curiousphil
Super Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2013
- Location
- London, Ontario
Finally got my calcium up to 420!! It's only been.... 5 months? And stuff has been growing with levels of 320-360 lol. I'm kind of scared what will happen now....
No new pics. Just haven't had the time lately. Tank has been pretty neglected since April, as I have been spending a lot of time focusing on my health (trying to get my weight down, cycling and lifting weights alot, making major adjustments to my diet), helping my parents with their reno's (they moved into a house which turned out to be a total DISASTER), trying to take care of my yard the best I can, cleaning out my basement further so that I can finish drywalling at some point... plus just maintaining the house so it is somewhat presentable. It's been a chaotic couple of months!!!
But I do have a few updates for the thread, since I am here:
-After trying a copperband twice with no luck, the third one worked out wonderfully. He has been alive since April, and seems to be taking care of all new aiptaisia. I have a bunch of big aips that still need to be dealt with, and am whittling those down 1 by 1 with lye when I get the gumption to dedicate some time to it.
-Added a purple stripe dottyback
-Added 2 emerald crabs and 3 peppermint shrimp. The emerald crabs are making quick work of my bubble algae!
-Marine betta was looking to be in VERY rough shape a month or two ago. Her long flowing fins had become tattererd and very short. I don't know if she was beaten up, or just stopped eating because she wasn't happy with the high-flow/high-light environment of the display tank, but she is my favourite fish and I wanted to save her. So I captured her and moved her into the sump where I could watch her closely, target feed her, and where I could easily remove her if she perished. At first she just hid in the back corner, and moved so little that I sometimes wondered if she was dead. I tried feeding her mysis every day, but she only ate maybe one small little mysis. Apparently that's all she needed to regain her energy and start healing! Now she is telling me when she is hungry by coming out of her corner and sitting with her mouth near the surface, and when i drop a chunk of mysis into the sump she gobbles it down whole. Her top fin has fully regrown, and her tailfin has regrown to be about 1/3 of it's full length. No signs of either fins having that "tattered" look to them anymore, they both have nice smooth edges - which I am taking as a very good sign. She will remain down there for a good while longer, until I am fully confident that she can handle the display tank again. Maybe she will stay down there forever, I don't know yet.... but I do know that my cat likes watching her!! (Although that might not be a good thing - this weekend the cat started making the same 'victory noises' that she makes when she is watching the birds through the window... lol)
-Ran out of my Tropic Marin Balling powder supplements and changed over to the BRS stuff (got two big buckets from Spyd when he shut down his tank and had that fire sale). I think I mixed the alk component wrong on my first try, because my alk spiked up to 10 for a couple weeks (like I said, I was neglecting the tank and not testing nearly often enough). That has come back down to 7 something now which is where I typically keep it. My big green monti cap is the only coral that seems to have taken a hit - the outer rim got "burned" and started growing algae on it, so I pruned it way back. It's still not looking great. It might also be due to the fact that it grew into other montipora corals on all sides.... and it is just losing the battle. Not sure yet. I put a bunch of frags of it on plugs, we'll see if they survive. The purple and red caps are still growing well.
-Corals that are growing strong:
---My Pet Monster Humilis has finally stopped expanding its base I think, and is now sprouting new stubs all over the place. It's also bulked out and adjusted to the new angle it's sitting on. For a while, it looked like it was pointing sideways because the rock sits at a different angle then it did in the 90. Now it has grown out such that it appears to be standing upright again.
---Yellow Efflo has plated out rapidly and is now about as big as my hand.
---Blue Efflo has grown down and off of its plug, onto the rock.
---Red Planet has finally grown off its disc after doing hardly anything for over a year. It also coloured up and changed from green to pink with green hints. As soon as it did that, and grabbed hold of a bit of rock, it started throwing branches out all along the edge of where the disc was. It is now growing extremely rapidly - the branches are splitting into multiple branches!!! This is my favourite coral to watch because it is so different every week.
---Superunknown Acro (self named) is turning into a beast. Branching everywhere and continuing to encrust across the rock I put it on.
---Hawkins Echinata is continuing to slowly bulk out, and also starting to encrust down on its plug
---Both of my branching cyphastrea frags are encrusting their plugs at a steady rate
---Cobalt tort is really starting to grow long branches and show great polyp extension during the day!
---Orange Passion has decided to grow branches sideways from its base, and the total circumference is now several times wider than the plug it sits on.
---Vivid's Rainbow Delight continues to dominate the rock it's on, and is also branching out sideways quite significantly.
I'll get some more pictures on here sometime this summer...
No new pics. Just haven't had the time lately. Tank has been pretty neglected since April, as I have been spending a lot of time focusing on my health (trying to get my weight down, cycling and lifting weights alot, making major adjustments to my diet), helping my parents with their reno's (they moved into a house which turned out to be a total DISASTER), trying to take care of my yard the best I can, cleaning out my basement further so that I can finish drywalling at some point... plus just maintaining the house so it is somewhat presentable. It's been a chaotic couple of months!!!
But I do have a few updates for the thread, since I am here:
-After trying a copperband twice with no luck, the third one worked out wonderfully. He has been alive since April, and seems to be taking care of all new aiptaisia. I have a bunch of big aips that still need to be dealt with, and am whittling those down 1 by 1 with lye when I get the gumption to dedicate some time to it.
-Added a purple stripe dottyback
-Added 2 emerald crabs and 3 peppermint shrimp. The emerald crabs are making quick work of my bubble algae!
-Marine betta was looking to be in VERY rough shape a month or two ago. Her long flowing fins had become tattererd and very short. I don't know if she was beaten up, or just stopped eating because she wasn't happy with the high-flow/high-light environment of the display tank, but she is my favourite fish and I wanted to save her. So I captured her and moved her into the sump where I could watch her closely, target feed her, and where I could easily remove her if she perished. At first she just hid in the back corner, and moved so little that I sometimes wondered if she was dead. I tried feeding her mysis every day, but she only ate maybe one small little mysis. Apparently that's all she needed to regain her energy and start healing! Now she is telling me when she is hungry by coming out of her corner and sitting with her mouth near the surface, and when i drop a chunk of mysis into the sump she gobbles it down whole. Her top fin has fully regrown, and her tailfin has regrown to be about 1/3 of it's full length. No signs of either fins having that "tattered" look to them anymore, they both have nice smooth edges - which I am taking as a very good sign. She will remain down there for a good while longer, until I am fully confident that she can handle the display tank again. Maybe she will stay down there forever, I don't know yet.... but I do know that my cat likes watching her!! (Although that might not be a good thing - this weekend the cat started making the same 'victory noises' that she makes when she is watching the birds through the window... lol)
-Ran out of my Tropic Marin Balling powder supplements and changed over to the BRS stuff (got two big buckets from Spyd when he shut down his tank and had that fire sale). I think I mixed the alk component wrong on my first try, because my alk spiked up to 10 for a couple weeks (like I said, I was neglecting the tank and not testing nearly often enough). That has come back down to 7 something now which is where I typically keep it. My big green monti cap is the only coral that seems to have taken a hit - the outer rim got "burned" and started growing algae on it, so I pruned it way back. It's still not looking great. It might also be due to the fact that it grew into other montipora corals on all sides.... and it is just losing the battle. Not sure yet. I put a bunch of frags of it on plugs, we'll see if they survive. The purple and red caps are still growing well.
-Corals that are growing strong:
---My Pet Monster Humilis has finally stopped expanding its base I think, and is now sprouting new stubs all over the place. It's also bulked out and adjusted to the new angle it's sitting on. For a while, it looked like it was pointing sideways because the rock sits at a different angle then it did in the 90. Now it has grown out such that it appears to be standing upright again.
---Yellow Efflo has plated out rapidly and is now about as big as my hand.
---Blue Efflo has grown down and off of its plug, onto the rock.
---Red Planet has finally grown off its disc after doing hardly anything for over a year. It also coloured up and changed from green to pink with green hints. As soon as it did that, and grabbed hold of a bit of rock, it started throwing branches out all along the edge of where the disc was. It is now growing extremely rapidly - the branches are splitting into multiple branches!!! This is my favourite coral to watch because it is so different every week.
---Superunknown Acro (self named) is turning into a beast. Branching everywhere and continuing to encrust across the rock I put it on.
---Hawkins Echinata is continuing to slowly bulk out, and also starting to encrust down on its plug
---Both of my branching cyphastrea frags are encrusting their plugs at a steady rate
---Cobalt tort is really starting to grow long branches and show great polyp extension during the day!
---Orange Passion has decided to grow branches sideways from its base, and the total circumference is now several times wider than the plug it sits on.
---Vivid's Rainbow Delight continues to dominate the rock it's on, and is also branching out sideways quite significantly.
I'll get some more pictures on here sometime this summer...
Last edited:
