Mr. Microscope's Cube 2.1

[markalot]

Yep. At the moment my CUC consists of only one snail that's done nothing but hang out in the upper corner of my tank for the last two weeks. I've managed to keep most stuff at bay through nutrient control. I like to keep nassarius around to clean up uneaten food and as insurance in case something dies, but I'm staring to question the value of so called algae eating snails. We'll see how well they perform.

 

I've had 2 nerite snails for over 2 years. Both have been found on the carpet multiple times, the dogs were playing with one of them, and yet they live on. Currently laying eggs on the back of my 150.

 

They must eat something, right?

 

If you want a real algae eater try getting a Trochus snail or two. Always active, always eating, and so far long lived. My oldest is just over a year.

[NanoTopia]

Nice A.echinata on the way Mr.M, I find the only way I could keep the tips blue was to dose iodide and keep it in medium light. Looking forward to seeing it in the tank

[Mr. Microscope]

 

I've had 2 nerite snails for over 2 years. Both have been found on the carpet multiple times, the dogs were playing with one of them, and yet they live on. Currently laying eggs on the back of my 150.

 

They must eat something, right?

 

If you want a real algae eater try getting a Trochus snail or two. Always active, always eating, and so far long lived. My oldest is just over a year.

Cool cool! Yes, Trochus is what I ordered from UC. The banded variety. Through my research, I found a bunch of info saying trochus are the besta. I got one trochus from a LFS, but I'm not sure what type it is. Again, so far it's done nothing.. weird. Hopefully, the banded trochus are better. I've heard they actively breed in captivity too. Got 15 on the way!

Nice A.echinata on the way Mr.M, I find the only way I could keep the tips blue was to dose iodide and keep it in medium light. Looking forward to seeing it in the tank

Awesome! Thanks for sharing your personal experience with it! I have a spot picked out about mid tank level. Hopefully, that will suffice for light intensity. Interesting about iodide. I might have to look into that or perhaps experiment with the Red Sea Coral Colors kit.

[gena]

Yep. At the moment my CUC consists of only one snail that's done nothing but hang out in the upper corner of my tank for the last two weeks. I've managed to keep most stuff at bay through nutrient control. I like to keep nassarius around to clean up uneaten food and as insurance in case something dies, but I'm staring to question the value of so called algae eating snails. We'll see how well they perform.

Yeah, I realized I have zero nass snails in my tank!!!! How did that happen? . So I ordered the group of 6 and then the 15 trochus. I don't think I've ever had trochus snails..actually when I first started reefing I ordered some of them. It will be like old times .

 

My nerites are doing really well from live-plants.com. I have those now and some ceriths. It will be nice to add some new types. I'm still wanting to find strombus too.

 

And surprisingly, I didn't add a single coral to my order

[Mr. Microscope]

Yeah, I realized I have zero nass snails in my tank!!!! How did that happen? . So I ordered the group of 6 and then the 15 trochus. I don't think I've ever had trochus snails..actually when I first started reefing I ordered some of them. It will be like old times .

lol! UC's gonna be like, "what's with all these snail orders?!"

My nerites are doing really well from live-plants.com. I have those now and some ceriths. It will be nice to add some new types. I'm still wanting to find strombus too.

I had nerites and ceriths in my pico. Eventually, all the nerites escaped, lol.

Conchs are cool! I love those eyes. Think they need a fair amount of sandbed.

And surprisingly, I didn't add a single coral to my order

[Mr. Microscope]

ok....so this is a "1 inch stock frag"

sorry for the blue, I took it minutes after getting it into my tank with the moonlights on..

I'll get a better pic later, but this is just to show the size.

 

 

I used some image processing software (ImageJ) and measured it at nearly 1 3/4" tall. Score!

 

BTW, the nassarius I ordered are NOT vibex. They are the huge ones (not tonga, but some other kind). I now have six giant hungry nassarius roaming my tank. I gotta give away a few I think. The banded tronchus are cool. Much smaller than what I thought they'd be, but I think they should do the job.

[jedimasterben]

What do the 'nassarius' look like? Most other snails that have that proboscis-looking thing are whelks, a lot of which are predatory.

[Mr. Microscope]

They essentially look like large vibex with smooth black shells. Not like the Tonga ones with twisty shells.

[rocksmom]

Are they these?

 

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/mg/

[Mr. Microscope]

Are they these?

 

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/mg/

This:

 

not this:

[hey]

that site has them listed as vibex though

 

i cant say enough good about fuzzy chitons for green algae on rocks, he never leaves the rocks too.

[jedimasterben]

They are some sort of whelk, but N. vibex or N. distortus they certainly are not. Toss them immediately. AFAIK, there are no other known whelks that only eat 'carrion'.

[Mr. Microscope]

Got out the camera and took a few pics last night. Here's the banded trochus snails. They went in at like noon. By the time I got back home from work they had cleaned nearly a quarter of the bottom of my tank that was covered with film algae. Considering how small these guys are, I was very impressed. They're only slightly larger than dwarf ceriths at the moment. Though, I think they can get much larger. Many of them came covered in coralline algae as well which I consider a good thing considering how bare my rocks are at the moment.

 

Now that I know what a good job they do, I want more.

 

I managed to give away four of my six nassarius last night. I kept the two smallest ones. If they are predatory like Ben thinks, I don't have much for them to hunt other than my trochus and clowns.

 

As for the echinata, I took some more pics last night, but I really can't get the colors right. I'm going to have to play with my lights to see if I can't get something better. Without white balance, the detector gets blued out. With the white balance, it makes the coral look green. There is NO GREEN in this coral though. Gonna try again tonight.

[Mr. Microscope]

Ok, got better pics tonight. I ended up having to turn off the blue LED's entirely in order to get the color of this echinata correct. This is a pretty one!

 

This top down is a bit more accurate:

 

Better sense of scale here:

 

Here's another update on those little trochus. I've become a huge fan. Check out what this guys was up to tonight. This is a little plug with some bits of red planet that I saved. He's leaving a clean plate!

 

In other updating news, here's an update on that mystery acro I got from the LFS. Again, I think it might be Nasuta. Growth is decent in just the last ten days (aside from a little branchlet I broke off on the far right). Polyp extension is also improving. Color has gotten more intense. No pink yet, but who knows if that's in there?

 

From 2014.09.15

 

Today 2014.09.26

[mpsti05]

What lfs you mostly go to?

[Mr. Microscope]

What lfs you mostly go to?

Old Orchard Aquarium because it's close to me. Pretty much only for frozen food and to poke around. Corals are m'eh. Fish and inverts are nice and look healthy, but expensive.

 

I like Old Town for fish. I really want to go to ReefWise, but it's a long trip for me. Haven't made it yet. Though, it's very rare that I add anything to my tank. Likely, I'll continue to get stuff from UC if I do.

[mpsti05]

Gotcha, yea I pretty much only go to reefwise, his coral selection is normally freakin amazing, just stopped in the other day and he's in the middle of another remodel on a huge crazy awesome qt system. Hopefully he'll be done with it over the next month as I'll be looking to start stocking my new tank.

[FlowerMama]

nice job from the snail! your corals look really good.

[TigerLily]

You've inspired me to place an order with UC

 

Lovely new coral.

 

I'd better stop ordering stuff now before my husband wises up to how much corals cost.

[owenj]

That's it, I'm getting some trochus next time I place an order.

[Mr. Microscope]

nice job from the snail! your corals look really good.

Yeah, I checked this morning and that plug is completely clean! Thanks 1st!

You've inspired me to place an order with UC

 

Lovely new coral.

 

I'd better stop ordering stuff now before my husband wides up to how much corals cost.

LOL! At least you don't have to say you're spending $50 on shipping. Good luck! I can't wait to see what you order.

That's it, I'm getting some trochus next time I place an order.

I hope you enjoy them too. They've really turned me around on algae eating snails, and to top things off they're really pretty too. I'm amazed at how much only 15 of these little things have done in the last two and a half days.

[Mr. Microscope]

Super Blue update. Chuffing along. Still looking healthy. Still looking blue. Starting to show signs of encrusting.

[Mr. Microscope]

Hello All,

 

It's been exactly a month since I changed over the tank from the original pillar to my new rock.

 

Here's a FTS I took last night.

 

 

My new weekly maintenance schedule is as follows:

• Feed clowns every other day, carefully observing that they eat each and every piece before it hits the bottom or the rocks.
• Target feed and broadcast feed the corals twice a week with one scoop of Nutri-Cell, one scoop of Reef Chili, and 2mL of Acro Power in about 25mL of tank water. I also broadcast Red Sea Energy A&B (4mL each) on those days and leave the return pump off 45min-1 hour during the broadcast phase.
• Every day that I'm not feeding the corals, I add 1mL of Acro Power with return pump off 45min-1hour.
• About twice a week I use a turkey baster in the sump and on the rocks.
• Siphon out detritus that collects on the bottom of the tank, and do 5 gallon water change.
• Stir up bio-pellets when needed (I think if I upgraded the pump on the tumbler, I might be able to avoid this, but stirring them up seems to get them going again).
• Clean out skimmer cup once or twice.

I've managed to keep algae at bay so far and my new banded trochus snails are continuing to kick ass. All of the plugs on my frag rack are completely clean because of them.

 

Since observing my Nitrate spike, I've been testing for nitrate/phosphate a couple times a week. So far, I've been managing them pretty well. I think the process of controlling nutrients by adding them rather than taking them out of the water is better for the corals as they're able to better digest nutrients from food rather than taking it out of dissolved solids. I think phosphates especially are important to keep at bay as they interfere with the building of skeletal structure. I'd actually experiment with running higher nitrates if I wasn't concerned about algae.

 

One issue I've noticed lately, is that I'm having a hard time keeping up with Alk and Mg. Calcium seems to be good, running from 420-500, but Mg is at 1200 and Alk has been running from 6.5-7.5 max. I think I need to get my Mg up in order to maintain Alk. I'm planning to get the 2 part kit from BRS sometime soon and get those parameters in check.

 

..and I had to take a blue shot just for fun.

 

You can see the nems are starting to make a come back. They're lacking color and some still have very short tentacles, however I still have all eight. My favorite rainbow one, though small is really getting it's green and pink back. It's kinda hiding behind the speckled one on the left.

 

It's hard to see in the FTS, but I have all of my SPS out on branch pieces. These shots kind of illustrate it and will also be good for documenting growth.

 

In the above pic is a small piece of Bonsai I that saved from my pillar. This thing never did anything but encrust for me. I'm going to see if i can't force some branching from it by isolating it on top of a branch rock.

 

In the background, you can see the new echinata (oh yeah, and I mounted it to the main structure the other day) and super blue on their branch pieces. I was surprised to see that the ice fire actually glows in the blues. All of my other blue corals only really show their colors with daylights on.

 

Here's a couple closer shots of the acan garden from different angles. Everyone is happy, puffy, and getting color back.

I decided to mount the smaller/newer pieces up front so it's easier to observe growth. The bigger guys are more in the background.

 

As seen from the dining table:

The orange ones here are staring to return to their former glory. After taking them out of holding, they were kinda brick red. In this semi shaded area, the orange is coming back very well. Can't wait to see it border back on yellow soon.

 

..and a couple more fun shots up close.

 

 

I've got some pods coming from Tim (keydiver) this week. I'm hoping they do well and populate the hell out of my tank! More updates to come!

[jedimasterben]

Looks good, but needs moar sand

[Arce]

On the subject of sand.... how are you liking the BB? Been considering it .