ѕqυιяяεł'ѕ 10 gαł αgα

[squirrelieygrrrl]

Hey there fellow nano-reefers,

 

First off I would like to thank all of you who have taken the time to talk with me, and offer solutions to my problems, and questions. It has been greatly appreciated and well received. Finally, after much searching I have found my camera, and attempted to take some pictures so I can share them with you all. This tank has been set up as a salt water tank since about July of 07, originally it was a live breeder tank, that was upgraded to a 40 gal hex. With an empty 10 gal, and some ambitious ideas I took the plunge into the world of nano reefing. So here are some pics, there a little blurry and the quality of the images is'nt great, but hey! Its a start.

 

heres a revamped list of equipment and livestock

 

lighting - 150w sunpod w/ 20k bulb (cant remember the brand)

 

filtration - i use a rapids mini canister filter (rated for a 20gal) with chemi pure elite and azoo's active filter media balls, with a surface skimmer. im also running a prizm protien skimmer sporadically.

 

flow - i use a powersweep powerhead (im not sure what the gph is on it) with 80 micron filter cloth on it. the spray bar from the canister and the powerhead are at opposite ends of the tank. in an attempt to create an alternating current.

 

150 visitherm stealth heater

 

there is approximately 10lbs of live rock in there, and approx 10lbs of live fine grain sand.

 

 

livestock list

 

cuc

7ish blue leg hermits

1 scarlet hermit

1 halloween hermit

1 yellow leg hermit

3ish nass snails

 

inverts

1 "non commensal" pistol shrimp

10 christmass tree worms

 

softies

1 pulsing xenia colony

2 hairy green mushrooms

1 green/blue striped mushroom

5ish assorted mushrooms and babies

1 zoa colony, two colors; green/purple ones, and orange/green/purple ones.

2 polyps of some sort of redish zoa

1 orange ric

 

lps

1 pearl bubble

1 candycane (still remarkably just one polyp)

1 blasto muricata (also just one polyp)

1 colony of blasto wellsi 4 heads of red, and one healing polyp of purple

1 cyanaria

1 colony of branching hammer, 5ish polyps

1 small colony of red acan lords

1 small colony of blue/green favia

sps

1 green stylo colony

1 green slimer acro

1 alleged blue voodoo acro (that i think im killing)

1 pretty big encrusting green porties colony

1 tiny chunk of salmon/red monti cap

1 tiny chunk of alleged blue monti digi

1 chunk of psammocora

 

 

[squirrelieygrrrl]

and some more...

 

if i could figure out how to reduce the file size i would have posted them all on the same one...but alas, im a noob and this is my first time uploading pics on here.

 

 

 

 

[lakshwadeep]

Nice tank. Although, who wrote in front of the sand?

 

Your clam's colors are bright!

[big_fat_mushroom]

great start! i think you might need more flow though. (i assume u have the really small canister filter.) and that thing doesn't create a lot of flow so there could be some "dead spots" in the tank.

[Lalani]

Looks good.

[squirrelieygrrrl]

yet still more!

 

 

 

 

 

ok i think thats it for now.

 

thanks deep, haha, i wrote on the front of the tank. have you ever heard of the movie "what the bleep do we know''? they talk about the science of water and how positive words seem to have an effect on the waters properties. check it out and google it.

 

thanks you too mushroom,

 

it is a very small canister filter. but i also have a power sweep powerhead in there. so hopefully thats enough flow.

[squirrelieygrrrl]

thanks alot lalani,

 

for some reason i didnt see ur reply till now

[Smurf]

You lucky, starting out with a sunpod =P. I have a 28w.....check this out... =/

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=145342

[squirrelieygrrrl]

lucky how?

[Smurf]

20" sunpod.

[Phixion]

Hey Squirreliey, pretty nice tank you have there. I love the 2nd bright blue clam, keep up the good work!!

[squirrelieygrrrl]

thanks a bunch phixion,

 

the second pic is actually a top view of the same clam. im hoping i can keep up the good work so to speak.

[squirrelieygrrrl]

well nrers,

 

i have had a bit of a disaster. i had gone on vacation for a week about a month ago. my usual fish sitter came over to take care of things for me while i was gone. she had called me to check in and said that things looked 'great'.... so i assumed that every one was fine. well once i got home i realized that things weren't fine, in fact things were falling apart. i had asked her not to feed the tank while i was gone, but those cute little clownfish begging at the glass were too cute to resist. so she fed, and fed and over fed....and we all know what that does to a nr... sadly when i returned home both clowns were dead, the powerhead had siezed so there was little to no flow, and things were green... really really green. so green infact i couldnt see most of my corals. so i panicked and began to clean the glass. so i could see the state of my corals. things were not good. sadly my orange/purple ricordea was decaying, the xenia was shriveled up and there were bits of it all over the tank. in the sand, on the rocks, stuck in the filter. my prized crocea was gaping and had a torn mantle from gaping for so long. the others were simply just not looking so hot (an understatement). in an attempt to save things and prevent a further crash i carried out water changes for the past month every other day and tested. changed the chemi pure and crossed my fingers. about a week later the clam was completely dead, it was sadly being eaten by my hermits, despite my best efforts. one of my encrusting montis was gone as well, and the xenia was just barely hanging on. now a little more than a month after i returned from my vacation things are stable again, thankfully. out of the corals that are here in this post only the ricordea and the clam didnt make it. everything else survived suprisingly enough, even the falling apart xenia is starting to come back. it turned out to be alot of hard work and some heart ache. things were finally stable enough that i am able to start rebuilding. i have added 2 new eeney weeney false percs(1/2 in), a couple of mushrooms that came with a suprise candy cane as a bonus, 3 chunks of red plating montis (feebies from my lfs) and some sort of leather. ill update the pics on here as soon as i figure out how to set my camera to take some decent pics. so lesson learned albeit an expensive and rather painful lesson. the only good thing about the crash is that now i have an excuse to rebuild with different species. so there you all have it nrers, theres my over due update on my 10 gal journal.

 

~squirrel

[Lalani]

Yikes, so sorry about that! Glad you're making a comeback though.

[squirrelieygrrrl]

ok heres some new pics. first one is of my leather coral, its not open at the moment, when it does ill update it. i had to move it down to the sand because it was unhappy at its prior location. the next is a shot of the new mushroom/candy cane. the third is a close up shot of the smaller of the two mushrooms, its a little blurry because my camera is a pos. the following shot is of the larger of the two shrooms.

 

 

 

aw thanks a bunch lalani. much appreciated!

[dtfleming]

where's the clown pics

[squirrelieygrrrl]

more pics. nuff said! lol just kidding, the first is of the nw hitchhiker candy cane, i hope to nurse it back to health, and help it grow. the second is just a neat shot of one of my hermits, =P. next is a shot of the new freebie montis, along with my terrible gluing job (im still new at this whole gluing frags thing) and the third monti frag with yet another crappy gluing job. also a shot of one of the new baby clowns. and finally a shot of the tank freshly re-aquascaped, after the disastrous crash i decided to do a little rearranging.

 

ask and you shall receive dtfleming

[squirrelieygrrrl]

wow, i was just looking at all the other memebers tanks on here, and i really really suck at this...yeesh. its a tad discouraging. lets hope i can get my act together soon...

[HankB]

wow, i was just looking at all the other memebers tanks on here, and i really really suck at this...yeesh. its a tad discouraging. lets hope i can get my act together soon...

 

If you're talking about the highly visible two part, I would not worry. In time algae and coralline will cover it and it will blend in with the rock. At least that's what I keep telling myself. The other thing is to use as little as possible in the first place.

 

Now you just need to start using a third party photo hosting site so we can actually see your pictures in line!

 

HTH,

hank

[Phixion]

Wow, sorry to hear about the tank disater, Squirrelie! Not sure if you saw it, but on pages 11-12 of my 30g tank thread, I had an equally as disturbing tank mishap, though mine was total user eerror on my part unfortunately.

 

Good to hear your tank is making a comeback though!! I wouldn't say you suck at this though, even the best of them have catastrophic tank crashes. Keep up the good work!!

[squirrelieygrrrl]

If you're talking about the highly visible two part, I would not worry. In time algae and coralline will cover it and it will blend in with the rock. At least that's what I keep telling myself. The other thing is to use as little as possible in the first place.

 

Now you just need to start using a third party photo hosting site so we can actually see your pictures in line!

 

HTH,

hank

 

 

lol, well its good to know that the awful looking glue job will soon not be quite so apparent. also i tried using the loctite sparingly at first, but for some reason i just couldn't get the silly things to stick, not to mention that gluing onto the glass wasn't as easy as i had initially thought.

 

about the third party photo thing, i dont really know what it is, lol, or how to use it (technology isnt my thing) so maybe you can help me to understand what i need to do. do the pics not come up for others to see? im still learning! thanks a bunch hank

 

~squirrel

[squirrelieygrrrl]

Wow, sorry to hear about the tank disater, Squirrelie! Not sure if you saw it, but on pages 11-12 of my 30g tank thread, I had an equally as disturbing tank mishap, though mine was total user eerror on my part unfortunately.

 

Good to hear your tank is making a comeback though!! I wouldn't say you suck at this though, even the best of them have catastrophic tank crashes. Keep up the good work!!

 

lol, well now that i went back and legitimately re-read some of your thread, im sorry to hear about your livestock losses. its a real bummer. i was equally disturbed when i realized that there was no hope of saving my prized crocea....very sad indeed. but alas we live and we learn, and hopefully we move on and forward. or so i like to think anyhow.

 

many thanks for all of your support. as a serious n00b i can always use a little reassurance (a good pat on the back never hurts!) what can i say but im doing my best!

 

~squirrel

[Lizzie1324]

Sorry about the crash, but at least your coming back

The little clown is so cute, and I love those blue/purple shrooms. I've been looking for some of those but haven't found any that pretty

The third party photo thing is simple once you know how.

Just go to photobucket.com and make an account. Then you can upload photos to that site, and copy the image code( its the last one out of the four) and paste it into your post.

Then ta-daaa. No black frame around your pics

Its o.k, I'm a noob too

[squirrelieygrrrl]

Sorry about the crash, but at least your coming back

The little clown is so cute, and I love those blue/purple shrooms. I've been looking for some of those but haven't found any that pretty

The third party photo thing is simple once you know how.

Just go to photobucket.com and make an account. Then you can upload photos to that site, and copy the image code( its the last one out of the four) and paste it into your post.

Then ta-daaa. No black frame around your pics

Its o.k, I'm a noob too

 

 

lizzie,

 

thank you so very much! clowns are so adorable when there babies, the guy i got the pair from said they were bred in a 5 gal with an upturned flowerpot for the parents to lay the eggs on! amazing what will substitute for an anenome(sp?)! from what he told me there about a month old. don't cha just wish that they would stay that small?! i happened across the shrooms by mere happenstance. i was there looking for a new clam but what they had at the time wasn't really what i was looking for. so i opted for the shrooms and the leather instead. my lfs has a sweet discount rack of frags for $15 a piece! mostly because there so small, but for a nr its perfect. lucky me i guess! thanks for the tip about the third party thing. i had no idea! lol

 

~squirrel

 

ps: power to the noobs!

[Lizzie1324]

No prob. Can't wait to see the tank grow with mine. Yours is just a little older than mine, about a month.

Clams are awesome, but with the T5's it would need to be close to the top, and I don't have a good spot right now, plus my tank is still a little young for one.

Just have to wait for the MH

The fish are like puppies,lol. My clowns are about an inch long each, so they are still pretty small as well. MY LFS has one of those frag racks too, but for $20. haha. They are really small, but still cool. Last time they had a bright yellow Acro, but I wasn't ready for one yet.

My Stylo was $40. A bit pricey, but I love the colors.

 

P.S.I'm one of the world's worst spellers, and for the longest time I said anemone, anename. My dad had to correct me like 100 times before I got it.