepared some RODI with a bit of kalk to match the pH (very finicky, a pinch of kalk in a gallon or so of water is WAY too much, so I had to go back and fourth a few times diluting it and rechecking), a small heater, and the air bubbler.  I gave the yellow goby four minutes in the freshwater bath, where it showed no signs of stress, and actually left it in the net for the duration, so I even saw the small dead isopods in the net at the end.  I scooped the goby up in my hand and returned it to the tank, where it's been more active and healthy looking since.

Knowing there were other isopods around, I had the baster at the ready with a very fine net (like the ones used for shrimp), and I managed to suck up at least four more of the little ones that flew around in the front of the tank after dark.  I will be checking nightly for another week or so to get as many as possible, as well as monitoring the look of the fish, but last night I couldn't see any and there aren't new ones on the fish, so it's going well so far.  If anyone knows their tank has isopods and wants to remove them, my recommendation would be to use a normal flashlight shortly after lights out with the flow on.  Isopods do have characteristic shape and large eyes, but they're also strong swimmers, so they will zip around at a similar speed to worms in their larval stages, so they aren't too tough to spot.  At least when they were initially spotted, they actually seemed to be attracted to the light, so a normal flashlight is probably better to something red or other method.

 

Since that drama things have settled, the fish are still shy but venture out farther each day, I had a clam drop off of the rockwork and into an entrance to the shrimp tunnel overnight, so I moved it to a crevasse on the rock, and it climbed out and elsewhere over the next night.  The fish are all eating well and the parameters are continuing, and thankfully my new air bubbler seems to be coming tomorrow, so I hope that algae scrubber will be working by the beginning of next week.

[DaJMasta]

A little update... found another nudi today, a new variety, and as best I can tell, not a known big pest.  Got it under the microscope too:

Otherwise, pH was a bit down today but everything else was stable (inside all day without the house circulation going much?), everyone seems to be fairly happy and the hair algae is gradually going away (thanks CUC!)  Got the new air pump and installed it, hoping for real growth in the scrubber by the start of next week.  Otherwise, that urchin I made a movie of is probably twice the diameter today as it was, and I've spotted two other urchins at a similar starting size...

[DaJMasta]

So all sorts of things have been happening, among others... I have new corals (and anemones!)  There has been some drama along with them that seems to be past me now, but I will save that for another post and stick with the more mundane here:

 

Parameters seem to be fairly stable, and I'm still doing a few of them daily to make sure I have an eye on things.  The skimmer continues to pull grime, I continue to overfeed somewhat to encourage things to eat, and the algae scrubber is finally doing something.  A picture from Friday when I installed the new air pump (2.5 weeks of running), then a picture from this morning (5 more days) where there was enough growth for me to pull out the black mesh it shipped with to reduce light intensity for the initial bit of algae to sprout.

 

The fish have all become somewhat bolder, the 'fraidy-cat still being the diamond watchman goby, now named Pops (because it looks like a popsicle), but even it's been seen nearly at the front of the tank, albeit only briefly and along one side.  I was a bit concerned about Mandy (the mandarin) on Sunday so I caught her (I think it's a female, but the dorsal fin is rarely raised) to try and spot feed with prepared foods.  Not a ton of interest in the container, but when back in the tank with the pumps off there's still a food response when feeding the tank, and she's trying it - had a full mysis in her mouth for 10 seconds or so before spitting it out.  I was concerned because she doesn't really look better fed than she was in the LFS, so I wanted some visual confirmation of eating stuff in addition to pods - while that confirmation will have to wait, there's still a pod population and I've now got a mesh box that's well suited for that kind of training if needed.

 

Then yesterday night I saw a yellowish sponge in a place I didn't remember having one, only to come back a few minutes later to it in a different place.... a third hitchhiker nudibranch species!

A slow one, even in the tank, but another one of those fragile creatures that likely wouldn't have made the trip as a hitchhiker if it weren't for the quick shipment.


New critters settling in (except for one rock anemone which refuses to root in a reasonable place), and a couple of equipment changes to get things all the way where I want them, but that will be another day.

[DaJMasta]

Another equipment update for this week... a new light!  The ReefLED 90 was a bit blue for my tastes and had a lot of shimmer - I remember liking 12k-15k metal halides, and the ReefLED has got to be more than 20k with both channels maxed.  Found a good deal on a lightly used XR15 G5, so I swapped up.  Much less shimmer by default, a bunch more white, and a more filled out overall spectrum, which should help color rendering  and give me more of the look I'm hoping for.  Overall output of the two is fairly comparable, and since the system is new enough that corals are mostly still acclimating anyways, I figure this is a better time to swap than later.

 

A little comparison of shimmer levels:

 

Otherwise, I got a couple overnight packages this week with some corals, some little rock anemones, and a fish.  Most were fine and were slightly opening even in their acclimation/dip, but for some reason, everything in one package was alarmingly stressed.  A couple of acans had a greyish look and barely had any polyp extension even after a couple hours in the tank, the rock nem had its mouth partially distended and it didn't otherwise look happy, and the fish - a swissguard basslet - was acting erratically and having trouble keeping itself rightside up in the bag.

 

I was worried, so I did what i could - a faster than usual acclimation to tank water with an air stone in it for the duration.  I had to pull the airstone partly out because the fish was so weak, it being all the way in created enough flow to pull it over to the airstone, but two doublings of volume in the bucket was maybe 15 minutes instead of the usual 30-45.  Then I put the bubbler and a small heater in a larger bucket of plain tank water and scooped up the fish and moved it over, adding a bit of loc line for cover.  Again I had to pull the bubbler partially, and it was lying mostly upside down for most of the first half an hour, but after a little longer in the bucket it was able to right itself, and eventually slowly move over to the loc line.  I opted not to do the Safety Stop treatment I wanted to do for every fish given its condition.

 

After a couple hours in this holding bucket, I saw enough activity to suggest that it may have gone through the worst of it (and I could lower the bubbler completely without pulling the fish into it), and since the tank lights were dimming and I had those baskets, I turned off the main flow (just the sump return), scooped up the fish, and transferred it into the basket in the tank with a hiding place, keeping tabs every so often.  While it showed no interest in food, the next morning it seemed to be acting more normally - when I grabbed the loc line to see if it was hiding, I got it halfway out of the water before the fish couldn't hold itself inside anymore by swimming.  So I tipped the basket over next to the rockwork and after a bit the new basslet swam out!  It's been mostly hiding since, and when startled it seems to prefer wedging itself vertically in a crevice which looks quite odd, but I'm hoping it will venture out into the open at least a bit in the next day or two, it's a very pretty fish.

 

The rock anemones all settled in with the flow being off fairly quickly (even the sick one), just placed in the sand at the base of some rockwork, but one stubbornly refused.  I tried burying it in sand (it would dig out and then drift away), covering it with a rock (dig out and drift away), holding it down with a small glass beaker (actually worked overnight, decided to leave the next day), and eventually had success giving it some bits of rubble in the hang on basket while using its lid as a baffle to reduce flow, and in the morning just moving the gravel to the spot I was trying to get it to stay.  So far, so good.  All the anemones are pretty small, the biggest is maybe an inch and a half around, but I'm excited for when they grow in because I've got some great colors!

Finally, I added a millepora frag that came as a 'mystery sps' frag in a package and while it started sticking out its polyps a bit quickly, the yellow goby, which had been using a rhodactis mushroom for a perch, decided to hang out next to it.  It took me a few hours to catch it in the act and realize what was going on - but it managed to eat about 15% of the new frag!  The yellow goby is fairly bold, so I didn't really worry that I wouldn't be able to catch it, but I wanted to act quickly as this shipping stressed frag which may actually want cleaner water than my tank currently offers was being consumed, so I came up with a somewhat unusual plan to catch the goby:

 

It took less than 10 minutes to catch it

[DaJMasta]

Mostly good news at the beginning of this week, parameters seem to be fairly stable (though the nitrates are a tad high at usually 25ppm), but signs are good towards things settling in.  Still have some diatoms, especially on the sand, but the hair algae is starting to be mowed back and the growth is noticeably slower.

 

Probably the biggest good sign - today I watched the mandarin slurp up two whole mysis shrimp!  I'll still be feeding with the pumps off for a somewhat extended period for a while yet, but even though it's not looking as chubby as I would have hoped, those two mysis are probably an hour's worth of hunting pods around the place, and it's great to finally have a confirmation that it's eating prepared foods instead of just a feeding response behavior.  As it was showing interest in food, I was just trying to feed the more active fish more directly, then leaving the pumps off, which meant the mandarin would come out farther in the central area and go up higher on the rocks to forage.  I tried to take advantage of that by putting a little food directly on the rockwork, and it paid off.  If anyone is trying the same with a mandarin that shows a feeding response when foods are added, I actually used a mix of a cube of mysis and half of a very small scoop of freeze dried phytoplankton and a similar amount of reef chili, no idea if it helped the food appear appetizing, but that's what was fed on the day I clearly saw eating.  I seem to generally get the most feeding response from all the fish with Marine Cuisine cubes, but I think once they have some of whatever, they will mostly eat it.

 

Another good sign: the basslet is out and about!  It still very much sticks to the rockwork, but I can usually see its nose sticking out and it's regularly running circles through the cracks and crevices and poking at bits of food in the water column.  After the scare when it arrived and then four days or so of sticking its nose vertically into a crack under the rocks, it's finally come out and looks spirited.  It sort of reminds me of an eel in that it will poke it's head out, sometimes move out, and then retract again, and has a very smooth way of swimming through the turns in the rockwork.

 

That baby urchin, then smaller than a pea, that I made a video of about four weeks ago is now probably larger than a dime including spines, and I know I've got several more (I think four in total), while the camera didn't want to focus with the algae swaying, it's been doing a pretty good cleanup job on the little rock island:

 

Really the only troubling news is in my attempt to find the Banggai cardinal a buddy.  I went to a shop that had several and after trying to determine the sex of mine (a male), I tried as best I could to pick out a female from the group.  I brought it home, did the safety stop dips, and then introduced it, and initially it swam over to the existing one and tried to be buddies, but the bigger one wasn't having it.  A bit of nipping and aggressive behavior and I saw what I thought was a bit of a damaged ventral fin, so I scooped it up and held it in one of those hang-on-the-side containers to give it a chance to rest and eat and try again tomorrow.  Two more attempts later, I got it out before any injuries, but still no acceptance - though today they were in the tank for something like four hours before the aggression became really significant.  You can tell the signs of it before they give chase, as the aggressor will do a bunch of quick, jumpy pulses of movement and will generally turn and face the other fish, which the other fish will definitely recognize as aggressive and react to.  Sometimes they could swim close, but almost always with the new one trailing and the existing one in the front, and even when not nearby, the aggressor seems to be a little less tolerant of other fish and even nips at its reflection in the glass.  I'm working on printing a slightly larger basket with more holes for visibility, in the hopes of getting something like an acrylic acclimation basket, but I'll try to introduce them at least a couple more times.  I wonder if the problem is actually due to age/size.  The new Banggai is substantially smaller, even though I don't think the existing one is fully grown, so I'm wondering that they may fight because of dissimilar size even if they are a male and a female.... and it's been very hard to try and even get a good guess from sexing them with the vent method.  At the very least, the two I have now have opposite jaw and second dorsal fin characteristics, which are supposed to be signs of their sex as well.

Cleaned some green slime out of the Drop 1.2x to let the hair algae grow in better, have a second Reefbreeders RP-M pump on order so I can get a little more flow without sucking things into the side (lower setting per pump) and to get the randomness associated with the two patterns meeting somewhere in the center, but I'll probably try out async pulses as well to see if I can get a nice wave action instead - I think a bit more flow would be a benefit, and while all the edges and back get fairly good flow now, it is very one directional, so the ability to switch that around will be nice.  I've seen some tiny new heads on the star coral that's closest to the light just budding out of the side of existing ones, so while I haven't seen a lot of purple coralline (probably some green), I'm definitely getting calcification, which is again a good sign.  The new rock nems have finally stopped moving around, but they're still small enough to be mostly buried in the sand during the day (and last night a mussel decided to drop on one of them, it will probably relocate again tonight), so I hope to have some proper pictures in the next week.

[DaJMasta]

Little update:

At long last, I think I'm equipment complete (at least for stuff that stays in the tank).  I had the idea to get a second circulation pump for more and more randomized flow some weeks ago, but the first arrived damaged and returning it took a while.  Today I dropped in a second Reefbreeders RP-M on the other side of the tank, set to a similar random schedule as the first, and I'm hoping for:

More flow

More random flow

Changing flow patterns over time

Less suction at the pump heads (lower chance of sucking something important in)

 

Otherwise, I've also designed some media baskets for the e170's media basket tower thing, and filled two of them with MarinePure gems (3 boxes of 90g for 2 baskets full).  Hoping these add some extra filtration capacity and act as a mini fuge/pod breeding ground.  They've actually been the tank for a couple weeks already, but only with one bag of gems, today they are filled.

 

Model available here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4863924

 

Still having some trouble introducing the new cardinal, and I'm wondering if I just haven't been able to reliably sex them yet, will take some pictures and see.  In the mean time, I made one of those hang on acclimation baskets that has bigger holes (more visibility) and a bit more size, and while I don't see a lot of recognition through it from the larger cardinal, it does swim out under it for a bit - it is at least easier to see through, even if not ideal.

 

Model available here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4863927

 

 

Did a 5G water change yesterday too, a proper one, because while I've been doing some smaller ones as I've been removing water for acclimation and dips, I hadn't done a full on agitate-detrius-and-remove sort of water change, and I'll probably do another 5G in a few days to follow up on it.

 

I'd still love to get my cardinal situation sorted, and I'd like a cleaner shrimp and a small cucumber at some point, but I've got fish and corals now and while there's minimal growth, I think I'm getting close to a really good stocking point in the long term.  Let the grow in begin!

[telegraham]

On 4/12/2021 at 8:59 AM, lynn.reef.nerd said:

Wow!! that's a neat basket. Would also be great for nems! 

 

@telegraham check this thing out!

 

I like it!

[DaJMasta]

I've actually used that basket for trying to get a rock nem to finally latch onto something, but instead of grabbing the rock I put in, it grabbed onto the basket.  Not too hard to remove, but since it has some texture from being printed, it's not perhaps as easy as it could be.  In the long term the baskets do attract some algae for the same texture reason, but they offer some flow (more in the more recent one), and either alone or for very low flow by putting a lid in diagonally as a baffle, you can get very low flow in them even a straight shot from a powerhead.

Things continue and are fairly stable in the tank, but no proper FTS as I've still got one of the baskets hanging on the front blocking the view (at least somewhat).  I've caught the larger cardinal and listed him (pretty sure it's two males) in the for sale forum, but with the cardinals separated everything seems like its getting along.  The swissguard basslet gets chased a little by the flame angel, but it seems playful and it always seems to dart away through the rocks and then settle into its new little spot.

I ran into a problem after adding the second powerhead which I didn't forsee.... the tank started warming up.  It stabilized around 81.5F in the warmer room temp for these warmer days and I deemed it too high - but how to reduce the heat in the tank when the heaters aren't even on?  I checked the bottom compartment and it's not coming from there (the thermal camera actually shows the area below the sandbed as being cooler), so it's the combined heat from the powerheads, sump circulation pump, skimmer, and light that are enough to heat the tank more than I want with the elevated ambient (mid 70s vs. low 70s before).  My temporary solution is a 12V computer fan run at 5V across the surface - increasing evaporation quietly means about double the top off water per day, but also drops the temperature a full degree.  In the long term, I think the most savings will come from the skimmer - the default RSK-900 skimmer works well but is a bit noisy and uses a Sicce AC pump that is rated for something like 25W.  Not a giant amount of power, but as AC it's all dumped directly into the tank, so I'm hoping I can get a DC skimmer with a lower power rating to replace it (and reduce my noise).  The Tunze 9004 DC seems perfect for the job and fits in the sump, but it's extremely hard to find stock around, so I'll have my eyes out.  The AC version would still be much lower power, but since the DC version should be quieter and is slightly more powerful and the AC version is rated a little low for this size tank, I'll hold out for it (or go for a Bubble Magus Z6 if someone can confirm that it fits the chamber).  A smaller skimmer, or sliding it over more to the left side, also means I can center my XR15!  The clamp for it has some thickness that bumps into the side of the skimmer cup, so going with a narrower one should let me move it the remaining half inch or so.

 

I've also confirmed that I have two good size pistol shrimp - confirming the two volumes of snaps I generally hear.  The bigger burrow on the right side is actually a mostly white, larger pistol which I finally got a proper view of today while feeding the tank, and the night before I spotted the blue legged one with orange/red body segments around on the left side of the tank under the rocks.

 

That millepora that the yellow goby was snacking on hasn't regained much tissue, if any, but the polyps are extending (actually quite a bit more than the other acro frags) and I'm starting to see it color up somewhat, so it appears to still be healthy.

 

While I see very few of them around after dark (and try to remove the ones I spot), I caught one of those isopods and got it under the microscope.  These things are full of energy and it took a good 15-20 mins to tire itself out running circles in a tiny beaker, but I got some good shots of it despite not knowing what it really is.

 

I also spotted what looked like a polyclad flatworm marching around the tank (for a second time, couldn't catch it the first time), and got it under the microscope too.  I actually dropped in a nerite and cerith and it took no interest, and I haven't seen any damage to corals, sessile inverts, or snails, so I ended up dropping it back in the tank.... but I have a guess as to what it eats - feather dusters.  It actually struck me the day before I caught it that there had been a lot of feather dusters (and a couple spionids) that were entirely absent in the last few days - and this kind of critter could definitely explain it.  It has an amazingly quick and interesting way of moving that looks like liquid just flowing over or around whatever it comes in contact to, and you get the telltale folds sticking up in front as a well as a couple of eyespots.  Again no real ID, but some good video.

 

 

Finally, I was hoping to do daily parameter measurements for the whole first two months, coming up in a week and a half or so.... but my pH test kit ran out a couple days ago.  Only 50 tests and I had used a few getting the freshwater dip to the right place, so I've got a couple days until I can measure it again and I've already missed my first day of parameter measurements.  Still plenty frequent, but it broke my streak.

 

Next up is a new banggai cardinal (and a female this time if I can at all determine the sex of the one I get) to try to make a pair, a small cucumber for the sand bed if I can find one locally, and maybe a cleaner shrimp or two - I like them and it seems like they would be safe to add and easy to accommodate.  Somewhere down the line I'd love to get another fish for the water column, and I'm leaning a little towards either a few blue chromis or a few zebra dartfish - though I see some reports of the zebra dartfish being jumpers, like other dartfish, though this isn't universal.  A little extra movement in the water and some fish that aren't as timid I think will help encourage the others to be out more and give me something nice to admire from a distance while the corals start to grow in.

[DaJMasta]

It's been a bit, more things have happened, and the tank is now two months old, as of today!  What a difference from the first day with water, and it's sort of surprising even to me how much has happened and how much now lives here in such a short time, but I'm looking forward to a much less active pace of changing things - it's basically fully stocked in my eyes, so the priority now turns to regular maintenance, monitoring, and watching the whole thing grow out.

 

From the left:

 

From the right:

 

And a bit of video from the front with the creatures doing their respective things:

 

And a little close up of the acan garden which is still just frags

 

 

The water is a tad dirtier than I'd like (last measured at 40ppm Nitrate, 0.3ppm Phosphate), but I am still getting the skimmer dialed in somewhat and that's slightly higher than the average over the last couple weeks.  I'd like to make a new mount for the skimmer - the one it comes with does work, but having a bracket to hold on the side that is only a bent piece of acrylic and a couple of adjustment screws still weirds me out from a stability perspective (it effectively clamps against the skimmer body, but only using the force of the mount clipping to the body).  Should get it a bit lower in the water to what it claims the ideal depth is, but it has been substantially quieter and lower power than the stock MSK-900.  The water has been clear the whole time, and a few weeks ago the brown in the sand and on things basically just went away on its own.  Since then most of the green algae has been mowed back by inverts or the flame angel, and there's both spreading coralline and just more of the coverage visible.

The fish seem to be getting along, though over the last three weeks or so the flame angel has definitely decided it's the boss.  It will occasionally jump a bit towards one of the cardinals, but mostly just chases the basslet from time to time - which is somewhat entertaining to watch and hasn't yet resulted in a real problem or either seeming particularly stressed.  I've even seen the flame angel turn perpendicular to the orange spot goby when it sticks out of a hole and then slide sideways into it, which seems like bullying in a very unusual way to me.  The rock flower nems are no longer moving around and seem to be growing, so while it still looks bare where they are, when they double in size or so, they should fill in the underside of the rockwork really well.  I see some bumps and changes in color on the SPS corals, but nothing has taken off with growth yet.  The acros still have meh polyp extension, I think somewhat because of the nitrate level, but they are slowly changing color and I've seen some branches start to extend.

I think I had one of the hitchhiker corals die (center, slightly up in the right hand shot), and I'm seeing a little similar bleaching on the little colony on the top.  Not a huge concern, but I was wondering what would do it... I could have spilled some kalk paste when removing anemones, but I'm actually suspecting flatworms.  The healthiest looking colony of it (smaller, top center right in the right hand pic) is just fine, but honestly looks like its covered in flatworms at times - darker, thicker looking flesh.  In any case, I've also heard that some of the antiflatworm products actually just try to make the coral tissue healthier so its natural defenses can work better, and it was on sale this past week, so today is day two of dosing 1mL of KZ's FlatwormStop.  Less than recommended dosage, but it seems like most dose that when as a supplement, and the 500mL bottle will last me almost a year and a half.  Hoping it can beef up the corals a bit and improve the growout of these frags.

I look forward to the last bits of superglue and clean frag plug to start matching the rest of the decor and then get covered with corals!

[DaJMasta]

Some things stay the same, some things start anew, some things go wrong... let's start with the bad news: early last week my mandarin jumped.  She was rarely in the top half of the tank and I never saw her move fast enough in reaction to anything to be able to jump far enough to get over the lid at the top, but it happened sometime over the night and I found her hours later.  Bad way to start the week, but it wasn't long before I decided I really liked that fish, I want to keep one, and that I needed to find a lid.

 

So after looking around at some DIY options (the leader was a polycarbonate sheet with some small printed parts to be a lip just inside the glass so that it could sit flush with the current surface), but I ended up getting the Red Sea DIY mesh lid kit instead.  Basically, I hadn't realized it used aluminum extrusions and it seemed more durable than expected, it was around the same price as the DIY route, and I wouldn't have to worry about salt creep, algae growth, or potential increase of heat or reduction of gas exchange.  Assembly of the lid was pretty simple and while I can tell there's a little more of a static-y look (the grid of edges means you see just a tiny bit of the color fringing on edges from multiple LEDs), and you get this bright layer at the top of the tank when looking from the side, it's been less obtrusive than I had expected, and I am looking forward to getting fish that apparently can jump again.

 

I also remade the mounts for my Ice Cap K1-50 skimmer, one for the silencer to put it lower down and keep it from being attached to the cup that needs to come off for cleaning, and one for the skimmer itself - it came with one that did work, but the mount can't actually hold itself to the side, it relies on the grip on the skimmer body and some adjustment screws to hold it in place and it just seemed like a really lackluster/potentially problematic way to hold the skimmer.  On the off-chance you have the same skimmer, here are the parts: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4884583

 

The skimmer does seem to be a little weaker than I had hoped, but I did go from a 900lph pump to a 200lph pump.  With the mount changing and adding some extra silicone tubing on the input side of the silencer, the skimmer is effectively silent, though, which is fantastic.  I've seen gradually elevating nitrate levels (to about 40ppm, whereas with the previous skimmer it settled around 25ppm), and just a hint of that brown diatom stuff on the sand bed again.  The flame angel is still a tad aggressive, but the other fish seem to be ok, and I've watched some cleaning behavior from the shrimp with the orange spot goby, which was particularly neat.  The rock flower nems have moved around a bit (they definitely like the rock better than the sand, and they definitely like the shade), but not blowing around, so they disappear into the rockwork for a couple days and then reappear a few inches away.

 

 

I'm seeing slightly more growth around, including coralline, and I decided to try and start a dosing regimen going.  I started with 50mL of kalkwasser every other day, and after a bit of trying that with almost no impact on alkalinity and pH in the long term, I upped it to 100mL every day.  Today I did a more complete survey of parameters and mixed up my two part chemicals for the first time, adding a chunk of magnesium, a little alkalinity, and some calcium, as well as picking out target parameters for the tank.  My goals are:

8.2-8.3 pH

5-20ppm Nitrate

0.1-0.25ppm Phosphate

10 dKH Alkalinity

450ppm Calcium

1360ppm Magnesium

These are roughly in line with my chosen salt (Red Sea Coral Pro), and are slightly elevated over normal seawater, but they seem like good choices for growth and possibility of maintaining them there without being drastically outside of the normal range.

 

I swapped all the filters and the DI resin on my RODI as it was producing maybe 6-7ppm TDS water on the output - it wasn't really configured for chloramines so I think it went through the media faster than usual, but I want to keep out the excess stuff added in the top off water especially, so glad to have it done.  Also finally finished my first box of salt, breaking open the second with the intention of doing about a 5g water change weekly, so it should last a while.

 

I went to clean out the Drop 1.2x after waiting a bit and was sort of underwhelmed... it's been like a month with the high flow pump and with an 18h a day light cycle, it really doesn't have much filamentous algae, just a sort of dark mat on the sides.  While I do hope it can do better in the long run, even if not as a huge nutrient soak, I figured I would start something else I've done before to increase skimmate production/thickness on the smaller skimmer and get those nitrates down - carbon dosing.  So I bought a fifth of the cheapest vodka I could find ($7), and dropped in the first milliliter today.  It's a larger starting dose than most recommend, but I remember using several mL a day on a lower volume system the last time I used it, and I added it early enough in the day cycle that cloudyness could be reacted to or offset by photosynthesis, though I observed none.  Will probably stay at 1mL a day for a few days and monitor skimmate, then start raising it maybe 0.5mL every two days until the nitrates are in the right place or I otherwise observe a problem.  I've also been maintaining the KZ Flatworm Stop 1mL a day dose for general coral health (the gradual death of those hitchhiker corals does not seem to have been flatworms, after more observation), so my total dosing chemical set looks something like this now:

Kalkwasser, Flatwormstop, and Vodka daily, with magnesium, calcium, and alkalinity supplements probably weekly or so as tested for.


So despite my desire for things to be more or less constant, they are slowly continuing to change.  At least I think I understand the causes and reasons for the change, and it is more gradual than the past couple of months, for sure.  I'm testing every other day for some basic parameters, but by next month may be testing only (ha) twice a week.

[DaJMasta]

Some videos:

 

 

 

 

For some reason, the twilight hours seem to be the ones when the fish are the most out and about, and when you start seeing the extra polyp extension for the evening start.  If it weren't for the low light conditions, it would be ideal, and I think I'm slowly figuring out the equipment/software I've got to make reasonable quality videos, albeit ones with a single camera position and no audio.

[DaJMasta]

A little update for today:

 

I can't say there's a huge amount of visible growth in the last couple weeks, but there is some and there are some improvements in coloration and such.  Not a lot has changed except for adding some new fish!  I ended up getting a couple of firefish gobies (always liked them, never had a screen top before), and a mandarin to replace the last one which jumped.  Kept the mandarin in a box for a few days to try and verify that it was eating frozen, didn't hold it long enough to see it slurp a full mysis, but I saw him going for other foods and always with a feeding response to the frozen.  May properly write up what I did, but basically by putting him in the basket first thing, he was sort of forced into being around the food added all the time, and since they are shy in new environments, it meant that I could watch him eat without being so visible and intimidating.  I looked for the mandarin that was feeding at the store and saw a food response immediately, but he still isn't 100% on catching the bigger chunks in front of him.  I think mandarins often looking on walls for food more than the ground, so if I had to do it again, I would probably make an inclined bit with ridges to hold falling food for him to forage on and then just add frozen to that.  I've also read that in training them to eat frozen you want it to move like live, and that hasn't been the case at all with either of my mandarins.  They want to hunt around in low (or no) flow and won't even bother with food drifting by their face in most cases - they will position themselves and strike the stationary stuff reliably, so low flow helps keep the food from getting away.

The firefish are fun that they will immediately disappear when frightened, even when just using the algae magnet, but cuddle up together in a little hole under the rock where they sleep.  The flame angel will sort of chase them just a bit, but I can't say it's any more aggression than before, and maybe having a bunch of potential targets lessens the stress on any individual.  The orange spot goby has also made his own burrow under the rock front left and slept in it last night after staying in the back near one of the shrimp dens almost exclusively before.  Not exactly sure why, maybe just being more adventurous, maybe something's up with one of the shrimp.  I still hear clicks, but I haven't seen both of the shrimp clearly for a couple of days.

 

Been gradually increasing my vodka dosing - originally by 0.5mL every other day, now by 1mL every other day, starting at 1mL and currently dosing 5mL a day.  There's a bit more skimmate and it's darker, but I don't see a big impact on nitrates yet, so I'm still ramping it up slowly.  I checked the algae scrubber last week and it had less algae than before.... I'm not going to bother pulling it until my vodka dosing is stabilized, but I'm not so impressed and it hasn't done much.  Tried increasing the photoperiod for it to 22h (recommended for it by the manufacturer), we'll see if that makes a difference.

In a week it will be four months old!  Still no automation (aside from light timers and the pump drivers) but I've been slowly gathering parts and thinking about the design....

[tpallas]

Looks great! I've found dosing vodka impairs my judgment so I try not to mix it with my tank. The love rock is the coolest stuff!

[DaJMasta]

Buying the cheapest vodka you can find certainly helps make sure it ends up in the system and not in the glass

[DaJMasta]

The tank passed four months old on the 4th, so an update is in order!

 

I've been steadily increasing my vodka dosing until 8mL, where I've been at for a few days, as I started seeing my nitrate drop to better levels (10ppm today).  Oddly, my phosphate dropped first (down to 0.03ppm and holding) - a full week before I saw any change in nitrate.  Been battling adjustment of this skimmer, which has probably delayed the nitrate dropping, and things are slightly pissed by that (most notably the monti on the central inside face of the right rock).  While I was initially impressed with the quiet.... it hasn't stayed quiet.  It also hasn't pulled much darker than oversteeped tea color skimmate, and it's sort of prone to overflowing with slight water level changes.  It's more built down to a price than I had realized, and while the original mount was a good example of that, the pump is too.  It's a 200lph airflow pump which is on the low side for the rating, but it's held on to the bottom with a barbed fitting with a silicone sleeve, so it's pretty easy for it to come off when trying to move things around.  I've had louder times, I've had times where there was way lower airflow in the body of the skimmer itself, I've had intermittent loud grinding noises from the pump.... I am not counting on it to hold on, so I have a different one on its way by SR Aquaristatik.  May need some conversion to mount, but a bit higher air and flow rate and variable, so I should be able to tune it down sufficiently to work.  We'll see.

 

The box is in the FTS shot because about a week ago I was looking at the new mandarin and he was looking a little slim and while he was on the hunt when I fed, he didn't seem to know what to actually go after.  So I caught him to train him more fully and I'm starting to see some good results.

This was earlier today, where he decided to go after the biggest chunk of krill in the marine cuisine block I fed, so his mouth was wide open and he was trying to chomp it for a good few minutes - but at least it's a big chunk.  I will write up the method I used in the next few days when I verify that he will go after more, I think it's pretty well thought out and it does seem to be working without too many extra bits.  I did have to feed extra to the tank to make sure there was plenty of food, and I think that's contributing to the prolonged nitrates and probably means I will have to dial back the carbon dosing when that ends, if not sooner.

Otherwise, I am still seeing some growth, am seeing some new diatoms and cyanoalgae both, and have seen a bit of actual hair algae growing in the scrubber, so we'll see how things settle in the coming weeks.  Got some new corals coming in and rearranging things a bit, but I'm hoping to keep my hands mostly out and get going on the controller - got some more parts on order and some more details congealing in my head...

[DaJMasta]

 

He eats!  Now it's time to release the dragonet!