Tank Journal - 135 FOWLR

[austinsdad]

...or the Old Country Buffet

 

[thincat]

I would add the CUC after lights out to give your team a fighting chance.
Floyd, don't you have an empty tank that could hold the puffer until the tank was in a better state and the CUC had a chance to do it's thing. Just a thought....

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I would add the CUC after lights out to give your team a fighting chance.
Floyd, don't you have an empty tank that could hold the puffer until the tank was in a better state and the CUC had a chance to do it's thing. Just a thought....

No, I don't. If I did, I probably would have done a full tear-down. How much of the CUC would he eat? Maybe I should get 40 of the dwarf cerith. Also, I could black out the tank after putting them in, do you think that would help?

 

[thincat]

The puffer will get to them in due time. Try getting more nassarius snails as these hide out in the sand and would be less likely to get eaten.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I bumped the order up to 40 Dwarf Cerith. He needs to file his teeth down anyways, looking pretty long and I don't like the idea of trimming them with a nail clippers.

 

[thincat]

you are to funny...

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

No, I'm serious! That's what they say you have to do if you let them get too long! They can't open their mouth and they starve!!

And yes, I"m too funny! I mean really, can you imagine how difficult it would be to 1) catch an 8" puffer 2) hold it still 3) open it's mouth 4) get a nail clippers in there and 5) actually clip the teeth? Forget it!

The owner told me that his teeth fell out once, so maybe it's not that big of a deal. Is there a puffer dentist in the house?

 

[Mitchell0605]

LMAO. Nice Floyd.

 

[SHARPiE]

No, I'm serious! That's what they say you have to do if you let them get too long! They can't open their mouth and they starve!!

And yes, I"m too funny! I mean really, can you imagine how difficult it would be to 1) catch an 8" puffer 2) hold it still 3) open it's mouth 4) get a nail clippers in there and 5) actually clip the teeth? Forget it!

HAHA gold Floyd!!! -
Did some reading and they make it sound "simple" - Just use some clove oil to put it to sleep!

How to trim Puffer Fish teeth | eHow.com

 

[Mitchell0605]

Of course. How could we not think of clove oil. Geez thats just obvious. *sarcasm off*

 

[thincat]

Floyd, I'm a board certified "Puffer" Dentist, but I'm sorry to say that my office is booked for the next three years.
Thincat MDDP

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Algae taking over

There is definitely a problem with this system. The algae is out of control. Here are some pics from today.

Right side of tank

Close-up

Rock on left

The green hair algae is easy to identify. However, I wonder if the red stuff is algae or cyanobacteria. If anyone can tell me which it looks like for sure, it would help me remedy the problem appropriately. I bought a 250ml jar of Brightwell Aquatics Phospat-R resin and will be putting half of it in there ASAP and monitor the phosphate levels to see if I can get them to 0 and for how long.

Pulled more water for testing, will report as soon as I can on that.

 

[Mitchell0605]

Thats crazy, the algae is growing like nuts. Turn the lights off for 2-3 days and see what effect that has.

 

[SHARPiE]

To me it looks like cyano. I don't think diatoms grow that quickly and as thick.

I had problems with algae in my tank (no where near as bad as this). I used these steps to get it back under control:

1. Blackout for 3 days, then halved the lighting time
2. Phosphate/silicate remover
3. RO/DI
4. Beefed up my CUC
5. Macro Algae
6. PWC's until nitrates were low

Looks like you are taking these steps though...

ThinCat, Melosu, Austinsdad, ccCapt - any ideas?

 

[0o.Kelsey.o0]

I have an algae problem in my tank and am just wondering what effect the 3 day blackout would have on my corals? i have a bubble tip anemone, hammer coral, lots of different polyps, plate coral...and a few others would they survive this or is it too risky

 

[Mitchell0605]

DON'T!!! Thats only if you have no corals in your tank. Your fun solution is:
Daily 20% PWCs
Phosphate Sponge

 

[jcmelski]

I did a 3 day black out for my tank. Your corals can handle it but if you have SPS in your tank(I don't) you might have a problem. I too have a cyano problem that I can't seem to get rid of no matter what I do. I only feed every other day now, do PWC every week, and I cut back my lights two hrs. I did a water test and everything was perfect except for nitrates. I still haven't gotten my tunze skimmer to work right. But once I turned the lights back on it came back just not as much.

 

[austinsdad]

Cyanobacteria. Not diatoms.

Gotta get to the source and fix the problem. Short term solutions aren't the answer. After the lights come back on, so will the cyano. Read the article here at our own site.

Cyanobacteria, AKA Red Slime Algae

 

[thincat]

I agree with Ray, you need to find the root of your problem. Did you add new sand to your tank? Does not look like you have many fish so you can cut the food down to an absolute min. Cut the lights by a few hours a day and see if that helps. More CUC will help with any left over food.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

The CUC will be here next week Wed/Thurs. I just added the phosphate reducer, tested before on the high end of Salifert so 2-3 ppm (hard to tell). We'll see what it does in a day.

I'm going to order some powdered carbon and run that on my diatom filter, as suggested by someone on either this site or another.

He runs the lights from 11am to 8pm. I told him to cut it down to 2pm-8pm. It probably gets enough indirect ambient sunlight to where he could just leave them off until 5pm and run until 10-11 pm, or even just run them during busy hours (11:30-1:30 and 4:30-7) just for display purposes.

I talked to him about the 'mush' feeding method, blending up a variety of seafood and freezing it in ziplocks and portioning it out better, so he's going to try that. They suggest feeding a puffer several times a day though, so we'll have to figure something out