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Post by jasonandsarah on Feb 12, 2015 9:04:30 GMT -5
Left side of the top of the rock work right next to the darker piece of rock?? There's a couple things sticking straight up and they appear to me to be Hydroids?
Not really anything to get rid of them though....
Sent from my SM-N910R4 using proboards
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Post by fermentedhiker on Feb 12, 2015 9:23:37 GMT -5
Yeah those were what I was wondering about. The darker rock is actually a clump of Halimeda(i need to turn the whites up when I take pictures because the blues make everything green look off). What made me not think they were hydroids is the lack of tentacles. All the hydroid pics I've seen looked a lot like versions of freshwater hydra. These just have a little almost invisible puff ball instead of discreet tentacles.
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Post by jasonandsarah on Feb 12, 2015 9:58:16 GMT -5
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Post by fermentedhiker on Feb 12, 2015 19:53:11 GMT -5
Thanks, I didn't see anything similar there but I'm sure it's something like that. I'm pretty sure it came in as a hitchhiker on the macro's I got from live-plants.com which means it's from Florida waters.
Took a ride this afternoon. Stopped at Vance's Tropical fish in Bucksport. Not much of a coral selection but some good fish and tons of freshwater for me to look at. He had a tank with a bunch of Asterina stars and I asked and he gave me a few. They hadn't caused any problems in his tanks so I'm fairly certain they aren't the ones that bother coral.
After that I went up to cultivatedreef and met Greg. Nice guy. Picked up three frags, superman mushroom, sunburst paly, and forest glow zoa. He threw in a small serpent star that was hanging on the mushroom frag(and my cuc continues to grow). Once I see some growth from these I'll feel more comfortable adding more. I'm pretty sure the mushroom and the paly will do well. The Zoa is a bit pickier so that will be my test, to get it to thrive.
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Post by fermentedhiker on Feb 13, 2015 10:44:15 GMT -5
Just got my second order from reeflcleaners to add some diversity to my CUC.
2 ringed cowrie
5 Limpet
10 dwarf planaxis
20 zigzag periwinkle
2 blue legged hermit crabs
1 serpent star
Cowries look really cool. as do the limpets. The dwarf planaxis aren't much to look at but they'll be buried in the sand most of the time. Got exactly what I ordered with those.
Instead of 2 blue legged hermits I got three plus a hitchhiker(he'll end up in the fuge.
I didn't even try to count the periwinkles as there were so many, more than I ordered I'm sure.
The serpent star was DOA however. Water was discolored, no movement and at least one limb detached. John issued me a credit immediately however.
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Post by spotfin on Feb 14, 2015 9:25:34 GMT -5
Yeah, Vance usually has a good selection of freshwater stock.
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Post by fermentedhiker on Feb 15, 2015 15:38:32 GMT -5
Not much of an update this week. 5 gallon WC as usual. Scraped off some hair algae and vacuumed as much as I could. Thinned out and repositioned some of the Halimeda. I'll be getting rid of the extra clumps of Codium this week(which will make cleaning easier as they always seem to be in the way). I'm headed back to Vance's sometime to trade in some Hemichromis juvies along with some Java moss and he said he'd take the Codium in trade as well. Hopefully he'll have some cool freshwater stuff for me to bring home  I don't think the ringed cowrie made it. They moved a little after being placed int he tank so I know they arrived alive. But I've found them both flipped over and no movement since righting them. The limpets seem to be doing well though. One of them was moving a lot more than the rest and ended up hanging out about the waterline with the nerites and periwinkles. Superman mushroom seems quite happy. I'm curious to see how long before I notice some growth. Something I may come to regret later on Sunburst paly also seems happy. Instead of just the double frag I ordered Greg gave me one that ended up with 5 polyps on it. The individual polyps are opening and closing throughout the day. Also interested in seeing how long it takes to see new polyps forming. The forest glow zoa is predictably a little harder to tell. It hasn't been closing up a lot, but neither is it really opening up wide. I moved it to a spot with a little more flow today since Greg had said they preferred it and he had them in front of the powerhead in the frag tank. Time will tell. Since he was running Ecotech pros I decided I probably didn't need to go through the acclimation process with my lights. I had dropped the whites to 10% and planned on upping it by 5% a week. I raised the whites to 15% today and will probably bring them up to 20% tomorrow and see how things like it. |
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Post by fermentedhiker on Feb 20, 2015 18:55:45 GMT -5
So tiny update. Got a couple frags off of ryansweatt2004 for a really good price. Got a two head purple frogspawn and a single head bicolor frogspawn and he threw a small head of purple tipped hammer. Everything seems pretty happy.
I ended up stopping by Easy Aquariums since I was in Portland already for a meeting. They didn't have a lot I was interested in at the moment(hopefully the new place with the extra room will mean they'll have a ton of stuff) but I did pick up a baby lettuce nudibranch. It acclimated well and has been exploring the tank.
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Post by fermentedhiker on Feb 23, 2015 18:11:00 GMT -5
Missed my WC yesterday so I took some time to do some cleaning on all my FW tanks and make some changes to them. I figured I hadn't done some tests in a couple of weeks so before doing the tank maintenance I figured I see how it looked.
Ammonia=0
Nitrite=0
Nitrate=0 This may explain why my chaeto has been struggling and even my Halimeda and Codium seem to have slowed in their growth.
PH=8.4(API)
PH=8.44(Apex)
I need to stop and make some supper before doing the rest.
I acclimated one of my female sailfin molly(which makes the zero nitrate a little surprising) a few days ago to give me something to fuel the biological system a bit(and maybe peck at the hair algae). I also removed and cleaned the rock with the worst hair algae on it. Unfortunately most of the rockwork is not removable since I had to epoxy it to keep it from being able to be toppled.
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Post by fermentedhiker on Mar 12, 2015 6:26:55 GMT -5
Still battling some annoying hair algae. I reduced the 12000K fixture to 10% for the last week, but that seems to have made little difference. The WC Sunday seemed to perk everyone up so I'm not sure what the underlying issue is at the moment. Picked up a couple scarlet hermits to see if they liked the taste of it at all. Doing a 3 day blackout and then a WC on the fourth day to see if that can reset things a bit.
The gold dust palys seem to be multiplying slowly. The forest glow zoa hasn't chenged much at all. The superman mushrooms seem to have shrunk a bit and one of the smaller one detached and is on the sand at the moment. The frogsawns are doing well......so far. The tiny hammer frag seem retracted a lot more(I think it's missing the white light).
I'm going to have to get on the stick and install the RODI unit. Although that's an expensive way to guess at eliminating a problem. I'm thinking maybe a silicate test might be interesting to see the results from, although the RODI would solve that anyways, but it would be nice to know the true cause.
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Post by jasonandsarah on Mar 12, 2015 7:22:50 GMT -5
Still battling some annoying hair algae. I reduced the 12000K fixture to 10% for the last week, but that seems to have made little difference. The WC Sunday seemed to perk everyone up so I'm not sure what the underlying issue is at the moment. Picked up a couple scarlet hermits to see if they liked the taste of it at all. Doing a 3 day blackout and then a WC on the fourth day to see if that can reset things a bit. The gold dust palys seem to be multiplying slowly. The forest glow zoa hasn't chenged much at all. The superman mushrooms seem to have shrunk a bit and one of the smaller one detached and is on the sand at the moment. The frogsawns are doing well......so far. The tiny hammer frag seem retracted a lot more(I think it's missing the white light). I'm going to have to get on the stick and install the RODI unit. Although that's an expensive way to guess at eliminating a problem. I'm thinking maybe a silicate test might be interesting to see the results from, although the RODI would solve that anyways, but it would be nice to know the true cause. You have to get a special filter to eliminate silicates in a Ro/Di. They sell pre made silicate buster Di resin containers. Or you can get a bag of silicate resin and add it to your own Di filter. Sent from my SM-N910R4 using proboards |
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Post by Pokahpolice on Mar 12, 2015 7:27:51 GMT -5
I'm going to have to get on the stick and install the RODI unit. I'd suggest the same. TDS in the 90's is crazy high. The goal is zero. I change my filters when TDS shows 003 |
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Post by Pokahpolice on Mar 12, 2015 7:28:45 GMT -5
I doubt you have a silicates problem. You would have diatoms if you had high silicates.
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Post by fermentedhiker on Mar 12, 2015 9:47:25 GMT -5
I doubt you have a silicates problem. You would have diatoms if you had high silicates. You are probably right. Although diatoms are easily the favorite food of a lot of the cleaners so a lack of a apparent diatom bloom doesn't mean they aren't there. |
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Post by fermentedhiker on Mar 12, 2015 9:51:50 GMT -5
I'm going to have to get on the stick and install the RODI unit. I'd suggest the same. TDS in the 90's is crazy high. The goal is zero. I change my filters when TDS shows 003 Not that RODI isn't necessary, but TDS in the 90's isn't crazy high for untreated well water(it's actually on the low side) as 100-500 is more normal for it. The sad thing is most of the things it removes are not a problem. It's just easier/ more cost effective to remove everything and then add it back(in the form of salt mix and dosing) in known quantities. first step is to figure out what's wrong with the table saw so I can build a backboard to mount it on. I think I know what this weekends project is going to be |
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