Chizer & Bunoi 67 gallon

Originally Posted by Salty23

Tank looks great, very nice and clean!
Whats your lighting schedule like and what do you use?

Thanks. It is a TEK T5ho x 6 bulb, no fans so passive. 2 bulbs for 10 hrs, 4 others for 9 hrs. I used to use Ati, but now testing KZ and Giesseman bulbs.

It looks like all of my existing images from my journal got lost. Not sure how to get them back again.

Here is an update on the tank. It still looks the same as before, but more grown in. I am experiencing an issue with a slow tissue necrosis. If you take a look at the green staghorn acropora, you can see how bad it is getting. Also some STN from the base of other corals moving upward. Not sure why this is occuring as the dosers are maintaining Cal + Alk at the proper levels. Phos and No3 are at 0. If all the SPS continue to die, I think i'm done with SPS and will stick to LPS and softies.

I removed all the Oolite sand (you were right Mindy, I hate it). Never again will I have a sand bed.

In January, I had purchased and was dosing some zeovit additives. They worked really well until I ran out. I found as soon as I ran out, cyanobacteria took over (which lead to the removal of the sand). I've been battling with it since. Acropora colors were very deep in the blues and purples. However, when I stopped dosing, they all disappeared. Zeo additives used were Coral Vitalizer, Bacteria, Pohl Xtra and Amino Acid.

I have been managing my aquarium with regular 5 gallons water changes per week (still on treated tap water). Also dosing Vodka (very small amounts) and had occasionally used lanthium chloride (foz down) to get phosphates to a true zero (hanna test kit ppb) when I get lazy and don't defrost the frozen mysis cubes. I don't like lanthium chloride and don't recommend it. It doesn't do a true job of removing phosphate and you are constantly battling with it (this is with 2 years of continual use on this product on 3 different tanks). I think I'll try GFO instead as I know that will work. Knowing that the phosphate will be remove constantly verus the constant up down up down.

Also made some changes to the fauna in the tank. I got so bored of the pair of clowns (Chizer & Bunoi) who are now 8.5 years old. They kept hiding in their little cave making babies. So I added a blue regal tang (Dory), lawn mower blenny (Fatso), tail spot blenny (Shinobi-eye-you), scooter blenny (Mushu), 2 green gobies, 2 yellow gobies, 1 purple firefish (purple thingy) and 3 peppermint shrimp (there is a mated pair).

The backwall never gets cleaned so that the blennies can feed off of them.











Victor your clam is doing great.


This is why he is called Shinobi-Eye-You




Here is the STN. It's not necessary from the base going up. It's just random from the middle of the colony and then streaks upwards towards the tips in a straight path. Then it branches out and grows out from there. It's almost as if it is bleaching and then eventually dies out.


And here you can see other colonies that are very healthy. It's strange.


Here is a picture of my old 90 gallon from last summer that I just found. You can see the growth comparisons as they are the exact same corals.


Thanks Larry (Cuz) for all the SPS. They are the same frags I got from you last year. Although I wish I knew what your growth secret was to those sexy colors.

[lastlight]

The pink stylo is off the hook what a beauty! Bet you're glad to be rid of that sand what a nightmare to deal with. Fts looks great too hope your stn sorts itself out.

Hey Brett. Nice to hear from you again. Hope you and the family are doing well. I see you have been busy with another build again. Lol what did I say huh? No such thing as final build.

I don't have a stylo coral. It's actually a pink birds nest.

[lastlight]

things are great here just trying to round up scraps of summer free time so i can keep the tank looking decent lol. i found my 'forever tank' which sounds lame but yeah it happened (at last).

I always get Seriatopora and Stylophora mixed up

Originally Posted by ChizerBunoi

But I did pop into Wai's Aquarium for the first time and must have spent two hours talking to Danny there. What a great guy and I can't believe I never went there before. This is now my favorite store in all of Calgary and he took all of my money .

Well I regret this comment now. I no longer recommend this store and will not be going back.

[riceboy]

Sorry to hear man just read your post. On a side note I must say the clam looks amazing.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by ChizerBunoi

But then I think you need to have at least 1 lbs per gallon? I like the minimalist look so I try to go for as little rock as possible. The good thing about sand is that it can always be removed later on.

There is no numerical "need to have" amount for live rock. The amount you need is whatever is required for the rock to process the ammonia produced by the fish. This amount is actually very little. Have you seen the "bonzai" SPS tanks? They use very little or no rock in the display tank and put the rock in the sump instead. It doesn't matter where the rock is in the system for it to do its nitrification job. I can't find any pictures...maybe I'm not remembering the name they were using for those tanks. I thought they called them bonsai. More recently bonzai is a term that is used for crazy rock formations with a small footprint and long glued together outcroppings.

Originally Posted by ChizerBunoi

I removed all the Oolite sand (you were right Mindy, I hate it). Never again will I have a sand bed.

Hehe...

[noy]

really nice and clean arrangement.

The pink coral - is that a ORA Ponape Birdsnest?

Unfortunately not.