Christy's Reef

I just realized that I forgot to post last week :p Oh well, here you go.

So the aquatronica is working nicely. I'm even using a program called "logmein" to look at whats going on in the tank while I'm away. Its pretty sweet, as long as the computer is turned on (which it wasn't this morning :(). I'm having a bit of issues with tank pH though. I never had a working pH meter before so I'm feeling a bit freaked out and a bit of well it was never a problem without the meter before so why should it be now. Thing is, I'm not sure how long its been low. I'm suspecting that the low pH of the calcium reactor effluent is whats doing it but that is dialed down so low it really shouldn't be a problem. Who knows. Perhaps a kalk reactor is next. *sigh* Good thing I'm made of money :P

So of course I brought some corals home last weekend. Lets face it, I'm not going to stop until there is no bare rock or tank bottom available :P I got a gorgeous acanthastrea (I think) which was gorgeous when it arrived at the store but had some tissue recession over several months. I let it languish as it was horridly expensive (from Australia) but I wanted it so bad. It receded quite a bit and had some algae growing on it. By that time it was no longer worth the original price and I managed to get it for a steal (with bonus green hair algae and bryopsis! lucky me!). I still waffled on it for awhile while it got worse and then I noticed that it was trying to come back but the algae was taking over. So I took pity on it and brought it home. I wasn't too sure how to get all the algae off of it though. My powder blue tang is pretty good about finding algae snacks in the tank and I figured he'd just pick at it enough to keep the algae in check at least. After putting it in the tank at about 7pm I wandered off and the next morning when the lights came on there wasn't a speck of algae to be seen on it. I really should have taken a "before" photo. I'm so proud of my little blue guy!! I'm hoping the acan will return to its former glory (which I actually have a photo of somewhere that I'll have to find).

I also picked up a couple of ricordea yuma for the nano. I am so bad with these things. They're just so pretty tho, its hard to resist. I got this one and this one. The lighting in the nano really doesn't show it off as well as I would like. Its a bit blue for my liking and I think the next time I order bulbs I'll just go with the 10ks instead of the 50/50s that were only available at the time. I also took a photo of my freebie from wickedfrags.com, which has two mouths so I'm hoping its on its way to splitting soon :)


Some sad news that I forgot to report about. One of my crocea clams developed what looked like ick on its mantle. I thought maybe it was just some detritus at first or maybe going through a color change or something but more and more started to appear. I posted on clamsdirect.com and they said that as long as the clam looked ok, I should just ride it out as treatment involved a QT tank and low temperatures and I just didn't have the space to set one up (although I'm thinking if there is a next time I'll be setting one up regardless). As the week progressed I noticed that the white granules were dissipating and merging into the mantle instead of just sitting on it like sand particles. I thought maybe the clam was clearing the infection but it was more just the progression of the disease. I also noticed that there were granules inside the clam on the gill area. Suffice it to say, the clam only lasted about 3 days after I noticed that. The people at clamsdirect said this was relatively rare and they'd only seen 3 cases. I'm not sure whether their QT method was a success, I forgot to ask. Currently I'm keeping a sharp eye on my other clams to see if they are developing signs of it. Throughout the time the other clam had it, I didn't see anything amiss though.