How's your reef doing ?....The Good..The Bad...and The Ugly

[Rich-n-poor]

ok here it is the Good the Bad and the Ugly..

The Good :

the toadstool leather frag i got at my LFS is doing great it has doubled in size in 2 months WOW

My finger leather has colored up nice but seems to be a very slow grower

the polyp rock i bought at my LFS has opened up nice and has brown zoo's and yellow polyps on it

My purple mushrooms are thriving i moved them down to the substrate and they really opened up nice

The Bad:

my linka stars got attacked by something and the smaller yellow one does not look well at all I thought a recently added sally was the culprit and got rid of him immeddiately Now im noticing several nips in my larger red linka and am wondering about my 7 hermits but these might have been there before and i didnt notice due to concern for the smaller star

My hermits are definately eating coraline off my rocks...I did alot of research on this and then watched them closely between this and their possible implications with the star they may have to go

my ammonium nitrite and nitrate readings are all increased which i am not sure whether it is due to the addittion of a new fish or the overfeeding which was necessary to catch the sally but they have stabilized and seem to be on the way down again

The Ugly :

ok im not sure this yellow star will make it the parts of him that were attacked began to dissolve and look necrotic since star can grow new arms and since the rest of him still felt firm and healthy i used a razor blade to amputate the necrotic parts in a last hope to save him hes still very mobile but spends most of his time in hiding

_________________
PbNation

 

[Ben1]

I would be concerned with any jump in the Nitrite readings, once your tank is established nitrite is broken down way to fast to be detected. I have never been able to get a nitrite reading on any of my est. reefs even when something has gone wrong. What type of test kit are you using?

I have never heard of hermits eatting coralline,...I have heard of them and witnessed them eatting sand bed fauna. As far as eatting the brittle star I doubt it but what type of hermits are we talking about? I only have exp. with scarlet and blue legs. In any case I never use hermits because of there, snail killing sand bed picking habits.

I am not sure but typical yellow polyps usually will sting near by zooanthids. They may need seperating as the colony matures. JMO

Ben

 

[Anonymous]

For me :

The Good - The tank has much improved over the last month and a half due to regular water changes and top off with fresh RO saltwater, as well as a reduced photoperiod (still have to get a timer this week) to rid me of the problem algaes (it worked). 75% of the corals look perfect, with many attaining 'magazine picture quality' during the peak of the daily photoperiod. All fish are doing very well, and eating like pigs...even the Atlantic blue tang, who may have ich.

The Bad - All three species of xenia as well as my green star polyps still have not recovered from the massive loss of life during the heat wave a month and a half ago. Some polyps extend from the GSP, but not all the way, and they certainly don't look green. The xenia just won't extend up, and doesn't look like it's spreading much at all. Somewhat related, the neon green tree coral does not extend up as much, and will not get that 'polyps extended and fuzzy' look that it used to before the heat wave. All these corals are alive still, yet are not behaving like the rest in the tank.

The Ugly - My girlfriend's nano reef crashed. Lost a green hammer, pink zooanthids, green zooanthids, razor caulerpa, grape caulerpa, watermelon mushroom, and ricordia mushroom. Saved the lone percula clown, tho. Still, massive loss of life. I guess that will teach her not to get mad at the guy who does her weekly water changes. She didn't talk to me for three days, and when I went to her place two days ago, the tank was finished.

Peace,

Chip

[ October 08, 2001: Message edited by: marillion ]

 

[Rich-n-poor]

well its not a brittle star it is a linka i had a bad expierence with a brittle star previously and tend to shy away from them

the hermits are 3 scarlet reef hermits 2 blue legs and one left handed hermit

i was researching coraline algea online and came across several good articles on this but i dont recall the authors Ron shimek (bad spelling) comes to mind but that may just be because i read him alot

the nitrite levels are back in line after only 2 days...i usuallly register 0 when i test so any reading was high to me

I rarely feed this tank except to feed the anenome and i put a lot of food in there in my attempt to capture the sally so i think that was it

i would be intrested in learning more about the polyps since they both came in one the same rock but at opposite ends of it they would be hard to seperate at this point im hoping they spread to the nearby rock on each side
_________________
grape ape strain

 

[Enkidu]

Thats weird about your hermits. I didn't know that they ate coraline.

My own "good, bad, and ugly":

The Good -
My flame angel has been spending more time in the front of the tank. He has spent the vast majority of his time behind the rock since I got him.

The percula clown I got yesterday buddy'd up with my other percula almost instantly. The new one is much bigger and the two are constantly swimming together.

The Bad -
My orange-spot blennie died yesterday. I don't know how for sure, buy it may have been a combination of him not eating as much as he should have (he did eat, but he hid most of the time and probably missed out on alot of food that way), and a couple of small parasites I found on its body.

The Ugly -
The flame angel has been nipped a couple times on the tail, most likely by my blue tang. Oh well, they'll sort it out. The blue tang is quickly shaping up to the the "enforcer" of the tank.

My original percula clown is showing some fading on some of the black and orange parts of its body. Its been a week or more since I noticed and the fish still eats well. I've ordered some Selcon; we'll see if that fixes him up.

 

[Anonymous]

The Good The green open brain coral is slowly recovering skeletal areas lost during an infection that caused high speed tissue recession. All corals are attached and growing. My colt drifted between the glass and a rock (inaccessible) and has since attached to the glass

Rocks are ~70% covered w/ purple. Nitrates are ~0ppm (4" DSB is working). Tank is 10 months old.

The Bad Lost a neon green tree that traded for, sent to me via mail. I've got hydroids--I'm plucking them out with tweezers.

The Ugly I've got dinoflaggelates (I think--it's brown and hairy and likes the sandbed). I bought an RO/DI a month ago and have been doing weekly 10% waterchanges (37 gal tank) to get rid of whatever phosphates I've got (no test kit). NO3 is 0-5ppm. Lights are off in the tank and it's wrapped in blankets to try and kill off the rest of the stuff (doing 3 days of darkness). Bioload is light and so is feeding.

Lost a false perc last month--it'd stopped eating a month before and wasnt' swimming correctly.

 

[White-Queen]

Good: My tank is quickly becoming well established. (having started w/a 2= year old tank it didn't take long for bacteria to recover from the move) My purple psuedo accepted the addition of a juvey pair of occelaris very well after only minor disputes over a chunk of LR w/ nice cave he likes to hide in. My clownfish adjusted very well (orderd from Premium Aquatics) and now come to the surface to eat out of my hand or beg for food.

Bad: My peppermint shrimps, while eating the aptasia well, are still small so not cleaning up quite as fast as I would have liked.

Ugly: The aptasia in my tank, while decreased signifigantly after the addition of four peppermints, still is ugly, VERY ugly.

All-in-all though my tank is incredibly pleasing and I love it.

Angela <><

 

[fishfarmer]

The Good Every coral is THRIVING, both my finger leathers are looking normal after todays water change.

The Bad Finally got my alk up to 2.6 meq/L from my all time low of 1.7 this summer. Looks like I'll continue to add Seachem Reef Builder on a regular basis.... and I thought this reefkeeping thing was easy

.

The Ugly My newly introduced purple pseudochromis is picking on my green mandarin. My mandarin is pretty sneaky though, she still able to get some bottom time.

[ October 08, 2001: Message edited by: fishfarmer ]

 

[Anonymous]

The Ugly
I always become zeroed in on the ugly. My critters are thriving, my system is dead on. But I always concentrate on the ugly. Just going through a typical 7 month cyano and hair algae bloom. I am starting to feel like a cyano farmer

I havent found an ugly in my seahorse tank, But I Will

 

[davelin315]

The Good: My tank is thriving, and all the corals are growing.

The Bad: My tank is thriving, and all of the corals are growing - including the xenia.

The Ugly: My soft coral mounting techniques are failing me after using the rip, pull, and drop method with my xenia, and my clippings of various soft corals keep on falling behind my rocks. I've now got a forest of clippings behind my rocks that are cool right now, but get smaller every day. Also, a rock took a tumble and smashed my bird's nest to bits. The silver lining is I recovered most of the larger frags and have attached them to another rock, which should look pretty cool when they start growing again.

[ October 09, 2001: Message edited by: davelin315 ]

 

[fishfarmer]

ROTFLMAO davelin, I thought my xenia wouldn't like the low alk....guess not!

 

[Rich-n-poor]

update .....

The Good :
my slice and dice technique i tried on a green shroom worked like a charm and I now have 4 baby shrooms from 4 pieces

My royal gramma has adjusted to my tank and is starting to peek out from behind the rocks at feeding time but only long enough to grab some brine shrimp and run

all levels have stabalized at 0 again which is a big load off my mind

The Bad:
my yellow linka is a goner whatever attacked him left him so he couldnt recover but the other two attack victums (red linka and cucmber) have recovered well

I cant get the new shrooms to attack to anything but the substrate

The Ugly:
I think i finally found my killler crab. Today I noticed a small brown crab hiding in a grow out shell for one of my hermits he is shaped like a mithrax but brown and looks to be sorta hairy too

Happy Reefing

_________________
Learning Disorders Forum

 

[AlexS!]

Here is my list:
THE GOOD:
The 150 is going good. Out of 8 fish, 7 are doing great. Mollies have bread. All tank readings are great. New corals and inverts are doing great.
THE BAD:
Havent seen Firefish, Cleaner Shrimp, 2 Blue stars since introduction.
THE UGLY:
The list above is probably of the decased :-(
I have an algae problem, and have to clean tank every few days.
Basically, the tank is level, and unfortunately, I havent reached the level of more good than bad and ugly, but hopefully it will come soon!

 

[bigtank]

The good:
All water parameters are fine.
Animals are doing great.
Tank is a beauty.

The bad:
My skimmer can't keep up.
The grape caulerpa is growing like crazy and must be pruned often.

The ugly:
Hair algae all over the substrate, threatening a fox coral, and growing on the live rock now. I also have a small amount of bryopsis and other forms of bad algae.

This tank, a 70, is still beautiful, but algae just won't give up. My Remora Pro cannot really "handle" my tank despite a Mag 3 upgrade and moderate bioload. I cannot afford a RO/DI unit and am hoping to avoid that purchase. I would like to launch a major offensive, i.e. add a small tang and other algae chompers but am not sure what to add. I would also get a great skimmer if I could afford one.

 

[davelin315]

An ugly addition: the birds nest frags I remounted the other day have all bleached, and I'm thinking they were too damaged by the violent fragging to survive it.

 

[Merkur]

the good: tank has never looked this good before, sps frags are growing like weeds, lps's expand incredably, anemone's are fat and happy. just drilled my sump and moved the etss evo 500 out of the sump (maintaince will be MUCH easier), upgrading to halides.

the bad: was running 4x96pc's, a ballast just croked so the tank is running on a 2x96 right now. awating 2x400 watt 6500k halide delivery. i'm having a bit of trouble keeping up with my calcium load with all the clams and sps.

the ugly: refugium looks absolutly hideous, completly overgrown with macro's, exceptionaly nasty colloration on the 8" dsb, loads of ugly critters crawling around.