My pet rock (55l/15g)

[MissA]

My second attempt at the SW hobby.

 

Tank: 55l/14.2g Dennerle scapers tank. 

Pump: Random cheap Boyu nano stream. Getting an upgrade soon.

Filtration: Probably start of with a versamax HOB filter since thats what I have at home.

 

Right now it only contains about 6kg (13lbs?) of live rock. 

 

 

[MissA]

So the first batch of rock has been in the tank for about 1,5 weeks and yesterday I got my second batch of rocks. Unfortunatly both batches got stuck in the post for a few days so it wasn´t that much alive on them but a bristleworm was happy and alive and som odd, tiny little hard thing that looks like a louse but I suspect it´s some form of snail (its hard). There were severals small clams on it but I don't think they made it. And some different type of algea. Right now I just put the rocks in the tank. No scape yet, but I´ll do a waterchange and probably put in some sand this weekend. And then scape it at the same time. Tried to take som pictures of the tiny louse/snail thing but could´nt get any good ones. Its ridiculously small. But if someone recognize it pleace let me know.

[WV Reefer]

4 hours ago, MissA said:

So the first batch of rock has been in the tank for about 1,5 weeks and yesterday I got my second batch of rocks. Unfortunatly both batches got stuck in the post for a few days so it wasn´t that much alive on them but a bristleworm was happy and alive and som odd, tiny little hard thing that looks like a louse but I suspect it´s some form of snail (its hard). There were severals small clams on it but I don't think they made it. And some different type of algea. Right now I just put the rocks in the tank. No scape yet, but I´ll do a waterchange and probably put in some sand this weekend. And then scape it at the same time. Tried to take som pictures of the tiny louse/snail thing but could´nt get any good ones. Its ridiculously small. But if someone recognize it pleace let me know.

Could be a chiton. Does it have legs or is it stuck to the glass?

[MissA]

21 minutes ago, WV Reefer said:

Could be a chiton. Does it have legs or is it stuck to the glass?

It was quite firmly attached to the glass for beeing that small. Legs i could´nt see, its just so tiny. But I think you might be right it looks like a chiton. His still in that cup (floating in the tank) so I´ll check again tomorrow when its lighter outside. Thanks for the help Christy. 😃

[WV Reefer]

2 minutes ago, MissA said:

It was quite firmly attached to the glass for beeing that small. Legs i could´nt see, its just so tiny. But I think you might be right it looks like a chiton. His still in that cup (floating in the tank) so I´ll check again tomorrow when its lighter outside. Thanks for the help Christy. 😃

You are welcome. 😊

[Tired]

Yep, that's a chiton. Totally harmless algae-eater related to snails. There's a snail foot under that shell. 

 

 

[MissA]

On 5/7/2021 at 8:51 PM, Tired said:

Yep, that's a chiton. Totally harmless algae-eater related to snails. There's a snail foot under that shell. 

 

 

Thank you Tired. He is back safe and sound in the tank now. 🙂

[MissA]

So things are going slow right now. I mostly let the tank do its thing and just check the water parameters every 3 or 4 day or so. And its been almost to steady, wich scares me a little to be honest. Had a little bit of ammonia in the beginning that quickly disappeared. The nitrates and nitrites have been going down steady. No big outbreaks of any algae or anything. I can see a little bit of brownish fuzz on some rocks but its not that much. It almost looks like some kind of turfalgae but I might be wrong. At the moment I don´t have a SW light to put on but the tank has a FW plant light on it so it gets a little bit of light every day. Yesterday I checked the water parameters again and everthing looked good so I installed the HOB filter with some ceramic filtermedia, some carbon and some filtrefloss. I´ve been feeding the tank 1 drop of Aquaforest Bio S a day and every 3 days the tank has been fed a tiny amount of "fishfood".

 

Yesterdays parameters

 

Salinity 34.0

Temp. 23.8

Ammonia 0

Nitrite 0

Nitrate 2

Phosphate 0,03

Alkalinity 7,5

Calcium 470

Silicate 0

 

 

[MissA]

The brown fuzz on my rock. Excuse the poor picture quality. Forgot my real camera at my moms place and now its stuck in quarantine.

[MissA]

So came home yesterday to this. I guess I´m on my way to the ugly phase. I also bought an AI Prime and flexarm. So in a few days it should arrive. Its getting exciting! 

[MissA]

Today I got my AI Prime but unfortunately I had to go to work so I did´nt have time to set it up. But I have a feeling I´m gonna be up half the night to play with it when I get home. 😛 I also orderd a small CUC today. 2 cerith snails and 3 small assorted clibanarius hermits. I read in several places that cerith snails might eat diatoms and thats why I went with ceriths. Did a 40% waterchange this weekend and there´s still a little bit of diatoms but not much at all. But the water parameters looks great.

I havn´t mentioned it but I also put up a small 5 gallon tank with a hob filter a preset heater and a cheap SW light that I´ve had for a year but havn´t used. Its an old trick I learned along time ago with my freshwater hobby. When ever I would get a fish or invert that I´m not really sure is gonna work with my other tank inhabitants I set up a small tank that could be a perment home for that animal just in case it doesn´t work out. 

[PeterU]

You will be thrilled with the Prime. I put one on a 20H a few weeks ago and it is so different to what I was used to.  I need to raise it up though as it's too low, I' about 6" and need closer to 13" for better light distribution. But that has to wait until after some tank changes next week.

Download the app to your phone for controlling it. They have a bunch of presets on their website to try and if you are on Facebook an AI group there has a bunch more.

[MissA]

On 5/26/2021 at 1:19 AM, PeterU said:

You will be thrilled with the Prime. I put one on a 20H a few weeks ago and it is so different to what I was used to.  I need to raise it up though as it's too low, I' about 6" and need closer to 13" for better light distribution. But that has to wait until after some tank changes next week.

Download the app to your phone for controlling it. They have a bunch of presets on their website to try and if you are on Facebook an AI group there has a bunch more.

I actually bought it for that exact reason. A lot of people seemes to be really happy with it. And the fact that I could download presets is just perfect. Saltwater lighing is a whole science that I really don´t know anything about. Yet. And compare to some other lights its actually quite affordable.  Unfortunatly it did not work. 🙁 I tried everything I could find on the internet but nothing seems to work. My phone can´t find it and I can´t reset it. Its a little bit frustrating but my BF´s said his gonna help me with it this weekend. But once its up and running I´m sure I´m gonna love it. 😁

[MissA]

Well I got my snails and hermits today and they all were alive and looking healthy. They got stuck in the mail for an extra day. Its a little bit rainy here right now and I guess we have a few flooded roads at the moment. And even if its just a couple of snails and a few tiny little hermits I feel like a kid on christmas. 

 

[MissA]

So I got my AI Prime to work this weekend and I´m super happy with it.  Still need to trim in the lights but finally its on the tank and working. The cerith snails are doing their part at cleaning diatoms. They´re really good at it but I could probably get another one or some other diatom eatning snail.

I couldn´t help my self so I bought 2 nassarius snails for my little "trash" tank, I might ned to do a journal of its own for that tank. At the moment I like it more for some reason. I think it is because it looks more finnished than the bigger one. Unfortunatly one of the snails didn´t make it. But the one that is still alive is a funny little dude. I love feeding my fish (FW) with feedingtongs and I thought I try it out with the nassarius. It went surprisingly well. He quickly came up the glas to retrive his food. They really look like zombies when they smell food. And for anybody that haven´t noticed it yet. They slime, a lot. So his name is now Slimmer (from Ghostbusters). 

 

[MissA]

And here is how my big tank looks with its brand new functioning AI Prime on it. 

[MissA]

Got my first coral a few days ago. A little acan frag.

 

And today he got some food. It was a little tricky to feed him with the turkey baster and only one head managed to get some. We need to practise a little bit on that. 

[MissA]

Today I found a little hitchhiker on my coral. I´m pretty sure its an aptasia.  

 

 

But I should be able to just lift the rock up and superglue it. I hope 

In the backgroud is my little hermit crab in his brand new shell.

[MissA]

On the other side of the coral is another little hitchhiker wich I think is a tiny orange sponge. This was the best picture  I managed to get with my phone. 

[Tired]

First thing looks like aiptasia, yep. Superglue will handle it, but make sure the acan is retracted enough to not glue it as well, that would bother it. Second thing is probably an orange sponge, and is likely harmless. If it starts growing large and crowding the coral, you'll want to trim it back, but the orange sponges generally seem to be a bit more well-behaved. It's mostly some of the white ones that are troublesome. 

[MissA]

Thanks for the info Tired. 😄

[MissA]

Today I glued the aptasia and I found another one on the other side on the frag. So I glued the hole base but was very carefull so I didn´t glued the live tissue. The poor frag wasn´t happy to be outside of the tank. Hopefully he opens back up tomorrow. 

[MissA]

So I haven´t been super active here for a few weeks so I thought I make an update. Not a lot has happened. The euniceworm I saw seemed to have died because I can't find him. I´ve fed the tank when its dark. I´ve even dangled som food with tweezers and still no worm. I´ve seen a peanutworm, some bristleworms, a few amphipods, aptaisia, but no euniceworm. So I guess he´s a goner. 🙁. I tried to open upp my scape a little bit, cause I didn´t like the previous scape, so I made som changes to that and I bought some new corals. So now I have 2 acans, a duncan, some GSP and some type of euphyllia. I ordered a euphyllia paraancora but I´m not so sure thats what I´ve got. And I got a nasty surprise after I rearranged the rocks. A whole line of aptasia tentacles on a rock that previously was hidden by another rock. And sadly I can´t see my tank from the back so I don´t know how bad it really is. The tank is in my tank cabinet so I only have a good view from the top and the front. But I´m thinking of maybe bying a peppermintshrimp. 

The tank at the moment.

[MissA]

The corals

If anyone knows what type of euphyllia pleace let me know. 

 

The nasty little line of aptasia tentacles

 

[Ratvan]

Looks a bit like Euphyllia Divisa (Frogspawn) to me, nice corals. Love that Duncan