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Well, it's a little late to start a build thread now seeing as the tank is mostly put together, if anything I suppose this will be more of a "polishing up" stocking and grow-out... thing...
I do have some pictures I've taken of the process though and some little stories about how one thing or another got thrown together, but at this point I like the scape and stock enough I wanted to share it. Hope you enjoy!

About 8 months ago I bumped into the opportunity to purchase a used Nuvo Atoll and AI prime light for $150 and I just couldn't say no. I'd been really wanting to get back into the hobby after moving off the big island of hawaii for ongoing health-reasons after a bout of myocarditis.
It came in pretty scratched but I polished it up within an inch of the factory using the three-step Novus polish kit and some microfiber towels. Unfortunately I no longer really have any before and after pictures of the 6 or so hour process of getting everything nice a bright again, but I definitely learned I never want to deal with an acrylic tank again. I can't believe how easily these tanks scratch and how deeply at that...

Next up was grabbing some rocks, I didn't want to deal with all the pests and unknowns which can hitchhike on live rock so I went with dry, instead figuring I would cycle the tank using ammonia, bottled Tim's, and some time. I couldn't really think of a fantastic scape Idea and had too many plans laid out, so I just ended up walking out of the LFS with a 30lb or so pile of Dry rock. I figured I could do some kind of really vertical scape to take advantage of the cylinder-shape of the tank, and I grabbed enough flat pieces that I felt like I could easily make a cove or island layout if I wanted to down-the-road.

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I replaced the stock pump with a Sicc nano 120 gph and bought a Sicc Voyager 240 for circulation alongside Brightwell N03 cubes, about "50 gallons worth" of Matrix and No3-out media, some chemi-pure blue nano satchels, phosguard, carbon, and egg-crate to hold it all in the AIO section. 

Underneath the overflow is filter-floss, carbon/phosguard, and then a chemipure satchel, to the right of it in the section which gets essentially no-flow is the NO3 seachem media, then in the large-middle section is half-a container of the brightwell NO3Out media and the Seachem Matrix.
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I also fashioned a little DIY lid out of Lowes scrap acrylic to keep evaporation down, though I really should have used some rods to keep it from warping, I still can't say I'm unhappy with the results.

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Bought a continuous power-supply UAC, which doubles as a backup for the nebulizer-compressor... And a Finnex 100W heater.
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Next-up the protoscaping while the tank cycled, I really wanted to try to maximize the amount of space I had for corals and livestock, while working with keeping a kind of full-tank-gyre action going. I was never really happy with the initial-concepts but couldn't quite figure out what I wanted to do, shy of keeping things bare-bottom, either.

 

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I managed to skip any huge algae or cyano breakouts and ended up with a 0-ammonia 10-nitrate tank within two moths, though I did get a few diatom blooms they always cleared up as fast as they came on. (That said I still get the occasional bloom after playing with my rockwork >_>)
After two months wet, and about 1 month of feeding an empty tank, I decided to test the waters with a small clean-up crew, four nerite snails and a dwarf cerith. I never really took any pictures of them, but my wife and I both love watching the nerites zip all over the tank despite supposedly being "nocturnal", and have enjoyed trying to figure out where on earth the cerith is hiding during the day.


Shortly thereafter we decided to grab a maxima from a local LFS, at the time it looked almost opal-white and was barely two or three inches across.

I placed it towards the top of my rockwork and woke up the next morning to find that the little bugger had jumped into a hole and quite-firmly attached itself, prompting a "quick" re-working of the tank.

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Unfortunately working in the tank and scaping is much less pleasant than I had expected, certainly nowhere near as enjoyable as it used to be for me. Because of my various conditions I've lost most of my postural muscles over-time and have swinging electrolyte-imbalances which can cause shaking, spasms, and pain at just about any angle or weight. Needless to say working in the tank can at times be incredibly frustrating and physically-unpleasant, that said I still love aquascaping dearly and will probably end up with a planted bookshelf-tank or jar in the future.

 


A shot of the clam and a Photo-bombing pair of nerites a few weeks-in.
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About a month later I decided it was time to start adding some corals when I chanced upon a bunch of indo euphyllia about to run out its' timer on Ebay, I picked up an unknown piece which I think is Baliensis, a bi-color frogspawn, and a yellow-ish hammer; plus a Florida-ricordea, chalice, and blasto-merletti colony for about $15 a piece after-shipping.

 

 

Here's a grumpy shot of everyone after shipping, dipping, and dropping into the tank:
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And everyone a few days later: After an ongoing, impressively-successful, feeding regimen of sera-marin-granules (once a week) and 1/4 the recommended dose of RedSea AB 
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I decided to order some plastic-coated neodimium magnets to replace the frag plugs, with the plan of epoxying and gluing their pairs into the rockwork, this way I can remove, swap, and frag the colonies without tearing apart my scape or worrying about much of anything. Unfortunately I think I went overkill on their strength as I can pretty much pick my rocks up by the corals XD
 

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Shot of the Maxima and Pink-green chalice after about a month settling-in and my dialing in the two-part dosing to keep alk and cal stable.
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The longer I had the scape up the more I realized the flow levels just weren't working out for the euphyllia or the chalice. The water coming off the voyager was getting deflected down directly onto the colonies and buffeting them, so I bought a timer to turn the powerhead off a few times a day as a temporary-solution until I felt ready to begin more re-scaping.


After a week or so I decided breaking up the rock the Maxima was attached to was a great starting place as its' size and awkward shape left itself and the entire scape unsteady and prone to constantly coming apart while I tried to work with the coral.

 

A few days ago my wife fell in love with this dark black-purple and rich-green anchor coral we found at a LFS, it reminds me of a truffula tree or some goofy fairytale-plant.

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Which leads me to the current iteration of the scape, overnight the new anchor coral decided to go cliff-diving and fell off its' plug entirely, to fish it out I pretty much had to tear apart the whole tank. With that said it did give me the opportunity and excuse I needed to completely-redesign my rockwork into something that would work better for my animals and for me.


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Four hours and a very sore back/core later and we have this beautiful little lagoon/cove which keeps the euphyllia sheltered from harsh flow and light, keeps the clam high-and center toward the Prime-puck, and the chalice in highish-flow and medium-ish light. 


The plan from here is to get a Lobo/Favia/Acan colony for the center and some bubblegum Digitata for the back-right of the wall (to be suspended by magnets) and decide on a small fish which won't harass the clam (No clown gobies, no damsels, I've heard clownfish can be mean...) maybe an assessor? I would love to try a yellow-stripe clingfish, but I know you're not supposed to keep pipefish with clams and am not sure if there's a similar rule. On top of that they're very difficult to keep and, while I would be willing to make it a little-feeding dish and shelter and go the extra-mile, even those who seem to do everything right tend to have their fish die within 3 years...
Since there's no real information about their actual lifespan in the wild, I don't know how comfortable I am with the idea of potentially doing that to an animal when other species seem to adapt or even thrive in captivity by contrast.

Anyway, that's pretty much the whole process of setting up this 13g nano, it has been a really long time since I've been able to play around with this hobby and honestly this tank has been jumping back into the deep-end for me. I'd love to hear any suggestions on livestock, but I want to keep it light and 10% every-other week or even monthly water-changes in the realm of possibility because of my condition (I test every three days to make sure nitrates are undetectable).

Hope you enjoyed the read as much as I've loved browsing around the community and admiring all of your tanks and projects, hope you have a great day!

 

 

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Loving it! It's so rare that you see a tank that isn't shaped like a box! Super cool setup that you've got going on here. I'll be following along.

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Nice looking tank! 

I like your stocking ideas, and have had a Blue Assessor in the past. Nice fish but dark and doesn't provide a ton of movement. 

Will be interesting to see how this goes! 

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10 minutes ago, colinadam said:

Nice looking tank! 

I like your stocking ideas, and have had a Blue Assessor in the past. Nice fish but dark and doesn't provide a ton of movement. 

Will be interesting to see how this goes! 

I was thinking of trying to find a randali if I could, was also considering a six-line or a possum (wrasse are so dirty and short-lived though...), maybe a Rainford's goby (still not sure if gobies are ever clam-safe), my wife really likes Falco Hawkfish so that might end up being what we go with as well (though perchers are dangerous with clams too >_<), was considering just grabbing a single one of the more-interesting looking small-chromis too...
So many options and my LFS have essentially none of them available lol...

43 minutes ago, billygoat said:

Loving it! It's so rare that you see a tank that isn't shaped like a box! Super cool setup that you've got going on here. I'll be following along.

It's a crazy-looking tank for sure, the footprint is impressive, 16x18, darn-near the same effective-footprint as a 20-long, just very shallow (10" at best).

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Christopher Marks

Your nano reef is coming along nicely @Amphrites, what a neat tank! I like your new aquascape, I can see the benefit of the changes clearly, you'll have so much more room for coral placement.

 

I saw one of these IM Atoll tanks at my LFS a few months ago, yours might be the first I've seen up and running, very cool! Great solution with the acrylic lid, do you have another shot of it?

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53 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

Your nano reef is coming along nicely @Amphrites, what a neat tank! I like your new aquascape, I can see the benefit of the changes clearly, you'll have so much more room for coral placement.

 

I saw one of these IM Atoll tanks at my LFS a few months ago, yours might be the first I've seen up and running, very cool! Great solution with the acrylic lid, do you have another shot of it?

I actually do lol, can't say I'm super proud of it but it works, eventually I'll probably grab an actual piece of acrylic instead of toss-out and some clear rods... The little handles on it actually keep it from bowing, and the three runners were my attempt at reinforcing it with other thin-pieces, should have known they couldn't take it but they all came form the same sheet anyway lol.

Also I really do love the shape, I was originally going to try to hop back into the hobby with a Pico-Jar or large-vase, but at the price I couldn't say no  to the atoll and light combo.
 

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50 minutes ago, Tigahboy said:

Very unique set-up.  Looking forward to seeing this develop.

Me too lol, the yellowish hammer has budded two new heads on the base and the chalice has grown two new mouths as well. The only coral I can't seem to perk up is the stylo...


All that said I forgot to mention the various pest-fights with the tank lol... Nothing major some mystery thick and ryzhome-heavy algae which came in on the clam (it still totally-dominates the underside of my rockwork but it actually looks kinda cool), a bit of odd dusty-green looking algae, a single aptasia which took more than a month to poke its' head out (and get killed with boiling water and vinegar) in the middle of the blasto colony and... well... The Stylo actually came in on an extra-large frag disk, which I noticed after dipping and dropping in the tank was totally infested with colonial-hydras, not only the plug but the poor coral had at least a dozen growing on its' flesh... So a few hours and allot of tweazers, paper-towels, rubbing, scraping, and eventually just chipping the plug into nothing with wire-cutters later the tank was hydroid-free. (fingers crossed at least) 

The sassy thing extends a fair-bit at night or when the light dim, but never-really during the day... It eats well though, I pulverize those silly sera-granules into some tank water and pippette it on, everything is gone within 10 minutes, kind of fun watching it pass the bits around actually... Just wish I could find a place where the animal was happier, supposedly they're cryptic or low-light, so I've had it in the shade, the parent colony was sitting full-extension in a low-frag-rack with sps though. (still doesn't open in full light either lol, had a bit of extension in its' new location though, so I guess we'll see....)

Oh and here's a less-grumpy shot of my new favorite couch-view of the tank:
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Things which may turn into issues:
The clam (has a ton of pearly new-growth (at least a third of an inch) 
is about an inch lower and a bit less-centered than it was and a non-hd prime technically might not be able to keep a maxima at peak-health, though the clam is still only about 4" deep so probably hitting 180ish PAR give-or-take (I might have to lower the light a half-inch or so).
The only reason I felt comfortable moving the clam out from dead-center and down even the slightest bit was a discussion I had with a gent at the LFS whose massive Maximas, one more than a decade old, had never been kept in more than 150 PAR...

Phosguard and overkill Bio-media
 Man do I not want Dino's, granted I'm using half the chemi-blue satchels recommended for a tank this size and instead of the 3 teaspoons of Phosguard the bottle wants for my tank volume I'm only using three-pinches, at best 1 tsp... I know I have crazy-overkill biomedia (150+ Gallons by manufacturer estimates... not exactly great guidelines though lol...) and nitrate-fixing locales, but I am trying to keep some nutrients in the tank since I don't have any real livestock. I feed the corals modestly and hair algae was starting to grow, alongside what looked to be cyano/diatoms (not enough of it to tell yet, but bubbles), so I felt it was time to start getting a bit of nutrient out of the water and added a tiny-amount of phosguard (since it's known to not be able to strip ALL the phos out). I'm still doing weekly, sometimes every-other-week 10%+'s atm not including all the 20-30% changes from playing with rocks-corals-frag plugs..., considering micro-dosing H2O2 to control the white-fuzz and other dusty algae in the tank, maybe get some coralline-chips from a LFS and seed the tank.

 

Edit: Compromise, I have one media bag left (paint filter bags XD) and I'll run soaked and rinsed phosguard + additional carbon for 24-48 hours in the same low-flow chamber as the nitrate-out seachem media once a week.

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Little bit of Coral re-arranging and a Prime-HD on the way, I'm currently running this schedule, but once the HD comes in I plan to decrease the whites about 7-8%, shorten the effective photoperiod, and turn the blues up around 10-15%. Hopefully that will give better color and a little bit more useful and less-intense light to the corals and clams.
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The Bi-color frogspawn is somehow the largest single-colony in the tank, doesn't really care for the Cool-Whites around midday but opens up once they start to ramp down to around 10% towards the afternoon. I'm hoping it's going to split soon as the one head has three-different branch structures underneath it and is easily 3-4" across when it fully-opens. Still eats sera pellets readily of course.
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The off-yellow hammer has looked pretty odd the last week, it's currently separating two heads into independent branches up top and makes a big-opaque bubble in the middle of its' body during the day. It actually tends to open more fully and really inflate its' tentacles when the whites are ramped up a little-higher. If you look closely at the base you can see the start of a new branch (there's another one on the back of the coral as well). I even  managed to get both heads to eat last night during a 20% water chance and a bit of rock-scrubbing for hair-algae.

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The small head of "black and yellow", *eyeroll*, anchor coral finally accepted some food last night and has reclaimed the areas of its' skeleton which tissue receded from after its' basejumping experiment.
 

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I relocated the Baliensis to make room for the Blastomussa, it seems fairly happy in its' new spot and both heads ate. That said it isn't as open nor is the tissue extending quite as far down the branch in its' new home, guess I'll need to wait and see what happens.

 

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This chalice is a pig, Each of its' three heads ate a pellet last night and gaped around for a half-hour searching for more, I spotted the two new baby mouths starting to form their own mounds on the bottom-left of the colony as well. I guess that means it's pretty happy, or that I'm feeding too much lol.


While feeding this coral it dawned on me, I'm not actually feeding this tank particularly lightly, if everything eats I drop 13-14 1mm+ pellets of sera marin-granules into the water in one night plus the Red Sea AB daily. This realization made me much more comfortable with running 1/4 or so the recommended phosguard as a constant part of the tank's filtration.

 

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I don't think the mushroom likes its' new home much either, might not be getting enough flow where it is now, not entirely sure where to move it but at least its' eating and coloring up fine. It just isn't puffing up quite as large as it was in strong uni-directional current.


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Re-organized front view


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The Blastomussa was closing up during peak-lighting so I moved it to a spot where there was a bit less lighting in the tank. (Bottom left)


The darn Stylo continues to look upset so I'm trying it in medium light and flow, the poor thing has a bit of algae growing on it now so I may need to give it a peroxide dip...

 

The supposed crocea-maxima hybrid has a small section of its' mantle which its' guarding/ lightly-pinching intermittently throughout the day, the section is slightly more-brown than the rest of the mantle and looks like it may have been damaged somehow. I'll be keeping an eye out to make sure I don't need to do a freshwater-dip.

 

  

 

Tigahboy and Yoshi have me feeling a bit homesick so I decided to make a  decorative piece to go under the tank and countertop its' resting on, next up I think I'm going to make a tiki-lounge roof light-shade/canopy out of palm fronds and palmetto to stop the bleed into the living room.

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5 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

Tigahboy and Yoshi have me feeling a bit homesick so I decided to make a  decorative piece to go under the tank and countertop its' resting on, next up I think I'm going to make a tiki-lounge roof light-shade/canopy out of palm fronds and palmetto to stop the bleed into the living room.

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Ooooh.  Nice!  Looking forward to seeing how that project turns out.

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Prime HD is in and set-up with a new AB+ hybrid schedule, set to 15% or so acclimation-mode for a week, so far everyone seems happy.

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I appear to have a mother nem colony somewhere I cannot see it... 
Another hot-vinegar and water treatment tonight, hopefully I don't end up hurting the chalice.
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Well, I think I have successfully-identified one of the two types of dominant algae in my system. This particular algae was a light white-tan color and has been present essentially since I started the tank. It would bloom up and become long-and-flowing, almost like bryopsis but without any defined or feathery structures/pigmentation, whenever I disturbed rockwork. I assumed it was some form of diatom, and it turns out that is probably the case as it looks almost identical to "Chrysophytes" in other people's systems.

Hadn't really heard of them before, turns out they're a low-nutrient tolerant diatom capable of auto/heterotrophy and even extracting silicates from whatever surface they grow on to survive. Seem to be a less-prolific, less-harmful kind of plague algae with a similar resiliency to Dino's but a lifespan essentially confined to most tanks' ugly-phases (thankfully). They've stayed mostly low and tame with outbreaks being limited to the, unfortunately frequent, occasions I ape-about in the tank and knock-up a bunch of rock rubble. Beefing up clean-up-crews, manual-removal, and nutrient-export coupled with time seem to be the only real remedy; so adding phosgaurd, double-filter-floss, plus manual-removal seems to be about the best I can do.

In related news and as a PSA Reefcleaners has Money Cowries in stock
Couldn't resist grabbing one alongside three more dwarf ceriths, maybe the bigger CUC will help alleviate the need for manual-removal. (Coming wednesday with more poorly-staged/focused pictures!)

Anyway, I've been manually removing the stuff with a toothbrush forever but had to do it twice in the last 5-6 days alongside needing to scrub the few frag-plugs I have left and the stylo/anchor corals themselves. The clam doesn't mind the brushing, speaking of the stylo it's starting to perk back up and actually regain color and some polyp-extension where it's at, turns out it prefers medium-light and flow (should have just checked Jfox's website to begin with)
 

Sorry for the lack of pictures but the fluorescence of the stylo and the near-translucent-white chrysophytes don't really capture well on my phone's camera at all /shrug.

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Those money cowries are great! I think it will probably make quick work of whatever kind of weird algae you've got going on in there. Cowries and limpets are both wonderful because they practically never stop eating, but cowries (or at least the ones that RC sells) have the added advantage of not munching on your corals once they get past a certain size.

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2 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Hmm, I wonder if Chrysophytes is what I’ve been battling in my pics reef jar, it sounds similar to what you’ve described. Off to Google!

Here's one of the more helpful bits I found. Looking at your photos, I'm guessing the answer may be yes, looks really similar to how mine gets before a bloom. Just a white, almost fuzzy-fungus-like carpeting on rocks.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/chrysophytes-help-me-cure-it.263759/

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  • 2 weeks later...

So I've got an update planned soon, but I wanted to get some opinions on stocking. I recently added a springeri damsel, I absolutely love these guys, tons of personality, color, and movement. Perfect for a tank with all my rockwork as it is constantly darting in and out of caves and picking at pods. 

 

However I'm strongly considering also adding a perc clownfish, I would probably divide the tank using egg crate for a week or two to let it establish territory. That said I don't want to change the behavior or personality of the damselfish in the tank already, nor do I want to limit its' range of movement as I love the way it watches us cook in the kitchen and go about the living room. 

 

I've seen a ton of success stories of people keeping these smaller and less-aggressive damsels with clownfish, but I wanted to see if anyone has a tank up and running with similar stocking and otherwise see if anyone thought it might change how the little guy behaves. I would honestly be fine just having the damsel as the only fish in the tank. (That or a pair or Talbot's was the original game plan, I love damselfish personalities and the springers are so small and tolerant of itermittant feeding I figured it would help with the low maintenance... But it would be cool to have a clown lol, especially if my frogspawn hosted it or it decided to hang out in the mid/upper region of the tank which the springeri leaves empty)

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  • 3 weeks later...

So... Long overdue update, I managed to beat the chrysophates it seems, though I now have a bunch of tiny bubble algae popping up on the right hand side of my rockwork. Currently I'm just manually removing what gets large enough for tweezers, I suppose I may eventually have to go in and manually brush it away, but I get the feeling this will also pass once another algae strain decides its' head honcho in the tank as it's really not thriving. (also the cerith snails seem to like it?)

On the topic of snails one of our Nerites passed away, my wife's personal favorite who she had named Steve, unfortunately buying them locally seems to have landed us with rather old animals and nerites aren't really known for longevity to begin with.
Staying on topic I ordered a CUC package from Reefcleaners and received an absolute ton of florida dwarf ceriths which are now lost somewhere in my rockwork, they seem to be unaware of their nocturnal tendencies and instead take naps in various tiny holes here and there. I also received a beautiful money cowrie which has really been an incredible animal to watch, impressively fast moving although not as interested in the bubble algae as the ceriths sadly. The camouflage on the animal is pretty brilliant, white to blend in with the bright rockwork during the AM and then mottled and black to blend in with the shadows at night.

Shortly before all these new additions I had to, again, attempt to remove that single aptasia from the chalice coral, however it turns out I should have been a bit more careful with what I asked for. The magnets I purchased were indeed far stronger than needed, so strong in fact that pulling the chalice coral off its' magnet literally split the rock it was on in two, which at that point wasn't a huge issue. However it left the left-hand side of the rocks, where the clam was sitting, rather fragile.
Which leads me to the next bit of fun, the previous scape looked something like this
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But, it turns out, with only a sliver of the chalice's old rock left supporting the clam, the rockwork was no longer tantrum-proof. So, naturally, as one of the new ceriths decided to explore the clam's shell one night it slammed shut hard enough to make a ripple... and to totally topple the rockscape XD

After a fair bit of... redesigning and breaking of old rocks I did manage to piece something back together, built a magnet-ledge for the chalice, and then attempted to add some springers damselfish.

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 I tried to go with two smaller fish who had no real territories in their LFS tank and who showed no signs of aggression, I was specifically hoping to end up with a female and male but since they're next-to impossible to sex I took a guess. One small one was hiding behind the intake (never a good sign, but I figured I would take the chance assuming it was a small-male) while the other was very small but able to swim freely in the tank's center and foreground, actively interacting with MUCH larger animals (which I guessed might mean it was a female in part of a harem).
Not convinced I guessed incorrectly but the shot above was right before I rehomed the second Springer, I could have waited longer than the 72 hours I did, but it wasn't eating well due to the other's rather intense feeding aggression and spent most of its' time in stress-colors by the powerhead, it was easy to net and remove at least. (a bit of patience, a few pellets of food, and a very slow net from behind).

 So the new king of the tank is Little Sh*t, or his nickname, Buddy.

Buddy thinks he needs 20 pellets of food a day ( he still gets 10-12 *audible eyeroll*) and enjoys eating all the pellets he can while I'm trying to feed the LPS corals, so I've got mosquito netting coming in the mail... That way I can rope off half the tank at a time and avoid the need to harass him with BBQ skewers and tweezers for an hour while the corals eat (worry not Little Sh*t still got the bulk of the last feeding regardless).
That said the fat, spoiled little fish is an absolute joy to watch and fills the entire tank up with movement, bugger is inquisitive enough to come right up to strangers and is essentially out and about hunting pods or otherwise going on various death-defying damselfish missions at all but nightime hours when he sleeps in one of his two large caveworks.

I also have some new additions, I stumbled upon some absurd deals on corals sourced from "That Guy" on R2R, he's selling $50-100 pieces of coral for $5-15. So, even though some weren't my first picks, I decided to fill the rest of the tank up.
I ordered a Mystic monti, a Forest Dire Digi, an Outer Space Psammocora, and a Ultron Favia (Got a milka stylo frag for free too!). I had the magnets lying around for and intended to mount something like that digi and the chalice to the back wall of the tank to begin with, so this really gave me the perfect opportunity to get everything made and mounted (including a nice dome rock made of rubble for the favia).

Quick picture of things de-pouting after being dipped and added.
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The only considerations I'm mulling over now, livestock wise, are potentially a fish tank-mate, some kind of clownfish or another peaceful-ish damselfish, perhaps a smaller chromi or basslet, maybe even something a bit boisterous like a hawkfish. That said I don't really want to cut back on the damsel's territory or disturb the bugger's current behavior so I've got any additional fish sitting well in the back of my mind. I would love to eventually add a porcelain crab and even a small sps crab if I can, but I'll need to wait for the digitata or the stylophora to grow out first. I absolutely adore crustaceans and those two in particular have a reputation for being 100% clam-safe (as 100% as anything can be at least...)
 

On that note I'm considering trying to trade my indo, tiny-headed, blasto merletti colony of 14 heads and 5/6 stalks in for a wellsi, alveopora, or possibly a rock-flower nem, I understand it likely won't go all the way but the tank just wouldn't be big enough to simply add any of those without taking something else out and the purple-green color of the blasto I have is awfully samey-feeling in a tank full of euphyllia.

Speaking of the Euphyllia, everything is splitting like crazy, the hammer now has three heads and another new branch starting underneath it, the frogspawn has split, and both the heads of the little lilac and yellow baliensis have split @@ So many grumpy looking corals, they're essentially taking turns pouting and having ugly days while going through their growing-pains...

Oh, and the filters I ordered came in today, which is actually what prompted this update! Here's a few quick shots under the evening blues, not 100% huge on the color balance yet but I should be able to figure something out.
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And one shot with the morning AB+, to the eye I prefer the evening blues, but to the camera AB+ looks MUCH better IMO.
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Sounds like you had quite an adventure with your rockwork avalanche, but everything is looking great, so I guess all's well that ends well! 😊 I like reading your detailed updates, and I feel like the passion you have for reefing really shows. It's contagious and that's great! Seeing journals like this one where the tank's owner is all-in on making the best possible environment for their livestock really inspires me to be a better aquarist, and I appreciate that. 

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A few shots under AB+ this morning with the more orange filter, think the greenish one might work better honestly, allot more foolin' around to be had.
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On 6/26/2019 at 10:40 PM, billygoat said:

Sounds like you had quite an adventure with your rockwork avalanche, but everything is looking great, so I guess all's well that ends well! 😊 I like reading your detailed updates, and I feel like the passion you have for reefing really shows. It's contagious and that's great! Seeing journals like this one where the tank's owner is all-in on making the best possible environment for their livestock really inspires me to be a better aquarist, and I appreciate that. 

Thanks for the kind words, I love your carribean biotope and have really enjoyed going through your and literally dozens of other journals and builds on this site. I'm really glad to hear that you've enjoyed reading through mine. I'm a bit obsessive when it comes to details and ultimately just want to provide the best environment I can for the animals I have, whether that impulse will continue to win out over experimenting with another fish in the long-run, well we'll see lol... After seeing that undergravel rule-breaker tank with a brittle, springers, and a goby I'm strongly considering the possibility that my own little fish might tolerate a roommate. 

OH, and I also forgot to mention the tank's dosing has totally flipped since adding the SPS corals, I'm now having to dose alk at twice the rate of CA (which I'm actually nearly dosing at recommended levels already). After adding all those sps my alk went from 11 to 6 in about 4 days lol...

AND the tiki-hut top has been put on hiatus since these AI PRIME mounts have a reputation for cracking and breaking apparently... I'll need to find a new way to hang/support it first.

Two more evening blue shots of the euphyllia nice and fluffy. This camera doesn't deal with low-light well and unfortunately suffers from quite a bit of noise.

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Edited by Amphrites
Forgot about the Tiki Hut top
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  • 4 weeks later...

A Few quick pics, things are growing, hammer has new heads, frogspawn has split, mystic monti is encrusting the rubble its' on nicely. Started doing 10% every other week waterchanges and nitrates/phos are staying low thankfully, a bit more weird bubble algae pops up but a touch of H202 dosing and manual removal works fine, clam is happy and has pearly new-growth. Some corals got shuffled to locations they prefer.
Happy tank so far ^_^ Hopefully it stays that way.

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Pretty happy with this little system overall, though I think I understand why so few people stick with these atoll tanks. Watching the fish swim about it's pretty clear that the usable space is mostly in the center of the tank and that most of the volume is essentially wasted, I think animals prefer circles and oddly enough you can get more circles in an 18x18 rectangle than a circle lol... Noted for the future upgrade when this maxima starts to need more room...

Probably going to make a 28x16x13 system for it... But for now I'm really loving the slow and easy maintenance on this tank and just watching everything grow out, including my single chubby little fish.

Also I promise to start converting my .raws into jpegs so I don't have such enormous file sizes, sorry >_<2019_07_25_15_22_32_ProShot.thumb.png.59bc03bf18745143327995511e6c0a75.png

 *Edit I fixed the file sizes, both resolution and actual mb size.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just started checking out your thread. Not sure why I never noticed it before. Very unique. I admit I didn't read every post maybe half. I did of coarse look at all the pictures. LOL

I am not sure but this may very well be the first time I have noticed after some CUC a clam being the first livestock!  The tank is looking very nice. I hope it continues to provides lots of enjoyment for you.

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