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Tank Log: Month 5 |
General Observations
The tank is now at the five month mark and continues to do very well. The
picture above is taken with 1/2 of the MH turned on. The combination of
small to moderately small particle size of the sand bed has helped to keep the
bed much cleaner looking then the larger particle sand beds I have kept.
This is primarily due to frequent particle turn-over due to water motion as well
as some action of the critters in the tank.
Current water parameters:
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Alkalinity - 3.5 meq./l. - I am trying to raise it a little with the calcium reactor. |
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Calcium - 500ppm |
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pH - 8.00 Night to 8.30 during the day |
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Temp - 78.5 to 81.5F |
New Additions
There have been very few additions this last month. I have intentionally slowed down the stocking rate and am picking up only what I consider to be fairly exceptional specimens. I want to ensure that I leave a reasonable amount of growth room for each of the specimens before I have to start pruning them.
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Pink Stylophora Wild colony about 4" across. Looks very healthy and has already started to turn a darker pink in the tank. It is positioned about 1/3 of the way up on the live rock under fairly moderate water flow. |
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Chitons Actually hitchhikers that I have just noticed in the tank. The larger one is almost 1" long. Very difficult to see against the mottling of the live rock since they blend in so well. They were only noticed due to the tracks they were leaving in the algae on the live rock. |
Deaths/Specimen Problems
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The large Sarcophyton has been removed to another tank. It was starting to look a little funny and when it closed up (which is normal), I noticed that some of the tips of the tentacles were coming off. Since these corals can damage SPS, I decided not to take a chance with it going bad in the tank. It is doing just fine in the tank I moved it to. I may move it back to the main display tank, but I will probably trade it in at the LFS for us in a Soft coral display tank they are setting up. I have had this coral several years and hate to give it up, but there are already several babies growing in the tank and I am trying to decrease the amount of soft coral I have in with the SPS due to water pollution concerns. My poor Ocellaris Clowns do look a little lost with their host gone. |
| This is similar to what happened with my large Sinularia. It started to look pretty poor and was showing signs of degeneration. Once I moved it to the another tank it has looked fine for several months. Not sure if there is a pattern here. |
Tank problems and opportunities for
improvement.
There really hasn't been any problems over the last month. The
algae film on the tank walls still needs to be cleaned every other day or
so. I am convinced that this excessive growth is fueled by the use of the
calcium reactor. Small price to pay for the other benefits I
suppose. Cleaning the glass does provide some phytoplankton food for the
tank.
Maintenance
I refilled the calcium reactor media. It took 6 lbs of ARM media to top it off. That amounts to about 1 1/4 lbs of media usage a month on average. Daily, I add about 3 gallons of RO/DI top-off water. Every couple of days I need to clean the tank glass of film algae. I continue to do weekly 10 gallon water changes with either Kent or Coralife salt. There are no other supplements used in this tank.
