Cali Kid Corals

In the beginning...

I took the skimmer apart and cleaned it. It ended up being pretty clean and didn't really need it but I'd never done it before so it was worth it to see how it all comes apart. It's still running at 71w. I remember it being less but not by much, maybe 50w. It is used so maybe the pump is on its way out. Maybe I should get one of the red dragon DC pumps to have on standby. They're just so darn expensive.

Bearing might be going bad. They sell replacements I believe.

Give silef on RC a pm and ask.


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For some more exciting news, I've got 3 purple firefish and 3 lyretail anthias in TTM right now. Usually I only feed on the last day (3rd) before transferring but I know the anthias like to eat several times a day. Should I try to feed them more often than every 3 days?
I would. I still feed everyday normally, and when I ttm'd my anthias I fed twice a day, progressively more to the transfer day. Transfer day I fed like crazy. TTM is already pretty stressful I'd imagine for the fish -- why make it more stressful?


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Depends on if the fish will eat. Most stressed fish will not eat. Uneaten food will foul the water and we have no biological filtration during TTM.

Yes you can use prime for ammonia but I like to keep the water as clean as possible. I do feed on transfer day. Sometimes the fish have calmed down enough to eat. Sometimes they don't. But they will be going into fresh water next so it doesn't matter.


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All my fish ate as they went through ttm. The slowest to come around were my lyretails, but after a couple days they were loving the mysis. And yes, the water got nasty, especially with the tangs and nori...but I figure I wanted to fatten em up in TTM before introduction into gen pop. I had heard that anthias needed frequent feedings, so I tried to give that to them in TTM. Used prime on the second and third day but don't think I had to. My ammonia badge didn't get close to worrisome.


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For some more exciting news, I've got 3 purple firefish and 3 lyretail anthias in TTM right now. Usually I only feed on the last day (3rd) before transferring but I know the anthias like to eat several times a day. Should I try to feed them more often than every 3 days?
If they are all in a 5G bucket, probably risking ammonia buildup.
My suggestion would be to transfer every 2 days, and feed lightly the middle day.
 
I figured I should probably start one of these since I don't have one for my 30 gallon tank and I want to make sure I keep a journal for this one.

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This is my LeeMar 120 that I got in a trade with @Vhuang168 for a stand I made him for his 190.

I'm currently building a stand for it so it's not just sitting on the floor in my living room

View attachment 4644 This is it in pieces. 3/4" quarter sawn walnut plywood.

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This is the stand partially assembled. It has. 2x4 structure to help with support but I think the plywood would have been enough.

Yes, yours is exactly the same footprint as mine! I love how shallow yours is, as I can barely reach the bottom of my tank even when I am on a platform designed to access 9 foot ceilings. But it is nice to have a total of 200 gallons with my sump. Awesome sump!

BTW, thanks for the offer to help with cutting my light hangers. I was able to drill and cut to the right length with my Dremel and put up my light fixture today. Will post photos on my tank journal.
 
I introduced the 3 lyretail anthias and 3 purple firefish to the tank yesterday and everyone seems to be doing good. I have one firefish that is much more timid than the other 5 and spends most of its time out of sight. We haven't picked up on their uniqueness yet so we've just decided to name the anthias Starbursts and the firefish Skittles.

I'm still working on the lid. I'm just praying they don't get spooked and jump out until I get it on.

I've got to admit that I had never been really a fan of anthias but they've got a great personality and are quite graceful when they swim. All three of them are female. How long do you think it will take for one of them to turn male?

In other news I moved my paletta pink tip (I think that's what it is, I have some doubts) to the highest spot in the tank which is also directly under one of the AP700's pucks. I haven't measured par yet but I'm guessing that's the highest spot. I ended up moving him about 12 hours before my RBTA decided to move right to its newly vacated spot.

Lastly, @sp408 gifted me an orange spotted goby (thank you very much). I received him the day before the others came out of TTM so I was able to start it with its own TTM. It went straight into a formalin dip and is doing its first round of TTM where I do prazipro.
 
It's probably better they're all female (for now). My Bartlett male is such a bully. Keeps the female bartletts in their place, and keeps any of my three lyretail females from changing. I don't think it takes that long to change. He started changing during TTM for me and became much more pink within the first couple weeks.


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It's been a while since I've given an update. Things are going fairly well. No major issues. I caught my alk around 7.6 the other day so I've been manually dosing that up to the 9.0 range where I try and keep it. I think I may have to start up the CaRx soon.

I find it strange that some of my corals are doing well and thriving and others are struggling. My pc rainbow was growing great in my 30 gallon but has had a hard time in this new tank. I had increased my lighting schedule slightly and it colored up a bit so slowly increased it more and tonight it was expelling zooxanthellae. It is such a challenge to try and keep everything happy. I love the challenge though.

I've got a little bit of algae still in the dt that I can't quite get rid of. Primarily around my clam.
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My wife says it looks like some female genitalia that needs a shave. I've got to agree. I ran out of pellet food and have been feeding only frozen for the last couple weeks to see if that may have anything to do with it but no luck so far. I think I'll switch out my phosguard next and see if that helps. Oh, and I've started to see a small amount of cyano too.
 
Test for phosphates at all? I think you are on the right track with maybe back off on the lights or at least no more increasing for awhile and new phosphate media.
What's the main difference from the 30 to this tank? Lighting?
 
Phosphates were at .05 on 4/18 (Hannah). I think part of the reason the cyano is showing up because my nitrates have been undetectable since introducing the chaeto.

I'm not quite sure what the major difference is between the 30 and this one. There are a lot of things that are the same but different. I still have a sand bed but different coarseness. I still have rock but this is mostly Fiji instead of the Real Reef rock. The lighting that I had was LED and fairly strong for a 30 gallon, just a different brand. The biggest difference has been my introduction of my refugium with the chaeto. It wasn't unusual to see nitrates in to 20-40 range on my 30 but I wasn't seeing any adverse effects of it so I didn't bother trying to bring it down. So in terms of water chemistry, my 30 had much "dirtier" water.
 
I was having GHA and cyano issues even though I was seeing 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates using Salifert and Hanna Phosphate checker (I did eventually measure phosphates once I got the Hanna Phosphorus checker - it always meseaured less than 0.012). I have bio-pellets, gfo, carbon, and chaeto running.

For me, I believe it was because I did not have enough flow from my return pump and my nutrient export methods weren't touching the water enough so it couldn't out compete the GHA and algae for the nutrients. Once I roughly doubled my flow and added turbo snails my GHA is almost gone (I have to actually search it out to actually find some). Cyano is still a minor issue, but not nearly as bad. This is all theory in my head, but I didn't change anything else except flow increase and turbo snails before I started seeing changes.

Might not be your problem, but something to explore.
 
The difference is you had a high light high nutrient condition in the 30. Now you have a high light low nutrient condition. Your corals need time to adapt to the new conditions.


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Time for an update. I bought some chemiclean to take care of the cyano. It did a great job.
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This was it when I first id'd it as cyano. What I didn't realize is that there was much more throughout the tank but wasn't red. It was more brown and more splotchy. After using the chemiclean, it cleared it all up and the corals that weren't already dying are now looking much better. My pc rainbow started rtn'ing the day before I treated the tank and was gone before the end of the treatment (48hrs). I have also noticed more activity from the other livestock. My fighting conch had retreated to my eel cave for several weeks. I kind of thought she was going in there to find a place to die. With the cyano gone she immediately came back out.

I don't think it's related but had added an orange spotted goby to the tank weeks ago and had not seen it once since adding him, but with doing the 20% WC (part of the chemiclean treatment) I saw him for the first time.
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I don't think I mentioned it in this thread but my RBTA split again too. I don't really like the idea of having two nems in the tank, but the rest of the family wants to keep both of them.
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