Jesse's 30 gallon reef + 10 gallon planted dorm tank

[jesseatam]

Just got back a bit ago and here’s the first look, it’s a mess and some corals are MIA but I missed this thing and all my babies inside. I’ll give you guys all the good dirty photos tomorrow once the lights are on.

[jesseatam]

Well here’s what we’re looking at LOL, definitely gonna be a whole day of work if I’m gonna do a deep clean on this bad boy.

[jesseatam]

Heres the tank after the macro harvest, there’s a lot more grape caulerpa than it looks like in that little container. I didn’t really mess with the bubble algae because by the time I trimmed all the macro back I was just kind of done with having my hands in the tank. I did however make some interesting observations regarding my GSP and orange clove polyps.

Theres a small bush of gracilaria that grows directly next to the branching GSP and they grew together a bit. After I trimmed the macro down to nothing I noticed a few little pieces that the GSP grew around which I though was pretty cool, I wonder if the gracilaria will grow from this little pieces as well as the base.

The clove polyps as you can see have almost completely cleared off the plug. I’m not sure if it died off or what as I wasn’t home to witness but I believe whatever it was was caused by it being shaded by the massive bush of grape caulerpa. You can see what I mean in the FTS I posted yesterday.

 

 

In general though those two corals plus the “giraffe” gorgonian as I’m calling it are the only corals that seem to be doing just as well as they were before they left, everything else definitely has taken a hit.

[jesseatam]

By the way I know it’s not reef related but would you guys want to see pictures of the planted tank in my dorm?

[Lula_Mae]

7 hours ago, jesseatam said:

By the way I know it’s not reef related but would you guys want to see pictures of the planted tank in my dorm?

I like pictures of planted tanks, and I know others do too ! Sorry about your losses, it's so hard to keep a tank looking nice when you can't be there to tend it all the time.  Have you considered downsizing to something like a 5 gallon or 10 gallon that you can bring to your dorm?

[jesseatam]

16 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

I like pictures of planted tanks, and I know others do too ! Sorry about your losses, it's so hard to keep a tank looking nice when you can't be there to tend it all the time.  Have you considered downsizing to something like a 5 gallon or 10 gallon that you can bring to your dorm?

I considered but I wasn’t sure if I could keep up with the amount of maintenance the reef would need, plus having access to distilled/RODI.

 

Now for some pics of the dorm tank.

 

 

 

The tank is a standard 10 gallon, lighting is a 20” finnex stingray LED, substrate is 20lbs of eco complete, a 50w jager for the heater, and the hardscape consists of a rock from my backyard and some spider wood. For plants I started with some dwarf aquarium lily, crypt. parva, water sprite, and anubias nana petite. The first picture is when I first put everything together on the 13th and the second picture is as of today. The wood has a lot of bacteria growth and is also releasing a lot of tanins but I expected this. I order all my plants plus the spider wood and some other supplies from aquarium co-op. The dwarf aquarium lily lost its lily pads because when * was unwrapping it they became detached from the bulb, but I had still planted them anyway to see how they’d do. The bulb now has some new sprouts and even the part that got separated still has two babies. The crypt parva is having a bit of die off too but according to my research that is normal. The water sprite is growing but I think it took a hit from shipping, the older stems are blackened but the new growth is bright green, I have some planted and some floating too. Finally the anubias seems to just be doing rock solid, saw a few new leaves already. The only inhabitants of the tank right now is my 4 year old betta Ted, as for future inhabitants I’m unsure but I think I’m definitely going to need some amano shrimp of something just to help keep the leaves of the plants tidy. The bummer for me though is that all the LFS in the area are like a $35 dollar ride one way by uber since I can’t have a car which is pretty much just the price of overnight shipping so I might as well order online. I just need to check with the mailroom if it’d be okay for me to actually order livestock. If you guys have any ideas for what could go well with my boy please share, was thinking about some cory’s but I’m unsure if I even want to risk adding other fish.

[Lula_Mae]

5 hours ago, jesseatam said:

I considered but I wasn’t sure if I could keep up with the amount of maintenance the reef would need, plus having access to distilled/RODI.

 

Now for some pics of the dorm tank.

 

 

 

The tank is a standard 10 gallon, lighting is a 20” finnex stingray LED, substrate is 20lbs of eco complete, a 50w jager for the heater, and the hardscape consists of a rock from my backyard and some spider wood. For plants I started with some dwarf aquarium lily, crypt. parva, water sprite, and anubias nana petite. The first picture is when I first put everything together on the 13th and the second picture is as of today. The wood has a lot of bacteria growth and is also releasing a lot of tanins but I expected this. I order all my plants plus the spider wood and some other supplies from aquarium co-op. The dwarf aquarium lily lost its lily pads because when * was unwrapping it they became detached from the bulb, but I had still planted them anyway to see how they’d do. The bulb now has some new sprouts and even the part that got separated still has two babies. The crypt parva is having a bit of die off too but according to my research that is normal. The water sprite is growing but I think it took a hit from shipping, the older stems are blackened but the new growth is bright green, I have some planted and some floating too. Finally the anubias seems to just be doing rock solid, saw a few new leaves already. The only inhabitants of the tank right now is my 4 year old betta Ted, as for future inhabitants I’m unsure but I think I’m definitely going to need some amano shrimp of something just to help keep the leaves of the plants tidy. The bummer for me though is that all the LFS in the area are like a $35 dollar ride one way by uber since I can’t have a car which is pretty much just the price of overnight shipping so I might as well order online. I just need to check with the mailroom if it’d be okay for me to actually order livestock. If you guys have any ideas for what could go well with my boy please share, was thinking about some cory’s but I’m unsure if I even want to risk adding other fish.

You can always pick up distilled at the grocery store, though not having a car does complicate matters. Do you have any friends with a car who will let you borrow it or hitch a ride? Or does your science department have distilled or rodi?

 

Planted tank is going to look very nice. Cories and oticinclus go well with bettas but you may need to pull the betta and rearrange to reset territories so he's less likely to bully them. I think you may have a tough time getting overnight packages but it's worth asking about. Maybe a friend who lives nearby will let you use their address?

 

College rules barring freshmen from having cars are so dumb. 

[Firefish15]

I'm an animal care TA at my school, so I have access to RO/DI on tap. I recently checked the machine though, and the membranes are overdue by 198 days.  Getting that fixed though.

 

I've ordered freshwater shrimp through my school mail room before. I just let them know there were live animals in a box, and then they sped up the processing for me.

 

I've kept a betta in a 20g planted community before. Mine was fine with a clown pleco, julii corys, and rummy-nose tetras. Once there were neon tetras added though, all the extra movement stressed out the betta. He hid most of the time after that.

[Tamberav]

I don't think the tank looks that bad 😛 I do like macroalgae a lot though. 

[jesseatam]

19 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

You can always pick up distilled at the grocery store, though not having a car does complicate matters. Do you have any friends with a car who will let you borrow it or hitch a ride? Or does your science department have distilled or rodi?

 

Planted tank is going to look very nice. Cories and oticinclus go well with bettas but you may need to pull the betta and rearrange to reset territories so he's less likely to bully them. I think you may have a tough time getting overnight packages but it's worth asking about. Maybe a friend who lives nearby will let you use their address?

 

College rules barring freshmen from having cars are so dumb. 

I do know a few people with cars but I would feel bad bothering them for rides all the time, I haven’t asked anyone in the science department yet though but I will eventually. Even so I feel like if I can keep this tank successfully on tap then I think at least a saltwater macro tank would be possible using the tap water as well no? I would definitely love to have saltwater here but I’m definitely gonna see how my workload and keeping up with this tanks maintenance pan or first, also need to see if I would even be allowed a second tank.

 

I’m definitely leaning towards cories as I kind of have a thing for catfish, also I feel like some of those dwarf shrimp would be cool once the plants are grown in.

 

The rules here are you either need to be in junior standing, have a job off campus, or a medical need for one unless you’re a commuter. I kind of understand why they make it more difficult to have a car though since a large proportion of students do commute.

 

17 hours ago, Firefish15 said:

I'm an animal care TA at my school, so I have access to RO/DI on tap. I recently checked the machine though, and the membranes are overdue by 198 days.  Getting that fixed though.

 

I've ordered freshwater shrimp through my school mail room before. I just let them know there were live animals in a box, and then they sped up the processing for me.

 

I've kept a betta in a 20g planted community before. Mine was fine with a clown pleco, julii corys, and rummy-nose tetras. Once there were neon tetras added though, all the extra movement stressed out the betta. He hid most of the time after that.

Wow that must be nice to have, what’s your major?

 

I’ve been meaning to ask the staff at the mailroom but I’ve just had work pile up on me now, I’ll definitely ask after this round of midterms though.

 

Yeah that’s why I’m leaning towards some cories, I don’t want anything that’ll compete with him for the mid-water tip area of the tank. My boy just turned 4 and is more active then ever before in this tank, I’d hate for something to make him hide and not show off his personality.

 

14 hours ago, Tamberav said:

I don't think the tank looks that bad 😛 I do like macroalgae a lot though. 

It definitely could be worse, I’m just happy that all the fish seem to be healthy and so are the shrimp and crabs. I really like the macro myself, I feel like it adds a lot. That tank honestly had such great potential for a carribean biotope, I kind of regret not making it one but I love how it’s ended up anyway so I’m happy. Also I have a pic of it my dad sent me the other night so sill throw that in here too as a bonus 😁

 

[Firefish15]

1 hour ago, jesseatam said:

Wow that must be nice to have, what’s your major?

 

I’ve been meaning to ask the staff at the mailroom but I’ve just had work pile up on me now, I’ll definitely ask after this round of midterms though.

 

Yeah that’s why I’m leaning towards some cories, I don’t want anything that’ll compete with him for the mid-water tip area of the tank. My boy just turned 4 and is more active then ever before in this tank, I’d hate for something to make him hide and not show off his personality.

I'm actually a business management major, but I'm pretty involved with the biology department. I'm taking as many bio courses as I can. That should have been my major, but it's too late to change it now.

 

1 hour ago, jesseatam said:

I’m definitely leaning towards cories as I kind of have a thing for catfish, also I feel like some of those dwarf shrimp would be cool once the plants are grown in.

Also, would not recommend shrimp for tank mates. I had a betta in a 10g planted my freshman and sophomore year. I added some ghost shrimp to see how the betta would do with them. Never bothered them. As soon as I spent $40 on a colony of sakura fire red cherry shrimp, it changed. Shrimp cuisine.  The betta hunted 8 of them within two days. The tank was really densely planted too, twisted pieces of hollow wood encrusted with java fern, java moss, and pellia, separated by a thick Cryptocoryne wendtii forest.

The betta went to live with a friend after that. The little shrimp colony eventually recovered and did much better with some harlequin rasboras. 

 

[jesseatam]

Just  my LA shipment, 4 of the 6 False Juliis were DOA but the amano shrimp are fine although they are very small. The remaining two cory’s are doing okay, I think at least one of them will make it. The betta definitely isn’t fond of them but we’ll see how it goes.

[jesseatam]

Lost another cory so I'm down to one. Not sure what happened during shipping since the shrimp were fine, maybe they were too small. Speaking of the amano shrimp however, pretty sure Ted might've eaten them as I can't seem to find any but I'll give it some time to see if they're just hiding super well.

[jesseatam]

So apparently late last night one of my roommates spotted an amano shrimp, I have no idea where they could be holed up though as I've scoured the tank pretty thoroughly looking for them. Also, I'm currently debating whether or not to get some more corys. My betta is a bit territorial I've found and I feel like adding more would help diffuse the bettas aggression off of the single cory. The only catch would is that I might get a different species since I don't feel comfortable ordering from non-Divers Den LA  at the moment and the website I'm looking at doesn't have false julii's, I would probably end up getting pandas or sterbai. If I were to get the pandas I'd probably go for 6, sterbai would probably be 3 mostly due to them being more expensive but I'll see.

[jesseatam]

There are definitely at least two shrimp still kicking around, spotted two under the wood a night or two ago with a flashlight, and now today just spotted what i believe are a pair of molts. Whats surprised me most so far about this tank actually is the surprising amount of life that came in on the plants, a lot of little worms and copepods, also have a small population of snails going to it seems.

[jesseatam]

So my order from aquatic arts arrived and everything is okay. I ordered 1 large amano shrimp, a moss ball, some dark red ludwigia, a nerite snail, and a group of 6 panda cories. I ending up receiving a hefty amount of ludwigia, 2 amanos, 2 moss balls, the single snail and 7 panda cories (although one was doa). One of the remanining pandas is a little iffy so we’ll see if he makes it through the night. What I found most interesting though is that adding the larger amanos seems to have drawn out the smaller ones I already had, also the little false julii is very excited to have friends and always sticks super close to at least one of the pandas. On top of that too the betta has shown zero aggression since adding the additional cories and now pays them no mind. Anyways here’s what the tank looks like now from the front, and the view from the couch directly next to it

[Firefish15]

31 minutes ago, jesseatam said:

So my order from aquatic arts arrived and everything is okay. I ordered 1 large amano shrimp, a moss ball, some dark red ludwigia, a nerite snail, and a group of 6 panda cories. I ending up receiving a hefty amount of ludwigia, 2 amanos, 2 moss balls, the single snail and 7 panda cories (although one was doa). One of the remanining pandas is a little iffy so we’ll see if he makes it through the night. What I found most interesting though is that adding the larger amanos seems to have drawn out the smaller ones I already had, also the little false julii is very excited to have friends and always sticks super close to at least one of the pandas. On top of that too the betta has shown zero aggression since adding the additional cories and now pays them no mind. Anyways here’s what the tank looks like now from the front, and the view from the couch directly next to it

I've had overall very good experiences with Aquatic Arts. They send you an extra 20% or so of livestock in the event of DOA.

Looks good!

[jesseatam]

2 minutes ago, Firefish15 said:

I've had overall very good experiences with Aquatic Arts. They send you an extra 20% or so of livestock in the event of DOA.

Looks good!

Seems like it might be my new go to for freshwater, although LAs guarantee is hard to beat. They seem to carry a lot of unique and uncommon fish which I like, if I didn’t already have the julii cory I might’ve went for some of those anchor catfish or shadow catfish that they had instead. 

[jesseatam]

Amano shrimp are dropping for some reason, no idea why. I also lost a panda cory, another one is looking iffy as well. The betta, and julii cory and doing great though so I'm not sure what the problem could be. Also the betta for some reason gets exponentially more aggressive once the light goes off, no idea what the reason for this could be either

[Firefish15]

14 hours ago, jesseatam said:

Amano shrimp are dropping for some reason, no idea why. I also lost a panda cory, another one is looking iffy as well. The betta, and julii cory and doing great though so I'm not sure what the problem could be. Also the betta for some reason gets exponentially more aggressive once the light goes off, no idea what the reason for this could be either

Bettas are hunters and predators in the wild. Maybe that's why he gets more aggressive at night. 

 

My guess for the shrimp is that the betta is harassing them and keeping them from grazing on food. 

[jesseatam]

I’m back home for thanksgiving but I have bad news, the tank just isn’t doing well. The tank is an algae mess which I expected but all my lps is dead and or dying, and the zoas and nems are closed up. The only coral that seems to actually be doing well is the branching gsp, the gorgs and clove polyps are surviving though. The worst thing for me though is that there’s something wrong with the fish and I have no idea what is could be. The clownfish  have clamped fins and have that aimless erratic behavior and just look beat up while the blenny has lost a lot of weight, appears to have some sort of open wound on its head, and has lost all of its personality and just kind of floats in the back now. This has hit me pretty hard, not sure what the best course of action would be for the tank at this point

[jesseatam]

The tank honestly has that whole sick fish at a chain store vibe and it’s killing me to see it like this.

[Firefish15]

Maybe try downsizing and taking the survivors to college with you? I'm sure that it would be a lot of work, but things don't seem to be working out as is.

[jesseatam]

2 hours ago, Firefish15 said:

Maybe try downsizing and taking the survivors to college with you? I'm sure that it would be a lot of work, but things don't seem to be working out as is.

Maybe, not sure if I would be allowed another tank in the dorm though.

[jesseatam]

I’m back home for winter break, and the dorm tank successfully made the trip back. This little planted tank has been such a joy to have while away and really helps me to de-stress. The only issues I’m having are just my own learning curve with the plants, betta aggression with the cores, and my lights shitty mounting. The stringray light I have is great but the mounting blows, it’s so flimsy that if I nudge it while doing work on the tank that it can just fall in which it has for the 2nd time now... My long term goal for this tank however is to use it as an example to show people how easy an aquarium can be for the aquarium club I want to start up next year. At my school the only pet you’re allowed (besides an emotional support animal) are fish. A lot of people end up getting bettas but keep them in improper set ups to only have them die in a few months. People are always shocked when I tell them that my betta ted is going on 5 years old, I just really want to educate people on proper husbandry and possibly get others into the hobby too.

 

Now for the saltwater tank at home. Since I was last home all the fish passed away. I’m really not sure whether it’s better to just shut the tank down. The only real way I feel to salvage the tank at this point is a complete deep clean and gutting of the system. The issue is that my father doesn’t want to deal with the maintenance while I’m away anymore. So unless I set up a completely self sufficient system that doesn’t require water changes or hire other people to maintain the tank for me there isn’t a point in keeping it running.

 

Also lmk if you guys want pics of either of the tanks and I’ll take some for ya.