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JP's PicO II. Featherduster hosting clown!


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Mine hung up on the back wall just like that until he discovered his favorite holes in the rock, fortunately for me out front so I can see his head poking out.

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Mine hung up on the back wall just like that until he discovered his favorite holes in the rock, fortunately for me out front so I can see his head poking out.

Yeah, so far, his favorite hole is near the back also. I should pack it with epoxy.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Well, I picked up 7 new frags from Saltcritters 50% sale on Friday. Being local to them, I'm able to meet them at a local Walmart for $5. This alone makes Saltcritters my go to coral store. I've bought a few things in the past at Premium Aquatics (also local-ish) and Inland Aquatics in Terre Haute. All in all, I'm pretty lucky to live in the midwest and have a variety of options when it comes to purchasing livestock. I'm still battling aiptasia and I've not seen my berghia nudibranch nor a reduction in the aiptasia population. feels bad.

12/08/2013 FTS

http://s852.photobucket.com/user/jrusiad/media/FTS120813.jpg.html'>FTS120813.jpg

 

I'm really not all that happy with my scape and I need to look at past photos of my zoas because I think they are melting slowly. The frogspawn has been the real grower. It started out as 2-3 heads and I think I can count 8 now. Also, the Duncan has two new sprouts. The birdsnest is starting to take off again which is nice to see. Also, my little mini nem that hitchiked with some LR I bought from a local reefer out of his fuge split this weekend.

 

I'm still hesitant to add another fish any time soon. I don't like my clown fish. He's an asshole and he won't let me work in the tank (which is one reason I haven't been successful with aiptasia x I think) I put the frogspawn back in his corner hoping he would hang out in it in lieu of an anemone but he doesn't.

I added two pieces of acropora

1 chalice frag

green mushrooms

2 ricordea

1 monti cap (seasons greetings i think?)

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Sorry about the TSB. :( I just got one myself.

 

I got a bunch from Saltycritters also from the sale. :)

Sweet. I'm not sure what happened exactly with the TSB. I was feeding ocean nutrition flakes every couple days and LRS Reef Frenzy. I noticed he would eat the meaty foods too and I think he had trouble digesting them. He became very bloated, but still active. Then, he was just gone without a trace.

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Mine is being a pain so far but he's new to tank. I put down an NLS pellet in front of where he hangs out normally...and he picked it up in his mouth, swam over to the 'cliff' of the rock and spit it out. I swear i could hear him yelling, "THIS IS SPARTA!", as he did it. :slap:

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  • 2 months later...

I know each and every one of you has been on the edge of your seat since my last update, two months ago. Well, the berghia nudibranch never ate a single aiptasia and I've not seen it since I introduced it. I've used boiling water, super glue, aiptasia X and lemon juice with no favorable results... only more aiptasia. I finally took a chance and bought a couple of peppermint shrimp hoping they would do something. A week later, I can't find a single aiptasia. I can't explain to you how excited I was to see the results. I still have some cyano here and there but I've taken steps to eliminate ambient light from the nearby window that I believe was contributing to the problem. I've added quite a few more frags and six line wrasse. I'm not too happy with some of my SPS at the moment but I'm hoping I can improve my success with more frequent water changes.

Here is a top-down shot before I added my saltcritters frags.

http://s852.photobucket.com/user/jrusiad/media/reef.jpg.html'>reef.jpg

current FTS:

http://s852.photobucket.com/user/jrusiad/media/photo.jpg.html'>photo.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm moving in a new direction right now. I started dosing vodka yesterday (.05ml) to try to reduce nitrates a little more. I'm just not happy with my brown SPS. I've also considered trying to fit the cadlights biopellet reactor in my second chamber. It should fit but I'm not sure I could still use the media rack for floss.... oi

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I'm still undecided on the NR-1 reactor. I'm at day 4 dosing vodka. I've also been a little aggressive with water changes. I changed about 18% Wednesday and another 20% yesterday. I'm worried I'm doing too many different things at once. Yesterday, I also got a little ball of chaetomorpha for the middle chamber and set up the PicO fuge light. In doing that, I've removed the CPE and purigen. Still running floss and, of course, the skimmer. I also bought some loc-line fittings and split the return to change up the flow a little.

 

I also moved around some frags. While I was gluing the birds nest on a rock, a pesky peppermint shrimp got too curious and ended up gluing his two front legs together. He and his buddy have served me well, eliminating my aiptasia infestation so I feel kind of bad. Hopefully he'll molt soon and free himself of his "cuffs".

 

JP

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Well, I did some rearranging after I came home with another 6 frags from saltcritters. It was starting to look like a frag tank. I added a few pieces of rock from my 5 gallon tank and moved some things around.

Before:

http://s852.photobucket.com/user/jrusiad/media/FTS30114-1.jpeg.html'>FTS30114-1.jpeg

 

After:

http://s852.photobucket.com/user/jrusiad/media/FTS30114-2.jpeg.html'>FTS30114-2.jpeg

 

The duncan was still a little grumpy after things got stirred up but he's opened up since. I can already see a problem with the placement of my frogspawn. It's probably too close to my sps frags... not that they're really growing...

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Still no love here, huh? Well, I'm not really liking my new rock scape so I may do some more rearranging this weekend. In other news, I finally purchased a RO/DI unit (BRS 75GPD value plus system) for $100 cash locally so I'm kind of excited about that.

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  • 4 months later...

Been a couple months since you last update but I was laughing at your clown, Im really surprised the duster is allowing that to happen! New scape looked great, keep us updated!

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Well, a quick update is in order. I have been a poor tank manager the past few months. I've been working out of town and I can't find anyone locally to take care of things. Due to a nitrate spike, I lost the feather duster, the cleaner shrimp and several sps pieces. The sps were never really doing well because I was using bad salt. I'm trying to get things together now. The mushrooms and acans are doing fine as is the frogspawn. I'm still not really digging my scape at the moment but I'm not going to change too much at once.

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  • 11 months later...

Wowsers, it's been a minute! I'm still the worst reefer around but I've not had any disasters in the past year. I've reduced water changes to about 25% every few weeks. The tank looks like shiz compared to the beautiful systems seen here. I've been saving some money to upgrade to a larger system for my living room and I'll move everything over in the next 6 months or so once my build is planned and completed.

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