IM Nuvo 20 Peninsula

[fishez4alivin]

Clownfish just can’t let the anemone have any alone time, even when it tries to lay low in its spot

 

 

[blasterman]

On 3/4/2021 at 3:27 AM, fishez4alivin said:

Sounds good.  Yes the basslet is an awesome fish.  He comes out every time I walk by, hoping I'll feed the tank.  He is camera shy, and gets a little anxiety when I have my phone up against the glass. 

 

The aquascape took awhile to get to what I wanted, then I realized that I needed a bigger tank to put it in.  So I busted it up, and that overhang was salvaged.  The base was layered with shelf rock, then I used water thin AC glue and filled the gaps using sand and powder that I had to layer and build up.   I had to make it heavy to balance it out.  It's tough to get a sense of how many little ledges there are.  I can have each coral have it's own perch.  On the small structure, I made it specifically for that anemone.  the base has a perfect hole for it's foot, but the sand I used to build up the gaps,  seems to have made it too coarse for it's liking. 

 

I was looking through some pics and I noticed how much my digitata has been growing the last few months. I forgot how fast sps grows once it gets to a certain size. 

1st pic is from February 2  Second is from today. 

 

Forrest Fires are the trickiest of the digis in my experience. They also tend to thrive in higher phosphate and nitrate conditions than acros, so if you have both going well in a smaller tank that's a job well done. I gave up trying to keep both happy and sold my acros.

 

Forrest fire frags typically command high prices, so let him grow 🙂

[fishez4alivin]

Thanks, you're right about the Forrest Fire and the Bubble gum has been a tough one for me as well.  At least the FF grows fast, the BG is much slower for me.  The BG also can be tough keeping color.  If my tank is too clean, the blue starts fading lighter and lighter.  I would say that most of the time, I've had to wait over a year and a half to get my tank to do the high nutrients in, and export out, where the corals feast.  You have to have colonies for it to be effective.  At around that 1 1/2 year mark you can feed reef roids and aminos without constantly battling algae.  The only reason I can get away with as much as I feed, and still keep the water clean for acros. is my oversized sump and refuge.  I've never grown chaeto so fast, but of course this is the first time I've used a real light over a refugium.    Hopefully it can keep up with the nutrients until my coral turn into colonies.

[fishez4alivin]

the effort to keep the CSB from moving didn't work, and I almost got it sucked into a vortech.  I just happened to be near the tank at lights out, and didn't see the anemone, I immediately shut off my two vortechs, and as I looked into the tank, I see the tiny ball of anemone is slowly sinking in the back corner.  Not sure if it would have happened, but I think I got real lucky.  Instead of testing fate, I relocated the anemone in the center of the rock structure that was designed to house an anemone zoas/palys in the center area, with the rock spiraling up acting as a flow block for them.  Check it out

[fishez4alivin]

My OG Mummy eye is really starting to become a concern.  May have to move it to give the Colorado sunburst more open space.  

[fishez4alivin]

I just decided to move that mummy eye, so I tried to move the Tubbs Stellata, and it just started breaking apart of course.  Nano tanks are hard to work in, but I got it relocated so now the anemone has plenty of space to stretch out.  I had all these broken branches, so I glued a couple against an encrusting piece

[nemolovestoswim]

Tank looks awesome bro. 

[fishez4alivin]

On 6/22/2021 at 12:31 AM, nemolovestoswim said:

Tank looks awesome bro. 

Thanks man, it's really starting to take off

[fishez4alivin]

it's so tiny....I circled the Innovative Marine sticker on the tank compared to the Mandarin.  3/4" at the most...saw it eat frozen and pellets at the LFS, and fed it Reef Nutrition B2 pellets and frozen baby brine while I had it in QT.  All it does is swim back and forth along the small anemone rock structure eating pods.  Today I finally see her patrolling the glass.  She eats all day, pods as well as whatever gets past the tank mates.  She is quite "fluffy"

[fishez4alivin]

[joshthebox]

7 hours ago, fishez4alivin said:

Tank looks wicked man! 

[fishez4alivin]

Thanks, it really is starting to take off, noticing a lot of the acros are starting to bud off fresh branches.  Pink Lemonade is about to take off now that the base has spread out, same with the Pink Floyd,and Acid Trip has 4 new branches started.  Red Planet is getting it's color back from shipping stress, all the new base is green, I expect it to take off soon.  Seems like I have to bump up my dosing every week.  Went from 10 ml of Ca and Alk, to 32 ml in the last two months.  Trying to keep it at 8.0 dkh 425 Ca and 1350 Mg

[joshthebox]

1 hour ago, fishez4alivin said:

Thanks, it really is starting to take off, noticing a lot of the acros are starting to bud off fresh branches.  Pink Lemonade is about to take off now that the base has spread out, same with the Pink Floyd,and Acid Trip has 4 new branches started.  Red Planet is getting it's color back from shipping stress, all the new base is green, I expect it to take off soon.  Seems like I have to bump up my dosing every week.  Went from 10 ml of Ca and Alk, to 32 ml in the last two months.  Trying to keep it at 8.0 dkh 425 Ca and 1350 Mg

Nice! An increase in mineral demand is always a good sign. 

[fishez4alivin]

On 6/27/2021 at 6:30 PM, joshthebox said:

Nice! An increase in mineral demand is always a good sign. 

Yeah it is and this week I had to increase my two part to 44 ml of both Ca and Alk.  Started getting hot around here so I decided to order a GHL fan.  Not sure what I was thinking since I have my radios on mounts on the back wall, but I ordered a 4 fan unit.  I had to rig a mount on my stand to mount the fans to it.  It was the only way to do it, and returning them to exchange would have taken weeks.  It’s working fine, keeping things at 78 degrees, but I think if I lower the fans closer to the tank’s surface it might be more efficient.

[fishez4alivin]

It's been awhile since I had a fish die on my watch.  Yesterday I had to get a peppermint shrimp out of the display.  So I drained the tank and caught the fish.  When I refilled the tank, I couldn't find the mandarin.  Of course this would happen when I just made a few prototypes of mandarin feeders as well as having my copepod culture blow up with tons of pods. 

 

The reason I had to catch the shrimp was that he got a sudden appetite for my colorado sunburst anemone.  The female clownfish also decided to bully the male for a spot with the nem, and the combination beat the hell out of it.  The colors have morphed while I was out of town.  It now is partially deflated, and this thing never deflated since I owned it.  I have seen anemones go down when the salinity drops or gets high, but that wasn't the case.  What is weird is that it didn't release and move when getting picked on and eaten.  I would think that would be the first thing they would do when agitated. 

 

I removed some rock off both structures this will allow corals to grow out more.  I also was forced to do so because some of the acros were throwing out big bases that were close to touching.   Had to wedge some rock against the base of the big structure, because the rock started leaning recently.

[Christopher Marks]

Sorry for your loss @fishez4alivin, that's a tough situation. The reef it looking great even with the recent aquascape adjustments, it's really going to fill out beautifully.

[fishez4alivin]

On 9/28/2021 at 8:01 AM, Christopher Marks said:

Sorry for your loss @fishez4alivin, that's a tough situation. The reef it looking great even with the recent aquascape adjustments, it's really going to fill out beautifully.

Yeah I haven't had a loss like that before, and it was all my fault.  I should have known better and removed him before I pulled the rock.  I also found that my tank suddenly had a spike in nutrients, which I couldn't understand.  I assumed everything should have been alright, since I hadn't changed anything, except for the subtraction of the mandarin.  One night I noticed that my refugium light wasn't turning on.  This must have happened after I harvested 1/2 the mass.  Normally the mass will double in size in two weeks.  In two weeks there wasn't any growth, so I assumed my light wasn't turning on.  I ordered a power supply, which didn't have the right plug end, so I decided to just buy another light.  I believe the light wasn't operating for a month, once I received my replacement light.  Within a week of installing the light, my display started to noticeably clean up.  I also started to remove my sandbed slowly.  As for the anemone, it started getting the bright orange back to it's tentacles.  And today I fed it for the first time in awhile, and it responded favorably.  I think it will regenerate the colors that puts the price tag on this one.

 

[truepercs]

Your aquarium is looking nice...Fun to see coral grow, It is filling out nicely!

 

I want a host for the clownfish in my aquarium.  I have pondered on a bubble tip.  I really should have done it first to get him settled in.  Now I am sure he will wonder until he is happy and most likely I will not like where he ends up or the damage that could be caused.  So it may not happen in this aquarium.  Glad to hear your anemone is coming back around

 

Like you I am seeing growth and the pattern of growth in the acros,  I did not think I was adding too many at the time, however I can see that if all goes well I will be challenged with a different problem.  Is the trident just set for monitoring?  This time around I started with Kalk and the Avast Kalk reactor.  A bit different, as I always used 2 part, so far it is working out well.   Curious to see how long Kalk can be used to maintain on its own.

[fishez4alivin]

16 hours ago, truepercs said:

Your aquarium is looking nice...Fun to see coral grow, It is filling out nicely!

 

I want a host for the clownfish in my aquarium.  I have pondered on a bubble tip.  I really should have done it first to get him settled in.  Now I am sure he will wonder until he is happy and most likely I will not like where he ends up or the damage that could be caused.  So it may not happen in this aquarium.  Glad to hear your anemone is coming back around

 

Like you I am seeing growth and the pattern of growth in the acros,  I did not think I was adding too many at the time, however I can see that if all goes well I will be challenged with a different problem.  Is the trident just set for monitoring?  This time around I started with Kalk and the Avast Kalk reactor.  A bit different, as I always used 2 part, so far it is working out well.   Curious to see how long Kalk can be used to maintain on its own.

Thanks!  Your tank is looking very nice, I like that sized cube tank.  My best luck was placing my bubble tip where it could stick its footup in a crevice.  I drilled out some rock and made them specifically for a bubble tip's needs.  Also keeping it out of direct flow helps it stay put.  I find that they will tolerate strong flow but will detach more frequently then if I had them in slower flow.  I would also feel it each day a small amount of mysis to make it think it's in a premium spot that feeds it every day,   The Trident will control dosing using the Dose will dose a specific amount unless the parameters drop get high, then it will make a small adjustment accordingly.  I've moved corals since I've had the tank, most are in their final place, but I may move my Hawkins because the packman  deepwater is growning faster and is encroaching.  The biggest problem of late has been breaking branches off my acropora.  Really sucks to try to scrape some bottom, and break off a couple of months of growth or more.  Also see my ultimate stag is based out all the way into the base of the hawkins, without a problem so far.  I used to use a GEO kalk stirrer when I ran a calcium reactor, mainly to boost the ph.  For a nano tank you probably can use kalk exclusively for the first two years of a sps dominant tank. 

Heres my newest fts, my Colorado SB is starting to really get it's color back.  Its been months since it first morphed to brown green.

[joshthebox]

On 12/4/2021 at 1:02 AM, fishez4alivin said:

Thanks!  Your tank is looking very nice, I like that sized cube tank.  My best luck was placing my bubble tip where it could stick its footup in a crevice.  I drilled out some rock and made them specifically for a bubble tip's needs.  Also keeping it out of direct flow helps it stay put.  I find that they will tolerate strong flow but will detach more frequently then if I had them in slower flow.  I would also feel it each day a small amount of mysis to make it think it's in a premium spot that feeds it every day,   The Trident will control dosing using the Dose will dose a specific amount unless the parameters drop get high, then it will make a small adjustment accordingly.  I've moved corals since I've had the tank, most are in their final place, but I may move my Hawkins because the packman  deepwater is growning faster and is encroaching.  The biggest problem of late has been breaking branches off my acropora.  Really sucks to try to scrape some bottom, and break off a couple of months of growth or more.  Also see my ultimate stag is based out all the way into the base of the hawkins, without a problem so far.  I used to use a GEO kalk stirrer when I ran a calcium reactor, mainly to boost the ph.  For a nano tank you probably can use kalk exclusively for the first two years of a sps dominant tank. 

Heres my newest fts, my Colorado SB is starting to really get it's color back.  Its been months since it first morphed to brown green.

Looking good!! 

[fishez4alivin]

Benn awhile, and I've made some changes.  The month of December was frustrating.  The female clownfish started biting me, aggressively, and when you are trying to retrieve a fallen frag, in a 20G, there will be consequences.  Trying to catch that fish was a nightmare, and in the end, it looked like I had more frags on the bottom, than glued to rock....so I ended up picking up an Elos System 70 from a local, and quickly made the move.  So I went from cramped to wide open.  In the last few months, I tried to add more rock, with varying results.  What kept everything pretty clean was that structure I made out of Marco rock.  It has thick plating coraline, and pest algae just can't even start growing on it. I bought some "live rock from Live Aquaria, which looks and so far seems pretty good.  Put it in a Brute for several weeks, before placing it the tank.   That stuff is far lighter than Marco, and looks really good.  .  It's been in the tank for a few months without any algae problems.  I also added sand, which I will slowly begin to remove at 6 months, so I can really turn the flow up.  I ended up adding two MP40's with the two Mp10's.  I also upgraded my G5's to G6's,   I am running a super saturated Kalk solution, and still have to dose nearly 100 ml of Alk and Cal to keep my parameters where I want them.  I don't want to get a calcium reactor, so I may start adding some soft corals and LPS to fill out the rest of the tank. 

[Jaren45]

Are you still using the ultra reef skimmer? How do you like it?