Nick's 40g Build

wake49 · 05-14-2010, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by njudson

Saw the first signs of life last night. A gorgeous little aiptasia ... is it safe to use a product like Joe's Juice on such a young tank? (added live rock on 5/9) My best bet is to kill it before it really gets out of hand right?

Also saw something that I think is a small brownish coral. It doesn't have the long tentacles like the aiptasia. It's rounder and looks more like a polyp or a zoa.

I've been running my lights for 4-5 hours after I get home from work to try and keep any light needing creatures alive.

I will try to get some pictures tonight. Anyone have tips for getting good close up shots without a macro lens? I have a Nikon D60 which is a great camera but the lenses I have are for taking action shots of sports.

I haven't tested my water at all yet because I bought an API Reefmaster test kit thinking it was the saltwater test kit + some extra tests. Wrong, it doesn't have tests for ammonia or ph so I will be getting test kits for the basics soon and will post some numbers when I do. For now I am happy something is living in my tank even if it is a bad guy.

I would use pure Lemon Juice, and squirt it straight into the mouth of the aipatasia. Use a syringe and suck up about 2-3 mL of lemon juice. Don't do too much in a day, but if you only see one aiptasia right now, one squirt should do fine.

Do you have Alkalinity and Calcium tests? Those are the results I want to see. Don't really worry about any testing until you see the Diatom Bloom. Testing before then will just be superficial. Once you see that ammonia and nitrite are 0 ppm, testing pH, nitrate, calcium and alkalinity are important.

Can you manually set aperature and exposure on that camera? Adjusting those will help with depth of field, like a large aperature with a short exposure time or a small aperature with a long exposure time can help get different depths of field in the pic. Hope that helps.

wake49 · 05-14-2010, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by njudson

Whats the consensus on Asterina starfish here? Based on what I've read best case scenarios they eat Coraline worst case scenario they eat zoas and other polyps. Should I take out the one I found ASAP?

They are typically scavengers, like other starfish, so if they do eat polyps, I would suspect it to be dead/dying polyps. I do not think that they eat anything that is thriving. I have never had a problem with it.

njudson · 05-14-2010, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wake49

I would use pure Lemon Juice, and squirt it straight into the mouth of the aipatasia. Use a syringe and suck up about 2-3 mL of lemon juice. Don't do too much in a day, but if you only see one aiptasia right now, one squirt should do fine.

Do you have Alkalinity and Calcium tests? Those are the results I want to see. Don't really worry about any testing until you see the Diatom Bloom. Testing before then will just be superficial. Once you see that ammonia and nitrite are 0 ppm, testing pH, nitrate, calcium and alkalinity are important.

Can you manually set aperature and exposure on that camera? Adjusting those will help with depth of field, like a large aperature with a short exposure time or a small aperature with a long exposure time can help get different depths of field in the pic. Hope that helps.

Yup I can control the aperature and exposure on the camera. It also has a macro setting which I need to play around with. When I added water to the tank I washed all the sand into the corners and under the rock. Went in last night and evened out all the sand but I re clouded the water with sand (my sand is very fine) so it will be a few days before I can get good pictures.

I haven't tested my water at all yet because I don't want to see 0 Ammonia and get excited that its fish time. Will test after I see diatoms and post results.

Once the water is clear again I guess I'm going aipastia hunting and also gonna get pictures of all the life in the tank.

njudson · 05-17-2010, 10:47 AM

Still no sign of diatoms but that probably make sense since I was out of town for the weekend and the tank stayed dark. Did see a small snail this morning that I believe is a Collinista :)

njudson · 05-18-2010, 09:35 AM

Saw my first Copepod today. Looked like a round little bug scurrying around on the glass just above the sand. Also I've got a bunch of white flatworms on my glass. They will make good fish food one day :)

Is this section of the forums appropriate for my running tank commentary? I'm going to assume it is unless told otherwise.

bearwithfish · 05-18-2010, 11:50 AM

i can not speak for everyon, however, i check in every time there is an update to watch your tank grow and compair where you are to where i was about a month ago to see similarities and so far its very close.... lol i am just a nosey person who has really enjoyed this switch to salt water and i love seing it come together.. btw if you decide to end this thread let me know whats up in PM... :)

njudson · 05-18-2010, 07:39 PM

Just want to confirm these are bad before they get lemon juiced.

njudson · 05-19-2010, 05:22 PM

Did some testing today using API test kits

Salinity - 1.025
Ammonia - 0 maybe .25 tough to tell with the color
Calcium - 400 (20 drops)
Carbonate hardness - 7 this is low right? pretty sure I did the test right took 7 drops to change yellow

I do have B-ionic 2 part when the time comes to dose something but I feel like its not time yet.

Also I added my first coral. I know I kind of jumped the gun here but it will help me be patient before I add fish.

Red Zoas

Green Zoas

Mushrooms that came in on my rock - not the best picture

FTS

Pasfur · 05-19-2010, 05:47 PM

Yes, those are aptasia. Go ahead and kill it now.

Asternia starfish have never been a problem for me.

This time I am going to just laugh, but the next time you add a coral to a tank with alkalinity and calcium all out of wack, we will have to do a written corrective. Oh, wait a minute.... I'm not at work. Sorry about that. Uhm, bad idea adding coral at this point, but given the species you added you should be fine.

I would begin dosing both parts of the B-Ionic product today. Test both calcium and alkalinity again tomorrow and you will probably need to dose again. Continue until you get both within the targer range. Calcium 400-460ppm and alkalinity at 10-12 DKH. Did you read the article on calcium/alkalinity dosing?
http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/m...-marine-33079/

njudson · 05-20-2010, 08:31 AM

Haha feel free to let me know when I do something dumb! This was my first time testing Calcium and Alkalinity and I did it at the same time as I was acclimating my new zoas. Hopefully they will be fine I picked them because they are on my list of corals that I want and are supposed to be pretty hardy. Anyway I dosed the B-ionic supplement last night according to the directions on the bottle. (10 ml of part 1 & part 2) Also tonight I need to fill the tank the rest of the way since its only about 90% full. I did the original fill with LFS bought saltwater since I had some difficulties plumbing my RODI unit but that is all taken care of now and I have some fresh saltwater mixing in a trash can. I will retest everything tonight. Also Joe's Juice is in the mail for aiptasia killing!

Thanks again for the help!

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