Well, it's been a little while since I've come in here. Work has been a little stressful.....we have a new show we're working to promote, my boss is trying to impress the VisitOrlando people for a contract, and I'm moonlighting with a new marketing company to design all their newspaper ads for a specific client of theirs. Add in to the mix a small amount of "Fun Work" for the FMAS group and a presentation that I'm putting together, and you get a somewhat busy schedule.
On the other hand, I've taken some fun time for myself and my wife for a mini staycation for our 12th anniversary, and of course making time for occasional beach mornings. Ya gotta do what makes YOU happy and centered. So it's not like I'm sitting here working fingers to the bone.
In the meantime, the reef tank has had a couple ups and downs. Specifically, it had a major "DOWN" while we were away. As in, my KH. I got home to some upset looking corals, and a Carbonate Hardness of 7 dKH. Which is NOT good. I lost my generic blueish-brown pocillipora (the first SPS I ever bought) and I had some major tissue loss on my birdsnests. My Rainbow pocillopora was also bleached back quite a bit.
So yeah, that sucked.
I've been dosing 2-part and I have come to the realization that I can't do this any more. If I miss a single day, my KH starts to drop. Black sand has no buffering capacity, remember, so there's no real margin for error here. I will be switching over to a kalk topoff system shortly here, as that should solve my problems for now. I don't really want to get into the whole Ca Reactor business right now, and I know plenty of people with heavy SPS tanks who continue to drip kalk as their source of Ca / KH for the tank. I just need to reduce the flow of the topoff pump before I add lime to the system.
In the meantime, I have gotten the KH back up to 10 dKH for now. My pH is still low (7.8) and I would like to push that up to 8 in the long term for the overall health of the corals, but for now I can live with the pH as long as it's stable.
Now for the good news. We went to the Space Coast aquarium conference last weekend, and came home with a couple new zoas....some fruit loops and an interesting blue/red colony. While I was away that Saturday, I started getting cryptic messages from Siptang. I HAD to come to his shop on Sunday. I HAD to be there as early as possible. It was IMPORTANT....but he wouldn't say why.
As you can tell, Mr. Richard Siptang likes to cloak himself in mystery.
Naturally we went. I had some corals to deliver to him for a friend's tank anyway. We left Palm Bay on early Sunday AM and drove straight down to Plantation. By 11am, I was at his shop...tired, road-sore, and low on gas, but I have to say it was all worth it. When I got there, he handed me a bucket. In the bucket, I found this:
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That's a female Macropharyngodon meleagris Leopard wrasse. BEAUTIFUL fish. And very delicate. This one came from a friend's tank, well settled in and eating, but the dude didn't want it anymore. Siptang knew I've been on the lookout for Leopards, so he snagged it for me.
Obviously a very big THANK YOU went out to my buddy for keeping an eye out.
That was a week ago, and the fish has been adapting very well to life in the new tank.
Since I've been home to maintain the KH, the sick corals have shown some signs of repair. The Leopard wrasse is doing well, and just this afternoon we found what appears to be a Heniochus diphreutes Bannerfish at one of our local fish shops. We're QTing it right now, but I added some zoas and soft corals to the tank to see if the fish starts nipping the coral. As most of you know, the H. diphreutes is more or less "reef safe," while the nearly identical H. acuminata is NOT. It's very, very hard to tell the difference, but the deeper chest and slightly more pugged nose of this one are indicative of the reef safe fish. Fingers crossed on this one!
I think that's about it for now. I'll try for a FTS sometime soon, but honestly...it's not much different at a quick glance than the last pictures.
