5g ADA Rimless - 24 Months in

[dapellegrini]

scared the corals will ruin the hardscape

 

Funny you should mention that, because I am starting to have the same thought. I am going to start slow with a few tiny zoo colonies, CUC and a misc critter or two. I would like to use only corals that will help add to the aesthetic, without making things seem too crowded or losing the visual balance.

 

My project of the moment is going to be gluing some of these rocks together and trying to better arrange the equipment.

[Yurei]

Yah I would probably go more for zoas, rics/yumas, GSP, clove polyps and other lower growing stuff. Mostly softies I guess. And probably stay away from SPS because they'll just make their own hardscape.

[dapellegrini]

Well, short of upgrading to a drilled tank (perhaps my next project), I think this is as close as I am going to get to minimizing the hardware this time around. I am still playing with the wires, trying to keep them in a bunch. Basically now the heater is along the bottom/back of the tank when you can't see it.

 

 

 

Quick angle check and I think this is a bit better...

 

 

 

 

 

I added a little Monti Cap frag in front of the PH in hopes that will eventually hide things a little better.

 

While I had my hands in the tank I decided to use some AquaMend to glue some of the rocks together - and what a PITA! I don't know if there is a secret to that stuff or what, but ugh!

 

Rearranging things I noticed a couple more creatures that need ID'ed - I am guessing these are sponges:

 

 

And are these good Macro Algaes, or should I rip them out? Halimeda and something else?

 

[MrAnderson]

how much live rock is in there, and from where? a lot of brown on it and i'm wondering about the origin - and what is all that brown coating? is it the rock itself or diatoms?

 

also, what spectrum of light are you using?

 

adding corals at 2 weeks!? confident, arntcha?

[dapellegrini]

The couple of corals were freebies that I couldn't say no to...

 

There is 8lbs of LR in there and 10lbs of LS. The LR was 6lbs of "Premium Cured Tank Rock" @ $10/lb and 2lb of semi-cured Fiji rock (most of the brown stuff). I have seen a lot of algae filling in over the past week or so - the fuzzy stuff you see in the pics. Hoping a better CUC will help with that. Most of the rocks that look brown w/o fuzz are more of a dark purple color, just a bad camera, no algae or diatoms there... Though there are diatoms in the LS, that I stir up from time to time...

 

The tank shows all signs of being completely cycled now for more than a week. Doing 3g PWC weekly and 1g changes from time to time during the week... Not planning on any more corals for another few weeks at least (barring more freebies)...

[musthaveitall]

I am setting up a 125ga planted tank I was wondering what you would use for substrate? And also what is that ground cover in the first picture in your thread? The reef looks like it will be AWESOME!!!

 

Thanks

Clint

[dapellegrini]

Thanks Clint - the ground cover you are interested in is Hemianthus callitrichoides ''Cuba'' or HC for short. ADA's Aquasoil is the top of the line, but I find it to be fussy. I would go with Eco-complete for a tank that size.

[dapellegrini]

I had no idea how cool Live Rock is. Seems like I am perpetually discovering something new. A lot of my time online is now spent research various things I have found in my tank and I am currently working on improving my night viewing as this seems to be when almost everything decides to come out...

 

I must have dozens or more feather dusters:

 

 

 

That last one actually has two heads that come out of one tube - sorry for the blurry pic - it is just about center frame. Also countless pods, bristleworms and other odd things. My orange ball anemone has now killed two snails, errr..... he may be next on my hit list. Bad picture of him here:

 

 

 

Here is my new hang out spot after work:

 

 

 

 

I moved the ballast over to the shelf and got all of the wires out of sight:

 

 

 

A few quick shots of the whole tank:

 

 

 

 

After the initial addition of the mini nassarius snails (the white ones) I put in an order from a more diverse group to help graze through the dying algae that had more or less infested the tank and the glass. So in went some Nerites, Onyx Nassarius and a couple of Cerith snails. Of the bunch I think the Nerites and the White Nassarius are my biggest assets. I also added a Scarlet Hermit after a lot of research and feedback on this being the most docile HC, and the least likely to call open season on my snails. Final addition to the CUC was a few micro brittle stars (really tiny things) to help my bristleworms in the tight spots.

 

While they have been doing a phenomenal job keeping most things clean, including the glass, I still have a ways to go before all I see is coraline. Just the same, the Bryposis is completely died away - now just brown dead junk, and most of the hair algae has also subsided. All parameters test 0 on multiple test kits (NH3/4, NO2, NO3), but I am not convinced that my NO3 is truly at 0 as I do still see some bad algae that is not yet dead. Trends is in the good direction though.

 

 

 

 

 

This was one of my worst rocks (uncured fiji), used to be covered in muck, now fairly clean with coraline coming in spots

 

 

This was another bad spot with bleached coraline and hair algae. Some of the algae is obviously still there, but it is getting better and the coraline is filling back in nicely:

 

 

 

And finally my last "bad spot" but also doing better with good coraline growth:

 

 

 

 

... errrr... too many pictures to put up the rest

[dapellegrini]

The two corals that were gifted to me are doing great. The Monti Cap has put out little heads all over its surface and seems overall very healthy and two small zoanthid plugs (now glued to LR) have thrown at least 4 new heads since they have been in the tank that were definitely not detectable when I got them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...

[MrAnderson]

oooh nice M. capricornis. be warned though - if it starts to grow fast, particularly in a 5 gallon, it will suck down calcium and carbonate like you will not believe. i had 2 fast growers in my last 6 gallon and the consumption was 2-3 dKH per day, no lie! keep an eye on Ca and hardness levels if it starts to take off, and with your lights, it probably will...

 

looking good! live rock IS pretty cool, huh?

[c est ma]

I LOVE your tank & 'scape and can SO identify with what you say about how fascinating LR is and how much time one can sit staring at it. This is probably my favorite stage of things and I only wish I could do a new tank every 4 months or so! Your tank looks beautiful from a distance, and I get a kick out of the shots with the cushion in front. Do you find yourself wiping noseprints off the glass?

 

MrA has obiously had a good experience with acclimating corallines to high light. It is also true that the majority are probably adapted to lower light levels, but some species naturally take higher light. Interestingly, in my tank, even nearly 4 years down the road, I'm still getting new corallines now and then, and--this may be just a coincidence--I'm getting "hotter" colors (yellow, orange) near the top where it's lightest. Speaking of which, in the pic where you show some bleached coralline and suggest it looks burnt in spots, I can almost see what looks like a separate thallus layer under one of the brownish spots. Perhaps you have another species developing there?

 

At any rate, I recently posted what I thought were pretty interesting article links in the Advanced Forum to some papers about coralline biology in the wild...you might like to have a look at them...

 

One thing that is not widely known or printed is that Nassarius snails are not grazers. They are scavengers. They are always the most active snails, and even more so when looking for food, which they might be doing in your tank. It is indeed possible (and has been done many times) to starve Nassarius if you expect them to survive by grazing LR. While you don't want to add a lot of nutrients to your tank, you may find you need to add some sort of food for them if they get too stressed...they will eat any prepared food and of course relish the frozen stuff as well.

 

Ceriths are grazers, and very nice species to have as they go all over, but you might want a variety of other grazers, as time goes on, as different species prefer different food items/tank locales. My nerites love the walls of my tank, for instance. My favorites now are my Trochus, but they're often hard to find.

 

HC's are scavengers, too. IME it's mostly a myth that they actually eat hair algae, at least the little "reef-safe" ones we try to get, but they're great at picking out detritus amongst crevices and polyps, etc. Plus they are SO much fun to watch.

 

Sorry for the novel...you've just posted so many questions that we haven't been able to keep up with! I'll try to get to some of your others if no one else does it before me.

 

Great tank!

 

--Diane

[c est ma]

Oh, BTW. RE those "forked" zoa tentacles you have. I don't know if this is helpful, but coincidentally I noticed a few forked tents on one of my rics a couple of days ago. They're not nearly as obvious as your zoas' are, but FWIW, here's a shot that shows one and a few others that are not fully forked but have two lobes at the end:

 

 

Of course, zoas & rics are in two different Orders, but, hey, all polyps have some things in common! Your zoas look very classic except for the forked tents so I wouldn't worry about them. Maybe there's some information on ZoaID? ( http://www.zoaid.com/index.php ) I wonder if it's some sort of genetic variant?

 

--Diane

[dapellegrini]

be warned though - if it starts to grow fast, particularly in a 5 gallon, it will suck down calcium and carbonate like you will not believe. i had 2 fast growers in my last 6 gallon and the consumption was 2-3 dKH per day

 

Thanks for the heads-up! You have just given me the first good reason I have heard to get a Ca test kit... I will make sure not to add a second one! From what I have seen these are pretty easy to frag, and they are quite cool. I am hoping that this guy will partially hide the PH.

 

Diane - Thanks for the info. I have a number of your threads marked in my subscriber list for reference - my latest favorite is your bristlestar spawning series. Your "humble 5.5g" was one of the first threads I bookmarked for reference. I really appreciate your feedback on comments on this site. Second to none. I am definitely interested in your articles on coraline and will be looking that up next. I have actually been looking for some good information on coraline for a couple of week now, on and off, and it doesn't seem easy to come by...

 

--------------------------------------------------

 

Patience is indeed a slippery talent, and probably the hardest part of reef keeping... well... that and moderation. I have added a couple more small zoo frags in the last week - you could kinda see them in some of the last batch of photos - one near the top of the taller mound blue/purple - the other green/blue:

 

 

 

I would love to find some very small clove polyps or something similar, but I don't want to press my luck.

 

For my filter feeders I have started to feed a couple of Kent products that I have heard referred to as "pollution in a bottle" - Phytoplex and Chromoplex. I may stop - but so far things seem to be doing quite well - though I cannot directly attribute that to Kent. I am a bit gun-shy about live food, as I have added a number of diseases to my FW tanks with that in the past. Frozen is definitely do-able though. I do think I added too many snails, but that was part of the plan - if they clean the tank out and become a burden, they will be sent to a new home (friend at work has a 300g reef tank).

 

A final thought for the day - I am getting surface scum, and my current management technique is to siphon from the top with PWCs - which works fine, but only lasts for a couple of days. I am wondering though if upgrading from a Rio 90 to a Rio 180 and doing an overflow mod kinda like this would keep the stuff suspended:

 

 

 

[c est ma]

Ah, gee, Dan, so nice of you to say all those nice things about me! Believe me, I drool over your and others' threads myself.

 

BTW, it may be just my eyes, but I didn't see any appendages sticking out of that critter you thought might be a barnacle...is it possible it's some kind of bivalve (clam-like mollusk)? They're fairly common hitch hikers in LR. Fascinating guys...

 

--Diane

[dapellegrini]

Ya - here is a better picture of that guy - taken at night with a flash

 

[c est ma]

Boy, he really opens wide! I love these guys.

 

IME it's very hard to figure out exactly what bivalve you have, or to even nail down the general type at times (clam? oyster? mussel?, etc.). Maybe there's some mollusk expert on another site who knows more...But they're basically harmless filter feeders, AFAIK.

 

You've gotten some interesting creatures on that rock!

 

That green macro you posted definitely looks like Halimeda to me. I've heard mixed opinions about this genus. Some have beautiful clumps in their display tanks; I'd love to have some myself; but others do not relish it. If I'm not mistaken, some worry about it sucking out needed calcium...You could try soliciting opinions elsewhere, doing a search on it, or simply determine if you want to take the wait-and-see approach or the better-safe-than-sorry one. (It seems to me it wouldn't be nearly as difficult to remove, if you had a problem with it, as many of the filamentous algae, for example...)

 

--Diane

[keith1569]

very nice man..i really enjoy the look of the ada rimless tanks

[dapellegrini]

Yes - That is Halmedia on the fiji rock - there are in fact three spots of it now. The other macro algae looks to be Sargassum - also growing in three different areas. I plan on letting this stuff grow out and keeping an eye on things. I also have some yellow and orange sponge (I think) that I am hoping grow in a bit.

 

I read through the links you posted about Coralline and am wondering if you (or anyone else) knows of a good site for identifying the different types of Coralline. From what I have gathered, there are at least a couple of different growth patterns and it still remains a mystery to me in general. Some of mine grows in plates, others in bumps/spots. The turquoise and green stuff seems thinner than the purple/pink/red stuff. Hmmmmm.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

[Sushi]

I love the aquascaping. For some reason it looks larger than just 5g... great job on the tank, very clean.

[Galloping Goose]

dapellegrini.

Just wanted to compliment your tank. I like the clean look as well. That is something I was going for also and achiaved the pictures below. My tank is a 12" ADA cube. I am running a Fluval 305 canister filter on my aquarium...and have been ever since I've got it up and running which is about 1.5 +/_ years now. The flow is more than enough for the entire tank. I actually even have it turned dow or it will start kicking up my fine sand. I never have problem with nitrates. I clean the filter about once every 2 months, takes about 45 min to do. I think I may also be going for the same light in the near future as yours. Right now I use 3 pendats that have 18w of 50/50. Maybe mounted straight into the wall right behind and above of the tank. Be great if I could run the electric line inside the wall, but that may be more work than I'd like to do. My carpentry skills arent that great. Good luck on your tank.

[AdriftQuasar]

Absolutely love your tanks, I'm really looking forward to seeing more.

[dapellegrini]

My little SW is VERY slow to change - but while I have been focusing on this new little reef tank, my others have suffered from a bit of neglect - with plants overrunning them. I ended up ripping out the carpet plant in the smaller tank because it had gotten to be about 5-inches thick and invited a bad dose of hair algae - just replanted a few pieces which should form a new carpet over the next several weeks. Still have a bit of hair algae on the dwarf riccia, but you get the idea... These pics are from about 5 minutes ago...

 

 

 

 

 

 

More on the big tank here (lots of critter pics, etc)

 

http://aape.naturalaquariums.com/forum/ind...hp?topic=1942.0

[jokercykoe]

That big tank is awesome. I read that you said it was low maitenance. Whats all the hardware involved in running a tank like that?

[EnFuego]

Great looking tanks. I just set up the 42 gal ADA tank. Hard to set up without being able to drill it.

 

Anyway, I am really wanting to set up a planted ADA tankin a similar fashion to the top one you posted.

[CGNano]

Your tanks are fantastic...

 

and we own a lot of the same books, points for you!