Nano Sapiens 12g - Ye Olde Mixed Reef

[Nano sapiens]

Most of the Pink Yumas that come in from the wild melt, so watch out for that. That's why the captive one's that survive well in tanks are relatively rare and often expensive. Mine is more reddish than pink right now, but I have heard that they can turn more pink as they get larger. I suspect that light spectrum, intensity and type of food source(s) play the biggest roles in color development. If you get one find out all you can from the seller regarding lighting, flow, etc.

 

I treat my Floridas the same as the Yumas, except that I don't feed them directly since they tend to grow and reproduce faster than the Yumas anyway. Gentle flow (just enough to get them to wave lazily in the current, clearly visible in my NTOTM video) and around 80-130 PAR. Since I do feed the fish 3-4x/day, they get enough dissolved food substances to thrive.

 

Too much flow (especially laminar) can piss off Floridas to where they don't expand properly and don't do well.

[buddythelion]

Man, I love seeing my corals in other people's tanks. Yes... my speckled fire and ice must win and kill all the sticks... LOL

 

The superman blastos got humongeous on you! Glad to see them being loved so much. You should see these two new blastos I have right now. I think you know they're nice with my taste in corals.

Btw, my pink yuma is still red oddly. I just saw the mother yesterday for fun with my friend on the way to somewhere. It's such a nice pink and white rim. But is is about 3" across. A monster mommy. Maybe I'll have to wait until mine is that large to get that coloration.

[Nano sapiens]

Yeah, the Speckled Fire & Ice Zoas are popping new polyps like crazy! They have the potential to take over the whole rock if I let them.

 

Superman Blastos are crazy big. A few good sized polyps popping out on the sides, too. so this piece will be too big for my tank soon...

 

Let's see a few pics of your new Blasto acquisitions. I'm sure they are super nice!

 

Same thing with my 'pink' Yuma. Mostly red/orange, but some days it shows a hint of pink. I'm feeding it 3-4x/wk with ground up flakes, mysids and pellets so it's slowly getting bigger. The bubbled tentacles are even bigger than before and I've noticed over sized bubble tentacles happening on a R. florida and the Superman Blasto, too, so I'm not sure what's up with that. At least it causes no harm.

[buddythelion]

Yeah, the Speckled Fire & Ice Zoas are popping new polyps like crazy! They have the potential to take over the whole rock if I let them.

 

Superman Blastos are crazy big. A few good sized polyps popping out on the sides, too. so this piece will be too big for my tank soon...

 

Let's see a few pics of your new Blasto acquisitions. I'm sure they are super nice!

 

Same thing with my 'pink' Yuma. Mostly red/orange, but some days it shows a hint of pink. I'm feeding it 3-4x/wk with ground up flakes, mysids and pellets so it's slowly getting bigger. The bubbled tentacles are even bigger than before and I've noticed over sized bubble tentacles happening on a R. florida and the Superman Blasto, too, so I'm not sure what's up with that. At least it causes no harm.

Sounds like all is good and happy in the 12g.

[Nano sapiens]

Other than loosing a pink Lobo head recently, all parties seem to be doing well. My main difficulty I had was with a RP frag from Vivid, but even that one is now doing well after I created a few mini-frags from the main frag. I'm finding that Acros are strange in that they can remain dormant for months when fragged and transplanted, then all of sudden wake up and start growing fast.

[Nano sapiens]

A few pics of the Clowns playing in the overgrown Ric garden:

 

 

 

[MyLiquidBlue29BC]

You have a very inspiring tank. It took a while to get through all of the thread, but it was very interesting reading! Thank you for sharing

[Nano sapiens]

Thank you and congrats on making it through the thread! 5-1/2 years on and it's still put-putting along

[metrokat]

I don't know how you do it, Florida Riccordea hate me. Your tank looks like a mushroom Vesuvius erupted and mushroom lava meandered and flowed down.

[RollaJase]

I love rics, really love them. I would love to have a patch of them in a future tank but they are so damn expensive over here. One day .

The tank is looking great, really cool pictures of the clowns hanging out.

[Nano sapiens]

I don't know how you do it, Florida Riccordea hate me. Your tank looks like a mushroom Vesuvius erupted and mushroom lava meandered and flowed down.

 

Thanks, Kat. I've consulted with my Floridas and I can tell you that they don't hate you

 

I've puzzled over your difficulties with Ricordia florida since you seem to do fine with Ricorida yuma. The best that I can come up with is a reference or two I found stating that Yumas can take higher flow than Floridas due to less hydrodynamic drag. I believe that your tank's flow is quite high-energy, so perhaps the overall flow rate may be just a bit too much for them to thrive.

[Nano sapiens]

I love rics, really love them. I would love to have a patch of them in a future tank but they are so damn expensive over here. One day .

The tank is looking great, really cool pictures of the clowns hanging out.

 

Thanks and 'Good day, mate!' (I just love saying that )

 

Sorry to hear that Rics are so expensive. I would imagine that Indo pacific Ricordia yuma should be cheaper and more readily available?

 

BTW - New FTS on the first page.

[RollaJase]

Thanks and 'Good day, mate!' (I just love saying that )

 

Sorry to hear that Rics are so expensive. I would imagine that Indo pacific Ricordia yuma should be cheaper and more readily available?

Haha, Yuma's are a cheaper alternative but genuine Florida Rics sell for big bucks. When my LFS gets them in they can sell for up to $400 each, depending on colours of course.

[Nano sapiens]

Haha, Yuma's are a cheaper alternative but genuine Florida Rics sell for big bucks. When my LFS gets them in they can sell for up to $400 each, depending on colours of course.

 

A$400, wow, that's expensive! The ones you see in this tank are mostly from a '10 pack' for $100 US, but they actually sent me 12

 

Specific Yuma morphs can be expensive here, but usually they are reasonable.

[RollaJase]

A$400, wow, that's expensive! The ones you see in this tank are mostly from a '10 pack' for $100 US, but they actually sent me 12

 

Specific Yuma morphs can be expensive here, but usually they are reasonable.

Yeah I guess prices will always vary from place to place. I'd love to grab a bargain like that 10 pack, could pretty much stock a nano overnight haha. I think I'll try to start replacing my standard run of the mill shroom with Rics/Yumas over time. There is a guy local to me who buys high end ones and frags them. Sometimes he has good deals on some with average colour or odd shapes. $50 tends to be the going price per polyp for his 'rejects' haha.

[Nano sapiens]

I think I'll try to start replacing my standard run of the mill shroom with Rics/Yumas over time.

 

Good move, especially for a small nano tank. I finally managed to eliminate the last remnants of some invasive Blue-Stripped Discosoma using a Kalk slurry paste.

 

I have found most Discosoma 'shrooms to get too large, multiply too quickly and they can kill many corals. At least Rics are slower growing and therefore somewhat more manageable.

[MyLiquidBlue29BC]

I think I read that the discosoma were invading your SPS...did they harm any of your LPS? I'm wondering what would be a good neighboring coral that could hold the discosomas at bay.

[Nano sapiens]

I think I read that the discosoma were invading your SPS...did they harm any of your LPS? I'm wondering what would be a good neighboring coral that could hold the discosomas at bay.

 

I started off with some Blue Stripes from my old 50g. Cutting them back was relatively easy, but totally eliminating them proved to be a challenge.

 

Nothing in my tank, other than another 'Shroom, can stand the touch of these Discosoma. Some have claimed that GSP can, but I haven't tried putting them together.

[andersonkc]

Love this build. Amazing. #following

[MyLiquidBlue29BC]

Nothing in my tank, other than another 'Shroom, can stand the touch of these Discosoma. Some have claimed that GSP can, but I haven't tried putting them together.

Thanks I'll pass on the GSP though

[Nano sapiens]

Love this build. Amazing. #following

 

Thanks for following along. Nothing too exciting, just the usual scraping of stony coral encroachment and a scissor-cut to take the head off a Ric today to keep it from taking out a colony of micro Zoas.

 

Thanks I'll pass on the GSP though

 

Totally understandable

[Nano sapiens]

A couple shots taken today:

 

Speckled Fire & Ice Zoas. Looks like different morphs, but all are from the same parent:

 

 

 

Superman Blasto: (with alien baby attached): From the two polyps I got a few months ago it now has at least four, but probably more since I can't see well under all the puffiness...

 

 

 

All's well in Nano tank land. I'm still slowly ramping up the DIY LED system (around 60% right now). I'll likely stop at around 75% and take PAR readings, but this all depends on how the corals tolerate the increased lighting.

 

I'm seeing some increased pigment production (purple, lilacs and cream-yellow) developing on the Acro I have on my sand bed. Nice to see it starting to branch out, but on the other hand I don't have much room without removing some other corals. Can't quite figure out my A. granulosa since it only encrusts thus far and has turned fluorescent forest green from a yellow/cream color. Nitrates and phosphates are not measurable via test kits, so I have to think the the 'full spectrum' LED lighting likely has something to do with the color shift. Just never know with these guys!

 

And, I am in the process of building something 'reefy' that should be ready in a few months...

[Rehype]

Beautiful shots nano!

[Nano sapiens]

Thanks, Rehype. Actually took these two photos through a hand held reading magnifier since my old digital camera's zoom isn't quite up to the task.

[Nano sapiens]

For a while now I've been pondering what type of light and light wave specific intensity is actually being created by my Franken-LED system. Online charts of the various LEDs and a PAR meter were helpful, but what I really wanted for Xmas was a spectrometer! Alas, Santa didn't deliver that thousands of dollars lab grade unit (sigh).

However, I remembered a DIY project on-line a while back on how to make your own. A bit of fiddling, tape, etc. plus an iPhone and...walla!:

 

Here's the output representation of my current array (all Stunner Strips on plus 75% on the DIY strip):

The measurement was taken dead-center and about 8" away from the light source in air.

Assuming that this is a fairly accurate graph, it appears I have cobbled together something fairly close to natural reef lighting conditions at ~10 feet depth, but with a bit of extra 'green-yellow':

Credits to Dana Riddle for this image and the fantastic article found at Advanced Aquarist : "http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2013/12/lighting"

The graph certainly explains why the tank has such a warm look to it as opposed to the more common bluish tint found in many reef tanks these days and at greater depths in the ocean.

For anyone interested, the spectrometer can either be created from online instructions (which is what i did) or can be bought in various configurations at: www.spectralworkbench.org. Create a 'Log In' first and then do a search on 'Spectrometer'.