My Custom 2.7 feet closed system

[iantoh]

a bud growing on my goniopora.

this colony has been with me more than a year now, and i didnt really notice the bud growing as the extended tentacles usually hide it, but i noticed it a while back when i was hunting for a bristle worm and caused the tentacles to retreat fully. i'm not really sure whether its a confirmed sign of growth, or if its a stress response as ive heard of corals budding when exposed to environmental stress. even if its growth though, its taken like a year to grow just this little bit. has anyone else experienced this?

sometimes, i wish i had a beckett skimmer and a phytoplankton reactor. that way i can continually feed phyto whilst continually having super clean water. sigh. is anyone out there running a phyto reactor? and is it possible to run a constant drip of phyto into the water column without causing phosphate buildup and other such problems with time? or is my idea of continual phyto feeding just not feasible regardless of how powerful the skimming?

[iantoh]

a pic of my pink coco worm's tube.

the whitish top area is new growth, over which some coralline algae is starting to grow, whilst the dirty greycoloured lower parts are old parts of the shell that were there when i got the worm. im not sure this is due to growth though, cause previously, when my coco worm was in my old tank and placed with no other corals in contact with it, it didnt grow a longer tube despite my daily feedings of around 50ml of pure strain phyto, but when i shifted it above the branching gonios, with the same phyto regiment, it began quickly to grow. think its trying to peer out in front of the gonio beyond the reach of the gonios tentacles.

[iantoh]

another full tank shot.

and a pic of one of my xenia colonies:

[iantoh]

some of my suns. every half a year or so i break off some of the suns and either trade them or give them away. i first got this coral, or rather, its parents, a really long time back, when i first began the hobby, and its been with me through the initial bad husbandry, my ex-gfs six foot tank, it was even housed in a four foot rounded bamboo cat shark tank too. today, still around. hahha. may the bros who've received small frags of it from me can post up pics of how theirs are doing now?

[iantoh]

my former red gonio with violet tips! it abruptly wasted away a while back. when i got it, from another reefer, it had lots of small tube worms growing out of its skeleton. initially, i didnt think this harmed the coral as its tentacles and all were still fully extended, even when the radioles of the worms were out and visible between the tentacles. i thought they were symbiotic or something, but then, and i'm not sure why, the worms began spawning or spewing out some whitish stuff that caused the coral to severely slime over and within a few days, it was beyond hope. sigh. wonder if anyone else has such an experience before? all my other gonios dont have feather dusters growing out of them, so i'm wondering if other bros here have gonios with tubeworms living within them?

i would really like to get another red gonio with prominent blue tips, but i shall wait till i find a good healthy specimen.

[iantoh]

my small crocea.

i think it does better placed on live rocks so it can spread its byssal threads, so i'm planning to place a rock beneath it sometime soon.

[iantoh]

and heres my frogspawn. its showing good growth and five heads have become seven heads. i'm thinking of adding some small rose shaped hammer corals, but am worried about their sweeper tentacles. my frogspawn has never appeared to extend any sweeper tentacles but all the hammers ive kept or seen has shown sweeper tentacles. anyone know their frogspawns to sting other corals? cause i superglued a yellow monti digi frag close to it and im thinking of shifting either the frag or the frogspawn if stinging is likely as theyre getting quite close now. and is there a difference in the sweeper tentacle behaviour between the rose shaped hammer corals and the normal kinds?

[iantoh]

hi all. found another pic- a small frag of unidentified xenia species given to me by sis venezia after she spotted it at an lfs.

im actually looking out for some cespitularia, that looks like this (pic by anthony calfo from some online mag)

but ive yet to find anything that looks like this. anyone?

[hobbes]

AHHA IAN TOH!!! AWESOME FISHTANK I LOVE IT.

[iantoh]

thanks hobbes!

[Lester]

cool tank ... thumbs upz ...

[iantoh]

hi everyone, thanks for viewing my tank thread. pls feel free to leave comments, suggestions, etc ya.

cheers all,

ian

[iantoh]

thanks lester. heres some more pics.

one of my blue sea squirts from ml:

my starfish managed to crawl into my side refugium today, and proceeded to evert its stomach out onto my filter wool and ate most of the detritus or bacteria that built up there because the filter wool was brown before it was there, but now, distinctly whiter. so i'm thinking now of placing a few more filter wool pads in my HOB to let it collect detritus and then periodically take it out and feed my star in the main tank. anyone else have a fromia star? and has managed to feed it some food items? in my tank its rejected mussels, clams, scallops, and algae pellets.

[loster]

thanks lester. heres some more pics.

one of my blue sea squirts from ml:

my starfish managed to crawl into my side refugium today, and proceeded to evert its stomach out onto my filter wool and ate most of the detritus or bacteria that built up there because the filter wool was brown before it was there, but now, distinctly whiter. so i'm thinking now of placing a few more filter wool pads in my HOB to let it collect detritus and then periodically take it out and feed my star in the main tank. anyone else have a fromia star? and has managed to feed it some food items? in my tank its rejected mussels, clams, scallops, and algae pellets.

hahaha i have the same starfish from ML right

[iantoh]

hi loster, no i got mine from pasir ris farmway but yeah ive seen them at henry's too, just not a small enough specimen for my tank. mine is only 2inches across. hows yours doing? observed it feeding on anything? i'm really afraid it'll starve in the long run.

cheers,

ian

[loster]

hi loster, no i got mine from pasir ris farmway but yeah ive seen them at henry's too, just not a small enough specimen for my tank. mine is only 2inches across. hows yours doing? observed it feeding on anything? i'm really afraid it'll starve in the long run.

cheers,

ian

wow that small...

i don't know whether it is feeding cos it sometime stay on my front of my tank for some time. some time it goes over all the LRs. so, i guess when it is hungry, it will just goes all over places

[madmac]

... and i'm going to add a fighting conch soon to help with sand bed maintenance. does ay one have experience with them? can tell me if theyre useful at foraging for diatoms on the sandbed?

Wow Ian, thats nice! You've obviously put lots of care into it. Even in this thread.. I enjoyed the short clips, so pleasing to see motion.

I hear conchs are good for SBs, but aren't they carnivorous?

What do you feed the gonioporas and others with? and how?

I know kalk is a bal supplement, what is used for your alk topup? and why? Do you have to have the containers airtight and are they made and refilled as a batch.

thx

[iantoh]

hi there madmac, thanks for the compliments. am really glad to hear you enjoyed the video clips.

i'm not too sure about the fighting conchs yet. ive been trying to research more about them, but most of the info ive managed to come across are divided, some saying theyve found their conchs standing over shrimps, not knowing whether the shrimps were already dead before the conchs arrived or there was active predation. i also discovered my fromia starfish consuming detritus that collected on filter wool the other day so im thinking i might let more detritus build up on the surface of my sandbed to feed it. what sandbed cleaners do you employ in your tank, and how do they do?

as for feeding my gonioporas, i feed about 50ml of a pure strain nannochloropsis phyto culture that i get aquacultured from a reefer that lives nearby me. i use a syringe and just sort of disperse it randomly over the gonioporas. the dosage kinda varies depending on how often i'm at home and all, but i only feed phyto during the light hours so as to minimize settlement, and maximize reproduction and nutrient removal.

i also add iron and manganese supplments at one fifth of the bottle's recommended dosage, that is, where they say 5ml for 20gallons, i just put 1ml. here are two great articles on gonioporas that ive found useful and which exerted alot of influence over my tank design.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/dec2002/invert.htm

http://www.amdareef.com/news_2001fall.htm

as for my top up containers, the one on the left is for reefbuilder. this is the primary mode of supplementing alk to my system. i dose half a flat teaspoon of reefbuilder in half a litre of distilled water each day into this container. occasionally, i dose a pinch of baking soda in water to raise the ph and kh relative to calcium too, but seldom these days as my ca gets depleted faster than my alk.

the container on the right is for kalk, and i dose half a litre of saturated limewater daily here. my ca needs are higher than what dosing kalk with make up water allows me to put back into the system, so i also add calcium chloride in the bottled liquid form sometimes when ca gets below 400.

i learned the most regarding ca and alk balancing through this article.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm

and oh, the containers are not kept airtight. i seal two of the four edges to prevent dust settling on the make up water, but keep the lid slightly open for air to enter and help regulate the dosing rate. they were made quite cheaply. $5 for the microwave containers, and $3 for the drip.

cheers,

ian

[iantoh]

small note about conchs. any one have any experience with them? are to share with us?

http://www.2cah.com/pandora/S_alatus.html

[madmac]

No sandbed, Ian, running it bare. I'd gotten a conch before, but returned for a future credit after it was found to be doing nothing all day and nite... I've some cowries, 1 banded trochus snail and some Astreas(or is it turbos) and a couple other snails. They do their job at nite, cleaning the rocks and tank floor/walls.... I'm still looking to get more. I have a mighty plague at the moment... cynao, lots of them, sheeting over the LRs.

I might try out your fromia starfish, just to humour the kids... that theres a star-fish in daddy's tank.

[iantoh]

hahhaha. to humour the kids- that'll be nice though youll need to allow some detritus to build up as i find they reject all other food offerings and only ever evert their stomachs over dirty stuff (for the fromia that is). you could get more spiny astrea snails from henry for the cyano i think. thing is, after initially introducing them, perhaps youll need to up the flow round the bottom areas to dissolve their shit and skim it out, or phosphates will creep up again, or just suck the shit up like i do sometimes. i had a bad cyano phase a few months back but i guess that was due to my previously using tap water. ive since changed to bottled distilled though. perhaps try adding some macroalgaes to outcompete the cyanos?

barebottom sounds great for a pure sps tank. how long have you been running barebottom?

cheers,

ian

[hmkui]

my former red gonio with violet tips! it abruptly wasted away a while back. when i got it, from another reefer, it had lots of small tube worms growing out of its skeleton. initially, i didnt think this harmed the coral as its tentacles and all were still fully extended, even when the radioles of the worms were out and visible between the tentacles. i thought they were symbiotic or something, but then, and i'm not sure why, the worms began spawning or spewing out some whitish stuff that caused the coral to severely slime over and within a few days, it was beyond hope. sigh. wonder if anyone else has such an experience before? all my other gonios dont have feather dusters growing out of them, so i'm wondering if other bros here have gonios with tubeworms living within them?

i would really like to get another red gonio with prominent blue tips, but i shall wait till i find a good healthy specimen.

Hi Iantoh... nice tank you got there and was really sad to hear that the tube worm spawning have kill the goni.... hmmm... i have managed to kept it for 2 years before i pass it on to you and didn't notice any spawning activity.... but nevertheless it is still a nice goni... anyway, I m willing to return half of the price which you have bought from me.... as a form of goodwill.... since i have not taken any notice of the tubeworm activity.... please pm me if you think i should return u half the cash ya... meantime take care bro...

[iantoh]

hi madmac,

just looked through your tank thread and it looks great. just wanted to add that i used to have cyano problems like yours and it only abated after i changed to using distilled water for top ups. i buy DI by the carton at only $5 for 17.5L or 12x 1.5L bottles from Shing Siong supermarket. and i use phosguard to remove the existent PO4 from my tanks water. so perhaps you can try that too ya.

also, i add ca and alk by top up water everyday like you, but i find that not enough water evaporates for me to dose back the same amount of ca that is consumed each day, so now i'm having to solve the problem by adding calcium chloride solution along with kalk and alk. do you have the same problem? cause youve a full sps tank, and i only have two monti frags and some pocillopora and monti digita frags so my ca use should be lower than yours, but every day i dose half a litre of saturated kalk and one cap full of ca chloride and still from 500ppm it always drops down to 300+ppm after a week or so. how ah? short of getting a ca reactor.

cheers,

ian

[iantoh]

hi there hmkui,

its ok lah. of course i wont take half the money back. its not your responsibility at all, and all mine.

i was wondering though, whether you noticed that there were many brownish tube worm tubes protruding from the gonios skeleton when its tentacles were closed. because i only realised that after i brought it home, and as initially, it didnt cause any issues, i thought it would be fine, but after a few months, one day i noticed lots of whitish stuff being expelled from the tube worm tubes and the gonio soon got in a bad way. i'm honestly not sure if its even spawning activity on the worms part, but i'm thinking so because ive had my coco worm spawn in a similar way and had lots of small cocos on the back glass of my tank that i had to scrape off. it could be because i feed lots of phyto that the tubeworms decided to spawn too, if in fact that was what they did.

i'm sorry the gonio died in my care. i was really quite sad as it was such a nice specimen and had survived so long in your care.

apologies,

ian

[hmkui]

no problem bro.. .. at least we have try our best ya.... anyway have pm you my thoughts about the sudden slime effect on the goni.. which i don't think it is due to the spawning of the tube worm... cos you mention about the white residue trail... along the tubeworm.. which i suspect is the creation of the bristle worm.. of some sort... if i m not wrong the white residue is make up of fine sand... from your sand bed... and if confirm is make up of sand.. then it is the tunnel use by the worms to travel around... just look at the edge on yr front glass you will see that the tunnel burrow by the worms are nicely intact.. and it doesnt even collapse with that amount of pressure of yr water and sand... the worms have make wonders...architectual structure.. .to withstand the water and sand pressure.. to maintain it tunnel in tact.... hope my hunch is correct.... maybe need to ask those biologist who study about worm... etc.. then we will know the truth