Teenyreef's IM40 Not-So-Teeny Tank - August FTS

[markalot]

Just now, teenyreef said:

 

 

Me too! From what I see from google image searches, it seems to be hit or miss in real world tanks. Which I know matches challenges we've both had with getting pink and red stuff to stay that way.

I figure my Red Robin has been red for about 5 days of the 800 days or so I've had it.  lol

 

[teenyreef]

Reducing the photoperiod for the ATS by two hours seems to be helping. At the three week mark, the algae finally is starting to grow. There's even a few tiny spots of green in there.

 

 

[Tamberav]

Catching up on everyones tanks..... your tank looks so good!! You really pack those sticks close together, think they will have room to become colonies?

 

How is the skimmer working for you still? Thinking about getting one even though I am skimmer-less atm. 

 

Bird of paradise also amazing, I keep thinking about picking up the browned out ones at the LFS simply because I dream of it looking anything like yours. 

[teenyreef]

Thanks for stopping by! Yes, the frags are definitely too close together in general. My general approach has been to let them grow until they start to fight. Then I remove the loser to the frag tank to recover and let the winner take over. It's not a strategy I recommend but I just keep buying more corals. I might have a problem 🤔

 

The skimmer has done well. Right now it's set to slim very dry. But it hasn't skimmed anything in a couple weeks so I probably need to pull it for a cleaning, the first time since I got it. 

 

The BoP is getting really big (for this tank). I'm going to frag it soon just to cut it back to size. That's my other management technique for corals that get too big 

[YHSublime]

4 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

 It's not a strategy I recommend but I just keep buying more corals. I might have a problem 🤔

 

I resemble this. 

[Tamberav]

15 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

My general approach has been to let them grow until they start to fight. Then I remove the loser to the frag tank to recover and let the winner take over.

Coral fighting! Should I be calling PETA? 😜

[teenyreef]

On 10/5/2018 at 1:04 AM, Tamberav said:

Coral fighting! Should I be calling PETA? 😜

The rule of Coral Fight Club is...

 

Well, as @Cannedfish says, "there's always room for one more!". And if there's room for one more, then there's probably room for four or five! Since I got the new corals from the Jason Fox live sale, I needed to put them somewhere. So I did a little rescaping and rearranging...

 

First I got rid of the blue german digi. It was occupying to best part of the rock right in the middle and up top. Then I moved the hawkins echinata from up top over to the side where the light is lower. I'm hoping for deeper color. I also moved the red dragon down lower for the same reason.

 

Then I glued a bunch of small rocks onto the existing rocks. Sort of like building cantilevered platforms near the top, especially towards the back. In some cases that provided room for new corals, in other cases it provided more space for existing corals to encrust. I also moved the upscales microlados onto one of the new rocks towards the back because it was too close to the Walt Disney tenuis.

 

I did all this with the water drained below the surfaces I was working with. I've found superglue works fine for gluing up small rocks as long as it's done out of the water. I just used existing water poured over the corals to keep them from drying out while I was working.

 

I also moved the cry babies zoas and the sidetracked goni onto the sand bed. I glued the zoas to a small rock, but still need to glue up the goni.

 

Here's a picture of the final results before I put the water back in. Hopefully everything is still alive tomorrow!

 

 

[skyscraper2290]

Wow! That’s great work teenny, it looks like it paid off. Can’t wait to see some more pics! 

 

When you run run out of room just build some more haha

[YHSublime]

Bonkers, you ever done an inventory on what you've got in there? I took stock recently, and was surprised to find out I had over 30 different SPS in what was originally intended to be a zoanthid dominated tank. Nice to see some of the Miami Vice's around, some of my favorites, and they can take a beating being aquacultured out of the dirty port water in Miami! 

[Tamberav]

I didn't even know the water was missing at first, was thinking you had ultra clear water. 😜

[DaveFason]

I feel like this tank from "wow" to " holy crap!". Amazing work John. 

-Dave

[HarryPotter]

That looks amazing! I can relate to adding on rock all the time to make room for frags- my tanks rock will never all match because I constantly am adding dry rock xD 

[mitten_reef]

9 hours ago, teenyreef said:

The rule of Coral Fight Club is...

 

Well, as @Cannedfish says, "there's always room for one more!". And if there's room for one more, then there's probably room for four or five! Since I got the new corals from the Jason Fox live sale, I needed to put them somewhere. So I did a little rescaping and rearranging...

 

First I got rid of the blue german digi. It was occupying to best part of the rock right in the middle and up top. Then I moved the hawkins echinata from up top over to the side where the light is lower. I'm hoping for deeper color. I also moved the red dragon down lower for the same reason.

 

Then I glued a bunch of small rocks onto the existing rocks. Sort of like building cantilevered platforms near the top, especially towards the back. In some cases that provided room for new corals, in other cases it provided more space for existing corals to encrust. I also moved the upscales microlados onto one of the new rocks towards the back because it was too close to the Walt Disney tenuis.

 

I did all this with the water drained below the surfaces I was working with. I've found superglue works fine for gluing up small rocks as long as it's done out of the water. I just used existing water poured over the corals to keep them from drying out while I was working.

 

I also moved the cry babies zoas and the sidetracked goni onto the sand bed. I glued the zoas to a small rock, but still need to glue up the goni.

 

Here's a picture of the final results before I put the water back in. Hopefully everything is still alive tomorrow!

 

 

hehe, looks like we both had a tank cleanup/rescape weekend.  Yours look 1,000 times better than mine tho, colors are just amazing in here.  In the pic, just to confirmed, is that the german blue digi still in the center back, behind the Kat?  What's taking its place?  OR you're just leaving room for others to grow into?

 

[Lula_Mae]

Catching up, tank looks great as always. That Walt Disney is something special!

 

On 7/1/2018 at 10:01 PM, Skeeterific said:

I'm working on my Masters at NC State! When you visit Raleigh check out Fintastic Aquariums, they have a great stock and prices (fun to check out even if you're out of the game for now). Also come by the Fish Room, I work there! 😉

I bought my very first corals from the Fish Room, a couple of zoas and a metallic green ric.  That was a decade ago this month! I think the Fish Room had just opened not too long before. Y'all still across from that mall?

[teenyreef]

22 hours ago, skyscraper2290 said:

Wow! That’s great work teenny, it looks like it paid off. Can’t wait to see some more pics! 

 

When you run run out of room just build some more haha

 

13 hours ago, HarryPotter said:

That looks amazing! I can relate to adding on rock all the time to make room for frags- my tanks rock will never all match because I constantly am adding dry rock xD 

Exactly! When you can't expand any more, just build up and out!

 

In the meantime, the tetras in the 90g FW tank have died of old age. One step closer to a SW conversion and lots more room 

[teenyreef]

12 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Catching up, tank looks great as always. That Walt Disney is something special!

 

I bought my very first corals from the Fish Room, a couple of zoas and a metallic green ric.  That was a decade ago this month! I think the Fish Room had just opened not too long before. Y'all still across from that mall?

Thanks! The WD is still coloring up and I'm impressed at how fast it has grown. 

[teenyreef]

14 hours ago, micoastreefing said:

hehe, looks like we both had a tank cleanup/rescape weekend.  Yours look 1,000 times better than mine tho, colors are just amazing in here.  In the pic, just to confirmed, is that the german blue digi still in the center back, behind the Kat?  What's taking its place?  OR you're just leaving room for others to grow into?

 

Thanks! Actually that's the ASD Showcase stylo. Aka blue stylo. In just the right light, it gets kind of a pink skin but to my eyes it just looks blue. But it's pretty.

 

The blue digi always turns out brown/purple in my tank. You can see what's left of it right in the middle of the picture to the left of the green stag and the oregon tort, all scraped off and looking mostly white. I put the ARC Fireworks acro right on top of it.

14 hours ago, DaveFason said:

I feel like this tank from "wow" to " holy crap!". Amazing work John. 

-Dave

Thanks Dave! The Nanobox really gives the most amazing color. I don't even turn the T5s on for pictures.

[teenyreef]

21 hours ago, Tamberav said:

I didn't even know the water was missing at first, was thinking you had ultra clear water. 😜

Ha ha, that's true! I wish I had taken a "before" picture when the water was low but still covering the acros. It would have been super pretty.

[teenyreef]

23 hours ago, YHSublime said:

Bonkers, you ever done an inventory on what you've got in there? I took stock recently, and was surprised to find out I had over 30 different SPS in what was originally intended to be a zoanthid dominated tank. Nice to see some of the Miami Vice's around, some of my favorites, and they can take a beating being aquacultured out of the dirty port water in Miami! 

Lol, I haven't done a real inventory in quite a while. I should work on one, though!

 

I love the vice zoas! I've got a couple different ones I got from Aquascapers way back when. 

[teenyreef]

Update: tonight some of the acros were a little bleached, mostly ones that had been moved like the hawkins echinata. I had reduced the LEDs by 25%, but I didn't adjust the T5s, so I think that may be the problem. I cut the T5's from 5 1/2 hours to 2 hours to see if that helps. Acros can always recover from being brown, but bleaching is usually permanent if it isn't fixed right away.

 

Hopefully that will take care of things, but just in case I took some pictures so I can remember how nice everything looked 🙂

 

2018-10-09 FTS:

 

2018-10-08 Top Down:

 

You can see most of the expanded rocks in this picture of the upper left of the tank. I'll try to come up with some closer pictures of the individual corals and provide names later.

 

This is the lower left. The partially bleached hawkins is on the far lower left right next to the dendro. It looks like it's really close to the dendro but its actually a couple inches above it.

 

A little more towards the front:

 

Here's a closer view of the new JF Sidetracked goniastrea. It has lost some color since I got it but as long as it doesn't die I'm happy. I can play around with getting it to color up later.

 

The new zoa garden after taking all the rocks apart. Some are still struggling but overall everything is doing much much better. They're just thrown in there randomly right now. Once they are all healthy again I'll start putting them together again in a more compact and attractive arrangement.

 

I have yet to get a good picture of the new JF Cry Babies zoas. But here's what I've got:

 

Close up of the acan garden. There are a few more above these, but I can't get a good picture of all of them together.

 

[skyscraper2290]

Wow teeny, just wow... Tank is looking amazing! Great photos!

[markalot]

Gorgeous, and the acro colors look near perfect.  Those other lessor corals look ok too.  :D  

 

Back when I was getting reef fever I converted my 46 bowfront from freshwater to reef in one 12 hour day, even mixed salt IN the tank.  Slowest part was filling the thing up.  I don't know about you but I see big freshwater tanks with big fish and I don't like it at all.  Small freshwater fish look great, big freshwater fish just look old.  Not sure why.  

[teenyreef]

9 hours ago, skyscraper2290 said:

Wow teeny, just wow... Tank is looking amazing! Great photos!

Thank you!

[teenyreef]

2 hours ago, markalot said:

Gorgeous, and the acro colors look near perfect.  Those other lessor corals look ok too.  😄

 

Back when I was getting reef fever I converted my 46 bowfront from freshwater to reef in one 12 hour day, even mixed salt IN the tank.  Slowest part was filling the thing up.  I don't know about you but I see big freshwater tanks with big fish and I don't like it at all.  Small freshwater fish look great, big freshwater fish just look old.  Not sure why.  

Thanks, Mark, and I agree with you about big fish in big FW tanks. The fish do just look old, and the tanks just look neglected and unhappy even when they're cared for properly. 

 

The biggest hurdle for me to convert to SW is lighting. And plumbing for the sump. And the sump. And drilling the tank. Oh, and I don't really like the location because it's in a room where I don't spend a lot of time. Hmmmmm, I'm starting to realize the real reason this conversion has never happened 😄

[Cannedfish]

Done tank looks mo’ better than some hot oil and bucket of frogs! 

 

Holy good golly, sweet baby Jesus am I behind in spamming your thread! Unacceptable! I’m, better than that, if

only slightly!

 

First off, the tank looks great. I really like what you’ve done with the place. It, of course, always looks good, but the slight remodeling really has helped pull the room together. Like I’ve always said never underestimate the power of an accent wall and new drapes!

 

Next,  unless it’s my fat cousin Carl attempting to be the fourth to squeeze into the backseat of a Ford Fiesta, I agree that there is alway room for one more. As demonstrated by my terrible tattoo, credit card bill, and college report cards, the only thing I can’t resist is temptation. With that being said, while I applaud your live rock building skills, however I feel like your working too hard for that

extra frag (or seven). Don’t work harder, work smarter! Let the tank work for you. Just stick a monti cap in the back corner, and voilà, every month or so you have more surface area to rack up those Amex Delta miles!

 

 

Lastly, your clownfish eggs picture is just straight insane. Insane I say! I strive to take a photo half as amazing one day. 

 

But in all serious, as everyone has come to expect,your tank (actually, tanks plural), look stunning!  They truly continue to be a gold standard of nano reef keeping. Great job!