New Set-up

[SkiFletch]

Off to a good start . That's wierd about the pH. Keep an eye on alkalinity too and don't overdose

 

[yorkcoparamedic]

The diatoms are only a little thicker today, not as I thought they would be. I do have more green feathery looking algae shoots all over the place. There is also a couple of shots were there is a bright green powdery looking algae growing (cyanobacteria??).

I am going to add some turbo snails this week and if everything goes well a couple blue leg hermit crabs or scarlets next week. Following them maybe a peppermint shrimp and brittlestar. And lastly before any fish go in more snails, a sea cucumber or sand star.

Any other recommendations on hardy inverts for my CUC?

 

[yorkcoparamedic]

Well the last two weeks have been an interesting adventure. Water quality has stayed good so I decided to place some more delicate life in the tank. I have added the following since my last post:

Pachyclavularia sp. / Polyp Rock
Discosoma sp. / Lavender Mushroom Rock
Blastomussa wellsi (LPS)
4 Astrea Snails
4 Pajama Cardnialfish

So far everything is doing fine. The fish have acclimated well and are eating and swimming around happily. The mushrooms stay open most of the time and are eating and already reproducing. This is actually pretty cool to watch, the way they detach a piece from thier mouth or underside and send it floating to relocate. The Polyp Rock is nice with bright green extensions and white-pink colored centers. The Blastomussa is gorgous with its bright green center and blue colored edges, I only got a small sized frag to start with just in case. And more snail to combat the growing green algae now.

My water quality has stayed next to perfect during this time but I have had one heck of a green and brown algae bloom. I found out I was feeding too much and not correctly. I had been using brine and mysis shrimp to feed the fish. I was just placing the frozen ice cubes in the water and letting them melt. Big mistake here!!! I started getting too many uneaten and undisovled organic parlicles in the water that lead to a algae bloom.

Two 10% water changes over the last two nights and 4 new Astrea snails and it is looking much better. I plan on doing a another water change tonight just to help things along.

The rock that I purchased with the Mushrooms on it is also full of other life forms as well. I am trying to get a good view of them to see what they are. There is a really small crab for sure, but he wont show himself enough to get a good look or a photo of him. There are also several small white colored worm looking things that project out of tiny holes in the LR and pick at the sand bed, a couple of them are about one inch in lenght. And also several different types of white to clearish colored lice looking bugs. I am trying to get a good SCR digital camera with high zoom lens and low lighting setting. I want to get good pictures of everything so I can try to figure out what it is.

Thats it for now. I will post some pictures later tonight when I get home from work.

 

[yorkcoparamedic]

Got the green film algae bloom under control.
1- Lights off for three days. (caused NH3 spike to 0.25 with death of algae)
2- Two water changes. ( 15% each)
3- Added RowaPhos to canister filter.
4- Replaced two of the four filter sponges with Poly Filter Pads.

There is some grow back so far but very minimal. I was holding a PO4 reading of 0.1 no matter what I did. Now my PO4 is about 0.05 to 0.03.

Also added a another power head for top water turbulance. My water temp is not fluctuating as much as it was in the past. It caused maybe a .5 to .75 degree F decrease in fluctuation. I am going to add a small fan to blow across the top of the tank as well and see if that helps any.

All other parameters are great.
NH3 = 0
NO2 = 0
NO3 = 0
PO4 = about 0.05
Ph = 8.3
dkH = 10
Ca = 400 currently slowly adjusting to 450

All life seems to be happy in the tank. Time for more corals!

 

[SkiFletch]

Sounds like you're really on the ball there, well done . Time for new corals and pics

 

[yorkcoparamedic]

It has been hard to sit back and go slow, but if there was any one thing that I did it was having patience! Correcting one problem at a time with one attempted solution and watching the effects that took place. Hours of research a day, asking questions, googling everything in the tank has also helped my understanding of what I an undertaking. If I would have known years ago how much fun this was, I would have several tanks by now.

There is so much going on in there now. Coralline algae is starting to spread slowly all over the place and on the snails. I think the snails and crabs actually help spread it by rubbing against it all the time and freeing up little pieces to float around and spread. There is some type of tube worm grow on one of the rocks, only 2 to 3 mm at this time and too hard to get a picture of. There is also my mysterious starfish that has only shown his face just once. He is about 1 to 2 cm and blue colored with tiny black speckles. I wish he would come out again, I tried to get pictures of him but they came out all blurry.

I will post some more pictures to night.

 

[SkiFletch]

Gotta love the enthusiasm . Not everybody thinks the research is the fun part

 

[yorkcoparamedic]

I cant find any information on Hermit Crab reproduction. Do they reproduce? If so, I think the my Reg Leg Hermits have done so. I now have more then one tiny 3 or 4 mm crabs and they seem to stay on just one rock. Their coloration is a dark blackish red with white spots, just the same as the Red Leg Hermits. Again to small to get a good picture of!

 

[yorkcoparamedic]

OK fist is the shot of the Blue Starfish that I have only seen once. One or two of the CUC were captured in the film as well. Then are the Pajama Cardinalfish and Skunk Cleaner Shrimp. Followed up the Lavender Mushrooms and off to the Blastamussa Wellsi. Finally there is a shot of the Star Polyps. Video is only 30 seconds to help keep it down in size. I will post some nice pics later.

Any idea what type of starfish this is?

Click in center of picture to watch video.

 

[SkiFletch]

The size indicates it might be an Asterina, but I'm not sure, pic's a little blurry. Love that blstomussa though

 

[yorkcoparamedic]

Thanks for the point in the right direction. I found a really good article about Asterina gibbosa on the net and the picture that was displayed looks exactly like him. Only time will tell, if it gets larger then I will have to start over again searching for a species to fit him into.