55 MONTHS

I have been so busy and lazy that I haven't posted for months now. In fact,I just realized that I haven't posted for 3 months now. During this period, the aquarium suffered from high kH and was suffering from a bad case of nuisance algae when several corals died back, including the ones that had been growing tremendously well for me for the past year. 

Today, the aquarium is still recovering from the aftermath. I couldn't believe that it didn't occur to me to replace my phosphate remover media when the algae overtook everything but now the algae is more in control.

Aquarium 3 (3 x 1.5 x 1.5 feet and sump - 250 litres)

I rescaped some of the rocks recently to give more space for the water to flow through them instead of covering every possible opening between the rocks.

The livestock update is as follows:

• Fishes
• 2 Blue-yellow Damsels
• 2 Royal Grammas
• Yellow Tang
• 2 False Clown Fish
• 2 Flame Angels
• Invertebrates
• Turbo and Nassarius snails
• 2+1 Sea Urchins
• Corals
• SPS
• Horn Coral
• 3 green Poccillopora frags
• orange Cyphastrea
• red Acropora digitata and multiple frags
• red Montipora
• 2 pink Birdnest
• beige/purple Montipora plate
• Acropora valida frags
• red Montipora plate
• green Acropora digitata
• green Acropora frag
• purple polyps Acropora digitata
• green Pocci frag
• unknown Acropora (smooth-skinned sps)
• LPS
• green Candy Cane
• Duncan Coral
• yellow Torch Coral
• green Elegance Coral with blue tip
• green Frogspawn Coral
• Mushrooms
• green Ricordea yuma mushrooms
• red mushroom
• green mushroom
• blue mushroom
• Soft Corals
• Chilli Coral
• Toadstool Leather Mushroom with luminous polyps
• luminous green Tree Coral
• pink Rose Bud Tip Anemone
• green Tree Coral
• white Tree Coral
• brown Tree Coral
• Polyps
• purple Zoas
• Fiery Red Zoas
• 2 green Palythoa
• green Star Polyps 
• 3 gold Clove Polyps
• pink Zoas
• green base purple skirt Paly
• green base brown skirt Zoas
• orange Zoas
• Sympodium
• Zoas rock and frags
• green Clove Polyps
• Macroalgae (in sump)
• red Bamboo
• unknown red algae

The technical details are:

• Jecod Marine DC Pump DCS-7000 return pump
• Aqua Illumination Hydra 52 HD
• Sanrise Aqua Pro (without wifi) 30 cm
• Hailea HS-66A chiller
• Skimz SN143 skimmer
• Two Little Fishes Phosban Reactor running NP reducing biopellets
• Jebao Cross Flow CP 25
• Jebao WP 25 Wavemaker
• Tunze Nano Osmolator
• Marine Magic Triplet Dosing

the sad state of the aquarium

a recovering green Pocci with dead parts with brown algae

another green Pocci frag

partially dead red A digitata

the pink Birdnest overgrown with algae

the second unrecognizable pink Birdnest

the third lime green Pocci and what's left of the big clump of Pocci

3 different A digitata and a green Clove Polyps

one of two green Palythoas which are doing well

a fast growing colony of Nuclear Green Zoas

unknown red Montipora plate

an island of frags and Zoas

the new purple A digitata

brown Tree Coral

white Tree Coral

clumps of nuisance hair algae

a new unknown Acropora

a new green Pocci frag

33 MONTHS 7 AND 10 DAYS

the right is dead, possibly because it was next to the wavemaker

Ok, I must admit now that the chiller does seem to have some effect on some of the SPS. Although I lost some SPS recently, I attributed it more to my negligence and poor husbandry when I was caught up with other stuff to spend time on them.

I lost a number of LPS too, such as the bubble corals, golden hammer, octo coral. My guess for their demise is I placed them on the sand bed and the bully maroon clown loves to agitate the sand and create sandstorms in its territory, causing them to constantly be covered with sand.

For these two weeks, I was battling a diatoms problem and didn't know what was wrong until yesterday when I found a disintegrated leather coral in my sump, which emitted a rotten egg smell, which I suspected to be hydrogen sulphide. Thank goodness I siphoned out much of the debris and detritus and changed almost 2 pails of water and all live stock are fine when they look really stressed out yesterday.

Anyway, these are some photos taken a couple of days ago.

the left side looks perfectly fine

I couldn't believe how much this digitata grew until I looked at the June photos

more close-ups of the polyps extension

this photo doesn't do justice to the actual colours of this Cyphastrea

a newly acquired green digitata

the same pocci under blue lights

a top view showing a number of zoas colonies

one of two newly acquired Radioactive Bird Nest

an unknown SPS from Ah Beng

I didn't know what was wrong until I realized they are not all with 8 tentacles

another beautiful newly acquired cyan digitata

this bubble tip anemone recovered its colours and anchored itself on the glass

the fluorescent Coral Tree has more than doubled its size since June

DAY 7

This morning, I added a small existing HOB filter beside the bigger Ocean Free HOB filter with the intention to add the bag of Chemi-Pure Elite granules. In addition, I added a 360 degree wave-maker filter which I intend to hide with some other corals in front of it. I hope the wave-maker can create sufficient underwater currents to provide better circulation.

By evening, the water was really crystal clear. I changed out the bio-rings in the OF HOB filter with some SeaChem de-nitrate. Interestingly, the Kenya Tree Coral shed off the external dead layer with the current and below it seemed to be a layer of live tissues, which I hope will regenerate the coral back.

With the clear water, I was able to make out 7 filter feeders on the skeleton rock which seemed more active than usual and their fans were always in and out sweeping the water. Then I saw what I think is a disaster. There seemed to be an Aiptasia attached on the right of the skeleton rock. The tentacles are visible and I knew exactly where it came from. Whilst Wong Loy Kee sells relatively cheap fishes and corals, the quality is not the best. I have seen Aiptasias in their tanks before and on the day I bought the 3 rocks. I chose the rocks and was hoping I won't be so unlucky to have this problem on my hands but now it seemed I have. This means I have to add Aiptasia killing products to my shopping list. I don't intend to use  the Peppermint Shrimp because they are not always reef safe.

DAYS 3-5

Day 3 was exciting because I managed to buy a $23 bigger tank that I was thinking of and some other materials. Compared to the earlier one which was all of 10 litres, this one measures 30 cm by 30 cm by 30 cm and has a capacity of 27 litres.

So, I dumped in two bags of washed marine sand and transferred the 3 live rocks and corals over. The water was still slightly cloudy though.

By day 5, the water cleared up but most of the mushrooms didn't make it. The Kenya Tree Coral was a sorry mess that seemed doomed. On the skeleton that was once a coral were a number of small filter feeding organisms. My camera wasn't able to capture them well but they were apparent by their white circle around them and their 2-dimensional filtering fans.

NB on 11 Jan 13: The mystery is solved. The fan-like filter feeding creatures are actually barnacles. Cool!