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9to5 Diminutive Desktop Distraction: Breaking Rules Left and Right


chipz

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9to5 Diminutive Desktop Distraction

This tank will be a coral/invert QT system. At least, that is the official and spouse-sanctioned purpose of this tank (since I've already got two reef tanks and a planted freshwater tank). I'm going to try really, really hard to stick with that plan...unless I cave and add a fish because I'm a sucker for tiny little gobies. I am also going to try really, really hard to keep this a buy-nothing tank (or at least a shoe-string budget). The goal is to only use supplies I have on hand or had already purchased with the coral/invert QT in mind.

 

Background: For a while I was running a Fluval 13.5 as my desktop distraction tank, but I've since moved, upgraded my home office situation, and thus upgraded that tank. Just under a year ago, I introduced some snails and corals from my LFS to my two tanks without doing any QTing, and ended up with ich in one tank and flat worms in the other. Ugh! I picked up the Fluval Evo V to serve as an invert QT system. I never got around to setting the tank up, though, so I figure I might as well get it going as part of this contest.

 

Current Full Tank Shot:

 

PXL_20211102_191524264.thumb.jpg.57796964244522d0dc2ff433890ffb63.jpg

 

Contest Entry Picture:

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Equipment:

  • Fluval Evo V
  • Stock Light
  • Stock Pump
  • Heater: Aqueon 50w preset 
  • JBJ OceanStream Nano...not sure if this works, it's in my box of extra supplies and must have come as a freebie in another tank
  • ATO: Tunze Osmolator 3155 (woohoo! just realized I also have this guy lying around, too) manual🙄 Yeah, no, manual didn't last more than a week before I caved and got an AutoAqua SmartATO Lite

 

Aquascape:

  • Live sand (extra I keep on hand for QT of shy/sand-loving fish)
  • Live rock (I've been curing a bunch for a rescape of my big tank)

 

Livestock:

  • TSB
  • Corals (lookin' at you, upcoming TCMAS Frag Swap)
  • Sexy shrimp? Candy cane pistol shrimp? New home/time out for my bruiser tiger pistol shrimp?

 

Highlight Links:

  • TBD

 

Reefin' 9 to 5, Brought to you by:

imageproxy.png.740f325db3fe0078af4a0ae2854096dd.png  &  nano-reef1.jpg.fcea84e88e84e22df3df32aeac707369.jpg.400deae2c4a783437cee75488d9a65c6.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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On 10/9/2021 at 5:22 AM, debbeach13 said:

Perfect office tank. No muss no fuss just fun. Good luck in the contest.

Thanks, @debbeach13! I'm loving it so far. Setup literally took about 10 minutes, although I still have some aquascaping to do.

 

But, um....yeah, I've already broken my self-imposed no fish rule.

PXL_20211013_220917003.thumb.jpg.25fab806dfcafdac10a03f35a5d48140.jpg Bad me! I need to figure out some netting for the top. 

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19 hours ago, NoOneLikesADryTang said:

What are rules, if they aren’t meant to be broken?! 
 

Also, don’t forget to tag your thread with “9to5” so it can easily be found for the contest. 

Agreed, @NoOneLikesADryTang. And thanks for the reminder about tagging. I knew there was something I was forgetting!

 

My new tailspot blenny is a very cheeky little fellow. See that tiny head poking out near the bottom of the left rock?

PXL_20211014_174603908.thumb.jpg.55d8145a00e00076de5a62e2072e71b1.jpg

 

It's been fun playing peekaboo with him while sitting at my desk today. He showed down on the thimbleful of frozen food I put in, but so far has not discovered the nori-on-a-clip buffet.

 

Blennies have a very special place in my heart, so when I stopped by my LFS yesterday and they had some newly QT'd tailspot I couldn't resist. Especially when I saw how bold this particular little guy was. The first tsb I had a few years ago in my biocube 29 was sooo timid and rarely seen for longer than it took to dart out and grab a mouthful of food, but the one I had and lost earlier this year (a casualty of the tank upgrade😭) was a very interactive fish. The new guy seems like he will warm up as he gets more familiar with his surroundings. Like I said, I wasn't planning on a fish for this tank, and this is probably just a temporary addition. My regular fish QT is full of live rock at the moment, so this seemed like the best bet for a temporary home until I have time to shuffle things around a bit. I figured if I put a blenny in with all that rock there'd be no getting him out again.

 

The fish-free plan isn't the only plan that's gone awry, unfortunately. The JBJ Ocean stream Nano is HUGE on this tank and wayyy too powerful. I wasn't able to figure out how to dial it down. I'll have to go in search of a manual later tonight. Or cave and consider some alternative flow options. It looks like @banasophia's VERY awesome Evo V has a hygger mini wave maker, which seems like a relatively budget-friendly option--but would break my buy-nothing aspirations 😕

 

I also realized that the tunze osmolator won't fit in the pump chamber, which is too bad. Would it work to put it in chamber 1? I'm guessing not, unless I also modified the baffle into chamber 2 so that the water level would go down in chamber 1 as quickly as it does in chamber 2.

 

For now I will plan on topping off manually. If it gets to be too much of a hassle, I can switch out one of my AutoAqua Smart AWCs from one of the bigger tanks. Or maybe I'll start researching smaller ATO systems. Fingers crossed for some good Black Friday sales!

 

Some things that have gone well: I had leftover mesh from my RedSea's screen top that worked for covering the hole in the lid. I used packing tape for a cludge yesterday, but a neighbor has offered me their glue gun so I can do a longer-term solution. I found bottles of Prime and Microbacter7 from when I upgraded my 13.5 a few months ago. I found a couple of unopened Ammonia alert badges in my desk drawer from ??? Always good to have a spare, I guess!

 

Here's a full tank shot to round things out:

PXL_20211014_174524540.thumb.jpg.5c8e3b217295af580eadb56704f6169a.jpg

  • Like 4
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Thanks for the nice compliment. Your tank is looking good so far. I love your little tailspot! 
 

The hygger mini is still fairly high flow on its lowest setting, so you may want to find something different for your lil fish to be happier swimming around.
 

It works for my tank and I think my corals like the flow, but my fish do tend to stick close to the rock for shelter until the powerhead is off for feeding. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 10/14/2021 at 7:03 PM, banasophia said:

Thanks for the nice compliment. Your tank is looking good so far. I love your little tailspot! 
 

The hygger mini is still fairly high flow on its lowest setting, so you may want to find something different for your lil fish to be happier swimming around.
 

It works for my tank and I think my corals like the flow, but my fish do tend to stick close to the rock for shelter until the powerhead is off for feeding. 

 

17 hours ago, ef4life said:

Looks good, tail spots are so cool.

Thank you, @banasophia and @ef4life! The tsb is a really great addition to the tank. Very active and inquisitive, and eats EVERYTHING I've put in the tank...pellets, frozen mysis, a few pods, floating bits of nori. Unfortunately yesterday the tsb swallowed one of my dog's stray hairs that somehow ended up in the tank. A bit of the hair is STILL hanging out of its mouth today 😬. I was really freaked out, but there's no way I can catch it to remove the hair. It's managed to swallow food with the hair in its mouth, and is still a poop machine so I'll just have to keep an eye on the situation. Hopefully the situation will literally work itself out.

 

I've got lots of updates for the first month. My local club had a big frag swap on the 23rd, so I ended up with LOTS of new corals (and spending LOTS of money, going way over budget...oops!). Currently the 9to5 tank is holding some soft corals that I want to grow out a bit more before introducing them to my big softie tank. There are also a couple of corals that needed some extra TLC but not a ton of light. Current inhabitants of the tank:

  • Corals - branching pink star polyps, two kinds of toadstools (regular and green/purple), yellow fiji toadstool, clove polyps (I was so captivated by @Snow_Phoenix's that I had to get some of my own!), trumpet coral, a very sad favia I'm trying to coax back to health, and what was sold to me as a hulk lepto, but really isn't showing much green coloration (even under the Prime 16HD I have on my other office tank).
  • Inverts - 1 trochus snail, 1 scarlet hermit, 1 seasonally-appropriate Halloween hermit that was wreaking havoc on the frags that went straight into my other office tank and got banished to the Evo 5.
  • Fish - TSB and yasha goby

rule-what-rule-rules-are-meant-to-be-broken.jpg.d69c1edbe357a20d6bf27d6f63a82934.jpg

So yeah, I ended up breaking my no fish rule for a SECOND time. Showed up to Petco for dog supplies and found out it was having a 20% off sale on fish, and was able to sell me an aquacultured yasha for $40 that hadn't even been unbagged yet. It ended up going in this tank because my fish QT is currently housing a flame hawk and a midas blenny (destined for my other, larger tanks). The two fish got off to a slightly rough start, with the TSB (little piggy!) thinking the yasha's black spot on the dorsal fin was a pellet. Once they sorted that out, the two have gotten along great. I added some more rockwork to make sure they would have enough room. I've kept a close eye on the water quality, and will probably eventually upgrade this little tank to my Evo 13.5 that's currently hanging out in the garage. However, water changes on this little tank take less than 10 minutes if the water is already mixed so even doing a couple of water changes a week wouldn't be a big deal.

 

In addition to breaking my no-fish rule for this tank, I also broke the rule about not buying anything extra for it. I went ahead and picked up an AutoAqua SmartATO Lite. It pretty quickly became apparent that I'm not quite responsible enough to moonlight as an ATO myself. At least not when the tank has corals and fish. I considered but (for now) have decided against a power head because the current corals seem to be getting plenty of flow from the stock pump. We'll see if I go on to break that decision, too.

 

I think my new theme for the tank is probably "Really Bad at Following Rules: Too Much Flair."

 

I'm also seeking suggestions. One of the corals I got at the frag swap that is currently in my other tank is a sun coral. It hasn't opened up in the big tank, and I'm wondering if I should try switching it over to the little tank where I can keep a closer eye on it and it's really simple to switch the power off for coral feeding. Also, it seems like a good fit since the light wouldn't be an issue. My main concern is that feeding (or attempting to feed) the sun coral could do bad things to the water quality. But again, it's an easy tank to do water changes on. Any votes yea or nay on adding the sun coral to this tank?

 

Some photos (sorry, still learning how to take actually good tank photos!):

PXL_20211102_191524264.thumb.jpg.85b6d5035c0c4249302b8798bacd2427.jpgPXL_20211102_191559813.thumb.jpg.e5cf4001110e7a760cbc60be8271a79b.jpgVID-20211031-WA0007_Moment.thumb.jpg.79efa79991c03855e7281d92fc33678f.jpg779041538_PXL_20211102_191622300(1).thumb.jpg.28c3abbbb96c93a0d1252c4005894a02.jpg

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Oh man, what a series of unfortunate events! I decided to go ahead and try to add the sun corals. At least in the Evo 5 I can give them food without getting my arm wet. My IM40 is just a bit too tall.

 

So while I was moving over the sun coral, I noticed that a sheet of GSP my pistol shrimp had buried alive was peeking out of the sand. It seemed like I might as well grab the gsp and move that over to the Evo5, too. After all, I don't really want it dying in the IM40 or getting reburied by the pistol shrimp. Only when I pulled it out, there was a HUGE FIREWORM lurking underneath. Fat, thick rim of red and white bristles. 100% sure it wasn't just a regular bristleworm. I managed to get the star polyps out, then went back and the fireworm had taken cover under a shell so I was able to pull it out with my long forceps. 

 

Then I dropped by accident it INTO MY DOGS' WATER BOWL🤦

 

But I was able to grab the bowl before the dogs rushed over to it. The fireworm is now exploring the inside of the local sewer system. Yuck and wow I hope I never see one of those in my tank again! Unfortunately I have a feeling that where there's one, there are probably more.

 

Then, thinking all the excitement was over, I went to put the lid back on the IM40. At which point I must have bumped the Prime 16HD gooseneck mount because the light FELL INTO THE WATER 🤦

 

I immediately got it unplugged, opened up and into a box of rice. So now all I can do is wait and fret about whether it will still work.😭

 

Feeling incredibly klutzy and very bummed about probably breaking my light. Taking the rest of the evening off from messing with the tanks.

 

 

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NoOneLikesADryTang

Sorry for the evening you’ve had. Sounds rough! 
 

For what it’s worth, I might take the light out the rice (temporarily) and rinse it with RO water, and then put it back in the rice. I think the salt water will do much more damage to the electronic components. 

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Oh noooo… brutal night with the tanks, so sorry! I hate those nights when multiple things go wrong like that. 
 

If the light no longer works, I would reach out to the manufacturer to see if there’s anything they can do. Glad you got the fireworm out and the doggos didn’t eat it!

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I agree with the others about the salt eventually wrecking the light.  I would also take it apart as much as possible in order to clean it.  I'd probably look up how to clean a printed circuit board (PCB) to use as a guide.

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Thank you for the kind works and good advice, @NoOneLikesADryTang, @Tamberav, @banasophia, & @seabass! Unfortunately it looks like the light is toast. I tried the RO spritz-off and brushing over with a paintbrush. AI suggested I send it in for repairs, and told me to expect a bill of >$100  + shipping because it isn't under warranty (and I wasn't the original owner). Maybe I'll check with my local pc repair store if they can try cleaning the pcb.

 

In the meantime, I was able to pick up a new AI prime 16 HD from someone in my local club for cheap. So my corals aren't starving for light. But I am rather over budget for the month between this unexpected expense plus the frag swap plus a really great sale that was going on at my LFS last weekend that led to a bit of retail therapy. (Although when I told my husband the sale price of the Burning Banana I pre-ordered from the LFS he said, and I quote, "Maybe you should get two!").

 

So just a few small updates on the Evo5 itself. I'm still watching the blenny anxiously for the dog hair to pass or cause serious issues. So far no progress on that front. The sun coral has also continued to be stubborn about coming out. But the gsp that I rescued from the other tank is settling right in. Tomorrow I'll do the weekly water change and glue down the trumpet coral because the hermit crabs keep tipping it out of it's hole in the rockwork. Oh, and it's time to learn how to switch out RO/DI filters.

 

 

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Check for the sun coral coming out when all the lights are off and it's dark (you'll need a flashlight) they tend to only open at night. They can be trained to open during the day but it's a long process.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Some good news to share today! Last Wednesday I picked up a teeny little candy cane pistol. I saw he was stirring the sand around on Thursday, but I didn't actually see him until today. I looked over while sitting at my desk and there they were, pistol shrimp and yasha goby chilling together like NBD. So glad they found each other! Sorry this pic is soooo blurry, but I was in a rush to snap a pic before my next zoom meeting started 🙄.

 

PXL_20211115_172234940.thumb.jpg.eb80accc30c55d0f851181d4c91b1b39.jpg

 

Also, in good news, last week my tsb finished choking down the dog hair that he accidentally swallowed and today I finally saw him take a totally normal 💩. I feel like a new parent all excited about diaper contents.

 

And finally, a bonus pic of a VERY cool bubble coral frag I picked up at a LFS. It was their third year anniversary sale, so I got it for a steal. It's going in my bigger office tank, but I don't have a journal for that tank yet, whoops. Please excuse the glass that needs some serious elbow grease.

PXL_20211115_213028248.thumb.jpg.b5b35cce727166ad55f067c0363e05e8.jpg

 

Finally, @Maas101 I really appreciate your tips but unfortunately I am still struggling with the sun coral. I haven't seen it come out yet, even when I sneak up on it in the middle of the night, or early in the morning with a flashlight. I'm trying to feed it every night around the same time, but so far no joy. Anyone have any other suggestions on how I can convince this coral to come out for food? Or how I will know when it is dead...I'm getting rather worried at this point! 

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I don't see it in any of your pictures but if you can see orange flesh covering the 'tubes' a bit like a closed duncan then it isn't dead. You could try one of those polyp booster liquids to see if that encourages a feeding response from it but they are tricky. The best way to keep them is to have a thriving population of pods in your tank. 

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It's been awhile but here's what I remember.  Try feeding your sun corals shortly after lights out (but the room doesn't need to be dark).  Use some mysis juice to entice a feeding response.  After several successful feedings, everything should become a bit easier.  It's said that feeding at the same time everyday might help.  You might have to turn off all or some of your pumps so that food doesn't just blow right by.  If there is slight flow during feeding, make sure to feed so that the food drifts towards the sun corals.

 

They are like most LPS in that they require good flow and parameters (like stable alkalinity).  The only real difference is that they are non-photosynthetic so they need to be fed daily.  This can sometimes become a maintenance problem, so a protein skimmer and relatively frequent water changes are often recommended.  Some people go so far as to remove the coral (placed in a container of tank water) in order to feed them.

 

Once a feeding response is triggered, you will need to feed each individual polyp with meaty foods.  Thawed frozen mysis shrimp is a common food.  You might also try decapsulated brine shrimp eggs (with the uneaten eggs often hatching in the tank and becoming another food source for your fish and corals).

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  • 2 weeks later...

Eureka! I finally had luck getting the sun coral to eat! I've been doing everything like @Maas101 and @seabass suggested. But it turns out my sun polyp is an early bird, not a night owl. I've been trying to feed in the evenings after lights out, when I am getting ready for bed myself and back upstairs with no luck. This morning I fed reef roids to the LPS in the big office tank in preparation for an afternoon water change and decided that I might as well give it a try with the sun coral, too. The sun coral came out more than I have ever seen before, so we'll definitely be working this into the morning routine from now on. The trick will be getting to the tank before lights come on because I am admittedly more of a night owl myself. Here's a photo of the last polyp injesting the reef roids after the others had already closed up and I finally remembered to grab my camera. You can also see a new head on the under side of the left-most polyp. Not sure where it got the energy for that from this past month, but I am glad I've found a way to keep it happy moving forward.

PXL_20211127_172456875.jpg

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  • 5 months later...

This tank is not what I planned on, but I have loved the up-close look it has given me at my teeny fish and critters.

 PXL_20220512_212644612.jpg

What I've loved: 

1) Watching teeny fish up close

2) Some success with soft corals

3) The (2gal?) ATO jug lasts a month plus

4) This system has been suuuuuper unexpectedly stable. I went on vacation for two weeks in Feb/March and this little tank just chugged along through that (and through a bit of neglect while I was unemployed/job searching earlier in the year). Meanwhile my big tanks (e260 and IM40 were giving me headaches with their ATOs stopping working and using up water faster than I had anticipated. Note for the future: two weeks away in the summer when the air is humid is a LOT different than two weeks away in the winter when (in Minnesota at least) the air is incredibly dry.

 

What I was bummed about:

1) I still suck at LPS and SPS

2) My NPS coral did NOT make it despite lots of hard work on my part. I don't think I'm skilled enough to deal with these corals at this point.

3) My rockwork fell over thanks to the bulldozing hermit crabs.

4) It is a PIA to get my hand in the tank to get some of the harder algae scraped off. I do the bad thing and leave my algae scraper in the tank in the hopes I will be motivated to do daily passes, but as you can see the back wall doesn't get the love it needs.

5) Using a peninsula-style tank without it being a peninsula. I don't love seeing the wall behind it. In the picture above you can see a sort of arcing line that looks like a scratch on the glass. It isn't a scratch. It's a design "feature" on the wall behind the tank. The whole wall is covered in odd arcs of extra plaster/paint and I don't like it. So in other words, now I want to smooth/replaster the walls in my home office because this tank highlights the odd decorating choice of the last owner.

6) I've sometimes had to turn off the light during video conferences to avoid a blue cast, which obviously isn't ideal. 

7) Bubble algae and a bit of cyano 😬

 

More photos:

PXL_20220512_211611489.jpg

 

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PXL_20220512_211036614.jpg

 

As it turns out, I'm a TOTAL sucker for tiny fish. You can just see the tiny eyes of a juvenile Yellowheaded Jawfish peeking from under the PVC.

PXL_20220512_213147748.jpg

Soooo cute, right?!?!? There are two of them and they are EVEN SMALLER THAN MY YASHA GOBY. They are NOT in the Evo 5 (two fish in the Evo 5=already at capacity), but I am so scared that they will get lost in a big tank like my IM40 or e260. They arrived yesterday and for now they are in an isolation box in the IM40 and they are so small that I'm not actually too worried about them being cramped. I might consider turning the 40 into a tiny-fish-only tank but that means catching the tiger pistol that rules the tank. Or maybe I'll swap out the Evo5 for the Evo13 that's currently languishing in my garage.    

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1 minute ago, LazyFish said:

Is that a snail with bubble algae? Hahah!😂 haven't seen that before. I have a collinista snail completly covered in thick coraline and I've seen hair alge them before but not bubble.

Meet Bubbles. Bubbles is a hard-working snail who keeps the tank clean but just can't quite reach this one spot that keeps moving away every time he tries to tackle it.

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