2 Tanks 1 Stand *New FTS*

[Tired]

I would imagine that a rhino blenny shouldn't be mixed with other blennies, yeah. Mine seemed fine with the waspfish, barring the freak accident- a little puffing from the blenny sometimes, but the waspfish would just sit still and ignore it, and I never saw anything I'd be concerned about. Still, blennies usually shouldn't be mixed, and I don't know if another blenny would behave aggressively in response and escalate things. 

 

I have one virgin nerite, and I'm a fan of it. Cute lil thing.

[CD_Scapes]

Didn't think I would do an update today but I got a lot done in the "Fish room" and my RODI system showed up today so I have content to update y'all on I guess. 

 

Organization

The word of the day without a doubt had to be organization, two main things got organized today and I am pretty proud of the results from today. First thing I focused one was switching out the old plastic 3 drawer "storage" tower for a very nice 2 door vertical storage cabinet. In total is has 5 shelves to store my aquarium products, it was a tad dirty so a little elbow grease got it up to shape. Here's a look at the inside of the new storage cabinet:

Starting from the bottom we have some air line for acclimation, the 2.5G water change bucket with the Sicce MicraPlus for pumping in new water. About that there is the Sicce Micra, IM Wave link, and a small box of instant ocean. The IM wave link will be in a 5 gallon bucket that I will use to mix saltwater, I also ordered another HMA-S 50 watt heater (total of 3 owned) to heat the water. I plan on making 5 gallons of RODI every two weeks and then do 2.5 gallon Water changes weekly. The next part of the shelf holds my freshwater botanicals, filter floss and measuring cups for salt. There is also an air pump that runs the sponge filtered stickleback tank up top. The upper middle shelf holds all of my Brightwell supplements; Reedcode A & B, NeoNitro, ReefSno, ChaetoGrow, Ferrous Iron, and the two new ones, MicroBacter-7 and some Coral Amino. There is also my Easy green plant fertilizer and Iron supplements from Aquarium Co-Op. I also put my Newlife spectrum pellets as well as misc. flakes/pellets on this shelf. There is also a specimen container with my aquascaping tools and superglue. The aquascaping tools will be moved to the right side of my stand as soon as their holder shows up next week. The top shelf holds my API FW/SW master kit as well as the API reef test kit. My water conditioner, refractometer, macro/orange lens, and gloves all sit up there too. I stuck command hooks on the left side to hold my cloths and fish nets. I decided to stick my Flipper Nano on the door of the cabinet too to allow it to dry and not get build ups on the blade

 

The other big project was fixing my rats nest of cords, it truly was a mess with freshwater cords going over and looping the saltwater cords. All of the cords were also on the ground which made it really messy and ugly. The main goal was to have all the freshwater cords on one side and the saltwater cords on the other side. The power strips were mounted with command strips and the extra cord was zip tied to make it look a bit "neater", extra power boxes or gauges were also command striped on the respective side. The black power strip is the freshwater tank and the white side is the saltwater. I am happy that I have 3 spots open on the saltwater power strip and have some space next to the tank...might be an illusion an addition which could help with automation of the reef. The only cords that cross are the lights going to the timer and the air pump from the cabinet to the power strip.

 

Lastly for major "projects" of the day was setting up my RODI unit! This one took a bit more time and effort, but I feel very accomplished and only needed a tiny bit of help from the younger brother (he does A LOT more DIY than I do). After getting the unit mounted to the wall and flushing it out I decided to time out how long it took for waste water to fill a 5 gallon bucket. I know I shouldn't rely on time for this, but we have a heat and WiFi in our garage so I can do school work and watch the water to make sure as well.  At the moment I plan to set an alarm based on the time I experiment to see how fast the 5 gallon fills. I found that it takes about 42 minutes (let it trickle out for 3 minutes afterwards) to fill a 5 gallon bucket full of waste water. This just so happens to nearly fill a 2.5 gallon bucket too, so every two weeks I will have to empty the waste water once to get my RODI to make saltwater. In the future I want to get the XP Aqua RODI shutoff system for extra piece of mind. The main reason I got the system was the compact size (perfect for dorm) as well as the cost, it was $60 when I bought it while it normally would be $110. 

 

Getting away from the projects I did a tiny bit on the tank today, mainly tested NO3 and PO4 as well as switched out the Sicce MicraPlus to the Sicce 0.5 for a little extra movement of water. Water tests were perfect, adding a bit of frozen food got PO4 to 0.25-0.50ppm and dosing 6ml NeoNitro got NO3 to 5.0ppm, besides all of that I added another 2ml of ChaetoGrow. While I was testing I did notice that my tank is getting patches of diatoms, perfect as I have my mini CUC coming later this week. I also noticed about 5-6 polyps of Zoanthid in my filter media! I have no idea how they got there or what they are but they are open so the tank must be okay for zoas which is also re-assuring. After my tank crashed the last time I have been super nervous and cautious to add any corals or special inverts, heck I was scared to order my rhino blenny. I also told the mini-fishkeeper (my youngest brother) that the fish we are getting is a rhino blenny and he was SOOO happy. The tank is in his room because he loves aquariums, going to the fish store and wants to help out when he can. He also loves rhinos so when he found out the fish we are getting had rhino in the name it made his day. I love seeing how much he loves the aquariums and sometimes it feels like he loves them more than me, but it gives me the passion to have the tanks and to show him all the cool things about the hobby. This should be about all until I get the fish and other things settled. I guess I did a BRS order for that 3rd heater and needed to meet the new $39 limit for free shipping so I got microbacter-7 to dose after WC to "replenish" as well as some coral amino just for fun and to get the free shipping. I think the zoas, rics and maybe even RFAs/gorgs will benefit from it.

 

Here is just a cool corner "FTS" showing the Sicce 0.5 flow

 

This is the random zoa that is in the filter compartment 

 

Now I'm off to Target to get a 3 plug outlet for the waterchange station and then its waiting on packages:

-BRS heater/dosing agents

-Foxxy Tropicals Rhino blenny 

-Florida Pets amphipods

-Reef Cleaners CUC and macro

     Future (next paycheck)

     - R2R Secret Santa Gifts

     - Coralline from GulfEcosystems 

     - Maybe use the last of my gift card to Foxxy and get 3 Green whip gorgs

[Tired]

You should rescue that zoa and see how it does in the main tank. 

 

Keep a careful eye on the amphipods. Without enough predators, and/or in the right conditions otherwise, they can start to be a problem. They can bother corals, will definitely irritate and possibly eat stressed corals, and will even sometimes nibble healthy corals. Great fish food and good for biodiversity, just... opportunists.

[CD_Scapes]

8 hours ago, Tired said:

You should rescue that zoa and see how it does in the main tank. 

 

Keep a careful eye on the amphipods. Without enough predators, and/or in the right conditions otherwise, they can start to be a problem. They can bother corals, will definitely irritate and possibly eat stressed corals, and will even sometimes nibble healthy corals. Great fish food and good for biodiversity, just... opportunists.

Rhino blenny should handle them...hopefully

 

[CD_Scapes]

Got my Brightwell Coral amino and Microbacter-7 today as well we my 3rd HMA-S 50watt heater from BRS, just got an email from UPS saying my rhino blenny will be here tomorrow and my ReefCleaners will be here Thursday...nothing from Florida pets about my pods so I have no clue.

Upgrade?

In other news I keep looking at upgrades in the future and saw the Mr.aqua 25 gallon cube which is very "tantalizing" to upgrade, I would go with the XP Aqua flexi surface skimmer as the main "filtration". The Flexi surface skimmer also allows me to hide my duetto in the skimmer, I can also use my IM Wave link under the simmer box for more flow. Blacking out the background would be another thing I would do, I also need to build a stand (love doing that with my grandpa). The main reason for upgrading is that I focus a lot more on fish and the macros, corals, and inverts are the complements that finish the scape. The belted sandfish really needs 20-30 gallons and the Mr.aqua is the perfect middle ground, being a cube it doesn't take up as much room either. The 18" of height is also very nice for gorgonian growth, I believe @billygoats new 40 gallon is 18" and I just love all the space the gorgonians have to stretch and grow.

Packages

Looking at packages today, rhino blenny should (hopefully) be here before I go to work at 4pm. My ReefCleaners order got to my town yesterday, but won't be here until the 13th which I think is absolutely stupid and ridiculous (typical USPS) and on top of that my FloridaPets amphipods have not even shipped yet or no info on a possible shipment so I have no clue when they will show up. If I do not hear from them by tonight I will email them about it. Aside from all of that Foxxy found a Social cluster duster so that will be coming soon after they get more green lace gorgs. 

[CD_Scapes]

Well thought I would give an update on the orders and how everything is doing, so far the rhino blenny is the greatest fish I have gotten. It is so cool watching him slip in and out of the macroalgae while he hunts the pods. The porcelain crabs are also just as fun as I remember them to be, especially when they get into mini territory fights or during feeding time. I will say my blue leg hermits and marginella snails did arrive DOA but John fixed it even after the 5 hour notice policy, another reason I love reef cleaners. I ended up ordering too much Halimeda and there is a big chunk in the back that is staying nearly white, but it is what it is. Photo dump and an FTS:

 

First off here is the Rhino blenny, I love his false eyes and the modified fins into "legs" which he uses to walk around on 

 

 

 

 

Next up are a few shots of the Green porcelain crabs, I have a group of 7 right now and want more

 

 

 

 

The last livestock picture before the FTS is a very cool isopod species that came with my "pod" order. This isopod is in the Sphaeromatidae family, there are over 100 genera and 700 species world wide of these critters

 

 

And finally an FTS with the new halimeda, you can see the left corner and the large nearly pale chunk. I don't know if this will stay or if I will switch to other macros...depends on how it grows 

 

[Tired]

Interesting look. I adore the blenny- will have to get one again when I have a big enough tank. So much personality!

 

I've seen green emerald crabs, wild. I found them under rocks at the very edge of the water, in a sort of not-quite-brackish mangrove area. They're neat little guys, but not native to my area- the local population is introduced. How do yours interact with other critters? I'm thinking about catching a couple next time I'm at the coast. 

[CD_Scapes]

9 hours ago, Tired said:

Interesting look. I adore the blenny- will have to get one again when I have a big enough tank. So much personality!

 

I've seen green emerald crabs, wild. I found them under rocks at the very edge of the water, in a sort of not-quite-brackish mangrove area. They're neat little guys, but not native to my area- the local population is introduced. How do yours interact with other critters? I'm thinking about catching a couple next time I'm at the coast. 

I have porcelain crabs not green emeralds. I will never own an emerald crab, they are the devils crab. The porcelain crabs kind of just stick to themselves and don't mess with anything but the other porcelains when they invade the others territory.

[Tired]

Ah, yeah, shoot. I meant porcelains- those flat claws are pretty distinctive, and they aren't even crabs. I just came from a thread about emerald crabs, though, and had my brain-autocorrect fill the wrong thing in. I would NOT catch a couple emerald crabs for my tank! 

 

I can think of worse crabs to have than an emerald, though. I've seen a blue crab decapitate a small fish that was in a bucket with it, and sit calmly at the bottom of the capture bucket, eating the head. 

[farkwar]

 

[CD_Scapes]

1 hour ago, Tired said:

Ah, yeah, shoot. I meant porcelains- those flat claws are pretty distinctive, and they aren't even crabs. I just came from a thread about emerald crabs, though, and had my brain-autocorrect fill the wrong thing in. I would NOT catch a couple emerald crabs for my tank! 

 

I can think of worse crabs to have than an emerald, though. I've seen a blue crab decapitate a small fish that was in a bucket with it, and sit calmly at the bottom of the capture bucket, eating the head. 

Crabs are mental, the ONLY crab I 100% trust isn't even a true crab . In other news I am deciding between pimping out the tank (sounds fun) or maybe even changing the portrait to a reef tank as well...the UNS seems to be missing something (maybe more rock)? Right now it is kind of just on cruise control until I find what I really want to do with it.

[CD_Scapes]

1 minute ago, farkwar said:

 

I have officially lost all of my brain cells while laughing at this 

[Tired]

I have a couple crabs I do trust. They're mime crabs. One has a shell the size of half a pea, making it too small to hurt anything. The other has a shell almost the size of a dime and is starting to get a little suspicious, but hasn't touched anything yet. My micro decorator isn't bad, either, though it did snip and wear a couple zoa polyps once. You just have to stick with really small crabs that lean more towards being herbivores. The trouble with emeralds is, they do get a little size on 'em with time. 

[CD_Scapes]

18 hours ago, Tired said:

I have a couple crabs I do trust. They're mime crabs. One has a shell the size of half a pea, making it too small to hurt anything. The other has a shell almost the size of a dime and is starting to get a little suspicious, but hasn't touched anything yet. My micro decorator isn't bad, either, though it did snip and wear a couple zoa polyps once. You just have to stick with really small crabs that lean more towards being herbivores. The trouble with emeralds is, they do get a little size on 'em with time. 

Very true, kinda wish RC had the mime crabs rn to be honest, I would love some for the tank now. I do wonder how Java (rhino blenny) would handle them...I'm assuming he would pick them off.

[Tired]

I would fully expect him to eat them, yeah. Or at the very least, to try to eat them and do serious harm. 

[CD_Scapes]

4 hours ago, Tired said:

I would fully expect him to eat them, yeah. Or at the very least, to try to eat them and do serious harm. 

Yeah, he kinda takes away from small, fun, inverts. Right now I am putting together a LA order of captive grown corals. So far it is Red and Purple photo sponges, silver xenia, "glove polyp" and I might get a pink peony pocillipora. Could swap out either the glove polyp or xenia as they have similar growth patterns tbh. Also ordered Hayi macro from GulfEcosystems but it won't ship until like after thanksgiving or something like that. 

[CD_Scapes]

So big news...Christmas time I am buying myself an upgraded size reef tank. Same UNS brand but BIGGER and better 

[CD_Scapes]

A Duel of the Tanks

well not really...it was between the Mr.Aqua 25 cube and the Waterbox 25 Peninsula and I already know who the winner is. It's the Waterbox, the 24" so scaping and stand space stick out to me the most, so that is what I'm (hoping) happens for Christmas and if not I will just buy one myself (eventually).

[CD_Scapes]

Dreams for this "Reef"

The big image for the Waterbox 25 (if it happens) is a more complete looking natural scape, I want to include more filter feeders and less flashy fish or corals into this tank. The theme is pretty much a Florida region Gulf of Mexico tank. That being said this will totally be a marathon and not a sprint, I.E some things might not happen for months on end as I have to budget our rent and stuff like that and I honestly do not know what is going to happen. First off I need to be sure I am getting the tank (might find out Nov 26th) and if I am than I need to build a stand for the tank. That does mean that the future of the UNS 45a could be moved over to this 25 gallon, well mainly the livestock and some biomedia. Here is the rough layout I made with painters tape where the tank will be going, the true dimensions are the inside measurements not from edged to edge of the tape. I made it have a lower area for the power grid, ATO chamber and maybe dosing jugs with a shelf to hold all my other supplies. The tank might have a mini hood just for the stream-line look and to prevent light bleed

Filtration

The filtration on this tank will be a bit different that most reef tanks, given the couple of filter feeders that will be in the tank I will not be using mechanical filtration at all. Mainly, the back chambers will be loaded with marine-pure gems/cubes from the UNS as well as a lot more that will need to be ordered. The reason for no mechanical filtration are two reasons; first being that the filter feeders can have constant sources of food by not getting mechanical removed from the water. Secondly the waters of the Northeast Gulf of Mexico are not "clean" there is detritus and particles flowing in the water and I am fine with that. If anything it will look more natural in the long run, might not win over most people and I don't mind that as this tank is more for me to enjoy and others to look at. 

Heat/Light

The next thing to address is heating and lighting for this tank. Heating will not be a massive factor for this tank as most the inhabitants live in a bit cooler waters that range from 68-78 degrees with an optimal range of 70-74. So, the 50 watt heater should be fine and in all honestly summer temps could cause me to get a fan to cool some higher temps. Lighting will be the usual pixie 30 LEDs from Lommie on Amazon, they work amazing, throw out awesome PAR, and have 4 separate editable channel intensities. 

Rock & Sand

This is quite possibly the biggest part of the tank, the backbone or foundation that will dictate what can be added to the tank and I need to do this right. I will be trying out Gulf Live Rock this time for my rock and sand needs, I will not be using the deco rock as I do not want as many "bad" hitchhikers so I will go for the coralline base rock. They have the mature colored look, the bacteria, but lack all the extra sponges and stuff like that. I will also be getting 15lbs of gulf ocean sand to complete the look of the region and all the fun microorganisms that come with it. Scape wise I kind of want to do a two island scape style like below or maybe just do a long island scape depends on the rocks that I get. I might also do a single island but still have the two "bays" that the two island scape shown below has.

 

Livestock

Gulf of Mexico is the theme and Florida coast is the "region" that the tank will emphasize on, more specifically (like most of my tanks) a more near shore with some macroalgae tank. The big thing I want for this tank is a sponge, some tunicates/sea squirts and maybe oysters. I guess I can dream can't I? Besides that it is mainly a single gorg, maybe some patches of zoas and just macros and the filter feeders. Maybe try some Seahorse Savvy pipefish too...who knows

[CD_Scapes]

Thought I would give a monthly update on the tank and an update on the future of the upgrade tank. First off, the tank won't be upgraded. I will stick with UNS for this tank as the macro/gorg tank. I could see this tank maybe evolving into maybe a reef with just some hayi macroalgae spread out as complements to the potential coral tank. That being said I did get a 25 gallon tank, I got the Mr.Aqua cube and the reason being I like the more compact dimensions and the fact that it is a true 25 gallons. I don't care that it is normal glass or that you can see my heater, it kind of gives a sense of reality and I don't mind it. The plan is to make the cube a FW tank and build the UNS a slot in the stand of the 25 cube so I still have two tanks on one stand. I might even say screw it and make the 25 the reef now that I think about it. Bigger volume/height = more room for gorgs, more stability, more room for fish and other stuff like that. I got new stuff for the UNS with my birthday money that has been settling in. I got a pack of red macro and hayi from Gulf ecosystem as well as 3 green whip gorgs from Foxxy tropical, I ran into a problem of having TOO much macro so I gave a lot away and then started to dose NO as I was seeing a few stanrds of brown algae with bubbles at the tips (possible dino). So far I haven't see more growth from them after dosing so I might have missed that (very happy).  Here is the FTS before I removed the excess macro and then the final Nov FTS

Right after I added the all the macro and the gorgs, little did I know that I would zero out on levels for nearly a week and dinos started to form.

 

Here is after I trimmed (thats why there are fragments everywhere) the sides are less clustered and the two islands are more visible with the path down the center.

 

Now here is after I moved one of the gorgs and organized the tank a bit more. This is the December FTS as well, not much changed I did up the blue spectrum a bit for the red macros. I will be picking up the wood for my stand this weekend as well as getting  pygmy filefish (finally) today from work. I think I will try to make the 25 cube have 2 islands too, should be easy enough as I achieved it with only 10" of depth, the width is the same so just building more depth and height.

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

Looks beautiful!! 

[A.m.P]

 Great use of that tank's height, looks fantastic.

[CD_Scapes]

Got the stand and all figured out (for the most part) still need to paint and panel it, but I would it turned out all right. I am in the long run with this tank as I am waiting for some extra $$$ for live rock from KP aquatics. So the tank might not even get wet until like Febuary...yay so exciting 

I might move the other pixie 30 LED onto the tank so I have 2 lights and better spread. For now the one light works as a "placeholder", also going to get rid of the aqueon filter to get an XP aqua skimmer box as well as 2 of the Archaea 50 watt heaters and put one on each side of the skimmer box...might even get two Jeboa SLW-10s or Hygger wavemakers for flow. 

The UNS as of late looks like diatoms part 2 are at work. I guess it is a waiting game for this tank and I will move stuff over to the 25 once it's ready

 

[CD_Scapes]

Potentially getting either the live rock next paycheck (start of Jan) or the XP aqua skimmer box. Really wanting galaxaura so that might be this week but who knows, I did get my black background film so I can do that today and maybe paint the stand as well

[CD_Scapes]

So kinda of a life update, the 25 gallon is still going strong but it will be the ONLY tank I will have (besides a little 2.6G FW shrimp tank on my desk). I sold off all the UNS live stock as well as the tank/stand it’s self. I am giving the 5 gallon portrait to my friend for her betta tank on Friday as well. A bit of a change, but it was a necessary change as I will be moving to Bemidji in May/June so that’s going to be a fun time (I hope). Looking at internships and or research projects as well. I’m 2nd full semester of online and it’s really not as bad as I thought. I do miss all the football, hockey, soccer, and baseball games though. 

 

Besides all of that I have nearly all the equipment I need for the tank besides a 2nd inkbird for my other heater and then I should be all ready (pending getting stable temps). Ordering more salt, flatworm exit for the macros, 20 lbs ocean direct sand and a 5 gallon ATO reservoir from BRS. I will get rock from addictive reef keeping, 45lbs for $75 is too good of a deal to pass up on.
 

livestock is really up in the air, maybe go for more “nano” fish and clown pair as opposed to like 4 big fish. Who knows, all I really know is that I want a two island scape and macros are 100% locked in. An acessor would be dope to have but coming in at like $120+shipping isn’t so fun.