Por Que, Mantis Shrimp, Por Que?! - Mariaface's Nuvo 16

[Mariaface]

August 21st, 2014:

Why does the unexpected happen. I was cleaning my glass, happy as a clam, and came back to wipe down the outside with a microfiber cloth. When suddenly, teeny tiny mantis shrimp. Time to figure out what to do with this little guy. And how to get him to come outside. Oh, god.

 

Full Tank Shot August 15th, 2014:

(Poor aquarium...)

 

 

Setup:

Tank: Nuvo 16

Pump: Stock pump (211gph)

Filtration: Floss, Purigen, Phosguard

Lighting: Current USA Orbit Marine LED

Heater: Eheim Jager 75W

Circulation: Koralia Nano 425

ATO: Tunze Nano

 

Parameters:

Salinity: 1.025

Temperature: 81F

Alk: ~8dKH

Calcium: ~425

Mag: ~1350

Ammonia, Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: <5ppm

 

Livestock:

2x Black ocellaris clownfish

Hammer

Trumpet

Ricordea

Zoanthids

Acanthastrea

[tibbsy07]

Nice tank! I really like the way the purple and green contrast each other. The black makes them pop, too. Any plans to upgrade the light or anything?

[Mariaface]

I put in an order with John from Reefcleaners for codium and pods, and that should arrive some time this week! :]

 

I recently added new lights (upgraded from the stock Skkye Lights, just enough for the LPS until I've graduated college and can purchase reallighting), and it must be having its effect on the corals. There's that, and the fact that I've started dosing the Nualgi product we've been seeing.

 

The zoanthid skirts are 'fluffy', if that's what you'd call it!

 

 

This green ricordea finally finished splitting (I've had it for months, sitting there in an odd shape, and it just this week decided to finish).

 

Complete disclosure: When I got my hammer coral, I tried to take it off of its frag and accidentally split the skeleton. Down the middle. Vertically. So yeah, right through what should be the coral's mouth. I managed to catch myself before I did any visible tearing, and held the coral in one hand while I mixed epoxy in the other. Molded the epoxy around the skeleton to keep it in place, and then put the hammer back in the tank at the sandbed to heal up. It's been weeks since then, and the hammer's now at mid-height of the tank, happy as a clam. Eating clam, actually, in the coral food I've mixed up.

 

 

This cyphastrea coral is NOT doing well. When I initially got it, it healed up a bit from its condition underneath the two branch-rocks that are now laying there. Unfortunately, the blenny and peppermint shrimp I had in the tank loved to harass the corals. I've since rehomed those three, but this coral isn't looking good whatsoever. I'm keeping it epoxied down where it should get about 150-200 PAR, and crossing my fingers, because there do exist polyps at the center of the rings (they're a lighter orange, almost yellow color), but the flesh between polyps has more or less totally receded.

 

 

In other news, I need to figure out what photo quality to use with the camera. I'm taking RAW pictures, but I end up needing to shrink them down to (data-wise) a twentieth of their size. And that obviously leads to blurred images (I'm taking an image processing course, I know, shrinking is a bad plan). So I may just need to take smaller images from the get-go and crop them, THEN shrink the rest of the way. Hm.

 

Nice tank! I really like the way the purple and green contrast each other. The black makes them pop, too. Any plans to upgrade the light or anything?

Thanks! You beat me to it, but yes. I graduate and move back to NYC in about a month and a half, at which point I'll -hopefully- use my computer science degree and get a job. Lights (and a controller, though it's tempting to get an Arduino and code the controller myself) are at the top of the list!

 

 

I totally forgot this little guy, didn't I?! I probably didn't do enough research before getting this alveopora coral; I just saw that people were saying they didn't require much lighting/feeding. Since I didn't look up actual PAR values, I'm worried that the 'low to moderate lighting' they were discussing was under MH lighting, or.. you know.. actually powerful LEDs. And I've been feeding Coral Frenzy about twice a week, because the particles are teeny enough to look the right size for them. The zoanthids love that food, and even the hammer will slime up a bit to gather the particles. I'm not sure what it's looking like, health-wise, but my disclaimer will be that this photo was taken about half an hour into the day cycle (ten minutes after the lights had ramped up all the way), so the coral might be 'sleepy'. Yeah. Going with that. >>

[tibbsy07]

Your rics look great!! I wish mine looked like that. Coral all seem to be happy

[Mariaface]

Your rics look great!! I wish mine looked like that. Coral all seem to be happy

I was actually wondering why other people's rics seemed so upset; that might actually be my low lighting.. There's a recession in front of the middle rock that might be good for them when I upgrade lights, though. They're getting about 50-70 PAR there, if the readings from the specification page are to be trusted. xD

 

I'm sure not ALL the corals look happy, though. I actually forgot to add a photo of my trumpet coral! Probably because I don't have a good one right now; I'll have to tweak the camera a bit to get good, not washed-out colors. It had a terrible run in with a hydrogen peroxide overdose and nearly all the flesh just kind of... melted. It's either that, or there was an alkalinity drop/spike before I realized the coralline was growing too quickly and started dosing. Now its skeleton is a bit algae-covered, so I think what I'm seeing is that it's growing smaller polyps within the skeleton and growing out of there. Like a do-over.

 

Ah! The acanthastrea! This guy's on the frag rack. And this is probably a bit sad, but it's about three inches below the light and only getting somewhere between 250 and 300 PAR. I literally got lights that would do exactly what I needed and not much more. xD

[Mariaface]

In other news, I've been thinking about ordering some more live rock from Gulf Live Rock, since it looks like they have some amazing stuff shipping out. It'd help lift the scape up off of the sandbed, and would introduce all sorts of great critters. I've actually got a five-gallon sitting empty in the same room, and the Nuvo's stock lights in a box... I could probably make a soft cycle happen in there. And if anything particularly evil comes along (*cough* mantis shrimp *cough*) I could quarantine it in the 2.5gal sitting (well, with amphipods, a piece of ulva, and some pest anemones) on my desk. Thoughts?

[Mariaface]

I e-mailed Dan from Gulf Live Rock the 24th and haven't gotten a response.. Has anyone had experience ordering from there, or getting in contact quickly? Maybe the dan@gulfliverock email is overloaded or old?

 

I did a water change last night (because I was too busy over the weekend, and then classes got intense), and upped my alk dosing (just gravity fed from an arbitrary amount of Seachem Reef Builder dissolved in RO).

The zoanthid mats had buds last night, and this morning two of the three most noticeable ones were already developed polyps. The photo I took was outrageously blurry, so I may edit this later with a better one!

 

This ricordea has set down a new foot! Well, at least one. When I basted the rocks, it lifted up off its frag a bit and I saw the flesh attached to the rock. It could be attached elsewhere, too, which would be exciting!

 

The hammer coral, when it's just woken up to the lights! It looks pretty adorable.

 

 

The trumpet coral. Oh, man, this poor thing. It looks like it's happy about some combination of lights, WC, alk, or Nualgi. Budding outwards from the center of each polyp's skeleton. Super mega sad looking. I can't wait until it's healed up!

 

The cyphastrea:

 

You know, I've never gotten a straight answer for what this guy is! It's a filter feeder, some sort of fan worm, and it's been in the tank since I originally got the rock (hitchhiker) in October 2012. Not sure I'll ever get a definite ID, but it's pretty darn cool to look at when it decides the current has shifted enough for it to change how it fans out.

 

EDIT: Just found out that this is a 'bristle cage worm'! Good stuff. :]

[Mariaface]

Just put in an order with Dan at Gulf Live Rock!

...Can you tell I'm excited?

 

Managed to get in contact with Dan through ebay at about the same time that Kat gave me his e-mail (she told me to tell him she sent me, though I'm not entirely sure what that's going to mean >>). I spoke with him because I was worried about the weather up here in Ithaca (the past week or two have been alternating between 40s and 60s), but since we're past the freezing point he says it should be fine.

 

I might move the 2.5gal's internal filter into the 5gal while it gets ready for some rocks, and then add on the HOB filter I just ordered (along with Prime and Stability) for Tuesday arrival, when the rock gets here (likely towards the end of the week). And then I'll be putting the stock Skkye lights on the 5gal.

 

So tomorrow, when I'm not hunched over C++ code with my degree hanging over my head thanks to a 400-level 'elective', I'll probably be setting up the 5gal. Whoo!

 

ALSO. Note to self. Remember to take lots and lots of photos.

 

 

Editing this: I stopped by the mall and had no self control about walking into our sub-par pet store. After I got done squeeing over how adorable the ferret sitting in there was, I mosied on over to the fish section. I remembered I'd racked up a $20 store credit, and wound up getting this:

 

Over the five gallon (and pardon it, it's currently mixing some saltwater), it looked like this:

 

I'm not sure how much PAR it'll be able to give off when it's just a 3W bulb at 6700K, but I think it should be able to help the skkye lights along. And it does look pretty darn bright. If anyone does consider getting it, keep in mind that it comes with a suction cup that's meant to be able to hold it up. I say 'meant to' because I tried that, the suction cup failed drastically (I did follow instructions about cleaning the surfaces before adhering, but the plastic is just that flimsy), and the thing fell into the -thankfully RO- water. Had to open it up (which was surprisingly easy to do; I might be able to replace the LED chip if I were so inclined and had a soldering gun) and dry all of the parts.

 

To help with that, I've got it both suction cupped and resting atop the egg crate (which, now that I think about it, is a terrible idea for a thing whose body is its heat sink):

[Mariaface]

Got in contact with Dan over at Gulf Live Rock again! He wasn't sure if I wanted pieces larger than the ones he had in stock, but since I've got a couple of branches and a solid, large medium rock as well as another fist-sized one, I'm more than happy to put together smaller pieces (was counting on it, that's why I went with the nano package). Once they've cured in the smaller tank, of course. And only if necessary; I'm sure I'll be playing with the scape for a good while.

 

...And if anything outrageously cool turns up (or I end up with too much rock for the Nuvo), I'll have a second tank to hold it in!

 

On to tank things:

 

I always love seeing bristle worms at work! I generally don't get to, since they're always hiding in the rocks and don't come out until dark. That is, of course, until I feed something outrageously yummy (like the frozen mix I made from fresh seafood and vitamins).

 

 

 

My nassarius snails, fighting over food that I managed to let drop to the sandbed:

 

This ricordea is just the most gluttonous thing I've ever seen. I'm sure that, given the choice and time, it would eat its own volume in food. I keep expecting it to split any second, but it only just attached in two more places to the rock underneath it. Oh, well. We'll see.

 

The codium I got from John over at Reefcleaners! Unfortunately, it didn't last very long. It turns out mexican turbos are serious about their macro algae eating, so I managed to salvage a small chunk of it when I woke up unable to find my new algae. It's floating in a 'breeder box', and an even smaller piece (pinky nail size, seriously) is now in the 2.5 gallon that apparently has become home to a family of aiptasia. Aiptasia, amphipods, copepods, and teeny little 2mm light-brown flatworms. All of those things came in on a shipment of macros from reefs2go, remind me to not ever make that mistake again. Found a white sea spider in there as well, but that was a lot easier to remove. It's a good thing I had this thing laying around..

 

Pretty sure I'm overfeeding this hammer coral, but it has yet to complain!

 

The alveopora decided to photobomb this shot of the orange ricordea eating:

 

And this 'garden' over here isn't particularly exciting, but it's fun to watch it grow!

[Mariaface]

So the rock over at Gulf Live Rock is basically amazing. I received the package a day earlier than I'd planned for (so it shipped Wednesday evening and arrived Friday afternoon), but I caught the tracking status on the USPS website and started mixing saltwater the saltwater for rinsing the rocks off at about 8am.

 

 

Opened the (still dry, thankfully!) box and found it just as neat as the reviews have shown. Maybe Dan's the man at rock-tetris by now!

 

Insulation, and one big bag holding them together, inside of which every rock was wrapped in damp paper towel. I'm surprised that it only smelled like a day at the beach, or something. I still remember the 'oh god, things are dying in there' smell when I got my rock from premium aquatics in 2012.. :x

 

I got one of my fish-stuff-only tupperware containers and scooped up the freshly made -and heated- saltwater one bunch at a time, and for each container-ful I dipped a rock inside and used a baster to blow off excess sand/detritus.

 

The very first rock I picked up and unwrapped had a skeleton on it. Two, actually.

 

 

But anyway, I repeated that process and got most of the rocks into the five gallon (the last three went into the 2.5gal).

 

Found some really interesting stuff! And here's the photo dump:

 

(Yes, its foot was still solid and reactive so I set it down on a rock:

 

 

(Hope this cute little duster survives the cycle!)

 

 

 

 

And from further away:

 

 

And here are the rocks in the 2.5gal; you'll probably be able to see why I left them as 'maybe' rocks until I ran out of space at the bottom of the 5gal (scary-looking worm, brown stem plants, and bushy algae with runners all over the rock):

 

 

 

I've got a few more photos I took on my phone, and hopefully they wound up good enough to upload... There was a bristleworm-looking thing that had a white-ish body and slightly yellow bristles, we'll see. :x

[Mariaface]

Bivalves!

 

 

 

Now, what in the world is this? It kind of... wriggles?

[JR!]

Wow what a cool tank. Really like the new rock. Might have to try that light for my fuge

[masterbuilder]

Mariaface,

 

I love your tank. I would just leave the light as you have it if your plans are for a zoa dominated tank. I think with all the recent advances in lighting and equipment many tanks are way to sterile and overly bright for palys/zoas. My little 12G nanotank had completely stock lighting. I easily threw away as many palys/zoa as are seen in the tank, there was not an inch that was not completely covered with polyps. Mine truly grew like weeds and I couldn't keep up with the fragging and giving them away. Near the end of this tanks life (before an upgrade) I added more lights and my little flowers actually slowed significantly, were not as colorful and just not as happy/healthy. So...for me....medium/low lighting, slightly nutrient rich water was the trick for a softie tank. My new tank that's just about ready for water is a full blown SPS system and it will be just the opposite.

 

[Mariaface]

Wow what a cool tank. Really like the new rock. Might have to try that light for my fuge

 

Thanks! Isn't the new rock amazing? I've been staring at the rocks every time I pass by and discovered another bivalve, a buddy for the duster right next to it, a couple of worms that have wandered out past lights out... And what I think might be a majano anemone. :c Although, to be fair, it's a very pretty and almost glittery one. When I take the photos off my phone, I'll upload it.

 

Are you talking about the 3 watt? It seems to fit the color temperature for plant-growing, I could totally see it working!

 

 

 

Mariaface,

 

I love your tank. I would just leave the light as you have it if your plans are for a zoa dominated tank. I think with all the recent advances in lighting and equipment many tanks are way to sterile and overly bright for palys/zoas. My little 12G nanotank had completely stock lighting. I easily threw away as many palys/zoa as are seen in the tank, there was not an inch that was not completely covered with polyps. Mine truly grew like weeds and I couldn't keep up with the fragging and giving them away. Near the end of this tanks life (before an upgrade) I added more lights and my little flowers actually slowed significantly, were not as colorful and just not as happy/healthy. So...for me....medium/low lighting, slightly nutrient rich water was the trick for a softie tank. My new tank that's just about ready for water is a full blown SPS system and it will be just the opposite.

 

 

That tank is amazing! And definitely something I could see myself trying out! Right now I'm letting the tank do its growing out, and then I'll see where I want it to go. I'm a big fan of the hammer and trumpet corals, and highly tempted by the acans but also wary of their tendency to sting their neighbors..

 

At their current height, the zoos are only getting about 100-150 PAR. I think. So they should be pretty content with that level, and the fact that they keep budding is reflecting that. :] Can't wait until they fill up that rock.

[Mariaface]

 

There it is! It moved from where it was last night, and wedged itself between a rock and the glass. Makes it easier for me to get its foot in the picture.

[gulfsurfer101]

I ordered from them over a year ago and have had some pretty interesting things pop up on my rock over that time. That bleached looking brain coral will come back in no time, guaranteed. Mine looked the same and now it's doubled in size and has a bluish green hue to it.

[Mariaface]

I ordered from them over a year ago and have had some pretty interesting things pop up on my rock over that time. That bleached looking brain coral will come back in no time, guaranteed. Mine looked the same and now it's doubled in size and has a bluish green hue to it.

 

I'm crossing my fingers! I've been keeping my eye on the ammonia alert badge and adding both Prime and Stability to keep any free ammonia low. I already had the filter on this tank running before the rocks came in, and the copepods and amphipods were having a blast with the tiny amount of diatoms that managed to grow on the bottom glass a couple of days before the rocks came in. So it should be decently stable in there, and the water changes will help a ton. :]

 

There are actually three or four different coral skeleton patches, and I made sure they all pointed upwards. So we'll see what happens!

[gulfsurfer101]

Yeah, I had tons of macro and a few sponges that made it but lots of my coral didn't but my package was held four days. It was right around the time everybody was shipping for Christmas so that kind of screwed me.

[Mariaface]

Yeah, I had tons of macro and a few sponges that made it but lots of my coral didn't but my package was held four days. It was right around the time everybody was shipping for Christmas so that kind of screwed me.

 

Ouch! These rocks were meant to get here today, arrived a day early, and managed to get all the way to central New York without the bag tearing or box breaking. So I'm hopeful. There really is a ton of macro, including what actually does look like strands of human hair, which is creepy. But yes, sponges everywhere as well.

 

Still, it's awesome that your rocks did so well even with the delay!

[gulfsurfer101]

Lol, Florida cartel dumping grounds. Maybe Dan has some ties with some bambino's down there, lol. Human hair is scary in anyone's tank.

[Mariaface]

Oh geez, now I'm going to be terrified of that little tank until I figure out what it actually is...

[Mariaface]

I did a stupid.

 

College ended. I moved back home. After that five hour car ride, the running around mixing saltwater and setting up the aquarium, and my then becoming lazy for nearly two months, the tank has suffered quite a bit. There's an updated FTS at the beginning of the thread; I'll see if I can mess with my camera and get some good colors for another one tomorrow.

 

When I went to do a water change, the water was a disturbingly different color from the freshly mixed. I've seriously clamped some Purigen in front of the circulation pump to get extra filtration going; I think the bag of it in the media basket must not be getting enough water through it (I sense an upgrade on those soon).

 

The hammer coral and acanthastrea seem like the only ones enjoying themselves in there, even if they're just frags.

 

The acanthastrea's put out four or five new tiny polyps since the move.

 

The hammer coral's definitely not having fun; I think it's because of seriously low alkalinity. It's come back from worse, though, so I have faith in it bouncing back now that I'm straightening out maintenance again.

 

The two ricordea have been going about business as usual, though they're a bit flat at the moment.

 

The zoanthids are very, very upset, but they've been testing out the water and opening up a bit at a time for the past day or two.

 

 

This is a fun sponge-type thing.

 

This is another. It doesn't look like the regular pineapple sponge.

 

This hitchhiker coral is still outrageously sad-looking, but surprisingly still alive and eating.

 

 

Welp. That's a sad, sad update. It looks like everything's becoming more active, though, now that the water quality's coming back up. The clowns are really tough to photograph against the black wall, but they're still ravenous little monsters (the larger one will outright steal from corals). And now that the algae isn't growing crazy-quickly, the snails are doing a good job of munching it down bit by bit.

Lol, Florida cartel dumping grounds. Maybe Dan has some ties with some bambino's down there, lol. Human hair is scary in anyone's tank.

 

It occurs to me that I replied about being scared of this and then proceeded to not log on for a while. I could be the plot twist to a crime thriller. >>

 

But seriously, Dan's rock is pretty amazing. There are teeny bivalves that made the trip inside nooks and crannies, sponges, a cool limpet whose photo I should upload from my phone...

[Mariaface]

I'm messing with my camera, so I'm going to go ahead and post more pictures.

 

At this point I think the hammer and zoas are probably upset at the low alk (tested and found it at 7.3 today) and the over-effectiveness of the purigen and/or phosguard, maybe.

 

Here's that orange sponge again!

 

The top polyp on the acanthastrea looks like it wants to split again...

 

This hitchhiker coral is still going!

 

As is the smaller one:

[Nano sapiens]

When using media best to err on the side of caution and use a smaller amount at first and keep a close eye on the corals It's very easy to quickly strip a small aquarium of nutrients so quickly that the corals suffer shock and starvation issues.

 

And yes, consistent high quality maintenance is very important to the keeping of a long term successful nano reef aquarium.

[Mariaface]

When using media best to err on the side of caution and use a smaller amount at first and keep a close eye on the corals It's very easy to quickly strip a small aquarium of nutrients so quickly that the corals suffer shock and starvation issues.

 

And yes, consistent high quality maintenance is very important to the keeping of a long term successful nano reef aquarium.

 

Yehp, I should've started off with half the dose of GFO or something. The Purigen's not something I can take apart easily (I don't have the fine media bags necessary, but I think I'm going to be switching to ChemiPure Blue soon), but maybe that as well. The water must've become a ton clearer, so light penetration's up, too.

 

 

I'm keeping a close eye on alk to keep it around 9.5dKH until I can get the 2-Part package with dosers from BRS in a short while. That's the next upgrade, along with a Sycce Syncra Silent 1.5 to replace the return pump and increase flow.

 

Meanwhile, I'm finally renewing my CUC (after maybe a year, I think I have two or three dwarf ceriths and three nassarius snails left outside of the two turbos). That should be shipping out today.

 

And the tripod and remote shutter should be getting here tomorrow.