melev

Wanting to take a picture of one subject, I ended up with a few to share.

The Hammer zone in the center of the reef is impressive.


The Yellow Scroll coral is healing a little bit more every day.


This was a blind shot with a top down photo box. I just pointed and clicked, and got a decent image from the effort.


Another blind shot.


The right end of the reef is filling in.


This acropora has really grown into a bushy coral.


It makes shots like these so much nicer.


Here are the zoanthids, quietly gaining mass.



Here are two of the three new frags I picked up recently.
Pagoda cup (green polyped)


Jedi Mind Trick - no idea why this name fits this coral


And the main reason to take the pictures? It didn't work out, so I'll have to do that another day.

I did a 50g water change two nights ago, and dosed Prodibio today (dosed twice monthly).

Using a Hach Chloramine test kit, I tried to see if there were any measurable chloramines in my tap water. As far as I can tell, it measured about .08ppm from the tap, but after the RO/DI it measured zero.

At Next Wave, I picked up a new electronic regulator for the calcium reactor since mine is several years old and more than likely out of warranty. The used one was like new, and for the price it was a bargain to have this component on hand when the main one fails. While testing it out on a CO2 cylinder, I noticed a strange brass & rubber gasket sticking out on the end of the threads, kind of out of place. It was holding on, but didn't look like it belonged. Without any effort, I was able to peel it off the valve, and figured I better use a twist tie to keep track of it by tying it to the cylinder for future needs. A couple of days later, I noticed that the CO2 cylinder under the reef was bone dry empty. When I removed that electronic regulator, I found precisely where that funny fitting belonged, and was able to retrieve and install it back where it belonged. I really got lucky not to lose that piece, because it didn't look like something I'd find anywhere local. The cylinders were swapped out and the Co2 is quietly bubbling back into the calcium reactor like it should. With all this drama, I did test the alkalinity of the tank: 10 dKH. A little bit higher than I like, so I adjusted the pH controller to help bring this back down.

The frag tank's population of bubble algae is less than before, and I do pluck out more when so inclined. What has grown more concerning is some type of algae has begun to take hold in that tank, and it looks like it is probably bryopsis. I have no idea where I would have brought any into my system, as I definitely don't want to deal with that plague. The suncoral colony and the Dendrophylia coral both had quite a bit of this stuff growing on the stoney skeleton, and I wanted it gone. Carefully holding each coral over the sink, I dripped hydrogen peroxide on the nuisance algae areas, repeatedly hitting the zones to make sure they got a good soaking. After about 3 minutes of this, I used forceps to pluck away what I could, and then placed the corals back in the frag tank. It was when I immersed the corals did I see the fizzy bubbles associated with peroxide, and noticed many of the Astreas were climbing up the walls of the tank to breach the surface. An odd coincidence, but as soon as I restarted the flow into the frag tank to flush new water in and drain this water into the sump, everything returned to normal. And the corals already look better, with the algae falling apart where treated.