Back from Whence You Came, and How Light Isn't Always Just Light

I "donated" my Montipora digitata to my local fish store this past weekend. There were a couple of reasons. First, I'm just running out of room and frankly it wasn't a superb specimen to begin with. That may be partially due to reason number two: it didn't appear to be doing as well as the other Small Polyp Stony corals in my tank. I didn't have a high enough position for it and higher position = more light = happier (photosynthetic) coral, generally speaking.

This reminds me of something I have heard online, and recently from a fish store employee who asked me directly - "what's your watts per gallon?" It's been a long-standing practice for people to judge their aquarium lighting by the nebulous value 'watts per gallon'. This is one of those Bad Ideas... almost as bad as the trusty old 'one inch of fish per gallon' rule-of-thumb that has undoubtedly ended the lives of countless pets over the years.

Watts-per-gallon has no specific bearing on how much light, or what type of light, a coral is bound to receive in your tank. It's just a rough estimate, and a poor one at that. Just because someone has X watts per gallon over his or her tank doesn't mean it's a proper setup. People like me with stock lighting on All-in-One aquariums like the Biocube are frequently advised not to attempt to keep SPS coral because our "watts per gallon" is too low. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have more lighting and the stock PC bulbs on the BioCube are woefully inadequate for demanding species of corals and clams, but there's a reason why this is a silly measurement to use as a measure of how effectively your reef is lit.

Many people will tell you that light intensity diminishes with distance squared; and they are right. Some amount of emitted electromagnetic radiation (which we call Radiant Intensity) over a tank that is two feet deep is not going to have the same effect over a tank that is only ten inches deep, even if the volume of the tank is the same. The key here is how this emitted light is diminished and interpreted as Irradiance where we're really concerned about it- within the coral tissue itself. Irradiance is the measure of how much incident light hits a surface in watts per square meter.

Furthermore, not all light is created equal; corals (actually, symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae) prefer a specific spectrum of light to really thrive: between 550 and 700 nanometers is the sweet spot (peaks around the yellow bands). In the hobby, the spectral character of a bulb is described by it's "heat", and you'll see bulbs advertised as 6500K (yellow-ish) all the way up to 20000K (blue-ish). The reason people pick the blue light is because it typically makes the corals look much prettier due to the fluorescence from UV bands within these bulbs. But I digress...

Advanced reef keepers often own and/or share what is called a PAR meter. PAR stands for Photosynthetically Active Radiation, a measure of Lux, or Lumens per square meter. Lumens are a photometric unit of measurement, and the value is in context of specific spectral character; not normalized across the whole electromagnetic spectrum. Lux is very closely related to the aforementioned Irradiance, however.

PAR meters are used to measure the incident light that is most beneficial to photosynthetic growth; that means it is the closest true-to-life evaluation of how effective the lighting is at any point within the tank- wherever you place the sensor. This is why the tool is so valuable to hobbyists, as evidenced in this 2009 thread on the Michigan Reefer's forum. These meters are frequently traded around at club events since once you've used one, you don't need it again until your lighting changes.

Phew. Long story short, you can indeed keep SPS that are more demanding than many LPS corals in terms of lighting, but they should be kept higher in the tank if you are like me and have poor or moderate lighting. My Seriatopora sp and Montipora capricornis are doing splendidly and have tripled in size.... about 5 inches below the surface of the water. They don't look as good and their colors don't "pop" like they would under proper lighting, but full polyp extension and steady growth are the signs of a happy coral.

Reef Video Tour

I took this brief video a month or two ago. It's a bit grainy and low-res for my taste (especially after uploading to YouTube), but it'll have to do.

I plan on taking much nicer videos but as penance for not updating in so long, here you go!

We've Got a Jumper!

Well, it was going to happen eventually. My female McCosker's Wrasse jumped up over the barrier in the back of the tank and landed in the filter area, where there was not enough water for her to survive. I found her last night.

Apart from not have too many fish in my tank, I'm wondering what I could have done to prevent the loss. This the firstsecond death I've had (not a bad track record), and I take these things as a lesson about what I could be doing or not doing to make the process smoother.

I could have improved the protective barrier to make it even less likely that she could wriggle by. As it stands, a small fish has to launch itself with high velocity at the perfect angle just to get back there, so it's dubious how much more protection I could provide. The older versions of the Biocube 29 had no raised wall above the false back/overflow, and that led to many fish deaths. The wall on my version is a few inches above water level and has less than a 1 inch gap between it and the back of the light cover.

Less fish would certainly make for less stress, especially for her. She suffered the brunt of the aggression from my territorial pair of clowns, and less frequently from the male McCosker's Wrasse who chases females as a natural part of his behavior. Less chasing means less jumping. That said, these wrasses are very well-known to be jumpers and my friend who maintains an open-top with a very healthy community plan still loses fish (especially wrasses) on a semi-regular basis.

I'm sad for the loss and regret that I wasn't able to provide a better home for this animal. In the future I will definitely lean towards understocking despite my excitement about new animals. As someone who has kept fish for a long time, I should have known better.

The silver lining here is that there is a bit less pooping now, but I will still have a nutrient issue until I address it by halving my fish load or working on a high rate of nutrient export via macro algae growth in my future above-tank refugium project.

Lack of updates

I have two updates that have been stewing for a long time. By "stewing" I mean I've been really lazy about updating this thing. They're even written already- I just haven't gotten pictures together. Life has presented other worthy investments of my after-work hours!

Fortunately both updates will benefit from the additional time that has passed since I wrote them, in the form of photos of progress.


To briefly mention a few interesting things:

I removed the skimmer that had been working (dubiously) in chamber two for several months and gave it back to its owner. Even though the skimmer didn't seem to be removing much gunk, taking it out of the picture has corresponded with a rise in nitrates and phosphates and I now have a mild cyanobacteria problem on the sand bed and glass.

The phosphates and nitrates would be at acceptable levels if my tank wasn't so overpopulated. I will probably end up trading in my female McCosker's Wrasse, who has suffered a little bit at the hands of the clownfish. It's just a question of catching her... she's very wily.

I've added another fish inhabitant since my last update that I'll write about separately.

I have a plan for a major addition to the aquarium system that may or may not go forward. I'll spoil the surprise- I'm looking into an acrylic 5-20 gallon aquarium that I can elevate (probably on a stand or shelf) above the main tank. Baffles in the tank will separate it into three chambers, the middle of which will be 100% dedicated to growing a relatively large amount of Chaetomorpha on a reverse-daylight cycle. This is called a refugium, and they're usually found below the tank. I want mine to be above the tank, specifically so that the gentle overflow of water into my display will carry little critters like amphipods and copepods which reproduce like mad in bunches of Chaetomorpha. With enough light and algae, I should remove the nuisance algae problem altogether and provide an environment for natural sources of fish food to procreate. Furthermore, the pump supplying water up to this refugium will be in chamber two and the overflow return will be to the display; this effectively doubles the water volume passing through my filter floss and will remove particulate much faster.

Buying more snails or growing more Chaetomorpha is a band-aid solution to this nutrient problem. The real issue is reducing poop-generating biomass from the equation; in other words, less fish.

I hate to say I've learned a lesson here because I already knew better... but overstocked anyway. Fact is, understocking a tank is the single best habit you can have in this hobby. It might not be as much fun and you don't get the gee-whiz novelty feeling of adding new and interesting specimens all the time, but you're rewarded in the long term by having a more stable, cleaner system. Two small clownfish would have been perfect.

Meet the McCoskers

I just added two fish that I had my eye on for some time before purchasing:

2x Paracheilinus mccoskeri (McCosker's Flasher Wrasse, Male/Female Pair) new

Female above, Male below

These wrasses grow to about 3.5". They are haremic and prefer to be kept in groups of females to one male. If there are only females present, one of them will become dominant and change into a male. Fascinating. Flasher wrasses and related fish have brilliant coloration and the males do displays for the females that consist of flaring their fins and darting up into the water column. These displays are more readily seen in a larger tank than mine, and with more females.

Two early shots of the male. You can see some fin damage, probably from handling or from an aggressive tank mate in transit.

A somewhat blurry shot of the Female. I'm still pretty bad at photographing fish.

Unfortunately, because I can't fit too many fish in this tank I only have one female. This has presented a bit of a problem- the first real fish issue that I need to deal with or worry about. With only one female to handle the aggressive pursuit of a male that is typically associated with a harem, there is too much attention for her to get any rest at all. Ideally I'd have 4-5 females for this male and the chasing and intimidation that the male uses to maintain dominance would be distributed, but my female has had a bit of an uneasy time between the pair of territorial Ocellaris clowns and an overbearing male. That said, I've had them for several weeks now and she is still feeding and quite active, but has clearly relegated herself to a corner of the aquarium. She is eating well and does not appear ill or injured. I hope things settle down for the foreseeable future until I can afford a larger tank one day.

Two recent shots of the male. His fin is healing nicely.

As usual I had these fish in quarantine for about a week before they were introduced into the main tank, and treated for fin rot just in case the male's injury became infected. Special thanks to my friend Line for taking some great pictures.

An Overdue Update

It's been a while since I posted anything; that is because for a while there wasn't much to write about- not as much as in the first few months. I have a few projects in the works and I am done with the planning phase on a pump retrofit, but have held back on expenditures for the time being. The pump modification will probably happen in the next few weeks, and a DIY LED lighting upgrade is on the horizon. I also have a few ideas for some topical posts in the near future so stay tuned.

By now my livestock list has grown pretty big for a 29 gallon, so here's a recap. The corals are listed roughly in the order that they were added to the tank. Refreshing this list is something I needed to do anyway, so here goes... if anyone knows the species of one of these that I'm missing, let me know.

Coral:

• Clavularia sp. (Purple "Snowflake" Cloves)
• Zoanthus sp. (Zoas, several species)
• Pachyclavularia violacea (Green Star Polyps)
• Dendrophyllia fistula (Dendros)
• Ricordea florida (Pink/Purple Ricordea)
• Euphyllia divisia (Frogspawn)
• Lobophyllia sp. (Lobed Brain)
• Sarcophyton sp. (Neon Green Toadstool)
• Duncanopsammia axifuga (Duncans)
• Seriatopora hystrix (Hyacinth Bird's Nest)
• Cyphastrea ocellina (Meteor Shower)
• Seriatopora guttatus (Neon Green Bird's Nest)
• Montipora capricornis (Orange/Red Monti)
• Acanthastrea sp. (Acan)
• Euphyllia glabrescens (Torch)
• Xenia umbellata (Pulsing Xenia)
• Favia sp. (Christmas Favia)
• Montipora digitata (Red Digi) new
• Ricordea yuma (Yuma) new
• Palythoa sp. (Brown w/ Green, Striped) new

Fish:

• 2x Amphiprion ocellaris (Ocellaris Clownfish, "False Percula", Black, Male/Female Pair)

Invertebrates:

• 4x Thor amboinensis (Sexy/Anemone Shrimp)
• 1x Lysmata amboinensis (Skunk Cleaner Shrimp)
• 2x Pusiostoma mendicaria (Bumblebee Snail)
• 3x Turbo fluctuosa (Mexican turbo snails)
• 6x Cerithium altratum (Cerith snails)
• 4x Nassarius distortus (Nassarius snails, "Super Tongan") new
• 4x Trochus sp. (Trochus snails) new

Phew, that's a lot of different animals. Admittedly I am at the upper limit for my tank, especially with the corals. As they grow they will definitely begin to encroach on each other. Some of these species would eventually completely outgrow the tank, even if they were the only animal in it (the Euphyllia species and the Montipora capricornis come to mind. All this really means is that fragging will be a necessity, and I'll trade in or sell parts of these creatures to my local fish store or fellow enthusiasts.

I haven't written about or photographed a couple of these new additions as of a few weeks ago. The Ricordea yuma is a about dime-sized specimen and is a brilliant, translucent neon-orange. It does eat and has grown a bit since I got it, so I try to feed it often. Feeding is difficult because of the marauding band of Nassarius snails, shrimp, and crabs, which have the audacity to clamber all over any coral and steal food right out of the mouths. The yuma is related to the Ricordea florida, and large specimens can fetch a pretty penny.

The Montipora digitata is related to the capricornis but instead of forming plates of skeleton, it forms knobby "fingers", hence its name. The fingers are not as delicate and thin as bird's nest coral, and are covered in tiny reddish orange polyps that collectively disappear within the calcareous skeleton from time to time. It does encrust a bit as you can see in the picture. A bit of bad news- I had this piece wedged into the main rockwork of the tank, where it had been stable for some time. A few nights ago, one of my beastly turbo snails rammed the Monti off of the rock... I found it the next morning. It had landed upside down, right on the Lobophyllia brain coral. Below are pics of the aftermath.

This is a prime example of why corals should generally never come into contact with one another in your aquarium. I like to think of these conflicts as historic naval battles. Two vessels bristling with cannons pull up and broadside each other with stinging cells. Unfortunately for the digitata, the brain coral had it both out-armored and out-gunned. The result was the carnage evident above... I'm hoping for a full recovery but it will take time. The Lobophyllia was unaffected.

The brown and green Palythoa was a bit of an impulse buy. I knew their requirements but I didn't go to the store to buy it specifically- I just happened upon it and thought it had a striking color and pattern. It's related to the Zoas, and the rock that it came on had a couple of cool critters including another micro brittle star.

Four Trochus snails were a great find. My LFS finally had them in stock. These snails are one of the better algae eaters that you can find. They're larger than the Cerith snails and thus consume more (and faster) and if they fall on their backs they can right themselves without issue. Their shells are unique and attractive, and the shape makes it difficult for hermit crabs to kill them. I picked up four of these and they've been busy cleaning my glass and rock ever since. These snails are somewhere in between the Cerith and Turbos in terms of size and capacity for eating algae.

Nassarius snails are sand-burrowing detritivores that I originally bought for janitor duty, but quickly found that they took upon themselves the role of food bandits. They lay buried in the sand all day with their siphons poking out and at the faintest smell of food, they come bursting from the substrate like something out of a scifi movie:

I bought four of these but found that I did not want or need that many. Even though they 'stir' the sand and keep it somewhat aerated as they burrow and surface, they aren't worth the headache when it is feeding time and I have to babysit corals to make sure that these snails don't climb up on top of the coral and steal the food. They're so aggressive with food that they'll even drive away hermit crabs. I ended up trading two of these in. I don't have a good picture of these snails for some reason; I'll try and get one soon.

My two clowns got sick again. I'm not sure what the cause was this time. The larger of the two, apparently the female, began to show signs of finrot on the front of her dorsal fin. Finrot usually occurs because of stress or injury from some other source. It's a bacteria infection that quickly eats away at the fin material, right down to the base of the fin, and eventually causes death. I managed to get them into the hospital tank and treated the finrot with Maracyn Two, an effective gram-negative antibacterial/antibiotic medication. After the five day treatment, the finrot subsided and it is already growing back.

My water tested fine and it's hard to identify the root cause of this disease. The bacteria are always present in the water, but only become a problem in a fish that is somehow weakened. It might be from trying to host in the Torch coral, which has a potent sting and sharp internal skeleton. I'm hoping not to have to catch these little fish again, as this is their second time in the hospital tank for treatment. It is hard to describe how difficult it is to remove them from the tank without total live rock and coral upheaval, and they aren't even in the running for most difficult aquarium fish to catch... many an aquarist has cursed a damselfish or wrasse that simply refused to be caught without being literally the only thing remaining in the tank aside from water. I wonder if sport fisherman would get the same "rush" out of trying to catch a damsel with a net that they get fighting a marlin with a sea rod. I'd say the damselfish is probably a bigger challenge.

More bad news, this time on the Acanthastrea front. Something caused some tissue damage and the whole colony began to progressively deteriorate. One of the polyps is almost gone and has receded away to reveal the skeleton underneath. I'm really hoping for a recovery as this was not only a somewhat expensive coral, but was attractive and a lot of fun to feed. I have yet to lose a coral and this would be my first... a failure in my eyes, especially since it had been thriving up until the last week. All clues pointed towards the sexy shrimp as culprits. I had noticed them sitting on the Acan from time to time, and assumed that they were only lightly picking at it as they do on the Lobophyllia, or eating mucus that the corals sometimes secrete... one day, however, I saw a shrimp violently tearing tissue from the outer ring of flesh, so it was at least contributing to the coral's problems.

This incident prompt me to build a makeshift prison in the tank. I poked several holes in one of the little plastic containers that you use for salsa at a Mexican restaurant, and in one evening caught two shrimp in the act. Since they've been incarcerated in my makeshift underwater prison, I have yet to see a sexy shrimp on the Acan. Perhaps it was only those two shrimp who had a taste for coral, or maybe the other two have learned by example. The two guilty parties were locked up for a few days and the coral immediately appeared to be doing a little better. They were converted into store credit on my next LFS visit.

That's all for now. I didn't mention the coolest news because I'm saving that for its own post in a few days. With one sick coral, two recovering fish, and a Montipora colony that is a barren skeleton on one side it seems like a lot of trouble but really... it isn't that bad. These types of problems are all par for the course in this hobby.

Magnetism

As I alluded to in a previous post, I found a great way to open up some space in the tank. In this hobby there seems to be no shortage of small to medium-sized operations wherein a hobbyist comes up with something marketable and starts selling it. A good example of this is inTank LLC, and Aqua-Mags. I've not yet had the pleasure of using any of inTank's products but many people have with some success. I haven't ruled it out for the future.

Aqua-Mags sells the "Frag-Mag" (and similar "Rock-Mag"), a unique and useful product. It's simple and effective, and really opens up a lot of potential for smaller tanks. Essentially a Frag-Mag is just a couple of strong rare-earth magnets encased in plastic which are attracted to each other on either side of a surface of the aquarium... be it the glass sides or back, plastic false wall, overflow, what-have-you. One of the magnets, on the "aquarium side", is covered in rough gravel to which you can glue or epoxy a frag of coral. In this way the otherwise barren back wall of the aquarium can be occupied  by corals... or whatever else you can imagine.

 

 

I decided to mount my Torch Coral somewhere that would open up some space in the tank as well as provide the torch ample room to expand. Using some D-D ROWA Aquascape Epoxy, I mounted the torch to one side of the Frag-Mag and left it in its usual spot on my rock to cure for 24+ hours. When it was done, I experimented with it in several positions on the back and side walls. I've tentatively chosen the right upper glass for the Torch to stay semi-permanently because it seems to really like the mix of lighting and flow in that spot. It's always fully inflated and healthy-looking. The moderate water flow gives it a constant sweeping movement that catches the eye from across the room. The only downside here is that if someone knocks or removes the outside magnet, the Torch could conceivably fall down against a rock and become damaged and/or sting other corals that it lands on. This was a great opportunity to work with both the epoxy and the Frag-Mag and learn a bit about how quickly it sets, how to shape it, the strength of the magnets, etc.

Here are a few shots when the Torch was mounted on the back wall.

 

 

I feel like having it on the glass lets you see both sides of this animal, and to be able to look at it from underneath isn't a common sight in the hobby.

That left me with two unused Frag-Mags. For a week or so I contemplated what to do with them, finally deciding to act on an idea I had thrown around since the tank was first set up. One of my rocks had always seemed out of place and awkward, and I had a lot of barren space on the back wall of the tank... Why not elevate the rock and mount it up on the wall using Frag-Mags?

First the tank had to be prepared for all of this activity to minimize on potential accidents. I migrated all of the corals to the right side of the tank as closely as possible without touching (don't want to start any wars) and effectively cleared the area I'd be working in. I moved the small rock with the purple clove polyps that was one of my first coral purchases. It had been sitting on the rock that was to be moved, and the coralline growth had stopped at its edges... moving it revealed a white "tan line" on the rock in its place. For the several weeks since introduced, these little polyps had begun to flourish and had finally spread onto the rock itself (one of my original goals).

 All corals relocated away from the construction zone, and a Cerith snail clearly ready for its close-up.

The cyphastrea meteor shower was glued to the rock and could not be removed. Like the few clavularia polyps that had begun to spread to the rock, the meteor shower would have to survive a few minutes of exposure to air while I worked on the epoxy outside the aquarium. A couple quick google searches assured me that it would probably be ok. I suddenly realized something was missing from my plan.....

 

Iverson Merlot from gold country in Northern California set the mood. 

Later on I broke out the Ardbeg 10 year for the victory lap.

I can't emphasize enough how important it is to know your plan ahead of time when doing something like this. Aquascape Epoxy is very unforgiving once it cures. If you screw up, you've ruined your rock and wasted your magnets. I spent several minutes holding the rock against the wall in different positions taking mental notes, determining whether the dividing wall between chamber 2 and 3 would affect the placement of magnets, whether the pump return line would get in the way, etc. It was also important to note exactly where on the rock the magnets would be affixed. Finally and most important, both magnets could be adjusted and moved independently while being attached to the rock, but in their final position they would have to be flush with each other and as coplanar as possible to have the best grip on the flat wall. Here are a couple of pictures that I took while planning the location of the rock and its general orientation on the wall. It was pretty awkward taking these with one free hand.

 

The timing during this process was critical as the epoxy only minutes of pliability before it begins to set. I cut off a generous amount and stuck it in the microwave for a couple of seconds it to make it easier to hand-mix. Then I formed it into two even clumps and carefully pressed it onto the gravel face of the Frag-Mags. I started in the very center and used firm thumb pressure to ensure that the epoxy, which has a clay-like consistency before curing, formed a strong bond to the gravel. There was a lot of rushing but I managed to get it all done with a few minutes to spare- now came the more nerve-wracking part. I took the piece of rock out of the tank and gently patted dry the portion where the epoxy would bond. The two magnets were pressed onto the porous dead-coral surface and I spread the epoxy as far as possible in all directions, especially into crevices and around corners so that it would have a strong hold once cured. After both magnets were attached, I put the rock magnet-side down on the flat table surface and dropped my eye-level, adjusting the magnets' positions individually until they rested flush with each other against the tabletop. Each adjustment of the magnets meant more pressing and forming of the epoxy. At one point I re-dipped the side of the rock to keep it and the coral wet. The whole process took a few minutes and the epoxy had clearly begun to set by the time I finished.

 

Gathered proper supplies, set my working area up.

 

Guesstimated the proper amount of epoxy for this project. I usually cut this size into smaller pieces and microwave them for a few seconds, to make mixing easier.

 

Here's a shot before I started to even out the magnet surfaces and make them flush.

 

It was a harrowing experience trying to get this right while minimizing the coral and rock's exposure to air. Excuse the poor photo quality here, but I was essentially using the tabletop to get the magnet surfaces flush. After pressing them in, I would smooth out the epoxy a bit more on the coral, and then repeat the process.

 

In the above two photos you can see the rock returned to the tank with magnets attached. I used the drip tray to ensure that they stayed flush. Might have been unnecessary, but it certainly didn't hurt anything.

I returned the rock to the tank in a corner away from all of the corals. The unused grate from the bottom of chamber two served as a temporary spacer and a somewhat rigid, flat surface to make sure that the magnets stayed flush while the epoxy cured... which took two days. After a long wait, during which my tank appeared to be in total upheaval, it was time to see how my handiwork had turned out... success!

 

 

This method worked so well that I am already thinking about a sequel. When and if I find a suitable rock, I am going to mount it across the back wall from the far right to the middle (from under the Koralia and behind the Frogspawn). On that rock I will and grow some Green Star Polyps or a clavularia species. There are some really nice ones.  I think it would provide some more depth and motion to the tank.

On a sad note, the tragedy I mentioned in the last post was the death of my Randall's Goby only a week before it was reintroduced to the aquarium. I don't know the cause of death- the hospital tank water tested fine and it was eating (ravenously) up to the day of its death. No signs of disease or injury. Could it have simply not gotten enough food? It didn't seem thin. That goby was pretty entertaining and I was planning on matching it with a pistol shrimp eventually, so I was bummed out by the loss. I despise failure, and especially failure without explanation. While it was an expensive and disheartening loss, the bright side is now I have the opportunity to choose another fish to replace him. This weekend at the the store I saw what I can only assume was a fully-grown Randall's Goby and it was HUGE! Seeing their full size has convinced me to go with a much smaller shrimp goby, something like a Stonogobiops Yasha which only reaches two inches, or maybe a bit more. That's far less bioload than the monstrous Randall's that I saw over the weekend, and it affords me more flexibility in choosing additional bioload while still providing a colorful addition and the interesting shrimp-goby relationship that I'll get into at some other time.