Tank Entry

In one of my favorite corals, in the past month a real problem arose. The SPS coral growing on the overflow directly above the Toadstool Leather, a number of brown patches appeared within the branches which soon followed with algae growth. Ugh!!

Here's the coral back in December.



I tried scraping away the bad spots, and have been picking away the algae with forceps. It wasn't very ...

When I have to go out of town, it's important to keep even these simple things cared for. Relying on someone to physically dose my tank with the proper amount daily as well as feeding my reeflings - well, you just never know if it truly was done as promised. I don't like it, but I too suffer from doubt.

So I made a little Vodka doser. It's very simple, following the idea that was released via our YouTube channel from the MAX conference last month.
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Since the spawning event last weekend, my tank has been in recovery mode. The pink hammer coral is in the worst shape and I'm not sure about its survival. I've had it since it was a three headed frag more than 7 years ago. Here's what it's been looking like lately.





The Rose BTA has turned Rose. It was much deeper red until ...

As I shared recently, I decided to treat my reef for Cyano with Chemi-Clean. It's been about 48 hours so far. To do so, I had to shut down the skimmer for 72 hours, and take the carbon reactor offline as well. That way the meds aren't taken out of the water too soon, which kill the cyano bacteria.

Whilst this is going on, I noticed on Saturday morning that the tank was a little cloudy or hazy. Looking at one of the Bubble Tip Anemones (BTA), it looked like it had been spawning. ...

Now that I have all my new parts in, I took the time this evening to break down and clean the calcium reactor. The old pump was retired, which looked cooked for a lack of a better description. The plastic had discolored and looked like heat damage from within, and it rattled around the clock. The replacement Mag 7 was easily installed. The acrylic body was cleaned out, new Caribsea ARM was poured in, and all flexible tubing was cleaned or replaced. The pH probe got a vinegar bath.
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