Last night I added a big male Pintail and a really nice Carpenter's Wrasse to my QT. The Carpenter's Wrasse has really nice coloring and was eating at the LFS, but it's in very rough shape. I give it 50/50. They'll both get a FW dip today.

So I skipped the last two nights of Sponge Power dosing, and that along with the two doses of Coral Snow seem to have knocked the bacteria (alga?) back quite a lot (60-70%?) compared to last weekend. Today is WC day, and now I think of it, I've also been dosing Prodibio BioDigest which is due today, and I will not dose it.

Some pics from New Years' Day. :) I took the closeup pics and then proceeded to do a water change and big clean up; I took a toothbrush to the rocks scrubbing and siphoning the Bubble Algae, and the bacteria (algae?). I also scraped the back wall real good and cleaned the powerheads. Plus I did another round of glue/epoxy/glue to the frags that have been doing well and I've decided where to put them. After that cleared I took a new FTS at the end.


I'm liking where this one is going:
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...02016%2029.jpg



I don't care what anyone says, I love the blue and green contrast on the Montipora "crapitata".
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...02016%2026.jpg



For a mariculture piece, it has really held it's color well. Only faded a sniff at first, and I think it's back to the color it was when it came out of the bag at the LFS. I need to try to get an ID on it, and maybe get another one with different color:
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...02016%2024.jpg



A bit bleached and not sure why.
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...02016%2021.jpg


Hawkin's "Echinata" mostly recovered from the mini-crash:
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...02016%2011.jpg



The corallites on this papillare are neon, but my camera didn't pick it up well:
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...202016%209.jpg


This SSC has always been super fussy for me - the first one to lose color and the last one to gain it back, but it's tough as nails! At least it's showing some color again. It's been turd brown ever since the mini-crash and grows sooooo slow that it hasn't covered the STN'd tips yet.
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...202016%202.jpg



FTS after scrub/clean.
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k4...02016%2032.jpg

Looking good always nice to see the pieces come back after

See Warren? Frag plugs were removed when mounted on the rocks! ;) Except that one papillare that's not glued down yet (I can't find a happy place for it), and it fell off the rocks now anyway and is back on the sand. :lol:

What kind of lighting do you guys keep your SSC (Strawberry Shortcake) under? I have it at the top of my rock formation on the right-hand side. After reading "The Farm" journal on RC and seeing the most ridiculously neon yellow Acro ever, he mentions BLASTING yellow Acros with light to get the nicest color. So I'm kinda thinking I want to put a yellow Acro in that top spot where the SSC is. The left side is only for tabling Acros, so a Wolverine or other bush-type yellow would have to be on the right. I have stags mingled around in the back of the tank, so a yellow stag could go on the left and be blasted, but they grow upright so fast that I don't think yellow is a good option for a stag. Plus, I still want an exquisita for a stag, and I've never seen a yellow exquisita. I'd love to find a Banana Lokani.

Oh, and how the heck do you guys get nice FTS???? This has ever eluded me! Mine always look washed out, never colorful. My tank looks a lot better than my FTS.

Yes, it sure is! There are a couple others that STN'd almost to death, but still have like a dime-sized patch growing. :lol: I've been taking pics to follow their progress too.

I noticed :)

Looks good!
I'm assuming that the "algae" was feeding on the silicates in the sponge power?

As for yellow acros I put my pink lemonade at the highest point I could and it has gone crazy yellow and exploded with growth.

Keep the pics comming

If it was/is algae, then yes that's the likely culprit. If it's bacteria, then I'm not sure what the culprit was/is. If it is algae, I do wonder why the Coral Snow had such a reducing affect on it.

Pink Lemonade...hmm, yeah that's a good yellow one if it stays yellow. I know it's green and pink for a lot of people. I was trying to avoid the Pink Lemonade since it's fairly similar to the SSC (especially if it tends towards green rather than yellow) and I have limited space, but yeah if it's really yellow that would look good.

I would almost speculate that the coral snow was being caught buy the "algae" and with the particulate holding organic matter may have feed the bloom.
But I'm only guessing

You may find it cheaper to switch to food grade bentonite rather than coral snow.
A $9 bag from Amazon has lasted me over a year

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but the Coral Snow seemed to knock back the algae/bacteria, not fuel it.

Bentonite, eh? I've never really looked into what was in it. I assumed it was something calcium-based. From Wiki: "Bentonite is an absorbent aluminium phyllosilicate clay consisting mostly of montmorillonite." Where did you get this information? I'm assuming it's a "best guess" sort of a thing since Zeovit won't actually say what's in their products.

My bad I read in your post that you stopped the sponge power and coral snow. (misread)

It was reef central where I originally found out about bentonite. Some holistic people also eat it as a way to clear toxins from digestive tract