Reef Discussion

[Chris Robertson]

OK, here are pictures of my now-cycled and newly-refurbished temperate tank, plus my fish. I bought the yellowtail blue damsels, but caught the others myselff in The Rockpool, Norah Head.

Photos: one of the adult Ringscale Threefins, a Horned Blenny, the full tank (with a nudibranch on the filter box at the left; the short streaks in the background are bubbles), one damsel and one of the nudibranchs, the other damsel, and what I thought was a kelpfish but is actually a baby Bullrout, complete with poisonous spines. I must remember not to pick him up in my hand the next time I have to move him!

 

[jart]

Hi Chris,

The tank is looking good. The nudi looks cool and your fish seem to have a lot of personality. Always fascinating to see fish and other things that I have never seen before.

Are you able to feed less now that it looks like the toadie is gone?

Do you have any/many snails to help with a little cleanup?

 

[Chris Robertson]

Hi Chris,

The tank is looking good. The nudi looks cool and your fish seem to have a lot of personality. Always fascinating to see fish and other things that I have never seen before.

Are you able to feed less now that it looks like the toadie is gone?

Do you have any/many snails to help with a little cleanup?

Hi Jared,
Alas, the tank is growing brown filamentous brown alage again. And blue-green. Hardly any nitrate, no phosphate, but there it is, damnit. Also, today I lost my little bullrout. I did a major clean and water change yesterday, which must have been too much for it. I really liked that little fish, poisonous spines and all.

I am feeding a little less, but it is a bit hard to feed the yellowtails. They are not bright fish, and they tend to flee wildly from dinner-- "It's coming for me! Arrrgh! Oh God it touched me when I went to eat it! Arrgggh!" Got some marine flakes which everyone is happily ignoring. The sinking pellets are popular. I haven't had a bacterial bloom anywhere in the tank that I've noticed, so someone must be cleaning up the food.

I have 2 hermits and lots of snails, who mostly sit on top of the filter and occasionally cruise over the sides or a rock. The small ones are growing, so there's plenty of food for them. They don't eat much -- consider the density of snails on intertidal rocks! I picked up a nice green-shelled large snail a couple of weeks ago, thinking it'd look nice in the tank. Well, it does. Only problem is that it's now being worn by one of the hermits.

How's your tank going?

--Chris

 

[jart]

Hey Chris,

Bummer about the algae. From my limited experience:

* I would guess that the nuisance algae is actually consuming your nitrates/phos (and growing) and leading to the misleading low nitrate/phos test results

* I wonder whether your rockwork (did it come from the tidepool as well?) may be full f=of phosphates that are gradually leaching out into the water column? Might be work replacing it with some dead rock?

* more flow could possibly help with any dead spots that are becoming nutrient sinks

* I find that many of my snails are relatively inactive during the day (they like to sit on the base of my powerheads) and only really get eating when the lights go down

* those hermits can be so aggressive, especially when they see a nice looking shell a bit bigger than their existing one

My tank is coming along quite well - thanks for asking. Going to post another journal thread later this week.

 

[Chris Robertson]

Hey Chris,

* I would guess that the nuisance algae is actually consuming your nitrates/phos (and growing) and leading to the misleading low nitrate/phos test results

* I wonder whether your rockwork (did it come from the tidepool as well?) may be full f=of phosphates that are gradually leaching out into the water column? Might be work replacing it with some dead rock?

* more flow could possibly help with any dead spots that are becoming nutrient sinks
My tank is coming along quite well - thanks for asking. Going to post another journal thread later this week.

Cleaned out most of the macroalgae, which wasn't doing well at all. The rocks came from the Rockpool -- it'sconglomerate,mostly igneous pebbles in the matrix. I kind of doubt it's leaching stuff. I have your chaeto in both tank and sump, which should also be growing if phos and nitrate are high, but it's just sitting there. Happy, but not growing. I have got a new pump, which is providing better water flow. So I'm hopeful things will look up from now. I lost my little nudis, though . sniffle. Will look forward to your next post.
--Chris