Squatch's Continuing Adventure with a 40g breeder

[Squatch XXL]

Really starting to enjoy the hobby again. After I moved late last year, lots of what I had died. Some has still yet recovered. In the last 6 months I have done little more then change filter floss, add water and change 10 gallon every 2-3 weeks.

I got some better timers for my lights.

Finally got the setup finalized. I feel like I can quit tinkering for a few months while I plan the next butchering of the corals.





I changed the last set of bulbs, which were 50/50 actinic/6.7k and removed the daylight. I had a 6 month old "Blue actinic", which is certainly different then simply "True actinic" by the same manufacturer.

When all lights are on, it looks great. It starts out yellow in the AM, and slowly changes to a more blue by end of the day. Heading into night time there is 3 hours of very intense blue. I don't know that I like it, and may get a coral blue bulb.

 

[SPR]

It all looks very nice so far.

 

[Squatch XXL]

Yesterday I did a water change. ALSO I had a large yellow green pocci that would not stand up no matter how I tried to glue it.
This yellow Pocci existed in my tank from a small frag. It may be the first branching coral I tried. Very fast growth. I could not find a way to support it safe any more without fear of it falling over AND an intense desire to make it stay where I put it.

12-19-2015


I ended up breaking it apart. There is LOTS of frags of it. I have them setting where they look somewhat natural.



By evening, I gave up. I did glue as many pieces as I could and "arranged" things so I could clean the glass for a few weeks until the next water change.


I moved the anemones where I can keep an eye on them. I bought 1, and I have 3. The smaller one has been sitting directly in the path of the wavemaker for 6 months. I got sick of looking at it like that. Some of its tentacles are smaller then the others.


Tonight the tank looks good. Filters are working, and added fresh carbon.

 

[Squatch XXL]

I have/had 3 different acan colonies. The largest of the 3 has decided to die. I am not stressing, as I honestly could use the space. Who really knows what causes one to fail while 2 others are doing just fine close by.

 

[Squatch XXL]

Back in July I decided to try my luck with smaller water changes. Instead of 10 gallons bi-weekly, I did 5. By early August it was apparent that was a poor decision. I lost my largest acan in that time, and I don't know if its a coincidence. Probably, but maby not. I pulled it out, scrubbed all the dead and dying flesh off of it, and tossed it in the back. The starfish cleaned it off good.

During that time my other pp-15 died. I will never buy another Jaebo pump ever. I have had 2 pp-15 die on me, and neither was 2 years old. I don't know/care what the problem is. I have a pp-8 now, and 2 circulation pumps. The PP-8 makes random flow, and the circulation pumps are on 4 hour timers so that one goes off when one turns on....or as close as you can get to that with a pair of analog timers.











I have not been active on the forums, either here or my local Reef clubs. I got busy and in the process did not want to talk about the mess that I got into with the water changes. Algae was starting, and I knew if I did not change fast, it was going to get bad. It took 6 weeks to correct 4 weeks of smaller water changes. I caught it early. Nothing died, but there was some die-off. Everything is back to 100% except one of my pocci, which still has some dead tips with a bit of algae. I was going to snip them off, but it is recovering and is shedding the algae on its own quite quickly. I have seen this before, and did not act, and watched an entire colony die. I am ready at a moments notice to frag it out if need be.

I have a lot of little starfish. They are harmless, and apparently are a great addition to my CUC. When I have had corals die, they do the cleanup. Very efficient. I know most do not like them, and I somewhat hate them. I thought about getting a bumblebee shrimp, but why change the ecosystem if its working, and I am happy with how its working. I should never have dropped my water changes down....The tank is back to telling me its happy, and I will continue as I have.

 

[Squatch XXL]

its been 2 months since an update....perhaps since my last water change. There was algae, but it wasn't bad. I have been busy, and the tank is doing well. My stylo is grumpy right now because I touched it when I was cleaning, and it has shown me in the past that IF you touch it, the polyps will stay hidden for days or longer if you clip off any frags.










My frag rack is full, and no sign of cleaning it off. Anyone in central/NE PA USA looking for green pocci? Its free for anyone not planning on reselling.

 

[SPR]

Well that looks great!

 

[Squatch XXL]

I can't believe that its been nearly 10 days since my last post. The tank looked better than usual today, so I took some pictures. I am out of Carbon, nearly out of filter floss, and may have 5 more gallons of salt mix left. I am either going to order a bunch of stuff, or have to visit the store. I am thinking I will end up ordering just because I am lazy.

The purple stylo hates being touched, as it had before the last set of photos. The tank just ate earlier today, and the pictures show everything fairly colorful and looking healthy. Been using 7.5ml of my vinegar chemicals per day for a while, and it seems to keep the hard corals growing well. I don't know at what point I will need to think about seriously adding chemicals to the water, but it has to be coming up soon. I doubt I will do more than the vinegar/crushed coral liquid that I am using, but I may have to up the dose a bit. I don't think I am adding anywhere near enough vinegar to really upset the system.

 

[Squatch XXL]

12-16-2017 photographs from the day this tank was setup in its current location 1 year ago

 

[Squatch XXL]

For some reason, all of my 3 out of 4 of my pocci "colors" have died or were dying. I had an issue where my frag rack's magnets were getting wet and began corroding, and I thought that it would bother some of the other more sensitive corals. I am still not sold on that being the cause. Today I did a 20 gallon water change (50%ish) and removed anything that looked or smelled funny....and boy did it smell bad. There are some parts that look alive still left in the tank, and I guarantee that the green/yellow will have surviving parts. EVERYTHING in the picture is irritated from what I did today. The water is cloudy from me stirring it up, and the general chaos involved with removing a mass of dead/dying corals. Heavy carbon and a big water change will help it as much as I care to help.





Room is still a mess. I don't normally spend that much time maintaining, but it had to be done. The pink pocci is still there, and still looks "healthy". There are some warning signs about it including some dead tips, but overall it looks "well". I laugh because I complained a few times this year to my wife about needing more space in the tank...for the pocci. Now I am thinking about downgrading to a 20g long, or even a 29g.

Haters can hate on the Pocci, but its a good coral for someone who just likes to watch things grow and develop. I enjoy looking at side-by-side pictures over time and seeing how it has changed and gotten out of control.

 

[Squatch XXL]

Seems that every hard coral that wasn't removed is also dead/dying. Skin is starting to peel off the stylo. Scroll coral looks dead. The acans are the only thing that looks good right now. The smell coming from the sump/skimmer area is telling me that the tank is crashing and cycling. If the fish survive, I think I will be giving them away when I clean out this tank. I think I am going to have to stop & reset and figure out if I want to try again. Its been a pretty good run I would say.

 

[StirCrayzy]

I doubt the magnets are the cause, any other environmental changes? Bad heaters, going overtemp? Chemicals in the house?

 

[Squatch XXL]

I doubt the magnets are the cause, any other environmental changes? Bad heaters, going overtemp? Chemicals in the house?

I questioned the heater as well, and inspected it a few times. The temps remain stable. We avoid all aerosol in the home because my mother in law lives with us and most perfumes etc will cause her serious breathing issues. The only thing that has been odd is the magnets, and they could have been leeching/rusting for months. I have wracked my brains for the last week trying to find one odd thing. I took apart every pump to see that they were still working and looking good...just seeing if perhaps a shaft was carbon steel and not stainless, and nope. They are still shiny. Some are even plastic. What is more odd is that it seems to be really effecting the hard corals more than the soft ones, however now that there is what appears to be an ammonia spike, now everything looks bad. I lean toward the frag rack magnets because it was some cheapo generic one. I should have inspected it better when I got it and I would have sealed them up under a layer of plexiglass just for durability. I don't know, and am not even worried about it in a way. I am a big fan of knowing that I did my best when I saw it going south, and there is nothing else I can do. I also enjoy watching it. I have never had a tank crash before. I always got bored after a few years and gave everything away to stores and whoever would take it. However.

When I get another mantis shrimp, I will have plenty of rubble for it to play with....so in a way it is not really a loss. Just a change.

 

[Squatch XXL]

2 months post crash. I think I figured it out. I had to look at notes to really see wtf I screwed up.

I have a chemical slurry that I have been using successfully for over a year. Possibly more. It is white vinegar mixed with crushed coral and left to "cure" for a few weeks in a glass jar. I got to the point where I was slowly adding 25ml/week, which translated to 3.5-4ml/day. This was perfect for maintaining both good skimming, and a 460ish calcium level. I have been adding the 25ml to my weekly top off without issue, but I discontinued that a few months ago quite literally because my wooden support for my bucket started to get mold from humidity. I have been adding 1 gallon per day every since.

One day without thinking in early January I added the whole 25ml in the 1 gallon daily top-off. I fairly certain that this would cause the issues.

Here we are 2 months later, and the surviving corals are all doing well EXCEPT my purple stylo. It is acting like it has STN. It is slowly dying, and I don't know that I am going to do anything about it. It has always been "touchy", and would get grumpy for days on end after being bumped when doing water changes.


Last week I thought everything had recovered enough to move some things around. I hate moving corals, and they probably hate being moved. I have a pink/yellow scroll coral that ended up between my 2 front anemones, and it was starting to get irritated. I shifted it to the left side of the tank. Both of the nems quickly took up the space it left, and overall it seems to be less irritated. The scroll gets very slimy if you touch it. I don't know what it is chemically, but I know the acans hated when the scroll-juice would touch them.

The nems have spread out, and the smaller male clown loves it. The larger female has not taken to one of the 4 in the tank, but may some day.


The acans are doing fantastic. I think as I plan for next year's tank replacement I would like to have more Acans. Instead of a bare bottom, I would like to have them covering more of the bottom of the tank. They are not only cool looking, but they are always happy to eat.


Night feeding is a blast. The 2 small colonies I have of them can be covered in food, and 10 minutes later you check and they have crammed it all in their holes and are hungry for more.




The tank looks desolate compared to what it was, but at the moment I am glad that everything seems to be on the mend. I may reach out to some of my local club to see if anyone has any pocci frags they would be interested in parting with. There are 2 types of people who keep pocci. One type can't kill it, and hates it. The other can't kill it and loves it.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

pretty nem and clown - great to hear the tanks sorted and on the recovery !

 

[Uncle99]

True, had not seen posts from you in a bit, glad your back and the tank is looking good.

 

[Squatch XXL]

Tank is possibly recovered? The nems and acans seem fine still. Blue ridge coral also ok. I have a cyphestra on a piece of tile that is looking well also. I pulled out 1/3rd or more of the rocks that were in the tank, and have a few more on the next water change. I am going to a frag swap next month and plan on getting some more decorations if things look stable.

 

[Squatch XXL]

Pink pocci looks better, but not well. But overall everything looks content and fat.

 

[Squatch XXL]

Our local club had a frag swap a few weeks ago, and I picked up a new anemone. Of course it went in a bad spot. This weekend I decided to remove the bottom plastic eggcrate and go full bare bottom. This allowed me to isolate the anemones to their side of the tank, and I can still mess around with the rest of the tank. I changed the power heads around so that nothing can build up behind the rockwork, and after a few days I can see the results. I should have gone bare bottom a year and a half ago when I reset the tank.

While the tank room was under construction, this was the mess.


Remaining pocci needed some bad spots cut out. This one is massive. I could easily cover my tank with it, and depending on how things go, I may do that.







Acan I picked up recently. I relocated it to a frag disc. I hate plugs.


I made a few frags and a new frag rack. Racks are handy.

 

[Squatch XXL]

Recent photos.