Time, once again, for updates. I'm winning the battle with cyano FINALLY. I was using a fish net to very carefully scoop the red slime off the sand every couple of days. This was effective at removing the red, I admit, but it always came back. Then I read that the red slime is actually the waste product of the bacteria, not the bacteria itself. Since then, I've just "sucked it up" (no pun intended) and started siphoning the sand, willing to lose some sand. In time, I'll just add more sand back to the tank. Since siphoning the sand, I've gone almost an entire week without seeing the horrible red. There are a couple hints of reddish tint in a couple places, but not blankets like it used to be. Now I'm seeing a little diatom growth on the sand, so that tells me this tank has had a bit of a cycle, and this is evidence of positive change for me.
I've also changed a few other things to combat this fight. I know the cyano is there because of excess nutrients. I feed almost 100% frozen food, thawed and dispersed by the Seio powerheads, so there's a lot of small food particles that never got eaten by the tangs and CBB. I added a flameback angel and more importantly, a half dozen tiny blue chromis. These eat up a lot of the small stuff that the larger fish leave behind. I've also increased the flow to my refugium from 50gph to 300gph. This seems to have knocked out the cyano that was growing on the chaeto.
The final change will be in my return plumbing. Running both Seio powerheads on the same side of the tank, I'm admitting 10 months later, isn't working out. I'm not willing to put a big ol' powerhead on the left side of this tank, so I'm going to change the return plumbing. Currently, I'm running a wye configuration to each side of the overflow. I'm going to change this to a single output on the left, with an eductor venturi nozzle for additional flow. My Mag12 puts out about 1000gph currently. With the plumbing change, and the eductor, I expect this to drop to maybe 800gph. However, the eductor is reported to increase flow 400%, so I hope to have somewhere around 3000gph shooting across the tank from the left side, to combat the powerheads on the right side. We'll see what happens.
So to additions. I added the flameback angel (centropyge acanthops), mentioned above. The LFS has had him in stock since February, so I was able to pick him up very cheap. He's a bit of a shy fish. Three weeks later, he's starting to wander a little further out of the caves and into the open. He's by far the brightest thing in the aquarium, and very difficult to capture with the camera. From what I've read, the flameback is also among the least likely to nip at corals. He's never given any coral or clam even a second look. I'm very pleased with the addition he's made to the reef.
I also added two other fish last night from a local reefer, who was tearing down his aquarium. Both are at least 4 year old fish, and extremely friendly. The pink spot watchman goby (cryptocentrus leptocephalus) is huge for a goby, approaching 5" long. He made his way into a cave last night, and has only poked his head out once during feeding today. I'll have to share a photo of him when he comes out.
The Blue Dot Puffer (canthigaster epilamprus) is a truly interesting fish. In his old home, he would occasionally nip at the tips of a couple SPS corals, so I'm aware of what I'm getting into. The truth of the matter is that these puffers need to do that to survive. Their choppers (teeth) grow constantly, so they rely on biting rocks and corals to keep them trimmed. If they don't, the teeth will grow longer than the fish's mouth opening, and it won't be able to eat. Obviously we don't want that. This particular fish has a history of mostly grazing on rocks, munching algae (even bubble algae!) and scraping his teeth on the rocks. He's an extremely fun fish already! The old owner had about 30 fish in his large tank, and claimed this puffer was, by far, his favorite!
Anyway, here's a couple pics of the new additions.
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