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Tank Log: Month 7 |
General Observations
The tank is now seven months old. All specimens continue to
experience rapid growth. About 10 different SPS corals are now being
fragged and traded to local LFS in exchange for store credit. Goal is to
make the tank mostly self supporting. This month, the frags bought 150gal
of salt, frozen foods, Calcium reactor media and a pipefish.
Current water parameters:
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Alkalinity - 3.5 meq./l. - I continue to use 1 tsp of Seachem Reef Builder in each gallon of makeup water. |
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Calcium - 460ppm |
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pH - 8.00 Night to 8.30 during the day |
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Temp - 78.5 to 81.0F |
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Salinity - 1.0245 |
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Here are some of the frags that are being made. Most are being placed onto small concrete plugs made with aragonite, some others go onto live rock rubble. |
New Additions
I continue to stock very slowly. I am looking for only exceptional specimens to add at this time.
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Dragon Pipefish Corythoichthys intestinalis This specimen is about 5" long. I had not considered adding a pipefish to the reef tank before as most are not very compatible with a standard reef tank, especially an SPS tank. This variety has been kept in several large local SPS reef tanks successfully, so I thought I would give it a try. It is a very interesting looking fish and spends its day on the gravel near the front glass or on the macro algae and live rock, looking for pods. It stalks them much like a Mandarin does. I have not seen it take any prepared food yet. |
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Here he/she is on the prowl for pods in a stand of Halimeda. |
Deaths/Specimen Problems
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No problems to report this month. |
Tank problems and opportunities for
improvement.
There really hasn't been any problems over the last month. The
CO2 tank on the calcium reactor is about to run out and will have to be refilled
next week. The 10lb bottle lasted about 5 months.
Maintenance
I continue to do weekly 10 gallon water changes with Kent salt.
