Tank Maintenance

Well, I've had quite the algae problem with my tank lately. It seems I've been overfeeding my Clowns and causing excess nutrients which in turn fed a colony of cyanobacteria in my display tank. Hmmm, cyano-what? Yep, the notorious red slime algae that's not an algae. It's a bacteria that can easily take over your tank and it's quite unsightly. Anyway, I noticed this about 2 weeks ago, since then I've been feeding sparingly and doing a 15% water change every other day. I blasted most of it off my rock with a turkey baster and with the addition of Chemi-Pure in the fuge area I haven't seen it come back although some still remains in the sand bed unfortunately, but it isn't growing anymore thank goodness!

This last Saturday I've added some Cheato algae to the refugium to compete with the nuisance algae in the display tank. I've also killed the lights all day Sunday after reducing the light cycle from 9 hours to 7 all last week. Hopefully this has helped out, we'll see tomorrow! I'll be posting pics as well.

Hydor Korali Nano Powerhead

Well, last week I picked up a Hydor Korali Nano powerhead for the tank, I decided to go with the flow of the factory pump but I may change it up a bit later on. I really like this thing and it hits the dead spots in the tank with ease.

My corals are doing ok, the Candy Cane coral is looking a little sad today but Saturday night it had its feeders out full force to the point where it looked like a little anemone. I have it anchored near the top, about 4 inches from the surface. The Zoas are doing great, they open up all the way now and seem fairly happy. The SPS is still doing fine where I put it a few days ago. The Galaxy coral is off by itself and is still rather small but I don't want to risk it stinging any other nearby corals because those can stretch further than you'd think. I added a turbo snail last week and it has been doing much better than expected in getting rid of that hairy algae, most of it is gone!

I've actually started to see coralline growing near the bottom of my tank on the glass and a few spots in the substrate. That's a good thing! Need to maintain top off water with the calcium and alkalinity so the coralline doesn't use it all up.

I plan on checking the parameters again this evening after work and doing another water change this week, probably on Wednesday if everything is ok.

Here are a few pictures of the tank recently:

Another Update!

So the tank seems to be coming along nicely, I got a pair of clowns and a few new corals. Hope everything continues to thrive and grow! I am really liking this little tank :)

The permanent residents of this tank:


An awesome coral frag of a CandyCane:


Some neon green Zoas:

NanoWave Update

Well, I've done a few things to my Nano Reef tank here, I added 3 Nassarius Snails, 2 Blue-Legged Hermit crabs and 1 Scarlet Hermit. I got a Montipora Digitata SPS frag for $2 as well just to see how well it would do in my newly established tank here. I also arranged the rock so that there would be caves and bridge-like structures to make things more interesting. If I like them the way they are now I may epoxy them together so they don't move around with the little invertebrate's digging around in the sand there.

I started adding some Kalkwasser today as a top-off which is basically RO or distilled water with calcium hydroxide added to it. So it's basically lime-water :) Helps with the parameters of a reef tank so I should start to see a lot more coralline growing in there hopefully!

Here is a pic of the rock setup:

The Montipora Digitata:

This is a cool shot of a couple of 'Spinoid Worms' and one of the Blue-Legged Hermits:

Another one of the Blue-Legged Hermits perched on the ledge of some rock:

The Scarlett Hermit:

NanoWave pics

Well, here are some pics of the Nanowave before I added the argonite substrate. So far I've seen some aiptasia anemone's (pest!), a starfish and some spinoid worms and feather dusters pop out of this rock. It's fun to see what comes out of 'live rock'. The tank itself is simply awesome. Only downside is it gets a little hot :( More to come!

Nano Tank!

Ok, I got a little interested in reef tanks...ok, a LOT interested. I recently picked up an AquaMedic NanoWave 9 tank (9 gallon) and I love it! Great price too by the way at $90 with free shipping. It includes a venturi style protein skimmer, a fuge area with shelves in the back for various filter media and a pump.

I had bought some live rock from a local guy here, it was an ok deal, $30 for about 7lbs of the rock. It was mostly cured already so I've just been keeping it in a bucket of saltwater with a powerhead in the garage until the tank was ready. Yesterday I filled the tank up with water and installed a little heater to bring the temp up to 78F. Late last night I came up to the office (I am keeping the tank on my desk here) and had to do some work so I went ahead and mixed up the salt 1/2 cup per gallon. I had 8 1/2 gallons in there to allow for the live rock displacing the water later. The salinity was roughly 1.022.

This morning I came in and mixed a bit more salt into the water to bring the salinity to 1.023. During lunch, I went home and grabbed the live rock and put it in this afternoon. Need about 5 more lbs at least though so I'll be checking on some rock up at the local fish store. Also will get some pics posted soon!

Aquarium Update

Well, the tank is doing well. I had an ICH breakout in there a couple of weeks ago and I successfully cured it by simply using heat and salt. I have kept a log of the treatment:

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Day 1 - 3/21/09
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Noticed after adding fluorescent bulbs that several of my fish had little white specks. After doing some research, I believe these white specks in addition to the fish occasionally scratching themselves on the decor attribute to the notorious 'Ich' desease which is apparently common but a nuisance and can eventually kill the fish if left untreated.

I am raising the water temp to about 85F over the rest of the afternoon and evening to speed up the cycle here and hopefully reduce or prevent the tomonts from multiplying. Also adding 2 tbsp of salt over the next 24 hours to kill off the thermonts if any do reproduce. 1st tbsp was added after a 50% water change earlier today. Tetra's are becoming very listless.


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Day 3 - 3/24/09
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Maintaining temperature at 85F (highest heater will heat the water). Have done 2 water changes except for yesterday, added 1tbsp salt this evening. The Molly and the Platy seem to have lost a few of their 'cysts' however one neon tetra seems to have gained quite a few. 2 or 3 Neon Tetra's have noticeable spots. Hopefully should see some of these disappear by Thursday or Friday. If not I will medicate the tank as much as I loathe putting chemicals in the tank.

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Day 5 - 3/26/09
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Did a 25% water change last night, added more salt (about half a tabelespoon). Today I Noticed that none of the other fish have the little white specks on them except for the two Tetra's that were bad this whole time, and even they seem to be losing some of the specks. The Molly has not been scratching herself today either that I've noticed. Not getting hopes up yet because the little suckers may just be hiding out reproducing and waiting for a host to swim by...we shall see.


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Day 8 - 3/29/09
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Another couple of 25% water changes the past 2 days, virtually all traces of ICH gone. No spots on any of the fish all day yesterday and all day today. Will maintain treatment for another 2-3 days to finish off any other thermonts that may still be alive.

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Day 10 - 3/31/09
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Checked today and still no traces of ICH, going to gradually bring temp down to 78 or 79F over the next 24 hours and then do another water change and not add any salt. Hopefully after 4 days without the spots they won't come back, but you never know. Regardless, I feel my Tetras have had enough of this salt and heat this month. Here's hoping it's gone for good!
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Indeed, no sign of the ICH since then! I lost all but 3 of my Molly fry as well, don't know what killed them although I found one of them in the filter still alive but despite by best efforts it died a few hours later. I went ahead and got a Mystery Snail (Apple Snail) and that little guy is awesome. Carly and I named him NOS because he is the fastest snail I've ever seen, it can book it across the aquarium in no time. Check out the pics!