Mr. Microscope Posted June 6, 2010 Share Posted June 6, 2010 I'd be happy to send the GSP fragrock your way in exchange for all the nice extras you've given me - can you meet up on Monday or Tuesday? Awesome! In that case, I can probably find a freebee for you. Monday will work better for me. See you then. Link to comment
meganistkrieg Posted June 6, 2010 Author Share Posted June 6, 2010 Awesome! In that case, I can probably find a freebee for you. Monday will work better for me. See you then. Sounds good, I like surprises! The frag I'm bringing is encrusted over a rock and a shell, maybe 2" on each side - just so you can eyeball some space for it. Hit me up in the morning and let me know when you want to meet up!! Link to comment
Squared Posted June 6, 2010 Share Posted June 6, 2010 Just what I like to see-a simple tank, with no fancy mods done to it. Nice job. Link to comment
meganistkrieg Posted June 7, 2010 Author Share Posted June 7, 2010 Just what I like to see-a simple tank, with no fancy mods done to it. Nice job. Thank you so much! It's come a long, long way since the GHA and cyano outbreaks of yore... Link to comment
meganistkrieg Posted June 12, 2010 Author Share Posted June 12, 2010 After like a month of not buying any coral (those zoas came from trades, shhhh!) I finally broke down and got my first Ricordea Florida. As an increasing fanatic for corallimorphs, my tank had started to feel incomplete without the knobby bubbly goodness of a ricordea. I found a nice little green fella for $15 at my LFS and am pleased with how well it's taken to its new surroundings! I definitely want to get more more more - they look SO COOL! Also excited to report that we bought some Rod's Food the other night while at the LFS and man oh man, it is no joke that the tank goes crazy for the stuff. Feeding time has gone from being an ordinary event to a "hurry and come watch!!" kind of thing, as all the inverts and corals and fish go buckwild for it. Great purchase, and one I'll stick with in the future! The feeding plan currently is a fingernail sized piece of Rod's Food, defrosted, fed daily, phytoplankton dripped in every few days, and nori fed every other day or so for the emerald and urchin. No other terribly exciting tank news to report. I caught my crabs scuffling last night, which concerns me but I'll keep a close eye on them - hopefully it won't happen again, and if it does, Little Miss Porcelain will have to find a new home. I also happened upon my two clownfish last night (like, 3:30AM or something when I couldn't sleep) laying on top of each other on their mushroom rock, doing their little jiggle-dance, which I take as a good sign that their relationship is progressing. My dude and I also spent a long time the other night watching our hitchhiker pistol shrimp carefully excavate his cave, one grain of sand at a time. Too cute! I also just got two wisdom teeth pulled, which means lots of time to take pictures. Enjoy! My first ricordea! Another angle. The Shroom Shack The Good, the Bad, and the Not-So-Bright (jk shrimpy ilu) Super bright GSP and my hitchhiker porites Actually planning on getting a tattoo of this guy soon! The Zoa Zone Porcelain crab hanging out with a blue spotted 'shroom - please note the EXPLOSION of calcareous worms on the back wall! Hammer coral! Silly fish blocking my anthelia and xenia... View from the right side of the tank Two fish and a ric! I'm looking towards adding some macro algaes to the display to liven things up a bit since I love the look of them. Macros add a depth to the tank that coral-only doesn't quite have for me, so hopefully I'll work out the logistics of that soon and put in an order with Reef Cleaners. I'm just not sure how one goes about adding macro to a tank that wasn't built as macro only? Time to research! Everyone seems reasonably happy (fish and inverts alike), and I would like to add that we are all rooting for England to whoop the US in the World Cup today. That is all! Link to comment
Mr. Microscope Posted June 18, 2010 Share Posted June 18, 2010 Have the Neon Greens gotten bigger? Link to comment
meganistkrieg Posted June 22, 2010 Author Share Posted June 22, 2010 Have the Neon Greens gotten bigger? Little by little! It really took three or four days for them to start to open which surprised me a little, and they were teeny tiny! Luckily my lights aren't as good as yours, and I can now see their vivid green as they're getting bigger. I actually set up my tank a bit differently, added a few base rocks and changed the scape, and finally got my zoas off the sand. Pics soon!! In other recent tank news, I ordered some new corals that are causing problems so pictures of the new layout are forthcoming once I get these new issues resolved. Also mysteriously lost a hermit crab the other day. Figured something was up when my shrimp wouldn't leave it alone, so I poked the shell over and the shrimp grabbed his tiny crab corpse right out of it. And ate it. Gross. In the meantime, here is my sneaky mithrax crabbling some algae off the bottom intake. Hung there and grabbed at it for a good ten minutes before he finally slid off and scuttled away. fish is like Apologies for the smudgy glass. Sometimes there's not time to get the whole set-up ready, or you'll miss the pic! Link to comment
Mr. Microscope Posted June 22, 2010 Share Posted June 22, 2010 Little by little! It really took three or four days for them to start to open which surprised me a little, and they were teeny tiny! Luckily my lights aren't as good as yours, and I can now see their vivid green as they're getting bigger. Yeah, they are tiny in my tank. I'm figuring they will get much larger under your lights. I can't wait to see. Link to comment
meganistkrieg Posted June 25, 2010 Author Share Posted June 25, 2010 I come bearing pictures! Recently rescaped a little bit using some base rocks I had lying about from my very first set-up (the one covered in caulerpa, flatworms, and aiptasia). Had "boiled" them and then dried them, and rinsed them well before setting them up. No spikes! No big problems lately. Ordered some coral (mushrooms and a kenya tree) that died in transit and caused a bit of a fuss, still working on getting a refund for them. Mostly bummed as I've wanted purple mushrooms for a while - might pick up some bright red ones from the LFS instead. Still have my heart set on a kenya tree, too, despite the woes of this last attempt. All the to-do with the decaying kenya and the new rock has caused a bit of a rise in my nitrates though (like, 15 instead of 10) so I changed out the ChemiPure in the back and am doing a second water change for the week to hopefully level it all out again. The only other thing that's really concerning me right now is some tissue recession on one head of my branching hammer, so I might try feeding it more directly to see if that helps. Also not sure to what degree this could be caused by the dying kenya tree. Anyway, the new 'scape allows me to better display the marvelous zoanthids that Mr. Microscope has traded me. Enjoy! Obligatory FTS! This 'scape is going to look rad once that rock colors up a bit. mushrooms are my favorite seriously what's not to love about corallimorphs ricordea is huge now - hoping it'll split soon two mushrooms that transplanted themselves blue xenia with a blue mushroom family in the back emerald hanging out under the hammer-tree (which is really more of a weird hammer-frogspawn hybrid?) green star polyps taking over the joint my new zoa garden! whammin' watermelons on the right (they've just budded off their third group of babies!) and some random palys? zoas? on the left from the LFS which are starting to morph into some neat colors the bow in the glass caused some distortion but here's two more zoa-sets from Mr. Microscope - neon greens and a magical mystery zoa! zombie eyes on the left and some ordinary green zoas on the right rawr!! porcelain crab, or the "Lady Lob" as we call her - stepping a cerith... cerith with a barnacle on its back! more rawr!! boyfish! girlfish in her host mushroom the happy couple who have finally moved in together and now sleep literally on top of each other at night - they are inseparable and adorable, and though scary at times, it's been a real wonder to watch the "pairing" process between them another FTS FTS from further back That's it for now! Comments/questions VERY welcome - thanks for taking a look!! Link to comment
meganistkrieg Posted June 27, 2010 Author Share Posted June 27, 2010 Have been dealing with a slight rise in nitrates since the whole dead/dying coral incident - not a terrible spike but up to a solid 20 instead of the usual 10 or less range. Nothing seemed adversely affected but I worry for my urchin, since they're very susceptible to higher nitrate levels, and he's one of my favorite dudes. Gotta look out for the good dudes! So to correct it I've done 2x two-gallon water changes this week instead of one, and I also siphoned out the back chambers as best I could, and stirred up the sandbed a bit to siphon out any ickies. On my most recent testing earlier tonight, the nitrates were back around 10. I'm well pleased with this and mixing up another two-gallon batch of saltwater just to lower the nitrates a bit more. I figure if I'm bored and looking for something to do with my tank, why not keep working on getting that API test to be bright happy yellow. I'm also considering jumping on the Petco $1-Per-Gallon sale tomorrow, as the mister has given me the okay to start a new tank! I'm torn between setting up a sumpless 40 Breeder - the size that I've wanted FOREVER and would be awesome for the macro tank I'd like to try - or waiting and doing a little pico (probably just the JBJ 4-Gallon) in the bedroom with a teeny goby and some nice softies. Decisions decisions! Link to comment
meganistkrieg Posted June 29, 2010 Author Share Posted June 29, 2010 I think the nitrate problem stems from feeding, which must mean I'm overfeeding. Last night when I measured the nitrate level (post-additional water changes, pre-feeding) the test was showing 0. I fed the critters and retested again this evening, and the nitrates are back up around 10 - their usual level, but still not where I want them to be ideally. Going to continue to test and waterchange and monitor accordingly. I realize that 10 isn't the end-all of everything but hey - we all need goals. Going to take it easy on the waterchanges though, at least for a few days. Both the cleaner shrimp and the porcelain crab molted overnight and I don't want to bug anything too much with excessive waterchanges. I'm also psyched to announce that I picked up a 20L today at the $1/Gallon sale! I went with the intent to get a 40BR but holy crow, it's so much bigger than I thought it would be. It would take up half our living room AFTER we tossed out our couch to fit it in - no bueno! The 20L is a good compromise while we're still in close quarters. The boyfriend is interested in doing a freshwater planted tank with it, but I've got my eye on macros... Link to comment
meganistkrieg Posted July 5, 2010 Author Share Posted July 5, 2010 My last post about the nitrates being lower seems to have been a fluke. The next day they were back up where they were before. In an attempt to lower my nitrates from around 15-20 to "as low as possible", in the last two weeks I have: 1. done approx. 3 waterchanges each week, all 2 gallons at a time except for a bigger 4 gallon change two days ago 2. flushed out the back chambers - didn't see any detritus come up 3. checked my media rack to make sure nothing was getting clogged 4. vacuumed the heck out of my sandbed (very gross) 5. cut feeding down to every other day 6. changed the filter pads every time I thought they looked a little gunky and my nitrates are still around 15, even immediately following a water change. I have no idea what to do to get them lower, and being as I have two moderately sensitive invertebrates (skunk cleaner and tuxedo urchin) it makes me nervous to have the nitrates hovering around that level. Pest algae is at a minimum and nothing seems worse for wear from the levels or my fiddling with the tank, so my question is... ...WHAT ELSE CAN I DO? I'm hoping that this is just a case of "your tank is five months old and still settling into its denitrification cycle" but it's driving me insane. Any advice greatly appreciated. Link to comment
Mr. Microscope Posted July 12, 2010 Share Posted July 12, 2010 Looking good! Can't believe I didn't see this sooner. Congrats on the progress and new scape. Those zoas are blooming well. Nice ric too. Link to comment
meganistkrieg Posted July 12, 2010 Author Share Posted July 12, 2010 Looking good! Can't believe I didn't see this sooner. Congrats on the progress and new scape. Those zoas are blooming well. Nice ric too. Thank you! Everything has filled in even more since I took these pics - added a few new mushrooms, too. I'll try to have pics up sometime this week as next I'll be on vacation in Texas. My sister is trading places with me and will be staying at the apartment (and thankfully, taking care of the critters). Liiiittle nervous about that, but I think I'm just overproctective. All I've tasked her to do is keep an eye on the temps, fill up the top off reservoir, and feed them once in the four and a hafl days I'll be gone - easy as I can make it! Link to comment
Mr. Microscope Posted August 22, 2010 Share Posted August 22, 2010 Let's see an update. Any changes lately? Link to comment
meganistkrieg Posted August 23, 2010 Author Share Posted August 23, 2010 An update was requested, and an update ye shall have! The half-year-iversary of my first tank has come and gone, and having only lost one creature (our first emerald crab) and a couple coral along the way, I'm pretty pleased with the whole experience. Happy to report that life in the aquarium has been reasonably uneventful over the last month. I've added some additional zoas (thanks, Mr. Microscope!!) as well as new mushrooms and (finally) a Kenya tree. No new critters because I'm pleased with the menagerie we have already, and relieved that everyone is getting along and behaving themselves. Have lessened feeding to every third day, when I target feed Rod's Food, and everyone seems fine with it. At this point, I really don't plan on adding anymore creatures or coral to what I already have. I'm enjoying watching everything grow in and I'm out of places to fit things "comfortably", so I figure I'll let them fill in as they please and just relax. Few things I'm working on at the moment, though, to improve tank-life for my wet little friends. Still dealing with the nitrates issue, as it was coming up consistently as 20 on my API test. Upon advice from numerous sources, I began vaccuuming the sandbed religiously every week as a way to flush out any pockets of detritus that might have trapped the nitrogenous waste, but after a few weeks of sandbed-siphoning, I had to admit that it was only making the levels creep higher, so I've gone back to leaving the sandbed alone. Doing twice-weekly water changes of 2-3 gallons each and the levels are slowly starting to come down - between 15-20 at the moment. Unfortunately, all that digging around in the sandbed has lead to a bit of a cyano outbreak, so pardon the fuzz in the pictures. It's not my first go-round with cyano though and I'm getting it under control bit by bit! Onto the pictures! FTS! Mind the cyano, blech... Fishes hanging out in the mushroom garden My beloved blue spotted mushrooms, along with the Superman-colored ones and the striking purple one... Ricordea Florida Blue (now purple!) Xenia that's been growing bigger and feistier lately, and showing increased pulsing! GSP Kenya tree, another one that's growing like wildfire Fat and happy hammer coral Kenya tree again because I love it! Zoa (and paly!) garden - left to right are ordinary greens (tucked in the back behind the rock), Zombie Eyes, mystery paly #1, Neon Greens, mystery zoas, Whammin' Watermelons, Purple Death (I think that's the name?) palys, Tub's Blues (<3), and another mystery paly that are growing into the most beautiful mottled shades of cream, purple, and mint green Close up on the Zombie Eyes that are spilling off the plug Another shot of the zoa garden, and those beautiful mystery palys (unseen zoa garden members are Green Lanterns that tumbled off the plug and settled in a crevice that I can't photograph!) Hermit crab! Tuxedo urchin on the move Hitchhiker limpet who is a model citizen, and rarely moves from that same spot My beautiful porcelain crab (aka Lady Lobster) who used to be dull beige until she molted... Link to comment
meganistkrieg Posted August 23, 2010 Author Share Posted August 23, 2010 Afternoon bump because I'm psyched at how last night's pictures came out... getting bored posting here only for myself and Mr. M. Link to comment
cliftonrouse Posted August 24, 2010 Share Posted August 24, 2010 Looks Great. How much were you feeding during your nitrate breakouts? I have a 14 gallon and I am always scared I am feeding too much. Link to comment
meganistkrieg Posted August 24, 2010 Author Share Posted August 24, 2010 Looks Great. How much were you feeding during your nitrate breakouts? I have a 14 gallon and I am always scared I am feeding too much. Thank you! Back when I first started the tank I was feeding every day, then when I switched to Rod's Food a few months back, I was feeding every other day (but feeding a LOT). They're absolutely fine on every third day now, despite the clownfish begging for food whenever I'm nearby. Also I make sure to target feed with the turkey baster as much as possible rather than just dump the food into the tank. This makes me feel better because I know everyone's been fed, and lessens waste that falls to the substrate uneaten. Link to comment
DaneMarx Posted August 24, 2010 Share Posted August 24, 2010 limpets rock. Many cultivate a little algal garden, like in a few square centimetres around where they sit. Then they graze that area at night. :-) Link to comment
Mr. Microscope Posted August 24, 2010 Share Posted August 24, 2010 Wow! You've got some major growthage. Congrats! I'm glad to hear your nitrates are falling. Sad to hear your Green Lanterns fell. I hope you can get them into the open. Link to comment
atomic_dog Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 Afternoon bump because I'm psyched at how last night's pictures came out... getting bored posting here only for myself and Mr. M. Kind of late to the party, but I am still following your journal! I'm at just over 5 months with my BC14 and am hoping to get things as stable as you seem to have. I've got all kinds of algae growing, and don't know what to do about it. Similar to your tank at around the 3 month mark or so. Do you have a refugium in your tank? I have the inTank media basket and the submersible LED light from them as well. My chaeto just kind of withered and died out, though, not sure why. If not, what is your filtration set up? Please don't think you're only posting pics and updates for yourself, I'm sure I am not the only one who follows your updates, but maybe doesn't post in your thread. Also, I'm glad I saw your pictures of the porites that you've been posting. I have a specimin that looks just like yours (my rock is also from sealife inc.) and I almost hit it with some aiptasia control, not knowing what it was. It's a neat little coral, though and I'm glad I gave it a death sentence reprieve. ~Matt Link to comment
Spencerx Posted September 28, 2010 Share Posted September 28, 2010 Do you have any pics/details of your ATO system? Looking for one for my BC 14... Link to comment
meganistkrieg Posted November 12, 2010 Author Share Posted November 12, 2010 Kind of late to the party, but I am still following your journal! I'm at just over 5 months with my BC14 and am hoping to get things as stable as you seem to have. I've got all kinds of algae growing, and don't know what to do about it. Similar to your tank at around the 3 month mark or so. Do you have a refugium in your tank? I have the inTank media basket and the submersible LED light from them as well. My chaeto just kind of withered and died out, though, not sure why. If not, what is your filtration set up? Please don't think you're only posting pics and updates for yourself, I'm sure I am not the only one who follows your updates, but maybe doesn't post in your thread. Also, I'm glad I saw your pictures of the porites that you've been posting. I have a specimin that looks just like yours (my rock is also from sealife inc.) and I almost hit it with some aiptasia control, not knowing what it was. It's a neat little coral, though and I'm glad I gave it a death sentence reprieve. ~Matt Hi Matt! Sorry I haven't responded here - have been enjoying the tank pretty much running itself now, and sort of fell out of posting here. I appreciate the kind words and will have to check out your tank thread! Do you have one set up yet? I use the InTank media basket but don't have a refugium set up - no space! It's weird that you say your chaeto withered and died, mine did too about a month ago. No idea why, just got cleaning out the back one day and saw it was all grey mush. Cleaned it out the best I can and haven't replaced it yet, but tank seems to be doing fine without it. Just make sure to change your ChemiPure every six months, and your filter floss (in the top part of the rack) at least once or twice a week. I can tell when my CP is ready to go just by how the tank is looking! Glad your Porites got a stay of execution. Mine started to not look so hot (I don't dose for SPS so I wonder how much that had to do with it) and was mostly skeleton by the time the GSP reached it, so I let it go. Feel free to ask any more questions! I'm going to try to get some pictures tonight or tomorrow and do a real update, yay! Link to comment
meganistkrieg Posted November 12, 2010 Author Share Posted November 12, 2010 Do you have any pics/details of your ATO system? Looking for one for my BC 14... Unfortunately, I don't. It's a jury rigged little piece I picked up from the LFS. Has a tube that suction cups to the wall (I keep it in the most lefthand "slot" in the back of the BC) which registers the water level. When it drops, a little machine switches on the pump which I keep in a bucket of fresh water in the cabinet. Pump puts water into tank until meter stops registering it as too low, and it shuts off. It's not a brand or anything, in fact one of the guys at the LFS probably makes it, but that's the best I can describe it. Works okay, has gone off once or twice when the return tube slipped too low and it started equalizing back and forth. >_> SG only dropped from 1.026 to about 1.019 but still... scary. Link to comment
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