Snow's 60G Secret Predatory Sanctum 🐲🐉 - Shutting Down

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #1: 

 

Took some random pics of the shrooms in the reef during late morning: 

 

 

 

 

 

Can't wait to pick up more of them from the store in ~2 weeks. 😊

 

Goblin getting comfy in the cynarina:

 

 

And under it: 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #2:

 

I had to remove *all the rocks from the DT (except the rock my hammer coral is on) to net the tang. The entire process of removing the rocks, netting the correct fish (accidently kept netting the wrong fish & inverts), rescaping the tank, then rescaping again (because one of the rocks was positioned wrongly, and the main ledge rock at the back of the tank was tilted oddly), re-adding stragglers that hopped off the rocks and into the holding bucket (a brittlestar & Goblin the GCG were accidently out of water for a while - no worries, they're both fine), then cleaning up my room & all the equipment afterwards took 1 hour & 45 mins. 😕

 

All in all, a pretty stressful venture that I don't feel like repeating again. 😓

 

I put the tang in a small plastic aquarium (weighed in with a small LR piece) and put the tiny tank back in the DT. Freckles will remain in it for a few days before I head back to the LFS to rehome him. 

 

Here he is, in the tiny tank:

 

 

 

 

Around 30 mins after the dust settled in the tank, and the fish slowly came out of hiding one by one, I noticed something unusual. My inverts were also coming out in the open for the first time, in a very, *very long time. 

 

King Saron was out too - and god, he is so big now! 😮

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #3:

 

When I rescaped the tank, I made a small alcove at the top for Thanos, and I think he likes it very much: 🤗

 

 

 

 

Leopold was hiding in the sandbed & was debating if he should come out:

 

 

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIC1JeqjAXw/?igshid=2x6wm5iepyey

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #4:

 

Amazingly, my fire shrimp, Pyro, which I have not properly seen in almost a year, came out of hiding too: 😊

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took dozens of shots of him to just get a few decent pics:

 

 

Because once he slips back into hiding, I might not see him again for a while. 😕

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #5:

 

Doc & Pyro together:

 

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CICz7AwjxKK/?igshid=cicld3ggevnm

 

Doc on standby:

 

 

Thanos debating if he should use the offered services: 😅

 

 

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIC0q1LjT_m/?igshid=iqkw0r3ob7y5

 

(He didn't, and swam off after a bit. 😅)

 

I'm quite astonished how the removal of one fish brought everyone out of hiding. I was unaware that my shrimp were hiding because of the tang. Now that Freckles the tang is contained & isolated, I noticed my wrasses have become more active too, and are using all areas of the rockwork. 

 

Even Bullet, the new Christmas wrasse, is swimming over the open sandbed area and is no longer segregating himself to one corner of the reef. 

 

It's interesting how the dynamics of the fish shifted almost immediately once the most aggressive fish was removed. 

 

I think I'll stick with what I have. I have a mostly peaceful tank with peaceful fish - angels, tangs, foxfaces etc. will simply alter the state of things & push the more passive animals back in hiding. 

 

Plus, I do have a *lot of mid-column swimmers already. The wrasses provide plenty of color & activity. 🤔

 

Still am considering if it's worth doing a female ruby dragonet - Orion, my male, seems happy enough on his own. And rubys ship very poorly here in Msia. 🤔

[Snow_Phoenix]

The Three Amigos: 😉

 

 

 

 

The Big Guy: 🥰

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Throwback of how Mushroom Mountain looked like a year ago:

 

 

 

^I miss this. 😭

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #1:

 

Goblin: 🥰

 

 

 

 

 

Nero (she turns 2 this Dec.) : 🤗

 

 

 

 

^Raised her from a fingernail-size juvi until the beautiful 3"+ clown she is today. 🥰

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #2:

 

Poseidon: 💦

 

 

 

Giving me the side-eye - he was curious over why I was so close to the glass (was trying to take a pic of him) : 😅

 

 

Bullet (sorry for the blurry pics - he moves fast!) : 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #3:

 

Emerald mummy eye chalice:

 

 

Red discosoma:

 

 

Red spotted gold discosoma (color has run off a lot - the gold base used to be bright yellow) :

 

 

Very blurry, zoomed in pic of my green blastos:

 

 

The reddish outcrop at the back is actually a tiny frag of pavona which has survived through everything this tank has been through, and is currently the only SPS in this tank. 

 

I have very few corals left in this reef, but I'll try to stock up on shrooms and softies first, and maybe the occassional LPS colony like a frogspawn or elegance. 👍

 

Not sure if this tank will ever go back to what it once was during its glory days, but I guess I have to re-evaluate my stocking methods. A lot has changed between then & now - I have more fish = more poop = more nutrients. 

 

Corals that love *dirty water might like this system, but sensitive species like SPS will probably not grow or die. 

 

So I might slowly shift this from a mixed reef to a LPS/mushroom-dominant tank. 🤔

[Snow_Phoenix]

Thanos lounging around: 😊

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Yumas under actinics: 

 

 

 

 

Puffy cynarina:

 

 

^I think I adjusted the white balance wrongly. It looks so weird and almost cartoonish. 😕

[A.m.P]

That cynarina shot looks like a combination of ISO, vignette, and shutter speed all going a bit off on ya. The vertical black bars make me think the shutter-speed was auto-used to an odd-iso which led to odd contrast, blurryness/noise, and I don't know why it would have vignette like that lol.
I've had similar things happen trying to figure out photo's under blues, my advice, if you're using a phone camera or something small, is to keep the ISO manually-set as low as possible and then bring light back into the shot with shutter-speed.

[Snow_Phoenix]

CUC mowing down algae on the rocks early in the morning: 

 

 

 

Blue hairy mushroom: 

 

 

 

Rhodactis on a giant tunicate:

 

 

My refugium: 🥰

 

 

Collonista snails: 

 

 

Amphipod:

 

[mipster]

On 11/26/2020 at 2:12 AM, Snow_Phoenix said:

 

 

 

 

What on earth is this?!

 

 

 

On 11/26/2020 at 9:22 PM, Snow_Phoenix said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soooo satisfyingly pudgy and squishy. I love it!

[Snow_Phoenix]

33 minutes ago, mipster said:

 

 

What on earth is this?!

 

 

 

 

 

Soooo satisfyingly pudgy and squishy. I love it!

It's a Saron shrimp. Also known as a Monkey or Marble shrimp. 

 

And thank you. 😊

[Snow_Phoenix]

Freida peeking: 

 

 

 

She is a steinitz goby. Has doubled in size/length in ~1 year. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Poseidon Part #1: 💦

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Poseidon Part #2: 🥰

 

 

 

 

 

To keep him fat, I feed him everything that I can, everyday. 👍

 

He loves pods & pellets the most. Okay with frozen mysis but doesn't like frozen rotifers very much. Likes shredded/diced raw shrimp in shrimp juice. Also good with live artemia, fresh or frozen flower crab roe (ketam bunga) and frozen copepods. I stopped feeding grindal worms many months ago after my grindal cultures crashed. 

 

I try to culture & prepare my own food slurry-mix to feed him & the other fish. The stronger the odor from the slurry, the more the fish seems to like it. 🤔

 

Constantly finding ways to mix up his diet though because I don't want him to be over-dependent on a particular food type. 👍

[vlangel]

I never guessed that a tang would disrupt a tank so much.  I am sorry that Freckles needs re-homed but you will enjoy everyone else much more.  More great pics!

[Snow_Phoenix]

Orion is sleep-swimming again. 😕

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIIyr68DLIV/?igshid=1w65fvrq4bm48

 

He finally settled back on the sandbed after a while. 

 

Also, Bullet had a mouthful of bristles today. My guess is that he tried to swallow a bristleworm but got stung. He couldn't close his mouth properly, but was still eating & behaving normally. Hope he recovers soon. 😕

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 hour ago, vlangel said:

I never guessed that a tang would disrupt a tank so much.  I am sorry that Freckles needs re-homed but you will enjoy everyone else much more.  More great pics!

I didn't either. I think my tank's dimensions and stocking level didn't help either. But now I'm finally seeing my more passive fish out in the open - guess I'll be giving tangs, foxfaces & angels a miss. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Poseidon hunting for pods around Mushroom Mountain this morning:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Thanos watching the rest of the reef from his new alcove:

 

 

Yuma:

 

 

I'm debating if I should get more Yumas (the common sort) to repopulate the Mushroom Bridge. 🤔

 

I saw some lovely green ones with white stripes at the LFS, but they were being sold as a colony (expensive) and not individually. I'll keep looking out for different colors to decorate the rocks. Love yumas. So bubbly. 😊

[Snow_Phoenix]

Orion: 🤗

 

 

 

Bella: 🥰

 

 

 

 

Freida: