Wow! It's been quite a while and many things have happened. I will try to categorize my activities and explain results. A lot of what is written is opinion and hypothesis because I do not have true scientific explanations or proof. Also, I do not have exact dates as I am going from memory.
This is a lot to read, but it is still very brief. I welcome emails if you need additional information. Please be patient if you send mail - I do a lot of traveling and can't get to them all as fast as I would like to. Also, I can be found in the newsgroups rec.aquaria.marine.reef and rec.aquaria.marine.misc from time to time.
I will try to provide pictures soon (so many commitments, so little time!).
Overall:
At this time, I am very
pleased with the setup. The only thing I am considering is changing the wave
makers to two large pumps that cycle on and off. This will allow me to better
aim the jets to customize water currents to the needs of specific animals.
Everything in the tank is thriving except for the things that have been stung
by my Frog Spawn or have responded negatively to the new lights (below). My
feather dusters all shed their heads when I made the change to Kent Sea Salt,
but they have grown back and are bigger than ever now. They since added about
1" to their tubes. I also had problems with my Anemone (it seems that a crab
pinched off a tentacle), but it is also fully healed and growing extremely
fast.
As a final note, I have slowed down on adding animals due to time constraints. I think that this is smart for other reasons as well. The tank still has some maturing to do, and my next animals will most likely be more colorful SPS corals and I would like to replace my clam. I plan to add slowly now and enjoy the work I have done - its finally starting to pay off.
Chemical Problems:
When I
started, I was using Reef Crystals salt. I found several deficiencies as I was
testing and decided to try a chemical block called "Sea Labs No 28". In three
days, my Calcium was at 720!! (Note: it should be 350-400). This caused almost
every trace element to precipitate out of the water. It took forever (actually
2 months) to get this under control. I tried to supplement using SeaChem
products (which I really like) but it was nearly impossible to keep up with and
balance. I believe that this cost me several animals - including a very nice
Elegance Coral. I am happy to report that, now that this problem is solved, the
only supplement I am using is about 2 tsp/day of "Eco Systems Reef Solution"
which is a vitamin/mineral/trace additive. I soak the food in it for 15 minutes
and feed to fish. I use an auto-feeder when I am away, and notice the
difference when the fish have not had it. It is a nice product, but kind of
expensive.
ICH:
When I acquired the Blue
Tang, I had a pretty bad outbreak of Ich (chryptocarion iritans). After seeking
advice of many, I opted for a solution that is still under much debate -
cleaner shrimp and garlic. Everyone in the hobby tells me that I am crazy, but
this really works. I have had some long threads about this on
rec.aquaria.marine.reef and rec.aquaria.marine.misc.
Unfortunately, this is not a proven system, but what it does is use nature to deal with disease - the same way we use nature to deal with nitrogen compounds. The object is to minimize stress, provide animals that naturally remove parasites from the fish, and feed the fish adequately to maintain strength and fight off the infestation.
Tangs seem to be the most vulnerable to the infestation. For this
reason, I will never keep Tangs without cleaner shrimp or a cleaner wrasse.
When an outbreak occurs, the last thing you want to do is change the
environment. This will lead to death or at least sever infestation in almost
every case. I want this to be clear - so I will put it in bold:
I STILL
HAVE ICH AND IT IS OK WITH ME!
What does this mean? It means that I
have Ich in my tank like everyone else has ammonia, nitrates and nitrites (just
because you can't measure them does not mean they aren't there). It is normal
for my Tangs to have a parasite or two on their bodies. I don't panic because
my cleaner shrimp remove the parasites and keep the population down. Some will
say that this is impossible - IT ISN'T. I bought my purple Tang because it had
ICH at the pet store, and I knew it would die in their care. I placed it in my
quarantine tank with Malachite Green (NEVER use this in your show tank - it
turns the silicone green) for a week to kill the majority of the parasites, and
dumped him in my show tank - spots and all. After several weeks, and a minor
infestation on a few of the other fish, everything was fine. The purple Tang is
now my nicest specimin
The great part is that I do not have to bite my fingernails every time I get a new fish - the Ich is already in there! Live and let live when it comes to the ocean. Another great advantage to the shrimp is that they spawn. About every 5 nights I have a new hatch of baby shrimp to feed my corals and anemone. Now that's the ticket - converting harmful parasites into coral food!
The last part of the formula is Garlic. I have absolutely nothing to go on but my own experience, but it does do something to help the fish fight off Ich. I have two theories on this. The first is that it somehow makes the fish resistant to attachment of the parasite, the other is that it stimulates the fish to eat more - increasing its health and strength. I use two drops of "Kent Garlic Xtreem" with the evening feeding. I soak flake or frozen food in a garlic and Reef Solution mix for 15 minutes then feed as usual. Currently, I do this once or twice a week, unless I see more than 2 spots on any fish. If I see spots, I feed garlic every day for a week. If you plan to do this BE CAREFUL. The fish will not eat if there is too much garlic in the food and this will only make things worse. If you want more data on this topic, email me.
SALT MIX:
I tried Reef Crystals
and had some chemical problems. Then, I changed to Kent because it was
available locally. This was definitely a step up, but even after I had my
chemicals back in balance, I still did not see the kind of health in the
animals that I was used to. I ran out of Kent and, in an emergency, pulled a
10-year-old bag of Instant Ocean off of the shelf to mix a batch. WOW! what a
difference. There is something about Instant Ocean that brought my tank to life
- the difference is truly astounding. My favorite piece of advice to all who
are starting is "Use Instant Ocean, do water changes, and don't mess with
additives."
Lighting:
When I acquired the
Frog Spawn, it was not doing too well. I tried it in several places, with
different water current, and I could not get it to look good. At night it would
retract way back into its skeleton. On the advice of a helpful aquarist on one
of the Newsgroups, I changed my lights to Ushio 10,000K reef bulbs and my
fluorescent to Coralife50/50s. I did it one bulb per week to minimize stress. A
week after the final change, the Frog Spawn started to look much better - other
corals responded in different ways. The mushrooms didn't like it and I had to
move them into a shady area. The anemone turned dark brown with green
highlights (in other words, healthier), and the colt coral started to grow
about 1" every week. The Frog Spawn is taking over the tank! I have had to
relocate several other corals because it sends out sweeper tentacles and melts
them. It is a beautiful piece, but I may need to do something about it soon.
Funny, it is right next to the Anemone and neither one seems to want to give up
ground - everything else is running away.
Phosphates and Nitrates
I really
had some initial problems with Phosphates, and I wanted to get my Nitrates
lower (not too high, but in the marginal range). I think this came from the use
of some old crushed coral and other rubble for the bottom of the tank.
Initially, I used SeaChem Phosgard to get the phosphates down. This worked
great, but it went down so fast that it stressed and killed a small toadstool
(I had heard that this can happen). Finally, I decided that the crushed coral
bed was a bad idea and decided to change the system to a sand bed. I could not
add the recommended 4" of sand to the main tank, so I also converted my
quarantine tank to a refugium (see below).
Converting to Sand
Bed
Converting to a sand bed is a messy job at best. You have
to siphon the old substrate off of the bottom and replace it with sand. I used
YardRight Tropical Play Sand (40lb bags for $3 each). It is pure Caribbean
aragonite and is also available at some Home Depots under the name of
Southdown. This is a risky deal because the gravel may be a significant part of
your BIO system, so if you remove it all, you may go through a mini-cycle, or a
full recycle (God forbid). Some people recommend doing 1/4 or 1/2 of the tank
at a time. I did the whole thing because there was a significant part of the
tank that I could not reach (there is still some gravel behind the rock), I
have a lot of rock, and a small bio load. Everything went OK except that I had
the entire basement encrusted in salt that took two weeks to clean up.
Basically, I spent about 3 hours carefully siphoning the gravel off of the
bottom. Then, I rinsed the sand VERY well by filling a bucket 1/2 with sand and
pushing a garden hose into it - allowing the impurities and fines to float over
the top of the bucket. In the main tank, I put 1-1/2 to 2" on the entire
exposed area of the bottom. If you are going to do this, I recommend rinsing
the sand - this is another hotly debated topic - but it worked well for me. To
clarify: Rinse if you are converting, Don't rinse if starting a new system.
Refugium
After much research, I
really wanted to have the benefits of a deep sand bed. Unfortunately, the setup
of the display tank did not allow for the 4" layer of sand needed for
denitrification. What I decided to do was convert my quarantine tank to a
refugium. The definition of a refugium is a tank which shares the same water
reservoir, but is separated from the main tank to allow less competitive or
sick animals to survive. In my system, the refugium exists to keep plants away
from the Tangs and allow for a deep sand bed. For this, I created an overflow
using 3/4" PVC pipe (I will add the design to a DIY page soon). The refugium is
very simple - it is a 10 gallon tank with 4" of sand, a few small pieces of
live rock, a 20watt grow light and a powersweep powerhead to create currents. I
have added some plants (grape and short-feather calerpa) and a refugium kit
from IPSF.com. There are more weird things growing in this tank than I have
ever seen before. I pump water to the tank using a small powerhead from the
sump and allow it to flow back to the sump. Eventually I hope to raise it up
high enough so the water can drain back to the main tank. This will allow any
fauna going "down the drain" to make it to the display tank alive (where it
will subsequently be eaten by coral!)
Chiller
In April, the
temperature outside went up to 90+. What I found out was that I could no longer
count on the nice cool environment of my basement. My tank temperature drifted
up about 6 degrees during the day. After much research, I decided to make
myself a chiller out of a dehumidifier. This was a novel idea, as yet untried
by anyone I can find. I will not go into too much detail, because I have a
DIY Chiller page where you can read about it. As of
this update, everything is working great.
Thanks for visiting!