James' 120 Gal Reef Trials and Tribulations

Update

I may be able to kick this ick. I think the cleaner wrasse is doing the trick, along with possibly heavy feedings all soaked in selcon with some soaked in garlic, and the raised temp. The coral beauty's eye has cleared, the yellow tang appears to not have any ick, and the powder blue is still infected pretty good, but seems to be less and less by the day. The powder blue is not showing any signs of sickness except the spots, so right now I think he will pull through.

The CA reactor is still a work in progress as far as tuning it. I have been messing with it WAY to much to get a baseline of my calcium and alk uptake. I realized I have been testing KH at 11 and well that's a dkh of something like 9.1. I want my dKH to be 11. I added some baked baking soda throughout the night 2 days ago, and some unbaked though the day yesterday. Using the reef calculator I should be right at 11dKH, but I have not tested yet as it wouldn't really worry me if it was 9-13, just shooting for 11. I'll run a parameters check tonight or tomorrow morning.

I bought a Pacific Rose open brain about a week ago. It had great expansion when I bought it, acclimated it, got it in the tank, showed great expansion again. A day or 2 later it stopped plumping up, then I found through the night it was opening sometimes. But now there is a spot on it where you can see the skeleton. Not good, to add to that. Open brains are sort of like candy to some fish, but none of my fish bothered it until now. Now that is has some dieing/dead tissue everyone is taking turns at picking at that spot (not that often.) I doubt its going to make it like this, and not sure what I can do to help. It was a beauty when it was fully opened up. On another of my open brains one side is not extending, but everywhere else is fine. I will add pictures of good pacific rose, and bad. I'll also add the bad open brain.

On a good note, I have been noticing great expansion on the sps after lights out. I'll try to get some pictures of those tonight.

Edit: Whoo hoo page 4!

 

cool pics.....

 

Pics from tonight to show some polyp extension on SPS.

 

A crab I found tonight will shooting pictures not sure what kind it is, looks safe though. Also a pic of the chalice extending out.

 

I can up with a fish list today and thought I should add it here.

Blue Hippo Tang
Yellow Tang
Tomini Tang
Powder Blue Tang
Lawnmower Blenny
Coral Beauty
Male Mandarin
Six Line Wrasse
Cleaner Wrasse
2 Ignitus Anthias
5 Ocellaris Clownfish
Tomato Clown Pair (Spawning before I got them, but have yet to find any eggs since I aquired them 2 months ago)

An update on Ich, all inhabitants seem fine except the powder blue. Other than the spots he is not showing any other signs of illness.

 

Congrats! The tank progress is fantastic.

 

Keep a piece of broccoli in the tank to help the tangs get some nutrients. That is what I do.

 

Otty, Funny thing you mention it. I just got done reading your entire thread, and I was contemplating throwing in some broccoli on a veggie clip. I will surely do it now and see what kind of reactions I get, I get mixed reactions with nori.

 

RIP Powder Blue. I found him floating around this morning. Everyone else still looks fine.

 

Calcium reactor setup update

I changed the reactor once again to run co2 all day long. I was still getting almost the same ph swing with it running during the night as I was without. The difference is 8.10 during the day to 7.90 at night, without co2 running through the night was 8.10 during the day and 7.96 at night.

Parameter check;
Calcium 520 with API 470 with salifert
ALK 14 with API 11.9 with instant ocean

Tells me the CA reactor is doing it's job, and very well. I will cut the bubble rate back to 30 and the effluent to 40 ml per minute.