Natalia’s reefbowl: 8 years old!

[natalia_la_loca]

The new quart reef jar is cycling nicely! I’m hoping to avoid nuisance algae contamination from the bowls (at least for a while lol) so I’m cycling this one with ammonia and Aquavitro Seed. 

 

This jar is the exact same concept as the bowls, but way smaller. Most of what I needed for it was stuff I already had. 

 

1 quart candy jar with lid

Dry Marco Rock

TOM Stellar air pump rated for 5-10g, no air stone

Aqueon 5w aquatic flat heater

Inkbird temp controller

Abi blue/white 12w par38 (may get a tuna blue later)

Desk lamp

 

I had an extra Betta Stik heater but it was too big (!!!), so I bought the aqueon heater for a whopping $8. It’s the perfect size. The jar is sitting comfortably at 78f now.

 

To make the airline unobtrusive, I used a heat gun at a low setting to bend a rigid airline to fit the inside contour of the jar.

 

For stock, I’m thinking a ric, one or two acans, some zoas, and the smallest astrea snail I can find.

 

Not a lot of news from the reef bowls. The acan in my sculpture bowl has been looking unhappy so I moved it to a frag rack and it’s looking a little better. Not sure what the problem is...maybe the encroaching monti? I’m trying to think of something awesome I could put in its place that will hold its own against creeping montipora.

[natalia_la_loca]

here’s a pic of the little rockscape I created and a current shot of the jar. The table it’s on didn’t have a good place to clamp the architect lamp so I got the idea to mount the lamp in a big chunk of coral rock ☺️
 

I’m having second thoughts about putting a ric in the jar, afraid it will be too big. I reserved a gorgeous ric at the LFS and might put it in the sculpture bowl where the acan used to be, and only put acans and zoas in the jar. Based on Google searches I get the impression that a ric would keep the monti at bay.

 

[Christopher Marks]

This new little reef jar is adorable! Fun to see another one coming online, so small too!

[SaltyGallon]

Super cool. And digging the mini scape, too!

[natalia_la_loca]

So last month I helped a friend set up an opae’ula shrimp bowl like mine. I gave her my curved forceps so I had to get something new. And holy crap you guys, how did I ever live without a hemostat? best pico reef tool ever.

 

It grips better than a forceps and locks in place. No more dropping peroxide-soaked Q-tips on pissed off coral frags! I’ll finally be able to get to parts of the glass that have been covered in coralline algae for years. I’ll be able to see my blasto again! it’s the little things.

 

btw I’ve just realized that both of my bowls have been repopulated by copepods, probably because the last couple times I’ve added frags, I took the calculated risk of not doing Bayer dips because they looked super clean. when I started, I had populations of copepods and isopods but lost both after adding dipped frags. Even with multiple rinses, the Bayer was getting in there and that shit is potent. I may skip the dips on frags that go in the new jar, and just do a close visual inspection. I like pods!

[Lypto]

Maybe start a quarantine bowl so you can keep the fun hitchhikers?  👀

 

[~LadyBug~]

Hi! I'm thinking of starting a reef bowl after I move to dip my toe back into the hobby and your thread is such a great resource! Thank you for documenting all of this. 

 

Where did you get the hemostat? I'm only finding medical equipment lol

 

[natalia_la_loca]

6 hours ago, ~LadyBug~ said:

Hi! I'm thinking of starting a reef bowl after I move to dip my toe back into the hobby and your thread is such a great resource! Thank you for documenting all of this. 

 

Where did you get the hemostat? I'm only finding medical equipment lol

 

Yay, I’m glad you’re finding it informative ☺️  I found mine on Amazon.

[natalia_la_loca]

 Just in time for the cycle to complete (Aquavitro Seed ftw), the LFS got some beautiful acans and rhodactis so I picked up a few! I also added a couple of rasta and vamp zoas from my first reefbowl that were badly shaded and on their way out. Fingers crossed they recover in the jar. Also added a couple of tiny asterina hitchhikers that were on the new frags.

 

New ricordea in the sculpture bowl! Omg I love it.

this is the acan that was failing to thrive in the spot where the ric is now. Pics are from a couple weeks ago, last week, and today. The color is still terrible, but it’s looking better. When/if it recovers more fully, I’ll move it to the jar.

 

 

Aaaaand here are some zoas in the sun

[natalia_la_loca]

Added a few more frags from the LFS: a blue/green sympodium and 2 kinds of zoas (the 2 frags in the middle). I love the colors and they were only $15 each! I’ve seen both morphs before but don’t remember what they’re called?

The little zoa on the right is the vamp morph (very similar to a petroglyph when healthy). It got super tiny in the shade in my older reefbowl but it’s doing well so far in the jar, staying open all day. I really hope it gets big and colors up again.

[natalia_la_loca]

ugh I’m looking at Fluval Evo 13.5 tanks and thinking about how I would set one up. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MEEEEE

[natalia_la_loca]

Little candy jar is doing great! There are pods all over the glass and I love it. I’m giving a little tiny target feeding once a week with the same blend I’m adding to the reefbowls. sympodium is temperamental, actually opens more at night?! Wondering if the light or flow is too strong (have a lot of both).

 

for some reason it’s hard to photograph from the side...the photos all come out dark even during the day. Top down shots look good though.

 

A tiny stomatella snail came in on one of the new frags so I added it to the jar. I see it poking around now and then.

 

 

Aw crap

 

[natalia_la_loca]

Quart reef jar is still doing really well. A couple of the zoas have new heads popping up and I added a frag of bubblegum digitata. It seems to love the flow in there, has great polyp extension.

 

Little stomatella is getting bigger!!! I’m so stoked about that tiny boi 🥰 

 

 

[Christopher Marks]

Glad to hear the new little candy jar is progressing so well!

 

Tell us more about this EVO 13.5 peninsula though..! 😮 

[natalia_la_loca]

On 4/2/2021 at 2:36 PM, Christopher Marks said:

Tell us more about this EVO 13.5 peninsula though..! 😮 

Did me a thread!

 

[natalia_la_loca]

Okay so I like to check out the $15 and $30 racks at the LFS because sometimes I find gems. And the other day, barely visible under a mess of brown non-pulsing Xenia and bubble algae, I found a beautiful frag of Oompa Loompas. It took some delicate surgery to peel off all the Xenia because it had grown among the zoa polyps, but AAAAAAAAH 😍😍😍

 

 

So excited! Haven’t had Oompa Loompas since the old Nuvo 8 zoa garden. They’re in the OG reefbowl for now, but I’ll probably move them to the Evo.

[natalia_la_loca]

in the past few weeks I’ve noticed aiptasia anemones popping up in the OG reefbowl. I was concerned about it getting out of hand in that small space and I don’t like mixing peppermint shrimp and LPS coral, so I ordered some captive bred berghia nudibranchs from Reeftown. Fingers crossed they do their thing! I see them cruising around at night sometimes but not often, they’re very little.
 

Last week I fragged the goniopora mother colony. Goni was like “nbd it’s just a scratch”

Last night I moved the Oompa Loompas to the Evo because they were getting shaded by a duncan.

Overall, the old reefbowl is looking good. The orange acan has a dead spot at the center of it, I think because it also got shaded for a while by a Duncan. Anyway some hair algae was growing there so I diluted some peroxide and squirted it all over the GHA with a pipette. Now the GHA is gone but it’s still got that dead spot. Hoping it will recover since the rest of the acan is big and eating well.

Sculpture bowl news: For the last couple weeks I’ve been treating the sculpture bowl with Vibrant in hopes of eradicating bubble algae before transferring the corals to the Evo. I’ve been using the higher recommended dose and there seems to be a lot less biofilm but I don’t see any effect on bubble algae. Fortunately I don’t see any stress to corals, copepods or mini brittles. I even saw a little isopod the other day, which I didn’t even know I had in there. Because I’m doing close to 100% water changes, the tank is not accumulating Vibrant over time (assuming Vibrant contains a biocide as some suspect).

 

The candy jar is doing okay. I think I overfed it a week and a half ago and the corals have been showing signs of stress since then, so I did a more aggressive detritus removal with the water change the other day and the corals are looking a little better. I may just retire it and move all the corals to the Evo though.

 

 

[brad65ford]

Is it a type-o.  What is the salinity?  Thought I saw 1.12 SG wasn’t shire if that was just on startup?  
 

[natalia_la_loca]

58 minutes ago, brad65ford said:

Is it a type-o.  What is the salinity?  Thought I saw 1.12 SG wasn’t shire if that was just on startup?  
 

Not sure what you mean by typo? The salinity on my bowls/tank/jar is 1.025.

[natalia_la_loca]

Not a whole lot new in bowl and jar land. I upped the Vibrant dose in the sculpture bowl by one drop because I would really like to keep bubble algae out of the Evo. 
 

I’m excited to move the corals from the sculpture bowl and set up the Evo in its final location, but it’s scary. I hate to upset a system I’ve been carefully tending for 3 years and what if the corals don’t do well in the new location? But change is a part of life...

 

 

The quart jar is chugging along but looking a little bare since I moved the rhodactis to the Evo. I’m still thinking I might take it down, mainly because it needs to be topped off 2-3 times a week despite having a well-fitting lid. Too high maintenance!

 

[oli98]

Hey, in your pick reef jar with the 12w abi par38, how high from the water surface is the light mounted please? 

[natalia_la_loca]

2 hours ago, oli98 said:

Hey, in your pick reef jar with the 12w abi par38, how high from the water surface is the light mounted please? 

Hi! 16.5 inches

[natalia_la_loca]

So the reefbowl has been looking pretty garbage the last month or so because I decided to roll the dice and treat it with Vibrant for bubble algae.

Yeah, Vibrant is weird.

 

I added slightly more than the recommended dose for “dirty” tanks and a lot of the corals quickly looked stressed, shrunken, discolored, etc. The duncan has been pissed for weeks. Even the blasto half retracted and lost some color. There was zero effect on the bubble algae as far as I could tell, and hair algae began to take hold. All in all, looking very out of balance.

 

Around the same time, I added a huge overdose of Vibrant to the quart reef jar because some bubble algae showed up on the acans in there, and I’m planning to retire the quart jar and move all those corals to the Evo. Within a week the bubble algae in the quart jar turned white/transparent. The corals and inverts are fine except for the sympodium, which has always been kind of touchy.

 

So I ended Vibrant treatment in the reefbowl last week. The corals still look terrible compared to a couple months ago but they’re recovering. 

 

I’m thinking that now that things are less intense with the Evo, I’m gonna do some serious spring (summer) cleaning in the reefbowl. It’s looking pretty good for five years old, but it really needs some aquascaping and maybe some new frags. That will give me an opportunity to really assess the bubble algae situation and figure out how to address it without unpredictable mystery additives.

 

down but not out!

 

 

[natalia_la_loca]

Reefbowl has bounced back a lot since I discontinued Vibrant dosing. Still haven’t gotten around to spring cleaning. Will probably be a fall/winter project. There’s still lots of bubble algae but I’m keeping it at least somewhat under control with manual removal.

 

 

The duncans were the hardest hit and the slowest to recover, but they look a lot better now. And the blasto came back with a brighter green than before.

 

 

[DevilDuck]

I wish my zoas grew like yours! Those are some great colors!