TeenyReef's 10g Fusion - ATO Disaster

[RollaJase]

Super cute gobies.

[teenyreef]

On 8/29/2017 at 11:26 AM, Narzyzz_12 said:

I pulled the trigger Monday night and purchased 8 GBG too.They arrived this morning in perfect shape and much to my surprise there were 10  the Ebay seller is beyond awesome I would definitely purchase from him again. Just minutes after being in the Xenia Garden they managed to find themselves and are now in a little group all huddled up.

That's great! He has been a great seller every time I've dealt with him.

 

I wish mine would group together, I only see them one at a time. I have no idea how many have survived in each tank 

On 9/3/2017 at 9:53 PM, RollaJase said:

Super cute gobies.

Thanks, Jase! I'm sad you can't get them easily in your part of the world 

[RollaJase]

3 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

Thanks, Jase! I'm sad you can't get them easily in your part of the world 

Maybe one day .

[teenyreef]

Well it was a busy weekend, we went to my parent's house on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and the whole family including my daughter, her fiancee, and the grandpup all came. We had a great time but I'm exhausted now. But I was able to clean the tanks up and took a few pictures of the 10g, so now I have a September FTS and top down:

 

2017-09-05 IM10 FTS:

 

Top Down:

 

Nothing has really changed since the last FTS, but the acans and zoas have grown out quite a bit. The acros have also gained some color, and of course the monti caps keep getting bigger. I have noticed, though, that the acans have lost some of their rainbow color, and are more of a straight up red. I'm going to have to figure out how to reduce the PAR and/or photo period without impacting the acros up top. Hmmmm....

 

Here's a top down shot of the neon green acro that's right in the middle. You can also see Jeremiah, the tail spot blenny, hanging out in his little cave .

 

[teenyreef]

The California Tort is starting to color up,  you can see the nice blue color on the growth on top.

 

Here's Oswald, the Golden Assessor. For such a goofy fish, he always has such a serious expression. Jeremiah loves the camera apparently, I love this photo bomb shot!

 

Doug, the Leopard Toby Puffer:

 

Here's a more "serious" picture of Oswald and Jeremiah

 

And another one of Doug, because guess who's photo bombing again? 

 

PC Rainbow acro. The top is more brown than red, but it's getting there.

 

[Lula_Mae]

1 hour ago, teenyreef said:

The California Tort is starting to color up,  you can see the nice blue color on the growth on top.

 

Here's Oswald, the Golden Assessor. For such a goofy fish, he always has such a serious expression. Jeremiah loves the camera apparently, I love this photo bomb shot!

 

Doug, the Leopard Toby Puffer:

 

Here's a more "serious" picture of Oswald and Jeremiah

 

And another one of Doug, because guess who's photo bombing again? 

 

PC Rainbow acro. The top is more brown than red, but it's getting there.

 

Jeremiah is hilarious!

[Pjanssen]

Love it all. Blennies have the cutest faces, and Doug

[teenyreef]

7 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Jeremiah is hilarious!

Yeah, I didn't realize what a photo bomber he was until I went through the pictures

1 hour ago, Pjanssen said:

Love it all. Blennies have the cutest faces, and Doug

Thanks, Penny! They add a lot of personality to the tank.

[cju84]

Gorgeous looking tank.  Love your acans!

[schgr.cube]

Great shots, you keep making me want fish I didn't know I wanted 

[DaveFason]

The tank is really starting to come back to life. Keep it up! 

 

Long shot but could you put a small piece of diffusion material on the side with the acans? The issues will small tanks!

[Tamberav]

Yellow assessor is another favorite fish of mine! Just stop it you! 

[PieMan2k]

Teeny whats your ALK in the tank and what salt are you using? My Acans are losing tissue and i dont think its the light or flow. All of my parameters are spot on but my alk is around 11 which Ive read is too high for acans. Seeing that your acans are doing amazing in a small tank i was wondering what your suggestions are for keeping them happy and healthy?

[teenyreef]

8 hours ago, PieMan2k said:

Teeny whats your ALK in the tank and what salt are you using? My Acans are losing tissue and i dont think its the light or flow. All of my parameters are spot on but my alk is around 11 which Ive read is too high for acans. Seeing that your acans are doing amazing in a small tank i was wondering what your suggestions are for keeping them happy and healthy?

I've been going through a bunch of different salts lately, trying to find one that mixes well and comes out close to natural sea water parameters. I've recently tried both Aquaforest and Fritz RPM, and both had very high (over 1500) mag, although they were great otherwise. As of right now, I've got a new bucket of Red Sea blue bucket on order, as it's the only one I've found that mixes closest to the parameters I want. 

I target 7.5 - 8 dkh alkalinity. I've found that acans do fine with low levels of nitrates and phosphates as long as I feed them. I broadcast fee frozen food every night, and about every other night I target feed the acans. As long as I get some food into at least one head of each colony, I call it good enough.

The other key is low light. They really don't color up well if PAR is over 130, and they really seem to prefer closer to 100. Too much white light seems to be especially bad, it makes them turn all red or orange.

10 hours ago, DaveFason said:

The tank is really starting to come back to life. Keep it up! 

 

Long shot but could you put a small piece of diffusion material on the side with the acans? The issues will small tanks!

That's a good thought. Are you picturing something in the tank that shades the acans, or something on one side of the light? Or maybe something that covers that half of the top of the tank?

[teenyreef]

9 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Yellow assessor is another favorite fish of mine! Just stop it you! 

Congrats on TOTM, btw! Somehow I missed your whole cold water tank thread 

10 hours ago, schgr.cube said:

Great shots, you keep making me want fish I didn't know I wanted 

Thanks! I think every fish I have, except for Doug, is because I saw pictures of them in someone else's thread. And the idea for Doug came from @StinkyBunny who listed a few mostly reef safe puffers that might eat my vermetid worms.

[Tamberav]

Just now, teenyreef said:

Congrats on TOTM, btw! Somehow I missed your whole cold water tank thread 

 

Thanks! No worries, I am terrible on keeping my threads updated  I spend more time creeping on other peoples threads 

[Merthynia]

Your tank

Your Corals

Your GOBIES!!

[teenyreef]

10 hours ago, cju84 said:

Gorgeous looking tank.  Love your acans!

Thanks! Just caught up on your threads, things are looking really great in both tanks

5 minutes ago, Merthynia said:

Your tank

Your Corals

Your GOBIES!!

Martha! 

Thanks 

[Merthynia]

1 minute ago, teenyreef said:

Thanks! Just caught up on your threads, things are looking really great in both tanks

Martha! 

Thanks 

There should be a "love" button you can select. I am just amazed at how much you can cram into your little tanks. I have a new hammer that I'd love to get all nice and snuggly with other coral like you have. How did you acclimate them to each other? I don't really want it to go into a stinging spree. I know in the past you've had a tiny amount of warfare...but really, your tanks seem REALLY peaceful overall.

[dvs1986]

hey teeny, what do you feed your puffer? i've been toying with the idea of one, but am worried about making sure its beak gets worn down appropriately.

[schgr.cube]

1 hour ago, teenyreef said:

Thanks! I think every fish I have, except for Doug, is because I saw pictures of them in someone else's thread. And the idea for Doug came from @StinkyBunny who listed a few mostly reef safe puffers that might eat my vermetid worms.

Oh gosh, how is that working for you? Vermetids have been just annoying enough for me to consider doing something else about it. I swear I'm not trying to copy all of your fish...

[teenyreef]

2 hours ago, Merthynia said:

There should be a "love" button you can select. I am just amazed at how much you can cram into your little tanks. I have a new hammer that I'd love to get all nice and snuggly with other coral like you have. How did you acclimate them to each other? I don't really want it to go into a stinging spree. I know in the past you've had a tiny amount of warfare...but really, your tanks seem REALLY peaceful overall.

Thanks! It's a little hard to tell from the pictures, but the hammer is separated by at least a couple inches from all the other corals. The only coral the current gets it even close to is the tubastrea (sun coral). So far it hasn't freaked out about it and sent out stingers. 

 

I expect I'll eventually have to move them out, or frag them, as they get bigger. But they've grown very slowly in this tank, so that's been a blessing in disguise.

27 minutes ago, dvs1986 said:

hey teeny, what do you feed your puffer? i've been toying with the idea of one, but am worried about making sure its beak gets worn down appropriately.

I don't do anything special for him, I just feed frozen meaty food and he slurps it up. I do have snails in the tank, although I've never seen him go after them. I've never seen him go after a vermetid snail either, but they don't seem to be growing at the rate they used to, so maybe he's getting them when they're really small.

[teenyreef]

21 minutes ago, schgr.cube said:

Oh gosh, how is that working for you? Vermetids have been just annoying enough for me to consider doing something else about it. I swear I'm not trying to copy all of your fish...

Vermetids were the first huge pest problem I ever had when I started reef keeping. They were on the live rock I got at the lfs (now out of business, btw), and I didn't realize what a problem they would turn out to be. In spite all all my care, they spread from the 4g to this tank, and from this tank to the 40g. But so far I've kept them out of the 30g frag tank.

 

The key for me has been to remove every single rock and carefully examine them for vermetids, and crush every single one of the them with forceps. I then repeated the process once a month for several months.

 

Since I did the soft reboot in this tank, I've only found a couple. But I haven't pulled the rocks out in about three months, and I suspect there are probably some growing on the back of the rocks in the dark, where I can't see them.

 

Where I can't take the rocks out, like in the 40g, I just crush them wherever I see them. I haven't seen any in months in the 40g, knock on wood...

[Cannedfish]

I love your tank and your sun corals! I have some dendro's and was thinking about getting a small colony of Tubastrea. Do yours stay extended often, or are they only out at night, also how difficult have you found them? My dendos have been trained to stay out during the day, but I wasn't if the sun could be made to do the same.

[teenyreef]

9 hours ago, Cannedfish said:

I love your tank and your sun corals! I have some dendro's and was thinking about getting a small colony of Tubastrea. Do yours stay extended often, or are they only out at night, also how difficult have you found them? My dendos have been trained to stay out during the day, but I wasn't if the sun could be made to do the same.

Thanks! I have dendros in my 40g, and the sun corals generally are out less, in comparison. But they can be trained to extend during the day like the dendros.

 

Sometimes I have to feed twice, once to get the sun corals to wake up, and then again about half an hour later when they're all open.