Clown's Nuvo20

[Stoops718]

10 hours ago, Clown79 said:

The micmol has been really good.

 

My regrown birdsnest has already split its branch and grown more since adding the light. I can't believe how much its grown from a tiny piece of flesh.

 

My dragon soul favia has been more plump and colorful since adding the light. The favia had not been happy. Its flesh literally hung all day and slightly plumped when lights out.

Now its plump all day.

 

 zoas are completely open. 

Everything is happy.

 

I am running the micmol 50% blue, 20% white. I use the dawn,sunrise, dusk, and night schedule. 

 

The blue had been at 70% but things were not opening so that was too high to start with compared to the par38. 

 

My clown has been hosting the xenia but he is so social now that his bully girlfriend is gone.

 

I have a tailspot in qt right now which will be his new friend.

Thanks. How high do you have it above the tank?

[Nano Nano Boo Boo]

Is that Xenia in the top? Some people really don’t like it, I personally love it. Hoping mine grows out a bit. 

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, Stoops718 said:

Thanks. How high do you have it above the tank?

I think 8" 

 

1 hour ago, Nano Nano Boo Boo said:

Is that Xenia in the top? Some people really don’t like it, I personally love it. Hoping mine grows out a bit. 

Yuppers,  its xenia. I love xenia. It grows in spurts and I prune it often. 

[Clown79]

Time for an update.

 

After quarantine I finally added a friend for Flash.

 

I added a TSB. She's very cute, very active, a piggy and they both get along great! Flash has shown no aggression at all.

 

We call her Little Miss. 

 

Everything has been going great since removing the leathers but I had a lot of empty spots so I was able to add some corals.

 

I added a Pink Mystic Monti.

I unfortunately put it in too direct of light and it was not happy. It started loosing colour and the polyps wouldn't extend. I placed it lower in the tank and it's starting to open up and colour up again.

 

 

I added a pink acan in the middle of the tank. I couldn't pass it up, I got it for a great price😄 

 

I added a birds of paradise birdsnest and it is doing great. The colours are so pretty. 

 

My birdsnest that started growing out of the smallest bit of flesh left from a birdsnest removal from over a yr ago has grown alot. It is so happy with the new light.

 

For quite a while now I have changed my maintenance routine. I started doing my waterchanges every 1.5-2 weeks and even with 2 fish, a lot more feeding, I have had no issues.

The tank is looking the best it ever has and I no longer dose in this tank as I feel at this time the drop isn't great enough to dose. 

 

 

My nitrates are reading 0 with API. I used to compare API results with Salifert and found when API read 0 Salifert would read 2ppm. So my nutrients are low.

I have been feeding the corals in this tank more often then I used to since I have more LPS and SPS in there now.

 

 

I am still very pleased with the Micmol light fixture. It's been great and my corals have been really happy with it. I like how it works very naturally in it's settings.

It's really like nature.

 

After dawn and sunrise it slowly ramps up through the day and then slowly ramps down until dusk and night time.  

 

My blues are set to hit 65% peak, 10% white peak, and special(UV red and green) are set at 8%.

 

 

No other changes have been made.

Still using only a maxiet 600 in the return chamber, eheim jagger heater, Micmol light, Carbon, Floss, and Purigen.

 

 

 

 

 

[Chris's Fishes]

Love this tank! Hope to get mine looking like this one day.

[vlangel]

It looks great and sounds like such a fun tank with your fish choices.

[Clown79]

19 hours ago, vlangel said:

It looks great and sounds like such a fun tank with your fish choices.

Thanks. 

The 2 of them together is pretty comical. The TSB is the bossy one. Lol

 

On 11/13/2018 at 10:43 PM, PoorBigBlue said:

Love this tank! Hope to get mine looking like this one day.

Thank you

[Clown79]

Not much going on with this tank.

 

I have seen a good amount of growth.

My dragon soul has taken off since adding the micmol light. Since the light change I have had a lot of growth.

 

My rainbow acan that was mid level needed to be put on the sandbed, it started shriveling but has made a come back.

 

My birdsnest is growing in the shape of a bonsai tree, it's so cool.

 

My pink duncans look great under this light. You can actually see the pink now. Under my other light the colour just didn't pop.

 

This tank now needs a bit of dosing since the birdsnest addition but so far it's been minimal.

[Christopher Marks]

That's great to see the corals responding so positively after the light change, that's always a little bit of an anxious endeavor, given how critical and costly they are!

 

Does the xenia patch ever intrude on your birdsnest coral up there there? I admire your dedication to pruning them!

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, Christopher Marks said:

That's great to see the corals responding so positively after the light change, that's always a little bit of an anxious endeavor, given how critical and costly they are!

 

Does the xenia patch ever intrude on your birdsnest coral up there there? I admire your dedication to pruning them!

The xenia definitely needs pruning in this tank every 2 -3 weeks. And I have other areas with it as well that need pruning. 

 

It would definitely encroach on the birdsnest if it wasn't pruned.

 

I'm just happy it's an easy coral to prune.😁

[Clown79]

I have been behind on my updates. My dad retired and moved out to my area, so I have been helping him with the transition and health issues and then Christmas came. It was a hectic time.

 

Now for my upate

 

 

Well bad news. My tsb died.

 

My tsb was getting very skinny. The tank doesn't have much algae and I fed nori every day as well as pellets and frozen but the tsb was just not getting bigger. It started to get skinny and I knew it was from not enough food.

It could not compete with the clown for pellets.

 

I felt so bad, although I did as much as I could, I even spot fed with pipette.

 

It was definitely not disease.

 

 Flash has been the only fish in the tank since and I think he has become a she. she is now really hosting and the personality is just like a female clown. She doesn't like the cleaner shrimp. All is cool until the shrimp attempts to get close.

 

I have set up a qt so we can add another fish, we just haven't decided what fish to add. Debating on a goby or another fish.

 

Made some changes. We removed the bush of xenia on the top because it was shadowing everything below. It looks so bare even though I have added corals...just got to wait for them to grow.

 

It's my husbands tank so he wanted more birdsnest and monti's.

 

We added red and green monti cap frags, and a birds of paradise birdsnest. The birdsnest has full polyp extension but isn't doing as well as the others. i don't seem to have luck with this particular type of birdsnest.

 

A red mushroom was also added.

 

My Dragons soul favia has just exploded in growth. I had it for years and it was 3 heads. Once I changed the light, it just hasn't stopped growing. 

My acans have all grown.

 

My green birdsnest has grown in a bonsai tree shape, it's very different and I hope it continues to grow this way because it's quite a sight.

 

My green and pink duncans have also continued to grow and now Flash hosts in the duncans since his xenia is gone...although it is in other areas of the tank.

 

My hammers have started splitting.

 

It's pretty cool to see the growth of each coral, especially since some hadn't grown after 2yrs.

 

 

I have not done an update on tank specs so I think it's time.

 

Need a new media basket because my IM basket split. Too poor after xmas to replace it so I made one for the time being.

We did however order some RFG nozzles and when they arrive I will update how they work.

 

Tank Specs

 

10g IM

Mj600 return pump - no powerhead or spin stream

9 lbs dry rock

Caribsea Live Sand

Eheim Jagger heater

DIY media basket 

Micmol Marine light

Inkbird controller.

Sybon Refractometer

Red Sea Blue Bucket salt

 

Hanna for alk

Salifert for Ca

API or Salifert for Nitrate

Salifert or red sea for magnesium

 

 

 

Livestock

 

Ocellaris clown

Cleaner shrimp

Conch

nassarius

trochus

hermits

 

Corals

Green birdsnest

Birds of paradise 

Green and red monti cap

Pink duncans

Green duncans

green hammers

dragon soul favia

green acan

rainbow acan

blue acan

orange acan

orange chalice

red discosoma

xenia

gracilaria macroalgae

 

Maintenance

 

2-2.5g waterchanges every week to 2 weeks

 

- Feed reef roid paste before waterchange

- scrape algae off walls

- clean nozzle with brush

- vacuum sand lightly

- use turkey baster on rocks

- remove any spionid worms

 

- every other waterchange I siphon detritus from the back chambers and wipe down the heater

- every 3 months pump and hoses are cleaned

 

- rinse media bags

- replace floss

 

- carbon change every 2 weeks

- purigen changed when exhausted

 

Weekly maintenance

 

Feed reef roids lightly - broadcast feed

dose aquavitro fuel 1 time a week

change floss in between waterchange

dose ESV bionic every other day

test alk 2 times a week

all other tests are monthly

 

 

I changed some of the products I use.

 

I didn't really like the Aquaforest line of vitamins and amino's. I found I had algae blooms using them so I changed to Aquavitro. The Aquaforest also dried up in the bottles well before the exipry date.

 

I am using Kent Carbon now because I find it has the lowest amount of dust which is nice when rinsing it.

 

I haven't use phosguard in the longest time and since I stopped I have noticed a lot of benefits. I haven't even tested phos in the last year. 

 

I use Purigen which I really like. I just replace it, too nervous regenerating it with bleach.

 

So my list of go to items are:

 

Purigen, Kent Carbon, Floss, Aquavitro Fuel, ESV bionic, Reef Roids, 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SkiCatTX]

Looking forward to seeing more. Great pics!

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, SkiCatTX said:

Looking forward to seeing more. Great pics!

Thank you.

 

I will try to be better with updating my journals. Lol

[Daniel91]

Everything is looking great! Puffy and healthy. Which conch do you have? Thought about getting one for my IM10.

[Clown79]

11 hours ago, Daniel91 said:

Everything is looking great! Puffy and healthy. Which conch do you have? Thought about getting one for my IM10.

Good question.

The label on the tank I purchased it from said strawberry and tiger conch.

 

I will have to check out the shell.

 

It's not very large at this point, if it gets too big I will rehome it.

 

 I think they are so cool. Love their eyes.

[Stoops718]

On 8/8/2018 at 1:43 PM, Clown79 said:

The micmol has been really good.

 

My regrown birdsnest has already split its branch and grown more since adding the light. I can't believe how much its grown from a tiny piece of flesh.

 

My dragon soul favia has been more plump and colorful since adding the light. The favia had not been happy. Its flesh literally hung all day and slightly plumped when lights out.

Now its plump all day.

 

 zoas are completely open. 

Everything is happy.

 

I am running the micmol 50% blue, 20% white. I use the dawn,sunrise, dusk, and night schedule. 

 

The blue had been at 70% but things were not opening so that was too high to start with compared to the par38. 

 

My clown has been hosting the xenia but he is so social now that his bully girlfriend is gone.

 

I have a tailspot in qt right now which will be his new friend.

I don't mean to be a pain, but could you share your lighting schedule as well? Tank is looking great btw.

[Clown79]

On 2/7/2019 at 11:53 AM, Stoops718 said:

I don't mean to be a pain, but could you share your lighting schedule as well? Tank is looking great btw.

No pain at all 😊

 

The light I'm using on this tank is a micmol.

There is a 2 hr ramp up and ramp down.

 

 

This light doesn't have programming like an Ai.

 Once you pick your peak light setting for each led colour it ramps it up and down on it's own. Kind of follows how the sun works.

 

I know the blues are 60%, the whites are less than 20%, the special channel is higher than the whites.

 

[Clown79]

Major changes happened last weekend.

 

I have wanted an anemone only tank so this weekend we did a major overhaul.

I shut down my 5.5g and converted my 10g into an anemone tank

 

It was a LONG day. lol

 

For reference and possibly help other I am going to document my process. This was a 2 part process.

 

10g work

- Made fresh Salt water

- siphoned some water from the tank into a bucket, small container, and another bucket to save the water for refill

- removed clown and placed in small container with air hose and lid

- removed all the corals and placed them in a container with lid( some went straight into my lagoon)

- siphoned back chambers: this water was dumped

 

- moved the tank with rocks in place(they are siliconed together and to eggcrate) there was 1" of water to cover the sand

- stand was moved from our spare room to living room, set up and leveled

- During the set up of the stand I used a turkey baster to pour water onto my liverock so they didn't dry out.

 

- Place the tank on the stand and filled it up with save water and new water

- let the tank sit before moving any livestock in

 

5.5g Work

 

- Siphoned water into container and bucket

- removed all corals and placed in bucket

 - removed the blenny and placed in container with airstone & lid

- the removed a large portion of sand so I could remove the anemones

 

- I was able to gently remove the RFA's with a credit card and they were placed in the 10g immediately( both tanks have matching parameters)

- the 5.5 was emptied completely

 

- set up my pico jar with some rocks I saved, water saved from the 5.5g, and placed my corals that were for sale in it. 

 

BACK to 10g

 

- once the anemones were settled I turned the pump back on, place the dragon soul, acan brains, and the dragons breath back into the tank

- I then added all the hermits, snails, and clown

- took a while to get the blenny out of its rock but it was finally added

 

Everything went pretty smooth, it was a long day but I really love having the 10g in my living room and it's nice having a tank that is different than the other.

 

Ever since adding the blenny with the clown, the blenny has been far more social, no more hiding in his rock. He's out and about swimming with Flash.

 

i have been monitoring ammonia just as a security and there has been 0 spike.

 

My 1 anemone has looked not so happy but seems to be coming around, my green one decided to move today, I think it wasn't happy under the direct light since it's gone to the back where the light is very low.

 

The next plan is to get more RFA's and a BTA

 

[Stoops718]

Nice job! I forgot to ask what height you keep your MicMol at.

[Clown79]

6 minutes ago, Stoops718 said:

Nice job! I forgot to ask what height you keep your MicMol at.

I'll have to measure it to be 100% because I've forgotten but most likely its 8-10"

 

Thank you

[Daniel91]

Very cool. Good luck on the hunt for anemones, sooo many gorgeous ones out there, so I have no doubt you will fill it up quicker than expected.

[righttirefire]

Careful with the BTA and RFA... BTA will win...

[Clown79]

Went to a coral show this weekend. It was a great weekend!

 

My wallet wasn't as happy as I was😉

 

I got a purple white tipped torch for my 25g. It was a great price for 2 heads so I HAD to get it. lol

 

For the 10g I got a rose BTA, it's small but pretty. Hubby wants a flame tip but not sure if I have the room.

 

I also got 3 RFA's. 

 

1 is orange, yellow, and white

1 is orange with a yellow mouth and light green

1 is army green/blue with red running through it

 

My 2 RFA's I transferred from the 5g have grown so much since I got them. luv it!

 

I have to say, I love anemone's. I find them fascinating.

 

My clown has been super curious of 1 particular RFA, the big plain green one. hovers above it and stares at it. Everytime I try to get a pic, he leaves.

[Daniel91]

Wow. Sweet additions!

[TatorTaco]

Forgive my bluntness, but how much did you pay for your RFAs? I'd like to get 1-3, but my LFS is charging $75 for a rather plain looking one. I understand they have to turn a profit, but that seems quite steep.  Should I start looking for one elsewhere?