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

[ninjamyst]

2 minutes ago, gone_PHiSHin said:

lol uh what? we're gonna need some details here...

fell into the tank while fragging zoas.  knew it was in the tank but couldn't find it till I lifted my rock out one day to clean...

 

it's just the small surgical blades

[Lula_Mae]

15 minutes ago, ninjamyst said:

i found a surgical knife under one of my rock before...so you never know!

In the OR they call in x-ray when they can't find a surgical blade!

[teenyreef]

2 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

In the OR they call in x-ray when they can't find a surgical blade!

That's what I need! A small portable x-ray that I can run over the fish tank to find foreign metal objects. @Marine Depot, are you listening? This could be a gold mine!

2 hours ago, ninjamyst said:

fell into the tank while fragging zoas.  knew it was in the tank but couldn't find it till I lifted my rock out one day to clean...

 

it's just the small surgical blades

It's got to be something like that, just stuck way down under the sand and rocks. Until I find it, or it finally dissolves, I'm trying to minimize the effects by running a Polyfilter and doing 20% water changes every week.

[teenyreef]

Well, I didn't get the fts I was hoping for this weekend, but I did take a quick top down after feeding time tonight. Some of the z's and p's are closed up, and the clowns put sand all over everything, but overall I think it looks pretty good so far.

 

 

Also, I got a very rare picture of Freckles with his buddy!

 

Like I mentioned, the zoas are doing MUCH better now that the hair worms are gone

 

 

[markalot]

Awesome pictures, great catch of Freckles with the shrimp!  I need a new topdown box, the one I have is too deep and doesn't allow for wide angle shots.

[4x5]

Looks super good but I think you need more corals.  

[teenyreef]

9 hours ago, markalot said:

Awesome pictures, great catch of Freckles with the shrimp!  I need a new topdown box, the one I have is too deep and doesn't allow for wide angle shots.

Usually the pistol is only out for less than a second. This was the first time he's come out for more than a second or two. I actually took half a dozen pictures, but the camera was set up for corals so most of the were too blurry with the longer exposure.

 

In this tank I don't use the porthole much, it's kind of a pain to hold it with the camera while focusing. But there are certain corals that I have to use it for when I can't shoot straight down. But more and more, I just move the light around or swing it to the side to make room for camera. I don't think that would be an option with a T5 hybrid though

5 hours ago, 4x5 said:

Looks super good but I think you need more corals.  

Ummmm, yeah, I think you're right 

[teenyreef]

Oh, hey look, I forgot to post these pictures the other night 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[4x5]

Very nice! Love your Acan garden. 

[TJ_Burton]

That Nanobox really makes corals POP! Hooolay!

You have an awesome collection of corals.

[fishfreak0114]

Damn  

[Berlibee]

Nice! 

[teenyreef]

On 6/28/2017 at 0:11 PM, Berlibee said:

Nice! 

Thanks! I just caught up on your thread, you're making a fantastic start. Oh and congrats on winning the Legendary prize pack. You can color me jealous 

On 6/28/2017 at 10:57 AM, fishfreak0114 said:

Damn  

Thanks!

On 6/28/2017 at 10:29 AM, TJ_Burton said:

That Nanobox really makes corals POP! Hooolay!

You have an awesome collection of corals.

Thanks, TJ, I really need to catch up on your thread, your build is one of my favorites here on N-R!

On 6/28/2017 at 6:40 AM, 4x5 said:

Very nice! Love your Acan garden. 

Thanks - AquaSD has the best acans. But I need to glue them up 

[teenyreef]

I didn't get a chance to post about it, but last week I picked up another yellow coris wrasse from the lfs. This time, I made sure to turn off the lights for a few minutes prior, and I released him towards the back of the tank, away from the clowns. He made a beeline for the sand behind the rocks and buried himself immediately.

 

I didn't see him at all for the next two days, but as I was digging in the back sand for hair worms, he came out of the sand and scared the crap out of me.

 

Then I didn't him at all for almost a week, and I started to think maybe he didn't make it. But when I came home yesterday, a little earlier than usual, not only was he out, he was cruising all around the top of the tank. I tried to get some decent pictures, but he was constantly flying around, so I just had to do my best:

 

 

Today, he came out again after the lights first came on, so instead of feeding in the evening like I usually do, I put in a cube of frozen in the gourmet gadget. It worked really well, and he's not bothered by the other fish at all. I took some video of the fish eating, and edited it in Shotcut to improve the white balance. I think the color saturation came out a little high, but oh well, it's still pretty much how the tank looks in reality

 

 

[teenyreef]

Oh, I almost forgot, I never did post a good picture of Jacques, the cleaner shrimp. He's been a great addition to the tank, and whenever I put my hand in the tank he comes right over and hops onto my hand just to check everything out and make sure my hand is nice and clean 

 

 

While I had the camera out, I got pictures of some of the other fish, too. Here's Sunset, the coral beauty angel:

 

And this is Seymour, the six line wrasse:

 

And finally, one of the three remaining remaining bangaii cardinals. Two of them died within the first week, but the other three have been doing fine. The biggest one stays on one side of the tank, and the two smaller ones stay on the far left, between the rocks and the glass. But they all come out at once at feeding time.

 

With only three left, I guess it doesn't make sense to name them after the Spice Girls any more, so I'll have to come up with a better trio name. And of course I still need to name the yellow coris wrasse. I don't like to name fish before I'm pretty sure they aren't going to die 

 

 

[Christopher Marks]

That coris wrasse is beautiful, I'm glad it's doing so well! I love the fish portraits and updates  

[teenyreef]

4 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

That coris wrasse is beautiful, I'm glad it's doing so well! I love the fish portraits and updates  

Thanks, Chris!

 

I did a water change tonight, and while the water was low I glued up a whole bunch of corals. I got all the acans glued on and around the rocks on their little corner, moved some of the other corals that were on the sandbed onto the rocks, and rearranged the zoas and palys. I don't think I'm done with the z's and p's yet, but no there's a lot more empty sandbed. I also glued up some of the frags from the frag rack, and I only have one rack remaining now. That rack has acros that almost died but are now recovering. I don't want to risk upsetting them by moving them onto the rocks, so they'll stay put for now.

 

More pics to come, hopefully tomorrow after everything opens back up!

[debbeach13]

Looks great. I really like your fish selection. It take time to pick where to glue frags down. Worth it when your done. Did you remove the coral from the frag plugs before gluing or do you glue the plugs?

[teenyreef]

2 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Looks great. I really like your fish selection. It take time to pick where to glue frags down. Worth it when your done. Did you remove the coral from the frag plugs before gluing or do you glue the plugs?

Whenever possible, I remove them from the plugs before I glue them. But if they are encrusted on the plugs, I just trim the peg off the plug and trim off as much of the un-encrusted portion of the plug as I can. 

 

I have to admit, a lot of the locations are temporary. There's not nearly enough room between the frags for them to grow out into colonies as they are arranged now. Some will have to come back out and go to other tanks eventually.

[Lula_Mae]

On 6/28/2017 at 1:28 AM, teenyreef said:

Oh, hey look, I forgot to post these pictures the other night 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That teal and green-centered acan on the right is phenomenal!

[teenyreef]

5 minutes ago, Lula_Mae said:

That teal and green-centered acan on the right is phenomenal!

Thanks! But I cheated and put a few non-acans near the other guys, those are actually favias. They've lost a lot of color since I got them, so during my big glue-up session the other night, I moved them up on the rocks, just to see if they color back up in a different spot in the tank. Here's what they looked like when I first got them:

 

 

[Lula_Mae]

10 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

Thanks! But I cheated and put a few non-acans near the other guys, those are actually favias. They've lost a lot of color since I got them, so during my big glue-up session the other night, I moved them up on the rocks, just to see if they color back up in a different spot in the tank. Here's what they looked like when I first got them:

 

 

Oh, haha!  They have definitely lost a lot of color but I like the color they are now, too!

[teenyreef]

On 7/3/2017 at 1:10 PM, Lula_Mae said:

Oh, haha!  They have definitely lost a lot of color but I like the color they are now, too!

I do too

 

This is an interesting tank, the corals really do have pretty good color, but many of the colors are different from the "normal" colors. Hopefully in the long term my deep cleaning of the back chambers will pay off with a better balance of trace elements and nutrients.

 

 

Today, due to a combination of a few frags finally giving up the ghost, and me finally deciding to bite the bullet and glue the remaining recovering frags onto the rocks, I got rid of the last frag rack! 

 

Although the zoa rocks may end up moving around a bit, as the clowns are trying to lay eggs on them and keep moving them around, this is the first fts I've ever taken in which every single coral is in a semi-permanent location 

 

 

Happy 4th of July!

 

PS: As you can see, the yellow coris wrasse is doing fine! I've decided to name him Boris.

[MrNanoReef]

Happy 4th! Your tank looks great! I see lots of estate up top though, are you planning to rescape to maximize the available space?

[teenyreef]

59 minutes ago, MrNanoReef said:

Happy 4th! Your tank looks great! I see lots of estate up top though, are you planning to rescape to maximize the available space?

That's a great question, one that I don't know the answer to yet 

 

My original thought was to have some very tall corals, like gorgonians, coming up from the back and rising to the top. Then the sps colonies, once they grow in, would come up several inches more, giving a little less height in the middle, and then have the lower stuff in the front.

 

But my plan fell through when I never did anything with tall corals in the back. So I hadn't really thought about it...but I could see adding another rock or two on the upper left side. Maybe even some kind of dong or stick that could be tall and skinny with lots of little frags growing on it.

 

The other problem is that there's a huge difference in PAR. An inch below the surface, PAR is about 700. But at the top of the rocks, it's about 250. But I can definitely go up several inches more before corals get burned.

 

Thanks for making me thing about this!