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Terry's 15gal column office desktop tank


no694terry

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Thats a nice lamp next to your tank.

Your zoas are opening up... nice!

Any trip to get them open?

Most people say zoas are easy to care for but in my case it seems like other sps and lps corals open sooner than my zoas; some havent open at all and I dont even know if death or alive...

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i handled them alot, im suprised theyre open already. I dose a few drops a day of kents microvert food. and they are in a good bit of downward flow. The polyps i litterally smashed down into a hole in the rock havent fully opened yet. Its a green lump i fragged off the lower right rock. my LFS has some amazing corals for sale, I'm going to try and go biweekly for something new. Theres some nice big LPS's i want next

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  • 2 weeks later...

couple ID questions today.

 

This thing which i originally thought was just frag superglue i got on a zoa rock seems to be growing. no idea now what it is. Its pretty firm, as in i barely moves when i push on it with a hard airline.

 

20170227_071650-600x338.jpg

 

 

and i also notice all my rock in the area it gets light has tiny red dots. At first i tought it was cyano, and then i thought it was red algea, no after trying to get a better look at it, it might be coraline but its all over the rocks spread out like chicken pox, not in a patch here and there, 

 

20170227_071700-600x338.jpg

 

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1 hour ago, no694terry said:

couple ID questions today.

 

This thing which i originally thought was just frag superglue i got on a zoa rock seems to be growing. no idea now what it is. Its pretty firm, as in i barely moves when i push on it with a hard airline.

 

20170227_071650-600x338.jpg

 

 

and i also notice all my rock in the area it gets light has tiny red dots. At first i tought it was cyano, and then i thought it was red algea, no after trying to get a better look at it, it might be coraline but its all over the rocks spread out like chicken pox, not in a patch here and there, 

 

20170227_071700-600x338.jpg

 

Definitely does not look like cyano.  It seems like I have seen that on my rock in times past and it wasn't a bad thing.

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  • 4 months later...

Little update on the tank. A couple months ago i had a serious battle with red slime right after i started Microvert so i basically quit all feeding and started skimming wetter and the slime went away. The only thing in the tank that has struggled is the blue damsel, the yellow one became alpha and basically bullied and starved out the blue one. The corals are the same two rocks from February, nothing has changed since Febraury really. The mushrooms and brain coral seems to be doing well. The zoas are not ok but not thriving, I dont think the 36watt  CC LED is enough for the 18" depth, that and i havent changed water in i dont know how long.  Theres a an oyster thats doing well. It cam on a snail from John back in January. The snail has died but the oyster is still kicking, just not as mobile anymore. There a green clam thingy that appeared out of now where to. But like i said, nothing has been added since February.

 

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  • Like 2
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Read this whole thread this morning and glad to see you are "back in the game" so to speak and not giving up.  

 

The lamp fixture is awesome of course and overall setup in great as well.  

 

I had an unbelievable battle with GHA myself, but finally got it under control.  My approach was small bags (cheap panty hose from drug store) of Purichem changed every week/with my water changes.  Had a hard time finding the balance of how much to feed my emerald crab to keep them alive, yet not so spoiled as to keep them from eating the GSA.  Another "weapon" I have employed is allowing my HOB filter (old BioWheel 110) to accumulate some algae on the overflow/spill over section.  While I am not 100% is this is actually helping, but reasoning is to give it a place to grow.  

 

I cannot quite tell how "open" the top of your tank is.  After I went open top, to accommodate my Kessil light upgrade, the GHA situation improved.  While I do not personally care for the light spillage/pollution, I know the oxygen exchange is probably helping on that front.  There is not "hood" on the ocean after all..  

 

Just keep being patient and considering all the fails/struggles as part of the learning process.  When tanks "go well", people tend to assume they are doing things correctly, but that is not always the case.  

 

Good luck and keep posting updates!  

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  • 1 month later...

another updtae.

 

Been noticing baby snails lately. little nerites and ceriths on the rocks and glass. Also some stometella and even a limpet. My one coral rock started to sprout halimeda and overall tank seems really well. I have been completely neglecting it, like completely. Havent done a water chnage in months and just toppign it off evry couple days with dity tap water and its never looked better. Not a spec of nuisance algea, my serpent sea star liek to come out and eat now as long as i dim lights, My turbo is still alive that came on a rock in February. never kept a turbo that long.And the glass barely needs a wipe every few days. I think its because i dont feed the tank. I just have the one damsel and its still plump and healthy, not sure what it eats but its eating something. maybe baby snails. I'll get some photos later

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picked up 6 new acro frags, heres 3 of them, the other 3 hard to photo. Trying to use extension tubes with a 85 F1.4  since i dont have a macro lens

 

TTJ_8811-XL.jpg

 

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  • Like 5
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2 hours ago, vlangel said:

Very nice Terry, I like the direction this tank is going.

Thanks. I been thinking about getting a AI Prime for wifi control but was just on Coral Compulsions website and see they have a new 55w par38. Basically the same bulb i have just bigger. Its been a nice bulb, lil blue for my liking but it hasnt missed a beat for years now. My Zoa's on the sand would probably enjoy a little more par. 

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Christopher Marks
On 1/4/2016 at 9:31 AM, no694terry said:

8/23/17

TTJ_8820.jpg

6 months in and it’s already made so much progress! The new rock is coloring up beautifully with coralline algae. Such unique opportunities with a column tank, I love seeing all those new SPS frags up there at the top. Great macro shots of them too, how is it focusing with the extension tube?

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On 2/10/2017 at 3:04 PM, dcom said:

Thats a nice lamp next to your tank.

Your zoas are opening up... nice!

Any trip to get them open?

Most people say zoas are easy to care for but in my case it seems like other sps and lps corals open sooner than my zoas; some havent open at all and I dont even know if death or alive...

Mine open up under fast flow

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so i come in this morning. Half my frags are missing. I've been turbo'd. I got 2 back, the third, biggest, one in in the back of the tank where i cant get it. and its upside down to boot.

  • Haha 3
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11 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

6 months in and it’s already made so much progress! The new rock is coloring up beautifully with coralline algae. Such unique opportunities with a column tank, I love seeing all those new SPS frags up there at the top. Great macro shots of them too, how is it focusing with the extension tube?

The extension tube aint bad, Mines a set so it had 4 peices you put togetehr in differnet configurations. more tubes, the closer the focus and the shallower the depth of feild. I get about a 1/4" of depth with all the tubes ~2" away, with the shortest tube, i get about an inch of focus ~8" away.

 

Theyre good for a pinch if you have a tripod/stand etc. But they dont beat a dedicated macro like my old sigma 105 or tamron 90

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6 minutes ago, no694terry said:

so i come in this morning. Half my frags are missing. I've been turbo'd. I got 2 back, the third, biggest, one in in the back of the tank where i cant get it. and its upside down to boot.

Sorry, thats really not funny but it was the way you said that you were 'turbo'd' that made me laugh.  I hope you are able to get all the frags back into place.

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I got them all back. Fortunately i only have 3 rocks in the tank so it was easy to move the top one without disturbing anything and i was able to finger the frag back into my possession. I triple checked that they were secure again so w'lee see what happens. 

 

I'm not even sure what type of turbo it is. It has a black and white shells, white body and black trunk/nose mouth thingy. It came as a hitchhiker on one of the lower coral rocks back in February. Banded trochus maybe? "its about an inch around

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19 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Victory! Has your tank started to draw in lookie loos from the office yet?

you bet. I also have a vendor that comes in from time to time that has a reef tank. The cleaning lady is always leaving stuff on my desk too, so she must sit and watch on Saturdays. 

 

the office im in is pretty low traffic. But theres talks of my group moving back intot he main building in October, so that has me a little nervous. Theres a couple flights of steps to go down to get me out of here and i really dont want to disturb the tank at this point

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  • 3 weeks later...

found another oyster thingy growing on a cerith. That makes 2 whitish grey ones, and 2 green ones. And nothings been added to take since February. Pretty sure they came with the reef cleaner snails

 

20170915_161321-X3.jpg

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