Gen's Nuvo 20 peninsula

[gen]

Well as far as I understand, each zoa has its own preference. 

I have been bad at keeping them for months, now I just test different placement until they look good. 

 

What amazes me is the way corals can show if they are happy or not. That's rewarding. 

[gen]

Thoughts about livestock : I just love my fishes (YCG and damsel) and the shrimps (2 fire, 5 sexy). They cover different areas and are fun to watch, especially when they think I walk around the tank (they expect food). 

My next addition would be a couple of clowns, but I’m not ready (neither is the tank) for it.

 

Toughts on corals : after testing different types, I’m mostly interested in soft and LPS. I would enjoy a large SPS colony, but I have to be pragmatic : my current lighting and husbandry wouldn’t allow me to grow / maintain one. 

I try to focus on zoas and euphyllias, so far they have been the most rewarding. My duncan is also fun to watch (especially since he recovered after a mistake of my part some months ago).

I like my sinularia, that thing would grow no matter what.

 

So far I’m considering selling the caulastrea, one euphyllia (the bad one who likes to burn other corals), the montipora (he did grow, but he could be much better) and a blueish zoa colony (it's nice but too big for what I have in mind, made some frags to keep the strain).

 

This would allow for a more consistent and smoother scape, both in forms and colors. Don’t get me wrong, I like tanks full of corals, but mine does look anarchic more than anything else at the moment.

 

 

 

[gen]

After several failed appointments from potential buyers, I guessed my corals where meant to stay. 

I tried to rescape keeping the idea that I would add sand. My previous rescaping experiences proved useful, as the livestock remained calm during process :  fire shrimps would try to climb every rock I moved with my hands, while the damsel and YCG hunted floating detritus in case some food was hiding in there.

I also glued down some zoa frags. 

 

The rockscape now consists in two main pieces :

• A vertical rock on the black side of the peninsula. 
• A rock with the arch

View from above

 

The vertical rock (the zoa strain at the bottom is a fast grower, it will compete with GSP) 

 

The arch (plan is to cover it with zoas) and euphyllia rock under blue :

 

 

I m concerned with my orange zoas, they remain closed at the moment (all other zoas are happy and fully opened).

On the bright side the nems are really growing nicely, their colors are popping up under blue light. 

 

I m definitely considering a second AI prime or something larger. I have too much shadow under the Euphyllias. 

[debbeach13]

That scape is very nice. 

[gen]

Thanks! 

It's definitely better than what I hoped for. 

 

[gen]

Some more shots :

 

 

I recieved my sand today. I will post some pics later. 

[gen]

And with the sand. Bit cloudy at first. 

 

Can't say I'm disappointed. Most corals didn't care. The damsel was the only one showing signs of stress but a few hours later she was swimming like nothing happened. 

 

[gen]

After nearly 3 months, I took some time to compare the growth on 4 zoa frags I got at the same time :

• First frag : they are going crazy (sorry for quality), they now have 5 pink heads, 20 yellow 
• Second frag : not sure about new heads, but they grew a bit
• Third frag : had to take care of larger polyps, the smallest and more colorfull are doing ok (I think each of them got a new polyp)
• Fourth frag :  it was bullied by shrimps / snails / hermits, seems to be okay, polyps are opened but no growth yet.

 

 

Today I noticed that one of the nem was looking different than usual (inflated on top) I dunno if the shrimp had something to with it but I recorded it anyway.

 

 

The YCG was wondering why I was doint here (I'm usually not looking on this side).

[gen]

Managed to find another prime HD for a decent price. My first attempt at hanging both lights was...not great. It took some time but it's better now. 

 

I did an extensive cleaning in the back chambers. The return pump was really dirty and flow was becoming a problem. I did clean it as good as I could, but now it's noisy (it was really silent before). If it doesn't get better in the next days I will consider getting another one. 

I used the second chamber as a chaeto/refugium thing, it worked really well but it was really dirty too. 

I realized my aquaclear 20 was the perfect size to get in the 3rd chamber. So now my chaeto/refugium hangs in the back. 

I might add a light. 

 

 

Livestock is mostly OK but I have some aptasia lurking around I haven't managed to eradicate yet. 

This is probably going my next challenge. 

 

Anyway, with the two lights I have less shadowing issues. I will be able to glue my remaining frags in the days to come. 

[debbeach13]

Nice grab on getting a second light.

[gen]

New additions ! 

I wanted more soft corals. I came to miss my old ones : easy to care, big and growing fast, colorful, etc.

I couldn't resist (well I could but didn't want to) getting a couple of clowns. They were both supposed to be small but the platinum ended up to be bigger than I thought. 

Both are eating fine, the platinum seems to like the Duncan a lot. 

 

 

 

 

The damselfish proved to be as territorial as they can be. She has her own room at the moment (decorated with frags). It doesn't seem enough since she keeps showing signs of agression when a clown comes near. I will probably add something so she can't see the tank anymore. 

That HOB system is really nice, I used to have one on my first freshwater tank. I should have got one sooner to isolate corals looking unhappy. 

 

[gen]

This week could have gone really bad, my heater broke (the whole living room got shut down by the circuit breaker, luckily it happened 2 hours before I woke up), then the filter floww clogged in less than 12h, resulting in the ATO pouring all the freshwater it could into the tank. 

 

Anyway everything is back in order and everyone has survived.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[debbeach13]

So glad everything is ok. 

[gen]

Thanks! 

 

Apart from the montipora (not as colorful as it used to be), everything is still going nicely. 

I used to put kalkwasser directly in the ATO tank, but the pump used to clog over time. I changed the pump to a slightly bigger one and I m now dissolving kalkwasser in a another container before adding it to the ATO tank. Luckily it should limit precipation, therefore not clogging the pump. 

I m sticking to kalkwasser since I noticed some growth on the montipora while running it. 

 

My crusade against aiptasia is not over, not sure it will ever be, but I manage to control the population with Aiptasia X and manual removing. 

 

9 months after buying a baby nem, I have 4 of them. I like to feed them with shrimps, the seem to enjoy it given their current size. 

 

Still need to glue a dozen frags, but in the meantime I kinda love looking at them on the rack, 1 inch under the surface.

I... must.... resist...setting...a...shallow...pico...tank... 

 

Finally, I moved the tank in the middle of the living room, now I can enjoy the 3 sides od the peninsula. 

 

 

 

[gen]

So...the eggcrate I used for my frags seems to be an algae magnet. The frags are ok (the seem to like being near to the surface) but algae is rapidly growing and starts to covering the plugs as well. At the same time, I don't see any algae growing on the rocks, which is pretty nice. 

I haven't figured yet what I'm gonna do about it.

 

My last water change pissed off (more than usual) euphyllias, which is nice because I haven't been able to count their heads for a while. I have had ups and downs with them, so their growing rate isn't steady. As far as I can tell :

• green/violet (paraancora I think) : 2 heads to 10 heads in 2 years
• violet (paraancora I think) : 2 heads to 6 heads in 2 years (I messed this one way more than the previous)
• green tentacles (no idea) : 3 heads to 6 heads over a year
• green (sold to me as a yaeyamaensis) : 2 to 1 head, the reamaining one is healthy. Never understood what happened
• Didn't count the biggest colony, since I never knew how manys it had in the beginning

 

 

 

Meanwhile cleaning the sand is becoming more and more challenging. I stir it up twice a week but the water flow doesn't seem to carry enough detritus to the back chamber and the filter floss. This will definitely become a problem over time. I won't mention the "things" living in that sand.

I might got back to bare bottom next year.

I have been going through different photos of the tank that I took over the past 2 years (mostly to count compare euphyllias) and I can clearly see some periods where the corals are happier. I will have to read my previous journal to list out what worked best before making any change.

 

[TatorTaco]

Have you considered increasing your clean up crew to help with the algae?  You could check out nasarius snails or even a conch for your sand bed.

[gen]

Yeah I thought about it, they do a pretty good job already regarding the algae, especially on the glass, rocks, wavemaker. They just don't venture on the frag rack. 

After a good cleaning I understood why the eggcrate got some muche algae growing. It's has a good surface for it (I put some in the back chamber where the chaeto sits, will see if hair algae keeps growing on it). 

Macro shot :

 

 

As for the sand bed, I have around 5 or 6 snails buried in and they do move things around. The thing is that most detritus in suspension just fall back on it rather than going to the filtration part. 

 

I consider both the return pump and the wavemaker a bit undersized for this tank. I didn't care much for flow corals since I mostly have LPS and softies. 

 

[gen]

I m taking some steps to upgrade the tank / maintenance. Today I recieved a new return pump (sicce syncra 1.5) which means around 70% more flow rate going through the back chambers.

It is still vibrating a bit, I will wait a few hours to see if it gets better. If not...I have a few ideas to help with it. 

Fishes and corals are happy with all the "things" currently floating around with that improved flow. 

 

Also Santa brought me a nice lens to take better pictures (well better colors).

 

 

I have also have some rocks cycling in the tank (cleanest one) and on the balcony (ugly ones) to rescape a bit in the next weeks.

 

I will probably switch the stand too. It will be the same model (ikea kallax) but better prepared for the current position on the tank in the living room and better organized. 

I don't look forward to the day I will have to empty (not entirely but probably 75%) the tank for that purpose...but it will definetly help with maintenance. 

[TatorTaco]

Did Santa deliver the PolypLab lens?  That's what I got and I can't seem to make it work with my Iphone's 22 lenses on the back.  

[gen]

Can't really help you.

It's the DD aquarium solution lens. It came with a clip, I just put it on the phone (Huawei) and voilà! 

[gen]

Happy new year everyone! 

 

I managed to reduce the vibrations from the pump but it's still a bit noisy. I will try some DIY ajustements (after the remaining effects of new year's eve leave my body). 

I switched the wavemaker to the back panel, it blows a bit of sand at the moment which means it should blow detritus away once I go back to bare bottom. 

 

I'm still out of glue, but I wanted to check how zoas would react in the spot I m planning to make the zoa garden :

• No direct flow
• Good light exposure
• Visible from 3 sides

The all opened quite fast after I moved them on the rock and they seem to enjoy it. I also moved the 2 acan frags. 

 

 

I think I "need" to get some more frags with different colors before I let the garden grow. 

 

The new flow pattern appears to please  Euphyllias too. They had some ups and downs in the last months, it's nice to see them all opened at the same time for once. 

 

 

Still got a bit of work with scape, especially on the opposite side of the zoa garden. But I won't make a lot of changes since most corals seem happy and growing. 

[debbeach13]

Every thing looks very happy in those pictures. 

[gen]

As I was trying to silence the return pump (and failing), I got rid of everything in the back chambers. The pump was silent when running in a bucket but something would keep vibrating once it got in the tank. 

Anyway, it's now silent (well not dead silent, but nearly). The only thing I didn't put back in is the wavemaker. Gonna let the return pump alone for flow for a while and see how it goes. 

 

Took some photos in the evening with the color lens. It really makes a difference with heavy blues. 

 

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

Tank looks great. Love the zoa and Euphyllias garden. Ended up just getting a killer deal for this and can’t wait to set it up. 

[gen]

View from the top as I was feeding. Some zoas are pissed off after I hunted down some aiptasia yesterday, hope they will get better soon. 

 

And there is the ugly side of the tank...work in progress.