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

[Snow_Phoenix]

Illaron getting cleaned up by Pyro, the fire shrimp:

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CSWr5_2pf2s/?utm_medium=copy_link

[Snow_Phoenix]

Poseidon today:

 

 

 

 

 

'Yes, are you looking for us?' 😅

 

 

Love my little dragons. 🐲🐉

 

(Mercury is fine too.) 😊

[Snow_Phoenix]

Asterinas. So many now. 🤔

 

[seabass]

1 hour ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Asterinas. So many now. 🤔

I got rid of mine.  I kind of regret that.

[Snow_Phoenix]

7 hours ago, seabass said:

I got rid of mine.  I kind of regret that.

They seem harmless and are mostly eating algae on the rocks. I just left them because I didn't see the purpose in removing them. 🤷‍♀️

[ECLS Reefer]

27 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

They seem harmless and are mostly eating algae on the rocks. I just left them because I didn't see the purpose in removing them. 🤷‍♀️

I let mine get to a big population and then got a harlequin because they’re my husbands favorite. After they wipe out the asterinas I’ll either have to rehome or find more asterinas. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 hour ago, ECLS Reefer said:

I let mine get to a big population and then got a harlequin because they’re my husbands favorite. After they wipe out the asterinas I’ll either have to rehome or find more asterinas. 

Harlequins do indeed look very pretty. But I also have a sandsifting star which I'm quite fond of in this tank, which I don't want to be eaten. 😅

[Snow_Phoenix]

Mercury on the prowl for pods: 

 

 

He still prefers live food compared to prepared. Training is going slowly, but that is to be expected. Rubys are usually quite stubborn among the bunch, BME. Regular scooters usually adapt quicker. 🤷‍♀️

 

Foxy in the shade:

 

 

Monty:

 

 

Asterina again:

 

 

If the population gets out of control, I'll just pick them off and toss them in my fuge. 😊👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

A small tribute to Bella & Thanos:

 

 

 

I still miss them so much. They were both amazing fish. 😔

[Snow_Phoenix]

My dragons today morning:

 

 

 

 

Poseidon is almost as long as Illaron now. 😊

[Snow_Phoenix]

Blurry pics, but here are my dragons today 🐲🐉💦 :

 

 

 

 

 

Sizes:-

 

Mercury (ruby) : 3.5"

Illaron (scooter) : 5"

Poseidon (spotted mandy) 4.5++" <--- should hit 5" by the end of this year/early next year. 😊👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Yumas:

 

 

 

Casper:

 

 

Illaron:

 

 

 

[Grapple]

Those Yuma’s look great

[Snow_Phoenix]

3 hours ago, Grapple said:

Those Yuma’s look great

Thanks. 😊

[Snow_Phoenix]

Eye of the dragon: 🐲🐉👀

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Exactly 1 year ago, my tank looked this...

 

 

 

 

 

 

I truly miss having a full reeftank. The reason I worked/saved up 9 years was to have a large reef in my room. Now I wonder if I've made the right choice in letting it go & be a FOWLR... 😔

 

Perhaps one day, I can re-convert this back into a reef. What do you all think? 

 

Also, this was my 2.6G picoreeftank last year, so I know deep down inside I can somehow accomplish this:

 

 

Just need to find the heart & confidence to try again. 😕

[Snow_Phoenix]

Good night.

 

[A.m.P]

I don't know if asking all of us is the best of ideas haha, most of us will say you should convert back. But it's an expensive hobby and it injected allot of stress into your life at a bad time, it's just as, if not more, important that you take care of yourself and make sure you're ready, and in a situation where you can enjoy, giving it another try.

 

If you do, my honest advise is just to go with soft corals, there's allot of hype around sps, names, and zoas right now. But you have a large, deep, cube; japanese style softie tanks are breathtaking once they grow in, require very little/reasonable upkeep, can handle swings, and I think they'd compliment/suit your livestock and nutrient levels perfectly.

Spoiler

 

 

This tank was old when this video was first done 12 years back, and it has an update from a few years ago, still going strong, and nobody can say it's not jaw-dropping.

 

 

 

Granted Sanjay can grow corals better in a croc than most of us could in an Apex-controlled super-system, but it's the look and laid-back style that I'm trying to convey more than anything.

 

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Illaron this morning:

 

 

 

Mercury has been bullying him. 😕

 

Yuma:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Potato-quality vid., but here's Reggie on the run:

 

The rock he's on is positioned roughly ~4" away from the glass, so you can imagine how big he actually *is, if he's pressed up against the glass. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

On 8/17/2021 at 12:14 AM, A.m.P said:

I don't know if asking all of us is the best of ideas haha, most of us will say you should convert back. But it's an expensive hobby and it injected allot of stress into your life at a bad time, it's just as, if not more, important that you take care of yourself and make sure you're ready, and in a situation where you can enjoy, giving it another try.

 

If you do, my honest advise is just to go with soft corals, there's allot of hype around sps, names, and zoas right now. But you have a large, deep, cube; japanese style softie tanks are breathtaking once they grow in, require very little/reasonable upkeep, can handle swings, and I think they'd compliment/suit your livestock and nutrient levels perfectly.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

This tank was old when this video was first done 12 years back, and it has an update from a few years ago, still going strong, and nobody can say it's not jaw-dropping.

 

 

 

Granted Sanjay can grow corals better in a croc than most of us could in an Apex-controlled super-system, but it's the look and laid-back style that I'm trying to convey more than anything.

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, it is indeed stressful managing so many animals - and the more complicated a particular setup, the more time, effort & finances are needed to run it. Softies are quite cheap though, so several small softy frags couldn't hurt. Non-fancy/non-premium shrooms like common morphs, should be okay too, I guess. But whatever it is, I'm not adding anything to the tank until my birthday this December. I need more downtime to focus on self-care/self-healing, and also manage what I currently have.

 

Right now, my FW tanks and paludarium requires a lot of attention. The paludarium is mostly on auto-pilot because vampire crabs are super low-maintenance and they actually thrive if you leave them on their own. As for the FW tanks - those need weekly/biweekly WCs. I'm mostly prepping up my discus tank to add more discus in the future - I got one new dude recently, and he was pricey, but wonderful:
 

And keeping the water pristine has been a bit of a challenge for me. As for my predator tank, the canister filter hasn't been sucking the poop up properly for the past two weeks - so I think there's a block somewhere. Have to manually open it up and quite possibly drain the whole thing, remove all the layers and spray the media down before resetting it. 

 

I'm mostly filming my crabs though. They're small, but very interesting critters to watch. Love it when they munch on the algae patches on my cocopeat. 🦀

 

I'm trying to get as much pet-related-work done as possible before the week ends, because next Mon. is my 2nd vaccination shot. Usually the 2nd shot knocks you down for a week (or two), so I won't be able to do much for a while. 😞 

[DevilDuck]

Any tips for training the red scooter blennys? I'm thinking of getting one in the near future.

[Snow_Phoenix]

14 minutes ago, DevilDuck said:

Any tips for training the red scooter blennys? I'm thinking of getting one in the near future.

They're quite difficult. This new one I'm currently trying to train occassionally snicks up a pellet by mistake, makes this exaggerated, 'HALP, I'm choking!!!' face, then swallows it and moves on to eat a pod. 

 

The regular scooters are much easier to train. If you can get an aquacultured dragonet over a wild-caught one, take the aquacultured one. They're more suited to captivity and the chances of them coming in with diseases or parasites is lesser. 

 

You have to be persistent. Try everything and anything to get them to eat first - and always, always have live pods on hand, because these guys will literally starve themselves to death if they can't adapt. 😞 

[growsomething]

The discus tank only needs weekly w/c?  What setup do you have on it?  Planted or fish only?  I have always wanted one, but my angel tanks get so dirty and algae filled even with 50% wc weekly.

[Snow_Phoenix]

7 minutes ago, growsomething said:

The discus tank only needs weekly w/c?  What setup do you have on it?  Planted or fish only?  I have always wanted one, but my angel tanks get so dirty and algae filled even with 50% wc weekly.

It's planted, but no sand. The filtration is quite powerful, so there is minimal dirt on the bottom - usually just a bit of gunk caught between the river pebbles - all of which can be easily removed using a gravel vac. 

 

Getting healthy fish from a reputable store is very important in choosing discus. I used to have a dozen of them, then bought 3 new ones from the wrong store which wiped out the entire tank in a week. It was quite depressing. 😔

 

Years later, I'm trying discus again, but I'm now ultra-picky. Currently I have 2 red melon juvis & 1 red pigeon/checkerboard juvi. Thinking of picking up 2 blue diamond juvis in the future. And perhaps other color morphs as well. 

 

My dither fish are all nanofish, with the exception of 2 large torpedo barbs.