Nidding's drop - gone soft

[CronicReefer]

 

Hahaha. Yeah, I just want them DEAD! My emeralds seem to be digging in on the ones that I still have in my tank. Great little critters, them crabs!

And thanks I'll probably be adding some more zoas along the way. Always on the lookout for a cheap piece with great colours

 

There sure are some great drop offs out there. I'd just say go for it!

 

And thanks for dropping by my thrread

Agreed! My bubble algae issue is maintained by my emerald crab as well along with my weekly siphoning. I'll be looking for pictures of those new zoas .

[nidding]

Royal Dottyback is being a giant douche and I suspect it's the onbe who keeps nipping holes in the tailfin of the pygmy angel

Got this photo of the bastard for a salesthread on a local forum

DSC_1951-4 by jonas_sandager, on Flickr

 

Beautyful and interesting fish though. A shame to have to let it go.

[nidding]

And out went the dottyback. Pygmy Angel looks rather relieved.

[nidding]

After the dottyback moved out, the angel has recovered nicely.

 

Also some new additions to the tank: 10 assorted snails, a six line wrasse, a baby clown to pair up with my old one and a peppermint shrimp to get rid of the few aiptasia I haven't been able to kill off.

 

Everything, apart from one snail, seems to be doing great. The snail is still laying on the sand. But I'll let it get a little time to acclimate itself and see if it makes it

[zoaddict]

Nice drop off Nidding, I have had a couple now

[nidding]

Nice drop off Nidding, I have had a couple now

Thanks

I've seen yur thread before and am really impressed with your drops. Some of the best I've seen Thanks a lot for stopping by. I hope one day my drop will be able to compare to yours.

[nidding]

Two potential troublemakers that I so far love to have in my tank

DSC_2179-Edit by jonas_sandager, on Flickr

DSC_2178-Edit by jonas_sandager, on Flickr

And my monticap is starting to show some growth

DSC_2180 by jonas_sandager, on Flickr

 

Still fighting off the red turf, and am making bidaily water changes to suck out some algae. The progression is starting to become clearly visible

[Juuls]

wow what a tank, if I can keep mine alive my next tank has to be like this, a great design and great colours, I have not seen a tank quite like yours before.

[nidding]

wow what a tank, if I can keep mine alive my next tank has to be like this, a great design and great colours, I have not seen a tank quite like yours before.

I'm very honoured that you think so There are more drop tanks on this forum, some of which, Ithink, are way more impressive than mine. Search for 'drop' and they will be there

Ask questions on here and I'm certain that your tank will thrive

[Odyssey350kc]

Awesome tank! I love it when people think outside of the box with tank shapes.

 

I had a sixline for about a year, and never had any problems with him, he would pester my pistol shrimp every once in a while but he would just shoot him with his pistol claw and he would swim away. Hopefully you will have good luck too.

[nidding]

Awesome tank! I love it when people think outside of the box with tank shapes.

 

I had a sixline for about a year, and never had any problems with him, he would pester my pistol shrimp every once in a while but he would just shoot him with his pistol claw and he would swim away. Hopefully you will have good luck too.

Thank you for stopping by And I'm happy that you like my tank.

 

I really hope it will stay well behaved as well. The same goes for the pygmy angel. And the bicolor blenny

[nidding]

Just ordered a new light today. One of those cheap 165 watt full spectrum ebay units. Pretty excited to see how it'll look. From what I've read the last couple of days these lights give out a lot of light and should look quite decent as well.

 

Also, the red turf is still diminishing. If things continue like they do now, I think it might be time for a new FTS in a few weeks

[nidding]

Got a new light over the tank

Though the gadget factor for this light unit is very close to zero, I really like the look of the tank in this light. Really gets out the colours

Tried to capture a video. Not too good, butt I hope you get the idea.

(disclaimer: I'm still working on the algae issues, so you'll have to excuse the messy state of the tank and the patches of algae. It's going away, but only slowly)

[nidding]

So, the turf algae is receding nicely, though I still have a few bad patches. But this has had me wondering what to do next. I've purposefully kept the tank in a state of not being overfed. I've been feeding half a cube of frozen every other day and some flakes the others, and have been dosing some salifert coral food every morning. Nitrates a testing a clear zero, and I suspect phosphates to do the same (have just ordered a testset). Though I'm feeding my corals and also feed the fish somewhat roundhandedly, the corals still seem somewhat starved to me.

A thing that puzzles me a bit, is that I still don't see any disolved nutrients now that the algae has started to decrease. I am both running a skimmer, an algae scrubber and a GFO reactor, so maybe that is why.

I'm thinking that I should up my feeding now, to keep the corals and fish happy, since it seems like my system can take care of the added load.

What would you guys do?

[nidding]

New FTS

DSC_2377 by jonas_sandager, on Flickr

 

As can be seen, the algae are still present in the tank. It has been a whole lot worse though, and it is still improving. Everything looks a bit sad at the moment, I suspect due to the aggressive algae fighting. I hope I will soon be able to focus on getting corals to grow and look good

[nidding]

Finally got myself a proper phosphate test, which coincides with my first measurement of NO3 that gave out a colour.

Thus my values are

 

Salinity: 35ppt

NO3: 2.5

PO4: Somewhere between 0.05 and 0.075

KH: 7.0

Ca: 380

Mg:1440

Temp: 26.3 C

PH: 7.7

 

I have notched feeding down a bit, since I was feeding rather heavily. I hope this will stabilize nutrients. Also I've just started dosing kalk via ATO. Thus I need to get that dialled in, and will aim for KH, Ca and PH just a little bit higher.

 

The tank seems to be finding some sort of equilibrium, at least judging from the last few weeks. The turf algae is still present, but seems to be under control by my herbivores. I don't mind a little algae, as I do believe it's a natural part of the reef, so I will try to stabilize the tank as it is now, and see if I can get it just where I want slowly.

 

More to come...

[dpoltsdsu]

How do you like the pygmy angel? Has it nipped anything? I'm thinking of getting one when my Melanurus Wrasse outgrows my reef

[CrazyEyes]

Maaaaaaaan, I want a drop off so bad. Such an awesome looking setup you have.

[nidding]

How do you like the pygmy angel? Has it nipped anything? I'm thinking of getting one when my Melanurus Wrasse outgrows my reef

I friggin' love it! I can't really pinpoint what it is about it that I like so much. I mean, it has nice colours and a nice swimming pattern, but still there's something more to it. A great little fish.

Unfortunately it decided to start munching on my hot orange fungia. For not I have let the doubt come to it's benefit, and swapped the fungia for some other corals. Hopefully the angel will keep off the corals from now on.

Maaaaaaaan, I want a drop off so bad. Such an awesome looking setup you have.

Thank you very much

Just go for it, dude! You wont regret it

[nidding]

...and we need more drops!

[ml86743]

What an awesome tank! I really like the drop! TOTM...easily.

[nidding]

What an awesome tank! I really like the drop! TOTM...easily.

Very kind of you Thank you.

 

Hehe. TOTM... Maybe in a few years when it has grown in nicely

[CrazyEyes]

I know but then Id have to explain to the ole lady why Im building another tank when I have one that doesnt even have water in it yet. Maybe I'll just do it, forgiveness is easier to obtain than permission. Did you build this or have it built? Are are the dimensions of it? If I missed those last two questions sorry.

[ml86743]

Very kind of you Thank you.

 

Hehe. TOTM... Maybe in a few years when it has grown in nicely

I think it looks great as is...In a couple of years? It would be pure gold. Keep up the good work! Im def gonna follow along

[nidding]

I know but then Id have to explain to the ole lady why Im building another tank when I have one that doesnt even have water in it yet. Maybe I'll just do it, forgiveness is easier to obtain than permission. Did you build this or have it built? Are are the dimensions of it? If I missed those last two questions sorry.

Haha. I can see your problem there. Eith the ever rising amount of buckets and hoses piling up, I suspect my wife has stoppet counting. Could be your way out, just with tanks instead of buckets

 

The tank itself is just a regular 120 litre tank. I put in the shelf myself with glass baffles underneath to support the weight. It's the easiest way to construct a drop, I believe, but obviously there are limits with this approach, and the space wasted under the shelf quickly gets big, as the drop gets bigger. For this size tank, I think it is wasted well, as the water volume I miss out on is not much more than 3-4 gallon.

 

I think it looks great as is...In a couple of years? It would be pure gold. Keep up the good work! Im def gonna follow along

In my eyes it really needs to grow in. I have plans for a digi "forrest" on the top of the drop and hopefully I will get corals to fill every inch of rock one day. Then maybe we can talk about TOTM But thanks. It makes me very proud when people likes my tank, so I appreciate it very much I'll try my best to keep the thread updated and post some pics.