Reefs.org Forums

[Floris Reef Tank]

Here's some more pictures.

[Floris Reef Tank]

And here's some shots of the halimeda that's growing in the tank. To compare, look back at some of the earlier shots of the yellow clown goby and you can see the rock he is sitting on has no halimeda growth. Now, there's a sprout in the background.

[Floris Reef Tank]

April 12, 2005
9:35AM by Anuja and Sid
Temperature - 78.2 degrees
SG - 1.023
Nitrite - 0 ppm

12:20PM by Mr. Lin
Fellow reefer Sugar Magnolia dropped by today and donated a nice piece of rock with red, yellow/green, and brown zooanthids and also two types of mushrooms, green stripe and another green morph (not sure of the scientific names). She also showed me some small snails (can't remember the name!) that were on the bottom of the rock and it also had a couple of clumps of yellow sponge on it that had grown quite well. I began to acclimate the rock and will let the kids finish it off through the day.

3:30PM by Stephen
Temperature - 79.1
Changed out about 2 liters of water to acclimate new rock.
Nitrate - 5.0 ppm, retested 0 ppm
Ammonia - 0 ppm
pH - 8.2
SG - 1.023

Here are some pictures that were taken by one of my students, Ally. She has been going wild on the pictures and has gotten very good at taking them. She's also doing a poster on our reef tank with two other students in the class.

[Floris Reef Tank]

More pictures taken by Ally.

[Floris Reef Tank]

More pics by Ally.

[Floris Reef Tank]

Here are some pictures of the rock donated by Sugar Magnolia taken this afternoon after it was added to the tank. This was only about 5 minutes after adding it to the tank and the polyps are already opened and extended.

[Floris Reef Tank]

More pics.

[Floris Reef Tank]

More pics.

[Floris Reef Tank]

April 13, 2005
11:50AM by Elise, Conner, Ari, Paul, Phillip, Lilly
The green striped things [mushrooms] are connecting to other rocks. Big green thing is slightly moving.

1:26PM by Kayla and Lindsay
SG - 1.024
Temperature - 79.6 degrees
Nitrate - 5.0 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
pH - 8.0
Ammonia - .25 ppm

3:25PM by Stephen
Added B-Ionic, 2.5 ml part 1, 2.5 ml part 2
SG - 1.024
pH - 8.2
Temperature - 80.2
Retesting Nitrate and Ammonia because of positive tests earlier to see if they were misreads like we had yesterday.
Ammonia Retest - 0 ppm
Nitrate Retest - 0 ppm

[Floris Reef Tank]

Here are some photos Stephen took today.

[Floris Reef Tank]

Here's a couple more. Nice shots by Stephen again.

[Floris Reef Tank]

April 14, 2005
4:30PM by Stephen
pH - 8.2
[Temperature - 80.2 degrees]
Nitrate - 0 ppm
Ammonia - 0 ppm
Added 2.5 ml of B-Ionic part 1 and B-Ionic part 2

6:30PM by Mr. Lin
Well, I think I spoke a bit prematurely about the presence of a royal gramma and a firefish. Although I saw no outward signs of aggression, I think the firefish is gone. We haven't seen it since yesterday and I think there is a small skull rolling around in the back of the tank behind the rock work. I am also surprised by this development because it's been 9 days since the firefish was added, so I'm not clear on why the gramma, who has been fine with it until apparently yesterday, decided that today was the day to knock off a tank mate.

Of course, I can't say with any degree of certainty that the gramma did the damage, but the firefish appeared to be perfectly healthy and the tank water has been fine. The daily tests reveal no problems with any levels, all of which remain at 0 (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) with pH staying between 8.1 and 8.2. The SG has also remained consistent and no other life has suffered.

One of the kids did say that the firefish looked a bit nipped at yesterday when he last saw it, but again, the gramma has never visibly (and there are normally 28 pairs of eyes looking at it throughout the day, not including my own) done anything to the firefish.

Any thoughts on its demise? It had already gone through quarantine at the store before being released into my tank, so I don't think it's a problem with disease. It also appeared to be the hardiest of the three they had out of quarantine.

I'll see if it reappears tomorrow as "the skull" could be anything.

[Floris Reef Tank]

We just finished our 3rd quarter and have begun a few very front-heavy projects so we don't have much to report right now. I had a student do some tests yesterday, but he misread the directions and didn't mix certain chemicals together, so the results are a bit skewed. In any case, the work should loosen up a bit over the next couple days and I'll get some more pictures and updates up.

No luck, by the way, on finding the firefish. I did notice, however, that the M. digitata frags from Sugar Magnolir a seem to be putting on new skeleton. On the one piece there are three white tips that are pointing up towards the light and on the other one, there is one white tip pointing up towards the light whereas before there didn't seem to be a lot of growth pointing towards the light.

Like I said, I'll take some pics when I get a chance and have some tests run soon.

[Floris Reef Tank]

April 20, 2005
I bought a Red Sea test kit yesterday and had the kids test the water today, but of course, I forgot to bring the results home with me. Anyway, the only result that I have (only because I had to read it for them because they are used to the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals tests where you look from the side) is the Alkalinity test which was "normal" - not sure what that means as far as what the Alk is - and the pH which was 8.4 according to the student who did the test. I took a bag of water from the tank to do the tests myself and check their results, but of course, I didn't bring it with me, either! I also forgot the test kit itself at school.

Anyway, what I do have are some new pictures of the frags from Sugar Magnolia, so I will post them here.

[Floris Reef Tank]

Here are some more shots of the Montipora digitata frag on the side of the tank. It's developing new growth spots and is really doing well. The damaged spots from the shroom while it was acclimating are gone.

[Floris Reef Tank]

Shots of the Montipora digitata in the middle, closer to the lights. Again, it has new growth spots. There are three on the tip.

[Floris Reef Tank]

April 20, 2005
1:00PM by Eli and Natalie
pH - 8.4
Nitrate - 2.5 ppm
Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrite - .05 ppm
4:00PM by Stephen
SG - 1.023
Temperature - 80.5 degrees
Added B-Ionic 2 part, 2.5 ml each
Alkalinity - "normal"

by Mr. Lin - After seeing these test results I thought they looked a bit strange so I had the students retest them again today.

April 21, 2005
7:30AM by Mr. Lin
I added a small bag of carbon to the surge tank. I'll leave it in for a week or less and then remove it. I don't want to remove too much from the water. Once I do, I'll most likely replace some water. Probably about 1 or 2 gallons.
9:15AM by Sid and Anuja
Temperature - 80.8 degrees
Nitrite - 0 ppm
pH 8.2
Alk - "high"
Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 0 ppm
[These were using a Red Sea test kit, same as yesterday, but I think the students didn't realize they had to look down through some of the tests to read a result and instead were looking through it like for the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals tests.]

11:00AM by Lucia, Nikita, and Emili
We see lots of fish moving. There is a spngy thing on the rock. The yellow fish looks dead [the yellow clown goby, which I told them has the habit of just "hanging out"]. Can't see the firefish.

[Floris Reef Tank]

April 22, 2005
7:55AM by Mr. Lin
Temperature - 78.4 degrees
SG - 1.0225
I brought in some zooanthid rock and a trochus/turbo grazer snail with about 300 ml of water and began acclimating by adding 50-60 ml of water every 10-20 minutes.

11:01AM by Amber, Lucia, Emili, and Nikita
SG - 1.0225
-Lots of mushrooms on the rocks.
-See lots of hermit crabs.
-Fish are missing.
-Lots of hermit crabs are eating "garbage".

11:55AM
Varun added the zooanthid rock to the tank and Phillip added the snail.

3:45PM by Katie
pH - 8.4
Nitrate - 0 ppm
Alkalinity - between "normal" and "high"
Temperature - 81.4 degrees
SG - 1.0225
Ammonia - 0 ppm

4:20PM by Mr. Lin and Katie
We haven't seen either fish all day long. No one has seen them since yesterday. I (Mr. Lin) asked Katie what she thought happened to them.
Katie: I think that a creature in the coral started to eat it slowly and then the fish finally died. I think this because the fish looked sort of beat up last week.
Mr. Lin: I think that there's a mantis shrimp in the tank. I haven't seen it or heard it, but the disappearance of all of the fish is making me think something is eating them. I have not seen any "disagreements" between the fish and all of a sudden they are all gone.
I am going to try and set a trap and see. I am 99.9% sure it could not be the golden banded coral shrimp, but I'm surprised he's not eaten as well. We'll see what happens this weekend.

[Floris Reef Tank]

April 25, 2005 by Mr. Lin
Chances are we won't have a chance to do much today as far as testing, but I do want to update you on the fish. There is still no sign of them in the tank and my guess is they are gone. The golden banded coral shrimp is still in there, however, but I still do not think he is to blame. I'll keep my eye out and see what I can see...

Other than that, the two M. digitata seem to be doing really well and I am looking forward to receiving a shipment from Eric Koch at Reef Savers, Inc. to round out some of the coral inhabitants!

10:11AM by David and Ariana
Nitrate - 0 ppm
pH - 8.0
[Two students were able to do a couple of tests using the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Test Kit.]

[Floris Reef Tank]

Here's some pictures I snapped after school. You can really do a comparison on the two pieces of M. digitata and see how much they have grown over the past week. One piece has some slight damage on the end from letting one of the kids scrape the glass, but I'm sure it'll recover nicely. I'll move the rock a bit so that it doesn't happen in the future again.