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

[HarryPotter]

Wouldn’t alternating Triton and ATI be the worst thing for stability? 

[teenyreef]

57 minutes ago, HarryPotter said:

Wouldn’t alternating Triton and ATI be the worst thing for stability? 

I'm just going to alternate tests. I'm using ATI for dosing continously. 

[kimberbee]

awesome pics!!

[teenyreef]

4 hours ago, kimberbee said:

awesome pics!!

Thanks Kimber!

[StinkyBunny]

On 11/30/2017 at 10:23 PM, teenyreef said:

That's a great question. I have to admit I didn't ask when I got it, but it looks like a filter feeder to me. 

it looks like a Blueberry Gorgonian to me. They seem to hold up quite well in captivity.

[crownsbroyal]

Your tank looks amazing

[teenyreef]

On 12/10/2017 at 5:55 PM, StinkyBunny said:

it looks like a Blueberry Gorgonian to me. They seem to hold up quite well in captivity.

I'm not sure. The polyps are fairly white, not blue. But whatever it is, it's pretty 

10 hours ago, crownsbroyal said:

Your tank looks amazing

Thank you very much! I'd love to see pictures of your tank - have you started a thread?

[kimberbee]

On 12/10/2017 at 4:55 PM, StinkyBunny said:

it looks like a Blueberry Gorgonian to me. They seem to hold up quite well in captivity.

 

On 12/11/2017 at 10:03 PM, teenyreef said:

I'm not sure. The polyps are fairly white, not blue. But whatever it is, it's pretty 

Thank you very much! I'd love to see pictures of your tank - have you started a thread?

It doesn't look like a blueberry to me. I just got one last month. 

 

The flesh is tan/pale pink and the polyps are blue/light blue:

IMG_7415 by kimothy182, on Flickr

 

The fact that the flesh on Teeny's is BRIGHT RED, makes me think its a red finger or red sea fan.

[Nola Bear]

1 hour ago, kimberbee said:

 

It doesn't look like a blueberry to me. I just got one last month. 

 

The flesh is tan/pale pink and the polyps are blue/light blue:

IMG_7415 by kimothy182, on Flickr

 

The fact that the flesh on Teeny's is BRIGHT RED, makes me think its a red finger or red sea fan.

+1

[ninjamyst]

tank looks amazing!!!!!!!

[teenyreef]

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and/or holiday! I've been busy but tomorrow is picture day, so I'll have more updates then. In the meantime, I'm sorry to report that Boris, the yellow coris wrasse went on a great exploration expedition and sadly forgot to pack his portable water suit. But he went a long way before turning into a fish stick, somehow finding his way into the back of the cabinet under the tank. I don't have a sump, so I have no idea how he ever got back there. But I salute his adventurous spirit! I hope the other fish think the reason he never came back is because he found his dad...

 

 

Seriously, though, my best guess is that he somehow jumped out just as I was pulling the ATO container out, and somehow landed on the lid. And somehow I didn't notice him and when I lifted up the lid he slid off into the back of the cabinet. The ATO container is the white box on the right side of the picture.

 

Oh, and I have a lid, so this all happened somehow while the lid was off. I guess it was just his time to go. 

[Droy008]

sorry,

He seemed like a cool little guy too.

Hopefully, he'll live on in relatively short memories of your tanks inhabitants.

 

[pgrVII]

Tank is great looking Teeny!??

[Cannedfish]

10 hours ago, teenyreef said:

I hope the other fish think the reason he never came back is because he found his dad...

 

I can't even muster a witty response. Stated plainly, this is the best comment I will read all day. Touché . 

[teenyreef]

For New Year's Eve, my oldest daughter went to a party with her fiancee, the middle son went to a party with his girlfriend, and my youngest daughter had a friend over for a sleepover. Some people party, but me, I hung out with my wife, ate too much food, drank some wine, and took pictures of corals 

 

I have lots and lots of pictures to edit but for now, here are the last fts/top down shots of 2017. By the way, the clownfish spawned earlier in the evening, so you can see them hanging around the eggs. If you zoom in on the top down you can see the eggs 

2017-12-31 FTS:

 

Top Down:

 

[Polarcollision]

Very nice! It's still a riot of color in there. I'm loving all your zoas, especially the miami vice pink and blue, oh! and the neon orange and green ones. It's also nice to see your acans holding their colors well. Nothing's seems to have turned orange on you.

[pgrVII]

Tank looks superb my friend! Way to spend new years! Mine was even more low key than that even?

[ninjamyst]

you need a bigger tank already!  how's the coral beauty doing with nipping?  still a model citizen?

[Cannedfish]

Per usual your top down shot is insane. It basically looks like someone gave Jeremy Scott some peyote and neon finger paints, and then left him unsupervised.  Especially that crazy pink and green chalice-y looking thing in the back left. Where did you get that? I hope it's called the South Beach Banana Hammock. Even if it's not, I need one of those in my life.

[truepercs]

Just curious, the corals are packed in, do you need to treat the tank similar to a Bonsai plant and trim to keep the piece?  I am always concerned with encrusting monti, I have seen a couple tanks whereas they just grew over everything. (I have refrained from allowing them to grow on the main rock in fear of a disaster

I don't know the real story on how  the encrusting monti grew over the coral, perhaps it was already dead and the monti encrusted over the dead pieces?

 

I really would like to fill voids in between coral however carefully.  You seem to have the rock covered pretty well  

 

Nice looking aquarium!

 

 

[teenyreef]

@CAfirstReef PM'd me to ask a few questions. Among others, he was wondering about my filtration/back chamber set up, so I thought I'd share those details here on the thread. Some day I really need to update the first page of this thread with my setup details!

 

Left chamber #1 (far left): Tunze 9004 skimmer (the big end chambers are the only ones big enough for this skimmer)

Left chamber #2: probes and dosing tubes

Middle chamber: return pump and ATO sensor

Right chamber #2: two pieces of bio brick (I used one 8x8x1 block and cut off two pieces small enough to slide down lengthwise into the chamber)

Right chamber #1 (far right): InTank media basket running a filter pad. About once a month, I add some granular activated carbon and run it for 3-5 days before taking it back out.

 

i run the filter pad instead of floss because the InTank basket shelf is only about an inch below water level and it's hard to get floss to cover the shelf evenly.

I like the InTank basket better than the IM caddy because it tightly covers the whole chamber, forcing all the water to go through the media.

I also run NoPox, 1.5ml/day currently.

 

Finally, it's really important to stir up the detritus in the back chambers periodically. I'm not changing water much, if ever, in this tank right now, but I used to drain water from the back chambers when I did water changes. Now I squirt water around back there with the turkey baster, or I just insert the siphon hose in the back chambers and blow into it to stir it up.

 

[teenyreef]

On 1/2/2018 at 6:50 PM, truepercs said:

Just curious, the corals are packed in, do you need to treat the tank similar to a Bonsai plant and trim to keep the piece?  I am always concerned with encrusting monti, I have seen a couple tanks whereas they just grew over everything. (I have refrained from allowing them to grow on the main rock in fear of a disaster

I don't know the real story on how  the encrusting monti grew over the coral, perhaps it was already dead and the monti encrusted over the dead pieces?

 

I really would like to fill voids in between coral however carefully.  You seem to have the rock covered pretty well  

 

Nice looking aquarium!

 

 

Thanks! Yes, the corals are super packed, especially all the acros on top. To be honest, I've set things up more as a frag grow-out setup than as a long-term setup. As the frags get bigger, I either trim them back like little bonsia trees, or remove other frags to make room. For example, I recently removed two frags from the middle area to make room for the katropora and others that are starting to crowd things out in there.

 

In the long run, these corals are placed to closely together, there's just no getting around it. At some point I'll just have to break out chunks of frags to go into other tanks and let the strongest survive. But I figure so far I've gotten a year and a half of fun out of this arrangement, and I don't expect to have real problems for at least six more months, maybe more.

 

Encrusting montis can be controlled fairly easily. Just drain the water out to expose them to air, and put a little peroxide where you want them to die. The hardest part is keeping the peroxide where you want it to be, so it's a fairly extreme treatment. I'm nowhere near to having that problem yet

[teenyreef]

On 1/1/2018 at 3:08 PM, Cannedfish said:

Per usual your top down shot is insane. It basically looks like someone gave Jeremy Scott some peyote and neon finger paints, and then left him unsupervised.  Especially that crazy pink and green chalice-y looking thing in the back left. Where did you get that? I hope it's called the South Beach Banana Hammock. Even if it's not, I need one of those in my life.

 That's the mummy eye chalice, one of my favorite classics. I got mine from...you guessed it! ASD, your favorite place 

Here's a closer picture:

 

[teenyreef]

On 1/1/2018 at 2:41 PM, ninjamyst said:

you need a bigger tank already!  how's the coral beauty doing with nipping?  still a model citizen?

Ha ha, yes, see above

 

The CB still never nips where I can see it. But something keeps most of the polyps from extending in this tank. Maybe it's just the water, maybe it's the CB, but I can't say for sure.

On 1/1/2018 at 1:41 PM, pgrVII said:

Tank looks superb my friend! Way to spend new years! Mine was even more low key than that even?

Thank you, my friend! There are far worse things than a quite NYE with family and corals

[teenyreef]

On 1/1/2018 at 12:44 PM, Polarcollision said:

Very nice! It's still a riot of color in there. I'm loving all your zoas, especially the miami vice pink and blue, oh! and the neon orange and green ones. It's also nice to see your acans holding their colors well. Nothing's seems to have turned orange on you.

Thanks! I think the true key to keeping pretty acans is low light, and not too much whites or reds. I'd actually like to turn up the lights a bit, as some of the zoas on the right side seem to be reaching, but life is full of compromises.

 

The pink and blue vice zoas are their "Aquafresh" zoas. I had them forever and they wouldn't grow at all. Finally when I put them in this tank they decided they like the conditions and they've been multiplying. I hope to start fragging them soon!

 

Here's a closer picture of them: