daisy's tank thread (a.k.a. the everlasting battle against aptasia...)

[daisy]

Hi, everyone.

My "tank" is, in my mind at least, less related to the glass box as to what's in it. The LR is up to 7 years old. The clown is 6. Some of the mushrooms are about 5. The rest is younger, but only the zoa frags and a small patch of anthelia (front on the sandbed) are under a year old.

This particular glass box is a 55 gal that is already slated to be replaced, and has housed the "tank" for only a few months. It replaced the 58 Oceanic I had for about 4 years. That broke last summer. (many of you read/gave advice in August on that disaster...)

Before the 58, it was a different 55 gal for about 3 years that started out FOWLR, and so "clean" looking that when I saw a pic of it the other day, I could not BELIEVE I had EVER had such a strange-looking tank.

Well, today I went "gardening," or rather, weeding. For the 6 months or so after the 58-gal broke and before setting up the 55, the animals and LR lived very quietly in two holding tanks much too small to proudly admit - and while they were there, aptasia ran wild in the LR tank. Knowing that the LR is my base for filtration, I was loathe to get rid of it, even with all the pests. It is TEAMING with pods, and I want a mandarin soon - so, I have engaged in a never-ending war against aptasia. I am soon to employ an army of peppermints.

So here are a few pix of my tank - look forward to its growth soon! I cleaned up the rocks as best I could on the left side of the tank. that took all afternoon. I'll attack the other side of the tank soon...

I have a new-to-me 75 gal ready and waiting to take the place of the 55 gal. Hopefully, that will happen in the next month or so!!!

so here are a few pix:

 

[daisy]

And realize that the second picture, while still "full" of aptasia has about 10,000 aptasia LESS than a few days ago...

I'm not even going to bother posting a picture of "before."

So what's to come? Well, with the 75 I'm going to HAVE to get a new protein skimmer - the Remora simply will NOT do.

Right now the tank has only four fish - red lip blennie, maroon clown, yellow tang and the biggest Royal Gramma possibly anywhere...

There are lots of mushrooms of a few different varieties, four frags of zoas and two patches of different varieties of anthelia. I also picked up several Kenya Tree frags from a fellow reefer (thanks, Daniel!)

I'm looking forward to LPS and more softies. I'm also looking forward to adding a few more fish - a Mandarin for sure and a few guys who will (hopefully) be less shy than the current residents!

 

[daisy]

OH - just one more thing - the aquaclear is for emergencies. two of my "good" pumps failed, and so I'm going to be replacing them, but in the mean time, gotta keep the water moving!

 

[daisy]

Okay, one more one more thing -- the pix above were taken right after lights came on, so pretty much everything is closed up... :sleeping:

 

[crox99]

OMG that's a lot of aipistia!!!:help: :help: :help:

 

[daisy]

That's nothing!

 

[masterswimmer]

Great job on the 'weeding'. I see a huge difference. Gotta crawl before you walk. What was your method of removal?

swimmer

 

[dacrystal]

OMG that's a lot of aipistia!!!:help: :help: :help:

Omg How did you remove all those aiptasia? :shocked: :shocked: :shocked:

Okay, now the peppermint shrimp will have a fair fight! The tank looks great.

 

[steveo32]

Did you only use peperment shirmp to battle the aipistia ? Or were there any other methods used ?

 

[jhale]

I would use kalk paste to take out the larger aptaisia's that will be easy.
have fun

 

[LouZoo51]

I tried everything possible when I had my 58gallon reef,but it finnaly drove me out of the hobby for a while...:frown: ..but i'm back now,and things are going great.Keep up the good fight and don't let it get the best of you.:link:

 

[daisy]

It's funny - I can only tackle the aptasia when the rest of my life allows me to - like it actually takes emotional strength to take them out - probably b/c i know i'm actually killing a living animal, and that requires a lot of strength for me to do. I'm too much a softie.

It helps, tho, that these particular animals are going to kill everything else if I don't take them out, tho.

Okay, so here's what I did - and it may work for only a short while, but I figure, it'll hopefully make things a bit easier for the peppermints that I hope to add in the next two weeks...

I decided to take out the rocks and just scrub them with my tank-dedicated toothbrush and... SALT (reef, of course). I carefully studied where the aptasia were before removing each rock, and then put salt onto the spots where they were and hit those spots w/the brush. I had tried to inject them many times before, and they always came back, and it took way long, and then I still had to suck them out of the tank. This way, I had the rocks out of the tank and could burn (salt), brush and then rinse away the gunk. Also, this meant that I could also attack some of the bubble algae, which I did!

I pretty much did the best I could on the left side of the tank. I still have to attack the right side.

My hope is to do that one morning this week so that when my family arrives for graduation, they'll see a gorgeous tank. (truth be told, they'd probably think it was gorgeous with the aptasia since none of them are reefers, but I'LL feel better about the tank "cleaned up.")

 

[daisy]

sad, sad day

Well, I lost two fish today. Belinda, the red lip blenny is gone, as is Comet, Royal Gramma of unimaginable size...

They died, no doubt, result of a temperature fluctuation two days ago. My tank hangs out around 78, and the other night i got home to 84. I know there are those who keep their tanks at 82 to 84, and they've said that this heat is not deadly. No - it isn't. but a temp CHANGE like that clearly IS.

I can't even find a non-blurry picture of Comet. He never slowed down long enough for me to take one - not in the four years or so that I had him!

*sigh*

 

[LouZoo51]

Wow I'm realy sorry for your loss.I never thought that a change in temp would cause that much stress on fish.:frown:

 

[daisy]

Sunday, June 10: take apart 55 and set up 75 in its place... first the pics with some commentary...

this tank is brought to you by the letter K, the number 7 and... DUCT TAPE (which happens to match the grey of the tank and stand!!!)

 

[daisy]

duct tape here, too...

 

[Liz]

Sorry for your loss... :happysad:
MORE PICS!!!

 

[daisy]

some more...

the tank is angled in the corner - just enough room between sump and stand for me to shimmy back and work behind the tank...

 

[daisy]

Livestock all over the apartment and Zahner pours the whitest sand I've EVER seen (THANKS HOUSE OF FISH!)

 

[daisy]

sump and tank nearly done.... (note how nicely the duct tape goes with the tank and stand...)