Softie reef on a student budget

[M. Tournesol]

1 hour ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

Why? It was set up with mature live rock from another hobbyists tank 

I was just a weak proposition 🤷‍♂️. 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

1 hour ago, DNR88 said:

I think it is irresponsible to add your invertebrates and corals without a well running aquarium. The smaller the volume of water, the more careful you need to be about making changes and adding things.

 

So before you go any further, I think you should:

- Get a wavemaker/pump first and a good heater

- Get a bigger tank (at LEAST 10 gallon)

- Get the sand out and start with nothing than rocks

- Keep the tank away from direct (sun)light

- Do a (bi-)weekly waterchange of 25% percent minimum.

 

Then after at least two months you can think about animals or coral to add.

 

Good luck! 😉

Misquote😦😂😂 my bad sry

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

OH! I own a reef. I forgot, almost, in the whirlwind of exams and things....

 

JOKES! 

I didn't forget. 

 

I did forget to do updates!! hehe my bad.

 

Anyways. So last time I did an update I think I'd just added more CUC! Hermits, various snails etc and of course more beautiful frags!

Some of the frags died due to me screwing up with a dip. Did FW+H2O2 instead of SW+H2O2. Yeah. Hate myself for that. 

But the other frags are doing ok. 

CUC did good, did its job anways; algae is good so long as I scrub 1-2 times a week and do a wc at least once a week to keep phosphates in check! 

Unfortunately my hermits went on a murder spree a few days ago and killed the astraea tecta, despite the fact there were shells in the tank for them...but apparently the shells the snails had were better. 😪 sad but it was always a risk. So now I have green star polyps, a neon green kenya green, two green rhodactic mushrooms, orange centred green mushroom, and a rainbow zoa in the tank in terms of corals, and in terms of livestock two nasarrius snails, two blue-legged hermit crabs, and a very friendly peppermint shrimp! 

The drabs are good little cleaners though despite their murderous tendencies - I kinda want a couple of red legged hermit crabs just cos they are cute as heck.

And I have a coral 'wishlist' about six miles long lol!

I scrubbed hardcore again this saturday and added some macroalgae (codium and green and red caulerpa) in hopes of outcompeting the remainining GHA and killing it off. The peppermint shrimp did a wonderful job on the aiptasia that were too big for me to get with my Aiptasia-X - he's a dude! I kinda want more shrimp too, just not sure what species to add next. Either another peppermint shrimp or a cleaner shrimp probably: something fun, colourful and easy. 

 

Anyway. 

Reefing is up and down. My setup is nothing compared to some on here. But I am finding my feet with it at least. and I've passed every assessed piece of uni work I've done so far which aint bad really :P 

[Murphs_Reef]

Glad the peppermint worked out. I love them.. 

If you like shrimp, consider cleaner shrimp, I think they are amazing and to me epitomize a reef tank. 👍🏼 

Don't worry about GHA, that will go in time... 

 

Good work...

 

Oh I have a AquaOne Nanoskim 40 hob skimmer, filter going free (well postage paid only ). If your still looking for extra water movement.. with the bonus if a wee skimmer...

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

You're a bad influence, @Murphych.....I don't need to spend anymore on aquariums right now, I have £2k in rent due on the 31st 😭😭

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Sexy candy cane after a feed👌👌 

Should I, as a reef beginner, have bought this coral?

Absolutely not.

Do I regret it? Also absolutely not 😂 it's so pretty lmao

[Murphs_Reef]

6 minutes ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

You're a bad influence, @Murphych.....I don't need to spend anymore on aquariums right now, I have £2k in rent due on the 31st 😭😭

It's free stuff!! Ok maybe a £5er postage! 😂

Seriously though I have a bunch of stuff if you would like it.. I would love it to go to some one that wants it rather than leave it in the shed ..

 

Tell you what.. I'll keep it here till your ready?

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

10 hours ago, Murphych said:

It's free stuff!! Ok maybe a £5er postage! 😂

Seriously though I have a bunch of stuff if you would like it.. I would love it to go to some one that wants it rather than leave it in the shed ..

 

Tell you what.. I'll keep it here till your ready?

Eh, ok then. If you'll take PayPal for postage costs it'd be much appreciated

[Ratvan]

Did you lose your Xenia in the dipping process? If you want some more let me know i would be happy to send some as mine seems to be creating loose frags on a regular basis. I also wouldnt mind testing a damp postage method with the Xenia to see if it works...

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

yeah, lfs gave it to me free because it didn't look great in the shop and my botched dip finished it off sadly. If you'd be willing to still send at Easter that would be easier for me, happy to cover postage costs obviously. 

[Ratvan]

37 minutes ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

yeah, lfs gave it to me free because it didn't look great in the shop and my botched dip finished it off sadly. If you'd be willing to still send at Easter that would be easier for me, happy to cover postage costs obviously. 

Yeah I will have much more by then 🤣

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

6 hours ago, Ratvan said:

Yeah I will have much more by then 🤣

You're on then 😄😄

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Hi, I guess. Long time no post. Life has been hectic and socialising hasn't been terribly high on my radar. Anyway - I got home from uni with 200 snails, 2 fish tanks and a hamster in tow on Monday and am now home for summer, maybe even longer, so got time to focus on the reef properly. 

Haven't tested but it's in the middle of a huge green cyanobacteria bloom - the hair algae is gone, happily, the green star polyps, candy cane and neon green kenya green are ok. not sure on the zoas or mushroom. the 2 nassarius snails and the hermit crab died, which I am very sad about, they were right characters. crabs are ok though. parameters okay but phosphate higher than i want it - been aiming for 0.3 and it's nearer 0.5 according to my api kit. haven't tested nitrate yet but suspect it will be too high, my mum has been feeding everyone whilst I was away and she is a little, shall we say, exuberant, with portion sizes(!!!!)

bleugh. also fully REGRETTING putting it next to my window omg, someone ####ing remind me not to put fish tanks in front of windows, I have 5/9 tanks right now in front of bloody windows, why do I do this to myself?!!?!?!? 🤣 

 

current plan of action is full barrage of tests tomorrow or day after, big wc with scrub/thorough vacuum and potential h202 dosing to get right of cyano, and put sheet of cardboard or something round the back of the tank so it's not getting full sun from the window, on top of its own light. Dunno if that will work. Oh and I am totally buying more corals at some point LOL I  think I am addicted. I know my reef is maturing slowly but that is my fault for deciding to set up a reef then buggering off to uni 200 miles away(!)

 

ps. I've had a bottle and a half of wine, one of my hamsters had to put to sleep yesterday and I'm ####ing distraught about it. I might have more animals than most zoos but every one of them is family. 

Edited May 11, 2022 by InAtTheDeepEnd
I'm drunk and cant type!

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Yawn 

 

Cyano black out day 2 

Bloody boring 

Wanna buy more corals lol 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ratvan]

17 hours ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

Yawn 

 

Cyano black out day 2 

Bloody boring 

Wanna buy more corals lol 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How are you doing your black out by the way? And sorry to hear of your loss, its never easy to lose a pet.

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

lights off and vacuuming substrate/brushing rocks seems to have reduced cyano quite nicely. need to keep it up though. lights back on now because I like to admire my kenya tree when im having my morning coffee

 

going to test no3 + po4 later - I like 'midnight reefing' lol, I have most fun fussing with this thing when everyone else in the house is asleep. It is my me time, pottering around chatting to my voles/house rabbits/etc and mixing the water and doing tests. There's a new LFS a short drive from me so might go in later this week and get more softies.

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Cirratulidae worms I spotted in my live rock last night. They're super small, this was with my macro lens 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Fed candy cane yesterday, overdid it a bit and got 1ppm ammonia now 🙄 also swapped the Kenya tree and rainbow zoa frags (which I thought was dead but it's not!) So the tree is more upright. 

 

Threw some seachem prime in and left the bacteria to catch up. Corals sulky last night but less so this morning so 🤞 it'll be ok. 

At least I should have some nitrates 🤣 crabs ok, they loved my overfeeding idiocy! 😆 

I should probably be more stressed about ammonia but tbh I've just decided what comes will come and to monitor and if anything develops into an issue take action but not freak out about this reef anymore. We're in this hobby to enjoy ourselves right? Challenges and all. So any problems that crop up are just an intellectual exercise lol

 

So long as it's caught up by tuesday it'll be grand - I ordered two softies yesterday, a photosynthetic gorgonian for £16.95 (inclusive of postage) and a 4 head pulsing xenia frag for £11.84 (also inclusive of postage). 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

#### #### #### #### 

 

Monday afternoon had a nitrate reading between 5 and 10ppm and 0.25ppm nitrite, no ammonia, corals unretracted and looked super happy, so I thought eh, I'm home for the next lil while, I'll buy myself a softie frag. Next day delivery.

 

Dumbass stupid royal mail never even knocked at the door (we have 3 dogs, I'd have known if they did!) but shoved a note through saying no one was in and parcel had been taken back to the depot. Went to the depot to be collected and it's shut over the bank holiday - with my coral somewhere inside. 

 

Furious and upset, expect the coral will die, especially as I only ordered because I KNEW I was going to be in all day 😞 

[Tamberav]

They don't just leave the package at your door? 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

8 hours ago, Tamberav said:

They don't just leave the package at your door? 

You'd think they would wouldn't you!?!?!? I don't understand why they did this. It wasn't a signed for parcel or anything - just normal Royal Mail 😞

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Corals n stuff

There's a bristle worm and a brittle star in the tank now - I didn't add them deliberately, they just hitch hiked in on frags/rock. Got a bit of hair algae I need to remove. Otherwise nothing to report.... Kenya tree still looks drunk but happy. Gsp growing like plague. Photosynthetic gorgonian recovering from its abuse by royal mail. Hermit crabs their usual adorable weirdo selves. Rasta heads all  really sulky for some reason though.