Jahmic's JBJ 28, first reef build

[jahmic]

11/25/12

FTS about 2 weeks after the tear-down to catch that angel

12/27/12

FTS a month later. By this point I had already lost 2 acros on the top shelf...first the prostrata colony, then a staghorn that never showed much growth. The macroalgae was removed and placed in my 20 gallon...and the birdsnest was removed because it started declining. I had increased my flow when the acros started looking bad, and I'm pretty sure the birdsnest were just annoyed by the MP10 blasting them.

I thought I was having parameter issues due to an increase in Alk...but everything else in the tank looked healthy. Got my parameters back to where they were prior to the tear down, and still lost that staghorn acro. As stated above...turned out I had red bugs. Although I'm not exactly sure when they were transferred into my tank...they went unchecked for at least 6 weeks.

Here's that picture of the insignus again from 11/11/12...you can actually see the red bugs on there if you look close enough...somehow I totally missed them.

In spite of the redbugs...if you compare the FTSs above...I actually did get noticeable growth out of the insignus during that time. Also got some really nice growth out of the superman monti on the top of the column in the front center of the photo...went from 3 little nubs to a nice cap on top of that pillar.

 

[jahmic]

I started treating for red bugs on 11/29...here's a series of pics of my tank just prior to treatment. I'll follow up with a second set to get a before/after comparison after the 3rd and final treatment next weekend. So far everything is doing great...I'm getting noticeably better polyp extension, and will be really looking forward to posting the before/after shots, as the growth on my insignus has definitely been taking off since knocking out those red bugs. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for my cali tort...it's still struggling, but it seems I was at least able to stop the STN that was occurring...I'm going to give it some time before fragging it and reattaching it to my rockwork...but that's definitely in the plans if it can survive the next couple weeks. Anyway...here are the pics.

12/27/12

Here's an updated shot of my monti undata. It lost a little color after the tear down, but has definitely been coloring back up slowly

Acropora insignis

Tried to get a good shot of the red bugs...probably should have grabbed the tripod for this, but you can easily spot them blurry or not.

Millis - sorry about the washed out shots. They are unfortunately in the worst possible position in the tank for photos, and I got a bit lazy working with Lightroom. I should have some better images next time...I really just wanted to get some shots of their polyp extension at the time to compare with after treatment for red bugs.

 

[jahmic]

12/27/12

Red Planet...didn't look horrible, but has definitely seen better days.

Cali Tort

I have a feeling the cali tort has been infected with red bugs for months...it hasn't shown any PE in a long while, and had been putting out mesenterial filaments at feeding time and randomly throughout the day. Unfortunately after the tear down, cyano took hold of the tips where I had been getting new growth. Since taking this photo, those tips were cut off and cyano seems to be less of an issue on that colony. Unfortunately I'm still not sure whether or not I'll be able to save this one...keeping my fingers crossed though as it seems to have turned a corner and stopped declining.

 

[Denver aquarist]

Looks good! Sorry to hear you had those issues....

 

[jahmic]

Thanks! The red bugs were a headache for sure, but at least I got it figured out though.

Did the final treatment with interceptor for red bugs last night and the tank is still doing well. Due to the inevitable die off of some microfauna in the tank, my cyano did get progressively worse throughout the treatment. It hadn't spread to my corals or anything, but a few of the "problem spots" in the tank did seem to get a thicker mat of cyano that grew back faster than usual. I had started dosing Zeobak, and am not really sure it helped during the treatment, but will continue to dose that to see if I can keep cyano in check.

I also just replaced my filters on the RO/DI...it had been ~6 months since replacing them, and I'm thinking I may start to replace the DI resin every 3 months just to be safe. I'm using the BRS color changing resin...the entire canister hadn't changed color yet, but I noticed that the bottom portion of the canister had just started changing color maybe 2 months ago. When I changed the resin yesterday there was a good 2" layer of resin that had been exhausted...I'm not sure whether I'll see any difference changing the DI resin sooner, but for the price I figure I might as well just change it more often.

I placed a rock underneath my rock nem so it's not laying on the sandbed anymore...there was a ring of cyano right underneath the nem since my goby never ventured under there to sift the sand...and there was a graveyard of cerith snails there as well. Not sure if my nem has been catching snails at night and spitting out their shells later...or if they just get stung while crawling under there and end up dying...but I've removed at least 10 shells from directly under the nem over the past month. I'm going to add more snails to the tank as well as a fighting conch to replenish my CUC.

 

[Haddonisreef]

So i was reading threw your thread awesome build by the way, but what happen w the angel? Was it the one you got form me?

 

[jahmic]

Re: Jahmic's JBJ 28, first reef build

So i was reading threw your thread awesome build by the way, but what happen w the angel? Was it the one you got form me?

Yea that was the one I got from you...he went all rogue on me and attacked my sps. Caught it early though and he didn't damage anything permanently.

He's now in my 20 long with my zoas and a duncan...and he's a model citizen in that tank. I wanted to go with a single fish in that system, so it worked out well. He keeps the algae in check and is definitely fun to watch as he cruises in and out of the rockwork.

 

[jahmic]

The red bug treatment went great...here are some before and after shots of the tank. Most of the "before" shots appear in my earlier post, but I figured it'd be easier to compare if they were all in one place...so I copied them here as well.

Acropora Insignis - Growth REALLY took off on this once the red bugs were eliminated

Before

After - you can see the "stalk" on the far right barely peeking into view on the image above...it grew in length and sent out a bunch of new axial coralites

Before

After

 

[jahmic]

A couple more "after" shots of the insignis...since I'm so stoked about the new growth

Blue Milli

Before

After

 

[jahmic]

ORA Red Planet

Before

After - Have never gotten much vertical growth out of this...but you can definitely see where it's encrusted ALOT more toward the foreground of the image. PE and color is a little better too.

Yellow Milli

Before

After

 

[jahmic]

I took a pic of this Cali Tort from the other side for a better before/after comparison...but hadn't cleaned the glass so I'm posting this one instead, lol

This is the only acro that's still looking pretty beat up. It stopped STNing on me after clipping off some bad spots though, and it's starting to get some color back. I'll probably remove it this weekend and frag it into a couple separate pieces to see if I can encourage some growth on some new, healthy areas of the coral. I still occasionally see algae/cyano growing on some of the stressed areas, so I think that's going to be the best option in trying to save it.

None of the following corals were bothered by red bugs, obviously...but I figured they were worth posting anyway.


My undata is still coloring up very nicely:

Orange Monti digitata...might actually be able to call this a mini-colony now instead of a frag.

This favia started out with 5-6 mouths when I got it...I think it's pretty happy here. I crossed my fingers and hoped it would grow laterally and toward the substrate rather than up toward the light (it's just below my red planet), and so far that seems to be working out well.

Angel Eye favia - I had moved this to the front of my tank to get more light...just to see what would happen. Well, it lost color but the growth took off, so I moved it back a little further. I think I found it's sweet spot...there's a new mouth on it with a 3rd starting to come in, and the color came right back.

 

[jahmic]

And here's the FTS after red bug treatment. Cyano was an issue...it came back with some of the die-off in the tank. I did a water change this weekend and siphoned most of it off the sandbed and cleaned off the rocks. Also adjusted the flow on my returns to see if I can help keep detritus off that top shelf. I did start dosing ZeoBak as well, and it definitely looks like some spots of cyano are coming back after removing it from the tank.

I can never seem to take pics of my corals without getting distracted by my fish and trying to sneak in a good shot...

 

[jahmic]

Crappy cell phone pics...apologies...but I though I would share the growth I got out of the rainbow monti I picked up at the DBTC

Taken about a week after the DBTC...not the best pic but you can see 3 small fragments of monti on the top of that pillar in the foreground. I took the frag off the plug and attempted to push it into the reef epoxy and it broke...so I just stuck the 3 tiny pieces on there and hoped for the best:

And here it is this week...completely grown in and encrusted that epoxy. I popped the epoxy plug off the pillar and attached it to some rock.

You may (or may not) have noticed that the rock in the last pic is pretty white. I added a couple pieces of dry rock to the tank and REALLY like the new scape. Gave me some more real estate and also completely solved an issue I was having with flow in the front of the tank.

I'll try to get an updated FTS up soon...I'm behind since I have a couple hundred pics to go through from a little project this past weekend.

 

[Cherub]

wow nice pics. i missed these when you posted them So that's the pillar you spoke of. Looking good