Snow's 2.9G O.S.P.R. Mushroom Mansion

[Clown79]

19 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Miko finally (!) began eating in the QT today evening. He's still very skittish and prefers to hide rather than perch, but I hope that'll he'll feel more comfortable with the natural setting in the Pico when it's ready enough to hold him. 

 

 

He's so cute! Will he be going in the pico?

 

I love shrooms too and they look great in pico's

 

Tank is looking fantastic btw.

[Snow_Phoenix]

4 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

He's so cute!

I know! And he's such a champ too. Lil' dude actually outlasted all the other tiny blennies in the store, simple because he couldn't be 'found'. 

[Clown79]

13 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

I know! And he's such a champ too. Lil' dude actually outlasted all the other tiny blennies in the store, simple because he couldn't be 'found'. 

My bicolor hides so well in his home you can't see him at all. 

Love them, such characters.

[Snow_Phoenix]

36 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

My bicolor hides so well in his home you can't see him at all. 

Love them, such characters.

My Starry loves to hide too. I once couldn't find him in my tank. Imagine losing a 5"++ chunky blenny in a small 20G tank with a few scattered coral pieces here and there. I panicked! Then I found him coolly hidden among my cluster duster, with his color slightly phased out so that he could 'blend in'.

 

Blennies are definitely very, very personable. Certain gobies can be quite fun to watch too. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

55 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

He's so cute! Will he be going in the pico?

 

I love shrooms too and they look great in pico's

 

Tank is looking fantastic btw.

Yeah, Miko will be going into the Pico in about 3 weeks to 1+ month's time. I'll be a bit slow to add him - I still need to find a proper lid for the pico. Right now I'm not too worried because there's no fish/nothing that could jump out in there.

 

And thanks for the compliment! 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Just was resting my back for a while. View from the bed looks good. 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Just topped up 3 small cups of water in the tank. Evap. rates wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I only need to top off the tank once every two days - evap. rate is currently <1" for every two days, and brings my salinity up exactly to 1.025. (This is why I always run my tanks at lower salinity or either 1.023 or 1.024).

 

Tank is doing overall okay. I'm using dechlorinated tap for this tank, and will stick with that unless it gives me any unmanageable problems (which hopefully, it won't).

 

I'm thinking of moving both my green hairy shrooms to the tank in two days. My original plan was to do it end of the week, but I need to speed up. Something is off with my nano. I can't put my finger on it because the fish are okay, and the soft corals are okay, LPS is so-so but my SPS are throwing a bit of a fit. I'm mostly worried over my monti caps. 

 

And I still have one of my two hairy shrooms that looks too floppy/flaccid for my liking. Other rhodactis shrooms are doing ok though. The purple one appears to bleaching a little under my Prime, but I'm hoping it'll recover once it's moved into the Pico over the next 1 to 2 weeks.

 

I've already transferred the forked LR 'stick' which is covered in a few zoas and this curious gray sponge that has bioluminescent green spots on it when the lights are off. I'll try to snap a clear pic when I can - am dead tired now and I'm a few minutes away from crawling under my covers and just drifting off.

 

So I gave it more deeper thought this past hour:

 

-Transfer hairy shroom(s)

-Transfer rhodactis shrooms slowly

-Transfer green Acro stick that has turned a sickly shade of yellow in the nano

-Transfer yuma pile* (*Maybe)

-Transfer all zoa frags (temporarily) to be held in Pico until 60G is up and running end of April/early May

-Transfer clove polyp frag

-Transfer pink finger leather frag

-Hoard more shrooms of different varieties.

 

For obvious reasons, there'll be a downtime of 3 to 5 days between each addition. I realize I'm moving faster than most of the forum, but only because I want to salvage as many frags as I can from my nano, without crashing my Pico in the process. Somewhere in between all the transfers, I'll slowly move my hermit in as well. I think I'll have a 50% stocked tank by the end of May. I'll be doing 50% WC once a week, and 100% WC once a week to keep up with the changes. Every time I top off my water, I have been adding one drop of dKH buffer as well. 

 

In the event that my nano destabilizes, I do have storage bins on hand to hold my livestock. In the event my Pico runs into any problems, I do have my blenny's QT tank up, as well as a 10G FOWLR nano to serve as back up. I could be worried for nothing, but I'll be testing my parameters tomorrow morning. 

[Clown79]

If there is liverock and no cycle you should be fine. Fish additions are more an issue.

 

The bleaching definitely can happen under an ai easily. I had a ric shrink up and in 1 day disappear under an ai. It's very powerful. Some shrooms seem to love high light and others not so much.

 

 

Maybe a short of acrylic for a lid would work?

[Snow_Phoenix]

9 hours ago, Clown79 said:

If there is liverock and no cycle you should be fine. Fish additions are more an issue.

 

The bleaching definitely can happen under an ai easily. I had a ric shrink up and in 1 day disappear under an ai. It's very powerful. Some shrooms seem to love high light and others not so much.

 

 

Maybe a short of acrylic for a lid would work?

I had two extra plastic lids that I overlapped on the tank, but then I noticed this was preventing enough light from reaching all the way down so my yumas began cupping and stretching very badly. 

 

I can always push the fish addition further back if need be. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

This was the 'forked' LR piece I added late last night. Besides the few odd zoa polyps, you can see the mysterious gray sponge with green spots that literally glow when the light is off:

 

 

The sponge was actually a hitchiker. Even the tiny purple protusions on the LR are small sponges of some sort. 

[billdeluz]

You are movin!!! Looks amazing will be following 

[WV Reefer]

45 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

This was the 'forked' LR piece I added late last night. Besides the few odd zoa polyps, you can see the mysterious gray sponge with green spots that literally glow when the light is off:

 

 

The sponge was actually a hitchiker. Even the tiny purple protusions on the LR are small sponges of some sort. 

I like that rock!! 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Just turned out the lights. And...these guys were at my waterline.

 

 

There is another 3 more on the other side of the glass too. 

1 minute ago, WV Reefer said:

I like that rock!! 

Me too! It actually has a variety of hitchikers on it. The sponges are the coolest. 

[asting]

Baby Nass?

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 minute ago, asting said:

Baby Nass?

Could be. They certainly are shaped like it. 🤔

[This guy is extra salty]

13 hours ago, Clown79 said:

If there is liverock and no cycle you should be fine. Fish additions are more an issue.

 

The bleaching definitely can happen under an ai easily. I had a ric shrink up and in 1 day disappear under an ai. It's very powerful. Some shrooms seem to love high light and others not so much.

 

 

Maybe a short of acrylic for a lid would work?

Really AI too powerful? 

I mean I’m smaller tanks sure but most of mine are large tanks

[Snow_Phoenix]

Just did another quick top-off - 1.5 cups of dechlorinated water this time + 1 drop of dkH buffer. 

 

 

Just needed to mix it up very quickly in the bucket using a chopstick:

 

 

And here's just a snapshot of my grape caulerpa today: 

 

 

My mother loves the macro, especially the grape. She was also insisting on a clownfish - I saw her eyeing on my B&W occy in the 20G and I had to patiently explain to her why we can't do a clown in this tank lol. I did show her pics of Miko though and she seemed pleased there was going to be 'something' that swims in there (I didn't tell Miko won't be doing much swimming ). Speaking of the lil' dude, here is in, decked in full camo mode again:

 

 

I'll do a WC tomorrow and add my hairy shrooms in the morning. 😊

[Clown79]

6 hours ago, This guy is extra salty said:

Really AI too powerful? 

I mean I’m smaller tanks sure but most of mine are large tanks

If the tank is very deep then ya it obviously becomes weaker but for average depth with light between 8-12" above, you can fry corals easily

[Snow_Phoenix]

3 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

If the tank is very deep then ya it obviously becomes weaker but for average depth with light between 8-12" above, you can fry corals easily

Agreed. I've so far fried three pieces and bleached two nems. 

 

I'm trying to un-bleach my red bali nem without much success. I couldn't even get it off my base rock to isolate it and let it recover. 😞

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Agreed. I've so far fried three pieces and bleached two nems. 

 

I'm trying to un-bleach my red bali nem without much success. I couldn't even get it off my base rock to isolate it and let it recover. 😞

Ya, I've done it too and it happens quickly. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

So I have finally transferred my first official coral(s) into the Pico:

 

They are both green hairy shrooms. Once fully expanded, they are around 3" to 4" each. I bought each shroom for RM 10 only. The LFS was getting rid of a whole bunch of them because they are allegedly 'too common' and no one wanted them. 

 

I thought they looked great though, but the second one on the right of the pic was faring very poorly in my nano. 

 

My yumas aren't doing well either, so my next transfer should be either this Saturday or Sunday and I might either transfer them next, or my small collection of rhodactis shrooms. 

 

I think I'll keep transferring corals once/twice a week. And after each transfer, I'll do a full WC. My hermit goes in next week. There are a few strands of what I *think is GHA that hitchiked on the root strands of the Caulerpa I need him to get rid off. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tigahboy]

NIIIIIICE!  Great first addition to the shroom kingdom.  

 

 

[yoshii]

Nice! Wow that sponge is so cool, looks like an alien from Star Trek!

Snow out here filling up her tank already and I haven't even done a leak test yet lol

[Snow_Phoenix]

21 minutes ago, yoshii said:

Nice! Wow that sponge is so cool, looks like an alien from Star Trek!

Snow out here filling up her tank already and I haven't even done a leak test yet lol

I know! I didn't even know it glowed until I had turned the lights off. When I first got this LR piece, it was joined together with another LR piece that had ultra green zoas on it. I accidently broke it while trying to position the corals in my nano. 

 

I thought of tossing this 'stick' into the fuge until I noticed it had a couple of sponges on it and a few zoa polyps. So I kept it in my DT. That gray sponge has actually tripled in size over the months - it used to be as small as a fingernail. I also have this curious black ball sponge growing on a piece of LR rubble in my 10G. I think I'll add it to the pico later. 😊

[kimdawg]

Nice hairy shroom.  Those will fill the tank with color quickly.