Blacknifes 50g Battle of SPS learning

[blacknife]

ugh..
my sps frags are not taking the move well. I am guessing there is a mini cycle going on I'll test later this after noon..

lost 3 frags allready. a couple others are having some tissue loss but not as bad as the ones that are gone. the acro's that are not dead are browning out when they were showing color before.

all the LPS look fine.

did a 10 gallon water change so i could fill the barrel back up.

almost ready to give up on SPS until i can have a tank dedicated to them.

last week before i changed the tank over i added way to much magnesium because of old test kit i guess.

was trying to change a little water a day to lower that.

[blacknife]

2 more frags down.. boo
4 acro's left all looking brown and no polyp extension
all but one monti's left, looking mostly healthy
1 pocci still holding on with barely any PE


MG 1800
cal 460
alk 9.5 dkh
Po4 between 0 and .05 as usual
nitrates... undetectable as usual.

cheato is still healthy green in the new fugue but the caulpurla<sp> is looking worse for the wear. im beat i get up in a few hours not doing anything about it tonight.

water change barrel is not quite up to spec tonight. hopefully tomorrow i can do a big change.

all in all im pretty ****ed off at things right now all my sps frags were looking pretty good 2 weeks ago.. grrr.

and my bio pellets are clumping on the MJ 1200. they never clumped when i had them on the old return pump

[blacknife]

found a few .. random items in my sump.. guess its time to skirt the tank to protect from 3 year olds.. not sure if these were part of my problem.

<tweezers and 4-5 super worms that should be fed to the gekos>

culpurla totally melted and disappeared

I have the MH light that was on my 20 gallon over the fugue /frag rack but only on a couple hours a day.. with a cfl on about 12 hours a day. should i pull my brown and barely holding on acro's out from under the t-5 and put them back under the MH they were used to before the tank swap? The MH does spill over into the main tank and is on during what would be noon for the lighting hours im running


or just leave them where they are.. upper half under 6 bulb fixture and hope for the best?

[blacknife]

the sps that survived.. are brown.. but showing good PE again.. perhaps things are looking up.

on the downside... my display looks good, the few bits of nascence algaee are disappearing slowly.

the Fuge/fragtank is a cyano factory.

things are being remodelled this weekend.. the fugue used to be my sump.. but it would not fit in the old tank stand.. it does fit in the new tanks stand.. i do not know why i did not move it there when i changed tanks.

stuff in fugue will be temporally rehomed for the night.

sump is off right now.. internet distracted me

moving the fugue to the sump.. thus saving me buying a new pump for the return since i have been runing off an underpowered powerhead.

also rehoming many of the softies. t ruing to sell a few or just start a nano again.

one question about chemical warfare, do any of you avid sps keepers have lots of Zoa's and pally's in the same water column or should they be rehomed to the softie tank too?

[blacknife]

Everything looks happy after the last rearrange. SPS in the frag tank are growing <for once> and starting to color up. SPS in the display are growing but do not have as much PE as the ones in the frag tank.

the only thing i am not happy with is how much sand my female maroon is kicking up.

I want to get some SPS to replace the ones that died but i need to wait a paycheck or 2.

[blacknife]

Shut down the Frag rescue tank last night and put everything back into the display. I left the frag tank plumbed in but until there is enough in my tank to justify running a 250w MH light on the frag tank i might as well save my money for an extra frag or 2 a month. Perhaps if my 40b does not sell I will start re drilling that for a bean overflow and put that up instead of the 20 for a frag tank or perhaps FOWLR.

I glued everything into hopefully good spots and left a few small well weighted frags just on the sanded.

My 2 across that survived have more color then they have had since i got them, hopefully they stay that way under the t5h0. I tried to put them fairly high because they were very high under the MH in the frag tank.

I am having issues with the TLF reactor for pellets. one side keeps sticking and turning color's against the wall no many times a day i try to give the reactor a shake. I guess this means i need to get a new reactor in the next few months or perhaps switch to zeo just to give it a try.

[blacknife]

rare update.

well the tank budget is pretty tight lately but things are slowly looking better. i decided to try one of those new mj1200 for flow to free up a smaller pH to put in the frag tank

the ball joint contraption they use will not even hold the pump up so i tried the suckies which have held smaller mj's for longtime in my tanks.

moved a few rocks around to make sure no corals were in the direct flow.
check this morning everything looks good

come home and bam.. the thing fell off the glass sometime today and made one of the milli's i got a month ago half flow dead.

oh well

oh yeah im running the frag tank again. i moved all the lps and zoa's to the lower 2 shelves, left the mandarin in there and put sps bits on the top shelf if they look like they need some McHalide loving. not giving up but frustrated at my lights things in the frag tank look ok when i try to put them in the display some of them really slow down growth. one of the accro's that keeps getting color in the frag tank gets bleached looking in the display.
Might have to prioritize getting some new lights at some point, like those clone oddeseey mh/t5 combos or DIY some led's up.

the frags i got from dez a month ago or so are all still holding their basic colors, though a little less vibrant and still have PE though slowly seeming to be less.

alk was low last night 6.5. slowly bringing it up.. i guess that could make the corals bleach out a bit too eh?
meh.. trying to stay on top of things better but i do not know if much progress is being made