GobyDude's 12g Aquapod

[GobyDude]

The seemingly dead live rock is actually full of life.

 

I have realized that observing your live rock at night is really the best way to get to see everything living on/in it. A couple of days ago, I came home on my lunch break and looked at the tank and found some brittle star legs flailing from the rock. Just last night, I saw the whole starfish on the top of my highest rock. Once I turned the lights to my room on, he scurried away down the back side of the rock. And just tonight, I found a couple inch bristle worm going in and out of a couple holes in my rock. A tip for beginners out there, watch your rock at night, you will see so much more life on it.

 

Of course, with the good comes the bad. Yesterday during the day, I saw what looks to be aiptaisia, but I really can't tell. There are three little things only about 2/10 of an inch long and they are brown/redish and translucent in color. If they really are aiptasia, I'm wondering how in the world you all inject them with joes juice, because they are way too small to even find a mouth on them. I'll try to get a pic of those in the next week to see if I can get an ID on them.

 

I think I'm going to get my false perc pair this week since my parameters have been stable for over two weeks now. I was considering getting a goby and a clown, to have some variety, but I feel like the clowns would prefer to have a mate to swim around with.

 

I will leave you with a couple pics of the mini brittle star legs poking out of the rock.

 

 

 

[GobyDude]

Well I ended up getting a false perc pair last sunday and everything has been great. They are eating well (I got them Omega One flakes and some frozen mysis). At first I thought they just didn't want to eat because I would put a flake in and they would inhale the whole thing and keep spitting it back up, but as soon as I crushed the flakes into small pieces, they would eat them up and keep them down.

 

I checked my params yesterday. Ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates are all at zero and the ph is somewhere around 8.2 (hard to tell with the colors on the API kit). I'm planning on getting my first coral either sunday or tuesday (my lfs is closed on monday).

 

O, and in other news, I have almost completely taken care of the bryopsis in the tank. I manually removed most of it with my waterchange a couple weeks ago, then added the chaeto and purigen. I think the chaeto is really what helped because it is competing for the same nutrients and it most likely winning out. Anyone with a bryopsis problem, I highly recommend getting some chaeto and manually removing most of it.

 

I will leave you with a fts with my clown pair in the foreground (sorry for the dirty glass, I cleaned it right after I took the picture).

 

[Schwanson]

Looking good so far. Keep it up!

[JKUNZ]

Tank looks good!

[xcom]

Hi

I have an 12 AP too, and replace to stock pump with Maxi900 like u did. I notice mine make little tiny bubbles when the water return to the tank. I just wonder if you have run into that kind of problem.

 

how did you install your Maxi?

Thanks

[GobyDude]

Hi

I have an 12 AP too, and replace to stock pump with Maxi900 like u did. I notice mine make little tiny bubbles when the water return to the tank. I just wonder if you have run into that kind of problem.

 

how did you install your Maxi?

Thanks

 

I simply put it in right where the old one was, simple as that.

 

But I have heard of other having the microbubble problem. I would suggest getting a ziptie and tightening the tube to the maxijet. You might also try searching for this problem and ask someone else who had it too.

 

Luckily I didn't have to deal with it.

[GobyDude]

Quick update today. I got my first coral on tuesday, a frogspawn. It was only $20, and it's looking very nice and health. I'm pretty excited to watch it grow. I fed it a few mysis shrimp yesterday and it curled around and ate them.

 

Sorry for the small update, but here are the pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[spanko]

Excellent. Nice frog.

[GobyDude]

Everything is still looking good. I'm starting to get a bunch of tiny tube worms on the back wall and most of the live rock. After doing some research they seem to be sprirorbids and are a sign that the water is nice and clean. It seems that all my params are down to zero still.

 

I got some zoa's yesterday on my way home from work. They are grayish with pink strips. Hopefully someone can chime in and give me an ID. I'm going to post a pic in another part of this forum and see if i can get an ID and I'll post back.

 

Here are a couple of pictures of the new zoas.

 

 

[captianshellnutt]

Hey, wonderful looking tank and account of your experiences. I am doing my homewark before I start and the 12gal Aquapod is high on my list as a potential tank. Now having a little bit of experience, what would you recomend about all in one tanks, any reservations about the aquapod, and what might you do differently to start a tank.

Thanks,

Nick

[DogfoodEnforcer]

nevermind...apologies. totally misread that post.lol

 

tank is lookin great!! cant wait to see it progress even further. i just started recently as well (4-5 months), and yes! it is friggin addicting!

 

i was losing hermits and snails and couldnt figure out why...figured it out last week. gorilla crab!

[GobyDude]

Hey, wonderful looking tank and account of your experiences. I am doing my homewark before I start and the 12gal Aquapod is high on my list as a potential tank. Now having a little bit of experience, what would you recomend about all in one tanks, any reservations about the aquapod, and what might you do differently to start a tank.

Thanks,

Nick

 

I have no reservations as of yet. For me, it was between a nanocube and the aquapod. I am a college reefer, so I have to conserve space and noise (since the tank is in my bedroom), so I knew I had to get an all-in-one. I'm also not the richest person in the world, so I needed something affordable. I researched everything about the two competing affordable all-in-ones and I liked the fact that the aquapod has a separate daylight and actinic bulb so I could run a sunrise sunset setting. It's also fun to just have the actinics on to take some cool pictures. I also got the aquapod for pretty cheap, so it was my number one pick.

 

So my recommendation is the aquapod, but whatever you decide to get, I'm sure you'll be happy with it. If you need any help when setting it up, just send me a message with any questions and I'll help you as much as I can.

 

I don't think I would have done anything differently when setting it up. Like you, I did a lot of research ahead of time so I wouldn't make any mistakes that could have been easily solved with a little homework.

 

Good luck with your tank, and let me know if you have any questions.

 

 

nevermind...apologies. totally misread that post.lol

 

tank is lookin great!! cant wait to see it progress even further. i just started recently as well (4-5 months), and yes! it is friggin addicting!

 

i was losing hermits and snails and couldnt figure out why...figured it out last week. gorilla crab!

 

I actually found all of the hermits. The hermit skin was only the molt. It looked so much like the actual hermit body that I thought he had died.

[captianshellnutt]

Thanks, when I get started I will keep you updated and hit you up for suggestions

[GioReef]

May i ask something?... The thing you have the chaeto in... where did you buy it?

[GobyDude]

May i ask something?... The thing you have the chaeto in... where did you buy it?

 

I got it at target. Just a cheap little soap dish that had two suction cups attached. I've heard of people finding them at wal-mart as well. Just make sure you try to find one with little holes in the sides and possibly the bottom so the chaeto can get some flow and not build up crap in the container.

[Djbacon]

Tank is looking really good - keep it up

[GobyDude]

I'm sad to report that my tank has now fallen victum to the usual new tank cyano outbreak. I've been doing waterchanges every week religiously and I've started to have to scrape the cyano off the sand bed every couple of days. Luckily it's only on the sandbed (knock on wood). I think it started popping up about 2 weeks ago, and it's been raging ever since. I know that it's not from overfeeding (I only feed every other day or every third day and only enough for my two clowns and my new tiny two spot goby). I know it's not from too long of a light cycle (lights are only on for about 10 hours every day). So it must be just from the new tank stages. I guess I'm just going to keep waiting this out and see if it improves any time soon.

 

Sorry about not keeping this up to date. I've been really busy with work lately. I'll try to post some pictures of all of my corals and the new two spot goby.

[DiDi]

Sorry about not keeping this up to date. I've been really busy with work lately. I'll try to post some pictures of all of my corals and the new two spot goby.

 

 

I'm curious to hear how your two spot goby are doing... I just started a 12gal Aquapod (1 week ago so I'm still in the process of cycling the rocks/livesand) -- and I am really interested in the two spot goby but everywhere I read it's said that theres not enough sand for it to shift through but if you do well with them I would feel more confident

 

I'm slowly building confidence by reading from this site -keep posting!

[GobyDude]

I'm curious to hear how your two spot goby are doing... I just started a 12gal Aquapod (1 week ago so I'm still in the process of cycling the rocks/livesand) -- and I am really interested in the two spot goby but everywhere I read it's said that theres not enough sand for it to shift through but if you do well with them I would feel more confident

 

I'm slowly building confidence by reading from this site -keep posting!

 

Sorry i didn't reply back earlier. As with many other reefers out their I will admit that I made my first large mistake. Luckily it didn't cost me any more than $15. I guess the cyano was way too bad when I put the goby in there, and I guess he didn't have much sand to work with and eat out of. I believe he slowly starved to death and was picked apart by a few of my hermits. You may have more luck with one than I did, but I'm going to blame the cyano for that death. Everyone out there reading along, make sure you do your homework before buying. DiDi, I commend you for asking around before your purchases.

 

For those reading along, I know that the goby did not cause the cyano problems. They were happening way before I added the fish, so don't blame it on that. I think I just had some new tank cyano problems.

 

After that bad news though, here is some very good news. The tank is now completely cyano free. Well at least it has been for the past week. Here is how I fixed it. I had been battling with it for about 1 month. Luckily it was only on the sand, so all I would do is scrape it off the top layer of the sand and put it in the trash. I would do this about every 4 days (just long enough for it to cover the entire bottom). I read through most of the cyano posts on this site to try to find a remedy. All of the people just kept saying cut back on feeding first. So I did that... still no help. In the mean time, I had been keeping up with my waterchanges every 5-7 days. I then decided to do another tip that is a little more drastic. I got every bit of cyano off of the bottom of the tank. I then shut off the lights for 2 days. I have since cut my lighting to only 6 hours a day, and since then, I have not seen another patch of red in my tank.

 

Here is another tip for readers... to rid your tank of cyano DO NOT USE CHEMICALS. Always look for the source of the problem first. You can try my approach or try looking up the rest of the cyano threads on this site. Trust me, it's a frustrating battle. But I would suggest doing the lights off for 2 or 3 days trick. It doesn't harm the corals at all. To them, it's just a nasty rainy few days in a row.

 

Anyways. That's my update for now. Sorry for not posting any pictures recently. I'll probably have more up in the summer when I'll be back at school and have more time.

[DiDi]

Sorry i didn't reply back earlier. As with many other reefers out their I will admit that I made my first large mistake. Luckily it didn't cost me any more than $15. I guess the cyano was way too bad when I put the goby in there, and I guess he didn't have much sand to work with and eat out of. I believe he slowly starved to death and was picked apart by a few of my hermits. You may have more luck with one than I did, but I'm going to blame the cyano for that death. Everyone out there reading along, make sure you do your homework before buying. DiDi, I commend you for asking around before your purchases.

 

Darn! I'm so sad to hear about that though !

I have an insane copepod/amphipod invasion right now so I think mandarin goby might be a better way to go for me even though thats probably a bigger risk than signal goby to some!

 

will you try another goby soon now the cyano is gone?

[GobyDude]

Darn! I'm so sad to hear about that though !

I have an insane copepod/amphipod invasion right now so I think mandarin goby might be a better way to go for me even though thats probably a bigger risk than signal goby to some!

 

will you try another goby soon now the cyano is gone?

 

Not too sure. Most would say I'm fully stocked in a 12G with two clowns. I'd love to get a little yellow clown goby, but I've heard they're pretty finicky eaters (only live or frozen). I'll have to do some more research though. I'd like to get another small goby if possible.