Jestersix

Tank Journal

iCon

iCon

Supporting Member
BARcard
Since it's the cool thing to do, I'm giving into peer pressure and setting up a tank thread. I don't have any recent pictures, but these are from about a month ago...

Tank 1: 46 AGA, T5s, remora, blablabla

I started this tank a little over two years ago. Getting into the hobby, I thought: No way, I'm not going to do corals. Too expensive. Need stronger lights. Too much upkeep...Dosing? No. Paying attention to dKH, Ca, pH...NAH.. So I set the tank up as a FO. Not sure how much LR, maybe 50-60lbs...

Original inhabitants: (I honestly don't know all of these Latin names, but I do know a few. Added them in for all so I can learn them and so you can too.)
1. Flame Angel c. loricula
2. Sixline Wrasse p. hexataenia
3. Copperband Butterfly c. rostratus (Died after 7 months...I think it died right after I was telling someone how lucky I was to have one that was eating and doing well)
4. Royal Gramma g. loreto
5. Pygmy Yellowtail Angel c. flavicauda
6. 1 Cleaner shrimp l. amboinensis
7. There were a couple of random butterfly fish but they only lasted for a month at a time...unfortunate.

(oh, and two clownfish...how could I forget?)

Additions:
Red Mandarin p. splendidus (in tank ~ 5 months)
Cleaner shrimp l. amboinensis (had some disease and killed my original along with it)
2 Cleaner shrimp l. amboinensis (in tank ~ 5 months)
Coral banded shrimp s. hispidus (in tank ~ 5 months..Should have never put it in)

Somewhere along the line, one of my friends said: Hey, why don't you try some coral...and that sealed the deal..
Frogspawn, anthelia, xenia, gsp, mushrooms, zoos/palys, you name it...beginner common stuff went into the tank. Apparently something was going well and everything grew like mad. About a year ago, got sick of all the 'weed' corals and ripped them all out...Everything but the frogspawn because heck, I was proud to have grown 12 heads into 40+ in less than a year...Added in other corals

Grow, grow, grow, grow blablabla. 2010. OH! There was a tank leak somewhere in all of this. Had everything sitting in a 10g and some buckets for about 2 weeks...I have to find pictures of this. EVERYTHING made it.


Someone's breaking down a tank and things need a home. Add it to the old one? Nope...Don't want to mess up what was working in either system...Another 46 comes into play. Aquatinics 2x175. ER RS-180? 1260 return. eshopps overflow because couldn't get the tank drilled in time. ETC. This tank went up in less than a week. I think it took 5 days from getting the new 46 through my door till everything going in. Water, LR, fish, corals...EVERYTHING. Crash course no joke. They said it couldn't (and shouldn't, which I still agree with) be done but I made it work...with some help. ;)

So what's in here...Well, check the pic.
no fish, except 4 chromis. There was a sixline but it killed everything (new inhabitants and old) except the chromis. Crocea and maxima clams

Corals..
Purple gorgonian
Purple, green, orange caps/digis
Purple "cat's paw" ... I assume it's a digi but not sure... Side note...These common names are kinda annoying, especially when there's more than one.
Pink birdsnest
Green birdsnest...forgot the special name for it
Unknown purple and blue acro
Ponape birdsnest
Christmas favia
Red/green favites
Rainbow monti
Prism favia
Tyree war coral
Aquatic Collections war coral
Orange fungia
Pink lobo ... not sure exactly which genus/species but one of you could verify
Toadstool
Duncans
Random zoas. Nuc greens, ppe's, reds, oranges, etc.
Couple of yumas

I think that brings my tanks up to date..for the most part. Caught the damn sixline so I'm slowly adding new inhabitants. Most recently, a pseudochromis fridmani. This is an awesome fish. My sixline killed the original one I had. Shredded it's fins and all...

Point & shoot.. No photoshop/iphoto etc. Waiting for the 100mm macro to come in. Pics below are a little old and there's new stuff in there. Some acans, etc. Too many changes to update but this is enough for one night! Thanks to swsig for pushing me over the edge to make this thread. I suppose it'll help me track DBTCs and the likes. I'm content but not super happy with my tanks. Always something to do differently/better. However, I've decided not to put anymore money into hardware for these tanks (although I will) and instead, to start saving and planning for my 200g in-wall (which will probably be a product of ideas drawn from all your tanks). Whenever that might be....

________________________________________________________________________

Here's the set up. Sump is outside of the new tank because the stand didn't have space under it. The other one did but...Anyhow, it's outside. (I hate this enough to upgrade.) Hanging light fixture is no longer there. That only lasted about 2 weeks
4583385178_229434f9b5.jpg


Most recent pic. Probably a month or two ago. Tank is under Ushio 10ks. Only 'supplement' is the LED strip that comes on at night. The cheapie computer ones from ebay... Can't wait to get radiums or phoenix
4582757397_7cf95c8054.jpg
 
Thanks! Sorry....You could have skipped to the pictures =]. That makes up for the 100 posts I didn't make over the last couple of years.

Leaning toward 14k because I still want a good amount of growth, hence the 10ks. I do like the blue though.


Current question/concern (if you managed to read this far)

I'm dosing 2 part ESV and can't keep the dKH above 7/8. I dose enough to bring it to 10/11 but when I check a day or two after, it's back to ~7. Just the rate of absorption or is there a reason I can't maintain dKH ~10/11? Ca is around 420-440..Mg issue?
 
Will upload the new frags I got from John, Sergio and Mark. Thanks again guys.



Current concern. I have a frag of Tyree War Coral which has started showing signs of tissue recession. I've had the frag for about 2 months and it looked like it was doing well until now. Checked water parameters and everything seems fine. Recession started on the backside of the frag and over the course of a week, has started appearing in each of the individual eyes throughout the frag. (blotchy patches of recession) It is in the same general location as a frag of the AC War Coral and that one is doing really well. Full extension every night, new eyes forming etc. The two frags are in same general proximity but never touch.

Any thoughts on what might be wrong???

Suggestions thus far:
1. Pests - Everything has come from pest free tanks and the most recent frags came from 3 of the nicer tanks on this site. I also dip with TPMCC...
2. Parameters - Checked on Saturday and everything seemed fine..Will check again...
3. Stinging - It is closest to a toadstool and from what I could see, was stinging the toadstool at night...Toadstool would retract so I'd assume the WC was doing the stinging and not getting stung.
4. Lighting - But it's on the same level and in the general vicinity as the AC war coral which is doing fine...Too much/little light for this specific WC???
5. Too freshly cut - Would have died a while ago.
 
I had the same problem with War Coral (from the BAR swap) and it was low Alk for me. Now that I have a new tank and do regular waterchanges and add kalk - it looks puffy and tentacles at night are very extended.
 
zepplock said:
I had the same problem with War Coral (from the BAR swap) and it was low Alk for me. Now that I have a new tank and do regular waterchanges and add kalk - it looks puffy and tentacles at night are very extended.
Click to expand...


Hmm...If it were a water parameter, wouldn't it affect more corals (ie. other War Coral) rather than just one? Alk is pretty constant at 7-8... I dose it up to 11 but it falls back to 7 within two days. Might need more frequent dosing?
 
Could be Mag, what did it test out at? LPS are usually my first ones to get cranky when my mag is low. It could just as easily be something picking on it.

Also if you are dump dosing and swinging from 11-7, you really should do it more frequently otherwise it is a big shock at one time. Probably not your issue but one that may create issues in the future.
 
I don't think alk is the issue, although it is very well a possibility.
Fluctuations in alk do not always manifest themselves as problems in all the corals in our tanks at the same time; some corals are just not as tolerant of alk swings as others.

But even then ... don't chase numbers too much.

That said, sometimes corals and frags and what have you may begin to go South due to reasons outside our control. It happens, unfortunately. Many of us have lost frags without an explanation -it's not a good feeling either.
 
Nope no tank in my bathroom.... not yet. My tank is in the link at the end of my post.

2 of my better investments were dosing pumps and an auto top off. I can have my tank dose now 5x per day and not have to worry about having to be burdened with having to do it manually. The added stability has done wonders for my livestock.

Glad to hear about the war coral looking better. Mag is a little low for my taste but not problematic by any means.You had me worried there for a little bit with a big swing like that. A 4 point swing almost in a very short period of time can be majorly stressful.
 
Thx Bryan

Parameters:

Ca - 420
pH - 8.2
dKH - 9
Mg - 1200

Did some double checking and it turns out I wasn't dosing the alk up to 11. To date, dosage has only been bringing it from 7 to 8/9. Not sure where 11 came from. Might try to bump this up to 10+. And/or maybe it's time to get an automatic dosing system. It'd probably be worth more than the rest of my tank..HAH! Just an investment for the future I suppose...Hmm

On another note - Yesterday, dipped the war coral in the tester tube of Coral Rx that came from Baymac and it 'seems' like the tissue recession has stopped. The sweeper tentacles looked like they were starting to poke their way back out. Hopefully this helped?
 
That was Jon's (JAR) tank with the window in the bathroom :)

I'd bump that mag up :)
 
Hah - I sucked it up and flipped through your thread to see if it was yours. Apparently I hadn't seen it yet...Really nice job. Nice work on the stand and you have a pretty damn nice collection of corals.

Which ATO and which set of dosing pumps? I picked up a cheap JBJ ATO which will do the trick for now.
 
Nothing wrong with JBJ's I use one. Personally I use Drews Dosers from BRS with my controller timing the doses. I actually use 3 of them (have one for MG too) but my tank consumption is pretty high. I go through about a gallon of CA and ALK every week and a half and a gallon of Mag about every 2 weeks or so.
 
GreshamH said:
That was Jon's (JAR) tank with the window in the bathroom :)

I'd bump that mag up :)
Click to expand...


Ahhhh. Jon, that's right. Between the Bria(y)n's and Jo(h)n's on BAR, sure had me confused.


What's a good target for Mg? 1300+?
Thx Gresh
 
seminolecpa said:
Nothing wrong with JBJ's I use one. Personally I use Drews Dosers from BRS with my controller timing the doses. I actually use 3 of them (have one for MG too) but my tank consumption is pretty high. I go through about a gallon of CA and ALK every week and a half and a gallon of Mag about every 2 weeks or so.
Click to expand...




Your tank is also ~5x larger than mine...for now...(ok, maybe for a long while.) I'm currently using ESV...Which seems like it's just "ok"... What's your opinion of the BRS stuff? I'm assuming that you use it for Ca/alk/Mg dosing. Is it worthwhile for a small system like mine or is it easier to just keep using ESV 2pt?
 
seminolecpa said:
Not all of us can spell our names the right way :)

I keep my mag between 1300-1350.
Click to expand...


Hah. Well, considering 4 of the first tank threads I flipped through were Jon, John, Bryan and Brian...I will not feel bad.
 
They are honestly all about the same. The big difference is the savings from mixing it yourself. You can also get the bulk mixes locally at places like Neptune or Aquatic Collection.
 
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