Your efforts seem to have payed off, your tank is looking good :thumb:

Glad to see the tank is looking up for you Mindy. From the FTS you would never know you were having issues recently. :wink:

Muck, you have no idea how close it was to crashing. It was trying real hard for about 3 days. It bounced back though, and the colors are better than they have ever been on the SPS, the LPS are taking a bit longer to perk up.

Thanks Laurie, it was stressful for a few days that's for sure. That's what I get for staring at it in annoyance instead of doing waterchanges.

Leah, he's a close up of the Melanurus:
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...Oct1620112.jpg

Beautiful fish Mindy! Can't believe you could get such a good shot of him. :biggrin:

Soooo...I refilled my alkalinity doser yesterday around noon, and plugged it into the wall instead of the timer to refill the dosing tubes (I let i run dry...oops). I set a timer for 10 minutes so I wouldn't forget. I remember to timer going off, but apparently I didn't go unplug the doser! WTF?!!! Anyway, this morning I walk by the tank and I usually glance at the doser vessels in habit to check if one needs refilling and the alkalinity is HALF EMPTY! I left it on for 20 hours! :eek: I tested calcium at 430 ppm and alkalinity at 17 dKH. I have no idea why calcium is so high as the high alkalinity should have yanked the calcium down...maybe the high alkalinity is preventing the inhabitants from utilizing calcium and alkalinity. Anyway...I added a bunch of calcium hopefully bumping it up to 500 ppm which will help draw the alkalinity down a bit and also help to balance it a bit better. Of course I ran out of one of the liquids for the calcium kit (it didn't feel that empty rrrg!). I just did a waterchange yesterday so I didn't have new water mixed up yet, but I have it mixing now. Everyone looks happy, so I won't bother doing a waterchange unless someone shows stress. They are tough. I hope... :eek:

Some other changes in the tank...added a 200 micron filter sock to this tank. I bought a doser and some Kalk to start adding Kalk, but had a brain fart and ordered a slow doser instead of a fast doser, so that project is on hold. Kalk should help a bit while the rocks are still leeching nutrients. I bought everything to modify the sump for a Chaeto filter as well. Back to basics! :)

The "Melanurus Wrasse" is actually a Grey Head Wrasse! He is almost done changing into a male now...He has changed a bit since the last pic. I was looking at him a couple weeks ago thinking, "He just doesn't quite look like a Melanurus, and he's getting sooo big!" So I did some searching around and found out he is a Grey Head which I'm not familiar with! Thankfully the Grey Head is essentially the same personality as a Melanurus, but I can expect him to get another 1 1/2" on the Melanurus! The female Melanurus and female Grey Head look very similar and I guess he was mislabeled right from the wholesaler because I special ordered him. I didn't notice the difference...actually I didn't know there was a similar looking wrasse in existence! So...long story short...he has turned into one big @$$ wrasse! :eek:

Ouch, good luck with the Alk thing.

Interesting about the wrasse. Man they look pretty similar. At least the size difference is only 1.5" and not something more profound!

Oh, no kidding Tony! Could you imagine if he got 15" like a Red Coris? That would suck. It's bad enough he will get 6"...with just a 90 gallon tank there isn't a lot of wiggle room. He seems to be very similar in habits to the Melanurus...hunts bristleworms like they are the devil. Constantly picking at rocks, and picking at the inside of SPS colonies (not hurting them). He hasn't hurt the Peppermint shrimp that's in there. There have been a few empty snail shells in the last few months, although I haven't actually seen him picking at them so I don't know if he has anything to do with that or not. I'm going to add a Yellow Wrasse (H chrysus) as soon as I find one, so that will be a good test to see how much of a jerk he's going to be. I took all the other fish out of the reef, and am going to concentrate on making it a wrasse dominated tank. Should be interesting...

Yikes! Glad to hear everything seems ok.

Thanks Laurie. :)

So far so good. Adding the calcium did exactly what I was hoping it would do; it precipitated a bunch of calcium and alkalinity out of the water column. Precipitate all over...powerheads are white. :lol: I will test later, and see how much progress there is. Corals still look fine.

That must be a bit of a relief :biggrin:

My RBTA has been moving around for the last week. Not far, just 6" or so, and he is on his own island so he can't do much damage as long as he stays attached. Freakin nem is stressing me out waaaaaaaaaay more than the alkalinity being at 17 dKH. :lol:

See!......nems is evil.....Ive been sayin it for years......they pick a time when you are already vulnerable and torment you with threats of moving

One of my maxi minis decided to take a walk awhile ago, very annoying. I see him every once in awhile always in a different spot. Wish he'd pick a spot in the open where I can see him and stay there!

Hope your RBTA settles down

Walkin nems is scary in a tank full of coral! :eek:

The alkalinity is down to 11 dKH this morning, so it precipitated nicely for me. Just have a white tank now. :lol: I guess I'm cleaning pumps this weekend...it could be worse!

Just for fun, here are some photos 1 year apart.

Jan 2, 2010:
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...2/Jan22010.jpg



Jan 1, 2011:
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...2/Jan12011.jpg



Jan 1, 2012:
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...2/IMG_3028.jpg
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=52501

Myka, what is your secret to growing the sps corals too fast ?

likewise, whats the secret?

They don't all grow fast. I have some that grow painfully slow. I have two frags that I've had for 2 years that haven't grown any significant amount. Besides that, the less I mess with things the faster they grow. The KISS theory goes a long way. :D

thats quite the evolution Mindy....looks good these days.....and as you know KISS is my mantra too:wink:

I am not the KISS extremist that you are Doug! Your particular KISS theory gives me nightmares! :eek:

Just a note, that Purple Frilly gorgonian just right of middle grows really well for me. I frag it regularly to keep it the same size otherwise it would overgrow the tank. I have fragged off probably just about the same amount that is there, so it has almost doubled in 2 years. My other photosynthetic gorgs are typical gorgs and don't grow very fast at all.

Very nice Mindy, I think I have tank envy ;)

It really is beautiful and that's just from the pictures. I'm sure it's absolutely stunning in person.

I really like the scape on this, things are filling in real nice.

my biggest rule for myself.....leave it alone and let it grow lol less is more...tank looks stellar , way up there in canreefs best tanks i love the pattern your gsp is growing :):)

i couldnt get any growth from my purple frilly gorgs i ended up making a bunch of frags for people i hope they did better for them then me...lots of PE but no real height, maybe it was just the tank at the time lol :):)

speaking of not messing with anything, I went to move some zoo's today, cause they looked like they were stretching to get past my palys for light, and there was easily 50 heads on the frag compared to 10 when I bought it 3 months ago! so I just moved it slightly into the light, but other then that, yeah dont mess with anything like they say! It works lol.

Notice anything different?

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4.../Feb520122.jpg

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4.../Feb520123.jpg

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4.../Feb520124.jpg

Took me awhile to spot it. Where did it all go?

It went to a bunch of different homes. I can't move it into the new tank, and I have been wondering if there was chemical warfare as it is known to be one of the bad ones. It will be interesting to see if there are any changes.

I think it looks cleaner now with out all that grass:wink:, but either way your tank looks sweet.

I agree. Every time I look at it I think...gee it looks cleaner/tidier. :mrgreen: I can't say I miss it, although it did look nice. I saved some for myself that I plan to make a gorgonian island in the tank where I can put all my photo gorgs and use the gsp as grass on the island. Hehehe...probably won't look as cool as I am imagining.

so nice and clean......looks great.

I agree... looks much better now. :mrgreen:

Heh, thanks! Here I thought the GSP looked cool. :lol:

The polyp extension is definitely more than usual, so that's a good sign. I bought some Brightwell Aquatics Microbacter7 and BioFuel to try out. So far, I've never been able to find a probiotic type system that I have been completely satisfied with. Time to experiment...again. ;)

Oh, a couple weeks ago I chucked some Chaeto in the sump with a light on 18 hr reverse photoperiod. Still fighting nutrients...I'm almost ready to rip the tank apart and take the rock out to cook it. I'm replacing 300 mL of GFO every 4 weeks. Ridiculous...

EDIT (while I can): Oops...wrong thread. LOL

I'm doing a Brightwell Aquatics NeoZeo Method Experiment in the Product Review forum. It has a rundown of the trials and tribulations of the 33 months the tank has been running.

I added some critters in the last while, current fish list: Grey Head Wrasse, 3x McCosker's Fairy Wrasse, Yellow Coris Wrasse, Lubbock's Fairy Wrasse, Bangaii Cardinal, Tomato clown. I have ordered another Tomato clown and 3 Yellow Tail Damsels (hey I like them!).

Some future additions I am considering (not all of them obviously): Blotchy Anthias, Hooded Wrasse, Helfrich's or Purple Firefish, Orange Back Wrasse, Orchid Dottyback.

Wow! Nice tank!

Long story short, in early April I decided to pull the GFO and try vodka and Microbacter7 dosing. I dosed for about 6 weeks. I built up slowly, and followed the "famous dosing schedule" and I managed to slowly brown out all my SPS by about 99% and near the end of the 6 weeks I lost half a dozen small pieces. I was quite stubborn about making it work. http://www.saskreef.ca/forums/images...n_confused.gif When I started losing pieces in early May I quit dosing the vodka and MB7, and went back to the trusty GFO and Prodibio dosing in mid-May. I've had good luck with Prodibio before. So, now I'm starting to get some color back, but the tank still looks like poop. So much for experiments. Argh.

When I did the vodka dosing, most of the SPS went brown, but some of them bleached out. The ones that I lost were ones that bleached. Two of my favourite colonies were two of the pieces that bleached and when they started to RTN at the base that's when I threw in the towel on the vodka + MB7. I found a pic I took of the one colonies:
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...2/May62012.jpg



This is what it looks like in its prime:
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...pt10201122.jpg



Also, in the beginning of March I moved most of my LPS out of the 90 and into the new 50. In the process I basically pilfered the 90 and it looked a bit barren. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of how bad it looked. Between the tank looking awful, and me killing my main camera in Hawaii in May I haven't taken many pics since.

Here it was halfway browned out, partway through the vodka dosing. When I pilfered the corals out, I took almost all the rock out of the right hand side of the tank, so it was quite bare looking.

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4.../Mar102012.jpg


So, Canada Day weekend I moved the last of the LPS and Gorgonians out of the 90 and put about 40 lbs of live rock into the 90 to fluff it back up. Finally, after 18 months of putting it off, the tank doesn't have a million corals on the sand! It still needs A LOT more color to develop back again, but here is how it looked shortly after the re-aquascaping on June 30th...

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4.../Jun302012.jpg

looks like you did some fragging as well, so is this going to be sps only now??

Yeah, I chomped down the large birdnest on the left, and the birdnest on the right is not in the new pic because it was in the sump when I took the pic. I forgot it in the sump for a week, but is now back up in the display, and is a cool white color (lol)...it is starting to get color back. I think everything else is still in there. It is amazing how much more room there was when I took out all the LPS. This tank is now 98% SPS. It would be 100% SPS if I could peel the Meteor Shower Cyphastrea off the rocks and that is not very possible...