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Lights are out for the night. The pink coralline algae still looks very bright:

 

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To meet the demands of various corals in the nano, I manually dose kH, Ca & Mg on a daily basis, Vit. C & Iodine on a weekly basis, and Amino Acids once a fortnight. 

 

Corals are fed a mix. of phyto, zooplankton, reef roids, cyclops, rotifers & copepods once a week. The larger LPS are usually target fed chopped pieces of frozen shrimp, and the smaller LPS are target fed either mysis or brine. 😊👍

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I think I might just end up retaining Pico in this tank. He's constantly up and about, and seems to have adapted really well to the nano. And he doesn't nip my SPS either! 😊

 

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Bright green yuma (possibly radioactive green) :

 

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These two actually make an amazing team. They're quite peaceful and mellow. 

 

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I'm actually hesitating about re-adding my damsel to this tank in the upcoming weeks. The dynamics will most likely shift again, and I don't know if both my clown & blenny will be scared into hiding. 😕

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Will be adding a small nori strip to the tank. Pico's belly appears a bit pinched to me. 🤔

 

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The duncan is growing its sixth head & the yuma appears to be splitting though! 😊

 

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Harvey lounging on the wavemaker:

 

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Hitchiker purple sponge:

 

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Decided to take a few quick pics this morning without the yellow filter lens. Everything is darker and bluer than normal, so I hope that's okay. 🤐

 

Garf bonsai:

 

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Ironman shroom:

 

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Pico and Shrimpy:

 

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Just Pico: 

 

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Today is actually supposed to be the weekly WC day. Will try to keep up with it, otherwise I'll push it to tomorrow. 

 

Also will be switching back to Fritz once my Aquaforest runs out. With Fritz, I actually saw quicker growth & more intense coloring in my corals, so I believe this is the best salt mix for *this tank. Aquaforest is more suited for my large FOWLR, even though I'm using the Aquaforest Reef Salt. 👍

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Definitely didn't get around to WCing the tank this morning. But (!) I did manage to scrape the glass, baste the rocks, stir up the sandbed, replace the floss and carbon - and basically perform some much needed routine maintenance. Also crushed several vermetid snails. My pavona was originally encrusted to the back wall of the tank, but I accidently bumped the rock it was on a little while crushing the vermetids, so the part which was encrusted to the wall snapped off. But thankfully the mini colony is otherwise intact - phew!

 

I noticed I have two tiny aiptasia that have popped up in this tank. One used to be under the pavona, but it seems to have moved elsewhere. Another one is about 1" or so under my blue hairy shroom. Luckily that shroom rock is isolated, so it can be removed from the tank very easily. I'll try to get the rock into a separate bucket, zap the aiptasia with some concentrated vinegar, then rinse the whole rock in a separate bucket full of tank water, and then return it to the DT. Should be easy enough. 

 

I need to cut out the necessary mesh pieces to be attached to my lid to cover the gaps. The tissue-plugs are a bit unsightly. 

 

The fish and shrimp are doing fine though! 🙂

 

Also, my war with cyano still continues. I've discovered some of previously-perished coral pieces slowly growing back. They're super small and might vanish eventually, but I truly hope they can regrow. As for now, I'm slowly going to save up for a 25kg box of Fritz salt. I think...I already have half of what is needed to acquire the box. Might take another two months or more to save up for the full amount. (If I'm truly lucky, and can make some sales during the downtime, then I can collect the leftover cash within less than 2 months).

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Finally got around to fixing my janky second lid just now. Phew! ☺

 

1. Measured and cut out the new mesh pieces after peeling off the old ones: 

 

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2. I had to weigh down the new mesh pieces using my buffer bottles to let it dry completely:

 

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3. Once it was dry, I realized the tiniest mesh piece on the far left needed to be *trimmed in one corner so that it has a quarter circle/quadrant shape - mostly to *fit around the rounded edge of my HOB's intake pipe:

 

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4. After the trim, everything finally fits - yay! 😊

 

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That should cover most of the gaps. There is still a super tiny gap behind the HOB lid, between the HOB & the back wall. I'm not sure how to go about covering it...maybe put a tiny decorative seashell over the super tiny hole? 🤔

 

I don't think a wad of tissue can even fit that tiny gap, but my blenny is small & slender. Just worried he'll get spooked someday and find that one miserable hole hidden there. 

 

Otherwise, for now, the dual janky lids work. 👍

 

If I'm up to it, I'll try to WC this tank today evening. Since I did most of the heavy maintenance yesterday, it looks relatively clean - so all I need to do is change the water. 😊👍

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Took a few quick shots of the tank today evening after the feeding session. The blastos next to the Paly Tower is taking an awfully long time to regrow, so I'm not sure if it'll make a comeback. The Tower itself is doing quite well otherwise:

 

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Baby duncan is developing a teeny skirt! 😅

 

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Rainbow brain looking puffy:

 

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Weeping willow toadstool: 

 

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Big yuma, tiny yuma. 😊

 

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Christmas favia:

 

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Finally completed my 8G WC during late evening. Pico, unfortunately, was trapped in a hole when I drained the tank. He was without water for several minutes, and for a horrifying moment, I truly did think I lost him. 😔

 

I managed to 'flush' his hole with fresh SW so he eventually popped out of the LR, but was barely alive. He was completely upside down and his gills were moving sluggishly. 😔

 

I quickly re-filled the tank with new SW and turned on the pump to max. to increase aeration. Because I rushed, I didn't quite mix the SW very well, so there is a layer of undissolved salt particles caking everything. 

 

Roughly an hour after this stressful WC, I checked up on the tank and was glad to find Pico almost back to normal:

 

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I'm so glad he's okay, even though he appears a bit stressed out. 

 

Vigilance is key when owning tiny nanofish (especially blennies) that have a habit of diving *into the rockwork for cover when they feel threatened. So I'll try my best to be more careful the next time I WC the tank - basically make sure both fish are out in the open, along the sandbed and very much visible, before draining the tank. 👍

 

Tank is otherwise okay. I'm slowly trying to bring it back on schedule, starting with weekly 4G or 8G WCs. I've already established a fixed manual dosing & feeding routine, but I'll try to do multiple basic routine maintenances along the way. 

 

My hopes is to eventually eradicate the cyano through persistent manual cleaning & WCs, and also increase the diversity in the tank. I think I'll transfer some tiny limpets & microbrittles from the sump of my 60G FOWLR to this tank. And perhaps take a small handful of macro from the fuge of that system (which is rich in microfauna), and add it to the corners of the nano, next to the cloves. 

 

I have no desire to use chemicals such as chemiclean, which can be quite detrimental (albeit effective) in such a small system. Plus, my cyano issues aren't *that bad - it's just a few unsightly patches here and there. 🤷‍♀️

 

Thinking of purchasing & adding a second turban snail as CUC - my current one needs back up.

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Breaking the following update into 2 to 3 posts. 👍

 

Today afternoon, I decided to perform some further maintenance in the tank. There were several issues with this nano that caught my eye today:

 

1. Main forest fire digi frag STNing in the middle. I was quite surprised to see more lost flesh on the frag this morning, and along a *vertical section in the *middle of the frag, to boot. 😕

 

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2. I checked up on the blastos. While the grayish-bluish blastos seem to be bouncing back, I'm not certain that the red ones will because it appears awfully shrunken. Perhaps more time is needed to see if it can regrow...? 🤔

 

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3. The clove polyps on the Zoa Ledge look pretty, but have begun to grow over some of the zoas & palys, including my butt munchers. They have become quite invasive. 

 

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4. There is still a lingering patch of cyano on the stalks of some cloves near the sandbed, and on the sandbed itself. Was pretty sure I siphoned out most of the cyano yesterday during the WC, but I must have missed this patch. 🤔

 

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5. The aiptasia is rooted right next to a patch of GHA on the blue hairy shroom rock. I can't remove the algae without killing the aiptasia yet, so I left both the nem & algae alone for now. 

 

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  • Snow_Phoenix changed the title to Snow's 10G Critters of Chaos (TOTM)

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