Teenyreef's Teenycookie Jar - Retired! ☠️

[Moolelo]

On 12/28/2017 at 9:51 PM, teenyreef said:

Urgh, I would hope so! I've always liked squat lobsters. But for now I'm trying the corals-only approach as part of my experiment with ultra-simple and cheap jar reef.

I'm not even feeding the jar anything, at least not yet. And so far, all the corals are doing great. Even the sps that typically get pale when nutrients are low have good color. My guess is everything is living off of the stuff that was in the live rock. In fact, the other night I noticed a few pods swimming around, which I never see in the bigger tanks. I did a quick video just to prove it to myself. 

 

My apologies for the disappointment if you were expecting more than three seconds of silent video showing a couple pods 

 

I've also made a few minor equipment upgrades. I had taped over some of the white lights on the PAR 30 bulb but I still wanted a more blue light, and taping over the LEDs reduced the total PAR output of the light. So I bought the ABI Tuna Blue PAR38 light from Amazon ($25): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LWP37SD/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

But when it arrived I ran into a small problem - it was too big for the shade over the clip light. After a little more research on Amazon, I found that this is a common problem, and they make a bulb extender https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074WP65DD/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Here's what it looks like:

 

At under $5 for two, I thought it would be worth trying it, and so far it works great. The bulb fits now, and nothing blew up or caught fire

 

I repositioned the clamp light fixture a little higher since there's more PAR with the new bulb. Here's how it looks now. The colors are a little off but you can see how the light is set up and how the bulb looks with the extender.

 

Here's a top down shot that shows the colors a little better. It's hard to get pictures bright enough when the rocks are still so white! The algae is steadily improving by the way, this picture was taken before the water change, so it's been a week and a half since the last water change in this picture.

It's pretty crazy how your corals stay so vibrant with such little added or in there. That dry rock must really contain some nutrients!

[teenyreef]

16 hours ago, Moolelo said:

On 12/28/2017 at 9:51 PM, teenyreef said:

Urgh, I would hope so! I've always liked squat lobsters. But for now I'm trying the corals-only approach as part of my experiment with ultra-simple and cheap jar reef.

I'm not even feeding the jar anything, at least not yet. And so far, all the corals are doing great. Even the sps that typically get pale when nutrients are low have good color. My guess is everything is living off of the stuff that was in the live rock. In fact, the other night I noticed a few pods swimming around, which I never see in the bigger tanks. I did a quick video just to prove it to myself. 

 

My apologies for the disappointment if you were expecting more than three seconds of silent video showing a couple pods 

 

I've also made a few minor equipment upgrades. I had taped over some of the white lights on the PAR 30 bulb but I still wanted a more blue light, and taping over the LEDs reduced the total PAR output of the light. So I bought the ABI Tuna Blue PAR38 light from Amazon ($25): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LWP37SD/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

But when it arrived I ran into a small problem - it was too big for the shade over the clip light. After a little more research on Amazon, I found that this is a common problem, and they make a bulb extender https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074WP65DD/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Here's what it looks like:

 

At under $5 for two, I thought it would be worth trying it, and so far it works great. The bulb fits now, and nothing blew up or caught fire

 

I repositioned the clamp light fixture a little higher since there's more PAR with the new bulb. Here's how it looks now. The colors are a little off but you can see how the light is set up and how the bulb looks with the extender.

 

Here's a top down shot that shows the colors a little better. It's hard to get pictures bright enough when the rocks are still so white! The algae is steadily improving by the way, this picture was taken before the water change, so it's been a week and a half since the last water change in this picture.

It's pretty crazy how your corals stay so vibrant with such little added or in there. That dry rock must really contain some nutrients!

Yes, most of it was old rock that had been sitting dry for a year or so. I threw it in the back of my 40g for a couple weeks to get it cycled before putting it in the jar.

 

I'me really curious to see how far I can ride this without feeding. I'm a little nervous even now that if I wait too long all the microorganisms in the rocks might die off, or get severely reduced, and everything will go downhill suddenly. Then it would take weeks or months to recover. But I really don't want to change anything when everything looks so good. 

[teenyreef]

So I made myself so nervous about the end of the world no-feeding scenario that I fed some Reef Roids tonight just to be safe 

 

I was hoping to get an end of the year FJS but everything closed up after eating. So here's my December FJS from a few days ago @Felicia!

 

 

[Felicia]

Just a friendly reminder that if you haven't already, please pm me your December FTS and a link to your build thread by January 5, 2018.

[teenyreef]

I've added a few more orphan/rescue corals from the other tanks. It's very hard to get good pictures in the jar. The PAR38 bulb is big, so the only way to get some of the corals from the top down is at such an extreme angle that they're out of focus. And of course it's really blue so white balance is a real challenge. These shots are adjusted as well as I can get them without turning them completely purple. It actually looks quite a bit whiter to the eye, though, so I'm happy with the light anyway.

 

The idea of being able to remove the rocks to clean is working, but just barely. Every time I remove the rocks, I break a piece of coral. The latest casualty was the bubblegum monti which broke right in half. I was able to reglue the tip just to see what happens, but I expect I'll end up with two different frags eventually.

 

Here's a new top down shot, and I'll post a few more shots of the new corals later.

 

[teenyreef]

Sorry for the excessively blue pictures and artificially saturated reds...I may try using a yellow gel filter next time.

 

The california tort was one of the first corals in the jar and has been doing great ever since.

 

Jason Fox Red Hot Setosa:

 

This blue coral is a rescue from the IM40 tank. It started to STN and I cut off the remains of the tip and moved it into the jar since acros seem to really like it here. It's been here about a week and has lost a little more tissue, but that fact that it made it past the first day gives me hope it will survive.

 

I moved the psammacora from the IM40 because it was just sitting on the sand bed getting abused by the snails and clowns. It's right in the middle of the jar so I couldn't get a good picture at all. It's actually a fairly deep red/purple. 

 

This little nub is a survivor from one of the ASD maricultured frags that died in the IM40. There were one or two polyps left, and I moved it into the 30g frag tank where it sat for five or six months and grew a couple more polyps. I'm hoping it will start to grow a little faster here in the jar.

 

The zoas may be getting a little too much light. I also noticed some slight bleaching in the setosa, so tonight I reduced the photoperiod by an hour and a half. I'll see if I can gradually bring it back up over the next month.

 

From above, you can't tell I glued the bubblegum montipora at all! 

 

Here's the glue joint from the side:

 

[Lula_Mae]

It all looks great!  Hope my little purple digi likes it in the jar since it sure didn't in the 5.5!

[vlangel]

Your coral are looking great teeny.  They have nice color.

[teenyreef]

On 1/6/2018 at 12:47 AM, Lula_Mae said:

It all looks great!  Hope my little purple digi likes it in the jar since it sure didn't in the 5.5!

I bet it will!

 

I have so many jar threads to catch up on 

[teenyreef]

On 1/6/2018 at 8:35 AM, vlangel said:

Your coral are looking great teeny.  They have nice color.

Thanks, Dawn!

 

Things are chugging along for the most part. The blue acro I moved from the 40g tank after it started to STN very slowlllly continued to STN here. As of today, I think it's all gone but there might be a tiny part of one polyp left so I haven't pulled it out yet.

 

I added a couple of small rocks with zoas and mushrooms from the frag tank and they're doing well so far. They're just sitting on the bottom right now, but I'll probably glue them in place soon, though. 

 

And much to my surprise, the bubblegum digi is doing just fine after being glued back together. I can see the white glue line still but all the polyps are perfectly healthy on both sides of the joint. 

 

The algae continues to slow down. I haven't applied peroxide since the beginning of the month. There's still some growing on the rocks now but it's not bad at all. There are just a few little spots on the corals, which I've been removing with tweezers. I'll probably do some more peroxide during the next water change just to keep it knocked back.

 

 

[teenyreef]

Here's a shot of the repaired bubblegum monti. I'm just amazed at how quickly it's recovering.

 

 

[vlangel]

Wow, that is pretty amazing.  That was only about a week ago, wasn't it?  In another week you wont even know it was damaged.

[teenyreef]

Just now, vlangel said:

Wow, that is pretty amazing.  That was only about a week ago, wasn't it?  In another week you wont even know it was damaged.

Yes, it's been 12 days. I got really lucky gluing it back on, I got it lined up perfectly and only needed a tiny blob of glue to hold it together!

[pappadumplingz]

tfw when a pico tank has nicer sps than your nano...

[teenyreef]

On 1/17/2018 at 7:41 PM, teenyreef said:

Yes, it's been 12 days. I got really lucky gluing it back on, I got it lined up perfectly and only needed a tiny blob of glue to hold it together!

So a few days after I posted this, I reached into the jar during a water change and broke it right off again 

 

I gave up and glued the broken piece onto a frag plug and put it in the frag tank. 

[teenyreef]

On 1/21/2018 at 6:56 AM, pappadumplingz said:

tfw when a pico tank has nicer sps than your nano...

Ha ha, thanks! I'm a little behind where I wanted to be at this point...there are a few sps frags in the 40g tank that need to come out to make room for the bigger colonies, and I'm thinking about putting them in here. #februarygoals

[teenyreef]

Although I haven't done much to add things to the jar this month, on the positive side, everything I expected to survive is still alive. The blue acro that was STN'ing finally gave up the ghost, as expected. And the slowly declining trumpet coral continues to slowly decline. Here's the January FJS, though, so at least I didn't miss my monthly picture!

 

2018-01-31 TeenyCookie Jar FJS:

 

2018-01-31 TeenyCookie Jar Top Down:

 

[vlangel]

Your jar has amazing color!  When things start growing its going to be awesome.

[debbeach13]

Even with a couple losses the jar looks great.

[pappadumplingz]

On 01/02/2018 at 4:09 PM, teenyreef said:

Ha ha, thanks! I'm a little behind where I wanted to be at this point...there are a few sps frags in the 40g tank that need to come out to make room for the bigger colonies, and I'm thinking about putting them in here. #februarygoals

Or you could break a bunch of laws and send em here ?

[teenyreef]

7 minutes ago, pappadumplingz said:

Or you could break a bunch of laws and send em here ?

Isn't that kind of like sending snow to the Eskimos? 

[pappadumplingz]

4 hours ago, teenyreef said:

Isn't that kind of like sending snow to the Eskimos? 

But it's like sending an eskimo the fluffiest powder from Japan's slopes, they just don't get that stuff

[Lula_Mae]

On 2/1/2018 at 12:17 AM, teenyreef said:

Although I haven't done much to add things to the jar this month, on the positive side, everything I expected to survive is still alive. The blue acro that was STN'ing finally gave up the ghost, as expected. And the slowly declining trumpet coral continues to slowly decline. Here's the January FJS, though, so at least I didn't miss my monthly picture!

 

2018-01-31 TeenyCookie Jar FJS:

 

2018-01-31 TeenyCookie Jar Top Down:

 

Your colors are so nice!  Which light are you using again?

[teenyreef]

On 2/7/2018 at 5:15 AM, Lula_Mae said:

Your colors are so nice!  Which light are you using again?

Thanks! It's the ABI Tuna Blue PAR 38. I got mine on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/ABI-Coral-Optimized-Spectrum-PAR38/dp/B01LWP37SD/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=pet-supplies&ie=UTF8&qid=1518240754&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=ABI+Tuna+Blue+LED+Bulb+Coral+Reef+Optimized+Spectrum+PAR38

 

It's very blue but I think the corals look good in real life. It's a pain to photograph, though, the photos turn out looking like windex without doing some heavy white balancing.

[JBM]

I have that same light on my 5.5g teeny. It is absolutely fantastic!

 

I wasn't crazy about the 30* optics, but my few frags seem to like it.