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TeenyReef's 4g PicoParadise


teenyreef

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quite unfortunate to hear about the gobies

Thanks - the Rusty Goby is still there. I had to feed him just to make sure since he's usually hiding upside down under a rock somewhere.

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I finally got an FTS after moving into the CAD Lights 4g. A few days ago, I trimmed off the one red mushroom that was touching the Favia and let him drift to find a new home. Today, he ended up in the Duncan. The Duncan swallowed him up before I could get him out. About an hour later the Duncan spit what was left of the mushroom back out, which explains why he's pissed in this picture.

 

15577310510_2d33aacd49_b.jpg

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Big day today! My new Nanobox Mini Tide arrived late last week and it's all set up now. And the PicO SkiM 2.0 Micro Skimmer I won in the contest the other week also showed up and is installed. omgomgomg

15768096351_d3cc9cc430_b.jpgDSC_0066 by TeenyReef, on Flickr

 

The light was in sunset mode when I took this picture. I'll get a better FTS tomorrow and work on some before and after pictures. As expected from what everybody else here has reported, the build quality of the Mini Tide is great, and the light it gives off is fantastic.

 

The Pico Micro Skimmer fit easily in the second chamber and I was able to route all the bits around the light fixture clamp. It was easy to set up and get started. It's making lots of bubbles and it doesn't look like it will take long to break in. This is my first experience with a skimmer so I'm looking forward to learning all about it.

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I haven't taken an updated FTS yet. When I first set up my tank, I bought Oolite sand because I didn't know better, and it's really been blowing around in this new tank with the lower return. So I used some of the leftover Seaflor Special Grade sand from my new 10g Fusion setup to replace the Oolite sand. I siphoned out most of the old sand, put in new water, added the new sand, and then did another water change to help with all the cloudiness. I also rearranged some of the corals on the sand bed to give them some more room to grow and to get the GSP out of the high flow area in the left corner.

 

Hopefully I will get an updated picture tomorrow after everything opens back up.

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how is this even a 4g tank?

you put my 9 weeks 8g to shame.

ha!

 

your little mini dendro is so cute.

love it! i believe it's a different type

than mine? but if you keep feeding it, it'll

keep growing!

 

i'm waiting for my own nano box light too!

it's supposed to be here today. hopefully tomorrow. :scarry:

 

(and i love your green banded goby!)

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Quick and dirty FTS. The Pico skimmer is breaking in nicely, and the Nanobox light is beautiful. The colors on the corals are already looking nicer.

15165654334_bf68b704e3_c.jpg

:wub: Everything about this pico.
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how is this even a 4g tank?

you put my 9 weeks 8g to shame.

ha!

 

your little mini dendro is so cute.

love it! i believe it's a different type

than mine? but if you keep feeding it, it'll

keep growing!

 

i'm waiting for my own nano box light too!

it's supposed to be here today. hopefully tomorrow. :scarry:

 

(and i love your green banded goby!)

Thanks! I do think it's a different type. I've wondered about that before but it's hard to figure out because they are all just "dendros", both the fat kind and the regular, as far as I can tell. When I first put it in the tank, I had to use a magnifying glass to see it will enough to feed it. At least now it's a little easier. It loves Cyclop-Eeze, and sometimes if I cut up a msyis shrimp really small it can take it. It's pretty funny to watch it's mouth stretch to swallow it :)

 

I see you're waiting for a new storm controller for your nano box - how frustrating! But it will be worth the wait.

 

I will definitely have to get a new GBG to replace they guy that went desk surfing last week. But I have to wait until I have other things to order so I can get my money's worth out of the shipping costs.

 

:wub: Everything about this pico.

Thanks, Gena :rolleyes:

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It's funny how one thing leads to another when you start doing routine maintenance. It's Water Change Sunday, which is really easy in a 4g tank. But after I scooped out a gallon of water, I decided I really needed to put a few drops of hydrogen peroxide on the last little bits of purple hair algae I've been fighting for the past few months.

 

So I drained most of the water so I could get down to where the PHA was and while I was taking care of that, I noticed a few new vermetid snails, so I got the superglue out to seal them up.

 

While I was doing that I decided I might as well rearrange a couple corals since I had the superglue out, since the rics have grown so much that they are touching several other corals. I moved a couple acans to the sand bed and moved the yellow scroll coral up in it's place. I also had a couple of brown looking mystery zoas that weren't doing anything right next to the rics, so they got moved over to the bottom zoa rock.

 

While I was doing that, the GSP got knocked loose from the bottom, so I had to reglue it. And while that was going on, I decided I needed to reglue the Idaho Grape monti since the snails kept knocking it over. And while I was doing that, I managed to break it in half :angry: So now I have two smaller frags of that monti. But at least they're mounted securely now.

 

And finally, I trimmed another red mushroom that was going to war with the red millepora. Those red mushrooms are pretty much impossible to cut out as they are attached deep in the rock. All I'm really doing is making more of them every time I try to remove one. Anybody know how to get rid of them?

 

Needless to say, everybody in the tank is pissed off, but the new arrangement should give a little more room for everything to grow. Now I just need to be patient while everybody recovers from the stress.

 

Just for the record, here's a very unbeautiful shot to record what it looks like when everybody is pissed:

 

15189523964_b58e2684c3_b.jpg

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Nearly everything looked great 24 hours later. The Idaho Grape monti that broke in half is still healing up, especially since I got some super glue on it while I was dorking around with it.

 

The only problem I'm having now is that when I glue things to the glass bottom, they don't stick well. Not sure if it's my technique or just something about the glass. The acans I moved to the bottom have already been dislodged by snails and are just sitting in the sand. They're nestled in right next to the rocks so they aren't moving around, though, so I'm not going to mess with them until I have to.

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Wow, your tank still looks good when everybody is pissed...

 

I love your tank and can't wait to see how epic it will look when all of those corals calm down again. You need to make a gif of pissed corals switching to happy corals. I am sure your new scape is going to be a show stopper.

 

Gorgeous tank, thanks!!! :)

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No gifs yet :)

 

But I did spot what looks like a couple of baby dwarf cerith snails on the front glass tonight after lights out. I've never had baby snails in all the time I've had this tank. Since I just got a new close-up lens I thought this was a great excuse to take a couple pictures.

 

Baby cerith (about 1/8" long):

15662462949_e4046cd0c1_b.jpg

 

Adult dwarf cerith (about 1/2" long):

15662705917_eb56a33993_b.jpg

 

I have no idea what the hitchhikers are on this guy. There's also lots of growth on the glass, which I'm sure will eventually make for a fine dining experience for the rest of the inhabitants of the tank.

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I noticed tonight that somehow the skimmer tube slipped out of the bottle in back of the tank and has been dripping right onto the display panel of my Nanobox Storm controller :rant:

 

After carefully cleaning it up, it still controls the light properly, but even though the display is lit up, the characters aren't visible. I'm going to give it a day or two to dry out but I suspect I'll have to get with Dave or Coralux to get a replacement LCD panel.

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The Storm display was still messed up today, so Dave from Nanobox suggested I send Ben at Coralux an email to see if I could order just the display module.

 

Ben immediately emailed back (on a Sunday) and told me he would email me a new display module first thing on Monday at no charge! He wouldn't even let me pay for shipping. All this in spite of the fact that the damage was caused by my carelessness and had nothing to do with any quality problem with the product.

 

So if anybody is considering a Storm controller, I can tell you that their customer service is absolutely above and beyond :wub:

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The red mushrooms that are front and center on the top rock have been getting out of control. They've been multiplying and growing larger by the day and have been generally terrorizing the red mille and the favia. They were an unkillable beginner coral for me when I first started the tank. If I had a larger tank, they'd be OK on a rock by themselves, but in this tiny tank they just aren't working out.

 

I've tried to control them by cutting out the ones that get too big and start touching other corals, but that just results in even more mushrooms as fast as I cut them out. So tonight I decided they had to go. While the water was low during the water change, I dripped boiling water on them several times. We'll see how it works.

 

I also moved the favia down to the sand so that it would be out of the way of the boiling water, just to be safe. It's also one of the few corals that hasn't really shown much growth in all the time I've had it, so I'm going to leave it down there to see if a little less light helps it do better.

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Operation Red Mushroomicide is mostly complete. There are a couple stubs that will have to be retreated but I think their former neighbors are already much relieved to have them gone.

 

I've been feeling guilty that the last FTS I have in this thread is when everybody was still pissed off. So here's an updated one. Other than the broken pieces of Gena's Idaho Grape Monti that are still recovering (hangs head), all the corals are doing well and have really gotten much bigger over the last month.

 

15872702722_a198189a12_b.jpg

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Operation Red Mushroomicide is mostly complete. There are a couple stubs that will have to be retreated but I think their former neighbors are already much relieved to have them gone.

 

I've been feeling guilty that the last FTS I have in this thread is when everybody was still pissed off. So here's an updated one. Other than the broken pieces of Gena's Idaho Grape Monti that are still recovering (hangs head), all the corals are doing well and have really gotten much bigger over the last month.

 

15872702722_a198189a12_b.jpg

Looks soooo good :wub:.
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