35G Saltwater Reef Journal

[kyle sicard]

Water quality:
PH:8.3
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite's: 0.1 ppm
Nitrates: 0 ppm
Alkalinity: 13.05 DKH/4.65 meq/L
Ca: 380 ppm
Mg: 1500 ppm
Water temp: 80.2 degrees farenheit
SG: 1.024

Working on raising CA and lowering Mg. Keeping eye on nitrites. I do 3 4g water changes weekly for maintence. I do not reccomend adding livestock at this pace.

Went to LFS today to snag a frag rack and phytoplankton for future uses and they ended up giving me 3 small frags, the digita is bleached and thats why they gave it to me. I decided I'll try to revive it. Frag rack is sitting at halfway up the tank due to the corals on it and their previous setting. Very happy I went to the LFS today.

(this is about 20 minutes after they were added)

 

[56jman]

I love free things!!! The corals look good, but SPS already? Why is your nitrite 0.1? Are those pest nems in that pic?

 

[kyle sicard]

View attachment 67743View attachment 67744View attachment 67745

I love free things!!! The corals look good, but SPS already? Why is your nitrite 0.1? Are those pest nems in that pic?

No they are yellow polyps. And I do not recommend adding things at my pace like I said, I have confidence in my ability to upkeep my tank. I'm not sure why my nitrite is 0.1 actually. Other then having accidently trapped some shrimp behind my rock wall a few days ago while trying to target feed my emerald crab. That might be causing it from decay. But it should be down either today tomorrow. Like I said I do 3 4g water changes weekly so I doubt it will be there much longer unless something dies, but everything is looking healthy here's some pics to show. They were taken about 30 minutes after light turned on, so they should look even better as the day goes on. And the orange polyp is recovering nicely (dark splotches are reducing on a daily basis). I'm also hoping my montipora digita recovers, He is extended tho so that's a good sign. Will post todays water quaility later on.

 

[kyle sicard]

More pics

There must be a way to add photos in one large string instead of multiple posts.

 

[kyle sicard]

I need some help identifying if this is a nudibranch or a new growth on the montipora digita. I've been inspecting him up and down for signs and pests to try and figure out why he was bleaching at the store. They claim to treat all corals beofre introducing them but it just seems to easy to think that their MH were simply to intense for the little frag.

It looks similar to a growth on the montipora except its white. It could be a earylstage growth but im not sure. I do know the new growths are white but I'm just trying to be 100% on this one. I'd like to try and save him.

 

[56jman]

IDK But it looks like an animal

 

[kyle sicard]

IDK But it looks like an animal

That's what I was thinking till I poked it with a metal themometer. It's felt very hard and didn't move in the least bit.

No worries. After must research and questioning, I've come to the conclusion it's a simple tubeworm. There is no rtn of the montipora so all pests are ruled out. Yet I will not cast a blind eye on the thought. Will continue to monitor.

 

[kyle sicard]

http/s1252.photobucket.com/albums/hh574/ksicard/?albumview=slideshow

Try copying and pasting this. Its some more updated pics, Just trying to find a more convient way to post them.

Current stocking list, today is the 1 month birthday of my tank. Established on 7/12/12.


16-18 nassarius snails
3 mexican turbos
1 astera
7-10 red/blue legged hermits
1 SLF crab
1 emerald crab
1 coral banded shrimp
1 six line wrasse
1 green button polyp
2 geen star polyp frags (fragged original colony so I can get them to spread in a particular way)
1 orange zoanthid
3 frags of yellow polyps (split original colony so I can get them to spread in a particular way)
3 frags of green button polyps (off of mother colony)
1 green montipora digitata (free frag from LFS ,because it was bleaching under there MH or has a pest that I havent been able to see yet, I keep it on the frag rack for monitoring)
1 trumpet coral or candycane coral

I also have a shipment of fish/corals/light tubes arriving tuesday and wednesday in the shipments I will receive:
1 golden headed sleeper goby
1 orange firefish
1 blue tubbs polyp (gorgeous)
lights 1 25-75 14k aquablue 65w powercompact anda 25-75 superantic 65w 14k powercompact both straight pins.
I also have a orange ricordea mushroom in the shipment but I think that is a poor choice this early on, so I sent an email in trying to change it to a eagle eyed zoa frag. I'm hoping they catch my e-mail in time.
Might be swinging by LFS to look at pumps/wavemakers

Lots of polyps/zoanthids for growing then trading/selling LFS for different corals.

 

[Xraymark]

Nice to see some activity in the salty section. Been a bit quite.

You must like your nassarius snails. LOL. I can't find any in LFS. Impressive stocking. Your tank is looking really well. Have you tried just copy and paste on the image.

 

[kyle sicard]

Nice to see some activity in the salty section. Been a bit quite.

You must like your nassarius snails. LOL. I can't find any in LFS. Impressive stocking. Your tank is looking really well. Have you tried just copy and paste on the image.

As soon as I saw the nassarius snails tank at the LFS I fell in love (I strolled in at feeding time). So I picked up 16 of them and I counted an extra 2 that I have no idea where they came from. And I have so many more plans for this tank and all the corals are mostly baby frags so It's only gonne get better as time goes on. Super excited for the new bulbs and im possibly about to pick up a wavemaker or at least an extra pump for more water flow in a few mins here (depends on the price, that stuff gets expensive!). Yeah but I like to post a lot of pics and I think this is the most convient way for me to not take up to much space and what not, I'll probably just end up re posting the link every time I update it and that way people just tuning in can kinda see it from the beginnings as time goes on if there interested. I also posted some of my journalings in the pics and thats what makes this possible for me at 1 month. There's a lot more to the journal but I didnt wanna post a bunch of pics of highlighted words, I was just giving an general idea of the work I put in.

It's oh so time consuming but creating a journal on your tank is the way to go, it allows you to see trends and figure out why something happened so you can learn from your mistakes and also you can see what made your tank healthy just by going back a week or two and see the things you changed and how it affected the WQ and the lead up to the state of health.

Off to the LFS for this guy, and yeah I know what you mean by QUIET! 4 years back this forum use to be buzzing with people and it seems the population has died off but I thoroughly enjoy the quality of the info from the community and it's why I stick around. I also surf a red sea forum strictly for people with red sea tanks. That's how I came to the conclusion of removing the bio media and doubling my charcoal bags and replacing the bulbs. The one thing that gets me about the 130d model by Red Sea is the stock lights, those bubls are taking away from my experince and viewing, my orange zoa is dulling its colors no matter the placement in the tank (seems to be it hits the orange colors the worst). Its a healthy frag and has grown 4-5 heads in the two weeks its been in my tank yet it continues to loose color despite placement and photoperiod. So thats when I did the research and found non Red Sea bulbs to replace my current ones with. So excited for the 14k 25-75 super antic bulb and the 14k 25-75 aquablue bulb, should make the corals pop and help rectify my color lose issue. (stock bulbs are super antic 50-50 55w power compacts 10k bulbs. I'll stop rambling, I talk or type a lot when in a good mood. BTW I just passed my mcitp exams for windows 7, which is huge for me due to the fact that im 18 years old (and it means I get to sleep again). I'm out take care.

 

[Xraymark]

Congrats on your exams. Yeah keep the Pics coming.

I know what you mean about lighting. I've still got the standard freshwater lighting at the moment on my tank and what few corals I have arn't too keen. I'm waiting on the release of some new LEDs which hopefully will occur within the next month or so.

 

[kyle sicard]

Okay back from the fish store and about to start setup of my new equipment. I got a blue LED strip light so that I can actually see the tank when the so called moonlights are on, along with a timer for it. a korolia circulation pump the 750 GPH model, which seems to be small and compact and I should be able to easily conceal the wiring through the power center. And a 10k t5 powercompact aquablue life to see the color and replace my cracked bulb (I caused the crack). As a replacement bulb till my new bulbs come in. Which could be awhile. I was looking at the UV spectrum of the stock 130D bulbs and they are absolutely terrible compared to the 65w bulbs that fit in the RSM that are 14k bulbs off of reefgeeks.com (great sight btw) will post pics when I have some extra time of the new color.

 

[kyle sicard]

Learned a valuable lesson the other night. I hooked up my wave maker the other night to a different power source then all my other cords for the tank right before bed. I awoke to find my 6 line wrasse dead after displaying healthy signs for 3 days (eating/being active). I quickly checked my water quality and it came out to be perfect, I was dumbfounded and opened up my journal to see the changes I've made to the tank in the past 3 days. They were adding another bag of charcoal that I soaked before hand, setting up my new LED stunner, and setting up my wave maker. It couldn't have been the charcoal, so I checked all the wiring of the stunner strip and the wave maker. The wave maker was plugged into an outlet that had stray currents going threw out it, I could physically feel the current if I touched the outlet. I re wired it to a different power source and the issue is now rectified. Lesson learned that came with heartbreak. Trial and error is the best way to learn things in this hobby but oh what a b**ch it is.

 

[56jman]

Sorry to hear that, I can't stand losing a fish to a simple mistake It's terrible to lose snything in this hobby. I get really sad when a 40 cent hermit dies

Been looking at your pics, your tank is coloring up very nicely, lots of corals *needs to run by the LFS to get some*

Good job

 

[kyle sicard]

Yeah it wasn't a good feeling, I really liked the little guy. But it taught me a great lesson and possibly saved me a lot of future deaths if I would have left it plugged in.

Thanks though, polyps/zoanthids are cheap, easy to find, and not to mention very pretty. I got some new stuff but I've been pretty busy lately, I'll post them sometime this week. Probably once my shipment comes in so I can show off my new bulbs haha.