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

[Snow_Phoenix]

Under actinics. 🥰

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Good afternoon. 🌺

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Puffing up for the day. 😊

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Also, the snackbox is open! 🦐

 

 

Throwback to this beautiful duster worm I kept years ago in a nano:

 

 

I'm unsure if I'm able to keep one in this tank with Cleo (copperband) and Foxy (foxface) around. I do wish to try though, because if they don't go after one, then I can create a mini duster worm garden on the rocks. 😊

 

I know Foxy ignores small duster worms because I had a couple in the past in the tank with her. But I didn't have Cleo at that time. Cleo loves bristleworms and vermetids (when they're exposed). Shall I risk it? I can quickly transfer the worm to my nano if she picks at it. 🤔

[Snow_Phoenix]

Yum! 🦐

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

'I refuse to become food!' 🤭

 

 

 

Quite possibly the smartest shrimp snack to date. 😅

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Under actinics today evening:

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Pic drop! 🥰

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Good morning. 🌺

 

Lady:

 

 

Lily:

 

 

Aquilla:

 

 

Cleo:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Already cut out some pond filter mats for the sump today. 👍

 

 

I also washed and dried roughly 1kg of activated carbon outside, but I'll most likely only use half of the amount. 

 

I managed to scrape most of the film algae covering the glass in the sump yesterday, but there is still a lot of dirt at the bottom of each compartment which will need to be siphoned out. 

 

I haven't really fixed a day to perform the WC & clean out, but I'll most likely spread it out over a few days because it is a heavy task. Once the sump is clean, I'll rest for a bit then WC the DT. Aiming to WC at least 20G of the DT, but I'll also need to scrape the vermetids off the rocks. 👍

 

I'm unsure how to go about tackling the patches of turf algae on the LR, and I'm not too keen on using a peroxide dip because it *might melt my softies. R.I.P. cleaning is out of the question too, because I'll lose both the maturity and microfauna biodiversity of the tank in the process, and quite possibly wind up destabilizing my entire system. 😕

 

I think one of the few options left would be to beef up my CUC, but very few animals munch on turf algae. My white halloween urchin is quite effective though (he actually leaves behind trails of white, cleaned out rock surfaces wherever he goes), but 1 urchin is not enough. I think I'll pick up 2 or 3 more in the future. 🤔

[Snow_Phoenix]

Currently having a mini duster worm explosion in the sump! 😊

 

 

 

 

 

[Pjanssen]

WOW!

[Snow_Phoenix]

Hello. 😊

 

Aquilla:

 

 

Foxy:

 

 

Hawke:

 

 

Cleo:

 

 

Mini rainbow yuma:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Good morning from Lady the lionfish and Mr. Prickles the purple rock urchin. 🌺

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Lily and Lady are up quite early this morning. They're quite active, actually. 🥰

 

 

 

Foxy over the cynarina:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

The snack bar was open today:

 

 

Some sort of imbalance seems to have been triggered after I scraped the algae on the glass surface of the sump. I did disturb the refugium a little in my work, but my corals started faring poorly in the DT ever since. 😕

 

Although my leathers were moody, both my cynarinas have been slowly retracting and are now very discolored. 

 

I was thinking of doing the major WC today, but I'm still reeling from the exhaustion from yesterday's major clean out (and bath!) of my hedgehog's enclosure. 😕

 

So the only thing I could do for this tank atm was scrape the glass of the DT and rip off some vermetids from one of the rocks using coral cutters - all in all taking almost ~1 hour to do. 

 

There'll be a water disruption for ~2 days starting tomorrow in my neighborhood. Even after the water comes back, I won't be able to WC anything immediately because the first few hours of waterflow is usually very dirty (brownish-yellow). It can't even be used to wash clothes. 

 

I've topped up all the tanks though. Will top off a bit more early in the morning tomorrow, right before the mainline supply is cut off. 

 

Fish are otherwise fine. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Sticks:

 

 

Toadstool with full PE:

 

 

Mr. Prickles: 🥰

 

 

Lily after a full meal:

 

 

 

Hawke: 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Throwback to this enormous bubble coral colony I kept exactly 2 years ago! 👀

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Also, good morning! 🌺

 

I think stirring up a lot of gunk in the DT yesterday (while purging vermetids off the rocks) did piss off all the corals. They look much better today, although the cynarinas aren't as vibrant as they should be. 

 

 

 

I'm hoping that with more frequent and steady WCs to come, they will eventually color up again. 👍

 

The leathers appear to be in a far better state with notable PE though, which is a good thing. 😊

 

 

 

 

Cloves in a tiny bunch:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Lady and Lily greeted me today. 🥰

 

 

 

And Hawke was openly perching on the rocks. 👍

 

 

Most of the zoas and palys scattered on the rocks are still closed up. The tiny pinwheels colony was accidently dislodged from the main rock yesterday while I was clipping off the vermetids, so I'll have to retrieve them from the sandbed later and re-glue them to the rock. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Absolutely love the color contrast these two have! 🥰

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Taken under two different lighting modes, at two different times. Late morning vs. Late afternoon. 👍

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Forgot to add earlier: I'll be moving my weeping willow toadstool from my nano to this tank soon. The leather coral has grown rather large in my 10G, and now shades a lot of other smaller corals beneath it. Although it is one of the focal points of the nano, I think for it to thrive and grow out fully, this 60G would be the best. I'm still trying to figure out a way to safely remove it from the rock it is anchored to, without harming the coral or undoing my scape. Once everything is settled, I'll most likely place on the central main ledge of this tank. 🙂 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Coming soon to this tank: 1 weeping willow toadstool leather! 🥰

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Cleo has improved a lot since the first day I added her to this tank. She may not be as chunky as Foxy, but at least she is no longer borderline average-skinny. She also rarely accepts prepared, but that is alright. Her favorite remains live pods and tiny worms. 😊👍

 

 

Full PE:

 

 

The sticks have nice PE too, surprisingly enough. I noticed some of the tips have begun to grow a little, which I find quite surprising, given how *dirty this tank is. 😅

 

 

Lady and Lily are doing very well too! I'll need to pick up more live shrimp for them either next week or the week after:

 

 

 

Mr. Prickles is still going strong! 🥰 :

 

 

One of the black sailfin mollies, which is surprisingly aggressive towards its own kind:

 

 

I have 3 black mollies in this tank. The dark colors do help in one way - if ever the tank gets infested by ich/velvet somehow, the white spots/gold dust *should show up very easily on the black mollies first, and should give me enough time to quickly prep. up the QTs and pull all the fish out of the DT for treatment. 

 

So essentially, these guys are my version of canaries in the coal mine, and my first line of alarms if disease breaks out in this tank (which hopefully, it doesn't because I worked really hard on QTing each fish before releasing them into the DT). 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Dropped some shrimp in the tank this evening:

 

 

Will need to pick up more soon since this was all I had left. 👍