My Bonsai Reef

[Nano sapiens]

Looks like you'll be starting a new tank?  Exciting! 👍

[sam_the_reefer]

6 hours ago, Nano sapiens said:

Looks like you'll be starting a new tank?  Exciting! 👍

Yeah, already started actually. 🙂

[sam_the_reefer]

Tank's still chugging along and I see our familar friend, cyano starting up again.

 

[sam_the_reefer]

The air pump for my skimmer stopped working yesterday. It snowballed into a deep clean of the tank and equipments and an upgraded skimmer on the way.

 

[Christopher Marks]

Looking great @xellos88! Glad you caught the broken skimmer air pump quickly, that should help keep things on track. Will the new skimmer be air driven, or something different?

[Poodges]

Gorgeous tank @xellos88 Keep up the good work!

[sam_the_reefer]

9 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Looking great @xellos88! Glad you caught the broken skimmer air pump quickly, that should help keep things on track. Will the new skimmer be air driven, or something different?

It's going to be a HOB skimmer (Bubble Magus qq1)

[sam_the_reefer]

I'm still waiting for my new skimmer, but this tank seems to be doing well without one. The skimmer air pump turned out to be a silly issue, it's an ac/dc pump and I just replaced the adapter and that fixed it. It's now running on my macroalgae tank. I think I just wasted a bunch of money on a new skimmer which this tank probably doesn't need.

[sam_the_reefer]

So I got my new skimmer out of the box yesterday and I'm impressed. It was plug-and-play and even though it's still breaking in, I'm getting some tea colored skimmate from it already. The improved filtration inspired me to do something new.

I've been slowly upping the portions for the carpet anemone to get it to grow and achieve that folded look. But, I've been feeding it just pieces of fish and shrimp flesh. I will start feeding it whole, smaller sized shrimp. So the portion size will be the same, but the food quality will hopefully be more superior because it has all the nutrients from the whole organism vs just the fleshy bits.

[sam_the_reefer]

Nem looks happy today after a good whole shrimp meal.

 

[blizzardscout2]

Your tank is looking great! I love the carpet anemone. I think the tank upgrade really looks awesome. Keep up the great work!

[DNR88]

Do you have a special filter/settings/equipment for your pictures?

[sam_the_reefer]

55 minutes ago, DNR88 said:

Do you have a special filter/settings/equipment for your pictures?

The latest pic is just from the phone, but I've set my whites a bit higher so the spectrum looks 14k.

[sam_the_reefer]

[sam_the_reefer]

The anemone continues to do well with the whole shrimp diet. The other corals seem to be doing great too, especially the cynarina at the back. Still hoping it will reclaim its skeleton. The red people eater zoas on my zoa branch have bleached and I'm not sure why, but the rest are doing fine. The candy canes are also just meh (can't please everybody here). I've added some mature branched live rock rubble and red halymenia from a friend's fuge/sump as he was decommissioning his tank. 

[Nixperience]

This tank is awesome!

[DNR88]

Still great to see, but I would say that the anemone is getting a bit too dominant, what do you think?

[sam_the_reefer]

1 hour ago, DNR88 said:

Still great to see, but I would say that the anemone is getting a bit too dominant, what do you think?

It is, but it's fine. The clownfish & anemone combo is what got me into the hobby pre finding nemo era.

[sam_the_reefer]

This cynarina is a sign that we should not lose hope.

 

Acans are starting to grow on the base. I love these because they can touch and coexist.

 

Current FTS. 

 

[sam_the_reefer]

Took some pics with my old starter DSLR while waiting for the typhoon.

 

 

 

[sam_the_reefer]

 

[sam_the_reefer]

The typhoon that hit us hours after taking the above photos was the most devastating one I've experienced so far. It's been a week without power now, but I've been able to keep everything alive through a battery pump. 

 

The estimated time for power to come back to our area however is 8 weeks. I don't think this tank will last that long on a battery pump. So far the most feasible option to keep everyone alive would be to move this tank somewhere where power is available, but it's even hard to get gasoline here after the devastation. The other option would be to return them back to the ocean. All of the species in this tank are endemic to the area so it shouldn't impact the wild. A third option would be to take just the anemone back to the ocean and hope the shrooms, zoas and ricordea will be able to get by for 8 weeks on ambient sunlight and a battery pump, or maybe just try my luck keeping everyone alive but bleaching anticipated for 8 weeks.

 

 

Our house suffered minimal damage compared to everyone.

 

Our neighbor who was most affected. 😞

[debbeach13]

So sorry about the typhoon and no power. I am glad that you are safe. Such a shame the tank is doing so well. Good luck with whatever course of action you decide.

[Nano sapiens]

On 12/23/2021 at 10:15 PM, xellos88 said:

The typhoon that hit us hours after taking the above photos was the most devastating one I've experienced so far. It's been a week without power now, but I've been able to keep everything alive through a battery pump. 

Yikes, so sorry to see the damage.

 

If you keep the livestock, lighting is going to be an issue over the long term.  If I had to try and keep a tank lit without electricity for 8 weeks in a mostly sunny country, I'd try and set up a relay of mirrors from the sunshine to the tank to provide at least a few hours of light/day and keep them very well fed.

 

Good luck and hope everything works out.

[DevilDuck]

Wow that looks terrible. Wishing you and your family good luck and safety!