Nebthet's 56g Reef

[chris88]

there is definetly some growth happening. Have you ever tried to scrap the algae and coraline off the glass? It really makes the corals stand out when its clean. I use a kent pro scrap with a metal blade and it works like a charm.

[Nebthet]

I have sort of used a scrapper when I had a major algae issue, but the turbo snails are slowly eating it. I have been more concerned with the RO water switchover. I made my first $100 in frag sales this month. yippee.. but man did I have to educate some people on proper tank husbandry and inform them they don't have the right lighting and perameters to keep corals healthy. Very frustrating.

I am in the process right now of either upgrading to a larger tank, or taking a 33g (36lx12wx18h) that I have in the bedroom and setting that one up in addition to this one. If I do that, I plan on making it an AIO system and using my PAR38 bulbs for the lighting.

[Nebthet]

Time for some new pix of my new stuff.

Ric Yumas. I traded some of my frags for this frag of three heads.. it now has two new heads starting on the rocks and these went from half an inch in size to almost 3 inches diameter. They are very happy in my tank.


New firefish


New Bangaii cardinals.. #1 is still out and active. #2 on the other hand is MIA after 4 days.



Now some of the older....
Paly's are growing like wild fire.


McCosker's is flashing away today



Brown zoas improving after I snapped back some of my red monticap.


Sebae update.. doing well and getting darker.


Whatchu Looking at Foo?

[Nebthet]

Ok.. now for some end of the month pictures, mostly macros.

Yuma



Rainbow Monti


Blueberry Monti


Red and Green Monti Cap



Purple tipped Digi


Acan garden with gsp, yuma rock, gsp chalices and duncans


Dendro


Blue Tenuis


Another type of tenuis.... good lord tenuis are such slooooow growers.


Purple with White polyp unknown: Sorry for the crappy pic.. it is hard to get a pic of.


Green Bottlebrush


Toxic Chalice... this one has grown back nicely from nearly nothing.


Brown/Green Pocci... I really want to get a pink one.


Green unknown acro


True Tricolor growing back and liking it up there closer to the lights.


Unknown acro: this one hasn't done well in my tank until recently when I moved it down to the sandbed to see if that was low enough light for it.. it almost died when I had it on the side of the tank closer to the lights. So I am hoping over time it colors back up.


Red rimmed zoas


Red skirted zoas




Tank update: well unfortunately all my clams are dead. I am not sure of the definite cause, but I am thinking it was some sort of pathogen as only clams were affected for the most part, although some other corals were not happy when the clams started dying. They were withdrawn and the encrusting monti's started losing their colors.

Whatever it was, it was strange. It attacked the foot of the clam and killed it from the inside out. Right up to nearly the time of death, the clams would act normal from above, their mantles expanding and contracting, but you would have a hole you could see and mucous showing either from the side of the clam or through the foot.

Once I saw this I took the clams out, with one exception, and that was the clam my RBTA is attached to. It is very happy where it is and I don't want to screw that up.

After the two larger maximas died.. and oh how I loved my gold teardrop... ... and I did a large water change and put in new carbon the corals started improving and gaining their color back, very quickly I might add. You wouldn't know today that the encrusting monti's were almost all white.

My icefire is receeding now .. had rtn, but it has stopped so now I have almost all white stick in that area. Grr. But on the bright side, my green monti is darkening in color a lot. and everything else is growing just fine, especially the acans.

Now over the next month, I have to figure out how the heck I am going to move two juvi clowns out of this system into their own tank.. The bottle trick didn't work.. and trying to get the one from below during lights out didn't work either.. any thoughts?

[Delphinus]

Sorry to hear of the tank troubles. Sucks about the clams - but indeed once you get a pathogen in there like that they just go one by one. It's very disheartening.

FWIW though man that last set of macro photos are just stunner. You wouldn't know you're having frustrations based on those shots. Some very nice stuff there and really exquisite colours showing up.

Hope the upward trend continues.

[fishytime]

Sorry to hear about your clams Sarah....Im going through the exact same thing atm....only I thought it was my coral beauty the caused my die off.....now Im wondering....hmmmmm

[Nebthet]

If you are getting the exact same symptoms in your clams that I had in mine, where they are degrading from the foot up.. then I don't think it is your fish doing it.. I thought it was the hermits, bristleworms or something else bothering my clams, but when I took them out to do freshwater dips, there was nothing.. no pyramid snails nothing.. even in them until the mantle on top started deteriorating.
The only other thing I could think it is, is some sort of new treatment they are using for our local water sources that the clams don't agree with, but what ever is happening with the clams I know we are not the only ones to have the exact same issue and not know what it is.