The_gats 40B, 2 years of reefing

[the_gats]

Glad to say the clowns are seeming to be doing very well. They are very active and have been exploring all parts of the tank. No shyness. They also like the follow my finger across the glass.

 

Stock list so far:

2 ocellaris clowns

5/6 yellow polyps

4 green mushrooms

6/7 small green zoas

6 nassarius

7 astrae/magarita snails

8 hermits

[tundrashaul]

Thats awesome, im going to have to pick up a pair in a few weeks, the blenny is not entertaining at all. I come up to the tank and have to squat at a side panel to get a look at just his head in the daytime, at night ill see him perch up on a rock and ill move towards the tank (or just move period when within 15 feet of the tank) and he vanishes. kind of irratating

[the_gats]

The clowns are awesome. They swim up to the front glass when I walk up to the tank. Thankfully I have not had any problems with aggression towards each other. Found a few hitchhikers in the tank. First is a red worm. It's really small and I'm not real worried about it right now. Also spotted legs of a brittle star. I haven't seen it come all they way out of the rock yet but 2 or 3 legs will come out. All is well in my section of the sea.

[the_gats]

Turned on the lights this morning and the mushrooms looked brighter than ever so I took a pic and the green turned out nice.

 

Oscar the clownfish posing for me this morning (The wife wanted to name them Oscar and Mayer...gotta keep her happy).

 

The zoas opened up nice.

 

Eh iPhone pics just aren't the clearest.

[the_gats]

Do snails just die for no reason or is there something I should be looking for?

[automatik_33]

Any hermits wearing a new suit?

[the_gats]

Nope no hermits even around it. Notice the snail a few days ago just sitting on the sand so I gave it a day to see if it would move. It had moved a little over the next day, then today I found it upside down and not reacting to anything. Everything else in tank looks fine and params are normal.

[mbarton2010]

looking good

[the_gats]

thanks thanks it's been fun and the wife is finally starting to admit she likes having the tank.

[the_gats]

Decided to do a slight rescape. Just switched the position of the left 2 rocks. I thought I might me losing the view of possible corals on the long flat rock the way it was before. Tank now looks a lot more open.

FTS 7-7-10 (Still a little cloudy from the move.)

 

Let me know what you think.

[automatik_33]

I like it!

[the_gats]

Went to LFS today to check out what they had. Any thoughts on a YWG + male pistol + female pistol. Is this good, bad or whatever?

[tundrashaul]

That should work with that scape, just keep in mnd that they burrow like crazy so rocks must be stacked sturdy and bottom or eggcrate before sand. your scape doesnt look like it would be terribly affected by a slight shift. I love to watch them, my LFS has a pair in a display tank i always watch along with the biggest clam i have ever seen in a tank.

[the_gats]

Just ordered 10 more lbs of dry rock from reefcleaners to fill in a hole in the back corner. I think I'm going to go pick up the YWG and male&female pair of pistols later today. Gotta love days off.

[the_gats]

Pick up the YWG and 2 pistol shrimp today. They have already excavated the left side of my tank and are now onto the right side. Was able to take some pics of the YWG but haven't really seen the shrimp out enough to get a pic of.

 

FTS

 

And I know the next pic does not show anything to anyone but I wanted to put in on because what I can see is actually cool. When I look under my tank I can see the holes where the shrimp are digging. When looking through one of them you can see all the way up through a big hole in the rock and see the lights. In the middle of the hole is a small feather duster spread out.

[latteslave]

ywg are great - lots of personality. It's fun to watch them when the get mad at another fish. They open their mouth HUGE and lunge.

[tundrashaul]

Score. Are the shrimp digging the hole the Gobys watchin? Thats pretty awesome if they went straight into Watch mode Tank is very clean. Looks great.

[the_gats]

They went right into it. The goby hasnt really hidden and doesn't seem to afraid of me. Luckily they were already paired or I guess actually a trio so they went right to the roles. It has been fun to watch. I can't believe how loud the shrimp can snap their claws.

[automatik_33]

Sweet! Yeah as soon as I put mine in they also went right to work. Haven't seen the pistol much but do wake up to a sand pile outside his holes.

[the_gats]

Yep try having 2 pistols working together. They already have like 4-5 access points to under the rock. I can see the pistols from the underside of the tank. And they have come out a few times to cross to other pile of rocks.

[beau13]

I love how you are doing your tank! You are doing it almost exactly how I did my 28 gallon Aquaeurousa cube, accept you have better lighting. I even started with the same corals and fish.

 

I did about two years worth of hard research (I am a biology and dental student) on going skimmerless and that is what I did with my tank. My tank progressed at the same rate as yours and with all the same algae. I have more rock in my tank and currently, at five months old, have a large population of fan worms, mysis shrimp (no idea where they came from), and all kinds of copepods and other things all over the rocks, especially when you turn out the lights. My research showed that with religious water changes you can very easily keep a good reef tank with even SPS in it. I like the simplicity of it and fewer things to break, and I like the biology of the natural tank.

 

Currently I have frogspawn, zoas, mushrooms, a colt coral, favia, torch, pulsing xenia, and pom pom xenia in my tank and they are growing like crazy.

 

Good luck with your tank! I'd say don't spend the money on the skimmer and keep up with your water changes. I do 10% a week and it has been just fine.

[the_gats]

Thanks beau13. My plans were to keep this simple and efficient. I am glad I have found this great community to provide so much information and feedback.

[the_gats]

Question: I seem to have grayish fuzzy stuff all over my rocks today. I have seen it before but this seems to be like it is covering a lot more of my rocks than usual. Any idea what this is? Do I need to upgrade the clean up crew?

 

Not best quality pic.

[the_gats]

Shrimp came out to play.

 

I really like the way the the YWG is sitting on the sand with tale curled.

[latteslave]

that's a big pistol shrimp... Looks like algae on the rocks with a light dust of sand.