Snow's 10G Critters of Chaos (TOTM)

[Snow_Phoenix]

The Zoa Garden. 😊

 

Overall view:

 

 

 

A closer look:

 

 

 

 

The colors are a bit dull in this shot because of the angle and my hand shades the blue (but not white) LEDs overhead:

 

 

^The polyps are actually much more colorful and *not brown. Been trying my best to get a proper pic of these two ledges, but no matter how I position my hand or phone, it always comes out either too whitish or too bluish. 😕

 

[Nano sapiens]

Quite a Zoa assortment!  Whenever I've tried to put that many different Zoas together inevitably just 2 or 3 types have taken over all the real estate over time.

[Snow_Phoenix]

5 hours ago, Nano sapiens said:

Quite a Zoa assortment!  Whenever I've tried to put that many different Zoas together inevitably just 2 or 3 types have taken over all the real estate over time.

Thanks! I do have certain morphs that try to grow 'over' others. But I tend to frag off those polyps to keep them in check. Any excess polyps are usually either transferred out to my 60G or given to my LFS. 👍

 

I noticed my Purple Monsters are aggressive in terms of growth. 🤔

[Snow_Phoenix]

Christmas favia up close:

 

 

 

Bubbly yuma:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Just a few bullseye rhodactises: 

 

 

[aclman88]

On 7/17/2022 at 12:37 AM, Snow_Phoenix said:

Thanks! I do have certain morphs that try to grow 'over' others. But I tend to frag off those polyps to keep them in check. Any excess polyps are usually either transferred out to my 60G or given to my LFS. 👍

 

I noticed my Purple Monsters are aggressive in terms of growth. 🤔

How do you go about fragging them?

[Reefkid88]

That bullseye looks INCREDIBLE !!! 

[lakshwadeep]

Beautiful tank! It's always awesome to see the colors from above.

[Snow_Phoenix]

6 hours ago, aclman88 said:

How do you go about fragging them?

Just by gently trimming off a tiny piece of rock the polyp is attached to - I use bone cutters (which looks like tiny garden clippers). If I'm careful enough, a whole mat of polyps can be peeled off the rock at a go. I try my best not to accidently squish any of the polyps, but accidents do happen and I usually try to siphon out any resulting brown goo using a pipette, as quickly as possible. It does help that I run excess carbon in this tank - always. 👍

 

5 hours ago, Reefkid88 said:

That bullseye looks INCREDIBLE !!! 

Thank you! I absolutely love the intensity of the red it has. 🥰

 

2 hours ago, lakshwadeep said:

Beautiful tank! It's always awesome to see the colors from above.

Thanks! It's riddled with film algae atm though, and in dire need of a WC. Plus, the system is still recovering so some coral colors look drab and way off. 😕

[Snow_Phoenix]

Bubbly yuma. 🥰

 

 

Replaced all the media in the filter and cleaned up as much of the algae as I could this afternoon. I'm a little tired, but if I feel better in a few hours, I'll do a WC. If not, I'll push it to tomorrow. 

 

The browned out valida is finally showing mild hints of green, but PE is still virtually non-existent. 😕

 

Some coral colors are still off and some polyps are shrunken, but overall, tank is otherwise in okay-shape. Pickle the clownfish keeps biting my rainbow brain coral. It has lost another small chunk of flesh (again!). 🤦‍♀️

 

I'll monitor her behavior. If she proves too aggressive and persistent in her hosting, I'll try to separate them both somehow. Worst case scenario would be to permanently remove the coral and put it in my 60G, but I'm trying my best to avoid that. The rainbow brain is one of the main attractive points of this tank due to its colors, and I'd hate to lose it. 😕

 

There must be another way to stop her from harassing the coral, but I haven't quite figured it out yet. 🤔

[Snow_Phoenix]

Took a few pics. The garf bonsai atm:

 

 

 

A few shrunken, and possibly on-the-verge-of-melting away zoas: 😔

 

 

 

^At least the firestorms look good! 👍

 

This neon spongodes grows incredibly slowly in this tank, but I'm quite happy it's still here:

 

 

 

The messy SPS corner (give me chaos!) :

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Zoa Garden from above:

 

 

 

 

 

Harvey! 🥰 :

 

 

Fascination favia still looks like a wreck compared to the Christmas favia: 😕

 

 

Duncan from above:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Some cool critters for you guys today! 👀

 

Geralt mooching in the duncan. 🦀

 

 

 

 

Harvey scavenging the rocks for fallen pellets. 🦐

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

A random mix of corals for a change:-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

^So happy to see more hints of green and purple return to the valida too. 🥰

[Snow_Phoenix]

The Zoa Garden. 🥰

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think the Fire & Ice polyps are a goner though. So are the Blue Agaves, which have been extremely shrunken since the mini-crash. 😕

[Snow_Phoenix]

Mushroom Mountain. 🥰👍

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Tank is still waking up. Most of the shrooms are still shrunken, but their compressed forms make their unique colors stand out more:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, check out this 'bounce' green rhodactis in the bottom right corner! 👀

 

 

So weird! 🤐

[Snow_Phoenix]

Bubbly yuma:

 

 

Tiny baby yuma coming up! 🥰

 

 

Hungry acans:

 

 

Valida stick finally turning more purple:

 

 

Still nil PE on it though. 🤔

[Snow_Phoenix]

Pavona rippling up:

 

 

Duncan with 12+ heads:

 

 

Yuma pile:

 

 

Red fungia with full PE:

 

 

Leptos:

 

 

Merlettis:

 

 

Sunny Ds and neon green trumpet coral:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Pickle the clownfish. 🥰

 

 

 

Palys and Zoas:

 

 

Overall topview of the Zoa Garden:

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

A closer look at various Zoas and Palys in the garden:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How many morphs do you see? 👀

[Snow_Phoenix]

I'll be moving this weeping willow out to my 60G soon because it has grown too large for this tank, and has begun to shade a lot of corals underneath it:

 

 

 

 

Truly sad to see such a wonderful piece go, but leathers tend to do alright in my larger reeftank, so I *think this piece will be fine in time. 👍

 

My valida has turned mud-brown again (just when I saw progress! 🤦‍♀️) and I admit I'm a bit frustrated with it. However, I noticed some mild green PE today on the stick, including on the bare area which was fragged off, so I believe there is still some hope left for it:

 

 

 

 

Some of the corals are still lackluster and not fully back to their original hues yet. It's been around ~2 weeks since the mini-crash, so I guess more time, patience and WCs will be needed to drag things back on track. 🤔

[Snow_Phoenix]

I see some purple coming back in: 👀

 

 

Pavona:

 

 

Shrooms squished together:

 

 

 

Trumpet coral heads between Sunny D polyps:

 

 

Leptoseris:

 

Harvey the Saron shrimp. 🥰

 

 

 

Pickle the clownfish: 🥰

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

The Zoa Garden: 🥰

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like how much the green leptastreaon the sandbed has colored up too. That piece is rather finnicky. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Had a somewhat disastrous WC yesterday. Ended up replacing 12G of SW for this tank - 8G first, refill to full, then replace 4G and refill again. My concentration was off and I caved in to exhaustion. I kept mis-mixing my SW and my salinity was fluctuating because I didn't mix the water well. 😔

 

So today, I finally saw the after-effects of my mistakes yesterday. My ruined pavona:

 

 

Slightly shrunken shroom:

 

 

Slightly discolored ironman shroom and zoas (lackluster and less vibrant than before) :

 

 

 

 

At least my fish and inverts were more tolerant of the swings in both salinity, and presumably Alk. Here's Geralt on the duncan: 🦀

 

 

Speedy the damsel:

 

 

Might wind up losing that large pavona piece though. 😭

 

Really, really should not have WCed the tank yesterday when I was already tired. I also spilled SW all over the carpet of my bedroom, left patches all over the flooring etc. By the time I was done trying to correct the salinity of the tank and cleaning up my room & bathroom, it was 4.30pm. And I started WCing my tank in the morning! 😔