Tinitanks 5gal pico, The Alcove (thread currently under construction)

[Tired]

Some kind of worm. The black end is the head. Not sure what it is, aside from bristly. Also, my one remaining aiptasia. Striped!

Sandman the crab, after being gently pipetted clean of the majority of the slime. I love the secret little spots on his claws. He’s very dainty in searching for food. Also, one of my favorite zoa colonies. The red ringed ones are nice, but I love the spotted ones! Their skirts are kind of mottled under blues.

[Tired]

Exciting set of things coming in. I got some "designer" stuff! Couldn't pass up the Cyber Monday sale, combined with the "whoops, we sent you the wrong coral last time" coupon code. They didn't have the Mohawk zoas that I didn't get last time, and I still want those (gotta get em somewhere), but I found some really exciting things.

Can you tell that I like patterns and dark colors? 

[Tired]

My order came in, and appears to be all the right stuff. It's not open yet. Hawaiian Ding Dangs at the top, then Goblins On Fire, then Black Hole Suns, then Ultimate Utter Chaos, then Rose Nebulas. This is them in the iodine. They got temp-acclimated, then I put them in a few cups of tank water with a couple drops of iodine. Corals seem to like that.

 

Also, I reorganized the rocks, and uncovered this coral skeleton that I spotted earlier. And, surprise! It's alive! That puffy brownish bit is living flesh. It extends and retracts properly, and appears to be growing a tiny new polyp. Which is pretty awesome.

[Tired]

Welp, the stony's gotten even puffier, so I think it likes being there. Fairly sure it's a starlet coral. 

 

And here are some pics! As usual, the colors kinda suck. These look nicer in person. I need to figure out how to photograph these better. Not sure if it's the camera, the lighting, or both- it's just a phone camera, but takes pics fairly well on land. But, hey, here's the corals. 

 

These are the Rose Nebulas. They were a little confusing at first, because I didn't realize from the pic on the site that they have green frills sometimes. I also have those tiny little micro zoos, not even a quarter-inch across. That's kind of a large frag plug, over an inch wide, but you can see those are tiny zoos there. Got the whole rock (including a cool brown fanworm) with well over a square inch of these neat fellas for $10. 

 

Unknown micro zoo at the very top, then my Ultimate Utter Chaos, then Goblins On Fire. They're green and red, but it photographs TERRIBLY. 

 

Hawaiian Ding Dangs, which I'm very happy with. I love the variability. Oh, and bottom left, a tiny zoa that just popped up recently. It's anchored in there, which is not the best spot for it, so I may have to try and chisel out the bit of rock it's anchored to. It's actually several inches deeper into the tank than the frag plug, it's not just small.

 

Black Hole Suns in the top, then my Rings of Fire below them. Don't mind the angry ones, I moved the frag plug. These are pretty small, but I can't wait to see what it looks like when the whole plug is covered. These are the blackest zoas I've found for sale so far, and I like 'em.

[Ratvan]

Not sure what phone you have but I found that mine performs best white a white balance of 6500k. However I dont run blue heavy

[Matteo]

Wait so do you have a Tinitank or are ordering one? 

[Tired]

I'm getting one for Christmas. This is just a Petsmart 5gal for now, but I wanted to include my plan/future actions in the title. 

[Tired]

Update: I don't think these are eunicids, on second thought. I'm looking through the Lionfish Lair list of hitchhikers, and I think these are Dorvilleidae worms. Great news for me! No more watching to make sure they don't get any bigger. 

 

Though there's still that one questionable flatworm. It hasn't gotten any color like the polyclads in pictures, but it moves like they do. This isn't my photo, but I found an exact match to my creature. Anyone seen one of these? 

I guess worst-case scenario, it'll eat my snails and I'll have to replace them. At least polyclads don't eat corals and shrimp, those are the guys I really gotta keep around.

https://www.livingreefs.com/threads/white-worm-slug-flat-thing.48965/

[Tired]

I found something cool today. Something shredded one of my macros again, a different kind. I don't know if it's my hermits or the chitons doing that, but something is. It got my maybe-gracilaria, what was left of the caulerpa my decorator tore up to wear, and the thicker maybe-gracilaria. Anyway, while I was looking for parts of the macro, I spotted something else. 

So I see this, and I think "that's either a sponge or a tunicate". I get my pipette and squirt it, and it retracts. So I move some things, and I lean around to the side of the tank to get a proper picture. Which takes some doing, I have to lean underneath a table. This tank isn't in the best position right now for viewing. 

 

That's definitely a tunicate! It wasn't here when I put the rocks in, so it must have been pretty tiny at the time and grown. Hopefully that means it'll do well for me. It's pretty small, half an inch cubed or so. There's also some spaghetti worm "tentacles" in the shot, I've got a few of those.

[Tired]

My wandering rock flower found himself a really nice spot where he can cram his foot into a crevice as they like to do. 

Trouble is, it's on top of my mini-zoa rock. 

Interestingly, he doesn't seem to be hurting the zoas. Some of them are open despite almost touching (or definitely touching) his tentacles. They're not happy about him sitting on them, the ones underneath him are scrunched up, but you can see in the second pic that some are open. I guess he's either not taking them as a threat, or not stinging hard enough to bother them any. 

If he doesn't move a bit tomorrow, I'm going to aim a powerhead at him. Don't need to move him too much, just need to get him to let go of the little zoanthid rock so I can move it away. Shame to mess up his crevice, but he's bugging those zoas. 

[Tired]

I've got four days until Christmas, which means about five days until I upgrade the tank. I need to grab a few more rocks and borrow someone with a chisel to hack up this big one, get my scape looking nice. There's some nice coral skeleton rocks soaking in distilled water under the tank right now, to leach out anything they're inclined to leach a lot of. They'll colonize fast, I'm sure, lots of good nooks and crannies.

 

Figured out what's shredding my macros. It's amphipods. I've got too many snails, I guess, and the amphipods are getting hungry. Caught the little bugs in the act of chewing up what I think is Dragon's Breath, eating it from the edges in. I'm removing most of the dwarf ceriths (keeping maybe 8?) and, regrettably, the nerites. I like those, and I think I'm going to acclimate them into my brackish water shrimp tank, but they can't stay in here. With half a dozen chitons in here, I won't exactly go low on algae eaters. I'd rather have a bit too much algae than a bit too little, I want to keep things nicely fed. 

 

I got a Saltcritters gift card as an early Christmas present, also, so I guess we're adding another anemone. And an acan lord that, hopefully, won't sting anybody. I also got a mystery coral again, so we'll see what they send. It was a nice little red blasto polyp last time. 

 

[Tired]

Here's a picture: a sinningia. They're a cousin of African violets, and this one won't get much bigger than this. It's pretty freshly sprouted out of dormancy. It'll form a plant about the size of a half-dollar at most. Hasn't really grown many roots, apparently it's had enough hydration that it can just drink out of its tuber. Once it's not flowering, I'll be watering it slightly less to encourage some root growth. 

 

As for the tank, I gave that orange RFA to my cousin. I wanted to give it something good to sit in, so I found this broken shell from the beach and popped it in there. I think it likes having a nice nook to tuck its foot into, and I'm probably going to be putting my other nems in other, similarly broken shells. Not intact ones, so the hermits won't be interested, and far bigger than I hope the hermits will get anyway.

I also gave her most of my dwarf ceriths, and the larger of the two nerites. So now I have maybe 8 dwarf ceriths, a 1/4" nerite, and an assortment of chitons and whatnot as algae eaters. Hopefully that's few enough creatures. I've put samples of macroalgae in a separate cup of water to hopefully keep them away from the amphipods until a bit more algae grows in and the pods stop eating my dang macroalgae. They've ignored the calcified stuff for now, but turned on the fleshy stuff as soon as the microalgae ran lowish. Which I guess I can't blame them for, they were hungry. 

[Tired]

Welp, it's Christmas, and I got my tank upgrade! I'm very happy with it. There's less space overall than in the 5gal, since this is 4.5g and some of that is filtration area, but I love the footprint and the lack of stuff (powerheads) being in the way. 

Gonna have to figure out how to photograph this better. That very white area in the middle is a combination of the light being on that part of the tank, and that being the whitest piece of coral rock I have ever seen. The completely covered sandbed is temporary- I put all the zoas on the bottom so they'll have a chance to get used to the light, and also so I can decide what goes where. Though I gotta say, it doesn't look completely awful. Put the frag plug bases into the sand and you'd have kind of a look there. 

That sand dollar half is holding the single polyp that sprouted on my Rasta rock. It's been growing since then. It actually came off of the rock while I was chiseling- an area near it broke away, and it came off with that. Also, apparently if you hit a rock that a limpet is on with a hammer and chisel, the limpet's grip loosens a lot. I assume they hate the vibration. 

I can't photograph it well because of a combination of light and the cloudiness, but I'm happy with the scape. It's got some little nooks tucked into the back there. I will definitely not be getting endlers like I had considered, I really consider a 5gal to be minimum tank size for them and this just doesn't have enough zooming space, but there's space for some creatures to enjoy themselves in there. The rastas are actually on that rock leaned against the back, very close to the surface. Partly because I'm curious how close to the surface zoanthid will grow, if you let them. Up into the surface tension? They're very close to the top, but out away from the light center by enough that I don't think they're going to be overlit. We'll see how they do. That rock off to the right with the perspective making it look big is my first palythoa rock, and I think I may actually know what those are. 

I sorta think these are Mohawks. They're not very impressive in white light, but they look cool enough in blues that I think I'll keep them. I am curious to see if a proper light puts any more color on them in white lights. 

 

Oh, and if you need to move a rock flower anemone off of something, I found out how to do it. I forgot where I read this, but I read someone saying that you have to suspend the rock upside-down over water, with the anemone's tentacles in the water. It'll stretch down to the water, and eventually fall in. It works! Got my caramel one loose. So, thank you, whoever said that. I will credit you if I remember. 

[Tired]

I caught that weird black-and-orange worm while moving rocks over. Got it because it had extended and was eating a dead amphipod, while the rock was out of the water. Not sure if it killed the amphipod or not, but I grabbed it with my tweezers regardless... and inadvertently cut it in half. Sorry, worm. It had a lot of little tendrils on both sides of it, though, so I think it may not be something desirable. 

 

And I'm now about 95% certain that those pinkish palys are Fairy Dust. Which means they might turn properly pink under good lighting. We'll find out. I found a good position for their rock, so they can stay for now, though I may eventually frag the rock down to something smaller and just keep a little colony. Also, update: my decorator crab has slightly harmed 1 coral as of now. She snipped a few tentacles off the palys as attempted decorations. It didn't work, and she left them alone after that. Didn't do any real harm, one polyp is just a little lopsided-looking now. So I can still call this crab about 99% reef safe. 

[Tired]

Well, I was going to figure out how to get some better pics, but it may be awhile. I'm having surgery on the 7th, will probably spend the week up until then getting things sorted away, and may not be up for the whole "crouching in front of the tank with a camera" thing for awhile. Abdominal surgery seems bad for that sort of thing. 

So here's some placeholder shots. 

These WERE the two new inhabitants. A tiny candycane pistol, maybe 3/4" at most, and a hovering cleaner shrimp. Urocaridella sp, spends a lot of time in midwater, with its legs hanging down like a mosquito. The cleaner shrimp is still in there, but the poor wasp (it hovers like one) jumped out the next day. I left the lid off because I haven't had anything in here that can jump up until now, and I don't have the habit of putting the lid on. I will be trying to keep that habit. RIP wasp. 

(I will also be getting a new wasp whenever the LFS gets another one in. Anyone know if I can keep a red-spotted Urocaridella and one of those pretty yellow-bellied Urocaridellas in the same tank?) 

 

I fed it, and it's so transparent I could see it stuff the mysis into its stomach. That's what the white area is, a stomach full of mysis.

 

Please disregard everything on the sandbed, it's all going to be placed and nicely arranged and whatnot. I've also filled the tank further since then (had to tweak the ATO), removed the small rock with the mini zoanthids, and scooted the brown RFA over to the left somewhat. Can't take pics now because the lights are off, I'm trying to bait amphipods into a trap. 

 

I got this new RFA, which apparently has no more sting than the others do. It has that really neat metallic green shine in any light. 

 

This lovely was at my LFS. It has that pretty blood red in almost any light I care to put on it, except pure white. 

 

My phone hates fluorescent oranges, but here's a couple of really nice Acan lord polyps. They have those lovely blue tentacles, out almost all the time, and respond very nicely to feeding. 

 

 

Older pic, out-of-date positioning on everything, but here's everything under just white light. Which I'm quite fond of. 

 

I got two sponge frags from my LFS. Top left in this pic is a plating purple sponge that grows kind of like a montipora, and then a bit down and right from that is a blackish-gray sponge that branches like a SPS. The LFS has had these for awhile, and they seem easy-to-please. 
(Again, older pic. Everything has opened up since and I've put a lot of it up on the rockwork.)

 

They really don't want to fully open up, but I got some Armor of God palys at my LFS, too. $20 for that whole frag. I think they're getting used to my lighting- they won't quite open past this level, and they close slightly between it. They were open all the way at the LFS, but they were in a tank with placeholder lights rather than good bright coral-growing ones.

 

Oh, and the fairy dust palythoas are now on several tiny rocks (tried to make 1 thin rock from the top of their frag and failed, made rubble) in the sandbed, so they can't go anywhere. I'm pretty sure they're fairy dust, at least. Whatever they are, they're colored like things that multiply like crazy, and they've been growing a lot since I got them, so now they're quarantined in sand. Sand jail for things that grow like ****. I might put some GSP next to them, especially if my LFS gets some of this cool striped GSP they had one time.

The Rastas don't seem to mind their spot, so they're staying up at the top. Partly because it looks pretty cool. 

[Chaozu]

How thick is the acrylic on this tank? 

[Tired]

Something like 1/4", 1/3". Pretty thick. 

[billygoat]

Awesome update. Shame about your cool new shrimp jumping, but the tank looks great! It's a riot of life in there and I love it.

 

Good luck with your surgery! Fingers crossed that everything goes well and you can get back to your tank soon. 🤞

[Tired]

Yeah, that was boneheaded about the shrimp. I've got a lid! Found the poor thing on the floor under the tank. I'll definitely be getting another one, though, it's a really cool little animal. And it's the best open-water action I'm going to get in a tank this size, they hover way more than any shrimp I've ever seen. They live in groups in the wild, and I'd like multiples, but I think that might be a few too many things walking around in there. Mostly for the sake of the things that get walked ON. Maybe just one of these and one of those yellow-tailed ones. At least cleaners tend to find a good perch and stand on it, instead of crawling around all over the place. 

 

Thanks for the luck. Surgery shouldn't be too much of an issue. It's endometriosis removal- cleaning all the adhesions out from around a lot of my organs to get rid of some pain issues, and to make sure I don't intentionally wind up with a perforated intestine. We found pretty much the best guy in the US to do the surgery, and it's laparoscopic, so there's a really low chance of infection. Mostly the problems are, A, they have to kinda inflate your abdomen some to find all the adhesions and it takes awhile for the air to work its way out, and B, it involves searching the entire abdominal cavity for adhesions and moving everything around. I've had advice to, among other things, make sure that nothing I need is over about shoulder-height so I don't have to lift my arms too far. I'm doing a water change probably tomorrow, and getting rid of a few frags (zoas) that I just plain don't have good space for without crowding something else.

 

I'm also tying to trap out some of these amphipods. There's too many, and some of them have been bothering one of my RFAs. They aren't hurting it, but they decided to set up shop on top of it, and it was half-closed because it was either trying to get away from them or trying to catch them all the time. I finally took it out and physically removed the amphipods from it, little blighters. I wish I had a better way to deal with that cirolanid- maybe a trap? Or, heck, add a fish, but keep it in one of those mesh breeder things, and see if the fish-scent baits it out. I just really, really don't want to put a fish in there with a live cirolanid. It seems cruel. Like putting a dog out in your yard with some kind of... parasitic badger, leaving it out there to get chewed on. Wonder if water from a tank with fish would make decent scent bait. In the meantime, I need amphipod control- any suggestions on traps? Or on something they really like to hide in? Could just put sponges in there, wait for some to go in, and pull the sponges out quick. There aren't any non-fish amphipod eaters that would work, are there? 

[Wingy]

I had success using a bamboo skewer and stabbing/smooshing them during the night and early morning.  The bristle worms clean up the bodies after they scamper away to die.  

[Tired]

Yeah, I may have to resort to that. I'd rather either trap and remove them alive or kill them instantly, though. Some crustaceans have shown evidence of feeling pain, and I don't know if amphipods do. 

[Tired]

Trying to keep track of this bit of branching coraline, to check if it's growing. I think the white portions are just from being out of water for awhile during the rescape.

 

I moved the Armor of God palys to directly under the light, since they were stretching up a bit and I thought they might actually like more light. They've opened more than they had before, so I think they approve, but they still won't put their skirts out like they did at the LFS. Maybe they're getting used to the different colors? They were under a white fish-display type of light at the LFS because they were in an overflow tank. I hope they unfurl fully, but, regardless, they're gorgeous. That may be their permanent spot, once I trim their frag plug down and wedge 'em in properly. It's that spot up on the rock overhang, under the light, right outside the filter outlet. I turned off the flow (there's a handy dial in the stand) to take this pic, but they're still passably visible from above even with the flow on, because they're large enough to see nicely. 

I'm very pleased with having gotten these. Been wanting some, but I was only seeing them for sale at rather high prices, or from places with high shipping costs. 

[Tired]

Alright, so I remembered something I wanted to do. I wanted a roster of how many polyps of each zoa/paly I have, so I can see how fast they grow. I wanted to do that now before they grow any further. So, below are a lot of bad photos of zoanthids, just good/acceptable enough for my personal identification purposes. I (temporarily) cranked up the whites on the light so the photos wouldn't come out super, super blue. It is NOT a flattering color in photos, I promise they look better in person. This is also just after the light came on, so a lot of these are a bit (if not entirely) scrunched. And they are bad, fast cell phone photos, because I'm very busy today and don't really want to spend the time on eye candy. I will do the eye candy later, with a better camera. 

So, long post, no eye candy, but it is a list of all my zoas. Also, I'm aware that such fractions as 3/2 are improper fractions, but I'm using them as a measure of "buds". A half represents a tiny zoanthid bud, not fully developed yet, and some of these clusters have multiple "halves" attached. Any names in quotation marks are what I'm calling them, not a proper name. Some of these I don't know the names of, and some may not have names. 

Rastas, 18 2/2, high top left right below the waterline. Goblins On Fire, 3 3/2, just in front of them. Still kinda pissed at the new light, but opening some during the day, especially the buds. Rings of Fire, 10 2/2, a little scrunched but opening well. Just not all the way. 

"Eye Blacks", tip of the pistol shrimp's rock. 3 3/2. "Tiny Blueberry", between that rock and the center coral chunk, back leftish, 3. They don't get bigger than that, it's cool. That's not even a big frag plug! Armor of Gods, 4 9/2, not fully expanded yet. 

"Hope you don't spread like crazy" baby paly, 1. Blue alien orgasm (probably? longer frills when not in high flow), 12 2/2. "Bleached orgasms", not sure what those are, but they're on the same plug, 3 1/2. Mid-to-right, far back against the wall. "Green Galaxy" on the mixed rock, 7 5/2. "Not Eagle Eyes?", 3 1/2. Mixed rock will be going on the combo branch to the left. 

Pink Rose Nebulas, 6, back right. These seem to like very bright lights. "Easter Greens", 10 1/2, "Easter Oranges", 6, back right corner and hopefully spreading onto the glass and back wall eventually. May angle them so they don't grow onto the glass, just onto the back? We'll see. Black Hole Suns, 5 1/2. 

Ultimate Utter Chaos, 1 but doing well. Combo branch rock on the left. Hawaiian Ding Dangs, 6. Forward on that rock. "Black and Golds, but not that kind", 5 and I gotta pull that bubble algae off. Down in the corner due to having come off their frag plug (because of me trying to remove the bubble algae), permanent placement unknown. 

Gorilla Nipples, 19 and some amount of buds. Will probably stay on the sandbed due to apparently being kind of vigorous. Fairy Dust (probably), 7 72, sandbed. Will have their bits of rock epoxied into 1 small rock, but are not going onto the rockwork so they can't invade. "Maulish", 2 1/2, placement not determined yet. ID would be appreciated, will take better pics later.

Red People Eater, 1. I thought this was dying because it shriveled up super tiny, but it's starting to un-shrivel and show a little of its skirt, so we'll see. "That tiny plug with the fun silvery-center ones", 3 2/2, gotta get those to open further. Dark bluish with an interesting silvery-white center. "Mystery Arrival", 1. Showed up as an incredibly tiny polyp on my Rasta rock and got transplanted onto this sand dollar half for further inspection. No placement on any of these yet. 

"Hates sunlight greens", 3 2/2. They don't like much light, I'm trying to figure out where they'd like to stay. Along the frontish area of the mixed branch, shaded to some extent. Also, "tiny weirdos", 12 (and 6ish on the decorator crab) which are currently outright in the shadows entirely. Those super-tiny ones that the decorator crab likes. Don't open much, haven't opened at all in this tank- I think it's too bright anywhere for them, or something. I'm not sure. Tweekers, AKA "what's with you", 15 1/2. They don't want to open in this tank, though they were fine in the temporary one. Starting to open just a smidge. I may iodine dip these and hide them in a really shaded corner, see if that's what they want. 

"Fake spidermans", 13 polyps and maybe some hidden buds. On the front/side of the pistol shrimp's rock, kinda in the center of the tank. Cute little things. Thought they were spidermans for half a second when they opened at first. "Hidden yellows", 3, tiny fellas tucked up on the far frontish left, shaded by the fire fern.

[Tired]

Oh, and I got this stunning acan lord. They had a beautiful colony bigger than my hand, which I'd have no way to place in this tank, and then they had this little guy. Didn't plan to get it, I just needed some epoxy. But then I spotted this, and, ugh. Gorgeous. When it opens its mouths, the areas inside are also speckled, and its feeding tentacles are light blue. It actually put them out while in the bag, because it was after dark outside!

Edit: I turned the blues completely off on my tank, and it's definitely brown with blue on it. Doesn't pop quite as much without something to make it glow, but it's still so very pretty. Has anyone kept this kind? I'm curious how fast-growing it is. I've never seen one like this at all, not in pictures anywhere. It's definitely not aggressive, though- both their big colony and this frag were right up close to other corals of varying types, both acans and others, and nothing was being attacked. And I'm fascinated by the speckled insides. I hope it does well for me. I want a big ol' cluster of this stuff.

 

I'm always fascinated by how some animals seem to know what time of year it is, even what time of day, despite being indoors with no natural cues. The sun corals at the LFS were all starting to open up as it got dark outside, even though it's windowless and the light level didn't change at all. Though I wonder if it might be because they know that's when they get fed, because shortly after they started to open, the guy came around with food for all the various fish. 

[Wingy]

Thinking of you and hoping for a successful procedure with minimal pain.