Snow's 10G Critters of Chaos (TOTM)

[Snow_Phoenix]

Banded trochus snail hard at work at cleaning up the algae in the nano. 💦

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 minute ago, BioReefed said:

Obviously I have not read the whole journey, but I have a question. How often and what do you dose on your tank? 

I dose kH, Calcium & Magnesium buffers everyday (in the evening, right before turning off the pumps to feed the tank) manually. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Managed to do the weekly WC today. I shuffled around some pieces though, and trimmed off both a green-spotted red discosoma and blue hairy shroom from a branching LR piece before moving them over to Mushroom Mountain. Also trimmed down more GSP and moved my green acans next to my rainbow acans. 

 

The tank's quite crankly atm, but things should perk up by tomorrow. 

 

I think I'll try to pick up another snail and halloween hermit (if available) at the LFS the next time I visit. 

 

I still haven't picked up a new Saron shrimp, but I'll definitely keep an eye out for one. 

 

I'll post pics once everything has settled down. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Geralt of Nanoreefia. 🦀

 

 

Most of the SPS is coloring back up nicely. 😊

 

 

 

 

But the Pavona and lepto still remains partially retracted. 🤔

 

 

 

John Deere leptastrea:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

The acans are very happy in their new spot:

 

 

Duncan (ISO too low so the shot came out too bright ) :

 

 

 

Jim the hermit rescaped my shrooms and moved my Interstellar shroom to the front. 😅

 

 

The Zoa Garden:

 

 

 

There are empty patches on the ledges which I intend to fill up with Zoa Morphs in the future. Will probably try to recollect the various Hornet types. 💦

[Sharbuckle]

1 hour ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

The acans are very happy in their new spot:

 

 

Duncan (ISO too low so the shot came out too bright ) :

 

 

 

Jim the hermit rescaped my shrooms and moved my Interstellar shroom to the front. 😅

 

 

The Zoa Garden:

 

 

 

There are empty patches on the ledges which I intend to fill up with Zoa Morphs in the future. Will probably try to recollect the various Hornet types. 💦

I really love these top down shots, tank looks quite happy! 

[Snow_Phoenix]

5 minutes ago, Sharbuckle said:

I really love these top down shots, tank looks quite happy! 

Thank you! 🌺

[Snow_Phoenix]

My new lens clamp arrived this evening:

 

 

Best part: it can fit my previous DD filter lenses! 😅

[Snow_Phoenix]

The GSP patch seems popular today:

 

 

Little kenya tree is finally standing up. 👍

 

 

 

Trumpet coral heads are puffy:

 

 

Pavona and lepto looking better today:

 

 

 

Acans:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Rainbow brain has recovered very well:

 

 

Ironman discosomas:

 

 

Skittles discosoma:

 

 

Purple discosoma:

 

 

Cloves popping up amidst the zoas:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Various types of zoas & palys in the Zoa Garden:

 

 

 

 

 

FTS today on 19/05/23:

 

 

 

 

(Some corals have retracted a little because I accidently dropped pellets on them - was aiming for the hermits. 🦀)

[Snow_Phoenix]

Various topview shots of the nano today:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Mushroom Mountain:

 

 

 

 

 

Jim the hermit. 🦀

 

 

Took some better FTSes today:

 

 

 

[debbeach13]

Your tank pictures are so inspiring. You have skills! In keeping corals and taking pictures.

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 hour ago, debbeach13 said:

Your tank pictures are so inspiring. You have skills! In keeping corals and taking pictures.

Thanks! 😅

[Snow_Phoenix]

Reefing may not be easy, but it is truly rewarding. 🥰

 

 

 

 

Jim the hermit busy foraging for some algae. 🦀

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Forgot to update yesterday: my neon green kenya tree detached itself from the LR. I finally located it hidden behind my rainbow brain coral (most likely swept there by the flow), but I'm unsure on how to *stick it back to the rocks. 😕

 

My best bet is to wedge it into a crevice somewhere and hopefully it'll stick by itself over time. Trouble is, I couldn't find a suitable crevice in the nano that will safely host the coral. Don't get me wrong - the tank has many tiny crevices here and there, but most of these are either too small/large, or too close to other existing corals.

 

I also need to trim off a section of the forest fire digi that has branched out too close to my pavona. And maybe stick my purple rhodactis to Mushroom Mountain, instead of letting it get flipped over by my hermits every single night. 🤔

Quite a fair bit of tweaking needs to be done. The next WC is scheduled in 2+ days. Tank is relatively clean with a bit of film algae coating the glass. Jim the halloween hermit has successfully eradicated pockets of GHA throughout the tank, but a few stubborn patches still remain. 

 

I think I'll try to get some light tank maintenance done tomorrow. 🙂 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Years ago, I seeded the sandbed with cherry red spaghetti worms to increase microfauna diversity in the tank. Check out how large this one has grown over all that time! 😁

 

 

 

 

 

The pics were taken at night, hence the poor quality of the images - sorry! 😅

[Lebowski_]

That is super cool. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

4 hours ago, Lebowski_ said:

That is super cool. 

Indeed! I had no idea they could grow so large. I only see them pop up at night though! 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Today was coral fragging/swapping around day! Geralt was not a happy camper though. 😅

 

 

And luckily not all of the corals were angry at the shuffling:

 

 

 

 

I moved the giant branching rock covered in hairy shrooms to the back right corner of the tank. Mostly to create more space for my rainbow brain coral to expand:

 

 

I also shifted my green acans nearer to my ironman discosomas since there was an empty spot over there:

 

 

A lot of pieces were shrunken during these pics. Not only because I moved them around, but because I cleaned up the tank (partially) and replaced the media. Managed to siphon out a few red flatworms too, using a small plastic pipette. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

I trimmed off a forest fire branch from this patch:

 

 

And re-glued it next to the other orange sticks:

 

 

Mostly because it was branching out too close to my pavona, and the base of it was slowly being overtaken by my chili pepper monti. 

 

I also re-glued my meteor shower cyphastrea to opposing areas of the tank:

 

 

 

And slowly glued the tiny piece of rubble my interstellar shroom was on to the branching rock:

 

 

Sad to report that my SunnyD cluster has pretty much melted away for some reason. 😭

 

 

Although a few polyps remain at the base, and my trumpet coral is reasonably healthy, I think I'll try to recreate the cluster-fusion effect using  VID zoas in the future. 🤔

[Snow_Phoenix]

I tried to recreate an overlap effect of my gold spotted discosomas (akin to my superman discosomas), but more time is needed before the effect can be seen:

 

 

I also glued my purple rhodactis next to my orange rhodactis, and as you can see - pissed off everything on that rock. 😅

 

 

I managed to reposition my free floating green kenya tree near my Zoa Garden, but I'm unsure if it'll take root. 

 

There was another pressing issue. One of the independent branches of my duncan coral (which split into 2 heads a while back) was shadowed by the other main heads and had regressed very badly. 😕

 

There's barely any flesh left on those 2 heads, but I managed to cut it off, stick it to a loose piece of rubble and position the frag in a more suitable area in the tank:

 

 

I'm not too optimistic over its recovery, but I figured I'd try nonetheless. 

 

I also reposition my UC & rasta morphs on the main Zoa Ledge to help it grow out better:

 

 

I'm tentatively planning on WCing the tank tomorrow (or the day after). 👍

[debbeach13]

You were very busy! I am sure it will great once everyone adjusts to their new surroundings.

[Snow_Phoenix]

44 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

You were very busy! I am sure it will great once everyone adjusts to their new surroundings.

Yeah, I felt up to it today, so I thought of getting a few things done - albeit quickly. I miss having fish in this tank though. It's 55 days since I've gone fallow. Need to wait for another month or so before I could reconsider fish for this.