Fry and Leela's Adventures - Moving tanks.

[FishFrog]

Hi all, my girlfriend and I are starting our first nano-reef! After reading a lot on this forum we thought it would be time to start posting here. So here our some pictures and info on our first reef (we both have done freshwater before). Aquarium
A Sera Biotop Nano Cube 60. Contains 37 liter / 10 gallons in the display area (the amount of water that went in there, not counting the LR and LS), 13 liter or 3,5 gallons in the filter area. If we add everything up, including LR and such, it's almost 60L/15.9G total.

FTS
Brain coral (Favites sp)
Micromussa Watermelon

Sun coral

Echinophyllia sp.

Favia - Toxic Green

First Photo's
The aquarium itself:


First batch of LR:


Second batch:


Now holds a total of 7,8kg / 17,2lbs of LR.

Added some LS, 2kg / 4,4lbs to be exact:


We changed our aquascaping a little, will post some more photo's when the dust completely settles. We just hope our hitchhiking porcelain crab survived the sand storm in there.
Tank has been cycling for just two weeks now. Still no sign of nitrates or nitrites, maybe it was already fully cured at our LFS. We'll wait and see.

We hope you will enjoy our reef and thread!

[FishFrog]

Algae bloom is sort of blocking the view, but here's the finished (and hopefully stable enough) aquascape with the sand settled:

 

 

Hopefully in a week or two we can get our CUC!

[Ruester007]

Welcome and good luck!

[DannaM]

looks good so far Nice rockwork,

[Sunar357]

Neat little scape. Welcome!

[FishFrog]

The Tunze 6015 is proving to be very powerful for this aquarium. We lowered it to half way down to reduce it from blowing sand away from certain spots.

After we move the aquarium to it's new cabinet we'll lower it some more te hide it behind the rocks and even further reduce effects of the flow on the sand.

We'll keep you posted with photo's as soon as we have the cabinet. Hopefully by that time our hitchhiking porcelain crab will show itself again so we can properly introduce him to you. For now we barely get a glimpse of him as he hides constantly.

[Gramophone]

Very cool! Do you have stocking plans?

[FishFrog]

For the CUC mostly snails, a ss cleaner shrimp and still in doubt about a small hermit. We know they tend to be aggresive, but they are great to look at.

We really don't know yet what to do with the fish. We would like a shrimp/goby combo and a fun small fish, maybe a citron or yellow clown goby. Or a green goby. Or just stock it with 10 tangs ;-).

We would love a sixline wrasse which is not only beautiful, but also helps with the algae. But we don't want him to be a bully.

Basically we would just like to start with the shrimp and goby pair.. See how that goes and then add one more fish. Bit worried about overstocking so going with just two fish for now. We will have to fight eachother to decide what the second fish is going to be.

[FishFrog]

Look who decided to show him/herself again! Not filterfeeding at the moment, probably just hanging out. Enjoying it's privacy for as long as it can.

 

 

We also found this not so handsome fellow who decided to join the party. Guessing it's a bristleworm.

 

 

And some alien life we also found on our LR.

 

 

Xenia at the front maybe? A type of featherworm at the back?

 

Photo's aren't great, but our little camera isn't working well so it's all smarthphone for now.

 

 

[FishFrog]

Found something that resembles a white type of sow bug or millepede. We are going full Sherlock on the HH archives. It was too active for us to get a picture.

[FishFrog]

Still no sign of nitrates or nitrites. Lots of algae though.

 

 

Starting to look like a furry hulk in there.

[Passaggper]

Depending on how you handled your LR, your cycle might be complete. Are you feeding anything or adding ammonia?

[FishFrog]

Not feeding and not adding ammonia. We are also starting to think that the cycle may be complete. Our LFS has a constant supply of LR coming in. Sometimes it's fresh out of Indonesia, sometimes it's been laying there for a few weeks. He just throws in the old with the new. May not be the best method, but he is the only LFS supplying LR around here.

 

We will wait another 2 weeks (4 in total). If by then there still has been no spike, we will get our CUC. Start it slow and keep checking the parameters.

 

First job is to get that 'white bug' out of the tank. Not sure if it was a harmless 'pod' like a copepod or something, or a harmful one like a creola isopod. Either way, we'll play it safe and catch it and remove it.

[FishFrog]

We have cut our flow in half. The Tunze 6015 (1800L/475G) turned out to be a bit too powerful. We ordered it with the aquaurium, thinking that it would give a flow 30 times the volume. But the volume was a bit less than 60L/15,8G, and in the display area itself the pump delivered a flow of almost 50 times the amount of water.

We now have a Hydor Koralia 900, with half the power of the Tunze. With a flow of 'only' 25 times the amount of water in the tank, the sand seems to be staying on the bottom and the furry algae wall indicates that the flow is still reaching every part of the tank.

 

[FishFrog]

Updated the list of hitchhikers!

[Chew_Magna]

Could do for a better pic of the crab, it kinda looks like an emerald.

[FishFrog]

Yeah we have been trying to get a better picture. It's hard because the crab is very small and hides most of the time. The reason we reckoned it was a porcelain was because it has two feet with filter things on it, which it puts up and down. Couldn't get a picture of them yet though. Will try again!

 

~ Hester

[Chew_Magna]

Right around it's mouth area?

[FishFrog]

Right around it's mouth area?

Yes. It is very small so I can't be specific but the filter bits are on the front and he moves them up and down into what I assume is the mouth.

[Chew_Magna]

Probably is a porcelain of some sort then.

[FishFrog]

First night of ciranolid hunting with the famous stinky method resulted in 0 catches. Will try with more shrimp bait and more stinky water tonight. If after three or four attempts the little pods haven't gone after the shrimp, I think we can safely conclude that they are not flesh eating pods, right? Three weeks in our tank with no food, they hitchhiked on cured LR from Indonesia, so at least 5 or 6 weeks (if not more) without meat for them. I guess they would go beserk if they smell that shrimp.

[FishFrog]

Second night of hunting: more shrimp, more stinky water, but still no pods. They do come out when the light go off (seem to be two of them, a smaller and a larger one). We are starting to think that they aren't flesh eating blood sucking vampire pods. As we said, they are starving for at least 5 weeks (ans possibly a lot more) and no response to the shrimp we put in there what so ever. Will put out the trap one or two more times, but if that doesn't yield any results, I think we can rest assured they will not eat our fish. We also read that cironalid's are very active, ours just come out at night time, stick themselves to the glass and stay there. Will try and catch them with the net when the stinky method hunting is over.

 

Also still no nitrites or -trates. It doesn't look like the overnight shrimp in the trap sparks any sort of cycle while lying there. Guess we can safely say our tank is cycled. We'll wait and see how the hunting goes, and if that doesn't result in any cironalid's we'll probably get our CUC this saturday! We can't wait for the snails and crabs to go in there and clean that tank!

[FishFrog]

Great news. I caught the smaller pod. It was still sitting on the glass a few hours after we put the lights on. I caught it with a net, didn't even move. When I took it out I saw him roll itself up into a ball which is a sign that it's not a cironalid right? Pretty relieved. Couldn't take a picture yet because I had to leave, but it's nice to know the tank is safe!

[FishFrog]

Ordered our CUC: 2x Astraea, 2x Nassarius, 1x Cerith and 2x dwarf blue leg hermits! Hopefully our LFS will be qucik with the order.

[FishFrog]

So while statring into the tank and wondering how it is possible to have so many bristleworms, I noticed a second crab hitchhiker. This one was well camoflaged and the algae on our glass made it hard to see, however it is defo not the same as the filter crab (white), but brownish and very slow. Will try and catch it today.

~ Hester