Newbie 30 gal. journal...

The soft coral on the lower right (sold to me as a "Sunflower Coral") is starting to turn to jelly. It came in contact with the substrate a while back and I don't know if that caused something, but things are looking bad for it and moving quickly.

Also found a decent-sized black Brittle star that hitched a ride on one of the new SPS corals.
 
Well, lots has happened in the time that the board has been down :mad2: .

-The Flame Angel somehow lodged itself upside down in a very tight crevice between two rocks...killing itself. No, it didn't die and end up there. Pity, I liked that fish.

-I permanently mounted the SPS corals, but one of them didn't like the process (neither did I...I still don't understand how you people mount a coral to a lumpy, holey piece of base rock), and has pretty much bleached itself out in a few days.

-One of the fingers in the finger coral bleached, but the rest is holding on. The 3 of the 4 Acro crabs that came with the finger Acropora died. I didn't see how I was going to get enough food into that little coral to sustain four crabs.

-Found a little clam in the millepora coral.

-The dying Goniopora is still hanging on.

-Spotted what I can only describe as some sort of sea slug last night. It was a mottled dark green color. Flat-ish with a few thin hairs sticking out of it.

-Green algae has made it's presence felt. I have to clean the glass daily.

-Aiptasia is growing in the refugium. I don't know how. If it reproduces by pedal laceration, how is it appearing in 3 different spots all by itself (single anemones)?

-Picked up a Green Mandarin, Shrimp Goby, Tiger Pistol shrimp, Pajama Cardinal and a Yellow Sea Cucumber.

-Picked up a cool RED goniopora coral.

-A Fire Goby decided to go AWOL this evening. I found him on the floor too late.



Assuming the SPS corals rebound...that's it. I'm done. Phew.
 
Dang, you sure are cramming a lot of stuff in that tank. Looks sweet though. Sorry on your bleaching losses and on the angel.
 
Bleaching has now spread to the millepora. I thought it would be restricted to the corals that were shipped due to stress. Guess not. :( Maybe I'm not ready for SPS corals...or maybe I'm doing something wrong. Maybe I need to top off the tank more frequently rather than all at once.
 
I found one thing I was doing wrong. I was topping off with Sparkletts, but it wasn't distilled. It was their "Fresh" water which had minerals and the like added for taste. I picked up some distilled for future use.

The millepora is on it's way out - half bleached now. The Finger Coral is doing OK.

The Shrimp Goby and Pistol Shrimp have met and decided to try to dig to China.
 
Well, none of the fish I received on Sat looked that great to begin with. One of the Pajama Cardinals was DOA and I notified Foster and Smith. They actually asked how the rest looked (kinda nice that they asked...rather than me having to volunteer that info). I informed them that the Green Mandarin didn't look so hot (I had to remove it from the intake of a powerhead when I first put in the tank...didn't have enough energy to remove itself), but they said that they prefer not to send replacements until their 15-day guarantee was up. That way they can ship all of the replacements at once. A good policy, but not one that's indicative of a good success rate. Well...the Mandarin looks 90% gone today. The Green Mandarin Goby was the first fish I specifically remember from my childhood wandering in a pet store. I was hoping to keep one...so this is kind of a bummer. And so it goes.

The millepora is 95% dead.
 
-Ordered a replacement Mandarin yesterday. Hopefully this one will arrive in better shape.

-The dying goniopora seems to have stemmed the tide and is now extending it's polyps...the few that are left. Good sign.

-The sea Cucumber is too sedintary. It keeps getting overgrown by some of the macro on it's rock :D . I can't see that as a good thing.

-Here's the thing that has me most puzzled. This morning, all of the SPS polyps are out and looking as good or better than they ever have. I'm stumped as to why though. I did dose strontium/molybdenum, calcium and iodine last night, but they have never given the same results as are showing this AM. One thing I DIDN'T dose was Coral-accel.

-I removed the dead corals, and moved the brain coral to the center right under the light. It was doing good there before I had to move it to make room for the SPSs.

-Observed an interesting bit of behavior from the Shrimp Goby. I noticed that the Goby had an interesting pattern and coloration on it's tail and I found out why. It's flicks it's tail around a little to signal the shrimp down in the hole. It also does these sort of push-ups. I still have to figure out which signal means what...but that's just cool.
 
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Filtration is a 3.5 gal HOB refugium packed with Chaetomorpha algae. I use an Aquaclear, on occasion, to clear up the film on top of the water.

Lots of fun stuff goin on.

-Received the replacement Mandarin a few days ago. I've been watching it keenly to see if it's feeding. I picked back on on feeding the Amphipods in the refugium to see if they will start to multiply and make their way into the main tank to provide supplemental food for the Mandarin. It's been thin, but active (it was in MUCH better shape on arrival than the last one. The heat packs had actually held their heat). I've been hopeful because it hasn't deteriorated into bad health...and tonight...I observed it eat frozen brine. WOOT!!! I hope he/she makes it a habit...I'm betting it will.

-Fosters decided to send me a replacement Pajama Cardinal. Not quite how the replacement thing was supposed to go, but oh well.

-To try to improve the efficiency of the refugium, I have taken the light that came with the kit and that was intended to sit on top and move it to the side. Since the Chaeto is so dense and the refugium is much taller than it is wide, I'm sure good light wasn't making it all the way down to the bottom. So I used an adjustable shoulder strap from a duffle bag and strapped the light to the *side* of the refugium. That seemed to slow down the march of the macro algae which leads me to me next note...

-The tank is pretty much being overgrown by macroalgae/seaweed. As a word of advice to anyone...do NOT allow macro algae into your tank unless it can comfortably house a fish or two to control it. Now I have a runaway weed that is intertwined through 2/3rds of the tank.

-The polyps continue to look good. The Turbinaria actually eats frozen brine and Mysis.

-The Tiger Pistol Shrimp is LOUD when it decides to snap. It's dug the sand out from under most of the rocks
 
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