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lakshwadeep

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lakshwadeep

Today I finally started setting up my ADA 60-P (18 gallons) after receiving 15 lbs of uncured Manado live rock from premiumaquatics.com. I took some pics, but my phone's focus isn't working well for a FTS. Most of the rocks have nice shapes, but I was hoping for more hitchhikers. I paid for overnight shipping to minimize die-off; hopefully a soft cycle will help. I know florida rock would be better, but I want to stick with indo-pacific rock/livestock.

Equipment:
Vortech mp20
4x24W T5HO reefgeek retrofit (2 ATI blue plus, 1 ATI aquablue special, 1 ATI purple plus)
Eheim Jager heater
Elos Osmocontroller II

Livestock:
1 x Wetmorella albofasciata (white banded possum wrasse)
4 3 x Eviota pellucida (gold neon Eviota goby)
2 1 x Eviota nigriventris (red neon Eviota goby)
2 x Trimma rubromaculatus (red striped goby)

1 Montipora ("spongodes")
1 Fungia (plate coral)

Hitchhikers:
red/white foraminiferans, micro brittle stars, sphaeromatid isopods, small barnacle, small conical snails, digitate hydroids, vermetid snails, bubble algae, neomeris algae, acetabularia (mermaid's wineglass) algae, caulerpa...

Recent FTS (5/25/11)
file-15.jpg

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New tank eh? I was unaware!

 

By the pictures (@ premium), that rock looks very nice. Hopefully you get more hitch hikers coming out as time progresses.

 

What are your overall plans for this tank, livestock-wise?

 

Oh, and clever title too.

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lakshwadeep

The pics at premium and other places are unsurprisingly not of average pieces. The rock has thick coralline parts, most of which is bleached. This isn't a big shock compared to the other tanks I've seen with this rock. I haven't seen any feather dusters, which is odd. I still have the rock from my old tank, so I'll try to transfer some collonista snails and bristle worms.

 

My plans are to get some gobies and a few corals to create a bonsai appearance, so I want to focus on corals that stay compact. I might put some macroalgae for more pods. My schedule has been hectic, so feeding might be irregular.

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The pics at premium and other places are unsurprisingly not of average pieces. The rock has thick coralline parts, most of which is bleached. This isn't a big shock compared to the other tanks I've seen with this rock. I haven't seen any feather dusters, which is odd. I still have the rock from my old tank, so I'll try to transfer some collonista snails and bristle worms.

 

My plans are to get some gobies and a few corals to create a bonsai appearance, so I want to focus on corals that stay compact. I might put some macroalgae for more pods. My schedule has been hectic, so feeding might be irregular.

 

interested in seeing pics of your rock. yeah, very little life on/in the rock - it's all about the interesting nooks and crannies. makes for nice caves and crevasses.

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That's a pretty high quality live rock to start with. Lots of coralline and likely a lot of hitchhikers hiding. Good luck with this new set-up! :)

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lakshwadeep

The rock is from Manado, Indonesia. If I were to do this over; I would wait until newly shipped rock had just arrived before ordering. I have some black arag-alive sand that I will use.

 

Hitchhiker update: I found one feather duster. The main potential dangers appear to be tiny bubble algae on a few rocks. There are some small collonista-like snails that are white. I also noticed some purple stubby things that look a lot like closed zoanthids. Hopefully they will survive! fingerscrossed

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lakshwadeep

I found a small aiptasia-looking anemone that I killed with a lighter. My plan of doing a soft cycle has been on hold for a while because I need to get more salt and water (I know, I know, a RO/DI unit is best).

 

Also, I finally got a shot of the tiny zoanthids:

 

kdk_1481.jpg

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I've been to Premium Aquatics probably 5-10 times. It's awesome to go and handpick rock from the giant tubs. There is always a great variety of shapes to chose from, but most of the coralline is bleached and finding any hitchhikers comparable to that found on sealifeinc seems impossible.

 

Great rock for sure, just not teeming with life.

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lakshwadeep

I've tried to alleviate the hitchhiker issue by transferring ~20 collonistas and some bristle worms (dorvilleids and amphinomids) from my old rock.

 

My next aim is to get a CUC, probably from reefcleaners due to the exorbitant prices at my LFS ($12 for a cerith), as there are too many places where I see bubble algae popping up.

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lakshwadeep

So, I got my order in from reefcleaners: dwarf ceriths (including one blue-leg ninja hermit crab), dwarf planaxises, florida ceriths, chitons, and mithrax crabs. I tried to keep the numbers I ordered down since many people have gotton 3, 4, or 5 times the number of snails that they ordered. John followed the numbers very closely, but I think when he got to the dwarf ceriths, he decided to splurge, giving me probably 50 tiny snails.

 

I was a little shocked to see on the first day that around 10 dwarf ceriths had fell out of the tank. I guess I didn't anticipate a rimless tank may make such escapes easier. For now, I have hobbled together a "snail guard" from wax paper along the tank's rim. I might also experiment with a lower water level.

 

I also need to introduce the sand, but it's a challenge to avoid smothering the snails/chitons.

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lakshwadeep

Nothing much has changed, except that some moderate hair algae has made the rocks fuzzy in appearance. The water is cloudy because I did a water change. Interestingly, the bubble algae started to disappear after the hair algae bloom, even before the CUC arrived. I saw a tiny sphaeromatid isopod, and I hope they are helping eat some algae. Also, I saw a medusa (jellyfish) form of some small cnidarian. I'm also trying to remove any vermetids since they quickly got out of control in the previous tank.

 

One of three fuzzy chitons. I like that they aren't just nocturnal, but I miss my old tank's chiton, which was red.

kdk_1487.jpg

 

East end (only aquablue special/purple plus). This isn't the final layout; I had to get rocks off the glass to scrape it.

kdk_1494.jpg

 

West end (all four bulbs).

kdk_1496.jpg

 

Hitchhiker zoanthids. They are still tiny, but I'm excited to see that they may be starting to color up with a green oral disc around the orange mouths.

kdk_1502.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...
lakshwadeep

The tank is not very interesting, so I just placed an order for 6 Eviota gobies (E. pellucida) from liveaquaria! I was too slow over the weekend when a lot of nano gobies (Trimmas and Eviotas) were in stock. For those who haven't seen E. pellucidas before, here are some of mine in my old tank.

IMG_0454.jpg

IMG_0484.jpg

 

In other news, I finally have a decent aquascape. New hitchhikers:

cladonema jellyfish (mostly on the walls)

peanut worm

pineapple sponges

moar feather dusters!

 

 

To do list:

clean up vortech mp20 and replace the hydor koralia.

add sand.

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