lweepin

To all seniors, Recently, I have an outbreak of pests on the wall of my tank. I have this reef tank for almost 3 years now. I need help to ID this pest. Photographs attached below. Can anyone help to answer the following questions? 1. What is the name of the pests? 2. What is the cause of the outbreak? 3. Are they harmful to my fish or Coral? 4. How do I get rid of them? 5. What should I do? I appreciate any help from any kind person in this forum

Thanks jacky. Try shooting in raw and adjusting in photoshop. The colour seem better but still not perfect yet.

Yes, been too busy to update. Just bought a Pentax KX. Once I figure out the WB, I will upload more photos. Must look for a prime lens to get sharper photographs. I also think that the curve glass of my nano makes it even more difficult to get sharp photographs

Decided to give an update on my tank. Recently bought a small white hairy mushroom from CF for $5. Very happy with it is gives additional colour to my tank for such a affordable price. Hope that it does not change to the usual brown colour after some time A few of my LPS seem to die off after few months. Do not know whether it is Ph control or my tank temperature. I have bought another torch coral and want to monitor it closely. If it still do not work out, maybe will focus on mushroom or other soft corals. My clownfishs decided to host on my hairy mushroom. Pretty cute but I hope it does not disturb it too much I just bought a DSLR this week but I have not figured out how to adjust the WB properly to cater to the LED lights. The pictures have too much blue tint.

Bro, Thanks for your advice. My tank average pH was really low the other time because I tried measuring it at different time of the day. I was dosing Aquapham Part A & B consistently but this still happen. Will having too many corals have caused this. I am increasing the dosing of pH buffer solution. Any side effects of overdosing?

It has been a long time since my last update. I believe I stock up corals too quickly and did not monitor my tank's pH. The pH dropped to 7.8 and resulted in few of my corals going up the lorry I have since adjusted back the pH to 8.2 and added some new corals. Below were my recent FTS.

Bro Sherman, The coral was bought from GO. It was told it was a LPS not a SPS. Cannot remember the name though. BTW it is a oxypora and not a red monti

2 of my corals are not doing well. My green star polyps opened well when 1 day, the orange star fish decide to rest on it. From the day onwards, all the polyps did not open anymore. What is the problem? maybe a bro here have any suggestions? One of my lobo is also showing signs of receding. Does it require any target feeding? Need more light or flow? The rest of the corals seem to be doing fine

Last Photos for the night

Side View.

Playing with RAW with my camera. Can you tell which picture is taken using RAW?

Top view

Yes....after I start buying from there...it is really difficult to buy from elsewhere

Went shopping for Corals again. My tank is getting full and my pocket is going the other way. Luckily my tank is small or else I will go broke really soon The nanocube curve glass made photographs of the tank not as clear as it should be. Other than that, I really like the compact design Although I really have a few lobophyllia, I can't resist to buy the one below

Don't know leh. G9 has a setting to do white balance. I press one button and it will do white balance. Then I just click to take picture

I manage to find a setting on my G9 that can can adjust for white balance. Select the option and it adjust the white balance. Quite effective lah. Thanks for the tips See the difference

No lah, I am only using G9 but I think I can change the white balance too. I will try tonight

I want the fixed ones. I did not need dimmer and was told that the dimmer need a separate power supply outside the hood which I do not like

You are right again. Sherman did a great job on the modification. I ask him to install 9 x white & 9 x royal royal blue LEDs in my tank The brightness is pretty uniform throughout the tank The light seem slightly dimmer than my stock light The slight blue tint make my corals more luminous when seen with naked eye. My main reason for me to switch to LEDs is to reduce my heat load since I do not have a chiller. I will update on the impact of the LEDs on my heat load and corals in the next few weeks

You are right. I have changed to LED lights. My lights have a slight tint of blue which "confused" my camera In the past, I can use software to make the photograph similar to what is seen with our eyes. Now it is more difficult Whitefish

Something change in my tank. Guess what is it?

My goal is to create a great looking tank with the least possible equipment. If this does not work out, I may add a chiller. If I add the chiller, I will as well add a skimmer too.

I did not want the hassle of having extra pipes running out of the tank and making holes on the cover If I want to do this, I will go ahead with normal chiller instead. Maybe I am just a minimalist at heart...

Without the fans, it is impossible to keep the temp below 30 Deg C. The downside of fan is that I need to top up water every day For my tank, I minimize heat generation by using low wattage equipment. At one time, by upgrading my stock pump to a powerful EHiEM. I immediately regret my decision because my tank water temperature went up by 2 deg C Thus I always looking out for pumps with about 800-1000 gph with as low wattage as possible

I am no expert but so far 28-29 seems ok. For a period of time in the past, my fan was faulty and the temperature goes to 30-31 for a few weeks. My corals start to bleach. Thus I know for sure that above 30 deg C will not be suitable for corals. I will need to see whether Corals will survive 28-29 for long term