Male PJ, done eating for another week
This morning I saw the male PJ Cardinal was carrying eggs again. I fed pretty generously the past two evenings, and did see one particular instance Tuesday night where the female allowed him to eat a huge piece of meat.
Have upped the VSV dosage a bit. Dosing 1.6ml in the morning and evening. The skimmer is pulling nicely, and the algae situation seems about the same. Perhaps it is improving; algae does not grow back quickly where it has been eaten by the clean-up crew or urchin.
Male PJ, free to eat
This morning saw that the male PJ Cardinal released over night.
Saturday = Maintenance Time!
Lots of small jobs yesterday evening.
Made a new batch of VSV. I have been wondering if the mixture loses some potency over time, if the alcohol evaporates off; it was looking like the algae in the tank was holding its ground. I dumped what was left in the container, and mixed up 100ml vodka, 25ml vinegar, and ~1/2 TBSP sugar. Dosed a lighter dose of 0.6ml to start up slowly, Sunday morning I went back to 1.0ml.
Moved some SPS frags around and epoxied them into place. Moved the YZNHMR orange/pink coral into the spot the birdsnest was, to try to improve the water flow across it. It fit perfectly in a divot in the live rock. Moved the birdsnest further from the green acro and MicJagger. Moved the unknown pink/tan/green acro into an area with better waterflow to try to encourage polyp extension. Epoxied the poci and a monti in place; they seemed to respond well where they were, they just got moved around a bit by the urchin/snails etc. Noticed the poci has grown over the superglue where I mounted the frag to a piece of rock rubble; pretty quick growth. The epoxy made the skimmer go nuts and overflow, so I shut it off for ~6 hours. Then it went back to normal.
Tried killing an aptasia with kalk paste. Not sure if it was succesful, time will tell.
Quiet Week…
Been quiet so far, very much status quo. Dosing VSV twice a day, bumped up the dosage slightly to around 2.5ml total per day. Feeding in the evenings and at lights out. Skimming a bit wet. May do some relocating this weekend, a few SPS frags are a bit too close to eachother and to some LPS.
More breeding going on, Prodibio dosing
Last night I fell asleep before feeding the tank at lights out. This morning the male PJ cardinal was carrying eggs. Coincidence? Probably, but figured it was worth noting.
A lot of cerith snail eggs on the tank wall in the past week. Online I see photos of a tight zig-zag pattern, but these eggs have been laid in a single line ~6-8 inches long.
Alvy and Annie continue cleaning their area of the tank.
This morning dosed 1 ml VSV (still maintaining that maintenance dose) and added a vial of Prodibio BioDigest.
Not much new news, minor maintenance
Things (outside of the temperature) have been stable, lower this morning but we’ll see what happens over the course of the day. Planning on doing a water change and cleaning the skimmer tonight.
Feeding frozen mysis shrimp and rod’s food daily. Most of the time target feeding the clowns, but Tuesday we decided to just feed the tank. The fish have learned that the clowns get the first dibs at food, and have been crowding them. We want to reverse that, so we’re going to start target feeding further and further from the clowns.
Still dosing 1ml VSV morning and night. Noticeable reduction in algae. Also attributable to the urchin, but I have noticed that algae does not grow back quickly after being eaten.
Seeing growth and coloration in the corals. Growth especially in the Caulastra’s, color especially in the SPS corals that had been affected by red bugs. One orange-ish SPS is not showing any polyp extension, although the color looks good. I might move it into a higher flow area.
Pajama cardinals are not breeding this week. I wonder if it’s an external trigger… I keep the moonlights on at the same level all month, but we recently closed the shades to keep the sunlight out during the day. I wonder if they’re not getting the ambient moon light anymore and that’s keeping them from breeding? Or if it’s just part of their normal cycle. I’ll keep an eye on them. Just a curious observation.
