Carrying again, quick thoughts
Just a brief post tonight, it’s been that kind of week. The pajama cardinals transferred eggs yesterday morning (before dawn).
Two more flameback angels are on liveaquaria… I’m not buying one. Too late. I’m happy with the pair.
Monday Update
It’s been a few days without any updates… Let’s see where to begin. How about a short update on almost everything.
Friday night the pajama cardinal released a few larvae. The female stayed immediately downstream of him gobbling them up. Wonderful. How’s that for gratitude for carrying her babies?!? He released the rest of them Saturday night after lights out.
All of the fish have been eating well. The flameback angels have really taken to frozen foods (especially spirulina gut-loaded brine shrimp; the mysis seem to be a bit too large). Alvy is getting much more confident and capable of pulling food out of the water column.
The new frags seem to be acclimating well to their new environment. The urchin (whom we’ve renamed “junkyard”) knocked over the teal stag tonight, despite my having epoxied it in place. I superglued it to the epoxy… hopefully that is effective. Once it encrusts the epoxy there should be no more problems.
I had to relocate the Acropora carolinas. The anemone seems happy in its new location but it was dangerously close to stinging the acro. I moved it to the other side of the overflow. It is in a very slightly shadier spot, and less direct current… it’s showing polyp extension but I’ll still keep an eye on it.
Seeing great growth out of a few other corals, real growth spurts lately. I think this is due to the finally stable alk & ca, and temps. Two in particular are surprising me. The green/yellow “ORA millepora” has started shooting branches in a few directions, really came out of no where. Up until 2 weeks ago or so it was a big colorful lump of coral. Also seeing great encrusting growth from the rainbow montipora. I think that a red millepora is about to take off too. It was a tan/brown color for a while, but I’ve recently noticed better polyp extension, deepening red color, and a light green growth ring around the base. Very cool.
Last night I did a double-water change, about 10 gallons. For no particular reason, just felt like I may have been feeding heavily lately. I forgot to dose the Prodibio BioDigest, but I did that tonight at lights out. It’s about time to purchase some more. I haven’t dosed VSV for about a week… for no good reason. I may pick it back up again, just not sure.
Cyanobacteria Photos After Dosing VSV
OK, yet another non-reef night. This time I was hard at work getting a report done for the guy who signs my paychecks… that felt important.
Since I didn’t have time to finish my thoughts on VSV/Bacteria/Algae (and quite frankly want to reread a bunch of resource materials so I don’t say anything foolish) I’ll just present some interesting photos. Will I include any commentary? I don’t know yet… but we’ll both have figured that out by the end of this post.
I have a few areas of my tank with cyanobacteria growth. It isn’t always present, and even over the course of the same day I have seen it spread and disappear. It does seem to reoccur in the same locations in the tank. Recently I noticed in particular that the cyano recedes considerably after dosing my normal amount of VSV in the evenings. Yesterday I decided to take some photos of it, which follow. Interestingly, tonight when I glanced at the tank I didn’t see any cyano at all… although it’s been present the previous 3 or 4 nights. Huh. Guess I took my photos at the right time.
The first photo is taken right before dosing VSV, and the remaining were taken every 30 minutes. In this first photo check out that thick mat of cyano covering everything in the photo frame.
Cyano at 0 Minutes
Cyano at 30 Minutes
Cyano at 60 Minutes
Cyano at 90 Minutes
Cyano at 120 Minutes
Cyano at 150 Minutes
Cyano at 180 Minutes
In the last photo, you are not seeing cyano – you are seeing the red cotton algae that was on the live rock under the cyanobacteria. The cyano is pretty much completely gone. To give you an idea of how much cyano receded, try to find the caulerpa in the first photo (not just the one exposed leaf). My halides shut off after this last photo and I wasn’t able to take any more photographs, but I could see the cyano further recede in the following hour. Most of the recession is captured in these photos.
I’ve read that different concentrations of the VSV components can contribute to growth of cyano. To me, these photos are further empirical proof that different bacteria do in fact thrive on different carbon sources. Obviously there is a bacteria present in my tank (presumably from the Prodibio BioDigest) that was able to outcompete the cyano… or is that not so obvious? Is there something in the VSV that would have killed the cyanobacteria? I find that less likely.
I think I can also conclude that VSV does not necessarily cause cyanobacteria, although in a different concentration than I am using cyano may thrive on it as a carbon source. Now does Prodibio BioDigest introduce cyano? … maybe. I have no idea. I have had cyano outbreaks in other tanks that weren’t dosed with Prodibio products. Frankly, I think it is always present (although not always visible to the naked eye) and any excess nutrients can cause it to rear its ugly head (am I crazy for not finding it too ugly? I guess it’s all relative when my choices are cyano or red cotton algae). Again, it’s one of the most prevalent strains of bacteria out there, so who knows when or how it got introduced.
Now my question to myself is… will cyano outcompete the red cotton algae for nutrients? If so I may try to find a way to encourage cyano to grow. I find it a lot easier to get rid of than the red cotton algae…
Hey what do you know, I provided some commentary.
Water Parameters
When I got home from work (around 6pm) I took a photo of an area of the tank that had some cyanobacteria on it. I left the camera in place then dosed my typical 1.5ml VSV, and I’ve been taking photos of the cyano every 30 minutes. It’s been 2 hours since dosing VSV and I personally am really surprised at the visible changes in the tank… but I want to write all this out at once in an uncluttered post, so I’ll probably do it tomorrow or Thursday night.
I measured my water parameters tonight for the first time since November 16th (yikes!!!!) and was happy with what I saw.
Mg: ~1260 ppm
Ca: ~375 ppm
Alk: ~7.7 dKH
That’s pretty good, pretty inline with natural sea water conditions. I’ve only been using my kalk reactor for top-off, no 2-part dosing (although I have the kits handy if I need them, and also won some DT’s additives in a Christmas Giveaway at UberFrags). In the past 2 months with only using the kalkwasser, my Magnesium has dropped ~60ppm, and both my calcium and alkalinity levels improved slightly (roughly 15 ppm each).
By the way, this is a great Reef Calculator from JDieck. I use it regularly and am really grateful that he hosts it for public use.
Monday Night
I was planning on doing a big update tonight with some thoughts on VSV, Prodibio, bacteria and algae, the new frags, etc., but we went to a great dinner downtown and I just didn’t have time to get it done. So look for that later this week. It’s mostly conjecture based on my observations. Very little science to back it up.
Tonight I dosed 1.5ml VSV, and fed a few spectrum pellets before we went out and was happy to see Alvy eat 5 of them. To make it even better, I watched him grab the first, swallow it, and immediately grab a second before heading back to their corner of the tank. He is getting bigger, braver, and is able to eat larger pieces of food. This is fantastic.
When we got back home I fed a generous amount of Rods Food to the tank. I had missed a feeding last night and decided to feed ~50% more tonight. I also took a couple pieces of krill, broke them up, and fed them to the LPS in the tank. I fed the new bubble, which reacted immediately and pulled the piece into its mouth. While doing that I noticed a couple very small buds on the side of the coral – looks like I may have gotten a few baby bubbles in the purchase yesterday!! I also fed Mic Jagger (slow eater tonight, but a few heads did manage to eat from what I saw), the blue bubble, the torch, Anemone, and the plate coral. I tried to place a piece of krill on the maze brain coral but it got blown away – into a head of the hammer coral, which looked like it was eating it.
Saw good polyp extension on the two new SPS frags. I want to get some photos tomorrow night to document their size and coloration when I added them. I don’t know why, but I am expecting both to grow pretty well, with better turquoise coloration in the stag… but fading in the mille. Is it bad to go into this with those low expectations?
Sunday Maintenance, New Frags
Drove across the city tonight and picked up some new coral frags from pusanpa. Snagged a small green bubble coral (~1.5″ diameter) that will look really nice as it grows out. Placed it near the blue bubble we already have. Also got small frags of a raspberry millepora and a turquoise stag. Mounted the mille to a small piece of live rock that was in the sump with superglue, and used some epoxy to mount the stag close to the other purple staghorn coral. I’m hoping they look pretty nice next to each other as they grow out.
While I was acclimating the frags I began a water change and pulled some algae out of the display tank. I was focusing on the halimedia around the frogspawn, and it had really taken hold. I pulled a lot out and in the process accidentally pulled a big piece of live rock and the frogspawn out of place. Took me a good 10 minutes to try to get them back in the right spot. Finished the water change, cleaned the skimmer, and called it a night.
