Jared’s 365 challenge - new uns 40c

[ef4life]

Dottyback is now feeling more comfortable in his new home. Took a bedside video today.

A full tank shot from tonight

[ef4life]

Not much to update, was working on my ato, I think I have it close, I ordered a couple little things off amazon to hopefully get it working 100%.

 

as for maintenance I’ve been a doing 1/2-1g water swap everyday with my 40g tank since I added the dottyback. I have a small jar I fill 2-3x and dump into my 40g, then take 2-3 jars from the 40g and refill the pico. I’m hoping this will be enough to control nutrients and alk,ca,and mg levels since I don’t really want to dose this tank. I’ll have to siphon out detritus pretty regularly as it builds up under the rock work where there isn’t a lot of flow.

[Tired]

That seems like a pretty good water change idea. I don't think you need to do it daily, though. 

[ef4life]

11 minutes ago, Tired said:

That seems like a pretty good water change idea. I don't think you need to do it daily, though. 

As of right now yeah your right it’s definitely overkill, but once corals go in this is going to be mostly sps coral so I want to keep the all the levels as consistent as possible, and it’s good for me to get a regular routine going, I do my best when I have a regular daily routine to follow. 

[ef4life]

Tank is just running along, starting to get a very slight algae film on the glass, but I’m planning on cleaning it Saturday with the rest of the tanks. Also there is a healthy build up of detritus on the bottom that needs to be siphoned out as well. 

 

Heres a few pictures from tonight. 

 

 

[ECLS Reefer]

10 minutes ago, ef4life said:

Tank is just running along, starting to get a very slight algae film on the glass, but I’m planning on cleaning it Saturday with the rest of the tanks. Also there is a healthy build up of detritus on the bottom that needs to be siphoned out as well. 

 

Heres a few pictures from tonight. 

 

 

How did you backlight it again?

[ef4life]

57 minutes ago, Dirté Sanchez said:

How did you backlight it again?

Just a cheap led kit from amazon. I put frosted background tint on the back of the tank too.

 

Amazon led

[got2envy]

This an awesome DIY build! following! 👍

[ef4life]

1 hour ago, got2envy said:

This an awesome DIY build! following! 👍

Thank you 

[ef4life]

February official full tank shot. 2/29/2020 - my plan is to try and get a good fulltank shot at the end of every month to show progress and growth.

 

travertine makes a good climbing wall for the crabs - I had to pull one out of the overflow today that was caught up in the filter floss.

 

i did my first water change today too, about 2 gallons. I built a tiny siphon out of 1/4” ro tube stuffed into a 3/8” id hose. Worked great sucking up the detritus, but a small enough volume i didn’t suck the tank dry in seconds.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9LQgrgpoh7/?igshid=73sgxkidkma

[ef4life]

snail went for a walk outside the pico last night.

 

 

[ECLS Reefer]

Just now, ef4life said:

snail went for a walk outside the pico last night.

 

 

 

So funny, cute but kinda sad story-- I took my 7 almost 8 year old boy to the fish store this weekend where he found a dried up nerita snail on the floor. He was so concerned for it and wanted them to "rehydrate it" 😂 He actually asked them if they could save the snail and they were like uh, we will sure try... 

[ef4life]

Just now, Dirté Sanchez said:

 

So funny, cute but kinda sad story-- I took my 7 almost 8 year old boy to the fish store this weekend where he found a dried up nerita snail on the floor. He was so concerned for it and wanted them to "rehydrate it" 😂 He actually asked them if they could save the snail and they were like uh, we will sure try... 

My snail didn’t die luckily. But that’s pretty funny. 

[ECLS Reefer]

Just now, ef4life said:

My snail didn’t die luckily. But that’s pretty funny. 

Oh good that you found it in time!! And yes it's funny but at the time you're like oh sweet thing, no, they can't rehydrate snails 😂😂

[ef4life]

I did my waterchange tonight, sucked out some poo that was settled on the bottom and a crabs molted exo. I plan on adding my corals tomorrow when I’m cleaning the 40g tank. I’m thinking of getting some epoxy and gluing the rocks together into one big piece. Everything seems to be going bee well in the pico so far, I had a slight amount of gha growing on the one cycled rock. I will probably hit it with some peroxide Tomorrow when gluing corals. 

 

I have a 15% discount to use up in a few days so I might run out to the lfs and use it before it expires. 

 

 

[ef4life]

Don’t need to get ready if you stay ready!!! Shooting just minutes ago right around the corner from my house!!! 

 

 

[ef4life]

Went to the lfs this morning to pick up some epoxy putty, and more coral dip. They had some huge acropora frags for $20, I couldn’t resist so I picked the biggest/best looking one they had. And I learned they are having a frag swap next week so I plan on hitting that bright and early next Saturday - early bird gets the best corals.

 

anyways I decided to add most of the corals today. I’m really hoping these encrusters just take off and grow quickly and cover all that travertine before algae has a chance too. Epoxied the aquascape together also so it’s in and out easy for maintenance when needed. I accidentally fragged my already tiny ponape birdsnest when I was gluing it down, so now the 40g has a teeny tiny piece to grow out too. I really love that birdsnest I think it’s my favorite sps coral right now, I really hope it grows out to be my centerpiece of the tank.

 

 

[ef4life]

I’m not sure the big acro frag is going to make it, it’s been holding on but it don’t look good. Hopefully it can recover. Everything else is doing fine. 

 

 

[Tired]

If I were you, I'd try some sort of pest dip, see if there's something bothering it that needs to be dislodged.

[ef4life]

1 minute ago, Tired said:

If I were you, I'd try some sort of pest dip, see if there's something bothering it that needs to be dislodged.

I always dip corals before I put them in. I’m not really wanting to do it again yet, so far it’s condition hasn’t gotten any worse so I’m sort of hopeful it will make a comeback. This was a fresh cut frag at the lfs - not a bit of algae or even growth onto the plug so it probably wasn’t happy to begin with. The other thing was half the coral must have been shaded heavily before it was fragged, on one side it didn’t have much color at all which is the side that is now mostly bleached white. I should have put in in the 40g tank like I’ve been doing and let it acclimate for a few weeks before putting it into the pico.

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

3 hours ago, ef4life said:

I always dip corals before I put them in. I’m not really wanting to do it again yet, so far it’s condition hasn’t gotten any worse so I’m sort of hopeful it will make a comeback. This was a fresh cut frag at the lfs - not a bit of algae or even growth onto the plug so it probably wasn’t happy to begin with. The other thing was half the coral must have been shaded heavily before it was fragged, on one side it didn’t have much color at all which is the side that is now mostly bleached white. I should have put in in the 40g tank like I’ve been doing and let it acclimate for a few weeks before putting it into the pico.

Lesson learned - right? I've learned things about our systems just over time, just like this. 

 

Are you looking for anything in particular at the frag swap this weekend? 

[ef4life]

2 hours ago, NoOneLikesADryTang said:

Lesson learned - right? I've learned things about our systems just over time, just like this. 

 

Are you looking for anything in particular at the frag swap this weekend? 

Yeah lesson learned, i really just got in a hurry to get this pico looking good. 

 

As for the swap, just want to see what they have mostly. I would potentially like some colorful mushrooms for the biocube, more zoas, some acan, maybe some more acros, I’m really open to a little of everything. 

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

1 hour ago, ef4life said:

Yeah lesson learned, i really just got in a hurry to get this pico looking good. 

 

As for the swap, just want to see what they have mostly. I would potentially like some colorful mushrooms for the biocube, more zoas, some acan, maybe some more acros, I’m really open to a little of everything. 

There will be two really nice acro vendors there, Epic Aquaculture (Bill's stuff is top notch - we've gotten a lot from him) and Dang Fragz, who also has really nice stuff. 

 

I may have some mushrooms we're looking to move (neither of us are big on mushrooms, but we got some fairly nice ones when we bought the big tank, with all the livestock), if you don't see anything there you like.

[ef4life]

2 hours ago, NoOneLikesADryTang said:

There will be two really nice acro vendors there, Epic Aquaculture (Bill's stuff is top notch - we've gotten a lot from him) and Dang Fragz, who also has really nice stuff. 

 

I may have some mushrooms we're looking to move (neither of us are big on mushrooms, but we got some fairly nice ones when we bought the big tank, with all the livestock), if you don't see anything there you like.

My biocube is all mushrooms only. Depending on what you have I might take you up on it. I’m actually meeting a guy there too, he wants some of my softie frags I have for sale.

[ef4life]

Morning bedside view of the pico

 

And yesterday’s haul from the swap. There was some nice stuff, mostly zoas. But a good variety with probably 20 sellers.