Dawn's natural nutrient tank system!

[debbeach13]

Hi Dawn

The tank looks like you have found a nice balance. That is great news about Samson and the new fish. I always enjoy seeing and hearing about your tank.

[Pjanssen]

^+1

[vlangel]

4 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Hi Dawn

The tank looks like you have found a nice balance. That is great news about Samson and the new fish. I always enjoy seeing and hearing about your tank.

 

4 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

^+1

Thanks Deb and Penny for the positive feed back.  I really should post more often but there just is not much new to share.

 

I would like to add a few more fish when PA starts to open stores back up.  I am thinking more barnacle blennies would be really cute and maybe I could have 2 pair up and spawn.  Barney and Betty have done great in this tank and I am sure that more barnacle blennies could find hidey holes of their own.  

 

I would not mind more feather dusters either since the ones I have seem to be doing well.

[debbeach13]

Hi how are things going? I hope you and your loved ones are all doing well.

[vlangel]

On 10/12/2020 at 9:05 AM, debbeach13 said:

Hi how are things going? I hope you and your loved ones are all doing well.

Hi Deb, things are good with both the tank and loved ones.  

[vlangel]

Here is a very quick video of the display tank.

Since I had last posted Samson, my last seahorse passed, as did the blue grudgeon dart fish, Linus, the linear blenny and Sir Lancelot, the fanged blenny.  I have definitely learned that keeping too many blennies in a smallish large tank is not a good idea.  I still have Marmalade, the orange spot blenny(who was king of the display) and Barney one of the barnacle blennies.  I also still have Monarch, the royal gramma, Plank the carpenter wrasse in the fuge, Flame, the firefish goby, Jet and Piper ( Piper is also in the fuge as he accidentally went over the overflow), the green gobies and Jammies and PJ, the pajama cardinals.  I have added Thing 1-6, 6 yellow tail damsels for their active, docile personalities (at least as far as damsels go) and Tommy, a tomini tang.  Finally I have a molly that I converted to saltwater in the fuge along with lots of propagating grass shrimp.

 

I can say that this tank has hit its sweet spot as far as maturity and easy to maintain.  There is no skimmer or reactors, only a return pump, a powerhead in the display, the T5 fixture on the display and 2 cheap par 30's on the fuge.  That is it for equipment, the DSBs in the display and fuge help with keeping nitrates down, and the rockscape and sand along with macro algae and shoal seagrass utilize the nutrients from my many fish.  The display has very little nuisance algae, mostly just film algae that needs cleaned once a week.  

 

The coral are doing well although their growth is slow, probably because the macro algae sucks up so much of the nutrients.  Still, the colors are good with the coral and since the display is only 56 gallons I am ok with slow growth.

 

In general I am really happy with this tank system.

 

PS. This tank turned 4 years old the beginning of October.  It has morphed a lot since then.

[Pjanssen]

Nice to see you back. Sorry about all your losses, especially the seahorse. New setup looks great. Quite a but different from your seahorse tanks. Quite a lot less work I'm sure.

[vlangel]

11 minutes ago, Pjanssen said:

Nice to see you back. Sorry about all your losses, especially the seahorse. New setup looks great. Quite a but different from your seahorse tanks. Quite a lot less work I'm sure.

It's the same set up basically, just different fish.  I miss the ponies but I definitely do not miss all the work.  Also it's nice to be able to have so many different fish.

[debbeach13]

WOW that tank is so active! Sorry about the losses but that tank has got to be fun to watch.

[vlangel]

3 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

WOW that tank is so active! Sorry about the losses but that tank has got to be fun to watch.

The losses were mostly my fault.  When I was forced to keep Samson in the fuge, I knew that it was not ideal for him.  He tolerated it longer than I expected.  

 

Linus was being bullied by Marmalade.  Having 2 combtooth blennies does not work and now I know that.

 

I am not sure why the blue dartfish or the fanged blenny died.  It is pushing the boundaries to have so many fish in a 56 gallon display, even with all the nooks and crannies my rockwork provides.  It seems like all the fish are well adjusted so I will not add anymore except perhaps a clownfish for my 2 bubble tip nems.

 

The tank is wonderful to watch however.  I love having so much going on all the time!

[Snow_Phoenix]

2 hours ago, vlangel said:

Linus was being bullied by Marmalade.  Having 2 combtooth blennies does not work and now I know that.

Yeah - I should have warned you about that one. I tried keeping a bicolor blenny and another two spot (combtooth) blenny in the same tank. The bicolor harassed the two spot so much that it had to be removed. Years later, I tried again with two different combtooth blennies this time - the exact same thing happened. 😞

 

The only one time that adding two blennies in a tank worked was my current Starry Blenny & my TSB (R.I.P. little guy). That combination worked well because my Starry is extremely large at 6.5", and the TSB is only 2" and much more slender in stature, despite the same 'long' shape it shares with my Starry. They both ignored each other and had their own territories. No nipping, biting, chasing or harassing at all. My Starry is the dominant blenny of the tank, and also the dominant fish. 

 

I think if there's lack of cover/rockwork for the dominant blenny to establish a territory, they'll go after the other weaker blenny immediately until it backs down. You can keep a pair of different types, but the tank needs to be very large, have a lot of rockwork - and the blennies need to be completely different sizes. Either way, they're adorable fish. Just jerks when it comes to territory. 

 

Your new damsels add a brilliant splash of color in the tank. It's very beautiful to look at. 🙂 

[sublunary]

I'm sorry to hear about Samson and the other losses.  I'm glad you've kept going andI love how the tank looks now though - there's so much life!

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[vlangel]

5 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Yeah - I should have warned you about that one. I tried keeping a bicolor blenny and another two spot (combtooth) blenny in the same tank. The bicolor harassed the two spot so much that it had to be removed. Years later, I tried again with two different combtooth blennies this time - the exact same thing happened. 😞

 

The only one time that adding two blennies in a tank worked was my current Starry Blenny & my TSB (R.I.P. little guy). That combination worked well because my Starry is extremely large at 6.5", and the TSB is only 2" and much more slender in stature, despite the same 'long' shape it shares with my Starry. They both ignored each other and had their own territories. No nipping, biting, chasing or harassing at all. My Starry is the dominant blenny of the tank, and also the dominant fish. 

 

I think if there's lack of cover/rockwork for the dominant blenny to establish a territory, they'll go after the other weaker blenny immediately until it backs down. You can keep a pair of different types, but the tank needs to be very large, have a lot of rockwork - and the blennies need to be completely different sizes. Either way, they're adorable fish. Just jerks when it comes to territory. 

 

Your new damsels add a brilliant splash of color in the tank. It's very beautiful to look at. 🙂 

Thank you Snow for the words of experience and also the kind comment.  I really enjoy those damsels and the splash of color.

[vlangel]

5 hours ago, sublunary said:

I'm sorry to hear about Samson and the other losses.  I'm glad you've kept going andI love how the tank looks now though - there's so much life!

Yeah, it's always sad to lose fish and I usually have fish for years and even decades.  Unfortunately occasionally I do lose one to death.

 

Yes, this tank is full of life, and not just fish and coral.  There are tons of small to tiny inverts ( micro stars and pods)all through the rock.  There are lots of sponges and I even have 2 scallops that hitch hiked on a piece of rock that was given to me.  It's a fun tank.

[vlangel]

 

A closer look at the display tank during feeding time.

[debbeach13]

Love it.

[vlangel]

I had to manually remove cyano from the shoal seagrass blades in the refugium.  With the thriving feather caulerpa, red grape caulerpa, the red halimeda, and codium I am surprised that cyano would start as it should not be able to compete.  Unless the feather caulerpa is sucking up almost all the nutrients in the refugium.  Cyano and dinos are opportunistic in ultra low nutrient environments.  So what I did was remove a large amount of feather caulerpa so that the nutrient uptake would be slightly curtailed in Hope's that the seagrass and codium along with the red macro algae would out compete the cyano.  I will let everyone know how that worked.

[vlangel]

5 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

Love it.

Thank you Deb.

[vlangel]

I fed frozen food to the display and guess who I saw?  Cheerleader, my pom pom crab!  Its gotta be a year or more since I have seen him.  He looked great too.  I am so pleased that he is happily thriving in this tank full of lots of creatures.  It's super cool.

[vlangel]

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tQe4xe6S7iz46T3Q6

A late afternoon pic when the sun shines on the tank for about half an hour.  I thought it was pretty.

[vlangel]

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tKwSLEaaYLq6UJi88

[A.m.P]

Evening sun hitting my systems really is my favorite part about having south facing windows, love your photos.

Living the dream with all those beautiful little damselfish too, I've really enjoyed your updates and the feeding video, thanks for sharing.

[debbeach13]

Yes very pretty. I like how natural light make a tank look. Too bad too much makes algae go crazy.

[vlangel]

54 minutes ago, A.m.P said:

Evening sun hitting my systems really is my favorite part about having south facing windows, love your photos.

Living the dream with all those beautiful little damselfish too, I've really enjoyed your updates and the feeding video, thanks for sharing.

Thank you kindly A.m.P!  Our south facing window even has a 7 ft roof enclosure on the outside but for that half hour its glorious!

It's nice to hear someone else appreciate the cheery little damselfish.  They get a bad rap because of other damselfish family members who behave badly.  Personally, I do not want to be judged by all my family members either, LOL!

Thanks for taking a look at my videos and thread.