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Teenyreef's Deep Blue 30g - Massive Reorg


teenyreef

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The tank did great while I was on vacation. The algae grew back fast on the egg crate and on the bare bottom, especially in the middle of the tank where the light is strongest. I've been thinking about redoing the egg crate so that it doesn't cover the whole bottom. Or maybe just cut the existing egg crate into smaller pieces. That way I could just lift out sections, frags and all, and move them around to clean under the egg crate. I could also make them different heights that way.

 

2017-08-14 DB30 FTS

 

2017-08-14 DB30 Top Down

 

Some zoa candies. It will be time to get rid of some of these soon!

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This is a little experiment to see if I can get monticap frags to graft together. I call this one "green eggs and ham" :P

20170814-untitled-075.jpg

 

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One of the zoas blew off the plug, but it found it's way into the rocks. I think I'll just leave it there...

20170814-untitled-080.jpg

 

This monticap frag almost died when I was having all the algae problems. I literally threw it into the 40g tank down in between the rocks and the glass, and the part that was exposed to the light survived. Now it's doing great in this tank. You can see all the dead stuff it grew out of.

20170814-untitled-079.jpg

 

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I really like the shallow cube look. This is just a thought.  Have you ever thought of raising the eggcrate up a little and have powerheads blowing underneath?

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8 minutes ago, MockandRoll said:

I really like the shallow cube look. This is just a thought.  Have you ever thought of raising the eggcrate up a little and have powerheads blowing underneath?

Thanks! I have thought about it - that's part of why I'm considering redoing the way they are set up. Although right now the current beneath the egg crate is decent - all the detritus collects in one spot in the tank. In fact, pretty much right where that SunnyD polyp ended up :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Wow, I seem to have fallen behind in updating this thread! The tank is doing well, getting more and more stable. I'm still chasing the evil hair worms that are popping up in the rocks and on some of the frags, but I think I'm winning, or at least keeping them under control.

 

I added some new green banded gobies yesterday! I got a bundle from an Ebay seller, five for $18.99, with an additional $39.99 for overnight shipping. And then the seller added another five as a thank you gift (I think because I've bought gobies from him before). So I ended up paying $5.89 per goby! I put two in the 10g, four in the 40g, and four in this tank. Of course I haven't seen any of them since they went in. They're really good hiders, and they're really small right now, between 1/2" and 3/4" long. But I did get a picture of them in the acclimation box:

20170822-untitled-002.jpg

 

I also tried taking some pictures with my new cell phone, a Galaxy S8. The white balance on the 10g and 40g tanks is terrible with this phone, but it really does well with this tank. This FTS is basically untouched - it's not nearly as good as the DSLR pictures, as some of the colors are washed out, but at least it kind of looks like what I see in real life.

2017-08-22 DB30 FTS Cell Phone

 

Close ups of fish turned out pretty good, though. Here's Hammering Hank the Longnose Hawkfish:

20170822_204745.jpg

 

The Lorax (Starry Blenny):

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The anthias (still un-named) and Blueberry the Springer's Damsel:

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9 hours ago, fishfreak0114 said:

I love the close ups!  It's amazing how far cell phone cameras have come.

I agree! If I could just get better white balance I'd probably use the cell phone a lot more.

 

I did some tank maintenance tonight and spotted at least three of the four gobies. They move around a lot so it's really hard to count them. They really are tiny, too, in this picture the square is 1/2" x 1/2".

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Here's another view with a better sense of scale:

20170824_211933.jpg

 

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blizzardscout2

Holy Green Goby! That's a lot of gobies. I love gobies myself too. I was planning on adding 1, but I wasn't sure how my Sharknose would behave. On a side note, Lorax is a spot on name for your Starry. Matches their personality too. ?

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9 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

No worries about the hawkfish going after the gobies?

Longnose hawks aren't as aggressive as other hawks. I've seen Flames and Arc eye hawks take out Green Chromis. Just grab them right out of the column and smash them against a rock into bite size pieces, it's pretty intense.

 

Oh yea teeny, I bought another 30 for $100 and we're going to pick up the 80 rimless tomorrow. There seems to be a few around your area from time to time.

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On 8/25/2017 at 0:18 AM, blizzardscout2 said:

Holy Green Goby! That's a lot of gobies. I love gobies myself too. I was planning on adding 1, but I wasn't sure how my Sharknose would behave. On a side note, Lorax is a spot on name for your Starry. Matches their personality too. ?

Thanks - the Lorax seems to be a popular guy :D

On 8/25/2017 at 8:58 AM, Mariaface said:

They're so adorable!! :wub:

 

On 8/25/2017 at 10:26 AM, debbeach13 said:

Yes baby gobies. Cuteness overload.

 

On 8/25/2017 at 11:19 AM, stellablue said:

Awww very cute 

Yep, I'm loving them. I cleaned the tank the other night, pulling out the egg crate and scraping the bottom. I spotted all four gobies in the process, so they're all accounted for now.

FTS:

2017-08-27 DB30 FTS

 

Top down:

2017-08-27 DB30 Top Down

 

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On 8/25/2017 at 4:33 PM, StinkyBunny said:

Longnose hawks aren't as aggressive as other hawks. I've seen Flames and Arc eye hawks take out Green Chromis. Just grab them right out of the column and smash them against a rock into bite size pieces, it's pretty intense.

 

Oh yea teeny, I bought another 30 for $100 and we're going to pick up the 80 rimless tomorrow. There seems to be a few around your area from time to time.

Yeah, Hank doesn't bother anyone else. He just perches, usually right up in the corner of the tank, and is very chill.

30 for $100! You're going to be the go-to source for GBG's :D

Did you make it down here? I've seen a couple 80g rimless, and I've thought about picking one up, because it would fit right on the stand for the 90g FW tank.

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19 hours ago, teenyreef said:

Yeah, Hank doesn't bother anyone else. He just perches, usually right up in the corner of the tank, and is very chill.

30 for $100! You're going to be the go-to source for GBG's :D

Did you make it down here? I've seen a couple 80g rimless, and I've thought about picking one up, because it would fit right on the stand for the 90g FW tank.

There's subtle differences in Sri Lankan and Philippine Long nose hawks. The Sri Lankan ones are more red, the ones out of The Philippines have a better checkerboard pattern.

 

The 80 was up in DC, it turned out to be a 60 so I passed on it. They won't fit on a 90 stand, 90s are 18" wide and these are 24" wide. I meant 30g frag tank, lol, not 30 GBGs.

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41 minutes ago, StinkyBunny said:

There's subtle differences in Sri Lankan and Philippine Long nose hawks. The Sri Lankan ones are more red, the ones out of The Philippines have a better checkerboard pattern.

 

The 80 was up in DC, it turned out to be a 60 so I passed on it. They won't fit on a 90 stand, 90s are 18" wide and these are 24" wide.

Oh yeah that's right, I was thinking of the 75g.

 

I want a bigger tank anyway, might as well build a new stand anyway :lol:

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That size tank is really nice, we're hoping to get it wet this weekend. 24x48x16 is nice. I cut the wood for the stand today and sanded it. Be safe with this tropical shit coming up the coast. It's gonna screw us up a little, need to get it assembled, stained, then urethaned.

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  • 2 months later...

Wow, long time, no update! The tank is still running although I had some more problems with algae, hair worms, and aiptasia. And unfortunately I lost one of the anthias when it scratched itself up on a sharp corner of the egg crate. And I still can't get chaeto to grow in the reactor, although I am growing a fine crop of film algae.

 

On the bright side, the algae went away on it's own after I found the sweet spot between dosing too much Seachem Flourish (nitrates and phosphates) and not enough. I'm still battling the hair worms (which sting the zoas) but as long as I keep after them they don't get too bad. And best of all, I put in four peppermint shrimp last week and the aiptasia are gone.

 

I also ran a Triton test just to see how the water is, because things seem to do so much better after a major water change. Everything was normal except for high levels of tin. I don't know where it came from, I don't have anything metal in or around the tank, and I don't use aluminum-based phosphate removers. I'm going to keep looking for a source of the tin, but in the meantime I'm experimenting with Panta Lith, which is supposed to work like Triton Detox, but for aluminum and tin instead of copper. I can't find much about it yet because it just became available in the US a few months ago. But since this is my experimental tank anyway, and there aren't any frags in it that I can't afford to lose, I'm going to give it a shot. If it works OK, I may try it in the 1-g and 40g tanks, which have high aluminum.

 

I'm hopeful that things are finally starting to get in balance in this tank. It's taken a long time but I think that's a lesson learned about starting with dry rock. It took forever for the tank to get mature, and it didn't prevent any of the usual pests since they all came in via frags from my other tanks anyway.

 

I'll try to take some pictures this weekend. It's not as pretty as it was, as there's some algae on the bottom now, and the zoas are still recovering from the last bunch of algae, but it will be good to get a record of the progress.

 

 

 

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Pleased to hear tank is still going. Could you get a corgis wrasse or copperband to eat the hair worm? 

How did you get your green plate monti to grow up the rock? Did you start with 2 frags? 

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On 11/15/2017 at 1:59 PM, Jonboy21 said:

Pleased to hear tank is still going. Could you get a corgis wrasse or copperband to eat the hair worm? 

How did you get your green plate monti to grow up the rock? Did you start with 2 frags? 

Thanks for checking in! I've thought about a coris wrasse but the tank is bare bottom and I'm afraid that would stress him too much. Also, I have one in the 40g tank and he doesn't touch the hair worms :(

As for a copperband, it's tempting but this is only a 30g tank, so I'd have to get a really small one and then rehome him fairly soon as he gets bigger. I'm hoping that maybe the peppermint shrimp will take care of them. I'm trying to keep the tank really clean and blow off the rocks every day to keep the worms from getting fed too much, and maybe the shrimp will start to pick them off.

 

The green monti is actually on a frag plug and has grown from a small frag. So it's just leaning on top of the rock in the picture. It's been my test frag for this tank from the beginning. When nutrients get too low, it turns pale green or even brownish, and then colors back up in a week or two after dosing nitrates. It's also a good test frag for alkalinity stability. 

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I did some tank maintenance this weekend - I scraped the bottom glass and cleaned up the frag racks. I also got rid of the green and purple palys, they just grow too fast and are too invasive. I also picked up a trio of blue chromis to help dirty up the tank a bit more. Unfortunately, one of the three didn't even make it through the first night, but the other two seem fine.

 

11-19-2017 FTS:

2017-11-19 DB30 FTS

 

11-19-2017 Top Down:

2017-11-19 DB30 Top Down

 

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pappadumplingz
3 hours ago, teenyreef said:

I did some tank maintenance this weekend - I scraped the bottom glass and cleaned up the frag racks. I also got rid of the green and purple palys, they just grow too fast and are too invasive. I also picked up a trio of blue chromis to help dirty up the tank a bit more. Unfortunately, one of the three didn't even make it through the first night, but the other two seem fine.

 

11-19-2017 FTS:

2017-11-19 DB30 FTS

 

11-19-2017 Top Down:

2017-11-19 DB30 Top Down

 

Scrapped the bottom glass of my tank last night to, and it makes a world of a difference. How's the graft going?

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Fingers crossed that the pep shrimp eats em. Mine keeps my tank lovely and clean, wouldn't be without one. 

Great thinking with the green monti, wish mine would grow like that ? 

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You're on an older water system, there's tin in every pipe joint. I've been looking for something to eat the hair worms as well. I'll post if I find something, Copperbands and Longnose do work, but they get large.

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