Snow's 2.6G Little Monsters Picoreef - Retired!

[Snow_Phoenix]

Uh oh. So I vaguely dropped a hint that I *might be moving one of the cabinets upstairs to my bedroom in the future. The parental unit a.k.a. mother-bot caught on pretty quickly. And told me repeatedly that she's hoping it's, 'not another tank.' 

 

In the meantime, me playing dumb be like - 'Tank? What tank?'

 

 

I don't think I fooled the Mother-bot. 

 

Will have to be very, very careful when I decide to shift the cabinet upstairs. Or order in the new tank in months to come. (Yes, I shall proceed as planned). 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #1.

 

Memphis loves cuddling his lobo: 😅

 

 

 

Sapphire has made a burrow which leads to the cave under the rocks: 

 

 

 

These pieces are still recovering - they'll need a few more weeks to heal up completely: 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #2: Corals! 😊

 

Everything is still a bit sleepy because I just turned the lights on. Sorry about that! 

 

Montihat (phone self-adjusted the brightness and made the colors too light this time. Not sure why. 😕 ) :

 

 

Chili pepper monti:

 

 

Milli with nice PE shaped like flowers:

 

 

 

Jack-O-Lantern lepto has grown out a *bit more around the edges:

 

 

Green acans:

 

 

Red blastos:

 

 

Green shroom:

 

 

😊

[Snow_Phoenix]

Turban snail on duty:

 

 

Memphis seeking more food from the water column:

 

 

Unofficial FTS-of-sorts (proper FTS will be taken at the end of this month) :

 

 

 

Just ordered a 54W PAR 38 LED bulb online to replace my current one which blew off a month back. I figured since I have the E27 socket holder + clamp, I can save money this way rather than pulling over my Prime on the upgrade of this tank, and buy a new R60 for the 60G. 

 

In other words, I'm budgeting without cutting too many corners. Wallet's looking a bit thin, and I rather save up to get a better tank (preferably custom-made by my LFS). 

 

I still haven't worked out the exact dimensions, but I'm oscillating between 18" x 12" x 12" or 18" x 12" x 8". There are other dimensions I'm looking into as well - mainly the height & width. Still in planning stages. 

 

Although I already am looking into nano-sized wavemakers (Jebao) online already. 

 

And I strained my neck today, so no major tank work over the next few days until the muscle strengthens back up. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Inverts can be fascinating to watch: 🤗

 

 

 

 

This monti is still recovering:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Tubbs blue zoas:

 

 

Mint greens:

 

 

Setosa through dirty glass:

 

 

Favites have developed orange centers: 😮

 

 

Duncan coral still opening up:

 

 

Seeing minor PE on this leather coral for the first time in months:  😮

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Going to try and WC the pico today evening - still have a strained neck, but gotta do what's best for the animals: 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

 

My neck still hurts and I can't do any lifting. 😕

 

So I have to push back the WC a day or two. My tenuis looked unhappy today though. And I fed the tank quite heavily because I assumed I could change the water today evening. 😓

 

Will try my best to change at least 50% of the water tomorrow. 

 

All the fish and other inverts are fine. 👍

[debbeach13]

Every thing looks good to me. I would not worry about the WC if it is not accomplishes for a few more days. How many times have people gone on vacation for a couple weeks and the tank is fine. You need to take care of you! Maybe just regular feedings or even a little light. Feel better soon.

[Snow_Phoenix]

7 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

Every thing looks good to me. I would not worry about the WC if it is not accomplishes for a few more days. How many times have people gone on vacation for a couple weeks and the tank is fine. You need to take care of you! Maybe just regular feedings or even a little light. Feel better soon.

Yeah, I'll stick with very light feedings - like few pellets to sate the fish & shrimp. Will temporarily stop all wet feedings. I'm mostly worried about the SPS because they're super finnicky and need clean water to thrive. I think my nutrients are a bit higher than usual (just guessing, not tested yet) because my softies are having amazing PE, but some of my SPS like my tenius has very minimal PE. 

 

It's a bit tricky keeping all the corals happy in a mixed reef setting. I found the easiest way to keep everything open and perky is by keeping NO3 <5ppm and PO4 ~0,03ppm. Even these numbers aren't ideal - some pieces like my brown toadstools don't have very good PE with such low levels. Balance is key in running the pico. And maintaining that balance is a bit challenging. Weekly WCs usually covers everything I need though, to keep the tank running. 

 

(Still have that algae film over the water surface from time to time - hopefully that'll subside on its on within a year as the tank ages)

[Snow_Phoenix]

Just WCed the pico. Some corals are still moody from the WC, but they should open back up fully in a few hours:

 

 

 

Prowler stole my bullseye rhodactis shroom this time. 

 

I couldn't get to it - not unless I wanted to undo my main scape, so I left it tucked away under the rocks. Hopefully he'll get fed up and throw it out like he did for my yuma days ago. Little thief. 

 

My 54W PAR 38 bulb should be arriving in 2 to 3 weeks. Hopefully it works - because otherwise I have to pick up a secondhand R60 from my LFS in Dec. 

 

Speaking of the LFS - I'm picking up the upgrade-tank for the pico in late Nov or early Dec. Dimensions should be 18" x 12" x 11". It's a long, shallow, so total volume is roughly 10+ G. I think that's more than enough for the current corals to grow out in. 

 

I *might go bare bottom (not sure yet) but the LRs I use will be taken directly from my 60G's sump/refugium, so I'll once again be using the TTM method to transfer all my animals. 

 

Livestock will be the same from the pico. I *might transfer my bicolor blenny (Dusky) into the 10G+ long, and move Prowler back to the 60G. I haven't quite decided yet. 🤔

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #1:

 

My favites have almost recovered their full colors:

 

 

The centers should be red, but for now, they are dark orange:

 

 

Monti piece is recovering well. New growth over previously bone white patches noted:

 

 

The brown milli is surprisingly still here. The color is terrible, but the bottom part of the coral has began to encrust on the frag plug, and the tips are...growing (?) :

 

 

Green leptastrea has almost regained its original vivid green coloration: 

 

 

There is a small part of the meteor shower cyphastrea at the top that stubbornly refuses to regrow. The other areas of the coral are alright & recovering though: 🤔

 

 

Memphis: 🦀

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #2:

 

Nuclear green palys putting out more polyps: 😊

 

 

LA Lakers zoas spreading out:

 

 

The blue hornet faded out on me. The trademark yellow ring around the mouth is very pale, and the color of the polyp appears to be turning purple: 🤷‍♀️

 

 

The birdsnest has a new mini stick at the bottom:

 

 

It's growing quite well so far:

 

 

Pink/green milli is doing okay too:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #3:

 

My tenuis has changed colors again. Now it's more bluish than green, but still has that metallic shade about it:

 

 

 

 

 

This piece had minimal PE for the last 2 days because I didn't WC on time. But by not having full PE, I could finally see the base color of the stick, and it's very pretty. 🥰

 

It has also encrusted on the frag plug, and the area of the coral facing the light has shown some growth. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Ah, the lepto took a tiny tumble just now. Just finished re-gluing it back onto the rock. 

 

Sapphire's still very awake and alert. Not sure what's up, but the tank sleeps late tonight. 

[Tired]

The cyphaestrea probably isn't growing because of that paly touching it. Some of the really strongly toxic palys can be a barrier to other corals. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 hour ago, Tired said:

The cyphaestrea probably isn't growing because of that paly touching it. Some of the really strongly toxic palys can be a barrier to other corals. 

Okay, noted. Will try to frag that paly off somehow.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Regrowth, growth, & recovery: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

😊

[Snow_Phoenix]

Curious Sapphire:

 

 

Love the vibrant electric blue of her colors! 🥰

 

I actually can't wait to see her in the bigger tank in Dec. I bet she'll love it. 😊👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

A small surprise: just found out my second stomatella snail is still alive! 😊

 

 

Benny tonight:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

A few older shots taken today evening:

 

 

 

 

I think Memphis is getting ready to molt though: 🤔

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Memphis in the Tubbs blue zoas this morning:

 

 

Absolutely love this gal, and the various shades of blue she can take on based on her mood: 🥰

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

😊

 

[debbeach13]

8 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Absolutely love this gal, and the various shades of blue she can take on based on her mood: 🥰

So colorful and active.

[Snow_Phoenix]

2 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

So colorful and active.

Indeed she is! Can't wait to upgrade her to the bigger-tank-to-come this Dec. I think she'll love cruising around in that one. 🙂

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

I noticed some of the zoas were starting to stretch rather badly. So I increased the intensity of the Chihiros LEDs, and also swapped the position of the lights - brought the Aquazonic to the front, and pushed the stronger Chihiros to the back. 

 

The corals looked a bit different under the new light order. 😅

 

Nuclear green palys:

 

 

Sparkling red zoas:

 

 

Green favites:

 

 

Memphis:

 

 

The film algae is back though. I'm still manually agitating the water surface every day, but there is nothing much I can do. At least the CUC in the reef seems to be handling all the film algae well.