NZR's RSM130 - The tank that is no more

[ciedre]

UPDATE: These are actually old photos lol, will get some new one tonight.

 

New corals, bubble is doing better, still suffering from algae creping on its skeleton .

New orange Clown, Love at first sight with Jaffa, his name is Cake!

 

FTS:

FTS:

 

Free mushrooms!

 

 

 

Cake and the still pissed torch 20 mins after being placed in the tank:

 

The sad bubble, probably wont make it due to tissue recession from algae growth on skeleton:

[NewZealandReefie]

Soooo no one reads this but what the hey, I've been known to talk to myself even on a good day...

 

Our latest order from StevieT arrived today so tonight we installed our Tunze. I may have suffered a bit of an epic fail when I snapped the plastic elbow for the airline but a touch of super glue and my hair dryer fixed that right up *shhh*.

 

I'll add my thanks again to StevieT for his amazing products, superb packaging and ridiculously fast shipping, 6 days from Wisconsin to Wellington isn't too shabby!!

 

We moved the rockscape around yesterday which unfortunately meant moving the bubble again. It's really not getting any better. However, the tiny piece of pink acro is looking great! The first 2 days we it, it had the look of "dead stick" about it. 3 days in we noticed it had pinked up a little in the middle and some of its polyps were out. It's now about 30% "not such a dead white stick" and the good spots are expanding by the day. The pink blue spotted mushroom has shown up again too! It found its way into a cave in the bottom of a rock.

 

Jaffa and Cake the clowns are getting along well. They're enjoying hosting the sand in the front right-hand corner of the tank...

 

Will try to upload some photos in the next few days.

 

Thanks for reading!

[thadscottmoore]

awesome job! been a while since I have been on here. Work work work.... I am Thaddeus. My rsm has been setup for a couple years now and I am constantly upgrading. I like your aquascape!

[NewZealandReefie]

awesome job! been a while since I have been on here. Work work work.... I am Thaddeus. My rsm has been setup for a couple years now and I am constantly upgrading. I like your aquascape!

 

Thank you! We've put a fair bit of effort in so far and although we certainly enjoy the tank ourselves it's nice to be able to share it and gain honest feedback.

 

The scape changed a bit yesterday, the whole thing moved right about 2 inches and we tweaked the cave entrance a bit to create some different flow patterns. I don't think we'll ever be able to move the top rock though, it's Oscars (blenny) home, I'm pretty sure he'd give up eating algae and turn carnivore on our fingers if we messed with it.

[StevieT]

I'll add my thanks again to StevieT for his amazing products, superb packaging and ridiculously fast shipping, 6 days from Wisconsin to Wellington isn't too shabby!!

 

inTank you. Your product were flown on the private inTank jet that we just purchased.

 

Enjoy

 

The LFS has also just got in a tiny, beautiful fat mandarin fish... I see it... in my tank, eating my pods...

 

Please wait for a long time before you decide to get this fish

[NewZealandReefie]

inTank you. Your product were flown on the private inTank jet that we just purchased.

 

Enjoy

 

Please wait for a long time before you decide to get this fish

 

We most certainly will, comment was more of a dream, something our tank can aspire to.

I think a year or more away yet.

We're also looking into food sources for future reference, roe, frozen, source of pods, setting up a fuge so we can swap around rock/harvest pods from it while we train it to eat frozen etc.

 

We're happy with the tank as it is in respect to fish. I'll be adding more corals as I find things I like enough.

[thadscottmoore]

Seems we are never satsified with our scapes. I know it has taken me forever to get mine to a point that somewhat satsifies me. And, right when I feel satisfied- I have to move something for what ever reason and start the quest again to find what suits me.

[NewZealandReefie]

So true. We planned to only move a couple of rocks a few cm's the other day but when we move them it suddenly made more sense to move everything else too...

 

It then took us a good 20 minutes to decide where our new low flow spot was for our ever picky bubble.

[StevieT]

The best bet with a mandarin is to just train it to eat frozen. After that it is pretty easy, turn all the pumps off and feed in the same back corner of the tank

[NewZealandReefie]

Thanks!

 

We've had a chat to the woman who runs the marine section of our favorite LFS and she is happy for us to try out feeding a mandarin before we buy it (when the time comes). Next time I'm in I'll ask her if she can find out what they eat when they're with her supplier.

[NewZealandReefie]

New FTS. Constructive criticism welcome.

[StevieT]

Look into painting your mag float black, it will literally disappear

[jae4571]

I really like the new scape

[NewZealandReefie]

Cheers! Sadly couldn't get Cake to stay in the shot but Jaffa and Oscar stayed around be to caught on camera.

 

I'll see if I can find a reef safe paint at some point. I've seen you have a recommended paint but I'm pretty sure we don't have that brand here.

[StevieT]

Look for an acrylic based spray paint, we have Krylon here add a down under accent and look for that brand

[NewZealandReefie]

So the zoas finally got sick of having 3 yellow polyps living on THEIR rock. Two of them have disappeared totally, assumed dissolved and the last one is looking pretty sad.

 

No biggie, Sarah at our local LFS has heaps I'm sure she'll be happy to share

 

Not much else to add. All is doing well. Even the bubble finally has a spot it's not completely hating up beside Oscars cave. I'm not so positive it will die now. Hopefully with good care it'll bounce back.

 

Happy reefing,

NZR

[ciedre]

I really like the new scape

 

Thanks Jae!

 

Its working well for us...and in the process of moving everything around we found two large strawberry anemones!!!!

 

Funny story...turns out I murdered about 5 of them not to long ago.....

 

The person we bought the live rock of said they had a we bit of Majano, which is what I though they were when they were closed up out of the water....so 5 mins and a screwdriver later...

 

Funny we have not seen any Majano in our tank...just one tiny Aptasia. (R.I.P)

[NewZealandReefie]

So we're off to pick up a piece of anemone this weekend.

 

A friend of ours had a large anemone of his take trip through his powerhead. Quite contrary to his expectations it has grown from the pieces, 5 healthy little anemones in total, one with our name on it.

 

A fish store about half a days drive from us has also just got in a massive shipment of corals. Heaps of things we don't commonly get here.

 

Thanks for reading, NZR.

[NewZealandReefie]

So we convinced our boss's to let us leave work early yesterday to pick up our sebae anemone.

 

I'll post pictures when the camera is charged and the anemone isn't hiding under a rock.

 

It's a lovely rich vibrant green with purple tips. About 1.5" wide. Looking forward to watching it grow!

[NewZealandReefie]

Decided it was about time I posted some new photos.

 

Here's one of Jaffa and Cake together.

 

LH side shot of the tank as it is now, anemone front left!

 

Let me know what you think.

[BigBad82]

Jaffa and Cake guys.........awesome names, love it!! it was literally last week I found out that you could keep a reg with a black & white, I reckon it's an awesome pairing! Tank coming on nicely guys.

[NewZealandReefie]

Thanks! We did a bit of research on whether they could live together or not. Turned up quite alot of conflicting information but we decided if they were both young and both ocellaris we'd give it a go! They get along fabulously.

 

We've had a fair bit of good luck all things considering.The only pest we can't beat is the flatworms but when they get larger the clowns are eating them... *shrug* we'll see if their population gets any worse.

 

It was sad to read about your fish I hope things go better when you get some more one day.

[BigBad82]

Thanks for that, I'm busy organising a custom build, it'll be 14" cube around 40 litres/11us gallons but will have room for a Tunze 9002 and maybe a UV Sterilizer so I can get my conditions a bit better but making it a Goby only tank.

[NewZealandReefie]

So all in all the tank is doing very well. We have 1 irritating pest (flatworms) but they're staying under control at the moment. As time goes on we may take more time and try new methods of murder on them.

 

The ugly little frag of finger leather (star polyp furry little thing) is growing very well and looking quite pretty now.

 

We stopped off at our LFS two nights ago to take a look and see if they had any new corals in... 5 minutes and some $$$s later we walked out with a long tentacle plate coral. It's flurocent green and yellow striped. I'll post photos when I get a good one.

 

For now here's a photo of our anemone. It's looking very very good!

 

 

Thanks for looking!

[NewZealandReefie]

So yesterday we took back our larger acro. The blenny seemed set on killing it, he kept biting the ends of its branches causing them to start bleaching. He also seems to be getting into the habit of nibbling Jo's arm when it's in the tank. I haven't yet been bitten but maybe with time he'll go for me too...

 

We traded the acro for a chilli leather. We've mounted it upside-down in the cave. Below is a photo (taken with flash during the day so no polyps out sorry)!

 

This a about the best photo I've managed to get of the long tentacle plate so far. LMK what you all think.

 

And the obligatory (nearly) FTS for today.

 

As always thanks for reading and constructive criticism is welcome.