Ideal Parameters

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Lighting Adjustment + Feeding

Today I adjusted the lighting regimen: so Actinic kicks in at 6:30 AM and turns off at around 9:00 PM.
10K kicks in around 10:00 AM and turns off around 7 PM.
Boy those corals color up under actinics! GSP starts glowing bright green and zoa glow dark blueish greeen.
Larger GSP started to spread to the back of the rock.
I'm still combatting GHA (Green Hair Algae), but it seems to be manageable.
Lots of coraline started to pop-up on the glass (maybe in response to more regular water changes and dosing of trace+iodine + buffer?
  • Regular morning feeding of corals: 28 drops of phyto.
  • Regular morning feeding of clowns: frozen fish food.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Morning Feeding & Status Update

Both Monti corals stopped moving (being knocked over) and seem to be fine.
The ricordea took her rough transfer to new home well and seemed to already expand in her new place.
The yesterday's hitchhiker could not be found (maybe it didn't expand yet.)
The clowns were hungry. I fed them with the defrosted food right after adding 26 drops (1/2 suggested dose) of the phytoplankton to the tank.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

PWC, Fragging...

Today I attempted to frag my Monti...
  1. Chipped off a less than 1" frag
  2. Glued the frag to the back wall of the tank
  3. The frag excerted some (burning sensation) white goo.
  4. Performed almost full bucket PWC.
  5. Re-glued the frag at lower level, but was unsuccessful and glued it by the hardening white goo.
  6. Attempted to re-superglue the mother-frag, but was unsuccessful.

What is the goo? Hopefully both the mother and the frag will do fine... I'm keeping my fingers crossed.


Questions: what is that white goo and will my frag be alright? - Can I do anything for it?

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Photo Show: GBTA, Toadstool, Monti Cap, Leather, GSP, Zoa





My Tank side and front views:







My GBTA:










My Toadstool:









Monti Cap:









My Leather:





My GSP (Green Star Polyp) & Zoa Rock:












My Leather (again) and a small GSP Frag:









My Clove Polyps:









My small shroom (sweetsop):


My Pulsing Xenia:


Ugh,
I think I finally had covered all of my corals... I can not photograph fish as they move way too fast for my sony Mavica. I did not photograph my hermits and my snails because they all hid away.


Saturday, June 6, 2009

PWC & Measurements

1 Bucket PWC was carried out.
Ammonia registered at 0!
Temperature was OK = 79 F.
Trimmed the hair algae and scrubbed some rocks clean of it with the brush scrubber.
Cleaned Glass.
Feeding fish with new stuff (they take it more eagerly than the brine shrimps.
Need to test for Nitrates, Nitrites & Phosphates.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Maint Day

This morning when I woke up the lights were already on. I looked at the lid, and didn't see the BTA. So I started to look for it around the tank and couldn't find it. Then I saw her to the right of the lid all bubbled up! I should say that when I was acclimating and transferring her her tentacles were all long. She looks dark and comphy in her new spot.
I administered feeding of some frozen mysis, but the clowns were not too excited about them.
Then I rearranged the rockwork trying to move rocks away from the glass to make the glass easier to clean.
Scraped the glass a bit at the bottom and the sides. The tank looks awesome!
Once I get out of $6900 debt I'll make myself a gift and will buy a bigger tank.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Addition of Sea GBTA

Tonight when I brought some snails and a Green Bubble Tip Anemone from a friend on Manhattan Reefs home the lights were already out.
The anemone came in a plastic snak can from super market. It convinently attached itself to the lid. So all I needed to do was to dump the water from the cup into acclimator and squeez the lid in. Then I dropped in the snails.
Next, I established a dripper from the tank to the acclimator. In about an hour the water had tripled.
At this moment I took the five snails out and dropped them in the 14G. The anemone was still attached ot the plastic lid. Squishing it off with a finger didn't lead to anything, so I followed an advice by not forcing her off and just put the lid behind the rock where I wanted her to be. The lid floated off..! OK, second try - I lifted the rock and squeezed the lid in between the rock and the back wall. It stayed and I went to sleep.

Salty First Attempt (Failed)

Salty First Attempt (Failed)
My Salt Water Tank Very few mods from how I got it.

Water weed bought 5/6/08

Water weed bought 5/6/08
red gracilaria (?) - Got either desintegrated or eaten

Moni Jr. on top of live rock!

Moni Jr. on top of live rock!
I have like 3-4 of these - turned out to be Petsts!

Moni Sr.(Haitian pink-tip anemone)

Moni Sr.(Haitian pink-tip anemone)
Largest Anemone in my tank RIP - (rock crashed on her during tank maint)