12g Long, 8 month update, Nudis and New Equipment

[Linilou]

[New Banner Coming Soon]

Current FTS




Current Equipment

• Low Iron Glass Mr. Aqua 12 Long
• Nano Box Mini Tide With Lime and Moonlights
• Koralia 240
• AquaticLife Internal Mini Skimmer 115
• Nameless HOB Filter

Retired Equipment

• Deep Blue 12x12x12-Replaced
• Ledtric Par 38 Full Spectrum LED -Replaced
• Mini Pump hooked up to a Marina Breeder Box (soon to be Fuge/filter)-Replaced
• Aquaclear 50 Moded with Fuge/Baffles-Broken

Stock

• Ocellaris clownfish
• Purple Pseudochromis
• Yellow Watchman Goby
• Randalls Pistol Shrimp
• Various CUC

 

• Soft Coral
  • Various Zoanthids/Palys
  • Green Striped Mushroom
  • Red Mushroom
  • Florida Ricordia, Blue/green mouth
  • Various GSP
  • Pulsing Xenia
• LPS
  • Blue/Teal Hammer
  • Green Striped Plate Coral
  • Duncan

• SPS
  • Red Stylo (picking up some green)
  • Yellow Monti Cap with Green polyps
  • Green Monti Cap
  • Rainbow Monti Cap
  • (Currently battling Monti Eating Nudis)

Updates

• New Equipment
• New Livestock
• AC50, Watchman Goby,NanoBox
• New Pictures under the NEW lights!
• More new pictures~! Torch Zoas Mystery SPS and LPS
• New Monti Caps
• GBTA and other Coral, New clown
• 8 Month Hiatus Update

Plans

• Upgrade to a Nanobox Duo
• Get a new sump/fuge/filter
• Get a WP-10 - Birthday Gift! Coming soon!

Past FTS

 

 

 

 

[Linilou]

Im happy to say, that after over a year of moving, switching jobs and getting settled I can finally set my reef up again.

I am using mainly stuff that I have kept from my old tanks at the moment, but as soon as my old LED sells, im going to upgrade to a Nano Box Tide- the par38 is just to large to fit under the cabinet that the tank is under.

[Dark_ice]

Looking like a great start!

[Smithjm5]

Looks cool, i'll be following along!

[Linilou]

Looks cool, i'll be following along!

 

Looking like a great start!

 

Thanks guys!

Im itching to start getting things for it but im being good and waiting for the cycle to finish

I did however place an order for a bunch of hardware I am missing (some how it disappeared in the move) so that should all be coming in some time next week- it would be cool if it came in on monday since thats my birthday

 

Oh man, Smithjm5, a ADA 60-f has been my dream tank for so long, yours looks stunning~!

[Smithjm5]

Thanks guys!

Im itching to start getting things for it but im being good and waiting for the cycle to finish

I did however place an order for a bunch of hardware I am missing (some how it disappeared in the move) so that should all be coming in some time next week- it would be cool if it came in on monday since thats my birthday

 

Oh man, Smithjm5, a ADA 60-f has been my dream tank for so long, yours looks stunning~!

Sounds good! And thanks, they are sweet little tanks!

[Linilou]

Everything that I ordered online is finally here!

 

Can I just say I am so impressed with the 'new' (its new to me haha) koralias. There way smaller and quieter than the old one I had.

 

 

The Heater ended up being way bigger than I realized it was going to be and cant even fit in the tank, so I need to get a new one of those. But everything else was great! The breeder box is getting used for a Refugium/filter.

 

 

After A LOT of jerryrigging I got this together, the pump head was like, a 16th of an inch to small so i shoved some tubeing I had left over from a previous tank into the tube and the pump into the tubeing inside the tube.

 

Im going to baffle it when I get some silicone so half will be for the fuge and half for mechanical filtration.

 

 

wires ( gotta figure something out to hide them.

 

a slightly better photo of the tank. Still with my phone so not that great...

 

Besides that, I also just placed an order....

 

 

Reeeeally hoping that they have Ruby Mithrax crabs instock!

[Smithjm5]

Looks good! Coming along nicely, check out the cobalt neotherm heaters they are really nice, I have two!

http://www.amazon.com/Cobalt-Aquatics-Neo-Therm-50-Watt-Plastic/dp/B008AGWZCC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408207284&sr=8-1&keywords=cobalt+neotherm

[Linilou]

Looks good! Coming along nicely, check out the cobalt neotherm heaters they are really nice, I have two!

http://www.amazon.com/Cobalt-Aquatics-Neo-Therm-50-Watt-Plastic/dp/B008AGWZCC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408207284&sr=8-1&keywords=cobalt+neotherm

Thanks! Those look really nice ill look into it,

[Linilou]

Got a huge order from reef cleaners but sadly the photos are on my iPad, ill be uploading them soon, the amount of progress the CUC has made in 2 days is mind blowing! Pictures soon.

Also just waiting on some info from Dave at Nano Box, and for some freelance jobs to actually pay me and the new lights should be in the works, I am WAY to excited!!

 

Speaking of, if anyone has any pictures of the Nano Tide hanging kit it would be VERY appreciated.

[Linilou]

Livestock Update!

 

Went down to the LFS today and picked up some new stuff,

 

 

Little Zoa colony, they ended up having a tiny brittle star on them too.

 

Took a chance on these, since they could have been Majano nems, but for 5$ I couldn't resist. On closer inspection im pretty sure they are Rics, not sure if Yuma or Florida but time will tell.

 

 

Really pretty purple frog, was completely pissed off since I broke it off the frag plug. Hopefully it will be out tomorrow morning.

 

 

Encrusting monti, purple/red base with green Polyps, you can see the polyps in the frogspawn picture.

 

 

Last but not least, a small little orange clown. Literally the only picture he wasn't a motion blur in.

 

Im hoping to get better pictures in the morning when everything has settled in, I need to go get some superglue to secure everything but most of it is wedged into the rocks pretty well.

 

Still, I get nervous- Reefcleaners threw a turbo snail in my order by accident and he has done his fair share of bulldozing so far haha.

 

I also picked up some chemi pure, and put it in the filter, not sure If i should do filter floss chemipure and then cheato or the other way around.

 

The tank is still really cloudy and im trying to figure out why- might just be not enough flow going through the filter to get all the stuff that keeps getting kicked up?

[Linilou]

Well, something bad had to happen eventually.

 

Did a water change on Sunday night only to wake up to the clown acting very strange and gasping, tested the water and found out ammonia was at about .5ppm. Immediately started draining the tank to do another water change when I started thinking what could have possibly caused the ammonia spike? The only thing I had done was change the water.

Then it hit me to test my SW reservoir, turns out something had either been in the pump or the bucket and the amonia in the bucket was close to 1ppm.

 

Ran to Walmart got a bunch of new water and ive been doing water changes periodically over the last couple days to try to get it down, its almost yellow on the ammonia test charts so its going down.

 

The clown isnt gasping anymore and all the corals seem completely unphased, but does anyone have any recommendations how to clean out the pump and bucket so that this doesn't happen again? I like to keep a reserve of about 5 gallons of saltwater so that I do not have to mix a batch up every time I do a water change...it has a bunch of vinegar and peroxide running in it right now...

[hey]

Well, something bad had to happen eventually.

 

Did a water change on Sunday night only to wake up to the clown acting very strange and gasping, tested the water and found out ammonia was at about .5ppm. Immediately started draining the tank to do another water change when I started thinking what could have possibly caused the ammonia spike? The only thing I had done was change the water.

Then it hit me to test my SW reservoir, turns out something had either been in the pump or the bucket and the amonia in the bucket was close to 1ppm.

 

Ran to Walmart got a bunch of new water and ive been doing water changes periodically over the last couple days to try to get it down, its almost yellow on the ammonia test charts so its going down.

 

The clown isnt gasping anymore and all the corals seem completely unphased, but does anyone have any recommendations how to clean out the pump and bucket so that this doesn't happen again? I like to keep a reserve of about 5 gallons of saltwater so that I do not have to mix a batch up every time I do a water change...it has a bunch of vinegar and peroxide running in it right now...

 

Was the bucket clean and what brand salt were you using? I am obsessed with giving a bucket an intended purpose and never using it for anything else.

[Linilou]

Was the bucket clean and what brand salt were you using? I am obsessed with giving a bucket an intended purpose and never using it for anything else.

 

Before I started using it, I washed it out, but I didnt do any deep cleaning, its all ways only been used for 'fish stuff' mostly storing unused equipment. I think it might have just been some detritus in the pump or just some 'junk' in general that was rotting/decomposing.

 

As for salt, I was using Instant Ocean, im almost positive it was reef crystals, since I remember it being in an orange box not a purple one. It was a new box as well, well new as in I had just bought it. I looked for an expiration date and did not find one.

 

Any suggestions on how to really get the whole thing, pump and bucket spotless so I can start using it again?

[hey]

Before I started using it, I washed it out, but I didnt do any deep cleaning, its all ways only been used for 'fish stuff' mostly storing unused equipment. I think it might have just been some detritus in the pump or just some 'junk' in general that was rotting/decomposing.

 

As for salt, I was using Instant Ocean, im almost positive it was reef crystals, since I remember it being in an orange box not a purple one. It was a new box as well, well new as in I had just bought it. I looked for an expiration date and did not find one.

 

Any suggestions on how to really get the whole thing, pump and bucket spotless so I can start using it again?

distilled vinegar water bath would be the safest but a diluted bleach solution would really clean things up too. If you go the bleach route I personally would rinse with rodi then let it dry a few days afterwards to make sure all the chlorine is gone. After that make up some salt water and test it for ammonia... if its still giving you readings its the salt. If your good on readings, try to only use that bucket for salt.

[Linilou]

Live stock and equipment update!

LIVESTOCK

A lot has happened since I last posted, went to the fishstore looking for a goby to later pair with a randalls pistol shrimp, and ended up committing the biggest fishtank sin there is- buying a fish because it has "personality". I knew I should wait, get the goby and walk away but they had the PRETTIEST namiyei blenny id ever seen, active, came up right to the glass when you walked by, bright neon markings on his face... Ive kept Starry blenniess and lawnmower blennies, so I figured what could be the difference.
Almost a week later exactly I caught him snacking on my Duncans and Montipora. After an hour of trying to catch him and taking all the rock out of the tank, it was back to the store with him
Ended up getting a really tiny yellow watchman goby as a replacement and he is happily sitting in my tank now.

Now just to see if the Monti and Duncan are going to make it, the back of the Monti is almost scraped clean, but the front of it seems fine- stressed but fine... the duncan is in worse shape but he still has a mouth, im thinking with some spot feeding itll come back.

Equipment

After dealing with some annoyingly cloudy water and some ammonia that just will not go down I decided that the Finnex breeder box was a failure as a filter. For a low flow refuge, possibly a winner but there is just no way you can get enough flow pumping through it to make it a worth wile filter. Went to the store to get some mice for my snake and they happened to have Aquaclear 50's on clearance! Picked one up , modded it to make the chambers and guard across the front and voila. My water has been 10000x clearer and amonia is starting to finally go down.

In other BIG BIG NEWS!! This tank will offically be a NanoBox tank! As of two days ago Ive placed my order with Dave for a White and Seafoam green Tide with the moonlight upgrade

Photos

Not much to show, BF let me borrow his nice camera but I have no idea how to use it so these are the only ones that were usable out of like 40

 

[Linilou]

Well! Its been a little while since I posted anything here. I have been waiting on the new lights to come before I did anything more with the tank and ... THEY ARE HERE!

 

Im not going to show any pictures of them right now since they are ghetto rigged over the tank, Dave shipped my Mini Tide with out the hanging hardware by accident, but once its nicely hung ill add photos of it over the tank!

 

But enough of that, here are some updated photos!

 

 

All taken with my phone, so sorry for the weird colors and bad quality, a nice feature on the Tide is I can switch the lights to manual mode and actually take photos of the tank that aren't just blue blobs.

 

The Duncan is finally showing some life after being 70% eaten by the Blenny, saw some of his little tentacles popping out the other day, but sadly none were out for this photo.

 

The clown and Goby are happy- got the goby a randalls pistol shrimp and never saw it again, they didnt even pair up. 25$ down the tubes- but thats what I get for putting them in the tank at seperate times.

 

Going to go to the store and see what they have tonight, the tank looks SO bare, need to start filling it in!!

[Linilou]

The Tank being bare was really getting to me, so I swung by the LFS on my way home from grocery shopping, spent way more than I had planned on but got some nice stuff.

 

Mystery SPS, Free- has some missing tissue on the back so the store gave it to me with the other corals.

Purple Torch, 40$, this is about half extended, when it was 100% open it starts to get pretty close to the monti and frogspawn... well see how things go....

 

Got this new rock of green zoanthids 10$, has a mystery LPS on it and a clam too!I should have waited till everything was less pissed off to take the pictures but hey

Hind sight 20/20

[reefernanoman]

Looking good.

[Linilou]

Looking good.

Thank you!

 

I should have some new photos up by the end of the day. Interestingly enough now that I'm looking at old photos it's seemed everything's really browned out... Might have just been my old lights were crappy but I'm not sure. Hopefully everything will start coloring up il soon with the new lights. Does anyone have any suggestions on light aclimation for the new lights? I currently have them at 162 blue and 82 white is that to low/high?

[Linilou]

 

Went to the store yesterday looking for some montis and rics, ended up getting a great deal and got all these plus a two mouth blue ric and a 50gallon bag for reef crystals for $60- going back again today since its 20% of Eyuphys and nems tonight.

 

Pretty excited since one of the workers said he would bring in some stuff from his tank for me if I came in tonight, and his tank is pretty amazing.

[Linilou]

 

New BTA! My LFS was doing 20% of nems and the guy that I talked to ordered me in some gbtas so I could nab a small one. The speckling on this is absoutley to die for I could not be more happy <3!! plus, 32$ isnt bad. It seems to be happy enough, crammed its foot into a hole in my rock work exactally where I wanted it to be so hope it stays there.

 

 

The first monti that I got is finally starting to move onto the surrounding rock, and interestingly enough where the original peice is having a really hard time coloring up, the new flesh and polyps are purple/green.

 

 

Moved the frogspawn again, since the nem went where it used to be, hopefully itll be happy where it is.... not to sure I like it tho...

also a shot of the emerald crab clown goby and the new Rics, got them off the frag plug and im hoping thell stay where they are.

 

The zoas still arent coloring up from when I had the old LEDs, im thinking they might just literally be brown... eugh.

[Linilou]

Alright~ im starting a little experiment to try to get some of my corals to color up again, and avoid bleaching out my sps.

I think Ive been running my LEDs way to high and im trying to dial it down.

 

Im following the instructions in this post

 

and adjusted my lights to

 

100 blue 52 white... so hopefully that will help out.

[Linilou]

Hey guys, I know I haven't posted here in almost 8 months but I wanted to post a little update to get me back on track. I moved in December and between a new house car job and tank things have been pretty crazy. I need to go through and fix all the broken image links but in the mean time have a teaser update on some growth. These are somewhere between May/June to today.

[Linilou]

Got around to updating the original post to better reflect the current tank, and I put a temporary FTS up until I can grab a better one.

 

Pretty much right now there is good news and bad news,

The good news is I just found out im getting a WP-10 Wavemaker as a birthday present so I am very excited, and im also picking up a Nano box Duo as a present to my self,

as far as the bad news is concerned I found out I have some Monti eating Nudis. Im trying to get as many out as I can see but I know there really isnt anything I can do about it. My fault for not dipping. :/

Also found out that the person that I rent from hasn't replaced the membranes in our RODI unit ever, (so at least a year) which helps explain this hair algae that I can not get rid of. Ive been going crazy trying to figure out what was causing it and I even cut way down on feeding but turns out it most likely is the water. She says that she has no idea how to do it and I don't really know either so I guess Ill have to research that and have her buy the replacements. Fingers crossed this goes well.