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Lazyfish's florida biotope: upgraded to 7g from 4g :Update 3/18/17


LazyFish

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I love my 10g im nuvo but I miss my dinky little 4g...

 

I have a 15g tall fw planted that has turned into a green mess my plants are out of control. I'm about to transfer the contents into my 55g community tank. I want to use the stand that it is on for the 4g.

 

I'm going to try & use mostly what I have on hand I don't want to spent too much getting this thing back up.

 

The tank is a finnex 4g. I chipped the rim ages ago so I will be using the same car door edge guard rubber stuff around the rim on this one as on my 10g nuvo for protection.

 

I have a spare AI prime that will be goose neck mounted for lighting

 

For filtration I am going to use an old Regent HOB with a surface skimmer attachment. The surface skimmer is a new addition I remember problems with the "oil slick" occasionally on my original set up. I hope this solves it. Using the stock filter pad with a small bag of chemipure blue behind the filter pad & filter floss stuffed in the outflow to pick up any particulate the pad misses.

 

This hob is rather old at least 15 years. I think last time it was used was on a 10g fwlro about 10 years ago. It's got so much mineral build up on it vinegar bath helped a little but.........Even if it's a little icky it still works.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I tried mounting the prime to the tank but I couldn't seem to get it tight enough it kept tilting from side to side. I tried attaching it to the HOB but it was too flimsy to hold it without warping. I decided to modify the stand to hold the light instead of mounting it on the tank. It worked like a charm. The surface skimmer is working but it isn't very strong but I suppose on a small tank it is sufficient. Now I am just waiting for the nano heater to come in.

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  • 1 month later...

Things have really set this tank back. The horrible floods here in Louisiana have delayed the addition of live rock but it was worth the wait. Unfortunately I did not take pictures of the unboxing. I received the live rock from Dale at gulfview last week. He was very understanding & held the order for me until I was able to receive it.

 

He checked off each thing I asked for. I requested that SOME kind of coral, any sort of star, cup, rose, gorgonians be included. Just as long as it had at least one coral in the shipment. He filled to the letter. I received at least two of each of the mentioned corals on the rocks some survived others did not. I was a little upset to see that a large rose coral arrived dead but I quickly found a small healthy one on another rock & it is thriving! :wub: I have seen the star corals recovering lost tissue & have improved in health the cup coral looks very happy as well. :D The 2 gorgs have gone into one of my other tanks with some of the other rocks and a gitant turkey wing clam. There has been alot of die off as expected I have been doing frequent water changes. Today have noticed an overall improvement in the tank. Despite the die off I have continued to find new things each time I look at the rocks. I just found a limpet on the glass today & a small snail! I am very satisfied with the rocks.

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same coral under different lighting. Camera can not capture all the true colors. To my eye it has hints of green blue & prach/orange on it.

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The baby rose coral detached from the rock when I was handling it it was placed in my 10g until this tank is more stable. The bubbles were from feeding & were expelled shortly after taking these pictures.

 

I have clams & sponges, cup & lesser starlet corals on the rocks in this tank with lots of types of macros. I see what looks like dead mans fingers, shaving brush, money plant & mermaids fan & others that I do not know. I plan to add a single rock flower nem possibly 2 masked gobies and some florida ricordia. Eventually if my gorgs recover I will frag one & add that as well.

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I added part of my cuc today. 4 dwarf cerith snails. unless I'm mistaken I think they can be found in some areas of Floridas cost. I've also found a small tube worm today a bristle cage worm & what looks like a small glass nem... <_< I haven't nuked it yet I hear there is a look alike that can show up on rock that is not actually a glass nem.

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Loving this tank! I'm in the process of setting up an 8 gallon nano using all stuff from Dale, he's a stand-up guy and certainly delivers the goods. Looking forward to seeing your system progress and mature.

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The tank is entering the ugly faze lots of yuck bi daily cleaning. Snails working overtime. I found some sort of red tunicate looking thing the size of my thumb that was very very dead & smelly. I removed it & red guck oozed out. I think this is where the smell I noticed was coming from. Something dead that size in a tank this small not good :unsure: I changed 75% of the water. Things look happier now. I'm seeing new growth on the macros nice new green shoots showing up! Pod explosion! I have little specks everywhere all on the glass running around looks like millions of the little things!

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Attempting an experiment here. I noticed a good bit of algae on the hob outflow. I placed some of that plastic crochet stuff in the HOB where it overflows into the tank. Hopefully it gets enough light here & I can perhaps have super simple a mini algae scrubber.

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Seems stable I added blade gorg frag last night all open looks happy. I just added the nem it's still not happy with me....

 

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Clipboard02_zps4bt3rdvy.jpg recovering!

Clipboard01_zpsvwlvkdlz.jpgThis guy is still in the 10g looks like its getting bigger & coloring up...whats with it half & half like that?

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I have redone the rock work & now everything is in the 4g including the rose coral from the 10g. I got my shipment from Kp Aquatics today! I will try to get some more pics when everything gets settled in but this was just too cute. I got a spotted anemone shrimp & she jumped right on my rock flower after about 10 min in the tank & is hosting them now & rocking happily back & forth & grooming them nems it is so cute! I also have a spiny orange gorg & some ricordia & various snails that I ordered. I was sent an extra gorg too a Beautiful purple one! SO nice!

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  • 1 month later...

The 4g sprung a leak near the top of the right seam.... It was a very slow leak. It was very sad the tank was doing quite well untill this. I think it may have been the combination of hob vibration and the weight of such a large one hanging on the back of such a small tank. It held up untill I was able to replace it. I upgraded to a aqua japan mj30 7g. Its an aio tank that looks very much like the im nano 10g. I reused all of the rock sand and water. It was a perfect fit. the aditional water was recycled from another tank. I also reused the ai prime on this tank and slaved its controls to my 10 g. So far So good. Fingers crossed.

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 The tank lives! I still have the shrimp & an emerald crab. I Ordered two masked gobies for this tank to go with my little neon goby. I thought 3 very small fish was doable but also kind of pushing it.....KP aquatics had other ideas & sent me 3 instead of two:lol:.... so there are four fish in here now:blink:. They all get along & they seem have been doing fine. I added some Rics a while back & I have two new babies. There are four gorgs in this tank now. The two purple blades get realy pissy with just about everything. They are about to shed at the moment so no polyps right now. The other two look great. They are are a spiny orange gorg that is always out & a large tan blade gorg that has grown quite a bit. The Rose coral looks amazing! it has nearly tippled in size now.

P1170489_zpsejqzjsrq.jpg I can not even say how much I love this coral! I wish I had gell filters to realy show how this things GLOWS!

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not a good picture I haven't cleaned the glass in a while & decided to stick my hand in about 10 min ago to move something but you can see how the tank looks.

 

wonder if a staff can move this to the biotope or aio section...not under 5g anymore don't thinks its still a pico....

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I absolutely LOVE what you are doing in this tank!!!

You have combined a couple of different things that I've been really interested in doing myself, so you have my attention!!

Do you still have either of the Anemones?

If not, what happened to them?

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The nems are fine. They are in another tank the shrimp loved them soooo much she harassed the snot out of them. They stayed closed all the time so I moved them. She sleeps the rose but it doesn't seem to care.

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Thanks! I realy like the gorgs too.  When the purple ones are not being stupid they are gorgeous. The smallest thing causes them to close up & it takes forever for them to re-open some times. The other two don't care nearly as much.

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:blink: i could not follow fast enough, this is too cool! I've wanted to get the same species of anemone shrimp for so long haha. I did read that the shrimp bothered the nems tho, and i can definitely relate... my white spotted anemone shrimp literally destroyed my 3 beautiful rainbow mini maxies and is now hosting my RBTA, sad thing for sure, but the strange thing is that my porcelain crab hosting my large green mini maxi doesn't harm it at all... they're weird

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  • 5 weeks later...

I found a new fish store today they seemed knowledgeable but told me something I'm not sure on. My rose came as a hitchhiker on cultured live rock. I thought this was the only legal way you may get one. He Told me that live rock sellers are actually supposed to cut them off any rock they are on and can not sell any rock that has one that happens to be growing on it...even there own cultured rock's....is he actually right? I thought I read that on cultured Florida live rock it was ok of one turned up as a hitchhiker. 

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15 hours ago, LazyFish said:

I found a new fish store today they seemed knowledgeable but told me something I'm not sure on. My rose came as a hitchhiker on cultured live rock. I thought this was the only legal way you may get one. He Told me that live rock sellers are actually supposed to cut them off any rock they are on and can not sell any rock that has one that happens to be growing on it...even there own cultured rock's....is he actually right? I thought I read that on cultured Florida live rock it was ok of one turned up as a hitchhiker. 

I'd be interested to learn the answer to this. I wonder if KP Aquatics would have any insight?

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  • 2 months later...

The tank is STILL going! I had to trade the shrimp to the lfs it picked a hole in my rose...not cool....I added a frag of Florida native zoas and moved some things around. The rose is recovering. Hope to add a Eva or two when my babies grow out.

 

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RayWhisperer

Just stumbled across this thread. So, a bit late.

Unless the laws have changed in the last 3 or so years, AFAIK, it's perfectly legal to harvest aquacultured rock, including anything growing on it.

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RayWhisperer

Just to elaborate, I believe it may be illegal to sell the coral, itself. Even if you acquired it through legal means. Selling the animal itself requires a CITES permit, as I understand it, which you will not get. So, enjoy your really cool coral.

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