East1 Posted January 27, 2015 Author Share Posted January 27, 2015 I added a tiny bluestripe pipefish, D. excisus to have him jump out a few minutes later, I found him on the floor after 20 minutes and he's back in the tank now, swimming and munching on pods, but the dryness has caused him minor damage to the caudial fin so we'll see how he gets on. From the pod population I think with daily phyto dosing and weekly addition of fresh live pods from reefphyto.co.uk I can keep him indefinitely without training him to frozen, but as a failsafe I'm going to try a few variations of frozen food to see if I can get him to take any 2 Quote Link to comment
k4ndyk1ng Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Looks good, pictures of the pipefish he will be fine my cherub jumped and his fins dried, fell off and grew back Quote Link to comment
East1 Posted January 27, 2015 Author Share Posted January 27, 2015 Yeah, I was thinking about that just now actually!Pipework's a bit dirty, I've been dosing silicates a bit hard to increase diatom and pod populations. Also, my tank's suddenly using double the calcium and carbonate over the space of about 3 days I'm seeing a drop of 5-7ppm a day on top of what I've been experiencing normally 1 Quote Link to comment
East1 Posted January 29, 2015 Author Share Posted January 29, 2015 Unfortunately the pipe took a turn for the worse and didn't make it. I don't think I'm going to try one of those again. I'm going to go fish shopping again this weekend possibly, on the look out for a pygmy geometric hawkfish or a coral croucher or something Quote Link to comment
East1 Posted January 30, 2015 Author Share Posted January 30, 2015 Picked up a Geometric Pygmy Hawk yesterday, and I fed the tank with a large dose of live copepods (my sps ate most, I was hoping to establish a small colony in the display) Currently my tank is using 100mg of calcium for growth per day, if my maths is right. they also use just over 1dkh of carbonate. Adding yet another LED to cover the mangrove canopy, and dedicating the two 10W purely for the SPS now, I'm getting some good color but I feel I could get more. 2 Quote Link to comment
teenyreef Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 Oooh, let's see some pictures of the new fish I like the lighting upgrade idea. Just make sure you increase the light gradually so the corals aren't too shocked. Quote Link to comment
k4ndyk1ng Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 This is coming along so well, and as above MORE PICTURES!! Quote Link to comment
East1 Posted January 31, 2015 Author Share Posted January 31, 2015 I'll get some pics up soon! I accidentally overdosed calcium thinking it was magnesium (dosed 10ml when my doser puts out 0.5ml a day, so a shift by about 80ppm) so after a large seriesof water changes my KH has now shot up to ±11dkh from the 7 it was at this morning. Calcium is elevated to 440ppm which should take the high alk stress off the SPS but I'm pretty worried nonetheless. Everything looks pretty healthy, so hopefully the large 3/4 water change will offset any stress while my alk drops back down to about 8 Quote Link to comment
East1 Posted February 1, 2015 Author Share Posted February 1, 2015 Seems that everythings doing well, if not better than pre-massive-panic-induced waterchange I just want the colours I have top-down to extend all way down my colonies! 3 Quote Link to comment
k4ndyk1ng Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 My tank will be king for top downs, my birdsnest, ohh my :0 Love this little tank, is everything ok after the mistake? Quote Link to comment
East1 Posted February 1, 2015 Author Share Posted February 1, 2015 Yeah everything looks better after the 80% change I did to stabilize it, those pics are from this morning hehe 1 Quote Link to comment
k4ndyk1ng Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 Yeah everything looks better after the 80% change I did to stabilize it, those pics are from this morning hehe Glad to here everything is better I'm looking at building a 4x4x4" cube, not a typo, that small. This is my inspiration lol, no idea how it will turn out 1 Quote Link to comment
VABumpkin Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 Amazing little tank! The pygmy hawk is perfect for this. 2 Quote Link to comment
East1 Posted February 5, 2015 Author Share Posted February 5, 2015 Man I'm excited for that size, would be awesome with some colorful stuff. I was just wondering about how much of my success in keeping SPS can be attributed to my mangrove? I'm probably going to order a few more in feb for this tank. Some great reading for anyone looking at keeping mangroves all from albert theil http://www.athiel.com/lib10/mangrove9.htm http://www.athiel.com/lib11/manstart.htm Quote Link to comment
East1 Posted February 5, 2015 Author Share Posted February 5, 2015 I really like the pygmy hawk in this tank, it's small enough that it can hide in the rock and coral growth but big enough that you notice it move about every now and again. My lovely girlfriend actually managed to be interested when we went to the LFS this week through the hour or so I was there, came home with a nice little Acropora nasuta and a coral crab which promptly lost a claw. New 20w warm-white LED and a 9w royal blue LED have been added and the tank is now bright as hell, and coral colouration has taken off. 4 Quote Link to comment
k4ndyk1ng Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 TOTM! TOTM! TOTM! TOTM! 1 Quote Link to comment
VABumpkin Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Definitely totm potential here Quote Link to comment
East1 Posted February 7, 2015 Author Share Posted February 7, 2015 Cheers for the kind words! I've noticed when I let my skimmer get dirty I start to get terrrible bacterial mats in the tank, I'm tempted to start skimming wetter now to keep things as clean as possible, corals are starting to really 'pop' though, my pocci is a strong hot-pink color now, and my newly browned acro is even starting to get a metallic tinge after a few days. Quote Link to comment
East1 Posted February 7, 2015 Author Share Posted February 7, 2015 lol - my tank is using 365mg of Calcium per day at the moment, but sadly I'm dealing with small amounts of dinoflagellates, I believe it's due to the tank being Nitrate limited so I've upped to dosing 1ppm every 2 days to try combat them. I'll get some photos up today / tomorrow. Quote Link to comment
East1 Posted February 8, 2015 Author Share Posted February 8, 2015 Not a huge amount of change, pinks are pinker and the brown acro is getting some light-pink/purple tips. 1 Quote Link to comment
Giga Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 you've done well in my absence lol 1 Quote Link to comment
k4ndyk1ng Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Hey east1, not related to your tank but how do I post in ultimatereef? I can't seem to do it and want to get on the classifieds thhansj Quote Link to comment
East1 Posted February 10, 2015 Author Share Posted February 10, 2015 you've done well in my absence lol I was wondering where you'd gone off to! Thanks! I genuinely think that the mangrove is the sole reason I'm able to keep SPS, I think they clean out a lot more nutrient and organic material through their root systems than people give them credit for. I guess that's to be expected even if growth is slower than comparable macro algaes, I think they're more effecient at nutrient and organic scrubbing. Hey east1, not related to your tank but how do I post in ultimatereef? I can't seem to do it and want to get on the classifieds thhansj What do you mean? You log in and there should be a post reply button and a box. I'm fairly certain you've posted in my thread over there Quote Link to comment
k4ndyk1ng Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Good job on the quotes lol My account was disabled by the admins for some reason not sure why... Quote Link to comment
Sunstar Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 This is an amazing tiny reef. Same size as my tank in water. I think yours is shorter and longer. I am mind boggled by the beauty. Quote Link to comment
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