Picture Update

It's been two or three weeks since the last pictures.  Here's how things are going...

Mushroom Update

Mushrooms Before	Mushrooms Current
Here is a comparison of the mushrooms.  If you look closely, you can see how they've increased in density.  Within the past few weeks, heads have begun to "pop off" or remove themselves from the colony.  About four so far have done this.  I've assisted each of the four heads in relocating in the hopes they will re-attach.

This is the rock immediately below the mushrooms.  The first two head that removed themselves were put here, but they ended up falling inside a hole in the rock when they closed up.  I'm not sure if they are both OK, but one pops out mid morning through this hole.

This is the fourth head that removed itself from the colony.  There was a little too much flow around the third head for it to attach in the same place, so I moved it up and to the right of the current colony.

This was the third head to remove itself.  This had no hands-on intervention by me.  It found a slow-flow area and was able to attach itself.  This rock is below the current colony and up in front on the tank.

Anthelia Update

Anthelia Before	Anthelia Current
Not much to say about the Anthelia except it, too, has gotten more dense. I suppose it's only a matter of time before they start removing themselves from the colony and setting up shop elsewhere in the tank.

Star Polyp Update

Star Polyp Before	Star Polyp Current
This may not be a fair comparison - the image on the left is effected my a majano anemone (just right of center) and a few aiptasia (left edge).  There are still a few aiptasia on the current photo but their placement does not effect the polyps as much as before.  I don't know if I necessary noticed this coral spreading, but in the places it is, it certainly looks better.  Also picture at the bottom left of the rock, a calciferous worm has taken up residence.  That is the horizontally running "white tube" just to the left of the bottom-most cluster.

Neomeris annulata update

N. annulata	N. annulata Current
The single "seedling" bleached out after the first picture was taken.  It happened during a time when the power filter was put back into use.  This tells me that nitrates need to be at or below 20 to have this algae.  The current picture isn't the best, but it's amount of spread can be distinguished by color alone.  Nitrates run no higher than 20 in the current setup.

Here's how the anemone is doing.  The male clown can be seen underneath and to the left tending to the eggs they've recently laid.

This particular rock has a sponge that is getting bigger.  It's also accumulating a lot of pineapple sponges.

Stress Graph Adjustment

Just made an adjustment to the Water Change Stress Graph (or whatever I call it).

Instead of nitrates at 40 being 100%, I've adjusted it to max out at a nitrate level of 20.  That change will help going forward, but makes my historical graphs look horrible with those "200%" spikes.

I did a quick search to see the what levels of nitrates stress coral and anemones.  The answer was 20.  That's why the lowered maximum.

BTW, noticed another dead hermit a couple days ago.  Another one bites the dust.

Build it and They Will Come

Been a while since my last post.  I've mostly been hanging out at the Reef Tank forums... learning.  So I suppose a few updates are in order:

My single Stomatella now has company.  I've noticed at least three others.

Since turning my power filter into a chaeto house, water quality seems more stable.  Sure, there are nitrates, but they aren't increasing on a daily basis.  And it's been just over a week since the last water change.  I'm not stretching it to see how far I can go, but I'd also like to not have to blow through 50 pounds of salt in 6 weeks, either.

The last time I removed the power filter I noticed a single Neomeris annulata.  Then when incorporating the power filter once again, the annulata seemed to bleach and nearly go away.  This time I have a small mat of them.  I'll get pictures up sometime soon.

Within the past couple of days I've had another algae bloom.  Mostly cyanobacteria.  So any pictures before the next water change will reflect such.

I'm down to feeding the anemone once a week.  I generally give it three or four freeze-dried krill.  I'm basing this on the amount of krill I found during it's last waste expulsion.  It could probably eat every 5 days, but that's not the easiest thing to keep track of, so once a week it is.

I'm also noticing the beginning of purple and green coraline algae spots on the back glass.  I tend to neglect the back glass hoping that a coral will attach and use it as a growing surface.  Some corals seem like they only grow on the purple coraline, and others... well, I can't really see their perch like I can with star polyps so I can't really tell.

Lost another Dwarf Hermit Crab three days ago.  Not sure why.  Perhaps a lack of food?  I doubt it, but I don't know for sure.  The others (down to 6 from 10) seem to all be doing fine.  I don't know if I blogged about it, but a couple weeks ago I went and got 6 new larger shells for them.  At least three have changed shells.  I know for sure two of the larger ones have the new shells, and the smallest has move into one of the discarded shells.

I'm still working on charting water quality time frames comparing a power filter tank with a non-power filter tank.  It's a work in progress and will be published when results have sufficient data.

Running without the power filter (and a sump) definitely has it's drawbacks, but I'm learning to live with some particulates in the water.  They do eventually settle (over a few days vs a few hours), but are still in the tank waiting to be stirred up again.  I think that's why I'm letting the cyano and other algaes get more of a foothold than normal.  I'm hoping the algae, when removed, will take some of the settled particulates with them.

Other than the process of planning a benthic sump (which will obviously be documented), nothing much else going on except tank watching and forum reading.  I'll see what I can do to get pictures up soon.

Observations - Apr 14, 2011

Found a dead Dwarf Red Legged Hermit Crab today.

Cyanobacteria still seems to be at a standstill.  I may very well rid myself of it next water change (scheduled for tomorrow).  I have a feeling, however, the diatoms will be a longer battle.

The chaeto ball seems to be compressing itself more.  It hasn't changed size (smaller or larger) in the last couple of days, but it is now more dense.  I have a feeling that as the chaeto strands extend, they weave themselves tighter and tighter, especially when in form of a clump or ball.  So in order to maximize nutrient export, I will need to maximize chaeto exposure.  For that I suspect I will need to kneed the chaeto into a larger shape so that a majority of portions of it still receive at least light.  If parts of the chaeto die in the tank, the whole point of having chaeto will have been defeated.  When it dies, it just releases the nutrients back into the system.

I can foresee that when I kneed the chaeto, I will lose some strands to flow.  Loose strands do not necessarily pose a danger of dieing and subsequently releasing nutrients - it is simply an aesthetic problem.  It may be best if the chaeto is several small clumps instead of one large clump.  Smaller clumps would need little if any attention, at least until they become dense due to growth.

Definitely something to think about for tomorrow.

Here's todays tank pics:

The "unknown coral" seems to be doing quite well...  At least I hope it's coral.

Observation - A Lack of Activity Leads to Closer Scrutiny

So it's been 4 days now since the Damsels were removed.  I bet it's going to be another month before we get any fish back into the tank.  When it rains, it pours.

So with only 10 Dwarf Hermit Crabs, the needles on the gauges seem to be winding down.  After four days, nitrites are nearly at zero.  There is more than one thing going on that effects nitrates, so I'm not putting a lot of weight on it's results quite yet, but I will keep an eye on it to see if I can determine if nitrates are being converted to nitrogen.

If I would have known it would be so long before replacing the Damsels, they'd still be here.

So the tank is a lonely place now.  With fish AND crabs, the fish would draw me in, then I'd begin to study the crabs.  I still gaze into the tank habitually only to find three or four crabs within view... not much to see.  But habits are hard to break.  I now study the rock.  With the addition of flow, I can see detritus attached to the rock waving in the current.

As I go from rock to rock, I've begun to notice some algae.  I'm curious as to what it is - at least it's a nice shade of green instead of the brown stuff (not that the brown algae is gone).  Chances are it's nuisance algae, but at least it gives me something to do.

Once in a while I'll see a nice big piece of detritus resembling a dandelion seed.  Flow doing it's job:  CHECK.

The Boy got Crabs in Old Town

The Dwarf Red Hermit Crabs (seen on the substrate)

I mentioned before we'd picked up some Dwarf Red Hermit Crabs (Chibanarius digueti) last time we were at the LFS.

I went in about 7 weeks after setting up the tank. To his credit, the owner of my preferred LFS was a little reluctant to sell me much of anything prior to the tank becoming 8 weeks old.  I mostly wanted some assistance with keeping the brown algae off the rocks and substrate...  I'm sure the Damsels are tired of the prolific clouds of marine snow dislodged when I stir the algae into the substrate and lightly scrub the rocks.

He agreed that I was probably close enough to the end of my cycle (if I'm not already through it) to take home some Dwarf Red Hermit Crabs (but no snails just quite yet).

He took me to the tank where they were housed.  They certainly seemed active...they were very busy sifting the crush coal bottom.  They were a buck a piece, and he thought 10 would be a nice number to start with.

We had a quick discussion which allowed him to get to know me a little better.  He started off by mentioning most customers will ask how many crabs can be put in a certain size of tank... I interrupted him to verify its not the tank size that matters, but the amount of work to be done, or at least in this case, the amount of algae available for the crabs.  He was relieved to hear that I understand that perspective, which probably elevated me a notch in his opinion.

Back to the house and I've got to wait on the crabs to acclimate before putting the new Coralife Lunar Aqualite...seemed like an eternity, but this post is about the crabs, not necessarily the light, lol.

After what was probably an overly thorough acclimation, the crabs were ready to be introduced into the tank.  I dropped each one in and they all landed within 6" of each other.  I hurried with the new Aqualite so I could catch every detail.

After less than a minute, all but two of the crabs were already in motion.  About half started hiking.  The other half began to graze in place.  After about 5 minutes all but the two crabs that were motionless had left the drop zone.  Crabs trails of white had already begun to appear behind the grazers, and one special "hiker" was already on top of the highest rock in the tank.

I verified the two motionless crabs were still alive - I could see the antennae twitching, just no leg movement.  To this day (not like it's been years) those two crabs are still my slowest movers.  Granted they are the two smallest crabs in there.

I've also learned, through close scrutiny, that not all the crabs are Dwarf Reds.  At least one of them is a Dwarf White Hermit Crab.

After a few days of watching them, they seemed to take on a slightly different personality than the had in the LFS.  I only watched them a few minutes before purchasing them, but as I said before, they were really, really active.  In my tank, they seem to siesta.  But then it occurred to me:  The LFS doesn't have much algae, so those guys really must have to work for their food.  On the other hand, my tank is like Thanksgiving.  And just like Thanksgiving afternoon, we're all napping with full bellies.

So while the crabs graze upon the rock and substrate, I continue to scrub the algae from the glass.

In a couple weeks, I'll have my snails.  Perhaps even a Chaeto (Chaetomorpha algae) nest of Reefpods as well...