pH - 8.05 Night to 8.37 during the day
Nitrate - undetectable
pH - 8.05 Night to 8.37 during the day
Temp - 79.5 to 84F
Salinity - 1.025
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Here's a nice shot of the middle of the tank. |
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A little off topic - Here's a shot of my 20 gallon tank at work. It has been going strong for about 3 years with nothing more than 1-2 gallons of water changed each week with no other supplements or skimming. Sometimes the simple way is the best! |
New Additions
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None this month |
Deaths/Specimen Problems
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My Bluespotted Jawfish turned up missing this month. He looked fine with no signs of disease and was feeding very well. One morning he just couldn't be found. I have decided that he has either gone carpet surfing behind the tank where I cannot get to or his burrowing habit finally caught up to him and one of the large pieces of live rock shifted and crushed him. It's a shame as he was a very personable fish, not to mention the most expensive fish I have evnbsp; 8.05 Night to 8.35 during the day |
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Temp - 78.5 to 82.5F |
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Salinity - 1.026 |
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Here is kind of a cool shot that shows the coral reflections in the surface of the tank water. |
New Additions
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Blue Spotted Jawfish Opistognathus sp
One of my all time favorite fish. They had been unavailable in the hobby for a number of years and are just now starting to get imported again. Very personable fish, but it does like to dig and has been playing havoc with my frags. It is constantly burying them or knocking them over as it attempts to burrow under them. |
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Click here to see the specimen sheet for the Blue Spotted Jawfish |
Deaths/Specimen Problems
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The Rose BTA continues to grow and encroach on some of it's neighbors. Here it can be seen that it has killed a small SPS colony that it has overwhelmed. It was a known risk when I introduced the BTA into the tank and so I am not surprised or concerned. |
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This is what the SPS coral looked like before the BTA killed it. It was a very nice blue-tipped specimen. |
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My Green Open Brain which I have had for 3 years started looking pretty ragged. I noticed part of its skeleton showing through in spots. Eventually, I found that the new Copperband Butterflyfish was picking on him. I am not sure if the Copperband caused all the damage or if the Open Brain was already declining. I am leaving it in place, but I will be surprised if it survives much longer. |
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The Hippo tang had developed some spots, possibly ick. I crushed a clove of garlic and put into a glass with a small amount of tank water. After 15 minutes or so, the main chunks of garlic were removed and the food was soaked in it for another 15 minutes or so and then fed to the fishes. After two days of treatment as I write this, the the spots have mostly cleared and I don't think the fish is at risk |
Tank problems and opportunities for improvement.
I had noticed a surface scum forming on the top of the water. A couple of days later, I happened to notice that I had very low water flow out of my SeaSwirl returns when I had my hand in the tank for maintenance. Turns out that the clear tubing which I use for the return lines had grown enough algae in them from the tank lights that they had almost completely blocked the returns. I had to pull both return lines off and clean them out. Once the return water flow was returned to normal, the tank surface scum quickly went away.
Maintenance
I continue to do weekly 10 gallon water changes with Kent salt, although I missed the last two weeks due to other things going on. Besides the Calcium Reactor I do not add any other significant supplements.
