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Aaron's 29 Gallon Biocube


AaronMyers

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OK, I have finally decided to start a tank thread. My goal is for this to be a chronological journal of this tank from the beginning and since it has been running for just over a year now, I have a lot of catch up to do, but first here is a quick description of the tank.

 

29 gallon Biocube from Nanotuners with 150W HQI metal halide built into the stock Biocube hood.

 

Lighting:

150W 20K Ushio metal halide

2 stock Biocube 36W PC bulbs (50/50 and actinic)

2 Ecoxotic Panorama Pro LED Modules - 1 12K White/445nm blue combo, 1 all 445nm blue

2 Ecoxotic stunner strips - 453nm royal blue

2 R2 moon lights

 

Filtration:

InTank media basket in chamber 2 with chemipure chaeto and submersible fuge light on bottom, purigen in middle and filter floss on top

Tunze 9002 skimmer in chamber 2

29 Lbs of live rock and about 30 Lbs of live sand

Will soon be installing a BRS media reactor running GFO and carbon - installed 9/2011- powered my a Maxi-Jet utility pump - 295 GPH

 

Other equipment:

Hydor 100W heater in chamber 1(never comes on, I live in Phoenix AZ)

Oceanic 1/10 HP chiller. I found this was necessary with the 150W MH in the hood. Luckily I tested this before adding live stock because without the chiller the light was raising the water temp to 86 degrees.

3 Rio 6HF pumps - 1 powers the chiller, the other 2 provide flow for the tank

 

Mods:

Removed false floors in chambers 1 and 2

Removed Bioballs in chamber 2 and sponge between chambers 2 and 3 and carbon filter pad in chamber 1

Removed tab between chambers 1 and 2

Added Rio 6HF pump to chamber 1

Drilled hole on wall between chamber 1 and display for a bulkhead attached to Rio 6HF in chamber 1 with short length of Loc Line and a hydor rotating flow deflector. I got this idea from Dooderino's 29 gallon Bicube on this site.

Replaced stock Biocube pump in chamber 3 with Rio 6HF

Drilled out the stock Biocube bulkhead and replaced with a larger bulkhead attached to Rio 6HF in chamber 3. Display side of bulkhead has a Y fitting with 2 short lengths of Loc Line with flare nozzles on the ends.

 

Fish:

Fire Fish (Nemateleotris magnifica)

Yellow Watchman Goby paired with a Randalli pistol shrimp

Green Mandarin Dragonet (Synchiropus splendidus) (eating frozen foods)

Tail Spot Blenny RIP Lenny 8/2011 - 6/2012

 

Inverts:

Blue legged hermits (around 30)

Red legged hermits (3)

Scarlet legged hermit (1)

Dwarf zebra hermit (1)

Electric blue legged hermit (1)

Emerald crabs (2)

Porcelain crab (1)

Peppermint shrimp (1)

Scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp

Randalli pistol shrimp (1)

Astraea snails (2)

Trochus snails (3)

Nassarius snails (5)

The usual hitch hikers: mini brittle stars (around 20), bristle worms, pods, aiptasia, majano anemones, limpets, corynactis anemones and a chiton

 

Corals:

Red Rhodactis mushrooms (came as hitch hikers on one of my pieces of live rock - Bonus!)

Common red mushrooms (also came as hitch hikers on another piece of live rock)

Duncan coral

Branching Frogspawn

Zoanthids/Palythoa - Fire and Ice, Blue Ice, Radioactive Dragon Eyes, Whammin Watermelons, Devils Armor

Pavona Maldivensis (metallic orange)

Trachyphyllia geoffroyi open brain coral (red, green and purple)

Montipora Capricornis (orange)

Montipora Capricornis (green Leng Si Cap)

Tri Color Tenuis Acropora

 

I will begin posting LOTS of pictures tomorrow, stay tuned!

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Let the pictures begin!

 

I was actually dreading the scapeing part of this because I had read many posts from other members saying how they are never happy with their final scape and are always changing things around and I must admit I have a tendency to do this myself, but my wife and I worked on the scape together and had finished it within a couple of hours and I have been very happy with it ever since. As you can see in the last couple of pictures, I did recently add a few more small pieces of live rock to the front left side of the tank because I always felt something was missing there and I am very happy I did, I think it completes the scape.

 

I have to apologize in advance for the quality of some of these pictures. I use a Canon Power Shot SD1400 POS, oops, I mean P&S, so I am at the mercy of the camera and what it decides it wants to focus on. Sometimes I get it to focus on exactly what I want it to and I get great pictures, other times I just give up and let the camera focus on what it wants to.

 

First, here is a progression of FTS from day one to today.

 

I bought the live rock on 8/20/10. Here is a picture of the tank the next day with just the actinic on:

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8/24/10 - Here is the tank a few days later after the water cleared. You can see my red Rhodactis hitchhiker mushrooms on the right top rock.

 

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8/26/10 - Here is the start of the diatom bloom.

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8/31/10 - Here’s a funny picture. I thought you were supposed to leave all the algae alone for the cleanup crew to tackle. I went to my LFS on 8/31/10 and told them I think I’m ready for my cleanup crew and when I told them I had algae on my glass so bad that I could barely see in the tank they laughed and said I should clean the glass.

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So I did. Here is the tank later that night with the moon lights on after I had cleaned the glass.

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9/1/10 - Here is the tank the next day with all lights on:

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Here is the tank on 9/3/10 just before picking up my cleanup crew:

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9/4/10 - Here is my tank the next day after adding the cleanup crew. I was amazed at how fast they worked:

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Here is the tank a few days later on 9/7/10. Looking better!

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Here is the tank a month later on 10/9/10

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11/17/10 - My first coral purchase: a Branching Frogspawn coral, a Duncan coral and some pink Zoanthids (I don’t have the pink Zoanthids anymore as they recently melted away for no apparent reason).

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12/1/10 – My first fish: Ember the fire fish. I also mounted the Duncan coral and pink Zoanthids on the bottom right rock.

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12/5/10 – A couple of new corals: a red and green and purple Trachyphyllia Geoffroyi open brain coral and a purple torch coral with yellow tips. I don’t have the torch coral anymore as I decided I didn’t have room for so many Euphyllia in the tank so I sold it to a LFS. I wanted to keep the frogspawn and torch coral right next to each other and I thought you could do this with all types of Euphyllia but I later found out that you can only do this with frogspawn and hammers. The frogspawn started to sting the torch coral and a few of the heads were seriously damaged.

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2/11/11 – Mounted the frogspawn on the bottom left rock and added a small frag of fire and ice and blue ice zoanthids to the bottom right rock next to the pink zoanthids. You can see the retracted heads on the torch coral where it got stung by the frogspawn.

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4/2/11 – Got my second fish, Gobadiah the yellow watchman goby and his side kick Pistol Pete the Randalli pistol shrimp. You can see him sticking his head out of the burrow that pistol Pete built under the bottom middle rock. I was very pleased he decided to build his burrow front and center, as I have heard they will sometimes build their burrows in the back of the tank where you can never see them.

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5/16/11 – Added 2 small pieces of live rock to the front left side of the tank. You really can’t tell from this picture but it forms an arch to the rock behind it. Also got a new coral which I mounted on the new rock, a colt coral. This coral is no longer in this tank as I have decided I want to turn this rock into a zoa garden so I recently moved it to my QT tank which I am turning into a new small reef tank.

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6/25/11 – Added 2 clown fish which I recently moved to my QT tank since my fire fish did not like them one bit and went into hiding. Since removing the clownfish my fire fish has come out from hiding. I’ll just leave the clownfish in the QT tank since that is now being turned into a reef tank anyway. The QT tank is a 14 gallon Biocube. Also you can see my brain coral is back in this tank. I had to remove it because it started to bleach because I had it in direct exposure to the metal halide light and I think it was just too much light for it, so I moved it to the QT tank for a while and it colored back up. Then when I added the arch to the left side of the tank I realized I had a nice shaded area where the brain coral could live so I moved it back. It is still doing very well there. You can also see Manny the mandarin fish by the Rhodactis mushrooms on the top right rock. I purchased him on 2/19/11 but he is very camera shy so this is one of the few FTS shots where you can actually see him. He eats frozen foods (blood worms and Nutrimar Ova soaked in selcon and garlic) and he is very fat and healthy. Just more proof that as long as you are prepared to give these fish the attention and care they need, they can do just fine in a nano tank. You can also see Big Blue the electric blue legged hermit crab on the sand bed next to the bottom right rock. He is a very large hermit crab but so far has not bothered anything. You can also see the metallic orange pavona coral which I mounted to the bottom center rock just above the goby/pistol shrimp burrow. It’s actually 1 large piece and 1 small piece that broke off but I still mounted it on there anyway.

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7/30/11 – More new corals from cultivatedreef.com. On the frag rack is a tri color tenuis acropora, a green Leng Si Montipora Capricornis, an orange montipora capricornis and a single polyp of radioactive dragon eyes zoanthids. The Radioactive Dragon Eyes came with 6 polyps but for some reason 5 melted away but this last remaining polyp looks very healthy so I am hoping if I keep it on the frag rack away from the hermits who kept turning it over when it was on the sand bed, maybe I can save it. Also in this same order was a frag of Whammin Watermelon Zoanthids and Devils Armor Palythoas. The Whammin watermelons were advertised as 1 frag = 5 polyps which is what I ordered but what I got was a frag with about 30 polyps, very happy with that. You can see them on the sand bed on the left front side of the tank

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9/4/11 – Here are a few FTS shots from different angles that I just took today. I have mounted the Leng Si Monti cap, the orange monti cap and the tri color tenuis on the top center rock. I also mounted the whamming watermelon zoas and the devils armor palys on the left front rock. The 1 Radioactive Dragon Eye zoa is starting to grow a couple of new polyps but it is not in this picture. I still have it on the frag rack until I’m sure it’s going to make it but I took the frag rack out for these pictures. Also in these pictures you can see my newest fish, Lenny the tail spot blenny. He is swimming in the top left side of the tank.

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Here’s a few shots from day one:

Live rock before putting it in the tank:

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Check out the size of this bristle worm:

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Here is a top down view of the rock before adding the sand. You can also see the back chambers and the mods I did for the bulkheads and the intake and return lines for the chiller in chamber 3.

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RFTS:

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Another top down shot:

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Filling up the tank after adding sand:

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Hey where did my rock go?

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The next morning, still very cloudy:

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RFTS:

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LFTS:

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Wow really nice progression shots :) I'm glad you finally got around to making a thread.

 

What is the coral in the top right in the latest pictures? It looks so big! I probably missed it in your descriptions. Also, in the bottom right corner is that your duncan!? It got so big!

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Wow really nice progression shots :) I'm glad you finally got around to making a thread.

 

What is the coral in the top right in the latest pictures? It looks so big! I probably missed it in your descriptions. Also, in the bottom right corner is that your duncan!? It got so big!

 

Thanks Paigee! The coral in the top right is the rhodactis mushrooms that came a hitchhikers on my live rock. Its actually 7 of them all grouped together which is why it looks so big. I am actually working on some progression shots of that coral and should have it posted in a few minutes. The coral in the bottom right corner is the duncan, and yes it has grown A LOT! It started out with 6 heads and now has over 30!

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Hitchhikers!

 

This was my first saltwater tank and I was amazed at the amount of life that came on my live rock. I felt silly but I was perfectly content just sitting in front of this glass box and staring at a pile of rock and sand and going “WOW!” and “Check this out!” as I discovered something new crawling out of the various crevices in the rock. I was not feeling rushed to get fish or corals or anything else in the tank because I was fascinated with what was going on with the live rock.

 

Here are the rhodactis mushroom corals that came as hitchhikers:

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Over the past year these corals have grown and multiplied and even moved quite a bit. I started out with 2, now I have 7 and they have moved from the front of the rock they are on to the very top of that rock. They started out about 1"-1 1/2" in diameter and now the biggest one is about 5 or 6 inches in diameter. Where they originally started out there is nothing but bare rock now, they have actually moved about 3 or 4 inches from where they originally were. Here’s more various pictures of the rhodactis mushrooms:

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One of the few times my camera actually took a picture of what I wanted it to. I like the colors in these pictures:

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I like these shots, they look more like anemones than corals:

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Here you can see they have moved from the front of the rock to the top:

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I also got some red mushrooms on another rock. Like the rhodactis mushrooms, these mushrooms have grown, multiplied and moved quite a bit. I started out with 3, now I have 14 and they have even moved to another nearby rock. Here are some pics:

 

You can barely see the 2 little polyps on the bottom rock in the back right in the first pic:

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My pistol shrimp has a back door entrance to his burrow under this mushroom, you can see his little rubbble pile:

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Here is a hitchhiker that I could have done without, majanos. My wife was very unhappy with my when I “killed” them because she thought they were pretty, I had to explain to her they are a pest and will multiply very quickly and crowd out corals and sting them.

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Here is another cool hitchhiker, I believe this is called a corynactis anemone. I have about 14 of these throughout the tank, they haven’t bothered anything so I have decided to let them be since I can’t find much info on them and nothing that says they are bad.

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Here are some pictures of other various hitchhikers:

I couldn’t get a very good picture of it, but in the very corner of the tank is a small clam. I have 3 of these:

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Mini brittle stars:

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Bristle worms:

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Very nice progression. I know you don't like your camera but the pictures are very good. Would love to see some more upclose pictures of all your coral and fish like how you did with the mushrooms.

 

Future plans with this tank?

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Very nice progression. I know you don't like your camera but the pictures are very good. Would love to see some more upclose pictures of all your coral and fish like how you did with the mushrooms.

 

Future plans with this tank?

 

Thanks Joel! The camera just frustrates me sometimes when I want to get a quick shot of something and it focuses on everything else but what I want it to, but other than that, it does take nice pictures. And yes, I do plan on posting many more pictures of my corals and fish. I have thousands of pictures so I'm not even close to being done with this yet.

 

As far as plans for the tank, I am done with adding fish for now and will be focusing on corals. I want to begin adding more SPS and a clam and more zoas.

 

I'm also thinking about replacing the 2 36W PC bulbs with 2 Ecoxotic Panorama LED modules. When that MH light comes on it looks great but it washes everything out and I hope that the LED's will give my corals a little more "pop".

 

Good to see another great biocube on here, nice job!

 

Thanks Patrick, I just visited your thread and yours looks great as well. Love the video!

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Thanks I'm glad you liked it! You may want to try and trap those worms, they look pretty large, and I'm currently dealing with a large one that is killing fish.

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Thanks I'm glad you liked it! You may want to try and trap those worms, they look pretty large, and I'm currently dealing with a large one that is killing fish.

 

Wow, I'm sorry to hear that. I've never heard of bristle worms killing fish. I know that eunicid worms will if they get big enough. I thought the worms in those pictures were all bristle worms. I have not had any problems with them so far and they have been in there for a year now. I always thought bristle worms were beneficial for a tank. Please let me know if you think otherwise.

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Here’s more pictures, this time of my fish.

Here’s my fire fish Ember:

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Here’s my yellow watchman goby Gobadiah:

Here he is when I first got him, he was a cute little guy. He has grown quite a bit already. These first pictures are of him in the QT tank before I got him a pistol shrimp buddy.

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I love this picture of him under the moon lights in the QT tank:

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This was cool. I first got him a tiger pistol shrimp and they were paired up within 5 minutes. These shots are of when Gobadiah first realized the shrimp was in the tank. First he approaches cautiously.

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Then he moves a little closer.

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Then he backs himself into guard position as natural as can be.

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Just before the previous shot, the pistol shrimp came out and noticed Gobadiah and paused in his digging and checked him out for a few seconds with his antennae, then it was as if some unspoken agreement had been made and the shrimp went back to work and Gobadiah took up guard duty. Unfortunately the shrimp died about 5 days later for unknown reasons. Then I couldn’t find another pistol shrimp for about a month, then I finally found the randalli pistol shrimp on liveaquaria.com and he is the one I have in my tank currently. It was not as fast of a pairing as it was with the tiger pistol shrimp. Yellow watchmen and tiger pistols naturally pair in the wild but the randalli is so small that I don’t think they dig burrows big enough for the yellow watchman goby to fit in comfortably. I noticed Gobadiah trying to wiggle his way into the randalli pistols burrow a few times but he would eventually give up and go wandering around the tank. Then when I moved them from the QT tank to the 29 gallon the pistil shrimp chose a spot for his burrow that was already under a cave in the live rock, so Gobadiah could easily fit in there and they have been together ever since.

More pictures of Gobadiah and the tiger pistol shrimp:

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Natures little bulldozer hard at work:

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I was amazed the next day when I woke up to find the landscape totally changed by the tiger pistol shrimp. Before the pistol shrimp this sand bed was pretty much level, and now I find heaping mounds of sand everywhere. In a way I’m actually glad now that things worked out the way they did because the randalli pistol shrimp does not move sand around as drastically as the tiger pistol shrimp does.

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Best friends (for a few days anyways, RIP little shrimp)

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Here’s Gobadiah and the new randalli pistol shrimp Pistol Pete ready to be transferred to the 29 gallon

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Home sweet home.

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I love watching these two. The pistol shrimp actually comes out quite a bit which is nice. I was afraid I would never see him once he got the burrow dug but I he comes out pretty much every day. Then at night they both retreat to the burrow and the pistol shrimp piles up some sand in the burrow entrance and basically closes the door. Then the next morning the door is open again and Gobadiah is right back at his post.

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Here he is away from his post to get some food during feeding time.

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Here is Manny the mandarin fish. It is kind of hard to get good pictures of him because he is always moving away from the camera whenever I put it up to the glass, so I have to try to sneak up on him.

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I knew I wanted to try to have a mandarin fish because I think they are so beautiful, but I was concerned about the fact that they are notoriously difficult to feed and take care of. So I asked my LFS if they would take him back if I discovered that I could not care for him and they said yes so I got him. I kept him by himself in the QT tank for about a month while I trained him to eat frozen foods. For those of you interested in how this is done, here is what I did. I started a couple of live brine shrimp hatcheries and I fed him live baby brine shrimp for a few days. I took a piece of rigid airline tubing about 12 inches long and attached it to the end of a syringe with a piece of flexible airline tubing. I would draw the baby brine shrimp into the tube and then I put the end of the tube in the tank right in front of the mandarin fish and slowly begin pushing them out in front of him. After a few days he recognized that the tube meant food and he would come right over to the tube when I put it in the water. Then I put a breeder net in the tank and moved the mandarin fish to the breeder net. The reason for this is to isolate the fish from any pods he might be getting from the tank. Then I did not feed him for a few days. The idea here is that when an animal is hungry enough they will eat almost anything. When I started feeding him again I would mix in some frozen foods with the live brine shrimp to try to trick him into eating the frozen food. This did not work at first because he would just spit out the frozen food and eat the live brine shrimp. Then I stopped feeding him the live brine shrimp altogether and was just feeding him the frozen food from the tube. The first couple of days of this he did not eat, he would take it in but then spit it back out. Then on the third day of this I actually saw him take in a piece and swallow it. The next day he ate a few more and after a few more days he was eating his fill of frozen foods. I tried different foods but it seems like the one he likes the most is frozen blood worms and Nutrimar ova. And now that he is in the 29 gallon tank with the rest of the fish, he will actually eat the food that I broadcast to the whole tank, which means he is eating mysis shrimp, adult brine shrimp and San Francisco Bay brand marine cuisine, but I still feed him from the tube on the syringe as well just to make sure he is getting enough to eat. As soon as he sees the tube in the water, he swims right over to it to eat, and now the rest of the fish have figured out that the tube means food and they also will eat from the tube.

 

Here’s more mandarin fish pics.

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Here are pics of my newest addition, Lenny the tail spot blenny.

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Here's Lenny and Ember. These two seem to have become friends.

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Here is Lenny hiding out in a shell. It was cute watching him disappear into the shell and them coming out with a mouthful of sand and spitting it out.

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Here he is dining on some green hair algae I have on one of my rocks. I actually got him hoping that he might help mow some of the algae down but he picks at the algae very little. He actually eats meaty frozen foods with everyone else, sometimes to the point that it looks like his about to explode. He is quite the little piggy.

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More random blenny pics.

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He also likes to hide out under my rhodactis mushrooms.

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Beautiful little goby! I love the way he looks.

 

Thanks Joel!

 

I want some of those rhodactis mushrooms! Your tank is looking awesome and love the last blenny addition!

 

Yeah they're pretty cool. I've been thinking about thinning them out some to make room for other corals. Right now they take up a lot of real estate. If I do I'll let you know. And yeah, the blenny is pretty awesome. He's got a lot of personality.

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Wow, I'm sorry to hear that. I've never heard of bristle worms killing fish. I know that eunicid worms will if they get big enough. I thought the worms in those pictures were all bristle worms. I have not had any problems with them so far and they have been in there for a year now. I always thought bristle worms were beneficial for a tank. Please let me know if you think otherwise.

 

From what I've been reading the beneficial worms will be mostly in the sandbed, and shouldn't get very large. It might just be the pictures, but yours looked pretty big.

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Blenny's kick ass.

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Tank is crazy nice. Keep doing whatever you are doing.

 

Anything special to keep sand looking so clean?

 

Thanks Edelmango! I really don't do anything special to keep the sand clean. I was having a problem with diatoms on the sand bed early on but I got some nassarius snails and it seemed to clear up. I think having an adequate cleanup crew and sand sifters of some sort is what it takes. If I see I am getting low on blue leg hermits I will go to the LFS and pick some up, mine are always roaming around on the sand. I will also lightly vacume the top of the sand if I see any algae or detritus when I do a water change.

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Unfortunately my electric blue legged hermit crab died yesterday. My wife called me at work and told me he had molted and said all my nassarius snails were swarming on his shell. I thought uh oh, this can’t be good. I got home and sure enough, he had molted but he must have died during the molt because his dead body was in the shell. RIP Big Blue. Here’s a tribute:

 

I loved the shell he was in. He was a really big hermit.

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I don’t know how he got in this position. His shell was resting between my Duncan coral and the live rock and he was just hanging out and enjoying the weightlessness.

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Here he is playing king of the Duncan. I don’t think the Duncan was too happy.

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RAARRRR!!!

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Snuggled in with the rhodactis mushrooms.

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On his back and tormenting my scarlet legged hermit crab.

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He moved into a new shell a few months ago.

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I Installed a Bulk Reef Supply media reactor over the weekend running 3 Tbsp of BRS carbon and 1.5 Tbsp of BRS GFO. Hoping this will help with a small amount of green hair algae that has started to develop over the past couple of months. I deffinately don't want to let it get out of control, especially after reading horror stories about green hair algae taking over tanks and how hard it is to get rid of. The installation was pretty easy except for trying to find a nice quiet pump. I tried a Maxi-Jet 1200 like BRS recommends but WOW that thing was loud, way louder than the 3 Rio 6HF pumps I have in there now. I finally ended up going with a Maxi-Jet submersible utility pump 1100, rated at the same gallons per hour as the Maxi-Jet 1200. This pump is super quiet, very please with that. Unfortunately, while installing this I think I blew the ballast for my metal halide light. I was moving the tank away from the wall so I could route the plumbing for the media reactor and I didn't realize I was pulling the cords for the power strips that everything is plugged into out of the wall socket. So all of a sudden everything turns off and after I got everything plugged back in and turned on, my metal halide light won't come back on. I had recently replaced the bulb and I still had the old one and I knew it was still good so I swapped out the bulbs but it still won't come on. So now I have a new project to work on this weekend. :angry:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry I've been away for a bit, it's been busy. Not much new with the tank. I did get the metal halide ballast replaced, that was an expensive mistake that I will NOT be making again! I'm still fighting a green hair algae problem but its only been a few weeks since I installed the BRS media reactor so I'm hoping with time and patience it will get better. I started out with 4.5 Tsp of GFO in the reactor and I increased that to 5.5 Tsp when I did my water change last weekend and I will continue to add 1 Tsp every 2 weeks until I am up to full strength which for my tank would be 3 Tbsp. I think the algae growth is starting to slow but I am still pulling out algae every time I do a water change. I want to get it to zero algae! Next I will be turning the large shelf in my media rack into a fuge with one of those submersible lights from InTank so hopefully I can starve out the nuisance algae with some chaeto macro algae.

 

I want to continue with the progression shots so I will be posting some pictures of corals in just a bit.

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man your tanks is beautiful love the scape. cant believe i hadnt seen it before i thought i had looked through all the biocube 29 threads lol. and sorry for the loss of the hermit he looked really nice never seen them before.

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