Ant's 6g Shallow v2.0- June Update

[billygoat]

2 hours ago, antsypants said:

So Sunday, I did a 2gal water change which is about 30% by volume, siphoning out as much cyano as possible. Next day maybe 50-75% of the cyano was back. So I did another 2gal change, moved and turned up the MP10 and removed the bag of chemipure. Today, only trace amounts of cyano on the sandbed in low flow spots 😁. Not getting my hopes up too high since it could return any time. Most of my sandbed was turned over by the MP10, so the increased flow definitely seemed to help at the expense of my sand being blown all over.. I'll still take this as progress haha. Did a 15% water change today and dialed down the MP10 and fixed my sandbed, if the cyano returns I'll have to make some compromises.

 

Looking back, I should've changed only flow or chemipure since I'm now uncertain what helped. Maybe a bit of both even. Gonna hold off on anymore water changes and will update again at the end of the week. Thanks for all the help 🙂

Glad to hear things are looking up! Hopefully the cyano will at least be under control now. Keep us posted on how things go! 🤞

[antsypants]

18 hours ago, billygoat said:

Glad to hear things are looking up! Hopefully the cyano will at least be under control now. Keep us posted on how things go! 🤞

Thanks! Your advice really helped 😄 Woke up this morning to less sand blowing around and almost zero cyano so I'm thinking my flow changes are doing the trick. Gonna be siphoning out any strands of cyano. Between water changes and skimming, I think my nutrients should stay in check without the need to run media but once I feel I can't keep up, I'll probably add a bag of carbon and GFO. Might just try chemipure again and see if I just got a faulty bag or something. 

 

But anyways, I'm feeling good about the tank again. I have an order of zoas from a local reefer that should be coming in soon, which will complete my zoa stocklist. After that, I'm gonna focus on getting my levels stable before tossing some sticks in. Fingers crossed!

[antsypants]

Was planning to clean the tank up a bit and do a water change before updating but I didn't have any water on me and I had some free time today soo decided I'd do the update today 😅 . 

 

Cyano is still regrowing a bit but I think regular water changes should be enough to keep it in check. Fish and shrimp have both made it past the two week mark so gotta start thinking of names now.. Zoas are slowly growing, the tank's pretty clean since there's only one fish in it. Thinking about getting a pack of LRS frenzy. 

 

Lastly, my alk has been swinging quite a bit, dropping almost 1dKh a day. I've been dosing it back up using the Red Sea Alk powder. I have to dose once or twice a day to keep my alk between 7 and 8. Is this normal for a new tank? Nothing in the tank besides maybe the snails, shrimp, and coralline algae could be taking it up. Anyone know of any other ways for alk to be used up? I'm thinking it's reacting with calcium and precipitating out. If that's the case, will it naturally stabilize as my tank ages?

 

Anyways, couple of pictures, taken on my phone so not the greatest, unfortunately but should get the point across well enough 😀

 

Goblin Fire

 

Mandarin Orange

 

Clementines. Couldn't get good color to come out. 

 

Yellow Brick Road

 

Yasha, shrimp being shy

 

FTS!

[antsypants]

SPS time :) 

Added a tiny walt disney frag from a local reefer a couple weeks ago. Still got some coloring up to do but has full PE since day 1. Decided to add a couple more frags from the same reefer on Friday. Got a fox flame and a shortcake. FF is doing fine, got some decent PE but color isn't there yet. Shortcake was a fresh, unhealed frag. The backside of it that wasn't facing the light in the original tank is starting to pale. Might've overestimated my tank and that coral's hardiness this time. Not sure what I can do for it. I did break off a small piece of it that's doing just fine so if worse comes to worse, I'll at least still have a piece of it.

 

 

Also got a plate coral from a friend, it's yellowish/pinkish and the tentacle's tips are blue :) Gotta try to get a better pic at some point.

 

Lastly, I had the bright idea to attach my zoa frags in a different place aaand they were not happy about it. A couple of them expelled their zooxanthellae I think, and lost a lot of color. I'm thinking they'll color back up eventually but if there's anything else I can do, I'd love to hear suggestions.. haha

Mandarin Orange, or at least it used to be: 

 

In terms of stocking, I think I'm getting pretty close to where I want to be. Just gonna add some zoas and acros here and there as I come across pieces I think will look good I guess. My params are all stabling out, which is great news for a small, new tank. Phosphates hit 0 though so might experiment with bringing that up a bit in the future.

[antsypants]

So my cerith snails got busy I think 👌 

 

I've had this happen before with other tanks but never saw any baby ceriths come out of it. Also not sure if the eggs are fertilized? Do these snails change sexes at all? It'd be cool to have some baby ceriths cruising around but I'm probably not going to put too much effort into making sure these eggs hatch and what not.