Grant’s Waterbox 20

[Murphs_Reef]

Tank looks good mate! Noticed you use Krakencorals as well btw.. 

They have a frag swap going on today.. but I was too late to the party and only found out yesterday!! 

[NanoGrant]

On 3/6/2022 at 2:03 PM, Murphych said:

Tank looks good mate! Noticed you use Krakencorals as well btw.. 

They have a frag swap going on today.. but I was too late to the party and only found out yesterday!! 

Thank you very much! 
 

Ah, totally missed that. Good to know things are happening again though!

[NanoGrant]

Cyano seems to be clearing up on the sand bed now so I’m assuming the system is balancing again. I’m putting it down to changing the light on the refugium upsetting nutrient levels. 
 

Picked up a scooter blenny too which had been at the LFS for ages. It’s stomach looked fairly pinched in, so hoping I can fatten it back up. 
Here it is acclimating:

 

and foraging once in the tank:

 

I know these fish are quite demanding in terms of feeding and luckily I had started a pod culture anyway as I had wanted to add them as extra food for the other fish. I threw it together using a spare 3G tank, airpump and cheap LED light. I wanted to make it sustainable so threw in some bio media to control ammonia and nitrite and reduce the chance of a crash. 

It’s going pretty well if I do say so myself! I’m managing to get a sieve full every other day into the tank. 

 

 

Pods loving some banana peel. 

 

Picked up a couple of Astraea snails while I was at it too.

 

[debbeach13]

58 minutes ago, NanoGrant said:

and foraging once in the tank:

 

That sounds encouraging. I hope he does well. 

[bluewhale]

11 hours ago, NanoGrant said:

Cyano seems to be clearing up on the sand bed now so I’m assuming the system is balancing again. I’m putting it down to changing the light on the refugium upsetting nutrient levels.

 

Hi, that is interessant. Can you tell what exact changes on the light system you had. And what changes did you do to the reef since you recognised the upcoming cyano plague? How long was the period until they start to vanish?

[NanoGrant]

15 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

That sounds encouraging. I hope he does well. 

Thank you! Fingers crossed. 
 

4 hours ago, bluewhale said:

Hi, that is interessant. Can you tell what exact changes on the light system you had. And what changes did you do to the reef since you recognised the upcoming cyano plague? How long was the period until they start to vanish?

So I was running an Asta 20 over the refugium, which is an algae scrubber made with plastic canvas. 
 

I moved that light onto another tank and began running a clip on grow light over the refugium. Cyano began on the edges of the sandbed shortly after, about a month ago I think. 
 

I’ve cut back a little bit on feeding too, now do 3 x 1/4 cube of frozen a week and a pinch of flake daily. 

[bluewhale]

Thanks for the description. From what I know cyano are photosynthetic, so by providing a light which provides them more energy might have caused a small overpopulation. I would have thought the good bacteria should increase as well, but maybe they are taking more time for reproduction?

 

I am still trying to understand the circumstances required to produce a cyano plague. When we know all causes more or less for sure, we will be better to predict and to avoid this.

 

[NanoGrant]

3 hours ago, bluewhale said:

Thanks for the description. From what I know cyano are photosynthetic, so by providing a light which provides them more energy might have caused a small overpopulation. I would have thought the good bacteria should increase as well, but maybe they are taking more time for reproduction?

 

I am still trying to understand the circumstances required to produce a cyano plague. When we know all causes more or less for sure, we will be better to predict and to avoid this.

 

Yeah they could definitely have taken advantage and then just settled on the sandbed to feed off the nutrients coming out of there. 

[NanoGrant]

It finally happened! Over 1 year later, the clowns have found the anemone (and are annoying it a bit)

 

[NanoGrant]

Scooter Blenny update:

 

 

I’ve been spending time recently offering frozen food and it has taken to eating frozen mysis and cyclops. Happy days! I’m still adding live pods to the tank too, but hopefully now I can start to fatten it up. 
 

 

[NanoGrant]

Some natural sunlight caught the corner of the tank this evening. The BTA and clown were perfectly placed to take advantage of it so I took the chance to grab a couple of pictures. 
 

 

[NanoGrant]

Woke up to a nice surprise in the tank this weekend. The BTA has split!

 

Though I think the clownfish is a bit confused as to why there are now 2 anemones. 
 

 

[NanoGrant]

Well it’s been a wee while since I’ve updated this journal!

 

Not long after the last post, green hair algae started to take hold after the cyano outbreak started to recede (can be seen starting to grow in the pics). But after fighting it manually with a toothbrush and water changes, along with a little help from a newly introduced tuxedo urchin, I finally won that battle. 
 

The tank has been running fairly smoothly for the past few months, although I lost the scooter blenny. I think he was just outcompeted for food as the other fish got wise to the feeding pipettes and we’re grabbing the mysis before the scooter could get to it. So there is only the 2 clownfish and a firefish inhabiting the tank now, and I’ve had no real desire to add anymore fish as the nutrients seem to have balanced really well. 
 

I took the refugium offline as I felt it wasn’t actually doing that much and the light was spilling into the display overnight, so not ideal. I picked up a 3D printed rack for the maxspect biospheres and added a tunze 9001 protein skimmer instead. Have to admit that I’ve been really impressed with the skimmer and my water clarity has improved along with colouration and growth in the tank. 
 

Speaking of growth, the orange plating Monti has really taken off and pretty much dominates half of the tank now. I’m torn as on one hand I love it, but am thinking of breaking it up for frags. The purple plating monti on the other side is quickly going the same way. I’m also considering upgrading the lighting to an XR15 or AI blades to reduce shadowing. 
 

Anyway, here are some updated tank shots:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[debbeach13]

Looks good in there. Very natural, Nice, pictures also. I really like the next to last one.