Leonardo's BB ShallowCube

[Leonardo's Reef]

Yesterday I bought the Apogons! Not the Cyanosoma, but the Leptacanthus, 10 of them.

I already fed them, and they can EAT! 1 cube Mysis and 1 cube Artemia (together with the tangs) They make a perfect addition to increase the bioload.
Of course it is also cool to see the schooling fish.



Leonardo

[Viv]

Wow Leonardo, Looks wonderful!

[elephen]

They look really sweet!

[Leonardo's Reef]

Okay.... An update...

I lost this whole colony last week. Completely bleached.



This was the last drop for me, I bought sand! And I already regret it:

I can just run only ONE tunze with minimal flow, otherwise, SANDSTORMS!

The tank is a bit cloudy all the time (little particles)

It LOOKS nice though...

What should I do. Wait for the sandbed to settle and hope I can crank up that flow a bit? Or syphon it out and make a Remote DSB?
(I know what you are gonna say, I think )

Help me!

Leonardo

[Mike O'Brien]

I'd go remote. Work's fine for me. I don't want to lose the good flow, that's too important.

[frankandmaura]

I have never gone with no sand, so I only know one side of the story...but I think if you give it some time your sand will settle and you will be ok...it takes a while for it to settle and once it is living I think you will not have a problem. I had the same problem when I added my SEIO's, once the sand found the place to settle it was ok.

[Leonardo's Reef]

It DO find a place to settle; If I set my tunze a bit higher then minimal, or switch the other one on, the sand is blown away from the front. Only this MINIMAL flow keeps everything in place

[Weatherman]

I hope you know that sand doesn't have any properties that will prevent coral from bleaching or dying.

If you wish to add sand, for whatever reason, you should go ahead and do that. Just don't be too surprised if it doesn't solve your problem. Also, realize that biological processes, especially positive ones, take a lot of time (measured in months). If you see immediate improvement after adding some sand to the tank it's most likely because you expected to see improvement (placebo effect). Any results, positive or negative, won't show themselves for several months.

Good luck in whatever decision you make.

[Leonardo's Reef]

I already did add sand

I know sand don't have the ability to prevent bleaching, but this coral didn't litteraly bleached, but starved to death. This is described in another thread over here.
I think sand can "dirty up" a tank, so corals have more available nutrients.

Please more suggestions for the above. (post # 169)

Leonardo

[Weatherman]

A couple of options for "dirtying things up"...

The "remote deep sand bed" idea is a good one. If you have a settling area in your sump that is deep enough, add a 10 cm layer of fine-grain sand. It will take a while, but denitrifying bacteria should set up shop. By not removing detritus that settles on the sand, there should be sufficient food to support worms and copepods and things like that.

Another option would be to run your skimmer a little drier. Shoot for less than a liter of dark skimmate every couple of days rather 3 or 4 liters of tea-colored skimmate a day.

You could also add filter pads and not clean them very often (do this in conjuction with adding the remote sand bed as aerobic bacteria in the filter pads will break down the organic particles to nitrate and not much further).

[Jimbo]

You could also add filter pads and not clean them very often (do this in conjuction with adding the remote sand bed as aerobic bacteria in the filter pads will break down the organic particles to nitrate and not much further).

This would also add phosphate. Another possible option is to add a small amount NO3 directly if your shooting for some. Unsure whether the corals can feed off it directly vs sandbed floating junk. I am aware of a few people that have tried this, but mainly in lagoon systems with DSB's and refugiums. The idea is that the NO3 will feed the macroalgea and also help in removing phosphates via macro algea export. Unless you just have a few frags I would not try this!

[Fly Guy]

I think your tank looks gorgeous and i didnt know you were having such problems. ????

One bleached colony(newly added to boot) with the rest of your tank kicking @$$ surely isnt a reason for going back to sand in any way is it????

[elephen]

Originally Posted by Leonardo's Reef

Oceanic is not available over here in Europe. IO is too low in magnesium, and the Alk is too high.

Tropic marine is used by most of the experienced reefers here, but b/c I don't have a Calciumreactor I have to add too much Ca and Mg, I will switch.

I will try Korallenzucht Reefers Best salt now. The experiences are very good with this salt. Don't know if it is available in the US yet.

Leonardo

Reefers Best Salt is available through the only US ZEOvit importer, Captive Oceans for anybody interested. I'm considering using that salt even though it is quite a bit more expensive then say IO is.

[Leonardo's Reef]

Okay, I have exams this week... But in the weekend I will remove the SB (OMG, that will be a pain...) and create a DSB in te sump.
After that, learning for the exams next week

Fly: I had problems with my SPS before... (pale SPS, slow growth, no PE)The sandbed is not the (my) solution. I don't like it. I think I have to buy more fish

"Reefers best" will be delivered next week!

Thank you all! Leonardo

[gwaco]

and while your doing exams ( good luck by the way !) revisit your insperational photo's of the style of tank you were after ! go back to basics and give the tank time to work itself out ! we've all lost corals at one point or another ! if i only had the money back for all the colonies i've lost !