Gaze Posted July 5, 2020 Share Posted July 5, 2020 On 6/30/2020 at 2:46 PM, lizzyann said: Here's a photo that gives you an idea, but I can get another if there's any details you're curious about. I just used two pieces of wood and a shelf bracket, painted it all black, and used the hanging kits that you can get for the AI Prime lights. I was planning something fancier and kind of industrial but it was more work than I was willing to get into at the time and this has worked super well! Not very adjustable so you need to make sure you've got the lights where you want them. Also hiiii everyone! Sorry to drop off the face of the nano-reef world, and right after the tank of the month selection! So uncouth of me! Life has thrown me for a loop the past couple months and I've been SO busy, but managing to keep up with the most basic maintenance and tank is doing well. Out of town right now but I'll try to get a fresh update for yall when I get home next week! I did the same with shelf brackets! But I did them separately cause the tank is showed longways but it allows me to point the lights at an angle slightly. 1 Quote Link to comment
lizzyann Posted July 15, 2020 Author Share Posted July 15, 2020 Helloooooo!!! Not sure if anyone cares much, but I seriously feel bad for not updating for 2 months! Sorry friends! I've mainly just been too busy. The tank has been doing well and pretty much coasting along, though certainly on bare-bones care. I've probably only been doing water changes every 2 weeks, and not cleaning well, but the small water changes seem to be preventing any sudden imbalances. Alk and calcium have lowered more than I'd like, but not to a level that's actually detrimental. I've mainly just had algae uglies and not enough time to write much here, clean the glass well, or work on nice photography. Finally made it a priority this week though! All the critters seem to be doing well, except one of the peppermint shrimp that actually just died yesterday. I noticed it listless and struggling after having moved the large back rock, so I'm nervous that I might have hurt it somehow, but who knows. I didn't see it in the way or anything before working on things! Quite awful watching its best friend and lover eat it 😖, though the partner seemed to respectfully wait until after it stopped twitching, unlike the snails and hermit 🤢. Here's a fun sunlight pic before cleaning the glass most recently: That photo really highlights how much the zoas are stretching, which isn't the prettiest. I'm considering upping the light at the front, but not sure how much it will help because the gonis will still be blocking them. The cyphastrea are continuing their dance/war: Probably the only big change is that I did some major trimming of the grube's gorgonian, birdsnest, digitata, and montis (though you already can't tell on those last two). Not totally satisfied with the birdsnest piece I decided to reattach, but certainly too lazy to fix it or replace it with the one waiting to be sold on the sand bed. The yellow fiji seems to be a bit bigger lately as well, or maybe its just tilting away from the flow more so I get a better view from my desk-side. Acros are doing well, finally starting to see a lot more branching growth, even in the spath! Colors are about the same, though there's a little more pink in the flaming unicorn. That's about all I've got for now, but here's my up to date full tank shots! 8 2 Quote Link to comment
mitten_reef Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 1 hour ago, lizzyann said: Helloooooo!!! Not sure if anyone cares much, but I seriously feel bad for not updating for 2 months! Sorry friends! I've mainly just been too busy. The tank has been doing well and pretty much coasting along, though certainly on bare-bones care. I've probably only been doing water changes every 2 weeks, and not cleaning well, but the small water changes seem to be preventing any sudden imbalances. Alk and calcium have lowered more than I'd like, but not to a level that's actually detrimental. I've mainly just had algae uglies and not enough time to write much here, clean the glass well, or work on nice photography. Finally made it a priority this week though! All the critters seem to be doing well, except one of the peppermint shrimp that actually just died yesterday. I noticed it listless and struggling after having moved the large back rock, so I'm nervous that I might have hurt it somehow, but who knows. I didn't see it in the way or anything before working on things! Quite awful watching its best friend and lover eat it 😖, though the partner seemed to respectfully wait until after it stopped twitching, unlike the snails and hermit 🤢. Here's a fun sunlight pic before cleaning the glass most recently: That photo really highlights how much the zoas are stretching, which isn't the prettiest. I'm considering upping the light at the front, but not sure how much it will help because the gonis will still be blocking them. The cyphastrea are continuing their dance/war: s are c Probably the only big change is that I did some major trimming of the grube's gorgonian, birdsnest, digitata, and montis (though you already can't tell on those last too). Not totally satisfied with the birdsnest piece I decided to reattach, but certainly too lazy to fix it or replace it with the one waiting to be sold on the sand bed. The yellow fiji seems to be a bit bigger lately as well, or maybe its just tilting away from the flow more so I get a better view from my desk-side. Acros are doing well, finally starting to see a lot more branching growth, even in the spath! Colors are about the same, though there's a little more pink in the flaming unicorn. That's about all I've got for now, but here's my up to date full tank shots! I’m for one glad to see an update. 😁 tank looks even better than when it got totm. 1 1 Quote Link to comment
Christopher Marks Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 Stellar update @lizzyann, thanks for checking in! You're doing a great job of keeping the SPS corals balanced as they grow with careful pruning. 1 Quote Link to comment
lizzyann Posted August 1, 2020 Author Share Posted August 1, 2020 Ready for a photo dump? I've managed to keep the glass fairly clean for a couple days in a row and that plus all of the beautiful photography I've seen around here has encouraged me to play with the camera and macro lens some more! Still couldn't convince myself to pull the tripod out of the bottom of the closet, but hey this is progress! I didn't get a shot from the end of the peninsula in that last update, so here's her full frontal, baby! Feeding time! Yasha has gone back to never being visible except when feeding and even then is super shy with any movement around the tank so I had to get all set up and trick her into this one! I couldn't get a good pic, but Lily got in a tussle with somebody (or something) again and has those weird white spot/wounds. I've decided to just ignore it, because she seems to heal every time. I'm guessing she just sometimes falls asleep near something that is a slight irritant/aggressor? The orange ricordea bubbles continue to get weirder. I feel like that one bubble with the yellow dimples looks like some character... Ooo maybe I was thinking about Admiral Ackbar 😂 What do you think? ANYWAY... Next thing I need to trim down will be the mint pavona. I'm hesitant because I'm so proud of how big and beautiful it is, but it's just taking up too much space. I'd much rather have it be a bit more sparse there between the two islands. I'm also considering plopping a clam right in the middle of the pavona rock? Would that work?? Also probably going to need to frag up the duncan soon 😢 Sps are coasting along for now This is the mad raver milli 🙄 Looks nothing like it but it doesn't get much light. I'm hoping one day the tippy top tips might get enough light to look neat. Kitty always getting in the way Part of why there's always so much hair in my tank 🤦♀️ Usually it's long white hairs from my Great Pyrenees mix though. Not sure... this one might be human 😬 Cornbred Rainbow Crush chalice is growing but still showing no signs of rainbow colors 🤷♀️ Apparently the original owner has a couple frags from this experiment that are starting to get streaks, but most are staying green and purple. And I think that's it for the dump! Hope yall are having a good weekend! 10 3 Quote Link to comment
lizzyann Posted August 10, 2020 Author Share Posted August 10, 2020 OMG why have I not been using the wide angle lens on the tank before now?!? I mean, I know why. I always assumed it would distort the photos too much and not look realistic, but man, it's pretty sweet. It does definitely distort, and probably makes some closer up photos seem extra dramatic, but it works SUPER well for top downs! My FIANCE (rare personal life update for yall, boom) told me it's actually a lot fanicer (aka more expensive) than the macro so it's been interesting to see how much better the color quality is without having to do a bunch of post color correction. I pulled it out because I was doing a good bit of camera experimentation because.... drumroll... I got a camera porthole today! It's from Building an Obsession and it's perfect. I know I already drowned yall in photos with the last post, but there's about to be a bunch more 😬 Sorry not sorry! Ugh ok and for the sake of keeping track and not being deceptively positive, one of my corals isn't doing well! It's been a while since anything has seemed really off, but the blue/green goni (to the right of the red/purple goni) has been shriveled for weeks and doesn't seem to be improving. Polyps are still out, just pulled in really close, seem sort of limp, and one side seems like it's almost bleaching a bit. Did some testing and poking around and realized I let my calcium additive container run dry 🤦♀️. So cal is really low (280) and I'm completely out of mix so hoping nothing gets much worse before I can get some! Nitrates (.75) continue to be super low and off balance with phosphates (.15) but that's pretty normal with this tank. Yellow leather has also been grumpy the past couple days but not too worried about that yet. 5 1 Quote Link to comment
lizzyann Posted August 11, 2020 Author Share Posted August 11, 2020 I figured out what was bothering the goni, at least partially. I was checking up on it today and realized what I previously thought was exposed rock seemed to be growing where the coral skeleton should be and took some tweezers to it and it was actually a paper-like tunnel being built over the poor goni! What builds tubes, much like a feather duster's, but only half tunnels against the rock??? I've done some light googling but haven't found anything so far. My ID post is here: Poor baby! I feel awful for not noticing sooner Quote Link to comment
lizzyann Posted August 18, 2020 Author Share Posted August 18, 2020 I figured I better try to keep up with all y'all cool kids and made an instagram account for the tank. Feel free to give me a follow! 5 Quote Link to comment
Justind823 Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 1 hour ago, lizzyann said: I figured I better try to keep up with all y'all cool kids and made an instagram account for the tank. Feel free to give me a follow! Looking good! Headed over for a follow 😎 1 Quote Link to comment
lizzyann Posted August 21, 2020 Author Share Posted August 21, 2020 Gave Monty a good scrub the other day and decided to get a video of him doing his thing... of course he already got gunky right after the bath, but at least I was able to get off all the caked on fuzzy algae and make his stripes visible again! Featuring many bristleworms like any good timelapse! 3 2 Quote Link to comment
SaltyTanks Posted August 22, 2020 Share Posted August 22, 2020 On 8/20/2020 at 6:30 PM, lizzyann said: Gave Monty a good scrub the other day and decided to get a video of him doing his thing... of course he already got gunky right after the bath, but at least I was able to get off all the caked on fuzzy algae and make his stripes visible again! Featuring many bristleworms like any good timelapse! Love this video. 1 1 Quote Link to comment
lizzyann Posted August 25, 2020 Author Share Posted August 25, 2020 I've been succumbing to all the peer pressure lately... not only did I make an Instagram account, but I've also finally decided I gotta get some better pics of the evening tank under blues. Got some flimsy gel filters to tape to the front of the camera lens but maybe I'll upgrade to some actual screw-on filters for the lenses now that I've seen the outcome! As I'm sure you can tell from most of my photos I tend to keep the lights more on the white side most of the day, but as night draws near the candy kaleidoscope comes out! 8 3 Quote Link to comment
pokerdobe Posted August 25, 2020 Share Posted August 25, 2020 I'm not sure how I've been missing this! Nice tank! 1 1 Quote Link to comment
lizzyann Posted August 25, 2020 Author Share Posted August 25, 2020 5 hours ago, pokerdobe said: I'm not sure how I've been missing this! Nice tank! Thank you! Much appreciated coming from you, I only came across yours somewhat recently as well and immediately had to follow!! 🤩 3 Quote Link to comment
pokerdobe Posted August 26, 2020 Share Posted August 26, 2020 I hardly venture out past as few threads, so not finding gems like these is mostly my fault. 😄 1 1 Quote Link to comment
Cannedfish Posted August 26, 2020 Share Posted August 26, 2020 That dendro / goby pic is amazing!!! Also I second @pokerdobe sentiments about your journal! This is one of the rare threads that not only documents a great and well maintained tank but also has insightful write-ups and awesome pictures! None of these things are easy to do and all take more time than most think (especially photos). 2 1 Quote Link to comment
lizzyann Posted August 26, 2020 Author Share Posted August 26, 2020 2 hours ago, Cannedfish said: That dendro / goby pic is amazing!!! Also I second @pokerdobe sentiments about your journal! This is one of the rare threads that not only documents a great and well maintained tank but also has insightful write-ups and awesome pictures! None of these things are easy to do and all take more time than most think (especially photos). Thank you so much!! Yep educating yourself about and maintaining a successful reef tank, being able to enjoy and relish it, and then showing it off to the internet is really such a huge time suck. I figured it was going to be but... damn (Hiiiiii, lookin at you overflowing dirty dishes in the sink 😬🤷♀️). I obviously love this hobby and am obsessed with it, but I'm a little curious how sustainable it will be for me down the road, especially if/when our family starts growing 🥵. We'll see, I'm definitely sticking to it for as long as I can, it's all such a wonder! 🌈🌟 1 Quote Link to comment
Justind823 Posted August 27, 2020 Share Posted August 27, 2020 Killer photos with the filters! I always enjoy stopping by to see how your yellow fiji is doing! 😅 1 Quote Link to comment
lizzyann Posted August 28, 2020 Author Share Posted August 28, 2020 @Justind823Hehe that's awesome, yours (in the 17g I think?) is what made me want one! 2 Quote Link to comment
lizzyann Posted August 28, 2020 Author Share Posted August 28, 2020 I finally found a crocea I really like! It's an ORA cultured clam from Aqua SD. She just got here today and she's so beautiful 😭 Unfortunately I don't think a camera is ever going to be able to capture how crisp and bright and gorgeous it is, but here's my quick first attempt: I'm seriously getting emotional about how beautiful it is. Just a little baby though, wish me luck! 4 2 Quote Link to comment
Justind823 Posted August 29, 2020 Share Posted August 29, 2020 AH super cool! You found a crocea! When I was looking for a clam I was having trouble sourcing them. It looks great and I'm sure it will do well in your aquarium, your system seems very stable and healthy. How big is the clam? Quote Link to comment
Pjanssen Posted August 29, 2020 Share Posted August 29, 2020 Beautiful clam. Beautiful tank. 1 Quote Link to comment
lizzyann Posted September 3, 2020 Author Share Posted September 3, 2020 On 8/29/2020 at 2:05 PM, Justind823 said: How big is the clam? It's about 1.5 inches, of course the listing said approximately 2". Seems like there's a lot of disagreement about the need to do supplemental feeding for clams this small, and their general hardiness, but I'm hoping since it's tank raised it should do ok. Seems pretty happy so far! The tricky part is going to be placement and figuring out how I'm going to make the cradle look more natural. I'm glad it came attached to something, but was kinda hoping it would be a piece of rock or shell. I always hate the look of frag plugs and other smooth, man-made surfaces in the tank. I also forgot about how slow croceas grow. The cradle is pretty big so it's going to be years before the clam actually fills it. There's not much room on the back SPS rock, but I want it to get pretty good light, so I was thinking I would put it where the pavona is. I'm hoping I can glue some rock pieces together to create a small (but kinda tall) island, chisel down the cradle some to make it smaller and more natural shaped (scared about this though, doesn't seem very safe for the clam... maybe dremel?), glue the clam and cradle at the top, then attach frags of pavona around the rock, in the hopes it will take on a similar shape that it is now. 🤦♀️ I don't know. It could end up looking dumb and taking up too much space. I'm definitely running into one of the unavoidable cons of having a nano coral tank, that the coral outgrow it. Several of my corals that I've had for a long time are finally becoming beautiful, mature colonies, which also means they are just too big. The pavona that I already mentioned, the acan rock at the front, and the duncan are all going to have to be fragged soon. It's just disappointing that I can't enjoy them at their full glory for longer. I actually caught the acans attacking the leptastrea the other day. I scooted them over but then they press against the glass. I'm thinking I will probably sell the entire acan rock and get a couple frags to start over with in the same spot, so I guess that could be fun (maybe they'll actually keep their colors this time 🙄) but still! So much work put into keeping them healthy and so much time for them to actually cover that whole rock. I mentioned to my partner selling and/or fragging some of the big pieces and he was legit sad and frustrated. I think he'd rather me just get a bigger tank 😱 than to see our babies go off to other homes or get all chopped up, lol. I just sold the big green fungia plate because it was getting cramped, but I wasn't too upset about that one because I technically wanted a fancier one anyway. With the ASD clam order I got a new little plate baby. The listing (and actually that other pic up there) made it look pretty yellow, but it's much more orange. Oh well, cute color for fall and halloweeeeen! He's my little jack o' lantern. The yellow/red/green RFA has been moving back and forth in all the nooks and crannies where I can't enjoy it for weeks but I think finally settled down by the other one in a perfect spot! I never got all those porthole photos I promised, but here's a couple This is a few weeks old, need to get another one because this thing is getting SO pink! Porthole finally let me get a better pic of the acro spathulata. Not too pretty but it's unique I guess and I'm curious to see it grow. Only problem is there's some little tube worms that have taken home in the skeleton. You can kinda see them in the bottom center. The acro doesn't seem to care too much, so hopefully they will just keep their population small at least. Oh and the porthole allowed me to get a better clam pic as well! I just love this thing 😍 7 1 Quote Link to comment
lizzyann Posted September 16, 2020 Author Share Posted September 16, 2020 Everything has been about the same the past couple weeks, but lots of little curious things happening and I'm still scheming on what to do about my overgrown corals. Not the zoas though, the zoas have always behaved so well. I don't appreciate them enough these days but wow, so nice and beautiful and well-behaved. There's a sun or dendro growing on one of my snails The worm (I assume) that was building the tunnel over my pale green/purple goniopora came back after weeks of not seeing any action, and building the tunnel in the exact same spot right over the top of the goni. Not sure what to do besides continuing to tear down the tunnel, the goni can't be happy though. I have been thinking about getting rid of some or all of the goniopora though. This bright red one is encrusting pretty quickly and killing the cyphastrea next to it. This is exactly why I put it there, but I'm starting to think I'd rather have the cyphastrea take over than the goni. The maroon one at the top is pretty nice, and gives the tank a lot of movement, but it also is pretty big and I don't know if I love such a large portion of the space being taken up by a single slightly mundane color. You can only see the cute yellow mouths when the flow is off. I'm thinking about trying an octospawn in its place, especially if I could find a yellow one. The new yellow-orange fungia apparently hates the spot at the front. It moves around so much and every morning I wake up to it across the tank and hiding. Sorry pal, you're not allowed to live in the shadows where I can't even see you and right next to corals you'll probably get in a big fight with. I'm guessing there's just a little too much light for it where I want it, but that's the only open spot for it. The other fungia was really happy there though! I'll keep moving it another week and see if it can behave or it might have to get sold. If that spot and the acan spot at the front are open, I'm rethinking what I might put up there. I've had such intense feelings every time I see a picture of @Cannedfish's rainbow trachy, I'm considering copying him and getting a trachy out in front. But I don't think anything I find at a less-than-insane price point will really compare, and I'll just be disappointed. Have yall ever seen that emotional triangle of hungry/angry/horny? Like what's the middle word? Something like this: Yall ever felt similar with coral jealousy? That's gotta be a thing right!? 🤣 Anyway, maybe a trachy, maybe a scoly, maybe try a bowerbanki again, maybe just try another fungia and new acan frags. So hard to decide!!! In less than exciting news, Randall (the randall's assessor basslet, duh) has been hiding a lot lately. He'd been coming out less and less and has now moved home base to a nice cave next to the ricordea and isn't even coming out to eat. I kinda saw him go after one flake that floated into the cave. It's reminding me of my watchman goby that stopped coming out to eat but I didn't think much of it until I finally saw that he had two open ulcers on either side of his stomach and was way past saving 😓. The couple times I have seen Randall in the past week he looks healthy though 🤷♀️. Maybe he's just been busy moving into his new cave. I'm ready to try a new fish but having trouble pulling the trigger between a biota captive bred court jester goby and trying another wild caught whiteline combtooth blenny from liveaquaria since they've had some in the Diver's Den again lately. I broke my skimmer when cleaning all the equipment recently and have just left it off for a couple weeks. Somehow I have less phosphates and possibly less nitrates now. There is a lot of algae growing though, but that was the case before the skimmer broke too. Mostly bubble, some kind of lettuce type stuff, hair, and film. I think I've mentioned it before but I get algae on the glass just a couple hours after I scrape. I do think I need to restock on some algae-eating clean up crew. My one hermit kicked the bucket and I haven't had an emerald crab for a while. I feel like hermits never last that long in here, like maybe 6 months tops. A lfs also has sea hares in stock, so I've been thinking about trying one of them again temporarily. I didn't get them from a reputable seller before and I think they just didn't handle shipping well. Anyway, here's a couple quick and dirty FTS since I think it's been over a month since I shared some: 5 1 Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted September 16, 2020 Share Posted September 16, 2020 Tank looks great. I also love that little clam. People do not seem to be keeping them as much as they did years ago. It is nice to see one again. Good luck with it. 1 Quote Link to comment
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