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  • 3 weeks later...

Such a fun read - not sure how or why I've been missing out on this, but I'm here now  :]   Really looking forward to more! Great work so far!

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So, it has been a while since the last update, not too much has happened and not too many photo's were captured until recently due to a busy schedule and summertime being very hard on my health.

We purchased a small mushroom which was immediately attacked and torn-in-half by a medusa worm which I hopefully got out of the tank, I was sadly unable to save the mushroom which rapidly-declined and was sub-sequentially flipped-over by a trochus snail -immediately causing it to melt away.

The tank appears to have a coral-predatory adolescent bristle-worm (which is strange because it's half-grey and half-pink, supposedly the beneficial-coloration, but I've seen it munching on corals so a bottle-trap is going to be made to get it out before it really goes after anything in earnest)

My spoiled damselfish is extremely-pleased with my decision to start feeding benereef once a week and essentially-refuses to touch other food *audible eyeroll*
We did end up replacing the strange-winter-green-white mushroom and adding a Duncan coral in the end though~

Oh and... Petco had a $-per-gallon sale...
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I'd been considering up-sizing to a 20-long for a while, especially since the cylinder-shape just didn't seem to fit my choice in livestock particularly-well and made working out flow pretty difficult. $55 or so later and some of the most drawn-out and shoddy DIY work you'll likely come across. And well... I now have a 20-Long with a skimmer-chamber, plus three media-chambers (and the possibility for chaeto) all made out of a single $10 piece of scrap-acrylic cut into a lid, the baffles, and the main wall separating the tank from the back-chamber.
I even threw in a $15 reef-octopus Nano-skimmer overstock which was so ancient the box-art still looks like the CHEAPEST chineseium knock-off you'll ever find. 

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Unfortunately setting this all up, while inexpensive ($55 or so all-together), took quite a while as I have no real tools after my most recent few moves, essentially all of it was done with exacto-blades and hand-saws lol... 

So I consider this audition for Team Jank to be more of a casting-couch experience.

That said, with the help of my wonderful-wife, everything in the tank was transferred over and the latest reef-cleaners order was dropped in yesterday-afternoon (including a pair of awesome-little porcelain-crabs [all the more reason that bristle has-to-go])

Thanks for reading, here are a few pouty-shots of the new tank layout (including an awesome custom-rock made by a local for the clam), I've got a bit more livestock and a new light-fixture all planned-up so there should be more to share soon, hope you enjoyed the brief-bit of sharing sorry for the lack of details and pictures this time around but things have been wild.
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Looking good! Congrats on the upgrade. Personally I think the DIY AIO chambers you've made for yourself are pretty cool. In the reefing world there's really no such thing as too janky, as long as it works. 😁

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  • 2 weeks later...

Quick little front-tank shot showcasing my latest adventure in jank (someone send-help I need to be stopped, I literally used light-diffuser to make a light-fixture).

The clam was in too much flow and ended up with pinched-mantle, after a freshwater-dip and relocation it's much-happier.

Also sorry @Clown79 the LPS on the right are the happiest they've ever been... I couldn't bring myself to change the lighting up on them, plus the maxima and the SPS on the left were what needed more light anyway... I'm not sure if PAR functions as an additive-value-equation (it's probably some complex curve?) but by my math the clam and acro frag *probably* aren't sitting in "much" more than 400-PAR.

Oh and the mushroom rock is finally-complete, the ric's had started to grow onto the frag-plug so getting them off was pretty tricky, still cannot get one of the heads on the duncan to open-up consistently but it's eating like a pig so I can't complain. 

Future-plans, Dollar-store ceramic magnet-strips for the lid to keep it flatter on the edges.

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1 hour ago, Amphrites said:

Quick little front-tank shot showcasing my latest adventure in jank (someone send-help I need to be stopped, I literally used light-diffuser to make a light-fixture).

The clam was in too much flow and ended up with pinched-mantle, after a freshwater-dip and relocation it's much-happier.

Also sorry @Clown79 the LPS on the right are the happiest they've ever been... I couldn't bring myself to change the lighting up on them, plus the maxima and the SPS on the left were what needed more light anyway... I'm not sure if PAR functions as an additive-value-equation (it's probably some complex curve?) but by my math the clam and acro frag *probably* aren't sitting in "much" more than 400-PAR.

Oh and the mushroom rock is finally-complete, the ric's had started to grow onto the frag-plug so getting them off was pretty tricky, still cannot get one of the heads on the duncan to open-up consistently but it's eating like a pig so I can't complain. 

Future-plans, Dollar-store ceramic magnet-strips for the lid to keep it flatter on the edges.

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My thoughts with lighting is go with what the corals tell you. They will let you know if they are happy or not. 

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Amphrites said:

Quick little front-tank shot showcasing my latest adventure in jank (someone send-help I need to be stopped, I literally used light-diffuser to make a light-fixture).

I LOLed very much out loud at your request for help - I have been thinking what I would need to reduce some of my DIYness, too - Legos may be the ticket. 

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4 minutes ago, Wonderboy said:

I LOLed very much out loud at your request for help - I have been thinking what I would need to reduce some of my DIYness, too - Legos may be the ticket. 

I mean, lets be real, $20 for a glorified skimmer muffler is just crazy when I try not to spend more than $15 on anything alive and in the tank itself.
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43 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

I mean, lets be real, $20 for a glorified skimmer muffler is just crazy when I try not to spend more than $15 on anything alive and in the tank itself.

I feel this. I think the most I've ever spent on an individual "frag" (actually it was a gorgonian if I recall correctly) was $18 - not including shipping of course. I can see myself going crazy and spending some serious bucks on corals, but I've been actively resisting the temptation to do so. This and many other tanks here on N-R are a testament to the fact that you don't need big-ticket items in your tank to build a beautiful and satisfying reef. 😊

 

How much was your maxima clam? I haven't checked for awhile but those are getting a lot cheaper these days aren't they?

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My wife actually bought the clam as a gift, it was around $60-70 and very tiny, well-into the danger-zone for the animals not surviving. So far I've been quite lucky.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Good news, Bad news time
We got a little clownfish, it was an impulse-buy on a clown I've not really seen before. It looks like a failed or undesirable-attempt at a longfin, closest I could find was "sunset" clowns. It was healthy and eating in the store, so we bought it and brought it back, my wife loves the little bugger and I'm pretty fond of it too.

It's currently "hosting" the middle of the tank and possibly a weird mystic montipora that's been growing vertical and which I can no longer frag now lol.

Bad news: It isn't really eating and hasn't stopped panting since being put in the tank, aggression is ruled out as the damselfish literally shoals with it all day in the middle of the tank when it isn't darting about like a coked-up-toddler (and I watch them at night, when food is in the tank the clown is totally-ignored by the damsel, even if the food is literally right on top of it lol...) Not to mention the lack of fin-damage and how strange it would be for a bullied-fish to hang-out center-stage next to the damsel's territory and not be cowering at the surface or near a powerhead.

The closest to aggression I've seen was the other morning when I took the lid off the tank it spooked both of them, the clownfish darted into the damselfish's caves and was blocking the entrance. The damsel panicked and darted in the other side then shooed the clownfish out and started poking out of the rock at it when it tried to hide, which caused the clown to give up on hiding and mosey-back-out to the center of the tank...

 

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Okay news: It probably isn't brook or ick, and I've dipped the poor thing just in case (no mucus shedding, no faded colors, no visible signs at all on its' skin), definitely not velvet either as its' been about 4 days.

Not as Okay news: The stool it produces is white, stringy, and takes a very long time to pass, while this can be from stress or an inappropriate prior-diet, it's most likely late-stage infection with some kind of parasite.

 

News: It did eat part of a single mysis shrimp this AM and I'm feeding both fish solely with API general-cure medicated food (two different kinds of pellets, flake, and mysis all soaked in fish-oil and garlic juice...) using seachem focus to bind it, hopefully the fact it now has a tiny bit of medication in its' system will help it turn the corner, but closer-inspection reveals it was beat-up pretty severely while at the LFS. (Lighting was too dim there to see it).
I should have quarantined-it or put a hold on it at the store, but I trust this particular LFS, visit-frequently, and like the owners so I made a mistake.

 

Here's a video of it attempting to be hosted by an encrusting montipora, the tank looks rough but the Dino's I had for a bit are almost gone.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/hrutBYNo26wCKN918

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I just found your tank thread.  I thought the cylinder tank was very unique, but this size tank gives you lots more room to work with.  I like the new scape.  I love the damsel fish as well.  I have one springers in my contest tank and I have two springers and a pair of clownfish in my 75 gallon.  I have not seen any aggression that other people sometimes experience.  I will be following along in the future.

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That's a really cool looking clown! I hope it pulls through and gets over whatever is ailing it. 🤞 Seems to make a pretty good companion to the damsel, so at least that is one thing you don't have to worry too much about for the time being.

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54 minutes ago, billygoat said:

That's a really cool looking clown! I hope it pulls through and gets over whatever is ailing it. 🤞 Seems to make a pretty good companion to the damsel, so at least that is one thing you don't have to worry too much about for the time being.

Adding the clown has actually had a pretty cool effect on the damselfish, now that it isn't alone in the tank it has become far more confident. Instead of just sitting with its back to a rock all day it's back to darting all around the tank and investigating things again, stopping every once in a while to tag home base with the clownfish.

It's pretty fun to watch.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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Ricordea mushroom had split into 6 total animals, one of the tiny babies went missing, I noticed the Maxima wasn't open at-all the next day. I woke up yesterday to a dead-gaping clam and murky-white water, the ric's all melted away, the montis were rtn'ing and the euphyllia were most of the way-along into polyp bailout. Turns out the baby-ric found its' way inside the clam and killed them both. 
This left me with no choice but to do two 50% waterchanges in spite of my ongoing fight against a particularly-irritating and difficult-to-eliminate strain of dinoflagellate, I made sure the water going in was at 5 ppm N03 and .075 P04 but I anticipate an absolute explosion of dino's. I took the rocks out of the tank and scrubbed them with a toothbrush, then rinsed them with tank-water before adding them back in and I'll be running the lights extra-dim for the next few days to try to give the system a fighting-chance against the oncoming dino-apocalypse. I plan to slowly bring them back up to normal-intensity over the course of a few weeks.

At this point I'm expecting a near-total loss of livestock, with the exception of some of the snails and the damselfish. I'll keep everyone posted in the meantime and might snag a few photo's of the aftermath and continuing fallout. A few months down the road, when things blow-over, I might just grab an easy normal-forgspawn if there's any on the low around town and maybe something like a pagoda or another low-maintenance coral, we'll see. In the meantime I think the low-light gives me a great opportunity to try to get the rest of the fish thrown in while the damsel is too freaked out to leave its' cave.

We'll see what happens from here, eventually I might try out a deresa or something, but that won't be for a while lol, I knew investing that much bio-mass into one organism in a small-tank was a big-risk, but I didn't expect things to go-south that quickly.

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Oh no! How absolutely tragic! And things seemed to be going so well too. 😞 What are the odds that some random baby Ric would somehow make its way inside of your clam? That's a disaster and no mistake. You have my condolences. Here's hoping the surviving livestock can bounce back!

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Status update, not-stellar. It looks like the blastos, white mystery-mushroom, and alveopora *might* make it though. Not going to start snapping shots and jinxing it =/
 

Favia looks totally gone, the rtn has turned into stn on the montis, the chalice has holes in it, the euphyllia are thin-fleshed and lookin' ready to jump ship, the new trumpet doesn't look too hot either. 

But either the ceriths or astrea are trying to spawn and there's a tiny baby trochus somewhere in the tank lol, not everyone's worse for wear, poor damsel has no idea why the lights are so dim and hides all day.

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