300 Gallon Disaster Reboot

[Chris_ATX]

1 hour ago, Sascha D. said:

The jawfish that I've had in the past nearly disappear for a week and then emerge with a full den. The pearly eventually relocated to center of the tank, facing the glass, where I feed. Did you add them directly to the tank or did you quarantine them first? The draw to DD is that they supposedly observe their fish for diseases and make sure they are eating before shipment. They don't treat the fish unless it's showing signs of disease, so they're not ich free. Some people have said they doubt the observation period even happens at all, but I've never received a bad fish from Diver's Den. I normally buy fish that don't quarantine well from Diver's Den, but I haven't had good luck QTing lately and I may just buy them all there. 

I just added them straight to the tank. I haven’t seen any signs of ich or internal parasites.

I built a home for my jawfish. When adding him I just held the net over that spot until he went in. Has been there for about 3 weeks now.

[Sascha D.]

I just added them straight to the tank. I haven’t seen any signs of ich or internal parasites.
I built a home for my jawfish. When adding him I just held the net over that spot until he went in. Has been there for about 3 weeks now.

Cool idea! Did you drill into the PVC or just the Shell? I've tried to use cut PVC for gobies and jawfish, but they don't stay for more than two weeks.

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[Chris_ATX]

31 minutes ago, Sascha D. said:

Cool idea! Did you drill into the PVC or just the Shell? I've tried to use cut PVC for gobies and jawfish, but they don't stay for more than two weeks.

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I drilled a whole in the pvc also.

[Dustin Pedretti]

9 hours ago, Chris_ATX said:

I just added them straight to the tank. I haven’t seen any signs of ich or internal parasites.

I built a home for my jawfish. When adding him I just held the net over that spot until he went in. Has been there for about 3 weeks now.

m

That's brilliant! I'm going to have to incorporate this when I get to this point. 

 

 

Its cool to see you trying again. I just went through all 7 pages (I skipped the ones about the super bowl though...). 

[Sascha D.]

Test results have been pretty stable since setting the gas and effluent without regard for the pH reading in the reactor chamber. I've been testing several times a week for the last month and I'm going to move on to weekly testing. I completed a full mark up of tests this evening using the method in parenthesis. I wasn't able to test PO4 but I anticipate it's slightly elevated due to the Nitrate and Ammonia results. There is also a little film algae growth on the sand normally indicated phosphates. I'm going to increase my skimming to slightly more wet and see if I can pull some stuff out. 

• Salinity (refractometer) - 1.025
• pH (API) - 8.2
• Ammonia (API) - 0.00-0.25
• Nitrite (API) - 0.00
• Nitrate (API) - 0.00-0.25
• Alkalinity (Hanna) - 154 ppm or 8.62 dKH
• Calcium (API) - 480
• Magnesium (Salifert) - 1350

 

 

 

 

[Sascha D.]

I don't normally buy new livestock unless it's on sale, but I've been feeling so good about the tank lately that I decided to give it a go! I had been waiting for a Christmas Wrasse to come in stock for several months. The last three were gone before I could fill my cart and checkout! It must have been a really lucky day because I filled my cart with three items off of my wish list and that almost never happens. Usually one item comes in stock and everything else I want is sold out. I also picked up a Cleaner Wrasse and a Grape Coral (Euphyllia cristata) that's purple with gold tips and a pincushion urchin to get free shipping. I first saw grape corals about a year ago and they're becoming more available now with different colors. It's a branching euphyllia like any other, but with a little different polyp structure than hammers, frogspawn, and torches. I've added some stock pictures below for reference. 

I've purchased these fish from Diver's Den because I've had a horrible success rate with quarantine over the last year. Some people that I believe to be knowledgeable on the subject have said the problem is caused by wholesale practices. I don't know enough about it to know for sure, but I don't want to waste money on fish that may die. Diver's Den supposedly puts all of their fish in observation, adjusts them to aquarium life and treats as necessary. My aquarium already has Ich and I'm not concerned with the parasite. What I'm trying to prevent is something more serious that could kill my established fish. Diseases like Marine Velvet and Brooklynella can wipe out a system in as little as two days. You can read more about diseases and see what they look like in this Beginner's Guide to Quarantine Tanks. I haven't had any problems with fish from DD (so far!) and I hope that my luck continues. After four days the Cleaner Wrasse has adapted well and eats everything I've put into the aquarium. The Christmas Wrasse disappeared for the first three days as wrasses often do. I saw him yesterday for about an hour before he disappeared again. I once had a Leopard Wrasse disappear for the first seven days and emerge in good health, so I'm not in panic mode yet, but it's getting close.  I'll see if I can get some good pictures once the fish and corals adapt to my system. 

[FarmerTy]

I don't normally buy new livestock unless it's on sale, but I've been feeling so good about the tank lately that I decided to give it a go! I had been waiting for a Christmas Wrasse to come in stock for several months. The last three were gone before I could fill my cart and checkout! It must have been a really lucky day because I filled my cart with three items off of my wish list and that almost never happens. Usually one item comes in stock and everything else I want is sold out. I also picked up a Cleaner Wrasse and a Grape Coral (Euphyllia cristata) that's purple with gold tips and a pincushion urchin to get free shipping. I first saw grape corals about a year ago and they're becoming more available now with different colors. It's a branching euphyllia like any other, but with a little different polyp structure than hammers, frogspawn, and torches. I've added some stock pictures below for reference. 

I've purchased these fish from Diver's Den because I've had a horrible success rate with quarantine over the last year. Some people that I believe to be knowledgeable on the subject have said the problem is caused by wholesale practices. I don't know enough about it to know for sure, but I don't want to waste money on fish that may die. Diver's Den supposedly puts all of their fish in observation, adjusts them to aquarium life and treats as necessary. My aquarium already has Ich and I'm not concerned with the parasite. What I'm trying to prevent is something more serious that could kill my established fish. Diseases like Marine Velvet and Brooklynella can wipe out a system in as little as two days. You can read more about diseases and see what they look like in this Beginner's Guide to Quarantine Tanks. I haven't had any problems with fish from DD (so far!) and I hope that my luck continues. After four days the Cleaner Wrasse has adapted well and eats everything I've put into the aquarium. The Christmas Wrasse disappeared for the first three days as wrasses often do. I saw him yesterday for about an hour before he disappeared again. I once had a Leopard Wrasse disappear for the first seven days and emerge in good health, so I'm not in panic mode yet, but it's getting close.  I'll see if I can get some good pictures once the fish and corals adapt to my system. 

Nice fish!

I've never heard of a grape coral. Pretty cool!

Talk to Juiceman, he got velvet from a DD fish. Nothing is safe anymore! Velvet is everywhere!

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Did you grab that 10% sale last night on LA? I almost went for it, but then I don't know if I'll be home the rest of this week or not so I opted out. Good find!

[Sascha D.]

13 minutes ago, FarmerTy said:

Nice fish!

I've never heard of a grape coral. Pretty cool!

Talk to Juiceman, he got velvet from a DD fish. Nothing is safe anymore! Velvet is everywhere!

LA started having the captive grown grape available approximately 3-4 months ago. It's purple with purple tips and here's a link to it.   ORA has been getting into the LPS game the last few years as well. I got an ORA Micronesian Torch about a year ago (left).  That thing is bullet proof too! It's survived all three of my crashes but the color isn't as vibrant as it once was. I think the next one I get will be the ORA Micronesian Hammer (right). The colors in these pictures is always exaggerated, but I'm hoping for a nice shade of pink. 

[Sascha D.]

39 minutes ago, Gig 'em @ NDstructible said:

Did you grab that 10% sale last night on LA? I almost went for it, but then I don't know if I'll be home the rest of this week or not so I opted out. Good find!

Nah, I thought about it but 10% off $179 is a pretty weak coupon from them. If it were 20% off then I may have tried to put an order together. Last Wednesday I called them to make sure they were shipping on Thursday for a Friday delivery.  I received this shipment when I had off from work on Good Friday. I'm glad that I had off because the package arrived at 9:30 a.m.! At least they didn't send it to Petco this time!

[Sascha D.]

I'm happy to report that the Cleaner Wrasse and Christmas Wrasse are doing great! Two more fish off of my stocking list! These little fishes in 350 effective gallons adds next to zero bioload and I'm feeding the same amount as before. I currently have 17 fish in the aquarium, with plans to add two more in April or May. I also need to rehome two damsels and sell a bunch of corals. Speaking of corals, I found some time today to frag up that colony of birdsnest that receded after my last crash. This is my first shot at making a real video, so don't judge me too harshly. 

 

[Vernon Saunders]

Glad to hear the success with the wrasses.

[Sascha D.]

10 hours ago, Vernon Saunders said:

Glad to hear the success with the wrasses.

It's too bad they're not going to last long after I get that dragon on DD. I hope they're fast swimmers! The fish store in Hawaii used to get these in once or twice a month. Those teeth are super gnarly in person, like rip the meat off of your hand kind of sharp. Beautiful, but much too expensive for me. 

[Sascha D.]

The reef is doing well and rebounding nicely on most accounts. All of the SPS are thriving or on the way to recovery except the few Acropora that I've kept as tester pieces. Alkalinity has been stable over the last two months. It looks like the Biopellets have come online because Nitrates are testing at <5 ppm. Ammonia is still registering < 0.25 ppm and I'm estimating the color at about 0.15 ppm. 

 

I haven't added or changed any equipment over the last two months other than skimming relatively wet. I've been noticing an increase in film algae growth on both the sand and glass. No cyano or hair algae. Does anyone have any ideas?

7/1/16 

2/4/18 

4/27/18 

[FarmerTy]

Looks nutrient starved Sascha.  How much biopellets are you running?  How much fish are in the tank?  How much are you feeding?

[Juiceman]

My thoughts also. Dark=too much nutrients. Light = not enough

[Sascha D.]

I'm running 1/4 cup bp in approximately 370g water volume. The output is roughly 40 ml per minute fed directly into the protein skimmer. 

17 fish, all LE 3" except 1. I plan to add 5-10 more in the next two months. 

Feeding 1 cube of frozen, 1 pinch of spectrum, 0.5 ml Selcon, 0.5 ml Vitachem once daily. Feeding 1 scoop of Coral Frenzy twice weekly. Feeding 1 sheet of Nori three times weekly. 

3-21-16 

2-6-17

4-27-18

[Juiceman]

I feed like 3 cubes a day (I mix and freeze into ice cubes so I’m not sure) plus pellets at a separate time and I run way more pellets than you. I’d say feed your fish more and your corals will Benifit.

[Cdklos]

What are pellets?

[Juiceman]

23 minutes ago, Cdklos said:

What are pellets?

New life Spectrum Pellets in an Auto Feeder.

[Sascha D.]

19 hours ago, Juiceman said:

I feed like 3 cubes a day (I mix and freeze into ice cubes so I’m not sure) plus pellets at a separate time and I run way more pellets than you. I’d say feed your fish more and your corals will Benifit.

How many fish do you have? I used to feed more with the same set-up but I got a lot of GHA and cyano. Right now there's a considerable amount of algae on the sand, but that could be an imbalance between nitrates and phosphates. Do you think feed more or remove filtration? 

[Reburn]

Big changes really fast works for me.

remove filtration, feed more, add fish

 

 

[Juiceman]

I have about 15 I think?

3 hours ago, Sascha D. said:

How many fish do you have? I used to feed more with the same set-up but I got a lot of GHA and cyano. Right now there's a considerable amount of algae on the sand, but that could be an imbalance between nitrates and phosphates. Do you think feed more or remove filtration? 

I have about 15 I think? I wouldn't remove filtration, just feed more and give your system time to adjust.

[Juiceman]

On ‎4‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 9:47 AM, FarmerTy said:

Nice fish!

I've never heard of a grape coral. Pretty cool!

Talk to Juiceman, he got velvet from a DD fish. Nothing is safe anymore! Velvet is everywhere!

YUP! Got Velvet from DD! I tried that last time before I had to go Fishless. EVERYTHING was from DD, no non "QT'd" Fish. Still got Velvet... SMH.

I would still observe for at least two weeks in a QT, then move just to be sure.

[Sascha D.]

11 hours ago, Reburn said:

Big changes really fast works for me.

remove filtration, feed more, add fish

 

 

Haha that figures! The only filtration that I'm using is BP and a protein skimmer. If I remove the reactor, then I may need to add it back when I hit my full stocking list. I'll start by doubling the feeding and see how it goes. I might need to add some CUC to take care of uneaten food.