Nano Sapiens 12g - Ye Olde Mixed Reef

[Nano sapiens]

Updates:

 

1. Still working at reducing nitrate (down from 20 to 15 Nitrate-ion with WCs and detritus reduction). Cola colored algae still an issue at various spots on the SB.

2. Tank was up at 84 degrees this morning. New backup Rena SmartHeater was set at 75, but it decided that 84 was better Marine Depot sending out a new one.

 

The only color difference in coral noted at this higher nitrate level is a browning of the Green Miilepora. No change in any of the other SPS. LPS are actually expanding more than ever and look very content.

[Chadf]

The reef gods are telling you to get a controller.

[ALexpsycho]

Yeap I would be more spectical about temperature then NO3.

The NO3 problem seems complex.Where do you think it comes from?

[Nano sapiens]

The reef gods are telling you to get a controller.

 

Yes, the thought had crossed my mind

 

Hard to believe that two 'backup' heaters, set a few degrees below optimal, would both try to fry my tank. Good thing I check my tank temp each morning...

[Nano sapiens]

Yeap I would be more spectical about temperature then NO3.

The NO3 problem seems complex.Where do you think it comes from?

 

Absolutely, temp is way more important than a bit of elevated nitrate.

 

I was off on vacation for two weeks recently and the auto-feeder fed too many pellets into the tank each day. I'm dealing with the nutrient accumulation which is mostly located in the LR, and the sand bed under the LR, due to advection. I prefer to take a slow, steady approach. Every 2-3 weeks I vacuum under a different base rock along with somewhat larger WCs and reduced fish feedings of nutrient dense processed foods (pellets/flakes) while supplying more rinsed frozen foods...along with my usual maintenance routine. If all goes well, I expect nitrate to decrease substantially in a month or two.

 

While phosphate and ammonia and/or nitrate are needed by algae to bloom in a tank, another vital component often overlooked is iron. I suspect that the pellets have a high iron content, but I was unable to get an analysis from the manufacturer. The best I could get was 'iron is a part of the vitamin mix added to the food'.

[Nano sapiens]

Third 'Coral Wars' Installment:

 

  

[Rehype]

wow that looks awesome

[Nano sapiens]

Thanks, Rehype. I find the month-to-month pics interesting since they show the dynamics at play as each organism attempts to dominate it's immediate neighbors.

[Nano sapiens]

A few fun pics...

 

This Aussie 'Ultra Lobo' I got a while back sure does seem to enjoy extra nitrates. The color in real life is so intense that my camera has trouble with it, so I have to seriously edit in Picassa to even get close...and it's as puffy as your local Krispy Creme donut Since it has killed a neighboring Lobophyllia hemprichi head (which is nearly unheard of for Lobophyllia), I strongly suspect that this one is a different Lobophyllia species altogether:

 

 

 

And I realized that I don't have a detailed photo of this very long term resident, Discosoma carlgreni. It used to be a solid aquamarine, but for some reason it's developing a mottled maroon pattern that closely matches the coralline algae and the disc tentacles are becoming a lot more pronounced. This 'Shroom is the perfect tank mate since it has never bothered anyone...and no one has ever bothered it:

 

[Nano sapiens]

Had some fun this weekend adding a second DIY LED strip I ordered from LEDGroupBuy:

 

 

Here's how this all breaks down:

 

Original DIY Strip: (2) OCW, (1) NW, (1) RB, (2) HV

New DIY Strip: (1) OCW, (3) NW, (2) RB and (2) HV.

Stunner strips: (2) RB and (2) 8000K/B

 

The two DIY strips are on the same power cord, but they have individual dimmers. Along with the two 8000K/Blue Stunner strips, this channel is on for 6 hrs/day. Two RB Stunners are on a second channel for 10 hrs/day.

 

Color wise the tank looks very similar to what it looked like before, which is what I was going for. I positioned the new DIY strip as far towards the back of the canopy as feasible in order to better light up the rear 1/3 of the tank which had been lacking quality light and intensity. I routed the cords, including the Stunner Strip ones, through grommets and all hardware is stainless steel. Using my PAR meter, I adjusted the strips' output to match the previous settings.

 

If I run everything and crank the DIY LEDs to full intensity, it's quite bright

[Nano sapiens]

Cool little 'happening'...

 

This is a 15 year old piece of LR that was completely covered up by Pavona varians until a neighboring Ricordia caused it to die back. I removed the Ric and inside one of the hollows were these small round polyps with fluorescent, spirally arranged dots less than 3/16" in diameter. It's possible that they are nothing more than regrowing Pavona tissue, but I've never seen P. varians form round polyps and the fluorescent color is a slightly different green under blue light. Also, looking at the underlying skeletal impressions that the polyps are growing on, some are round and the size of a large pea. I am wondering if they might be a Fungia of some type resurrecting. If so, this would mean that they have been in 'stasis' for over 15 years since I've never had any species of plate coral in any tank with any of this LR.

 

 

Since the little polyps will be over run soon by the encroaching Pavona, I'm going to separate this small piece of rock (and remove any Pavona) so that they have a chance to grow out.

 

In other news, nitrates are now down to 10 ppm and there's less SB algae. The battle continues...

[jedimasterben]

Maybe some of your coral had sexy time and the larvae actually lived and settled?

[Nano sapiens]

Maybe some of your coral had sexy time and the larvae actually lived and settled?

 

I thought about that, but I don't have anything that looks remotely like these, at least nothing close to what these look like at this tiny size. My first thought was that they might be Rics starting up from tiny bits of left over tissue, but watching them for a week now these little guys keep the same shape day and night. I don't see much in the way of fringing tentacles, so if they have then they have to be on top like a Fungia.

 

I've tried feeding them with tiny scraps of Mysid shrimp and they will hang on to them for a while, so I suspect a LPS of some sort.

 

This is a good example of why I like Nano tanks so much. Something so tiny like this would never have been noticed in a full sized aquarium.

[Moolelo]

Looks like discosoma to me, but try shining a bright white flashlight at it, if it closes that could give you more info maybe, if not then you should be able to discern more structure.

[Nano sapiens]

Since they never change their shape they're not 'Shrroms. As far as structure, they are barely over 1/8" so a bit difficult at this stage. Once I get them isolated, then I can use a strong magnifier to see more.

[Nano sapiens]

Lordy, I've never worked with coral polyps this small before...

 

I broke off the portion of LR where these little polyps are (smaller than a dime) and glued this piece to a larger LR chunk so it won't get lost...then super-glued any encroaching Pavona tissue to give these unknown polyps a chance to develop. Due to their really tiny size, I'll have to wait a bit for them to grow out before taking pics that might be useful for identification. I currently can make out four distinct polyp areas. One type of polyp is a loner, perfectly round and has distinct radial septa (very clear to see under a 10X magnifier when I had it out of the water). The other type is more amorphous and looks like two or three polyps have roughly fused together, but no septa are visible. Very likely the same coral, but just too early to tell for sure.

 

I took a real good look at the material that these polyps seem to be springing from and within this tiny piece I can make out at least two differing types of polyp skeletal remains. One is fan-like and the other is round. Of course, if they are planulae then the substrate has no bearing.

[Nano sapiens]

UPDATES: Had a local club event this Saturday for 'Newbies' and a bunch of corals from the tank were given away. As a result, I can see my SB clearly now and window/SB cleaning just got a whole lot easier . Nitrates are falling steadily (under 5 ppm) and the SB 'algae' is much reduced.

 

FTS (04/13/14):

 

 

 

New additions:

 

Orange Rhodactis 'Shroom: (little 'baby' peeking out to the right):

 

 

 

Palys - 'Psycho' (yellow), a non-name with purplish centers in front and a transplanted small colony of the huge Valentine-like paly from my existing colony):

 

 

 

When I removed a large green/gold R. yuma I found a whole bunch of little ones with yellow centers waiting for their chance to 'Shine in the Sun':

 

 

 

And finally, my "Pink' R. yuma starting to actually turn 'pink' due to the new DIY LED lighting strip upgrade:

 

 

 

[Nano sapiens]

Took a number of tries, but I finally got a side pic of these tiny 3/16" diameter coral polyps I found recently on my 15+ year old LR. The back story is that the area these polpys came from was covered by Pavona varians and only uncovered when a Ricordia killed off a good portion of the Pavona recently. All the superglue seen in the pic was applied to kill off any remaining Pavona.

 

This is undoubtedly one of the 'Plate Coral species due to the obvious stalk and likely a Fungia sp., due to the round polyps . I've never had any Fungia (or any Plate Coral) in any of my aquariums, so this is a great example of how life can 'lay low' for a decade and a half until conditions provide an opportunity to grow. How cool is that?

 

 

Here's the 1" area that I chiseled the Fungia polyps from:

 

 

[ninjamyst]

tank looks amazing as always! I dig the cleaner look with the exposed sandbed.

[Nano sapiens]

tank looks amazing as always! I dig the cleaner look with the exposed sandbed.

 

 

Thanks. Between 'must have' purchases, vendors sending freebies, gifts and in-tank reproduction, corals just ended up all over the SB.

 

Were you able to save some of your corals?

[Legendary Corals]

On 4/13/2014 at 3:26 PM, Nano sapiens said:

UPDATES: Had a local club event this Saturday for 'Newbies' and a bunch of corals from the tank were given away. As a result, I can see my SB clearly now and window/SB cleaning just got a whole lot easier . Nitrates are falling steadily (under 5 ppm) and the SB 'algae' is much reduced.

 

FTS (04/13/14):

 

 

 

New additions:

 

Orange Rhodactis 'Shroom: (little 'baby' peeking out to the right):

 

 

 

Palys - 'Psycho' (yellow), a non-name with purplish centers in front and a transplanted small colony of the huge Valentine-like paly from my existing colony):

 

 

 

When I removed a large green/gold R. yuma I found a whole bunch of little ones with yellow centers waiting for their chance to 'Shine in the Sun':

 

 

 

And finally, my "Pink' R. yuma starting to actually turn 'pink' due to the new DIY LED lighting strip upgrade:

 

 

 

Everything looks so happy. Glad to see that gold yuma dropped babies after so long!

[Nano sapiens]

Yeah, just one big happy family in a glass box, but like many families they do fight regularly

 

That Green/Gold Yuma is quite prolific. I'd say I got 10 or so babies from it before I removed it as a 'give away' at a BAR event recently.

 

The Pink Yuma fully expanded is getting to be good sized (about 2 -1/2" diameter), so I wouldn't be surprised if it drops a baby or two this year.

[cocojakes]

HOT DAMN thats a lot of LEDs over 12G hahaha I count what, 20x 3W LEDs + 4 stunner strips. I only plan on doing 3 pucks of 14x3W over a 20 long, which is like 3 times the floor space beautiful coloration though, thats what I'm hoping to achieve with my new LED fixture

[Nano sapiens]

HOT DAMN thats a lot of LEDs over 12G hahaha I count what, 20x 3W LEDs + 4 stunner strips. I only plan on doing 3 pucks of 14x3W over a 20 long, which is like 3 times the floor space beautiful coloration though, thats what I'm hoping to achieve with my new LED fixture

 

The advantage to having a good number of LEDs is greater spread and not having to run them all at full power to achieve intensity (extended LED life). Since I'm not pushing them hard, the heat generated is less and in this case a fan is not needed.

 

Lighting is such a personal taste kind of thing that I hesitate to even make suggestions. However, if your tank isn't too deep, you could use some strip lighting and your 3 pucks together to achieve a more blended look.

[metrokat]

I can't stand how neat you keep things. I could learn a thing or 3. I'm attempting a minimalist/neat pico in the coming weeks. Eeeks. I can't cope.