Just your actinics are on right now LOL I can't see any hair algae.

I've always found the only way to get a handle on hair algae is to pull it out by hand. Once you get it shorter, the clean up crew makes light work of it.

Could it be possible that you are getting Nitrates when lights are off.

J

Whomever was watching for the last few hours got a good view of me weeding hair algae. That is tiring work!

I'll keep measuring nitrates. Maybe after reducing the amount of hair algae as I've just done today might cause there to be a measurable amount. At least, until the algae catches up.

The nitrate is being consumed by something...

Just Checked out the camera... Very Cool... Add to favorites.

50,000 views
 

When I started this, I had no idea that it would get viewed 50,000 times. That's pretty cool. This thread needs more pictures so...

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0213.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0214.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0215.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0216.jpg

50,000 views, wow

Dude, you have no idea how jealous I am of those gorgonians.

I hope one day I have something of value I could offer you in trade for some frags of those :)

For no reason...here's some photos.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0220.jpg

This is Bubbles...the smaller of the two Maroon Clownfish. He rarely ventures out of the anemone, so it is hard to get a photo like this one. The larger Maroon is Chuck (he used to be a boy!), she's much bolder and gets 8x as much food as little Bubbles gets.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0227.jpg

And finally, un updated shot of Moe..who has grown quite a bit. His peduncal spines are starting to show now.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0221.jpg

I read back a few pages and was wondering how the hair algae problem was coming along?
You have zero nitrates and still have algae?
Maybe some one can help me understand why I have nitrates..10-15ppm...and I cant grow algae if my life depended on it.
I see sweet reef tanks all over the internet and they almost all have some algae growing somewhere....not me....not 1 speck. I dont get it.

tank's looking good Brad!

Rob, algae growth depends on a lot of things. nitrate is only one part of a very complex equation (light, DOC, tank age, etc etc etc).

Yes, I still have hair algae. You can see some of it in the clownfish photo.....but it's controllable. I still have one sea hare who manages to find enough to eat. My refugium grows chaeto, but not as quickly as it first did....and yes, I never have any measureable level of nitrate. I've confirmed that many times now, with Salifert tests and the Nitrate monitor.

My guess is that the nitrate is getting used/converted up by algae or bacteria before I can measure it.

I also continue to measure Phosphate using the colorimeter and have a reading of .02 +/- .02....basically nearly zero as well.

Every tank is different, I suppose. I don't aggressively pursue a "low nutrient" environment. I feed heavily because I'm attempting to feed not only the fish, but the billions of other critters that are trying to survive in there.

It's about time...
 

Today, I noticed that the male Maroon Clownfish (aka "Bubbles"), was preoccupied with a certain spot behind the anemone.

Yes, they've finally laid eggs. Of course, they were very careful to do it in the most difficult spot to photograph. Here are the proud parents with their brood.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0232.jpg

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh look at all the babies:wink:

The clownfish are working on their 2nd batch of eggs. Maybe it is time to do a bit of reading to see if I can raise some baby clowns. Might be fun...

My pink pocillipora decided to RTN this morning. It went from having a small white area to almost completely gone within 12 hours. I've now intervened by fragging off the dead areas and iodine dipping the remaining live portion. I suppose we'll know how I've done by morning.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0247.jpg

My theory is that I somehow transfer some sort of bacteria or virus onto the coral when I have my hands in there. I'm fairly confident that nothing has significantly changed with my water parameters and nothing new was added to the tank.

I've been having some fun with a Xmas present. It's a macroscope. Like a telescope with a focal distance of 18". Very cool. By putting it in front of the camera, I get images like these.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0243.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0236.jpg

Reply
 

Hey thats nifty, it gives the appearance that you are pearing out of a submarine window. What's the zoom on the macroscope?

Also looks like Red Bugs or are the polyps orange?

J

No...those are orange polyps. (that would be quite the infestation of red bugs, eh?) But if they were there, this device would certainly make them easy to spot.

HAHA

Is it a Ogles Mesoscope?

J

No..it's a Bruntan macroscope. We tried to get the webcam to view through it, but the webcam seems to be unable to handle it for some reason.
http://www.brunton.com/product.php?id=282

Ok i just spent the few last nights sifting through this thread. it looks awesome. Right now what kind of livestock do you have. In that one picture with the clowns i can't see the eggs (i don't know what they look like really). It looks like it took a lot of time and effort to finish this project off. What are the conditions of your tank right now? I was wondering if i could get the site for your web cam? since i only read portions of your thread i probably missed it. Thanks

The New One
SeaSerpant

Maroon clowns seem to lay maroon coloured eggs. There are so many that you probably don't realize what you are seeing. It is that reddish purple mass directly above the lighter clown's nose.

They are working on their 2nd brood now. We were expecting to see a hatching this evening, but we've given up waiting around in the dark! I can tell the eggs are fertilized and very close to hatch because they are no longer maroon in colour...now they are darker, silvery and have shiny eyes...

As for the tank in general....I don't think it has changed too much since the tank photo on pg. 41. Everything seems stable enough. Corals are growing...fish are healthy...

I took some coral growth photos today. My corals have a LOT of room to grow. It will take several years for this tank to achieve what I have envisioned.

Webcam is: http://brads-aquarium.viewnetcam.com:50000 (lights are on from about 1PM to 10PM PST)

Well now i know why the one guy said he couldn't see it. you had to click on the single at the top to look at it. Ok i have a small question, what kind of water did you use to fill it. did you use just distilled water and salt and the dechlorinator because i don't know what kind of water i can use because it is not like a freshwater system where i can take tap water and dechlorinate it and it's fine.
thanks!
SeaSerpant

Hatching time?
 

A bit of excitement this evening...

The clownfish fan their eggs constantly. I was watching this behaviour tonight and saw one of the eggs become dislodged and start floating around the tank.

Quick action with the turkey baster and I had the egg on the dissecting microscope to take a better look. While trying to manuever the egg around on the slide, the egg broke open and the tiny fry came out wigglin'. There's no doubt now that I have successful partnership going on there.

The fry had what appeared to be pigment patches starting to form on it's skin. We could see his beating heart, fins, tail, and yolk sack. Of course, the eyes occupy 2/3 of the head.

Based on that, I assume that tonight is hatching time. Cool stuff, but kind of sad also because I can't provide them with any hope of survival at this point.

there was an article in one of last year's Coral mags about rearing clown fish. not sure if these mags are on line but it looked do-able if you had the tanks and the time.

let me know if you want me to dig up the month.

um, Wow, i just finished, after 3 days of reading and skimming, completed all 43 pages of this.

What a fantastic tale of tragedy :cry: and happiness. :biggrin:

With the size of the rocks this is probably not possible, but what about a large fry box, the kind of thing you would hang on the side fo a 'normal' tank and put babies, or a new fish into. could you not fasion something at least to keep the larger critters away from the babies and keep mommy and daddy in?

No need to supply info on breeding of clowns, thanks. I've read enough to know that I'm not prepared to do it right now. While the fry could possibly be protected from predation in the main tank, they would certainly starve. I've not found anyone successful at raising clownfish in a mixed reef tank. They have to be separated and I'm not ready for additional tanks at this time.

BTW...I was correct. All the eggs hatched sometime after lights-out last night. No trace of fry that I can see. It is possible they are all hiding somewhere under the anemone...or they have all been swept away in the current.

I'd say swept away. I've never seen a fry the next morning. :( If you think about it, if you think about how many potential offspring a pair can produce over a lifetime; and yet, for the population to remain stable, theoretically/on-average only 2 need to survive into adulthood and reproduce (to replace their parents) - that's a lot of mortality. :eek:

In the many years I've had a breeding pair or another of clowns - I haven't actually witnessed a hatching yet. However, I have witnessed on a couple of occasions a shrimp hatching (peppermints and cleaners) - and - I can tell you the tank inhabitants go into a berserk feeding frenzy once they realize what's going on. I imagine it's a similar thing here. I know it's sad but I suspect the fry really don't last much longer than a few minutes or a few hours tops.

Thats really sad. i hope the next time they have babies you can save a few so you can have more fish.:biggrin:

More acrylic work
 

Today, I built a surface viewing box. This is my first attempt at building something that has to be water tight. I suppose it went OK...but I won't be building an aquarium or sump any time soon.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0262.jpg

This box floats perfectly in any of the three openings on top of the tank and enables me to see better when I'm working up there. It also enables some top-down photography. Here are some samples.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...000_0265-1.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0264.jpg

WOW looks great!!!!. How did you elliminate all the MH reflections?

J

Here's what you get when you adjust white balance under actinic only lighting....

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0261.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0260.jpg

I never thought about it. I think my body (working the camera) is probably blocking the halides. That was the first challenge that I noticed with the top down photography..I'm blocking all the light.

Skimmer working overtime
 

This is exactly 7 hours worth of skimmate from the G6. 1 cup worth of really foul smelling stuff. While this is the part that I can easily drain out, there is considerably more gooey stuff in the neck and collection cup.

Skimmer needs to be completely cleaned 2x per week.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0266.jpg

So did you use Weldon 16 to bond the Acrylic?

I made one a few years ago but never put a bottom pain. So it kind of made it useless

J

ha..ha..Yeah, the bottom is a pretty important piece of a viewing box....

I've never used Weldon 16, but I considered it for this project. I used Methylene Chloride. It wicks into the joints really well, but I find it hard to control how much I'm adding and sometimes it goes right through the joint and comes out on the other side, damaging that surface. I bet that Weldon 16 is easier to use.

Wife know what you do with her measusing cup?

wow, that's all I can say, just wow.

I hope in the future I can have the guts and know how to build a system like this. Great job.

New Fish...
 

A Few days ago, I added a couple of new fish. A cleaner wrasse, and a White Face Tang (sold to me as a Powder Brown, but it is a White Face or Japanese Tang)

If you are a fan of the aquarium camera, you know that the new Tang has had a pretty rough time. The Achillies Tang really dislikes the new guy and is more than twice his size. He's spent the past few days hiding in the Xenia.

Here is the White Face Tang.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0281.jpg

The cleaner wrasse is...well...I'm not sure I like having him in the tank. He is a very active cleaner. It is interesting to watch the cleaning behaviour, but he is so relentless that it is driving the fish to distraction! Moe (Blonde Naso) seems to get the most attention mostly because he doesn't move around very fast. There's clearly a point where the fish says.."ENOUGH!!!", but can't easily get away from the cleaner.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0284.jpg

The wrasse is leaving small "bite marks" that are visible on the Naso Tang. These heal within a day, but new bites are added all the time. Here I was all worried that the wrasse would starve...now I find out that it eats pellets, shrimp and harrasses my fish leaving bite marks all over them! He may become the first fish that I evict...we'll see. He does clean my arm whenever I reach into the tank, which is kind of funny.

If you look at the photo below, you can see the dark bite marks on Moe's grey areas on his nose, behind his gills and on his back.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0278.jpg

Tank View
 

You can see that the tank is taking on my characteristic "untamed" look...I think I need about a dozen more large sea cucumbers to mulch through that sand bed...

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...000_0280-1.jpg

White Cheek (Acanthurus japonicus) is my all time favorate fish.

Looks Great.

J

Untamed, you may have a trickster in your tank. What that wrasse is doing sounded familiar to me, so Check out this link.

http://notexactlyrocketscience.wordp...ple-disguises/