goobafish Posted February 19, 2015 Author Share Posted February 19, 2015 My Octospawn split overnight, and my Zoas are growing like mad, this one has almost covered the whole slab it was on. Link to comment
goobafish Posted February 23, 2015 Author Share Posted February 23, 2015 All the coral is growing really fast, the anemone is getting some pinkish color back, things are looking good. Added a little Yellow Clown Goby to the tank, but after 24 hours he is still totally hidden (through not well i can see his whole body) under the same rock. He's breathing fine and every once in a while dashes out just to go back to where he was. Link to comment
LebaneseDlight Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 I love your stand. It fits perfectly on the NUVO 20, but it's not the stock stand. Was it custom? I doubt the stock lighting (Skkye 18) will be enough for that BTA. Everyone makes an emotional wrong buy at some point. Good luck with the BTA. Maybe it's your catalyst to buy a stronger light I thought I would just keep softies and lower light LPS and bought those Skkye lights for my NUVO 20, but quickly upgraded to a Nanobox Duo. Link to comment
goobafish Posted February 24, 2015 Author Share Posted February 24, 2015 Thanks, the stand was a great find. It fits like it's custom but I found it as a spare part at a small LFS that makes custom setups. I am not having any issues with the lighting, two Skkye 18s seem to be producing much more than I expected. The coral is growing at an astounding rate and the BTA keeps getting happier and happier. To be honest, my assumption was that I was going to have to add/replace the lighting to do harder corals and things like the BTA, but so far so good, I am really impressing with what the two lights are giving off. Link to comment
goobafish Posted February 26, 2015 Author Share Posted February 26, 2015 Switching things up a bit. The clowns weren't really my thing, they just swam bank and forth in the corner ignoring 90% of the tank, and ate like pigs. I gave the clowns a new home with another hobbyist and picked up a little green Clown Gobi. I am thinking that I will try a different type of clown, one compatible with the BTA, and maybe a gobi/shrimp pair. I much prefer the sneaky gobies that so interesting things than the clowns. I also discovered that what I thought was my Hammer Coral's mouth was actually barnacles attached to its skeletal structure. Althrough I read that they aren't harmful the opening they were feeding from was quite large and causing the coral to grow strangely. After many unsuccessful attempts at grabbing the barnacles while extended to catch food, I brought the hammer to the top of the tank exposing it to air and used a sharp pair of tweezers to pull the barnacle from the Hammer's skeleton, and then a turkey baster blast to remove all debris from the hole. There were about 4 fairly large barnacles living in there. Even overnight it has managed to mostly heal and seems to be slowly closing up the hole. I have found two other barnacles, one on the very side of my Frogspawn which doesnt seem to be affecting it, and one on a Zoa frag (on the live rock). I may remove them, I may not, it really depends on if I think they are causing the coral to grow funky. Link to comment
NeoClown Posted February 27, 2015 Share Posted February 27, 2015 Great looking tank. I too have the Fusion 20 and I was wondering how that Aqua Euro Nano Skimmer was working out for you? Link to comment
goobafish Posted February 27, 2015 Author Share Posted February 27, 2015 Haha, its funny, I was sure someone was going to ask and its a very hard question to answer because it is the first/only skimmer I have seen or used. To me, it seems great, it collects a bunch of gunk, and needs to be cleaned out every other day or so. It was really easy to setup, and it doesn't seem crazy sensitive to the water level/its height. It is also an absolute perfect fit. It isn't too loud and doesn't shoot air bubbles into my display (which I heard can be a problem with some nano skimmers). Is there any way to gauge the skimmer's effectiveness besides experience and eyeballing the skimmate? Link to comment
goobafish Posted February 27, 2015 Author Share Posted February 27, 2015 A few updates and some pictures: I picked up a Citron Clown Goby yesterday, quite a bit bigger than the Green Clown Goby, and a really nice fish. I saw the little Green guy for a second before he got spooked and has been in hiding ever since. I am thinking of grabbing a Watchman Goby/Pistol shrimp pair to add to the tank, and possibly one of the smaller clowns that host Bubble Tips (Barrier Reef, Fire, Fiji Barberi). Both my Nassarius and Trochus snails laid some eggs, and a ton of the Trochus eggs hatched. Most were scooped up the filtration and the fish, but I turned off the skimmer in time and it looks like a couple have gotten to be more than microscopic. I have found a lot of pests in the tank, and have bought a coral dip to start dipping my corals. I really wish I had done that in the first place, and also removed new corals from plugs/live rock. I have had mostly good luck, but some frags I have received have been algae covered. I found monti-eating nudibranch which was quickly removed, a small shrimp was also growing inside. Two little astrea starfish I found hidden on the live rock around my corals. Not really pests, but I have removed 10 barnacles so far from corals/live rock. I'm a little worried that my inexperience is going to make me miss a key pest that was put in there from someone else's tank, and I really should have dipped/removed plugs in the first place. My aquascape isn't really up working well, but I am anxious about moving things due to the Anemone. My lack of experience with coral placement kinda left me with an aquascape built for fish to hide (not great with a few gobies). I also didn't take into account cleaning the glass, and have some unreachable spots. I think before I stock anything else, I will re-do the aquascaping. To get the right angles on the rocks to accomodate corals I am going to either drill the rock and use PVC/acrylic tubing or epoxy it. I haven't decided how I am going to attach the corals yet. They will certainly be removed from the plugs they are on and glued to rubble, but I don't know if that rubble should be placed, glued, epoxied ect to the aquascape. I will likely do my Zoas/Palys on seperate islands off the aquascape. I also started testing Phosphate, Iodine/Iodide and dosing Iodine, Stromium & Molybdenum. Link to comment
goobafish Posted February 27, 2015 Author Share Posted February 27, 2015 Uh oh. Walked in at lunch to find my anemone either spitting out or eating a fairly large chunk of food, which he hasnt been fed in many days. Really hoping that isn't my little Green Clown Goby. Link to comment
goobafish Posted February 28, 2015 Author Share Posted February 28, 2015 Yep. Been 3 days without seeing him, and the Anemone is pooping way too big chunks. I suspect he got injured by the new Black Clown Goby then ended up in the Anemone's tenticles. I've found a ton of starfish around the tank, they seem to be breeding like crazy. Link to comment
goobafish Posted March 19, 2015 Author Share Posted March 19, 2015 More pictures! Going to update the first post with my new gear. Link to comment
goobafish Posted March 23, 2015 Author Share Posted March 23, 2015 Added a media reactor running Carbon + GFO, and added on a PAR38 full spectrum LED. Things are going great! Link to comment
goobafish Posted April 1, 2015 Author Share Posted April 1, 2015 I've had time to post pictures, but I haven't really had time to post about the changes I have been making and how it's been going. I just did a massive update to the first post as most of the contents in my tank have changed. From the aquascaping, filtration, lighting, to of course the inhabitants. Every piece of equipment has moved from where it was originally and the filtration is quite different . I just want to talk about some of my experiences so far with reefing and what led me to my new vision for the tank. This is my first reef tank, and my original goal was to have bright and beautiful corals with a few fish that do not bother the corals. The way I see the tank and my goals for it have shifted drastically, and I am finding I dislike things I thought I would enjoy and appreciating things I didn't think I would. When I first got the tank I was so keen to fill it with corals, and having never really browsed the saltwater section at the LFS, I didn't really have any fish I was particularly keen on. After lots of research I had a dosing regiment that really worked well for the tank and the corals saw a ton of growth. My tank was a month old and the majority of my corals grew visibly day to day, including chalice (which seems to love my tank) and montipora. I was particularly lucky that my LR came from the sump of a LFS' dedicated SPS display (I did not know at the time) and entirely coated in coraline , my tank cycled in ~10 days and I cautiously added coral and a few snail. I think available information on cycling is quite poor, at least based on my experience with my two tanks. Tests should determine if a tank is cycled, not days. I have no idea why there are time frames attached to cycling, every rock is different, every tank is different. Since then I have had time to watch the tank, test it, deal with its problems and really see what I enjoy out of it. I quickly discovered a major error I made when starting this hobby, not dipping my frags (and i have lots of frags), and not dipping them appropriately. I think this is another area where there is way too little information on when you should dip, what you should dip with, and how you should treat dipped corals. Most things seem to be a matter of opinion or practice, and often people will not specify concentrations correctly, or forget to mention that some corals don't take well to certain dips, dip techniques (shaking vs powerhead/pump), or proper rinsing instructions. Also I have not read very much at all, if anything, or coral placement and flow after dips. If anyone has a good resource for this information I would love to see it, I have had to aggregate all my information from various sources and create my own concentration for my dips and determine which corals cannot be dipped in the following dips I do: Coral RX, Freshwater RO/DI, Iodine Freshwater RO/DI, Iodine Saltwater, Iodine Tea Tree Saltwater, Hydrogen Peroxide Saltwater (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT). Coral placement (lighting, flow) are also extremely sensitive depending on the dip you do and the reason you are doing the dip. A good example of this is treating a hammer/frogspawn type LPS with a bacterial infection using Iodine. After the dip their skeletal structure is exposed and weakened and an area of too high flow can cause the polyps to literally shear from the skeleton. It may seem silly to advanced reefers, but as someone who did a lot of research going into this, I had never heard about a)macroalgae being on frags, or that it has to be removed before going into the display. I have had to deal with invasive macroalgae of every kind due to not removing tiny pieces of it on frags, or not removing it properly. When you know to look for it, there is lots of information on removal and prevention, but it is something I wish I was aware of earlier. So my tank had incredible growth in a short period of time due to my dosing, but my equipment was too budgeted. My skimmer conked out and given the shape of the back compartment, it was very difficult to locate a skimmer. I spent all my time trying to solve the conked out skimmer problem, running around the city to every shop measuring skimmers, and eventually buying one and spending 2 days on it with a belt sander ) During this time the water started to get a little murky, and I failed to notice I packed my filtration too tightly. So my only real source of filtration was packed so tightly waster was barely flowing, I had no skimmer, I was dosing and feeding heavily, and the result wasn't good. A bacteria bloom started and I started losing snails. Without a way to really see inside the tank to take them out, I decided to try a UV filter until my skimmer finally came in. Sure enough, it cleared the water overnight and I was able to take out the dead snails, unpack the filter and bring the tank back to stability running two skimmers that didn't fit in the back compartment right in the main tank with foam on the intakes. It took me over a month and ordering it from 3 stores I finally got my skimmer in, and I couldn't be happier. I have barely needed to touch the thing to adjust it and its already skimming almost black. Really incredible. I decided that if I was going to buy corals and fish, I can't afford to invest my time like that into tweaking bad/faulty equipment, otherwise I am never going to get to enjoy them. The time really adds up, and if the work is tedious like adjusting a skimmer cup over and over, it is just a waste. That meant it was time for me to get more things like the new skimmer, that were easy and effective and that allowed me to look into a crystal clear tank even if I wanted some coral growth. So I went out and got: Ghost Skimmer Par 38 36w + Gooseneck (Beautiful full spectrum, hangs between my SKYEE lights) Jebao WP-4 to twin with my other one Dial-able UV filter pump to control flow rate MiniMax Reactor Desktop (pelleted carbon on the bottom, with GFO turning at the top) IM Custom Caddy #2 (Refugium top to bottom: foam, large section of cheato, small layer of live rock rubble, foam) Par 38 5000k w/ reflector for refugium lighting I will post some pictures later today and talk about how I see the tank going from here, which I hope is a little bit of a unique approach and some cool new fish that I have managed to find. Link to comment
goobafish Posted April 3, 2015 Author Share Posted April 3, 2015 My griessingeri goby in my pico tank got a couple friends today Link to comment
goobafish Posted April 5, 2015 Author Share Posted April 5, 2015 Right side: Chili Sponge Coral During the day: At night: Link to comment
goobafish Posted April 10, 2015 Author Share Posted April 10, 2015 So, I decided to clean house a little bit, just to make room for some new stuff. I sent all the fish who where damaging corals to a new home, and will be much more selective about what I add from here on out. All the Clown Gobies are gone, my lighting is upgraded, so my tank is finally SPS-safe. The only fish in there are the pair of Pygmy Wrasse and the Spikefin Goby, so I don't need to feed the tank fish food anymore, all copepods/rotifers. Here are some new SPS frags I picked up: Link to comment
goobafish Posted April 12, 2015 Author Share Posted April 12, 2015 My friend let me borrow two of his macro lens', this is the 50mm, am gonna try out the other later tonight. I need to get one of these. Link to comment
goobafish Posted April 17, 2015 Author Share Posted April 17, 2015 URL=http://s34.photobucket.com/user/goobafish/media/Reefers%20Anonymous/zoas_2.jpg.html][/url] Link to comment
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