H20's Nano-Reef AquaPod 24

[H20]

New Corals:

 

 

I have added a few new corals, and they have been in there for a couple of weeks, I have just been too lazy to post about them.

 

 

Yellow Polyps:

 

 

 

Green FrogSpawn:

 

 

 

Ricordeas: (I had the orange one before, but since have added two greens, a blue, and a turquoise (the bright blue on the left).

 

[H20]

New Frag Rack:

 

I ordered one of these from a fellow Nano-Reef.com member. It is a neat little rack that can be used on the side of your tank to hold frags. I got a small one that I am going to put some frags on that will get them up near the lights to grow a little faster, and will be out of the way of renegade crabs and snails, and won't take up room on my substrate for the time being. Also, it can be used to light acclimate new coral, as you can move the rack up and down the tank wall. The magnets that are inside the tank seem to be sealed in acrylic or something, as well as having the eggcrate sealed into the acrylic-type part too. This is black eggcrate and not painted black.

 

 

Here is his website:

http://www.mag-racks.com/index.htm

 

 

The 'small' version is shown here, and for the time being I set a reef disc on it with some pink zoas that I fragged myself.

 

 

[H20]

Some Miscellaneous pictures:

 

 

Random things:

 

My Chateo that is doing great, and needs to be trimmed

 

 

 

My Acan frag that is coming back. For awhile there, I thought I was going to lose it, as it was always flat and starting to recede and show skeleton. I moved it up in the higher light, giving it cyclopeeze to eat, and using a better salt mix that may have better or more trace elements. I switched from Catalina boxed Natural Sea Water that I had been using from the start, to now using Red Sea Coral Pro Salt, and making it myself over the past few weeks. I have noticed that my corals are doing better and growing faster. The Acan frag is starting to cover it skeleton back, and is starting to puff up more.

 

 

 

An Asterina Anomola Starfish. I had about 6 or 7 of these a couple of months ago, but removed them from the tank, as I heard they can multiply out of control and become a nuisance. I just found a new one, and decided to leave him in there to see what happens.

 

 

 

My 'Tubs Blues' looking pretty good. I thought about fragging them, but everyone says they grow so slow, that I decided against it and will leave them alone for awhile.

 

 

 

A 'Sponge' that seems to be growing on the back of one of my live rocks.

 

[xADUBx]

Time for a new FTS?

[H20]

Near Disaster:

 

 

Well, I had a close call today while cleaning my tank. I was scrubbing the walls and accidentally knocked up against one of the rocks that is on top of my aquascape, and loosened it up. I was standing next to the tank doing something, when I heard a rumble and out of the corner of my eye, I see a big 2-3 lb. rock tumbling down from the top of my 'scape. I somehow saw it in slow motion but couldn't do anything about it. It fell off, and on its way down, smashed one of my favorite zoa cluster, a blue mushroom, and landed on top of the colony of Trumpet coral at the bottom. Also, the neon green and orange zoas that were on top, took the trip down and was under the big rock after all was settled. My yellow polyps took half of the brunt of the collision too. The FrogSpawn that was on top of the tumbling rock, went tumbling down with it and landed updside down in the sand.

 

I acted fast and grabbed my bone cutters and tried to salvage what I could from the damage. The big rock that fell sheared off a few heads of the Trumpet coral and damaged many more. I cut off the ones that were damaged beyond repair, and some of the other heads were broken off as well, but I think I can save most of those. I moved the big blue mushroom to the substrate and tried to save the baby one that had just sprouted up in the last week. I took what was left of it and glued it to a frag plug. We will see how tough these things really are....lol I put the broken off heads from the Trumpet coral on my new frag rack for now to see how they fare before I mount them. My zoa cluster looks to only have a couple of heads damaged but it doesn't look like anything it can't bounce back from. The orange and green zoas seem to be ok, only 1 head looks slightly hurt, but should heal. All in all, nothing really bad came out of the ordeal, except losing 3 Trumpet heads. They were smashed and torn beyond repair. The Frogspawn came out ok, and is now mostly opened.

 

The saving grace in this whole ordeal was that at the time that this occurred, I happened to have my HOT Magnum canister filter hooked onto the side of my tank and running, since I was about doing a water change. When the rock fell, all manner of junk and debris kicked up from the rock as it fell, and from the substrate as it took the impact. As the corals got smashed, all kind of coral warfare/sliming started. Strands of slime and gunk coming off alot of the corals. The HOT Magnum had this mess cleared up in short order. Within an hour, you could not tell that anything had happened. I have been a big proponent of the Hot Magnum in the past, and this only makes me love it more. It is invaluable to me in times of emergency in these small tanks. I love it for cleaning after turkey basting the rocks, re-aquascaping, polishing the water, and emergencies like falling rocks

 

At any rate, here are some pics of the casualties.

 

 

The new blue mushroom that got destroyed. I am hoping their toughness will save this little head.

 

 

 

The Trumpet Coral heads that got broken off. I think they will pull through.

 

 

The Pink Zoas that got smashed. Surprisingly, most of them have now reopened as you see here, with just a few that look hurt and a few in the back that are still shut.

 

 

The Fatality:

 

 

 

 

All in all, it could have been worse. During my tank cleaning in the next week or so, I plan to use a couple of wads of epoxy to make sure my rocks on top are staying together, so that this doesn't happen again, or at least reduces the odds.

[H20]

Time for a new FTS?

 

 

 

Sure. This is about an hour or so after the 'falling rock' incident, so I have corals just laying about here and there in the open to recover. Also, I feel like the bright white sand has washed out some of the colors in my tank in the picture, but you get the idea. I hope to one day be a camera expert like some people here on the forums.

 

 

[GobyDude]

I love this thread. You're tank is absolutely stunning (even after the falling rock). Keep up the good work.

[spanko]

Ah you were in auto frag mode huh? Well looks okay though. You did a good job of cleaning up after the quake. All is good!

[H20]

2nd Tank:

 

I have started a 3g Pico tank that my wife gave me for my birthday. I am starting a separate thread for it as not to clutter the two tank threads together.

 

Link:

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...=0#entry1404835

 

 

[klarion]

New Frag Rack:

 

I ordered one of these from a fellow Nano-Reef.com member. It is a neat little rack that can be used on the side of your tank to hold frags. I got a small one that I am going to put some frags on that will get them up near the lights to grow a little faster, and will be out of the way of renegade crabs and snails, and won't take up room on my substrate for the time being. Also, it can be used to light acclimate new coral, as you can move the rack up and down the tank wall. The magnets that are inside the tank seem to be sealed in acrylic or something, as well as having the eggcrate sealed into the acrylic-type part too. This is black eggcrate and not painted black.

Here is his website:

http://www.mag-racks.com/index.htm

The 'small' version is shown here, and for the time being I set a reef disc on it with some pink zoas that I fragged myself.

 

Cool Little Rack and useful too. Thanks for the link. I'll keep it in mind for the future. Also looking forward to the Pico thread.

 

Question. How are your corals liking the new lighting? It looked like your lamps were switched from blue 7100k's to True Actinics 03s.

[c est ma]

+ 1 on the frag rack. SO much better looking than the white eggcrate with props, etc.

 

--Diane

[H20]

Question. How are your corals liking the new lighting? It looked like your lamps were switched from blue 7100k's to True Actinics 03s.

 

 

That is a good question. One that I have thought about, and I have two thoughts on that. My corals are doing great. Better than they have ever done. They look fuller and are growing faster. About the same time that I added the new lights, I also started using a new salt. I used to use the boxed Petco Catalina natural salt water, and it worked great but got a little pricey, and I got tired of lugging those boxes home. So now I am making my own, and am using the Red Sea Coral Pro salt mix. I am thinking that the Red Sea Coral Pro has more nutrients/trace elements in it, as well as a better calcium profile. So I am not sure if it is the lights or the new salt mix, but I can tell a difference, and it is for the better. Maybe it is both.

[addam4208283]

tank looks great. you have a lot of nice stuff in there. sorry about the loss of your fish.

ADAM

[xADUBx]

How is the new Emerald Crab working out? Has this one started picking at your corals?

 

I have been hesitant to get one but I am stopping at a LFS on the way home tonight and might pick one up if they have one. I'm sure each crab has a different personality, some are just more devious than others.

[H20]

How is the new Emerald Crab working out? Has this one started picking at your corals?

 

I have been hesitant to get one but I am stopping at a LFS on the way home tonight and might pick one up if they have one. I'm sure each crab has a different personality, some are just more devious than others.

 

 

So far, this one has been great. I have not seen him doing anything unruly, and he seems well behaved. He is still pretty small, so I will have to watch him as he gets bigger. I would recommend starting with the smallest one at the LFS. I have seen some really big ones at the stores that would make me nervous.

[c est ma]

+1 ...I'd also recommend getting a female if they'll go to the trouble of looking...

 

--Diane

[xADUBx]

Thats what ill do then, find the smallest one they've got.

 

Diane...how do you tell the difference between male and female emerald crabs? just curious

[H20]

Thats what ill do then, find the smallest one they've got.

 

Diane...how do you tell the difference between male and female emerald crabs? just curious

 

 

If I remember correctly, this applies to the Emeralds as well.

 

http://www.lpsteamers.com/sex.html

[spanko]

Yup that is definitely phallic on the bottom of the male!!!!!

[c est ma]

It's easy to remember...

 

Great link, H2O!

 

--Diane

[Nick's Reef]

tank looks good, my ap24 is having a ton of problems do to not enough rock hopefully ill get it all straitened out soon

[sephroth_r1]

Just finished reading through this thread, and I love what you've done!

 

Most reefers on here get lax on updates, but your a different breed by far! Your constant attention to detail and much more WILL pay off! I love that someone goes and posts all their external research that they do. It is very helpful to all the new people that come and find this thread, hell I vote this thread get's sticky'd for future refrence to new people!!!

 

I congratulate you man of the reef, for your undying love of such beauty! Keep it up!

 

As a side note...

 

In the wild rocks fall, storms surge and break apart coral/damage them. Its how the ocean naturally propagates coral and creates new life. So I wouldn't worry to much about the Candy Cane (trumpet) coral, or the zoo's. Those are both EXTREMLY hardy corals that do well in some of the worst conditions. From your FTS it looks like your corals are still all VERY happy and have a fantastic home!

 

Happy Reefing!

[Krayon]

hmm havnt looked at this thread in a while and i must say your tank is still amazin 8) cant wait to see ur 3 gal pico up and runnin

[sephroth_r1]

Seeing those little ones makes me wish I would of kept my 2g picotope!

 

I made some dude happy tho by selling it to him cheap (plus his g/f was HOT)

[H20]

A few new things:

 

 

I have acquired a few new corals, actually 3 new ricordeas, and 7 new zoa/paly frags. The inlaws gave me a gift certificate to the LFS for my birthday, so that was nice! I only have a few of them pictured here, as I need to move some of them closer to the glass to get decent pics. I will follow up with the other pics soon.

 

 

I have been looking around for a yellow ricordea, and finally saw one today at the LFS. On the same rock was an awesomely bright orange one.

 

 

Also picked up a rainbow colored one. If you look close you can see purple, blue, orange, and green.

 

 

'Armor of God' Zoas:

 

 

'Amazon Blue'

 

 

 

 

 

I also have 5 other zoas/palys that I need to post, but will have to get some good pics first. Update soon.

 

 

Updated FTS:

 

 

 

I have frags scattered all over my tank, , but should get them all in order next week when I am on vacation. I have also made some of my own Trumpet coral frags (3), zoa frags (2), and GSP frags (3). I also fragged something that almost looks like SPS off a live rock, and will post some pics of it when it grows a bit to see if we can identify it.