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Saltwater Reef Aquarium Journal

Tank progress for May 2008 Jason Buchanan

13-May-08 - Got the tank hardware and equipment. 29 gallon 30x12x18 tank, CPR Aquafuge 2 Refugium with Protein Skimmer and CPR lights, Current USA Sundial T5HO lighting, Hydor Koralia 1 pumps.

Huge cloudy mess caused by moving the aragonite substrate around. This stuff is horribly messy if disturbed. I should have leveled it off using a flat plastic lid or something. It took 24 hours to clear up and another 24 hours before the water was sparkling clear.

The CPR Aquafuge protein skimmer works great - i'm guessing that the standalone skimmers by other manufacturers suck out the crud faster but the CPR skimmer is able to fill its cup in 15 minutes. The air intake is a little noisy but I used a wooden clothes pin to almost completely pinch off the tubing to nearly eliminate the noise - the skimmer works just as well with it almost pinched off but not completely sealed.

Using a 4" ball of chaetomorpha in the refugium. There were some amphipods and red bristleworms as freeloaders in the ball of algae... and probably some Aiptasia anemones will be coming along, unfortunately. Without doubt, I probably will need to pick up some Berghia nudibranch, Berghia verrucicornis, to tackle Aiptasia.

Berghia nudibranch sites:


17-May-08 - Brown Slime Algae aka Dinoflagellates, Gambierdiscus toxicus, running wild in the tank. Thin, brown sheets of it all over the sandy floor of the tank. The water looks like it is "boiling" due to the tremendous quantity of gas produced by photosynthesis. The Julian Sprung book on Algae recommends to avoid water changes and use kalkwasser for evaporation top offs as a means to raise pH and weaken the algae.

One of my scarlet hermit crabs, aka red reef hermit crab, Paguristes cadenati, retreated into its shell and subsequently died. The other crab is very much alive and roaming around the tank, along with a very small Blue-Legged Hermit Crab, also known as the Tricolor Hermit, Clibanarius tricolor, is doing just fine as well... or at least appear to be.


18-May-08 - Brown slime algae still going nuts - I noticed around all of the live rock there is a 1 inch perimeter of clean sand where the algae is not present. Apparently something is eating the algae at night. Fine by me.

The surviving red-legged scarlet hermit crab has crawled atop the largest rock in the tank, monarch of all he surveys. I'm guessing he doesn't have to travel around the tank much to find food with so much algae growing.

Some photos:

This tubeworm duster is one of the first things I found on one of the rocks. I later discovered that these things multiply rapidly. A careful look across the rock and along the back side reveals at least a half dozen that I can see fairly easily.


A full tank shot as of May 18, 2008. One of these days i've got to get a magnetic glass cleaner.


A tiny hermit crab, greatly enlarged using a 60mm macro lens.


Some plants growing on the far left rock. They're growing about 1/8" a day.


I don't really know what those pink buds are. I should post these photos to one of the online bulletin boards and ask.



20-May-08 - The tank is starting to show some signs of life as opposed to simply recovering and dealing with a new tank cycle.

Hooray! the brown slime algae seems to be losing the battle. The sand bed is not quite as brown and there's much less bubbles going to the surface. I've been keeping the light on 24 hours a day on the refugium. Not sure if it is making a big impact but it can't hurt.

I found this duster worm tonight - this one is at most 1/4" wide but the macro lens brings out its finer details.


I found this thing a few nights ago but didn't have the camera handy. It moves very slowly. It's approximately 3/8" long and 1/8" wide. Helpful people on Reef Central pointed out that this is a Chiton, which are small to large, primitive marine mollusks in the class Polyplacophora.


The CPR Aquafuge Protein Skimmer doing its job. This is about 12 hours worth of skimming. The tank has definitely settled down compared to what it had been like. It was filling up as quickly as 15 minutes off and on for the first few days.


Ye olde chateomorpha and its friends. Lots of worms and some amphipods in there.



21-May-08 - Tank looking a little better - the 100W heater runs quite a bit I've noticed... the ambient room temperature is between 60 and 65 most of the time. I think I may get another heater.

Nothing astonishing going on inside the tank although there are some green smudges appearing in a few places on the tank glass - i'm assuming this is algae but it's literally a smudge so will have to wait to see what it is once it grows a bit more.

The CPR Aquafuge light is pretty darn bright. This is the 24" model for the Large refugium. I need to find a way to mask the light from going into the main tank as it never really gets dark inside the main tank. No need for lunar lighting since it isn't really visible. I think i'm going to get a sheet of cardboard and put it on the back of the tank. A weekend project. 23-May-08 - Time to consider Peppermint shrimp, Lysmata wurdemanni, as the aiptasia are in the tank. I found 3 aiptasia on a piece of rock for a small coral fragment. Annoying. I was hoping to avoid these things but that doesn't appear to be possible. I guess it's only a matter of time before anyone has to deal with aiptasia. The Fish Nook in Acton, MA has a customer working on breeding Berghia so hopefully I will be able to get some and put an end to the aiptasia.

I added 3 small blue-legged hermit crabs last night and noticed they had a huge appetite for the brown slime algae in the tank. I'm not sure if they'll keep at it but I think i'm going to get 3 more tonight. I'd really love to get rid of the algae on the bottom of the tank.



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