Teenyreef's 20g Study-kept Dustmite Biotope: IM10 Transfer

[teenyreef]

Just to document the uglies...top down diatoms:

 

[debbeach13]

Well uglies confirm the tank is on its way.

[teenyreef]

1 hour ago, debbeach13 said:

Well uglies confirm the tank is on its way.

Yep! And it's even uglier today so that's good 

[teenyreef]

...and just like that, the diatoms are gone! I don't think I've ever seen them clear out that quickly in my previous tanks. 

The diatoms were already a lot lighter Thursday night. So I blew off the rocks really well, did a 10 gallon water change. and cleaned out the filter socks. Today, there have been no diatoms, just some light brown algae that blows right off the rocks.

I checked nitrites for the first time since last weekend and they are at zero finally! I checked nitrates too, and they're at zero as well, after being at 15 last weekend. It's possible the bio brick has started to work, but it's also possible the nitrates are just getting sucked up by algae growth. I'll check phosphates and nitrates both later this weekend and see where they are then.

 

Since the cycle is definitely over and the tank is working through all the high nutrient stages, I hooked up the skimmer today as well. It foamed up quite a bit at first but looks like it's starting to pull some good skimmate now.

 

The test corals are still doing fine, so I will probably put a few more test corals in this weekend!

[debbeach13]

After a slow start it good to hear things are moving right along now. More corals means more pictures.

[fishfreak0114]

Yay, another Teeny tank! I love the scape 

[teenyreef]

On 9/5/2020 at 5:54 PM, fishfreak0114 said:

Yay, another Teeny tank! I love the scape 

Thank you!

[teenyreef]

Things got a little busy this week, including a minor disaster with the ATO in the IM10 that led to a flooded floor that I'll post about in that tank thread 

 

But this tank is doing great. After the diatom stage, I actually have had no nuisance algae (yet...knock on wood). I moved pretty much all the corals from the IM10 that were on loose rubble rock and they all seem to be doing fine. I've also moved over a bunch more snails and I've been feeding the tank with a little bit of frozen every night.

 

Nitrates and phosphates are at zero, which worries me a little. I keep thinking it must be because there's a bunch of nuisance algae sucking it all up, but there's no sign of it. I guess maybe I just got lucky and the combination of the big filtration brick and the weekly dosing of Brightwell MicroBacter Clean is actually keeping things on track. I had been doing bi-weekly water changes just to minimize the uglies, but after getting no nitrates, phosphates, or algae, I'm waiting for this weekend before doing another change (a week and a half since the last change). If I still have zeros and no algae then, I may start cautiously dosing nitrates and phosphates.

 

I still haven't tried any sps other than the Jason Fox Burning Banana stylo, which is doing great. But stylos are way easier to keep than a typical sps acropora. If things are still on track, I'll put in an acro frag - I'll pick something hardy that I have a lot of in case it doesn't go well.

 

The skimmer is doing well, pulling a good amount of medium skimmate. 

 

I took some pictures the other night. I haven't really tried to arrange the loose frags on the bottom yet, and after taking the pictures I moved the torch over from the IM10. But at least these pics show how things are going!

 

2020-09-07 UNS60 FTS:

 

2020-09-07 UNS60 Top Down:

 

[teenyreef]

Looks like I've fallen behind in my updates, oops 

 

The tank is doing well. I've just been letting things cook while it makes it's way through the various ugly stages. There's hasn't been anything really bad. Right now I'm seeing some hair algae, but I only have a scrape the glass once or twice a week, and I haven't lost any corals, including a katropora frag I put in a couple weeks ago. 

 

So I should be able to start moving the rest of the 10g inhabitants in this weekend! My plan is to use my coral saw to trim off chunks from the existing rocks instead of moving entire large rocks. This is because I don't want to add a lot of rocks, and to (hopefully) minimize the introduction of new pests. My biggest worry is whatever is causing the base of the acros in the 10g to die off, so I'm not going to move any of those into this tank. I have frags in the frag tank for all the acros in the 10g  anyway so I'm not even going to try to frag any of them.

 

I took an FTS last week but was to busy to post, sorry about that! But here it is now. I'll get an updated FTS after moving the 10g stuff in (once things settle down.).

 

2020-10-02 UNS60 FTS:

 

2020-10-02 UNS60 Top Down:

 

[A.m.P]

1 hour ago, teenyreef said:

including a katropora frag I put in a couple weeks ago. 

I had to google that, what a funny thread and name, quite a pretty acro though - looks similar to stuff which goes under a dozen different names now of course (all at different prices) *eyeroll*.

[teenyreef]

On 10/10/2020 at 11:37 AM, Amphrites said:

I had to google that, what a funny thread and name, quite a pretty acro though - looks similar to stuff which goes under a dozen different names now of course (all at different prices) *eyeroll*.

Yes, it's a beautiful coral! So far the color is holding up after the transfer.

[teenyreef]

I shutdown the IM10 yesterday and moved all the corals, fish, crabs, shrimp, and snails over. It went well overall, the only casualty so far is the peppermint shrimp which ended up in the MP10 this morning. The other disappointment was there was only one green banded goby left in the tank. I know I saw two in the tank within the last month, but I was wondering if something had happened to one of them recently because I'd only seen one out and about at feeding time. So the new tank has one green banded goby and the golden assessor basslet.

 

I took pictures of the pom pom crab and the emerald crab before I put them in the tank. The pom pom is so shy I don't expect to get any pictures in the tank, so this is my proof it exists 🙂

The sun corals are in there too, along with a bivalve that I pulled off one of the rocks.

 

I broke up all the rocks and trimmed off all the frags. Some had enough rock to just put straight into the tank, and I glued the others to small pieces of rubble rock. Right now, everything is on the bottom of the tank while I see what survives.

 

Here's what it looked like after the initial transfer last night:

 

After things recover a bit, I'll decide what gets glued to the rocks and what stays on the bottom glass. The front third of the bottom is nicely filled and I kind of like it even thought everything is just arranged randomly.

 

Those acans in the lower left of the picture are already doing fine. 

 

Finally, here's a closer picture of the new stuff after a water change today. Everybody's still pretty mad and closed up but you get the idea 😁

 

[Cannedfish]

The infamous ten has finally come down... it’s the end of an era... 

[JBM]

teeny ten had a better ring to it. Guess teeny twenty will have to grow on me

 

good luck

[Merthynia]

How is everything looking so far after the move?

[Nano_Addict]

How's the Tank doing?  Been a little while since your last update!

[Bella's Reef]

Looking great Teeny! 

[AZReefJunkie]

Any update on this tank? I'm sure many people would love to know what happened. Wishing you all the best

 

[Daveg99]

Update?

[Merthynia]

Hope you are doing well Teeny!