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Mirya's Mini Garden (Nuvo 8) - Yasha Love Shack


Mirya

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Current full tank shot (8/11/15):

FTS%20mini_zpsruzf7vgd.jpg

 

Tank Established: 1/19/2014, broken down for more 1/5/2016, reset on 1/10/2016

Aquarium: Innovative Marine Nuvo 8

Media Basket: InTank media basket with filter floss, Chemi-Pure Elite, Purigen

Refugium: InTank fuge basket with Chaeto, lit by NanoGlow Fuge Light

Heater: Cobalt NeoTherm 50W

Circulation: Tunze 1073.008

ATO: Autoaqua Smart ATO

Lighting: NanoBox Mini with Lime and moonlight

Controller: Apex Jr.

Substrate: 3 lb CaribSea Aragonite Flamingo Reef

Rock: 5.5 lb ReefCleaners Florida Reef Rock

Salt: ESV B-Ionic

 

Livestock (Fish & Inverts):

Yasha goby & Red banded pistol shrimp

Clean-up crew (micro brittle stars, dwarf ceriths, ceriths, nassarius, and nerites)

 

Livestock (Octocorals & Hexacorals):

1 Rock flower anemone

Clavularia sp., "Papaya"

2 Caulastrea sp.

1 wire coral

2 "Button Scolies"

1 Blasto wellsi

2 Blasto merletti

Gold hammer

LC "Wish I were a bounce" shroom

1 neon green Japanese dwarf toadstool

1 other toadstool

Jason Fox Jack o'Lantern Leptoseris

Molten Lava Leptoseris

 

Future livestock plans:

Evict the last RFA and more my zoas from the frag tank into here

 

History:

I kept a 90g mixed reef tank when I lived in Florida about 10 years ago, but it went bye-bye when I moved to Canada. I missed that tank bad, but the cost of keeping a saltwater set-up was ridiculous there. I've been back in the States for 2 years. I bought a Cardiff tank the weekend I moved back actually. Only, that tank sat empty as I learned right after buying it that my new job wasn't going to be as permanent as I thought it would be. I didn't want to set up the tank, only to have to tear it down and move cross-country within a year. But, 2 years later, I'm still in the same job. (I keep getting 3-6 month contract extensions.) I decided I'm tired of looking at my empty tank and thinking "what if." I still didn't like the thought of tearing down a 26g, so I looked for something even smaller. I fell in love with the looks of the IM Nuvo tanks, so here I am! Things have changed a lot since I kept my tank 10 years ago. (e.g. I ran a DSB. AOI were just hitting the market. LEDs didn't exist.) I've had a lot of fun so far learning new stuff, and I'm really happy that aquaculturing fish and corals is taking off.

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Looks great! Welcome back :).

 

Things have really changed from 10 years ago. I too ran a DSB. They were all the rage. This hobby has gotten so much easier, I think.

 

I LOVE your plans for this tank. Looking forward to seeing the rock flowers in your tank :).

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Tank update!

 

tank020314_zps8b8c7d94.jpg

 

Ignore the diatom bloom. It of course came at the end of my cycle. Fortunately, my local reef group was doing a group buy through Reef Cleaners, so I got some very industrious dwarf ceriths who have really cleared those diatoms since I took that picture a few days ago. I'm still futzing with the settings on my Razor, trying to balance what makes the nem flouresce nice without making the tank too blue.

 

My husband and I did a mini-road trip over the weekend visiting a bunch of LFS. Some were an hour away, so maybe not quite so local. I picked up 2 colorful rock flower anemones and a Yasha goby/pistol shrimp pair. One flower new has nice orange flourescing tentacles and a blueish face. The other has blue tentacles and an orange flourescing face. Unfortunately, the later of the 2 nems has set up home on the back of my rockwork. I'm hope he realizes he is in the shade back there and crawls around to the light in the front. The pistol shrimp is shy, but super industrious. (I'm glad I epoxied all my rockwork together and have it seated on the bottom of the tank!) The goby was shy for the first 2 days, but once she realized I was the provider of brine shrimp, she has been very outgoing.

 

YashaandShrimp_zpsab14b3c0.jpg

 

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Nice! the oranges are my favorite I think. If you want to encourage your other nem to move, just put something opaque on top of it and it'll get bothered and move.

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The little rock flower finally got sick of being in the dark and popped off the rockwork. So I scooped him up and brought him around to the front of the tank. :)

 

When I first put the anemones in, I turned off the mp10 to let them settle. I turned it on 10% two nights ago. Alas that really pissed off the big rock flower. He popped off the rockwork and was just letting himself float around. So, I turned off the mp10 and replanted him. I suppose I don't need a lot of flow to keep nems, so maybe I'll just take the mp10 out. I had wanted to eventually get a gorgonian though. I don't know if I will have enough flow for one with just the return pump.

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I'm pretty happy with the AutoAqua. Now, I've never used another ATO before so I don't have much to compare too. Back when I ran my 90g 10 years ago I had set up an IV dripset to top-off my tank with RODI.

 

Things I like about the AutoAqua are:

- Its tiny footprint. There isn't much space in the back of the Nuvo8, but this hardly takes up any space at all. The pump it is connected to is tiny as well. I dropped the pump into a spare skinny, tall Tupperware container (super oval 5) that barely takes up any space in the cabinet too.

- It's quiet. I have to be standing right next to the tank to hear the top-off pump kick on.

- It's reliable. In the month I've had my tank set up it has been spot on at maintaining water levels and salinity. Also, since it is an optical sensor, I trust that more than a float switch getting jammed.

- The weird hanger thing for the water tube is doubling as a probe hanger for my Apex temp probe.

 

Thing I don't like about the AutoAqua:

- If I want to turn off my return pump to do a water change, feed, etc, I need to reset the ATO. Since I cut a pretty small window in the black vinyl covering the sump glass, resetting the ATO can be finicky. I could make my life easier by cutting a bigger window, but one of the things I'm aiming for is a clean look. Peeling off chunks of vinyl = not clean.

 

Overall, I am happy with the AutoAqua. If I had to do it all over again, I'd probably still go with it, but I would have taken more consideration into where/how much vinyl I was cutting off the sump to set up the optical sensor.

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Update!

 

tank021614_zpse06e38f3.jpg

 

So, last weekend I swung by one of the nice Columbus LFS, Phishy Business. I intended to grab some Ceriths, but of course, ended up walking out with more. They always have a bunch of small pretty frags, perfect for nano tanks. I grabbed a tiny branching rock with orange micro zoanthids, a frag of blue Sansibia, and a frag of green and blue Sympodium. The Ceriths have been doing an excellent job of pissing off my Pistol shrimp. They keep crawling down into his burrow, and he keeps pushing them out. He was making lots of angry snaps at them this morning.

 

This weekend, Phishy is having a President's Day weekend sale, so I stopped by again and grabbed some Sexy Shrimp. I also went to the other nice LFS, Reef Systems, and got a gorgeous white zebra rock nem and some of their home grown gorgonian. I was about to place an order for some colorful rock nems from VIP Reef, but the owner of Reef Systems said he would be getting some red rock nems in by next weekend. So, I'm holding off on the VIP Reef order for now... (but still oh so tempted!)

 

Right now I'm at a total of 3 rock flower nems. I bought all from regional LFS for really reasonable prices. Here is the crew:

Sauron_zpsfa2cfced.jpg

This is Sauron. (As in "Eye of." More flattering that what my co-worker thinks of him... which is that he looks like a cat ass.) About 2.5" in diameter and the tentacles fluoresce a briliant orange under actinics. He came from Marine Solutions.

 

RedFace_zps9a6e3304.jpg

This is a tiny orange fluorescing face one that came from Phishy Business. He is about the size of a quarter. His mouth is purple. His tentacles are contemplating turning fluorescent green. I'm eager to see how he looks as he matures. (And once he gets bigger, my iPhone pics of his won't be as crappy! You can see how tiny the micro zoanthids are in the background.

 

Zebra_zpsc67fb3af.jpg

This is the white zebra I got yesterday from Reef Systems. About 3" in diameter. Doesn't fluoresce, but the pattern stands out so nicely. Sauron is really happy that the sexy shrimp are hanging out on the zebra rather than him.

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The zebra has stayed open. He is still trying to decide exactly where he wants to wedge himself in the rockwork, and so has been wiggling to the left and right trying to find his spot.

 

The orange face always stays wide open as well. This morning I woke up to find one of the sexies decided to go host him. The shrimp is practically as big as the nem. I feel kinda bad for him, but he doesn't seem to mind.

 

It's Sauron who is the really animated one. He tucks up his face and tentacles every night to go to sleep.

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So, somewhat embarrassing story... :blush:

 

Last night when I got home from work I saw that the Yasha goby wasn't out. That is pretty unusual for her, she spends a lot of time hovering above her burrow when the lights are on. I peered in on her burrow and saw that the entrance was halfway filled in with substrate. The backdoor that the shrimp sometimes uses looked semi-filled in to. I kinda panicked; I couldn't figure out what had happened, so started dreaming up all kinds of crazy circumstances. I wondered if the shrimp had died and thus wasn't maintaining the burrow. I wondered if that was the case, if the fish was then trapped under the rock. :scarry:

 

My husband shown a flashlight into the main burrow entrance and we could see the reflection from the goby's eyes. She peered back at us. I decided to try to very carefully dig out the opening of the burrow for her with my feeding forceps. As soon as I started to do that though, there were angry pistol shrimp claws waving at me. Whew! Everyone was ok. I still thought it was weird though. My husband suggested the goby and shrimp had gone on a bender together and wanted some quiet time.

 

Anyway, about an hour later I realized I was a dumb@$$. The night before I had moved the MP10 around and turned it back on to try to give the gorgonians more flow. (They haven't really opened up since I got them and wondered if flow was the culprit.) I realized that the way I had now situated the MP10, that flow was bouncing off the glass causing a downdraft in front of the burrow. So the MP10 was causing the substrate to fill in the burrow holes. Doh... :unsure:

 

I removed the MP10 once and for all last night. The Yasha and pistol have been out and about a lot today. :)

 

Tomorrow I'm going to my first frag swap. omgomgomg I know one of the vendors is going to have ultra rock nems. I sense tank update pictures in a few days.

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Hope you find some nice goodies and shoot, we've all had those Duh moments. We expect pictures, lots of pictures after they're acclimated!!! I've never been to one and I can imagine my head would be pulled in all different directions.

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Thing I don't like about the AutoAqua:

- If I want to turn off my return pump to do a water change, feed, etc, I need to reset the ATO. Since I cut a pretty small window in the black vinyl covering the sump glass, resetting the ATO can be finicky. I could make my life easier by cutting a bigger window, but one of the things I'm aiming for is a clean look. Peeling off chunks of vinyl = not clean.

 

Overall, I am happy with the AutoAqua. If I had to do it all over again, I'd probably still go with it, but I would have taken more consideration into where/how much vinyl I was cutting off the sump to set up the optical sensor.

 

Maybe you could use an electric valve to stop the flow out of the ATO so it can't fill when you do a water change. That way you will not need to cut the power to the ATO neccessitating a reset. Here is the one I use http://www.electricsolenoidvalves.com/1-4-120v-ac-electric-plastic-solenoid-valve/

 

Mike

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