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Tank Log: Month 1 |
General Observations
The tank is now at the one month mark and still going pretty
much according to plan. All of the corals are doing extremely well. Polyp extension and
coloration of SPS corals is much better than shortly before the move to the new
tank. Many of the thin branched SPS corals are showing a definite
thickening of their branches.
New Additions
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Two Neon Gobies (Gobiosoma oceanops). Very small at around 1". They immediately have started to clean the other fish. Each one has staked out separate ends of the tank as their territory. |
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One Scissortail Goby (Ptereleotris evides). Attractive mid water addition. |
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A type of plating favia (closed brain or moon coral). Disc is about 4" across. |
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An unknown type of SPS approx. 2" high. It has a hint of blue in the tips and good shape. We will see what it turns into. |
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Three Red-Footed Moon snails. |
Algae
The brown algae coating the sand and live rock has disappeared as
expected on its own. It's presence only lasted about a week. The
green algae that coats the tank walls is still going strong. Within a day
of cleaning the tank, there is a noticeable regrowth. I expect that this
will die down pretty soon. This is normal for a new tank even though all
levels such as nitrates and phosphates are at zero. I believe it is do to
on-going mineralization of organic matter on the new live rock that is not
significant enough to register readings, but is enough to fuel the algae
growth. The Sargasso macro algae is still growing slowly but
steadily. The larger growths are removed weekly. Coralline algae
growth was noticed after only one week. Now the growth is obvious
especially around the overflow.
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This picture shows the amount of coralline algae growth around the overflow of the tanks after one month. |
The introduction of the new fish above caused my Yellow-tail Blue Tang to come down with a severe case of what appeared to be marine velvet. I could not catch him and figured he was a goner. Amazingly, the Neon Gobies went to work cleaning him and within about 3 days, the disease appears to be under control as I write this.
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Here is a shot of one of the Neon Gobies working on the Blue Tang. |
