Dr. Felicia's Back to Basics IM14 - Retired 2/25/2020

[kinetic]

On 2/13/2018 at 11:00 AM, Felicia said:

Tank Updates

Unfortunately, I've been having some issues/struggles with the tank recently.  First off, I lost 3 fish in rapid succession without much warning or a definitive cause.  I believe the new blenny had an internal parasite because he was eating, but kept getting skinnier.  However, I also lost my picasso clownfish and my possum wrasse that had both been doing well.  One day they were fine and the next the next they were dead.  No signs of ich or anything like that.  Very baffling and sad.  However, my two remaining fish (the misbar clown and the yellow watchman goby) are super happy and healthy.  Also, all my inverts are doing wonderful (snails, cleaner shrimp, pistol shrimp, pom pom crab, and porcelain crab).  I figure there must not be any kind of water quality issue since all the inverts are doing so well.

 

Then on top of the fish deaths, I seem to have a sudden outbreak of dinoflagellates.  Ugh!  I'm not 100% sure that's what it is, but I'm reasonably sure.  It looks just like the photos and descriptions of dinos that I've seen on the forums.  Its this stringy brown stuff that produces tons of bubbles.  Its definitely not algae because it brushes off easily and comes back way faster than algae can grow.  The only reason I'm not positive its dinos is because everything I've read says dinos are toxic to snails, but all my snails are still grazing and are happy and healthy.  To treat it, I've been doing 30% water changes every couple days and siphoning out as much of the dinos as I can.  Yesterday I started a blackout period.  I'm thinking I'll do a full 3 days of blackout.  I've got the tank draped in towels to block even the ambient room light.  I'm hoping that will help.  I also put in an order for DinoX from BRS and will start dosing that if I don't notice much improvement after the blackout period.

 

Otherwise, surprisingly the corals are all doing really well.  I'm seeing tons of growth.  The dinos are irritating the gorgonians and zoas a bit, but I've been siphoning them off regularly, so nothing is in danger of being smothered right now.

 

I started fighting dinos recently as well. Do you know what your NO3/PO4 levels are? Dinos thrive in low / undetectable NO3/PO4 tanks, and algae does not. If you can get your NO3/PO4 up, the algae will ultimately start outcompeting dinos, especially if you do a lot of manual removal, according to a lot of people (check R2R for the mcarrol thread, it's quite good). For me, dosing made things worse, and though I did see a comeback with green algae, the dinos were not pulling back. So I started dosing DinoX. I'm on my 3rd dose (day 5). The dinos are still coming back, but not as much. I'm hoping to get through 10 days of DinoX, then I'll be dosing a ton of NO3/PO4 daily and trying to grow a ball of chaeto.

 

I have a huge bottle of DinoX, if you want to split it, let me know. I think you're also in the bay area?

 

Good luck!

[Felicia]

14 hours ago, kinetic said:

 

I started fighting dinos recently as well. Do you know what your NO3/PO4 levels are? Dinos thrive in low / undetectable NO3/PO4 tanks, and algae does not. If you can get your NO3/PO4 up, the algae will ultimately start outcompeting dinos, especially if you do a lot of manual removal, according to a lot of people (check R2R for the mcarrol thread, it's quite good). For me, dosing made things worse, and though I did see a comeback with green algae, the dinos were not pulling back. So I started dosing DinoX. I'm on my 3rd dose (day 5). The dinos are still coming back, but not as much. I'm hoping to get through 10 days of DinoX, then I'll be dosing a ton of NO3/PO4 daily and trying to grow a ball of chaeto.

 

I have a huge bottle of DinoX, if you want to split it, let me know. I think you're also in the bay area?

 

Good luck!

Thank you for all the info on what you've been trying!  Sorry to hear you're having dino issues as well.  I honestly don't know what my NO3/PO4 levels are since I don't test.  I just have softies and gorgonians, so I don't worry too much about those parameters unless I start seeing too much algae growth.  I'd guess I definitely had detectable levels of N03/PO4 since I have a small tank with multiple fish and I only do water changes like once a month normally.  Since the outbreak I've been doing a lot of water changes to siphon out the dinos, so maybe that isn't the best plan because it would be reducing NO3/PO4.  I do get some algae growth in my tank (a bit of bubble algae in a few spots and some green algae on the glass), but not a ton.  Tonight will be the end of my 3 day tank black-out.  I'm going to see how things look after that and then decide how to proceed.  Have you tried a tank blackout?  Thank you for the offer of DinoX, but unfortunately, I already ordered a bottle through BRS.  I may give that a shot if I'm not seeing improvement from the blackout.  Keep me posted on how the DinoX works for you!  Good luck to you as well!

[RustyRocket]

20 hours ago, Felicia said:

Definitely a thought if we're all suddenly having issues at once. This is the first time I've ever had a Dinoflagellate outbreak since I got into the hobby. I use a 5 stage RODI system so I wonder what it might not be filtering out that could be in our water. Do you use an RODI unit to filter your water?

17 hours ago, kinetic said:

 

I started fighting dinos recently as well. Do you know what your NO3/PO4 levels are? Dinos thrive in low / undetectable NO3/PO4 tanks, and algae does not. If you can get your NO3/PO4 up, the algae will ultimately start outcompeting dinos, especially if you do a lot of manual removal, according to a lot of people (check R2R for the mcarrol thread, it's quite good). For me, dosing made things worse, and though I did see a comeback with green algae, the dinos were not pulling back. So I started dosing DinoX. I'm on my 3rd dose (day 5). The dinos are still coming back, but not as much. I'm hoping to get through 10 days of DinoX, then I'll be dosing a ton of NO3/PO4 daily and trying to grow a ball of chaeto.

 

I have a huge bottle of DinoX, if you want to split it, let me know. I think you're also in the bay area?

 

Good luck!

I do make my own RODI, about 21 to 23 TDS in and 1 TDS out usually. But I have topped off with filtered water from my fridge cos I ran out. Is it possible that its something airborne, just a thought. 

NO3 up to 15 to 20ppm and P04 at 0ppm according to the API reef master test Kit, my ball of chaeto and macro algae havent grown much though. 

 

I thought it was diatom so I've just up the flow, no change to light cycle or water changes and left it to itself to go away...little change at the moment.

Its annoying, think its smothering my gorgonians, they're constantly shedding and starting to see skeleton on a good few branches, they are not not loving life at the moment even when I up the flow. 

[kinetic]

Even if you don't really do water changes much etc., your NO3/PO4 can be low or undetectable, since it's being consumed by corals, algae, and dinos. I stopped all my filtration and 5x'd my feeding (my poor overweight fish), and it was still 0 across the board. The dinos thrived. At this point, it was too late and the dinos were basically on a roll. Algae couldn't grow (my chaeto melted away in my reactor), and no matter what I dosed the dinos kept growing. Removing them manually is good, but I think it will be endless unless algae can start consuming the NO3/PO4 faster than the dinos. Algae does better when there's higher levels of NO3/PO4, which is why a lot of people dose those to get the algae population up.

 

I think it's worth testing your NO3/PO4. If those are undetectable, you'll most likely need to supplement a bit.

 

I'm on day 6 of DinoX. Dinos are back, but definitely not as bad. I'm siphoning it all out again tonight and going onto my 4th dose of DinoX...

[Felicia]

On 2/14/2018 at 4:28 AM, vlangel said:

They now have it in their description that 2 juveniles are not male and female yet so that they will become a pair.  It sounds similiar to juvenile clownfish.  I also remember when Gena had the rusty gobies because that was when I first became acquainted to that specie.

Oh that's good!  Clowns are easy, so that's wonderful that they're like clowns.  Some fish and inverts can be so hard to pair because you have to be able to sex them, which is really hard to do in a lot of cases.

On 2/14/2018 at 4:53 AM, Subsea said:

You choose inhabitants like I do.  What does it look like here next to this!  With small tanks, you are more challenged because of space imitations.  With my larger tanks, I like open spaces to encourage fish to swim in the open areas.

 

I like your possum wrasse.  On a separate note, I caught a real opossum in a live trap  two days ago.  When my brother asked me what they eat, I said,  “They eat anything”.  Weikepedia said opportunistic omnivore.  In reading further, they eat cats and smaller mammals.  When I got to opossums being immune to pit viper bites and that they poisonous eat snakes, except coral snakes, which have neurotoxins.  I turned the critter loose.  Up close and personnel, opossums are ugly.  

 

I am glad that you got the pretty version possum for your tank.  Always good reading your thread.

.

Yep, I just pick the things I like and that I think will look good.  Luckily with soft corals, they can touch without stinging each other, so I can cram things into the tiny space without issues.  Also, I have more open space than you would think for a 14 gallon.  I tried to design the scape to leave open sand bed and open swimming space.

 

Opossums are incredibly creepy.  A friend of mine has a feral cat in her neighborhood that she's been feeding for a while.  She decided to try to trap it to take it to one of the fix and release programs to get it spayed.  Long story short, she caught something in the trap, but it wasn't the cat.  It was a big scary, very angry opossum. 

On 2/14/2018 at 8:17 PM, William said:

Do you buy stuff from the same LFS?....

Possibly.  Not sure if that could be the issue.  I've been shopping at the same LFS for years and I've never had an issue with dinos before.

7 hours ago, RustyRocket said:

I do make my own RODI, about 21 to 23 TDS in and 1 TDS out usually. But I have topped off with filtered water from my fridge cos I ran out. Is it possible that its something airborne, just a thought. 

NO3 up to 15 to 20ppm and P04 at 0ppm according to the API reef master test Kit, my ball of chaeto and macro algae havent grown much though. 

 

I thought it was diatom so I've just up the flow, no change to light cycle or water changes and left it to itself to go away...little change at the moment.

Its annoying, think its smothering my gorgonians, they're constantly shedding and starting to see skeleton on a good few branches, they are not not loving life at the moment even when I up the flow. 

I don't know a ton about dinos, so I have no idea if something airborne could trigger them.  Yeah mine have been bothering my gorgonians the most so far.  I haven't seen any lost flesh on my gorgonians, but I've been blasting off the dinos daily with a turkey baster to make sure they don't smother anything.  I'd definitely recommend siphoning them out as often as you can and basting them off in between so your corals don't get too upset while you're working on getting rid of the dinos.

5 hours ago, kinetic said:

Even if you don't really do water changes much etc., your NO3/PO4 can be low or undetectable, since it's being consumed by corals, algae, and dinos. I stopped all my filtration and 5x'd my feeding (my poor overweight fish), and it was still 0 across the board. The dinos thrived. At this point, it was too late and the dinos were basically on a roll. Algae couldn't grow (my chaeto melted away in my reactor), and no matter what I dosed the dinos kept growing. Removing them manually is good, but I think it will be endless unless algae can start consuming the NO3/PO4 faster than the dinos. Algae does better when there's higher levels of NO3/PO4, which is why a lot of people dose those to get the algae population up.

 

I think it's worth testing your NO3/PO4. If those are undetectable, you'll most likely need to supplement a bit.

 

I'm on day 6 of DinoX. Dinos are back, but definitely not as bad. I'm siphoning it all out again tonight and going onto my 4th dose of DinoX...

Good point!  I think I have a test kit somewhere...   Just kidding, I have a cheap API kit at the moment that I bought just for the cycle when I set up this tank.  The goal for this tank was to not test.  I may have to cave and test my levels.  I don't really have much filtration, so not a lot I can do on that front.  I just have a media basket with some ChemiPure Blue and Purigen.  No skimmer or media reactor or anything like that.  I could up feeding, which would probably be an effective way to raise No3/PO4 in such a small tank without much filtration.

 

My DinoX arrived today, but fingers crossed that I won't need to use it.  When I got home tonight, I turned the light back on after 3 full days of utter darkness in the tank.  The tank looks great!  The dinos seem to be completely gone.  I don't see any of the stringy brown stuff that was covered in air bubbles that I was seeing before.  Knock on wood that I'm not speaking too soon.  They're definitely gone, but hopefully its permanent and they won't come right back now that I have the light on again.  If you haven't tried it yet, I'd try a 3-4 blackout period.  I did some reading and that seems to be one of the most common recommendations for fighting dinos.  You have to really do a full black out, so I covered the tank completely in towels to make sure it wasn't even getting any ambient light.  Here's to hoping that my dino fight it over...I feel like I'm speaking too soon... 

[kinetic]

I was thinking of a blackout, but I have a Magnifica and two BTA's. They're not going to do well without light for a few days =(

 

But glad you're free of them for now! Crossing my fingers for ya!

[Felicia]

Tank Updates

The tank is looking awesome after the 3 day black out.  I don't see any sign of dinos, so fingers cross that they don't come back.  I was worried the corals would look really stressed after 3 full days without any light, but everything looks happy and healthy.  Here's to hoping things will start improving with the tank.

 

I got a package from KP Aquatics today!   I know its not the best timing to add new inhabitants in the middle of this dino issue, but KPA FINALLY got 2 of the nano size serpent starfish in stock.  I'd been waiting for months to get some and this is the first time they've had any in stock since I set up this tank.  The nano serpent stars from KPA are one of my favorite inverts and are awesome as part of a CUC as scavengers.  I've had at least one serpent starfish in all of my tanks.  It was weird not having one.  So anyways, I snatched up the two they got in stock immediately and now they're out of stock again.    I've had fish issues and these dino issues, but luckily all of my inverts are super happy and healthy, so I figure the starfish should be fine.  To round out my order, I also ordered a pincushion urchin and two St. Thomas mushrooms.

 

As usual, I was definitely not disappointed by my KPA order.  Everything looked super happy and healthy in the bags upon arrival.  Both starfish and the urchin were moving about and seemed to be doing very well.  The two St. Thomas mushrooms were actually open in the bags.  They sent some really nice green/blue St. Thomas mushrooms that are a good size.  For like $16 each, those were a steal compared to prices elsewhere.  They also threw in a freebie frag of zoas.  Everything is in the tank now and seems to be doing well.  Both starfish walked up into the rocks, so we'll see if they come out next feeding time.  The urchin is currently roaming about actively.

 

Now for some photos!  Here's the slightly larger of the two starfish in the bag upon arrival.

 

Here's the slightly smaller of the two starfish.

 

Here's the urchin in the shipping bag.  Its a really pretty white color.  However, I ordered a nano size pincushion urchin, but this is a full sized pincushion urchin.  Its about the same size as the urchins I had in the 40B.  It may be a bit too big for this tank.  I'm going to see how it does for a bit and then decide if I should keep it.  I really want an urchin and this one is so pretty, but with how large it is, it may be a bulldozer in my little tank.  We'll see if it behaves with my corals.

 

All of the new additions in the acclimation bucket.  You can see how large the St. Thomas mushrooms are and they're not anywhere near all the way open.  The two little rocks are the zoa frags.  Those haven't opened yet, so I'm curious to see what type of zoas they are.

[Felicia]

22 minutes ago, kinetic said:

I was thinking of a blackout, but I have a Magnifica and two BTA's. They're not going to do well without light for a few days =(

 

But glad you're free of them for now! Crossing my fingers for ya!

Thank you!  Fingers crossed!  You don't think the anemones would be ok without light for 3 days?  Anemones are pretty hardy, so I wouldn't think it would be an issue.  Most corals and anemones experience similar situations in the wild during bad storms, so they're equipped to survive without light for a while.  I think the main issue with anemones is that they may start wandering about during a blackout.  If yours aren't going away after you finish the DinoX treatment or are getting worse, I'd consider trying a blackout.

[Felicia]

And two more non-aquarium photos...

 

First off, the always adorable Lily!

 

And one of my other hobbies, baking!  I made red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting to take to work on Valentine's day.  

[vlangel]

I love serpent stars too.  Until seahorses I always had some.  I had a red one that was super cool and was probably 10" arm to arm when I rehomed it.

I have always wanted a pincushion urchin.  I really like the light color of yours.  I hope it works out for you.

Everything looked very nice as you were acclimating.  I can't wait to see them in your tank!

[Pjanssen]

Love KPA! I was happy to discover a nano serpent as a hitch hiker in my live rock from them! I love/hate pin cushion urchins. Make sure everything is glued down really well, as they pick everything up, especially things like that little rock of Zoas!

[kinetic]

9 hours ago, Felicia said:

Thank you!  Fingers crossed!  You don't think the anemones would be ok without light for 3 days?  Anemones are pretty hardy, so I wouldn't think it would be an issue.  Most corals and anemones experience similar situations in the wild during bad storms, so they're equipped to survive without light for a while.  I think the main issue with anemones is that they may start wandering about during a blackout.  If yours aren't going away after you finish the DinoX treatment or are getting worse, I'd consider trying a blackout.

Yeah, the anemones wander quite a bit when something weird happens. The magnifica is basically a genocide machine, everything it touches will die haha. Though at this point, almost all my SPS except one has died, so I guess it wouldn't hurt. Definitely something to consider if this DinoX isn't working.

[Felicia]

5 hours ago, kinetic said:

Yeah, the anemones wander quite a bit when something weird happens. The magnifica is basically a genocide machine, everything it touches will die haha. Though at this point, almost all my SPS except one has died, so I guess it wouldn't hurt. Definitely something to consider if this DinoX isn't working.

So sorry to hear you've lost most of your SPS.    At least the anemones are pretty hardy!  Are they doing ok?  The blackout is definitely something to consider as a last resort.  I wonder if you could make a temporary partition or something to keep the magnifica from wandering.  Maybe you could poke holes in a deli cup and place it upside down over the anemone during the blackout or something.

[Felicia]

12 hours ago, vlangel said:

I love serpent stars too.  Until seahorses I always had some.  I had a red one that was super cool and was probably 10" arm to arm when I rehomed it.

I have always wanted a pincushion urchin.  I really like the light color of yours.  I hope it works out for you.

Everything looked very nice as you were acclimating.  I can't wait to see them in your tank!

They're such fun little critters!  Is there a reason you don't have any in the seahorse tank?  My LFS has been getting in those red ones lately and they are stunning!  Unfortunately, they're too big for my current tank.  I had a huge harlequin serpent starfish in the 40B predator tank that was pretty cool.  

 

Yeah, the white color of this pincushion urchin is really nice!  So far he's behaving.  I checked this morning and he was out wandering about, but was not wearing any of my corals yet. Also, nothing was knocked over.  Considering I haven't glued down/attached the new St. Thomas mushrooms and zoas from KPA, I figured he'd be wearing those this morning.

 

Thank you, Dawn!  I was happy with everything!  Hopefully everything settles in ok.  Now that my tank isn't a dino covered disaster, I'll try to actually get some photos!

11 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

Love KPA! I was happy to discover a nano serpent as a hitch hiker in my live rock from them! I love/hate pin cushion urchins. Make sure everything is glued down really well, as they pick everything up, especially things like that little rock of Zoas!

Oh, that's awesome you got one as a hitchhiker!  Yeah urchins can be a pain, but they're so fascinating and algae eating machines!  I had two very well behaved ones in my 40B and considering how bad the excess nutrients were in that system with feeding the predators, the urchins did a wonderful job keeping the nuisance algae to a minimum.  I just make sure to attach my frags really well.  The super glue, epoxy, super glue approach is generally urchin proof.

[Felicia]

The new additions seem to have settled in well. Both starfish came out at feeding time last night and were actively grabbing food, so they seem to have handled shipping fine. Both St. Thomas mushroom puffed up and are very pretty. Now I just need to get them attached to the rocks. I'm just going to cluster them around the other St. Thomas mushroom. The urchin is also cruising about and is so far being behaved. I decided I needed to get some nori to feed him because after the 3-day blackout my tank seems to be short on algae. Not that I'm complaining! Anyways, I made a trip to the LFS to grab a package of nori and ended up picking up other goodies of course. I ended up getting a frag of pulsing Xenia, a small colony of neon green cloves, and an ORA black cardinalfish. I have never really liked cardinal fish, but I'd never seen the black variety. Such a cool fish. It's a solid, deep velvet black. I figured it was inexpensive and should be easy/ hardy since it's a cardinalfish but is a unique variety you don't see too often. Hopefully I have better luck with fish now. Not sure what the deal has been with fish and this tank.

 

[Pjanssen]

Can't wait to see pictures of all your new babies! It occurred to me today that I haven't seen my serpent star in awhile. I'll have to come out at night with a flashlight and look for it.

[Okinawa_Reefer]

Great stuff! I’ve always wanted a serpent star. Perhaps I’ll take a look at KPA to see if I can snag one up! Any update on the Dino situation?

[Felicia]

16 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

Can't wait to see pictures of all your new babies! It occurred to me today that I haven't seen my serpent star in awhile. I'll have to come out at night with a flashlight and look for it.

I glued down the new corals last night and did a water change, so everything was a bit irritated.  I'm hoping to get some nice photos tonight.  However, I did snap a couple quick and dirty photos of the inhabitants last night and this morning.    My serpent stars have generally always come out at feeding time, but I typically feed just before lights out in the evening when the inverts are the most active.  I bet if you feed in the evening and keep an eye out you'll probably spot it.

[Felicia]

6 hours ago, Okinawa_Reefer said:

Great stuff! I’ve always wanted a serpent star. Perhaps I’ll take a look at KPA to see if I can snag one up! Any update on the Dino situation?

Thank you!  The nano serpent stars are a really nice option for smaller tanks.  Hopefully KPA will get some more in soon.  You can get on the email notification list for out of stock items on their website.  That's what I did for the serpent stars.  I got an email saying they were back in stock and I snatched them up.    The dinos are gone!  I'm still hesitant to say they're completely gone because I guess they could still come back, but so far its been over 2 days since I finished the 3-day blackout of the tank and there is no sign of any dinos.  I'm amazed the blackout worked that well!  They were EVERYWHERE and now there are none. 

[Felicia]

Tank Updates

1. The acclimation of my new black cardinalfish was a bit eventful.  Lily leaped off of the couch and managed to plow into the bucket where the new fish was acclimating.  Salt water and the poor fish ended up all over my living room floor.  Luckily I was right there and saw it happen so I snatched up the fish and dropped him into the tank.  He seems none the worse for wear, but that was a bit of a stressful acclimation!  Lily is such a goof some times.  Luckily no harm done!
2. I got my new corals glued down yesterday evening.  I had a bit of a hard time with the St. Thomas mushrooms since they were just on tiny bits of rubble that is hard to glue down.  I'm hoping to just hold them in place long enough for them to attach their feet to the rocks.  They're not arranged exactly the way I want right now, but I'm hoping one they're attached to the rock, they'll settle in next to each other into a nice St. Thomas mushroom garden.
3. I did a water change last night after placing the new corals.  I didn't get photos because everything was a bit irked as usual after the cleaning.  I'm hoping to get some nice photos tonight now that the tank is looking good again.  I did however, snap some photos of the inverts last night right after lights and this morning because they were all out and about.  Excuse the quality of the photos because these were taken with the lights out so there is a lot of glare and shadowing.

 

Morning on the reef!  This is just lit by the sunlight coming in my living room windows.

 

Pom pom crab.  This little guy has been doing awesome and has grown quite a bit.  He's molted a couple times now and is such a spunky little guy when he's defending his territory.  He lives up under the arch on and around the tunicates.  KPA sent a freebie of orange tunicates with my order of the gorgonians a while back.  Tunicates are non-photosynthetic and I didn't want algae growing on them, so I put them up under the arch.  I wasn't sure how'd they do in my tank, but surprisingly they're doing really well and the pom pom crab seems to like them.  When I added the new serpent stars Thursday night, one of them tried to scamper up under the arch and the pom pom crab came charging out waving his anemones and scared the starfish off.  It was pretty entertaining.

 

Porcelain crab being the king of the reef.  He's been perched right up on the center of the highest part of the rocks all morning.

 

One of the new nano serpent stars out scavenging for food.

 

The new black cardinalfish.  I think I will call him Batman!

 

Lily checking out the aquarium.  She loves to sit there and watch this tank.

 

 

And finally, a quick video of the sunlit reef first thing in the morning!

 

 

 

[vlangel]

I really love your pics and the video.  Also I had to laugh about Lily's antics with Batman (which is a perfect name).  

If I ever downsize I am going to do a reef like yours because I love it.

[Felicia]

4 minutes ago, vlangel said:

I really love your pics and the video.  Also I had to laugh about Lily's antics with Batman (which is a perfect name).  

If I ever downsize I am going to do a reef like yours because I love it.

Thank you, Dawn!  Lily is usually pretty careful about knocking things over, but even though she's almost 8, she still has the occasional rambunctious streak where she goes scampering about the house like a kitten and knocks things over.    She looked pretty contrite when I scolded her for knocking over the acclimation bucket.  She's just too darn cute to stay mad at for any amount of time!  Also, I'm glad you like the name!  He just seems like a Batman.  He's such a weird fish, but that was why I liked him!  Hopefully he settles into the tank and does well.

 

And thank you for such a wonderful compliment!   I LOVE your seahorse tank and I definitely miss having seahorses and predators, but this tank is such a nice low maintenance option for now.  I was so frustrated when the dino outbreak first started because it was like, "Oh no here we go again with the major aquarium issues and the constant maintenance and battling the pest."  However, even doing every 2-3 day water changes, siphoning out the whole tank, removing and scrubbing equipment, etc. to try to fight the dinos really wasn't bad on a tank this size.  Small and with minimal equipment definitely makes things a bit easier, which is just what I want right now.

[Felicia]

Alright, I snapped some new tank photos.  Everything is looking sooo much better.  The new corals aren't all 100% open and a few of the zoas/gorgonians are still only partially opening after being irritated by the dinos, but everything is looking good overall.  So let's start with a new FTS.

 

Ricordea Garden

 

 

Zoanthids!  I'm getting some cool morphs of the Eagle Eyes.

 

 

Green fuzzy mushroom.

 

Weeping willow toadstool (not 100% open, but still beautiful).

 

Long polyp toadstool.

 

 

Porcelain crab

 

Pom pom crab

 

Skunk cleaner shrimp

 

Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah BATMAN!  The black cardinalfish.  He's hard to photograph because he is a really deep, solid black color.

[Pjanssen]

Very very nice. 

[ReefingRelapse]

Never even heard of black cardinall. Love all the gorgonians. My LFS's never have any...