fenderchamp's 3.5 gal bow front

[fenderchamp]

[fenderchamp]

[fenderchamp]

[fenderchamp]

[fenderchamp]

[fenderchamp]

this guy is growing pretty rapidly these days, compare him to 20 days ago or so in the last post he's probably spread out another 1/8 of an inch on the side he's spreading out. 

 

 

 

Full tanks shot, It received target feeding of reef chili earlier today, 1 mil live phyto and 1 mil AB+ amino acids this morning when it was still dark.  the front glass was cleaned (lolz best thing you can do to enhance coral colors, and got maybe 3quarts of new water.  The tank seemed to be glowing so pix were taken.

 

 

the zoas all are mostly open.

 

 

Baby Duncan heads continue to sprout. 

 

[fenderchamp]

the crabs were showing off, so they got photgraphed.

 

 

 

grr! there was another one stepping out too, I zapped them both with aphasia X right after this picture was shot.  Of course that made a nice mess in the tank.   I think it will get the %100 w/c in a few days in any case.  I seem to get a couple 4 of these guys or so every month, I wish the crabs would start eating them. 

 

[Poliwag]

You're using a nero3 on a 3.5 gallon? How's that working out for you?

[fenderchamp]

Just now, Poliwag said:

You're using a nero3 on a 3.5 gallon? How's that working out for you?

It's on 1%.  It's overkill.  But I like the way it looks, and I like the bluetooth.

[fenderchamp]

It looks like this little gold hammer has split into 3 heads.  It seems like it's splitting for a while but, I think it's fair to say "it done split!".

 

On looking at the reef before lights on this morning, it was retracted enough to clearly see what has happened.

 

Lights come on 2PM-10PM,  The tank usually gets topped off with about 1/4 cup of freshwater from the goldfish tank and it's gets it 1ml each of 2 part 2LF-CBalance in the morning, and get's a quick inspection under incandescent light.

 

Front View

 

Side View

[fenderchamp]

 

I did a water change  and cleaned it today! 

 

The tank is just about 1 year old now. 

 

It continues to get it 1 ml of each part of Cbalance every day. I haven't been ripping it apart and cleaning it and changing all the water every week anymore, I've been doing probably 2 quarts of water a week in quarts and pints, removing the water with a turkey baster.   It's getting ripped apart and cleaned about every 3 weeks and I'm trying to keep a couple of quarts of the old water in the mix to try to get some nitrate,  It still doesn't really have much for nitrate in it.

 

I dump quite a bit of food in it, it's getting AB+, reef-chili, brine shrimp, Yellow Snow, pellets for the crapbs and live phyto in it , each one pretty much at lease once a week.  It was getting live phyto 2-3ml a day up until last week when I ran out.  I'm not seeing it getting overgrown with algae or anything, so presumably the tank is taking care of the inputs.

 

There are 3 blue leg hermits and 1 trochus snail in here now

 

I glued some rock onto the side of it and moved the yellow and orange zoo's on to it about a week ago, and I added that little green zoa frag at that time as well.  

 

the acan fell off the rock when I pulled the rock out of the water today, so I glued it up there too.  They were both getting shaded quite a bit by the Duncan so we'll see how they like the new spot.  both frags seem healthy enough, but maybe I can get some new mouths and polyps?

 

More aptasia seem to showing up all the time, I've been killing them with aptasia-x, but I feel like their numbers are steadily going up.  I think I've got a line on a nudibranch, I'm hoping to get him in the next week or so. 

 

As the tank ages and things start to fill in, I'm finding it more and more enjoyable and satisfying to keep.  I spend probably 10 minutes a day working on it plus 30-45 minutes every time I tear it down and clean it.  I'm hoping that nothing catastrophic happens and I'm excited to see what it continues to do.

 

 

Front view

 

Full tank from the front

 

side view ( the dirty glass is on the far side) doh.

 

from the back

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

Looking good! Love that Duncan!

[fenderchamp]

I think this thing is starting to grow onto the rock, there was rock there (on the frag plug) that was covered, but I broke it off and put it in my other little tank, so I glued another piece of rubble back onto the frag plug and I want to see if it will cover it up.  

 

 

 

 

this zoo is from the colony on the side of the rock, not the colony that is growing all over the top of rock next to it.  It found it's way through a cave.  I think the stalk must be (well this tank is tiny) 1 1/2-2'' long!! 

 

trochus patrolling the perimeter.   I've really grown fond of this snail. 

 

 

 

the meteor shower is growing pretty quickly.  It's mounted right on top of the rock, and then I read about how it likes shade, so I've been using a little piece of wax paper like a sunshade for it. It's polyps haven't really extended but it is encrusting the rocks around it so I'm hoping all is well. eventually I'd like to break off some of the pieces I glued around him and glue a couple down under the base of my Duncan coral who should give plenty of shade, and see how differently they act. 

 

 

and another new mouth! 

[fenderchamp]

And more Duncan heads

[fenderchamp]

Baby zoas

[Merthynia]

It’s so satisfying seeing new tiny coral heads peeking out! Looks like the tank is doing great so far!

[fenderchamp]

 

 

10 hours ago, Merthynia said:

It’s so satisfying seeing new tiny coral heads peeking out! Looks like the tank is doing great so far!

Thanks for the encouragment, it certainly seems to be thriving, but I've started to have some  issues with space and aggression 1. the hammer stung a little acans, and again the duncan stung the meteorite cyphastrea.  I've put up some little walls of coral rubble, but I think I'm going to have to something better.  I don't really want to rip anything apart, it seems like that would set the tank and it's inhabitants back a couple of months. 

 

 I recall @brandon429mentioning using some pieces cut off of 2 liter bottles maybe to use as barricades.  I'll have to do a search and look for that again.  

 

I

 

[brandon429]

My corals sit on those same little pieces of plastic trash planks I cut out with scissors as we speak, i use a lighter to heat bend the edge up and glue a magnet to it, then magnet the outside of the tank. = a new perch to fit in more corals since there’s no more live rock room. They work great as little wall dividers too, eventually they’ll break off and we have to reinstall but I’ve had some stay in place long enough to become part of the reef either by coralline or by coral takeover.  1/16th of my reef is trash plastic just like the real ocean 

 

 

your setup is looking great am jealous of that duncan there!

[Merthynia]

I am also jealous of the duncan! Haha, is there any way to adjust the flow so that it is gently pushing the duncan away from the cyphastrea? Hammers are much harder, I currently have 3 different hammers chilling on my sandbed since I'm so worried about having them go on a stinging rampage if I place them in the wrong spot.

[fenderchamp]

[fenderchamp]

Split again 

[fenderchamp]

[LazyFish]

So cute!!! Very good shot too.

My two anemone porcelain crab are very hard to get a picture of.

[fenderchamp]

Just added more rock in back and did my weekly 100%

 

The duncan coral is so predominant, and so far forward on the rock, as is the hammer, that I've decided to build up the back of the rock with other smallish chunks of rock and superglue.. I crunched up a couple of pieces of dead rock with a hammer about 4 weeks ago, boiled it, because it was pretty dirty and put it in a mesh back in the back of my AIO (constest tanks) filter.  I hoisted the cyphestria last week, but I don't think I wen't quite high enough, today about 20 minutes before the was taken I popped off the fireworks lepto glued down some more chunks of rock and reglued it.  The duncan is angry, hopefully not dangerously so.  

 

that's the long and short of my little construction/destruction project.

 

If you notice, by looking at earlier pictures of this rock, I've been extending the scape by gluing chunks of rock to the original main rock for some time now. Everything to the far side of the hammer has been glued on.  I've extended the bottom lip of the rock under the zoas as well.  I usually just super glue a piece of rock on, and then mayge stick some smaller pebbles and some sandish crush into the seams where the glue is sticking out.  It seems, to hold up ok (with some exceptions) the rock is starting to  get a little unwieldy to stick in the bucket a stage it in for water changes, and to get back into the tank so I might have to try to devise some sort of a claw or net to lift it in and out with.  Any clever suggestions would be appreciated and considered.  

 

  Next the area behind the hammer is going to the get the lift too.  I'd like to end up with most of the corals I have, in easy view and maybe I can get a little room to glue down some of the frags or at least some frags of the frats I have parked on the little rack and get it out of the tank, thought really I got those all with the intention of putting them in this little AIO contest tank I have. But I'm not convinced it is thriving quite as much as this tank,  

 

There is no hurry with any of this stuff in any case. 

 

 

[Squid_reef]

looking good Fender 👍