teenyreef Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 Thanks Gena. The gold torch was 2 hours late thanks to fedex but it arrived, a little cool, but looks like it survived. I kept the good lens on the camera, golly what a good idea. This Cristata is shockingly good looking. Yellow centered blastos continue to recover. And these guys, a $15 frag I bought because when I see red blastos I buy them on the spot ... really starting to respond well to the heavy feeding I've been doing in here. Too much light and they cower and start to fade so I keep them in the shadow of the friendly Duncans. FTS. Check out how much healthier the Toxic Hammer (upper right) is looking. Why? Pffft. I approve of continued use of the good lens, the results speak for themselves. Back when I first started researching nano tanks, citron goby was #1 on my list until I found out it could bother corals. But I still want one 3 Quote Link to comment
markalot Posted December 8, 2016 Author Share Posted December 8, 2016 I approve of continued use of the good lens, the results speak for themselves. Back when I first started researching nano tanks, citron goby was #1 on my list until I found out it could bother corals. But I still want one The little punk will sit IN the goni and the goni doesn't retract so he just floats on the polyps. Craziest thing I've ever seen but of course he moves if I get a camera near. I was worried he wasn't eating enough but I fed some Prime Reef flakes and counted 10 eaten before he stopped. He's also stared down both the basslet and blenny so i think he's settled in. 3 Quote Link to comment
teenyreef Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 The little punk will sit IN the goni and the goni doesn't retract so he just floats on the polyps. Craziest thing I've ever seen but of course he moves if I get a camera near. I was worried he wasn't eating enough but I fed some Prime Reef flakes and counted 10 eaten before he stopped. He's also stared down both the basslet and blenny so i think he's settled in. That's great! I had a black clown goby for a while. I loved him but he'd just sit around and hump the acans all the time. I finally had to take him in to the LFS because the acans were dying from all the love. I wish mine had learned not to retract when he sat on them. 1 Quote Link to comment
gena Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 Can you just send those yellow center blastos to me? They would look great in my collection . I really need to find more unique blastos like those! 1 Quote Link to comment
markalot Posted December 18, 2016 Author Share Posted December 18, 2016 Can you just send those yellow center blastos to me? They would look great in my collection . I really need to find more unique blastos like those! Those yellow centered Blastos are persnickety, happy one day and unhappy the next. Still trying to figure out exactly what they like. -- I lost the Gold torch, it withered away then started to decay ... PEEE UUUU. Not sure if I'll try again or not. Too some rare topdowns of this tank. The bird looks incredible from the top. 10 Quote Link to comment
markalot Posted December 18, 2016 Author Share Posted December 18, 2016 Jelly Daily Reef Roids, about 200 PAR, maybe 220 near the center of the tank. Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted December 18, 2016 Share Posted December 18, 2016 Wow, those pics are nice! Cute goby too. 1 Quote Link to comment
gena Posted December 20, 2016 Share Posted December 20, 2016 Gorgeous pictures, Mark!!!!! I still want the blastos if you are ever fragging. I'm their biggest fan . 1 Quote Link to comment
DaveFason Posted December 20, 2016 Share Posted December 20, 2016 Looking incredible! -Dave 1 Quote Link to comment
markalot Posted December 27, 2016 Author Share Posted December 27, 2016 So I moved a few things around in here, including breaking off the original Red Acan frag to save it, which was a success. Got my hands out of the water, dried them off with a paper towel, and the towel turned a rich brown. Ahem. 25% water change with AF Reef Salt, including removing another decent amount of sand from the front. I'm not sure what the icky brown was but I can't see any issues with either the corals or the fish. I've never seen this before ...brown in the water column? Replaced carbon but I am loath to use too much so I'll run a small amount for a few days and then replace, doing this for a week or so until I don't pull back turd hands. Used the Nanobox Photo mode to take these so some corals a little closed up. Acans are torn, they had significantly overgrown the original frag piece, but they look healthy. Yellow blastos are going to be darn hard to frag ... so tiny! I need to get these healthy and growing again. 4 Quote Link to comment
davy jones Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 How do you like the 40b? As always im considering a smaller tank and a larger one lol, the larger on i like the idea of a custom 48x30x18 but the smaller one i dont have a clue, thoughts on it? 1 Quote Link to comment
markalot Posted December 28, 2016 Author Share Posted December 28, 2016 How do you like the 40b? As always im considering a smaller tank and a larger one lol, the larger on i like the idea of a custom 48x30x18 but the smaller one i dont have a clue, thoughts on it? For this size tank I would rather have wider (front to back). I would like my big tank to be wider as well but there's no way to fit a 24" tank in any of our doors to the basement, sadly enough. In a smaller tank that's only 18" high you could at least turn it sideways. Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 I have never heard of the water turning your hands brown like you discribed. What do you think it is? A by product from something? 1 Quote Link to comment
markalot Posted December 30, 2016 Author Share Posted December 30, 2016 I have never heard of the water turning your hands brown like you discribed. What do you think it is? A by product from something? Hi Dawn, I don't know what it is other than algae or a tank so full of detritus that it polluted the water column. I've backed off feeding a little but Alk usage tells me things are healthy and growing. Maybe the urchin spawned? 1 Quote Link to comment
markalot Posted January 3, 2017 Author Share Posted January 3, 2017 This tank is doing quite well and colors do look better after a water change, though the water will still stain a paper towel brown. It smells like algae so I suspect it is. I have noticed less growing on the tank walls so perhaps it's a slow dieoff or something. /shrug When choosing fish for an aquarium it's important to get those who get along, like these two love birds. 7 Quote Link to comment
metrokat Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 Great capture. The Citron picture too - beautiful. 1 Quote Link to comment
markalot Posted January 8, 2017 Author Share Posted January 8, 2017 Tanks is looking fantastic, Alk is at ... uh, 6.3! Once again proving too low takes a while to harm corals where a spike can kill them quickly. 7 Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted January 8, 2017 Share Posted January 8, 2017 You really seem to have the magic recipe, this tank looks awesome too! Ha ha, I love the pic of the black cap basselet giving it to the yellow tang, what a shot! 1 Quote Link to comment
markalot Posted January 15, 2017 Author Share Posted January 15, 2017 Things are going well, even though Alk dropped to 6.1 not once but twice. A few things I forgot to mention. The gold torch did not make it. It retracted and then the brown death gel appeared. Boy did it stink when I pulled it out since it was obviously dead and disintegrating. Not sure if I'll try another or not. The brown water stains ended up being surface film, probably reef roids still floating on the water. I used a paper towel, a few of them, to help clean the scum and will probably have to do this on a regular basis. I don't have any surface skimmer box or contraptions that fit the current equipment. I have turned down the BML strips to very low, just some slight supplement, because I think they are contributing to color loss and I'm not sure why. Both here and in the big tank. It's either the blue or violet channel that's doing it, maybe some poor quality LED's? Pics. These are finally starting to show some real recovery and growth. I have no idea how I'd frag them. I keep thinking I lost the Blenny but this new guy just likes to hide, almost constantly. The previous Blenny would not tolerate anything getting close to his hole and would rip apart these green shrooms. 5 Quote Link to comment
markalot Posted January 15, 2017 Author Share Posted January 15, 2017 To answer a PM I figured out how to take a screenshot on my phone. This is the quad settings, RB and Violet channel at the same intensities. I love the way this looks, especially how clean it looks using Lime instead of the white channel to provide the majority of peak lighting. 1 Quote Link to comment
Lalani Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 I like this tank 2 Quote Link to comment
markalot Posted January 19, 2017 Author Share Posted January 19, 2017 I like this tank Thanks Lalani. So you are going to update your 20l thread soon? Quote Link to comment
Lalani Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 Thanks Lalani. So you are going to update your 20l thread soon? Uhhhhhhh..... maybe? I dunno, its still ugly but getting prettier. I added another st tommy, that's about all that's new. I might. 1 Quote Link to comment
markalot Posted February 4, 2017 Author Share Posted February 4, 2017 Still going ... Let the KH drop a little too low again. I've upped the Kalk to saturated but evaporation is so low I have to manually dose, which nothing seems to mind. I have not cleaned the back wall yet it stays clean. Why? As you can see it's time to suck up some more green sand as I very slowly remove most of it. These guys are finally happy on a regular basis, but I had to dim the front BML fixture to almost nothing to get them to improve. Nothing is bothered by the Nanobox but turn the BML strips up a bit too high and bam, unhappy. The orchid stylo looks completely different from how it looks in the 150, and I think for the better. Look at the color saturation on the caps as well. 4 Quote Link to comment
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