Snow's 10G Critters of Chaos (TOTM)

[Snow_Phoenix]

After identifying these issues, I began working on solving them one by one - except for the algae/aiptasia combo. 

 

1. I fragged the monti frag. Basically had to completely remove the middle section before the STN spreads, but I did manage to spare the bottom of the monti (attached to the plug) and the forked tips, which I later glued into a LR crevice. 

 

 

2. I decided to slowly & carefully scrape off the clove polyps from the Zoa Ledge using my fingernails. Had to be extremely careful because some of the palys are highly toxic, and the cloves actually grew *over the paly polyps. I still missed a clove polyp next to the Tricolor Nuclear Death palys, but it I think I'll leave it untouched for now because it is too close to the palys. 

 

 

3. I worked on transfering some microfauna from the fuge of my 60G to the nano - basically trying my best to manually seed the tank to increase the diversity of the system. 

 

I transfered a few limpets:

 

 

 

As well as beige microbrittles:

 

 

 

Which it isn't much, but I hope they'll eventually populate the tank. 

 

4. I also transfered a wad of macro consisting of 3 different types of caulerpa - grape, fern & cactus. The wad did come with a few microfauna of its own, including more microbrittles and some pods. 😊

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Once everything was settled, I topped up the tank with some conditioned tap water. I usually use Nutrafin as my conditioner for all of my tanks, so it's quite decent:

 

 

My tap water is actually DI. We have a large distiller on our side porch that filters all the water that is supplied to our house. It doesn't filter out chlorine efficiently though, which is why I add dechlorinator to all water (FW & SW) prior to adding them to my FW & SW tanks. 

 

During rainy/monsoon season, our local water department actually flushes more chlorine into the water treatment tanks, which is why most fishkeepers either double the dechlorinator dosage, or just wait a few more days before WCing our systems. 👍

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

I'm already seeing some return of color and minor growth on some pieces over the past 2 weeks, after I resumed weekly WCs as opposed to one WC every 5 to 6 weeks. I wager the others will take a longer time to bounce back, and are still either discolored or has retracted polyps/flesh. 

 

Regrowth & recovery Part 1:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(The white-blue balance is off in some pics - sorry about that! Was toying around with my phone's camera settings. 😅)

[Snow_Phoenix]

Regrowth & Recovery Part 2:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pico peeking:

 

 

You can see injured/bleached/regressed areas of some pieces in the pics above too. I think I'll keep up with the WCs, dosing & maintenance, and see how it'll go. The forest fire digi is quite resilient, so I'm not too worried about it. 

 

Hoping to hit my primary LFS in a week or two. It's already October! 😊

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Took a few FTSes of the nano just now:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also took a quick FTV. 😊

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CUe1gI1p8Oc/?utm_medium=copy_link

[Snow_Phoenix]

Pavona exactly a year ago, on 01/10/20:

 

 

Pavona today on 01/10/2021:

 

 

^The paler part in the second pic is the area where the coral broke off from the part that had encrusted to the back wall. 😅

 

Still amazed by the overall growth of this piece though! 🥰

[debbeach13]

Those full tank shots are like a rainbow of color. Awesome!

[Snow_Phoenix]

29 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

Those full tank shots are like a rainbow of color. Awesome!

Thanks, Deb! Hoping to acquire more tiny frags to add a splash of further color. Managed to save up a bit more today to go reef shopping soon. 

[Critteraholic]

[Snow_Phoenix]

Throwback to when I once had a Montihat. I miss it so much! 😭

 

 

 

 

Also, the original 2.6G picoreef which was the precursor to this nano. Can you spot which corals I still have until now? 👀

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Three quick shots of Harvey the saron shrimp in the nano today:

 

 

 

 

Also, baby yuma has developed a neon green center and some super tiny translucent bubbles! 

 

 

Can't wait for the 'lil guy to grow up into another big shroom like momma shroom. 😊

[Snow_Phoenix]

Good night from Pico. 🥰

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Today morning, I decided to eradicate one of the aiptasia - mainly the one nestled between the GHA at the bottom of the blue hairy shroom rock. 

 

My original plan was to remove the rock to a separate bucket, zap the aiptasia with some concentrated boiling vinegar using a syringe, then quickly peroxide dip just that tiny bit of rock that has GHA (not the whole rock, because of the shroom). 

 

I'm glad that I actually double checked the rock when I pulled it out of the water. Hidden on the underside of the rock, quite close to the GHA-aiptasia patch was a purple sponge. 😰

 

And half an inch away from that sponge was a second shroom - a hitchiker green-speckled red discosoma that I presumed perished a long time ago. 

 

So change of plans, I simply glued over the aiptasia (which left an unsightly white blob, but that couldn't be helped), then used my frag cutters to try and scrape off/yank out as much of the GHA as possible:

 

 

The shroom was quite pissed to be out of the water for quite a bit, and I couldn't remove all the GHA, but at least the aiptasia has been smothered. 👍

 

I worked on rescuing an unknown freebie monti & my microgoni next. 

 

The microgoni had receded quite badly because there were some vermetid snails irritating it around the edges. So I crushed the vermetids, but the coral still looked quite unhealthy. 😕

 

As for freebie monti, a part of it was stung quite badly by my yuma and had died off, so I trimmed off the dead edges. 

 

Ended up dipping both pieces in concentrated iodine with a bit of Vit. C for ~10 mins:

 

 

 

^Sorry for the weird colors; was using an orange lens filter instead of a yellow one. 😅

 

After the dip, I returned the microgoni back to its original place in the tank, but I shifted the freebie monti to a rock at the back, next to the Zoa Ledge. 

 

My cyano issues seem to be dwindling a bit - I'm now making an effort to stir up the sandbed & baste the rocks/SPS corals once every 2 to 3 days. 

 

I think if I keep up with the WCs and frequent minor maintenances, I can significantly reduce the cyano's coverage. That, and occassionally seeding the tank with macroalgae & microfauna pulled out from the fuge of my 60G. 🤔

 

Back to other things, the lil' yuma has stretched even further and should detach from the parent shroom in ~1 week, if all goes well. 😊

 

 

Chili pepper monti with retracted polyps (this pic was taken early in the morning, when the light had *just been turned on, so PE is minimal). I think it's growth is being hampered a *lot by the tiny patch of John Deeres, but I'm not sure. I like the combo of both corals side by side though! 😅

 

 

Also believe these are AOGs:

 

 

I've decided to rebuild my Zoa & Paly collection, but I'll start out slow first. The Garden needs more variety. 👀 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Blue hairy shroom has finally stopped sulking! 😊

 

 

 

My GSP wall never quite took off, so this is all I have evidently. 😅

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Pico:

 

 

 

 

 

^Pic came out too dark - ISO was too high. Still messing with manually adjusting my settings - am not very good at it, but I'll keep trying/learning! 😅

 

Sasha:

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Tentatively heading down to primary LFS tomorrow, if all goes well. Will pick up a few things for both tanks. 

[Critteraholic]

I so miss my TSB.  😔 I have a pico and got dinos. They started wiping out my tank in the snap of your fingers. No fishies left. Broke my heart. 😢  But after watching your oh-so-cute TSB Pico made me decide to try again after what's left is visibly recovered. He looks sooo sweet!

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 hour ago, Critteraholic said:

I so miss my TSB.  😔 I have a pico and got dinos. They started wiping out my tank in the snap of your fingers. No fishies left. Broke my heart. 😢  But after watching your oh-so-cute TSB Pico made me decide to try again after what's left is visibly recovered. He looks sooo sweet!

Yep, TSBs are absolutely adorable! I don't regret getting mine. Sorry to hear about the dinos. That sucks. 😔

[Snow_Phoenix]

Went reef shopping at my primary LFS today afternoon. Picked up 11 frags (Zoas, Palys & Shrooms) and a tiny new guy. 😅

 

 

Who is dis? 😅

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CUm45OlrpJD/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

I dipped all the corals, and a flatworm popped out, as well as a stomatella snail. 

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CUm5GSQrBY-/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

Flushed the flatworm, but kept the stomatella. 😊

 

 

 

Most of the acquisitions this round were shrooms though. 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

I know some of these pics are terrible, but here is the new shroom line up in the right side of the tank! 😅

 

 

 

This shroom was called forest fire:

 

 

Not sure what this discosoma is called, but it has yellow bumps and a green base:

 

 

Violet rhodactis:

 

 

Tricolor rhodactis:

 

 

Teal blue on the far right, standard bicolored orange rhodactis on the far left:

 

 

Each of these shrooms were quite large & spread out at the store. My hopes is that once they adapt to the tank, they'll spread open and overlap each other a *bit. 

 

BME, discosomas & rhodactises are fine side by side, but yumas can only be kept with other yumas (they'll sting & melt everything else). 🤔

[Snow_Phoenix]

The four new Zoa & Paly frags were glued to the Zoa Ledge. The LA Lakers is a freebie, but will take a while to open. I can't recall what was the third frag I picked. 😕

 

But the other two were Gold Mauls & Red Hornets:

 

 

 

 

 

I'll try to recollect the Pink Hippos, Purple Hornets, Fairy Dust, Blue Agaves, Utter Chaos, Orange Bam Bams, Midas, Eagle Eyes, Radioactive Dragon Eyes etc. in the future. 

 

Will try to pick up a few from the list above in December. 

 

Believe it or not, I actually picked all of these up within a very tight budget. My primary LFS has always been good to me, and they do treat their older customers very well. This is why I truly missed it during the lockdown. 😔

 

But now that we're slowly improving, I'm happy that we can travel between districts again, so I can support the store as much as possible again. 😊

[Snow_Phoenix]

I named the new lil' guy Sunny. He's actually an orange skunk clown, not a pink one. I ended up trading my damsel in at the store today - mostly because I was afraid it'll kill my blenny when I re-add it to the tank. 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunny's around 1.5". My other clown, Sasha, is around 2++" and thicker. 

 

So far, Sunny seems to be fitting in well. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

It did take a few mins. for them to get used to each other, but tentatively, they both seem to be getting along. Skunk clowns are a bit...weird. Since they undulate as they swim normally, the smaller skunk will simply undulate harder & faster when they submit to the larger one - no twitching-jerking like in Occys or Perculas. 😅

 

 

 

 

 

 

An orange skunk & pink skunk are actually 2 different species, so any attempt at pairing needs to be monitored carefully. 

 

I'm capping it at these 3 fish, and will resume concentrating on my maintenance routine until December (or late Nov.), when I have a chance to go reef shopping again. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Coral list on the front page has been updated. Zoa/Paly morph has been increased to 30 as of today, and Mushroom Varieties have been increased to 18, as of today. 

Total overall morph/variety count has been increased to 77. 

 

I'm thinking of trading in some of my forest fire digi sticks in the future to make room for a small orange setosa (saw 2 frags at the store, am willing to try keeping them again) and possibly a radioactive green birdsnest. Millis hate me, so I'll be avoiding those. Would love, love to to do a small red cap, but there's no room for it to plate out, so I can't do the piece any justice in this tank. However, a tiny encrusting monti *might do (?) 🤔

A little bit undecided on this one. I want to focus more on the Zoa & Shroom Gardens than sticks, actually. 

Still haven't 100% committed myself to chipping off my rainbow & yellow yuma from the LR of my 60G and transfer it over to the nano. Maybe (?) I'll get to doing it. (Or maybe not)

[debbeach13]

Wow that was a successful trip! I hope all the new corals and the fish do great.