Acans

The latest coral hype has to do with Acanthastrea lordhowensis. Prices seem to be driven by artificial hype and, of course, demand in this hobby. How this is truly controlled or deemed fair in the coral market, no one can be sure. A great article describing the Acan phenomenon can be found in Reef Keeping magazine.

After lurking on the San Diego boards, I finally took the plunge and ordered up four headed frags of 5 color types and was just in time for the bonus frag offer at Fish n'Frags. This local San Diego startup knows how to post up the eye candy on their website. After placing my order, I was a little skeptical of what I would actually receive because their posted images were so colorful, vivid and crisp. Would it be genuinely "WYSIWYG"?

So far, I am not disappointed. Even my amateur shots are capable of recording the colors of these babies! Okay, so someone at the SDMAS meeting mentioned that the colors are vivid now because the polyps are contracted. (...and my bubble goes, "POP!") He went on to explain that when the polyps expand, they may lose color because pigments will space out. I doubt that they will look any less interesting when I get to that point, though.

I currently have them on a black frag rack that I purchased from a fellow on SDMAS. The magnets holding the black egg crate rack have been dipped in a resin which protects from salt water corrosion. The white egg crate is there temporarily because I had them situated in the refugium for a while.

You can see the exposed skeleton underneath where the frags were cut (with some sorta precision jigsaw tool?!) from the mother colony. That's what builds a reef!

Now I just need to head over to Home Depot and purchase some special glue and figure out where the heck I'll be placing these in my main tank. I'm having a hard time figuring out which ones I like the best; it affects their strategic placement in the tank.

SDMAS July 2008 Meeting

Even though they weren't promised any raffles this time, the SDMAS members & friends in our area showed up enforce to about a headcount of 25. The chicken mole, lemon bars and chocolate mousse cake were big hits. And, my tank didn't crash or do anything out of the ordinary right before the meeting. The fish behaved well. Even my Midas Blenny decided to put on bright yellow colors from his, lately, moody dark brown.

Salt water devotees in the backyard

We decided to setup the screen projector and have the Reef Nutrition lecture outside. The jacuzzi wasn't heated up. Maybe next time?

Randy giving his lecture in perfect San Diego early dusk

A captive audience

Salt water chit chat

Thanks to all those who attended! See you at the next meeting event!

Aquaillumination LED: Back from the Dead

Back from the Dead

The 5' Aquaillumination LED is back. In case you're wondering about shipping a 5' box to the Midwest, just be prepared to shell out more than $250 for packing, insurance and S&H. Unfortunately, when they mention "modular design", that doesn't mean you can take it apart and stack 1' units in a simple box. Threatening to delay the entire process, this exchange was happening after the Midwest flooding and right before July 4th holiday.

My corals were placed under PC lighting. The Acropora were not pleased; they lost color and turned brown. The fish and softies could have cared less. In fact, some of the softies seemed to be responding more to the PC lighting!

After struggling with the legs, the unit is now situated on top of wooden spacers inside the canopy. I can slide it front to back when I'm doing tank maintenance. None of the LEDs on the sides are being blocked.

More "vital information" concerning the operation of this device:

VITAL INFORMATION #2

Cool down the adaptors with a fan as now suggested by Aquaillumination.

After getting my refurbished unit, I started to increase output of the blue and white LEDs at a rate of 5% per day. When I reached 55%, the unit shut itself down. It turns out that the adaptors will shut down the entire unit when a specific, high temperature is reached. To avoid this, one should install a fan to disperse the heat. So far, I've managed to avoid another shut down albeit with a faulty RKE (high tech these days....:rolls eyes:) controlling the fan. I'm up to 95% blue and 95% white.

VITAL INFORMATION #3

Attach the unit to a QUALITY power surge device. Apparently, my initial situation didn't provide enough surge protection. The small battery backup shown here is mainly being used for its power surge capabilities. This is a temporary solution until I can get a newer batter backup model.

Otherwise, I'm sittin' back and relaxing while the corals bring back their colors and the dialed-in calcium reactor doses my tank! Looks like we're back in the game with only one possible loss.

RKE v1.0.3

RKE: almost recommended

The new firmware update is only aimed toward the PC4 outlets. The software that applies the firmware has been edited with a check box dialog which makes sure you've taken the appropriate steps before proceeding with firmware updating.
Now, I just sit and wait to see if the "Red Dot of Death" appears on my PC4 controlling the two fans. I'm not sure if I'll wait a few days or the entire week. When I'm satisfied that it's not going to randomly shut off, I'll try adding the main return pump and the protein skimmer to the controller. Then, the chiller will be added.
I get plenty of time to come up with a programming scheme for the new items. For instance, the skimmer pump should shut off when the main pump is shut off. Also, there should be a delay in turning the skimmer on when the main pump powers on or there will be a little flooding in the skimmer. I'd also like to set up the main pump for a 20 minute standby while I'm feeding the tank mates.
I'm currently controlling these options with a Red Sea WaveMaster Pro. And, there's an UltraLife float switch in the sump controlling the protein skimmer.

The graphing capabilities are still troublesome. The old data doesn't get removed from memory even though you've waited more than 20 minutes to reactivate data logging. Now I've noticed that the y-axis doesn't change resolution at all.
So, there goes the summer months as far as trying to tweak the system by using the data graphs to clue you in on what's going on 24/7. That is, of course, unless Digital Aquatics releases any new updates to address this specific issue.

Banggai Parenthood

It starts out with a true pair.

My pair of Banggai Cardinals, which were purchased April 26th at Pet Kingdom, have been doing well in my tank. They were in my quarantine tank for a few weeks before going to the main tank.

Click....click....click...

One thing that surprised me was that they were able to make clicking noises with their jaws when I'm face up against the aquarium and staring at corals. At first, I thought the dominant male was butting his head against the aquarium when I first heard the clicking. Then, I Googled about it on the internet and found out otherwise.

Jaw Dropping

I also came across various posts from people worried that one of their Banggai's jaws was damaged. As the posts went on, they soon discovered that their fish was incubating eggs in its mouth. I had already read about cardinals at WetWebMedia before my purchase and knew that they could readily reproduce in captivity. I just wasn't prepared at how soon this was to happen in my case.

Suspect: Extended Jaw

Water Conditions: A-Okay

I've seen the pair's courtship dance. It's a satisfying treat when you see your captive fish carrying on "naturally" because it at least means that your tank condition requirements are being met for this to occur. I've read that the male is the large, dominant one (as opposed to the large, dominant female in a clown fish pair). I wasn't able to witness it, but the female deposits eggs on some surface while the male subsequently engulfs them into his mouth. He will not eat food until they hatch about a week later. I haven't a clue when that day will be, though.

Guilty Pregnant Look

Fish Fry

I don't have any plans to capture and raise the fry. But, if I'm lucky enough to isolate them, I may offer them up for adoption. They'll most likely become Fish McNuggets to the other tank mates or get chopped up by the Vortech pumps or simply go through the overflow and end up in the filter sock. In the wild, the young fish may be found in the protective, long spines of Diadema sea urchins. My tuxedo urchin has been wrapping itself in red algae. Perhaps it's anticipating a birth and making up for its short spines? ...wishful thinking on my part.

The Proof

Observing the male mouth brooder, I can see that he has to adjust the eggs every so often. It's probably to keep them well oxygenated and to wash out waste products. I just had to wait patiently before I could snap this shot.

The Society

I'm having an SDMAS meeting here in 5 days. If all goes well, perhaps they'll witness a birth? and a slaughter? Maybe I'll just distract them with The Hand of Neptune?!

RKE v1.0.2

The new updated firmware and application software for the RKE was released last Wednesday. This short-lived software was then taken off the Digital Aquatics website and offered again on Friday with basically the same updates.

After the update, the graph for temperature now starts out as 70.0 through 100.0 on the y-axis. It appears flat because of the low resolution. Temperature graphing was fine before the update. I don't know how to change it at this point. I've already tried removing the graphing data, but now I just let it collect data and wait for the next update. The only option I have causes the y-axis to graph from 0.0 to 100.0 which isn't any better.

Going to Reef Central, I found a thread in which someone finally explained how to calibrate the pH meter. The pH meters that I've come across in my profession usually require you to calibrate a probe using either a pH solution of 4.00, 7.00 or 10.00 depending on what kind of pH buffer you're creating. The process involves calibrating the probe at each individual point. The RKE, though, requires you to go through two pH buffers first before you can choose to save the calibration points.

I wonder which country in the world calibrates their probes in this fashion? But, with that in mind: which probes have I been using in my career? hmmmm......curious now.

RKE as a Controller

With the pH and the temperature probes satisfactorily monitoring my tank, I've decided to move one very small step up and allow the RKE to control 3X 200W heaters in the sump. I say it's a small step because heat is not needed now as it's summertime! Maybe there will be communication software available before winter comes?

The next step is adding two fans. These fans used to be in my canopy where they cooled down the Metal Halide/PC combo lighting. But, since upgrading (?) or changing over to AI LED's, I decided to use one of the fans to blow air on the sump water. In this way, I can cool down the tank's temperature and delay the time the chiller turns on and save energy. The other fan is now being used to cool down the AI LED's three adaptors. The entire AI LED has already shut down twice because of adaptor overheating (AAARRRGGGHHHHH.....feel my pain, blog!).

RKE Not Recommended (for now)

This morning, I checked the temperature of the AI LED adaptors by hand and discovered that the fan was not on. In fact, the sump fan was not on either! I looked at the PC4 which controls these two and it was displaying the RED DOT OF DEATH! So, I turned it off, unplugged the communication wire and it reset. I was dreading having this particular unpredictable problem as I've read about it happening on the Reef Central threads.

Therefore, I cannot recommend the RKE until all issues have been solved. Until that time, I certainly won't hook up my main pump and protein skimmer to the RKE.

The Hand of Neptune

After spending 1.5 weeks in the QT, I've finally gotten around to moving the Ricordea florida pack to the main tank system. While they were in quarantine, though, I observed about 5 flatworms in the vicinity of the Ricordea. The flatworms were small, but I could almost tell that they were the greenish ones with the orange/red dot. I haven't observed that kind in my main display or refugium, so there's a good chance that the Ricordea had hitchhiking flatworms. This type of flatworm is not harmful to the reef aquaria, but it can become a nuisance as it goes through a population explosion.

I decided to put a drop of Flatworm eXit for 5 minutes just to give any flatworms a hard time while I acclimated the Ricordea to the refugium.

Here is "The Hand of Neptune" live rock in my refugium. It's probably just a simple piece of Tonga live rock. I took it out of the main display after a majano anemone migrated to it. While in QT, the majano moved up the glass and I was able to dispose of it.

Here is the rock, posing. Are you convinced now of the moniker?

I'm using Gorilla Super Glue (gel formula) which contains cyanoacrylate. Another hobbyist that is successful with gluing a lot (I mean A LOT!) of Ricordea suggested using a super glue containing ethyl cyanoacrylate. Looking at the MSDS, I find that Gorilla has ethyl 2-cyanoacrylate. So, they probably contain the same ingredients.

I think this glue works really well on live coral. I was instructed to avoid getting glue on the exposed flesh of an acropora specimen. But, I was so clumsy while situating it on live rock in my main tank. There was glue all over the bottom portion. Surprisingly, the coral encrusted over all the glue and is doing really well in my tank.

I removed the live rock and dabbed it with a paper towel to remove excess salt water. It was difficult handling the Ricordea because they would produce a slime. I didn't want to apply too much pressure on them, but at the same time, I need to get a hold of them! Most of them were already attached to a small piece of debris which I dabbed with a paper towel and applied a blob of super glue. After they were all in place, I waited 5 minutes before returning the live rock to the refugium.

For corals, producing a protective layer of slime comes in handy during very low tides in a natural setting. It probably delays them from drying out.

Here is the The Hand of Neptune minutes after gluing down the specimens. There's a very tiny one near the bottom bringing the total to 9. I gave away one green and one blue to a buddy on SDReefs who had let me borrow PC lighting while my AI LEDs were out for repairs.

Who will survive? Who will multiply? Who will simply melt away? Only time will tell. I'll be sure to post updates. As the Ricordea become acclimated to their positions, they should spread out more. If all goes well, the rock will look like a hand full of beautiful Rics!

Emerald Crab (Mithrax sculptus)

This crab was originally enlisted to be a member of The Clean Up Crew and assigned to the Refugium Suite where its main objective was to scavenge the area for leftover Bubble Algae (Valonia sp.). Bubble algae has become a nuisance interfering with my established red macro algae growth. And after manually removing most of the offending algae, I found that it was impossible to remove every last trace unless I had the aid of a pair of tweezers. But, the prospect of singling out 100 tiny green globes and going in and out of the refugium 200 times was too daunting a task.

After acclimating the crab to my tank water, I dumped it into the refugium where upon it immediately took hold of the red feather algae and, as an example, began to show me how he plans to attack bubble algae.

Has its eyes on the red feather algae

"First, I take hold of the algae with my specialized pincers, then snap a piece off and place it into my....into my.....my crab mouth". "You mean, 'mandibles'?", I asked. He didn't answer back as he was happily satiating himself with a full serving of Prime Red Reef Algae. At the pet store, he had been plucked from a small tank containing several dozens of other Emerald crabs where the competition for food must have been high, so I took pity and didn't ask why he didn't go straight for the green globes on the other side of the tank.

A few days later, I espied from the top of the tank to see what he was up to. He crawled up on an Aiptasia anemone populated rock and used his pincers to randomly scrape and eat. Eventually, the pincer came across a small Aiptasia and seemed to react to it. "What's this? Is it spicy? Yes, a small one...mmm......How 'bout a bigger sample? YEOOOOWWW! VERY SPICY! HOT! HOT!" He crawled backwards into a corner far away from the infested rock.
"No, I did not purposely put that there because you didn't eat the Bubble Algae as I requested. So, stop staring up at me like that," I said and went to bed.

On an Aiptasia-infested rock

As I was about to fall asleep, I shot out of bed and thought, "an Aiptasia-eating Emerald Crab?!" Why, that's even better than a bubble algae eater! But, so far, I've only come across one anecdotal web link here. The guy wanted to grow Aiptasia for fun, but one day discovered all gone with the only suspects being: "a turbo snail, a few nassarius snails, two tiny hermits and an emerald crab". So, I guess we'll be 2 references (I only looked at the first 20) out of about 2,600 cross-references when you Google the terms "emerald crab aiptasia".

But, in reality, the crab would only be expected to pick at the pest anemone and cause it to spread even more! The nudibranch Berghia would be the best biological control, but that has its own issues.

Clearing an old plate coral of Bubble Algae (see new baby plates?!)

Update: The crab seems to have eradicated all the bubble algae, but not the Aiptasia, within its reach. Also, it probably waved bon voyage with a claw to the Chromis that was on R&R in the refugium. I found the fish's scales in the filter sock some time later.

Reef Keeper Elite 1.00

The Reef Keeper Elite (RKE) arrived from Digital Aquatics. It's their latest controller release in which you could attach up to 163 pH probe if you so have the inclination. Of course, this is one of the devices that I'll have to add to my "Early Adopter Syndrome" list. It's already acting buggy. Fortunately, there's already talk about providing a firmware update.

Here are a few snapshots of its activity, so far.


This is what I've been seeing so far. Good job, RKE! (Note: I haven't bothered with calibrating the pH meter, yet.)

I see this random message sometimes. Okay, good job RKE ver 1.0! "Detached" could mean a few things: 02 is for temp, pH or ORP probe. I haven't a clue. Although, I do see an error message showing up for ORP which I do not have at this point. I wonder how I can disable it?

Here's a sample graph of the temperature. Nice curves, RKE! Notice the two extreme dips in the graph even though I haven't dropped any ice-cubes in the sump, lately.

Uhhh.....now what? I'm starting to believe that our house is built upon a buried meteor containing a trapped alien space craft which has found a way to communicate with me through my reef tank's electronics.

Cleaning Acrylic Aquarium Walls

Periodically, I have to clean the walls of my acrylic aquarium. Algae covers the walls as time goes by. I doubt that anyone with a decent collection of fish and corals with any form of lighting will state that they NEVER have to clean their walls. Waste products from the fish, invertebrates and corals all contribute to the nutrient composition preferred by micro algae: phosphates and nitrates.

At first, I assumed that the ubiquitous algae magnet cleaner was what I needed. On ReefCentral, I read on one Tank of the Month entry that one should use the magnetic scraper even when the algae is not visible to the naked eye. In this way, it's easier for the scraper to keep up.

I find that if you don't routinely use this scraper, you find that you really have to do the "wax on, wax off" method to remove the spots of algae that get a foothold. And, in doing so, you run the risk of scratching the acrylic which is what has happened in my tank many, many times already. At the current rate, I expect the tank to be opaque in 10 years.

After one year of experience, however, I now believe that the magnetic scraper's purpose is to entice your reef aquarium babysitter to help you remove algae while you're out on vacation even though you specifically said, "Don't you do it!". And, in the process pick up bits of sand in order to put a 12" scar across your tank.

I confess. It's truly my fault for not removing it from the tank. In fact, the second time it happened was because I did not remove it from the house entirely. I'm now contemplating giving them (the magnetic scrapers, not the humans) a burial underneath one of the ponds in the backyard. No one should use them. Ever.That's why I have Mexican Turbo and Astrea snails to clean the glass. But, the numbers required to keep busy on the walls is the exact same number that it takes to occlude vision of your other, more colorful tank mates. If you don't have enough, they just make fancy eating trail patterns across the micro algae lawn.

I now find that using this scraper is the best method for routine algae scraping. No more "wax on, wax off", Mr. Miyagi! It's the best approach for scraping down to the sand bed which is a NO NO when using the magnetic scraper since it stirs up sand. And, you can even wait until the algae gets a foothold; it doesn't stand a chance!

Aquaillumination Leg Support

I received my refurbished AI unit yesterday morning. It was delayed an extra day probably due to the 1500 fires ravaging California at this time. I started de-packaging it around 10 P.M. and discovered what a PITA it was to slide the leg supports on the track that encases them. They glided nicely for a while, then got completely stuck. When I came around to fine tune them, it was impossible to position them exactly to the dimensions on the top of my aquarium.

Here is my BFF using BFF to try and move this sucker! Oh....and look at the time! It's time to give up and fire off an e-mail to tech support!

To calm myself down, I bought the new Elbow iTunes "The Seldom Seen Kid". Elbow is like an updated Peter Gabriel/Pink Floyd hybrid. The song "Weather to Fly" has been frequently playing on RadioParadise while I'm in the lab trying to find a cure for a few cancers.

THE CULPRIT

The leg in this position wobbles. I believe that this is probably the main reason why this leg gets completely stuck while the others, which don't have a wobble effect, don't.

MY SOLUTION

Ditch all the legs and figure out a way to mount the unit in the canopy.

Tech support replied and offered me a complete refund plus 10% of the total cost for the unit this morning. Yeah, right....that was part of my dream last night, then the boat cruiser sank into a maelstrom off the coast of Australia while I choked on a cosmo (uh, it's a drink). I saw some nice coral in the Great Barrier Reef!

In reality, tech support contacted me very early in the morning and offered an optional installation kit. Whether that's a pendant or retrofit design remains to be clarified.

I was finally able to get a good night's rest knowing that my unit was finally home. Now, I can get back to feeding my corals highly nutritious light!

Peanut Worm

The peanut worm has come out of its hiding place. I'm not sure if this is a good sign or a bad sign. I read somewhere that these worms are considered delicacies in some parts of the world. So, I'm not sure if I should plop it into the refugium or not. I'm worried that the Angels, Coral-banded shrimp or hermit crabs might tear it apart. I wonder how it defends itself if it's not hiding deep down in the rocks?

Peanut Worm

Florida Ricordea 11 pack

These Florida Ricordea are just barely acclimating to my quarantine tank under PC lighting. I was surprised to see that each one was previously attached to a piece of rubble. In this way, I don't have to worry about acccidentally killing them with glue when I figure out where to attach them to my display tank.

I kind of indicated on SDReefs that I might be selling some of them off, but I'm already falling in love with their colours and individual characteristics.

The people at Coral Morphologic picked these out for me in a special Ricordea pack. A guy on SDReefs put together and split the shipping costs with others. At first, I counted 10 during acclimation, but then when I took this pic, I can see 11! BONUS!

Can you figure out which one is the green and orange rainbow polyp? I think I can, but it might take some time for it to become more pronounced as it grows.

10 Pack + BONUS