Tank upgrade- pico to (change of plans) JBJ 45gal

[Tired]

FTS January 28th 2023. Unflattering shot. This is the "give everything some light" arrangement of rock, not an actual 'scape, and I've neglected to remove a couple of empty crab traps. Just in case something wanders in. The breeder box is mostly full of crabs, and the little thing hung on the back wall has a tiger pistol that I'm hoping to keep contained until I properly arrange the rock.

 

June 23rd 2023. New tank, actual aquascape. Unhappy frags temporarily on the floor.

 

August 4th 2023. Officially in the 'brown' stage. Crab jail (now housing only one blue-legged hermit and one unknown hermit) fell off the wall.

 

 

Wishlist: 

Clownfish pair- Black Darwin female, Black Storm male. Achieved!

One or more of: Starckii damsel, elongate dottyback, pygmy white-spotted filefish, small shrimpgoby, yellowface pike blenny, male sailfin blenny. Pending, will have to choose.

Mayan Sun and/or Yellow Submarine favia. (on hold- need to verify that either of these is actually yellow under whitish lights)

 

In QT, waiting:

5 scarlet reef hermits, one polka-dot hermit.

Cerith snails.

 

Current intentional stock: 

-black-and-white ocellaris pair named Coffee Drink and No Eyes.

-two fancy guppies, two guppy/endler hybrids. No names. (weren't pleased with the salinity, removed alive to a freshewater tank.)

-two female sailfin blennies. No names yet.

-10 lbs KP Aquatics rock

-roughly 30lbs Tampa Bay rock

-assorted ceriths (East African, Florida, Cortez, Stocky)

-12lbs Tampa Bay live sand (too deep, and I decided I prefer another look)

-quarter-sized blue tuxedo urchin

-hitchhiker pencil urchin, nickel-sized body

-black and orange hermit

-tiger pistol shrimp

-dwarf ceriths

-red sponge decorator crab

-hitchhiker micro decorator crab

 

 

Critters: 

-loose gorilla crabs

-500 million brittle stars

-assorted sea squirts

-a lump I cannot identify beyond "animal" 

-non-invasive Aiptasia, to be removed

-hidden cup coral

-starlet coral

 

 

Old plotting, rambling, and whatnot below the cut. Short version with better planning: I'm trying to establish a lightly stocked reef that can be left at home, automated, while I'm off at (late) college. ATO, auto-feeder, doser, webcam, maybe Easybooster preserved phyto dosing. Should hopefully wind up with lots of microfauna running around as additional snacks and interest.

I have an assortment of fairly cheap coral frags to try out, in addition to the contents of my existing pico (which will all be added in), and I plan on paring them down to corals that thrive in this tank and that I love. Excited to try out some chalices without them murdering everything in half my tank (can't really do that in a pico), and hoping to get some nice favias going.

I picked up a HOB 'fuge, and I'm going to try to plumb a 3gal pico onto the tank as well. The sexy shrimp, decorator crabs, and saron shrimp are planned to live in the pico, along with a few mushroom corals for the sexies, and a gorilla-type crab will go into the HOB 'fuge where it can't murder anything. (edit: fun, but both have been removed for simplicity's sake.) The rest of the gorilla-types will be humanely euthanized if I can't find them homes, as putting them all in the 'fuge would result in them slowly and inhumanely killing each other off during molts. If anyone would like some gorilla crabs, lemme know. 

 

Spoiler

(Edited July 15th, 2022. Change of plans. TL;DR: bigger tank, clownfish pair.)

 

I have a pico tank that I was originally planning to take with me when I can eventually go back to college. I've since decided to not, in fact, take a pico reef to college with me and try to keep it going well. Instead, I'm going to try for a low-maintenance setup that I can leave at home, with a small amount of maintenance from family members. I can come home (it's a relatively short drive) if needed, and I can monitor remotely. 

 

As equipment goes, I'm going to need to automate some things. The goal here is for the tank to only need complicated maintenance while I'm home from college, and for maintenance otherwise to be basically as complicated as a houseplant. Basically, "pour this stuff in here".

-Definitely need an ATO, with a large reservoir. The one from Avast Marine looks good; it's supposed to be fairly failure-proof. 

-I'm also going to have an auto-feeder, though I'm yet to figure out what'll be in there. It has to be gluten-free, as my mother has celiac and I don't want to make her handle something that is essentially toxic to her. Reef Roids? Freeze-dried Cyclop-Eeze? The idea here is to feed the assorted pods, maybe let the corals catch a little, and possibly supplement the fish. I say "possibly supplement" because I want the fish to mainly or entirely eat live pods in the tank. A frozen feeder is possibly an option. Change of plans: I want the pico fish to eat pods, since I want species that don't really take prepared foods well, and for the auto-feeder to keep some clownfish fed.

-There's an interesting product called EasyBooster Marine Phytoplankton, which is preserved phyto that comes in packets. You use a dosing pump to put it into the tank without exposing the contents of the packet to air, and my math says one packet should last probably a year or more for a tank this size. Seems like a good way to get, just, all sorts of copepods. 

-I'm probably going to need to dose supplements? If I want to be able to leave this tank without water changes for 4 months at a time, with stony corals in it, I'm probably going to need to add skeleton elements. 

-For remote monitoring, and also for remote enjoyment, I'm going to have a webcam. I might try to keep the readout from the temperature probe visible in said webcam, in case the heater stops working? But, honestly, I'm not too worried about that; I've had my pico get a bit cold if the room is especially chilly, and it doesn't really seem to bother much. I can just have a family member glance at the temp readout now and then, maybe. I'll have an Inkbird controller, so overheating isn't really a concern, as long as the temperature probe is firmly anchored so it can't fall out. 

-I probably need some kind of refugium situation. Not a full-on 'fuge, more like stuffing the filter compartments with chaeto. Probably a hang-on fuge. We'll see what works out best for a little extra pod breeding capacity. 

 

My plan, as far as livestock is to transfer over the entire contents of the pico, and not to add too much more livestock. Too much. Mostly just an increased cleanup crew, another pico fish (or two), a couple more choice corals, and, once I'm certain the pod population can handle it, one two more nano fish. I am 100% going to end up buying more corals I don't intend to, but I want to keep this lightly stocked in all departments, including the coral department. Definitely no big colonies of skeletal corals.

 

Definitely want to add:

A blue tuxedo urchin! I had one years ago in my old tank, and I really liked it. Should be able to support one nicely in a tank this size, without many other algae-eaters. 

A Mayan Sun favia. Since I can put it off to one side so it can't sting anything to death. 

At least one roughhead blenny. Maybe two. They're very small. Just waiting on KP Aquatics to have them in stock. 

 

May add: 

A Halloween hermit. I need to see what I end up doing with the auto-feeder, since I don't know that a Halloween hermit would like to never be fed anything with protein. If I can sort out the food, I want one. Yeah, they're big enough to knock things around, but they're also pretty. Update: someone at my LFS pointed out that Halloween hermits are heavy creatures with pointy feet, which isn't great for LPS, so I probably won't get one.

Miscellaneous cool snails from ReefCleaners, once it's not cooking-hot. An assortment would be nice. 

Other macros. Maybe I can keep nutrients up enough in this tank to keep the macros happy. There is going to be a lot of chaeto in here. 

Ricordea shrooms. I've had them in the past, and they all eventually shrank away and died. Maybe they'll work in this new tank. 

 

Options for the one nano fish: 

Yellowtail blue damsel? Cute, sassy, I had one in my old tank and loved it. Lots of color, good for midwater. Might bother the other fish? Or might not, since clown gobies taste nasty. Big enough to eat amphipods and munnid isopods, so easier to feed.

Pygmy possum wrasse? Never had one before. Cute body language, cute pointed faces. Can also eat amphipods and munnids. Lurks around rockwork a bit more.

Bluestripe pipefish? Had one before, also loved it. Surprisingly midwater for a pipefish, actually an active swimmer. Probably only eats copepods, so harder to keep fed, but probably doable. Not sure if this has lower bio-load than the others, since it's so skinny but has such a hummingbird-like metabolism. 

Hector's goby? Had one before. Again, loved it. Shy, but interesting stripes. Eats a lot of algae and can eat amphipods and munnids. Would need algae not eaten by the tuxedo urchin, but possibly doable. My prior one liked to snack on a patch of hair algae. 

I've decided 100% what I want. Clownfish pair. Designer ocellaris of some sort, probably not matching. Maybe one of those cool lightning strike ones, and an interesting bronze one? I'll have to see what Dr Reef can get; I'm going to get these from him, or someone else who does full quarantine and such. They'll get fed by the auto-feeder, and I don't think they'll have too much impact on the pod population. Plus, this tank is going to be in the upper range of nano size, if not past that. Should be plenty of pods available for the pico fish. 

(I might eventually get a pair of bluestripe pipefish. Maybe after college. I really do love them. Apparently they do best in a pair, so I'm not getting one unless I feel confident that I can support two.)

 

Scape and equipment: 

The tank I've chosen is an AIO cube tank, about 17" on all edges. I've chosen it partly because I like the looks of it, and partly because I can buy it and a taller stand from my LFS, thus supporting them and avoiding having to deal with shipping. (This may change if I find a really good deal on Craigslist. There's a 34gal up there now, but it's not a pretty tank, it looks like cheap plastic.)

I have a couple of different 45gal tanks in mind, and I'm keeping an eye on Craigslist. This one is a bit up in the air currently. 

I plan to have little to no actual filter media, just water movement. I worry about pump vibrations stressing fish, so all water movement for this tank will be provided with a canister filter. Can't bother the fish with vibrations if the vibrations are outside the tank! To avoid having a nitrate factory, the filter will have no media in it. Except maybe some activated charcoal. 

The light, I'm not sure about. I wanted to see tanks in person at my LFS and pick one before choosing a light, since tank shape makes a difference. I want a light that's highly configurable, so I can pick exactly the colors that look nice to my eye. I like whiter light than a lot of people run their reefs. I'd prefer a light that I can set to ramp up and down in the mornings and evenings, so as not to scare the fish with sudden light changes. Whether that's via an in-light timer, or an app, will remain to be seen. I am open to suggestions on highly adjustable lights with ramping ability! 

For scape, I'm going to try for a lot of open sandbed. I bought a 6-lb chunk of dry rock from my LFS, and I'm going to use all the existing rock in my pico reef. I have an assortment of large, busted-up shells from the beaches in Galveston, and I'm picturing a rock island in the sandbed, off-center, and some shells scattered around. Kinda like it's a reef that popped up on a chunk of rock in the middle of nowhere. That somehow has a ton of diversity of coral species. Which may or may not be native to the same parts of the world at all. I do need to have plenty of pod rockwork, so I'll have to balance that with having open sandbed, but I do want to try and play with negative space. Negative space which I don't fill with coral discs. This might end up being an exercise in self-control. 

 

Additional ideas:

I'm going to get some ocean live rock and live sand from Tampa Bay. It's going to sit in separate tanks, one for the rock and one for the salt, for 2 months. Both for an anti-ich fallow period, and to watch for unwanted beasties. I was originally looking at KP Aquatics, but Tampa Bay has this cool live sand that's full of shell bits and whatnot. Apparently they even sometimes have clingfish hitchhikers! Though I don't think I could keep a clingfish; big mouths on those suckers. Bad with tiny fish. 

I want to catch some of my own critters. I live near the Gulf, so I can go and collect some periwinkles, nerites, maybe some ceriths if I'm lucky, and hopefully some porcelain crabs. I think it'd be fun to catch some of my own stock. Might try some sargassum shrimp, even. I can't find much on them online, nobody really seems to try to keep them, but I can't imagine they're that hard to keep. They're seaweed-clinging shrimp. 

 

Questions:

What can y'all tell me about halloween hermits? I know they get a bit large and might push things over, but are they otherwise reasonably well-behaved? Will they attack smaller hermits and/or snails too small to provide them with shells? They're pretty, and I want one, if it won't murder things. Too much. And am I right that they need protein, not just algae? 

Any tips on maintaining copepod population in a reef tank? I assume "dose phyto, provide refugium type places, don't stock too many fish" is about the extent of it. 

In terms of fish choices, will a pygmy possum wrasse swim in open water to some extent, if kept in a tank with no bullies? I want something that'll swim in midwater, since my current fish is a clown goby and my planned fish are tiny blennies that live in holes. And this is actually a large enough tank to keep midwater fish in! There aren't really any midwater pico fish, except maybe masked gobies, and those might want more space than a pico anyway. 

Is a pygmy possum going to eat all the pods out of a tank this size, if it's in the tank with a couple pico fish? If so, would providing it with freeze-dried foods (assuming I can get one that eats freeze-dried foods) decrease that tendency? 

 

Photo time!

Here's that chunk of rock. I may regret picking up a chunk this big, but I took a liking to it for reasons unbeknownst to me, and it will make for lots of pod hiding places. Featuring a spare canister filter, a spare heater, a bunch of misc shells and other bits from my pico, and the birdseed I need to find a better storage solution for. I put one small chunk of live rock in there to add bacteria and algae. I was planning to add another chunk, but it turned out to have a small turkey wing clam on it, and I didn't want to doom the clam by putting it in a tank with no food. All my other rocks are currently in use by critters.

This tank is in a spot that gets indirect sunlight most of the day, and a couple hours of direct sunlight. I'll be monitoring it to make sure it doesn't overheat, but I think it'll be okay, as my room is fairly cold and this is near the air conditioner. Once I find out a safe amount to use with creatures, I'm going to dose this tank with Micro Algae Grow. I want to try and supercharge the algae growth on that rock, both to try and get a head start on the pest algae stages and to try to get algae going for that tuxedo urchin. 

(I'm also curious what will happen.)

 

Sidenote; if you have a cat, I cannot recommend enough that you put some one-way film on one window and stick a bird feeder on the windowsill. There are platform feeders you can attach directly, or you can use a hook to hang the feeder right up next to the window. Open the window to put seeds out, and you've produced the world's best cat TV. The birds can't see the cat, but the cat gets to be incredibly entertained. And you get to watch the cats, watch the birds up super close, and get lots of cute photos of this sort of thing. 

 

 

The black-and-white one also likes to watch the hermits in my pico reef, but lately she's been far more interested in Birds. The birds clearly don't know about her, and have long since gotten used to the sound of the window being slapped when the cat gets especially excited. 

 

Back to actual reef life! Because I have purchased a critter to add to this tank. 

Meet an orange and black hermit! Apparently these are the same species as zebra hermits. They're black, with vivid orange lines that make them look like they're about to crack off their exoskeleton and burst into being a little entity of fire, and cool white edging on their big claws. I saw them in the display tank and loved them enough that I really wanted to get one. I went ahead and picked up a small one, because I want to get him quarantined. 

Normally I'd say that inverts probably don't need to be quarantined, but hermit crabs are walking pieces of hardscape. There could be ich tomonts on this guy, if I got unlucky. So, he gets to hang out in the algae growing tank for a couple months. He's currently in one corner, not moving, kinda hiding inside his shell, making me worry that all the dust is somehow bad for him. It's just dust from me forgetting to rinse the rock first, so it's pretty similar to forgetting to rinse your sand, and that's not harmful to marine life. It's just limestone dust. It should be fine? If it doesn't settle by tomorrow, I'll stuff some floss or whatnot into the filter to snag it. I assume the hermit is just hunkered down because he's in a scary new place. (Right?)

I have scarlet reef hermits, which are easily bullied. But I don't think a single zebra hermit, in a 24gal, with lots of spare shells, is going to bully the two scarlets. 

 

[aclman88]

A lot to unpack here but just some questions first. 
 

1. What kind of maintenance is family willing to do? Scrape glass daily or more  (otherwise your webcam would not really show much). Will they perform emergency water changes? Refill an ato consistently?

 

2. Realistically, how often are you willing to drive back home to take care of the tank? College is a pretty large time commitment and it sounds like you are going away for school. Between classes, new friends, parties, events and studying, you may not have the ability to drive home at a moments notice to deal with something. You also may not want to. 
 

3. What’s your time frame to get this yup and running before you leave for school?

4.  what’s the budget?

5. may I ask the reason for not bringing the tank to school? A pico will be low maintenance enough and you will likely get a lot more enjoyment and less stress from the tank. 
 

Advice:

- get an ATO with a float switch and set it on a WiFi timer. Have the timer only on one minute a day. This will add some redundancy to the system and keep from major overflows. Avoid the XP Aqua or other light sensor based ones. I had issues with mine. My diy ATO has run without issue for years. Create a snail guard using zip ties and embroidery plastic mesh 

 

- get a clear ato container and make sure your webcam can see if. That way you can monitor it remotely. 
 

- make sure you get a webcam that you can move remotely to look at different areas of your tank. They cost a little more than a stationary one, but worth it for what you want. 
 

-inkbird sells a WiFi temp sensor that would allow you to remotely check temp. 
 

- AI prime is a nice light for this size tank. 
 

- avoid stony corals is you have no way to doze or perform water changes for months at a time

 

- avoid new fish until the tank has been running consistently while you are away. 

 

 

 

[Tired]

It takes a lot longer than a day for enough algae to grow on glass to make it difficult to see what's inside, at least to the degree of checking for health. I'm aiming for the tank to need something along the lines of "refill ATO, refill auto-feeder, maybe refill dosing pump, quickly clean area of glass with glass cleaning magnet" once a week. I'm paying my brother to do as much. 

 

I have about a year to get this tank up and running. I figure, if I can't get it working in that time, I can put everything (sans new rock) back into the pico. Besides the rock, and some new cleanup crew, I won't be getting anything that can't fit into the pico until I'm confident this is working out. Worst-case, I reassemble the pico, and I keep the equipment for the bigger tank for after college. Aquariums don't expire, after all. 

 

So far, this pico reef has been pretty low-maintenance, with water changes intermittently every few months. I can't imagine quintupling the water volume, without significantly increasing the corals, would change that. Particularly not if I added a doser. 

 

Budget, we'll see. I have a supply of work that my father needs done, things like putting paragraph breaks and actual punctuation into video transcripts and fact-checking things. Budget depends on how much of that I can get done. 

 

I'm worried about stress on the fish in transport. Clown gobies are pretty easily spooked, turns out. I don't want to have to worry about temperature swings in the (old) dorms, or the housing people spraying for pests. And I don't want to have to deal with trying to transport the tank and all the supplies, and finding places for those in the dorm. I already have an orchid terrarium that I'm definitely bringing; it's relaxing to look at, easy to maintain, includes nothing with brains (except some springtails), and is too specific in spraying needs to be left alone. 

 

That's some good advice, thanks. 

 

How adjustable is the Prime, in terms of light coloration and intensity? And I suppose I should find out, will it have problems if the phone used to control it is 45 minutes away? 

 

Edit: oh, and I should be clear that the one nano fish is a long-term goal. That's for after at least a year of the tank operating entirely on the schedule I have in mind, without problems. Not a year after upgrade. After at least a year of it working out. I'm just doing a bunch of research at once, because I'm excited. 

[Tired]

I've been looking a bit at hang-on and in-tank refugiums. There's some hang-on fuges that wind up being nearly a pico tank in their own right. Definitely want to get something along those lines, and if I wind up with one of the more easily visible ones, I'd like a mithrax or pitho crab. Something that will happily eat the chaeto and detritus in there. I know having an animal eat the chaeto puts some of the nutrients back into the tank, but plenty of that gets used as crab energy, and they don't eat that much anyway. And I can't picture an emerald or pitho crab eating many pods. Maybe the occasional particularly big, particularly stupid amphipod. I'd have to pop in some rubble and a couple of shells to be nice caves for the lil guy. 

 

I guess the question is just if this tank would grow enough edible macros to keep a small crab type happy in there. Probably- I can't imagine they eat that much. 

[M. Tournesol]

1 hour ago, Tired said:

I've been looking a bit at hang-on and in-tank refugiums. There's some hang-on fuges that wind up being nearly a pico tank in their own right. Definitely want to get something along those lines, and if I wind up with one of the more easily visible ones, I'd like a mithrax or pitho crab. Something that will happily eat the chaeto and detritus in there. I know having an animal eat the chaeto puts some of the nutrients back into the tank, but plenty of that gets used as crab energy, and they don't eat that much anyway. And I can't picture an emerald or pitho crab eating many pods. Maybe the occasional particularly big, particularly stupid amphipod. I'd have to pop in some rubble and a couple of shells to be nice caves for the lil guy. 

 

I guess the question is just if this tank would grow enough edible macros to keep a small crab type happy in there. Probably- I can't imagine they eat that much. 

You could also do an in tank refugium (separated by a glass pane or a plastic grid)

[Tired]

I'd thought about that sort of setup, but the tank I have in mind is a cube tank (...though I suppose, if I'm getting a new stand, maybe not), so I'm not sure I have space for that to look nice. And I do actually like the look of these really thin 'fuges that hang on the side of the tank. Plus, it's funny to me to have a slice of an aquarium there, and that's what those thin ones look like to me. 

 

What I want to do is a tower of aquascape towards the back right corner, with a good 90% of the rock there, occupying no more than 1/3 of the sand space. I should be able to fit a decent bit of rock in a tower/stylish heap shape, I hope. Then another couple of smaller rocks elsewhere, and some shells lying on the sand in clusters. 

 

I think I'm going to set up the tank and hardscape without the 'fuge, then decide from there. My main issue is just how to get the water back into the tank; HOB fuges have that sort of spout design, and I'm not sure how to integrate that into a lid. Because this tank is going to have a lid! It's going to have to be a gap-proof lid, too; I want roughhead blennies. I can't use 1/4" mesh, and I'm not sure I trust 1/8" mesh. Might try a solid lid, with the AIO compartments open, like I have on my pico now. I know it blocks some of the light, but I'm not growing anything that's going to demand the full force of whatever light is over the tank. 

 

Time to start looking for a custom lid-maker who uses either fine mesh or solid lids, I guess. And figuring out a plan for the outward spout of the 'fuge. Maybe just a cut-out in the lid, and a little box over it to allow for the spout to fit in while still being covered. 

[Tired]

Oo, right, KP Aquatics exists. I could order a 10-lb rock package from them, shipped to my door in water. I started my pico with post-cure aquacultured rock from my LFS, but it would be cool to see what just-from-the-ocean rock looks like. Judging by pictures and reviews, it looks like All The Algae Ever. 

 

Pros: 

-cool hitchhikers! Probably get a mithrax crab or three. Maybe something obscure.

-fun to see what all youget
-instant additional maturity
-algae galore (good for urchin establishment and prettiness)

-looks nice right off and will continue to look nice

 

Cons: 

-possible uncool hitchhikers (mantises are bad if you have teeny fish)

-pricy! $20 a pound with shipping all told.

-don't get to pick the shapes in person
-might get cool but doomed hitchhikers, like tunicates

[Tired]

I am now being tempted by the Waterbox 25 peninsula. Maybe I'll see if my LFS can get one of those in. Or if they ever have any there for me to look at and think about the pros and cons of. I really want to buy from the LFS, both to help support them and to avoid having to deal with shipping, so I'm going to be strongly preferring whatever they can get. 

 

I need something that either comes with a stand, or fits the existing stand I have. Because of a curve at the front, this stand can hold a tank that's up to 20 inches long and 19 wide, or 19 wide and 20 long. Still really liking that idea of an aquascape that tries for a lot of exposed sandbed, and I don't think a peninsula is the right shape for that. 

 

I want to try something that I don't see very often. A tank that intentionally only has relatively small coral colonies, with much of the rock exposed. Or- as exposed as rock gets in a reef environment. Covered in algae and whatnot. I find it easiest to appreciate corals when there's space between them, as opposed to them being smushed up together. Smushing can create a beautiful overall aquascape, but can often make it harder to enjoy individual corals. At least, to my eye. I also like when corals are right near the sandbed, with little around them to distract from enjoying them.

 

Here are some photos I took in Cozumel, snorkeling in shallow water. A lot of the rocks in the middle of the sand were too sandy to have nearly as much life on them, but the ones that hadn't been kept cleanish by sand, tangs, and parrotfish had all sorts of life. Though, most of it (by volume and number of species) was algae and sponges, not corals. I'm not planning on trying to grow many sponges in this tank, but I have a few shades of coraline algae already, and I'm hoping the tuxedo urchin can knock that back and maintain a greater diversity of colors and textures. If I could maintain half the color diversity that comes in on aquacultured live rock, I'd be happy. Though I know a lot of that doesn't like an aquarium environment so much. The interesting orange on my original live rock has since faded out, for one thing. 

[Tired]

Slightly different idea: two/three pico fish, and something that greedily eats dry foods and doesn't have much impact on copepods. Clowns, maybe. 

 

Anyone know how bluestripe pipefish do on prepared foods? It looks like they do best in pairs, and I definitely can't keep a pair fat on copepods grown in a nano tank. But bluestripes are relatively easy to train onto prepared food, and I've found a highly recommended auto-feeder that can do up to 4 feedings a day. 

 

(Worth noting again: this is me getting excited about future possibilities. Current plan is just to have a nano full of far more pods than the resident couple of pico fish can eat.)

[Tired]

Change of plans! I'm getting a tank roughly twice that size. Exactly what tank remains to be seen, but I'm thinking something in the 45 gallon range. Still a cube-ish shape, similar aquascaping design. Partly because that'll be more stable, partly because it should grow FAR more pods than my pico fish can eat, partly because I want to be able to comfortably support the nano fish I've decided on. 

 

Clownfish. A pair, since they seem to be best kept in pairs. Two designer clowns, probably mismatched but complimentary. My research says that clownfish don't tend to go after copepods much when fed, and a tank that size should have plenty of pods regardless. 

 

That does ratchet up the price point on this tank pretty considerably, especially since I'm also going to need to buy a new stand. Oh well; more flexibility, more space to aquascape, more possibilities post-college. Does mean I might have trouble keeping nutrients up, depending on what my corals do, but at least that's workable. It also allows for me to feed more, which is good for keeping lots of microfauna going. 

 

I've decided to order some ocean rock and live sand from Tampa Bay, which I'm excited about. I've never gotten ocean rock, not directly. I started my pico with ocean rock, but that was after it had been cured at the LFS. I'll order the rock once I have the tank, and will put the rock in the tank and the sand in a separate holding bin. Both to wait out a fallow period on the off chance that there's ich, and to deal with the much more likely pests of crabs. The sand is going in a separate tank so I can more easily trap out the near-inevitable crabs with stinky dead things and various bottle traps. 

I'm hoping for porcelain crabs and some baby urchins, though the urchins will probably have to go once they reach adulthood. It'd be really cool to have a suitable goby or blenny pop up, but I'm not hoping for one- that's pretty unlikely. I think I'm going to order their The Package bundle, but pass on the cleanup crew, since I already have some of that and plan to get more CUC from the Gulf next spring. 

 

Because I'm also planning on that! I'm going to Port Aransas for the songbird migration, and I want to try to collect some of my own critters. Periwinkles, nerites, and hopefully I can get lucky and catch porcelain crabs. I know where to find green porcelains (which are invasive there!), and apparently there are also spotted porcelain crabs that are sometimes commensal with large hermits. I will not be catching the large hermits; zebra-striped hermits get big. 

(Another bonus of the 45gal: I can definitely support both a tuxedo urchin and a nice assortment of fun little cleanup critters.)

[Tired]

I am now very intently eyeing the Nuvo Pro 50gal Lagoon. It'd fit nicely in a space I have, and the shape seems good. Should be doable to light it with only one light, as long as I don't want to keep SPS in any of the outer edges. Which I don't. 

 

Rock update: 

Brown. Diatoms, I figure. Still no green algae, for some reason. There's definitely green algae present, on the bits of stuff I added, but apparently it hasn't been long enough for green algae. Or green algae doesn't like sunlight, but that wouldn't make any sense. 

 

(Don't mind the stuff on the heater. I accidentally melted some plastic onto it. It's fine.)

 

I think this tank is going to be opaque from algae growth by the time I take that dry-ish rock out of it. Maybe I'll put a few bits of dry rock in there and keep it going, cook up a bunch of algae I can take with me when I go to get critters from the Gulf. Seems like the best way to feed snails in a temporary holding tank. It'll also mean the holding tank is cycled, which is, of course, ideal. I figure I'll take enough salt to do a bunch of water changes, and grab some distilled or RODI water from the grocery store near the hotel, but actual nitrifying bacteria is good too. 

I'm excited to go collecting! Haven't caught aquarium critters since I was a kid, and I never had any interest in snails then. Aside from a moon snail that I kept for awhile on frozen foods and such. I tried to keep some of the shrimp that came in on the sargassum, and they didn't do well, but that might have been my bad as opposed to them not being suitable for aquariums. I don't see why seaweed-clinging shrimp wouldn't work. 

 

It's looking like I'm going to have a combination of shipped-in-water ocean rock, my existing live rock, and some nice pieces of dry rock in this tank. Should be fun to see what happens. I'm thinking maybe a sped-up ugly stage on the dry rock? Not too worried about the uglies, as all I have to do is not put my corals directly on any uglies. 

[Tired]

I've done some measuring and learned that the lagoon tank I was eyeing is slightly too long to fit into the space I have available. More specifically, it would physically fit, but it wouldn't look very good. It'd overlap my windowframe and crowd the curtain. Which is a shame, but does make it easy for me to decide what tank I'm getting, because I was down to 2 options. So, I know what I want! Barring a really, really good Craigslist deal. It's not actually a nano.

 

I'm getting the JBJ 45 gallon AIO. It's 26.5” x 22” x 19”, which seems like a pretty good shape. Also comes with a solid lid, which is nice. I'll need to modify it to remove gaps, but still. There is one potential issue: height. The stand is 36 inches, which puts the rim of the tank 55 inches off the ground. Now, that should be nice for viewing, I imagine. But I'm only about 63 inches tall. I'm not sure my armpit is 55 inches off the ground. I learned, as a kid with a 65 gallon deep freshwater tank, that you do want your tank to not be taller than your armpit. Hard to get your arm in there otherwise. Granted, you put your arm in a saltwater tank a lot less often, and I'm not going to be doing much gravel vacuuming, but still. I might need a nice step stool. Almost definitely going to need one for aquascaping. 

 

Speaking of aquascaping: I'm planning on getting some Tampa Bay live rock and live sand. They evidently have really good stuff, and I like the look of this chunky full-of-bits sand. I'm thinking of also getting a 10-pound package of KP Aquatics rock, so I can compare them. Seems fun, comparing the two right alongside each other with them both collected fairly recently.

And I'm going to chuck in a couple pieces of dry rock, because I'm curious what'll happen to it in a tank with fresh ocean rock. 

 

The plan is to get the tank, then the rock. I'll let the tank stand fallow (but fed) for 2 months, which will give me time to catch any crabs and whatnot, and will also allow for any disease to die off. I know fish disease is much more spread out in the ocean, and it's pretty darned unlikely for there to be any notable pathogens on the rock (aside from those that are everywhere, like uronema), but I gotta watch for crab types anyway. Though, apparently, gorilla crabs might be out of season for Tampa Bay- I've been asking them a few questions via email. 

 

Once the rock has sat long enough for me to have trapped out any potential crabs (and probably a lot of miscellaneous critters), I'll transfer everything over. The pico is going to wind up sitting probably on my floor, as I have to move it and its stand to put the new reef in place. 

 

I think I'm going to end up getting the clownfish sooner than a year+. Since I'm now planning for part of this tank to include an auto-feeder regularly feeding a pair of nano fish, I might need to get those nano fish sooner. Maybe end of this year or beginning of next. I found someone who sells captive-bred clowns, and now I just have to decide what I want. I don't want the pair to be too mismatched, but I also want a little variety. I'm thinking maybe one Mocha Panda, one of something with similar colors but an all-dark face. Though I still want to look at some mismatched clown pairs in person, make sure I don't hate them being different patterns. I'll check out the pair in one of my LFS display tanks; if I remember right, they have a mismatched pair.

 

They also have black micro brittle stars, which I need to get some of. Love those. I had some already, but they got palytoxin'd to death. A few of my white micro brittles made it, but the blacks got fried. And I've just remembered that the LFS also has a 'fuge with mysis shrimp- maybe I should get those for the HOB 'fuge I want here. 

 

I'm really excited about this whole project. The tricky part, I think, is going to be getting it to be a viable reef with very little maintenance for 4-month chunks. A heavily understocked FOWLR has many fewer things to worry about. Auto-feeder, auto-topoff, chaeto for nutrient export, maybe a doser of Chaeto-Gro. A reef tank is trickier, but I still think it's workable, if it's lightly planted. 

(We don't call reef tanks "heavily planted" or "lightly planted", but you get the idea.)

Ideally, l'd like to wind up with one or two nice-sized branching SPS colonies. That's definitely a push goal. Might have to be for after college, but maybe I'll try it out with a couple of cheap frags. I just really like the image of a nice big branching situation coming off the main rockwork. 

I still have that image of a sparsely planted reef. Small to medium colonies of a few choice corals, plenty of space on the rockwork between them for algae and also visual distance. As beautiful as it can be to have a tank so crowded with corals you can't see the rock, I think there's something nice about a less crowded look as well. Plus, that's way easier to maintain.

 

Definitely going to be making use of frag discs to keep a lot of corals contained on the sandbed, or on their own little islands, to keep them smallish. I'm actually planning to get some GSP, since I'll have space for it to go on a fist-sized rock somewhere in the sand. I really do like the look of that stuff, and my LFS sometimes has a different variant than the usual. Maybe I'll put two different types of GSP and let them slap each other over the space. 

 

I hope y'all were wanting to see a lot of excited rambling and talking half to myself. I think this is just how the entire thread is gonna go, though it's probably going to be a bit less once I'm out of the planning-and-wondering stage. I'm just really excited- this is the biggest saltwater tank I've ever had, and I have much better information now than I did before. I'm gonna get clowns! And I'm gonna collect myself some critters! And I'm gonna get cool ocean live rock covered in stuff! 

 

(And I'm gonna spend so much dang money. That part's less exciting. Too bad I'm not doing this around Christmas; could put a lot of the smaller stuff on my wishlist. Though I do have a birthday in August; maybe I can get some of the tiny supplies then. Frag rack, long turkey baster, and so on.)

[M. Tournesol]

6 minutes ago, Tired said:

he stand is 36 inches, which puts the rim of the tank 55 inches off the ground. Now, that should be nice for viewing, I imagine. But I'm only about 63 inches tall

you could make a wood platform in front of your aquarium 😉

[Tired]

I might have to do that, we'll see. At least it's not deeper than my arm is long, I don't think. I had to deal with that when I first got that freshwater tank, because I was a short kid and it was a deep tank. I physically could not, by any means, reach the bottom of the tank with my hand for a few years. Not ideal. 

[Tired]

I have measured. 55 inches is slightly higher than my armpit. I'm gonna need a water-resistant step stool for aquascaping. 

 

On the plus side, this should be a really nice viewing height. And it's going to be a perfect height for the cat to sit on my bed and stare into the tank. She's actually part of the reason I want clownfish; I figure relatively bold, outgoing, wiggly fish would be great for her to watch. She likes to look at the hermit crabs when they're up against that side of the tank, but I haven't had any wiggly midwater fish while we've had her, so she's never seen those. I'm not sure if she'll like the clownfish more than her windowsill bird feeder, but I expect she'll like them some. And I figure they'll be bold enough to tolerate her staring at them. 

[Tired]

Let me tell y'all, there are some absurd deals on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. Someone on Facebook has a 150 gallon tank, with stand, listed for $300. If I had anywhere to put a tank that big, and any inclination to do water changes that big, I'd be all over it! Maybe not for a reef, though- more of a simple freshwater planted tank, I think. 

 

I'm keeping an eye out for good deals that fit what I'm looking for. Haven't found anything current, not yet, because I'm trying to find something relatively specific; AIO style tank, glass, 35-60 gallons, no more than about 26 inches long so it'll fit into the space I have. Nice clean rimless type, not a Biocube or one of those Red Sea ones with the hoods. Edit: could actually work with a non-AIO that fits the rest of that description, as long as it's the right height for one of those AIO drop-in conversion kits to fit neatly into. 

Did find one listing for a 45 gallon AIO cube type that would have been perfect, even came with a light! But it was being sold by someone 2 and a half hours away from me. Between gas, mileage on the car, time, and trouble, it worked out to be a lot less of a good deal. 

 

If anyone in Central TX is looking to get rid of a tank that fits that description, lemme know! 

 

Further adventures of the dry rock in the invert quarantine tank: 

Green hair algae on the walls, and the start of some sort of green encrusting algae (not visible here) on the rock. I should probably dose more fertilizer, maybe some Chaeto-Gro. I imagine plenty of that has been used up by now. Really thought green algae would show up faster than this. 

 

I'm going to make myself at least one speedy coral island, I think. Xenia seems like my best bet for a non-anemone clownfish host, and I do like the pulsing kind. Maybe a little island of that will do the trick, keep the clowns from rubbing on anything else while also providing them with something to look cute in. 

[Tired]

Uniquecorals.com has Australian live rock for sale, and I have a limited ability to resist temptation. 

 

That is all. 

[Tired]

Apparently this is going to be their last rock shipment for awhile, so now I have 5lbs of Australian rock in the mail. It's pricey, but I see it as kinda like one of those lottery tickets where you're guaranteed to win something. I'll definitely get lots of bacteria, cool algae, and some nice-shaped rocks. Hopefully I'll get some neat macros and whatnot. I wouldn't mind a cool crab (my LFS will happily take them), though I'd probably have to catch it out. And if I'm lucky, I'll get the grand prize: hitchhiker corals!

Apparently rock can't be exported from Australia with corals visible on it, but people still get corals that weren't visible when the rock was shipped out. I still plan to get some shipped-in-water rock, but I couldn't resist the opportunity here. This rock will go into a 10gal tank with an... we'll call it adequate light, and I'll move "decide on and purchase an appropriate light" higher up the priority list. 

 

I'm likely going to end up with a doser on this tank, and if so, I think I'm going to try a couple easy branching SPS. I haven't tried them in my pico yet, both because of calcium needs and because of lack of space. I'd love to have a reasonably-sized colony or two in here, sticking up off the rocks. 

Can anyone suggest branching type SPS that tolerate (if not outright enjoy) higher nutrients, and look nice under fairly white lights? Preferably ones that grow a bit more slowly, so as not to suck up all the calcium. I like the look of birdsnest corals, but those seem to grow pretty fast. 

I've been poking around on Reef2Reef (even though I don't especially like a lot of the vibe there), and people seem to really like this guy at Battlecorals. He's got these mystery boxes listed on his site. Maybe I'll hit him up eventually, ask if he can put together a little pack of SPS that fit the bill. 

 

I wonder if I could keep a couple gorgonians in here? If I wind up with this preserved phyto doser I'm looking at, that might do the trick to support 'em. Though they'd probably eat into both the copepods themselves, and the phyto available to the pods. 

[Tired]

I do not have Australian live rock in the mail. It was going to ship out today, but it hasn't. A lot of mail in the US routes through a hub in Kentucky, and Kentucky is currently underwater. That shipment is on hold for an unknown amount of time. Probably not a bad thing; maybe it'll cool off a bit by the time they ship. 

 

 

 

[Tired]

Rock should be in tomorrow!

 

My LFS has sailfin blennies. I was SO tempted. I love their little faces and twitchy dorsal fins. But I'm going to get roughhead blennies directly from KP Aquatics at some point, so I'll ask them what they think of combining the two, and maybe get a sailfin or two at the same time. I don't want to get sailfins from my LFS and their tanks full of germs (like any LFS has) when I can get them direct from the collector instead. 

 

Check out how nice these two clowns look together! 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=324538445568933

I think I'm sold. This tank is going to have a Black Darwin and a Black Storm, or maybe a really dark Mocha Storm that might turn black as it ages. I'm going to ask the breeder for a Storm with as much black as possible, as long as the face is still white, and preferably a Darwin that's larger and likely to be the female. I think having the Darwin bigger looks nice. I also like how this pair has one wild-type clownfish (since, IIRC, Black Darwins can be found in the wild), and one designer clown. I found a breeder who looks good, and will be ordering directly from them to try to avoid supply chain germs, though they'll still get a proper QT just in case. I'll be ordering once the tank is set up and temps are reasonable for shipping. 

 

Rock update: we have hair algae! Almost entirely on the wall, though. Still not much happening on the rock. I'm not sure why the rock is persistently staying cleaner. This thing might still be mostly bare when it winds up in the tank with the live rock. For all I know, it's cursed to be mostly white forever. I'm not sure how you can tell if rock from your LFS is cursed. 

[Tired]

I got my rocks! I had asked for 2 or 3 pieces, preferably not Tonga-branch-style shapes, because I'm not super fond of how a couple of branches look in a tank that's mostly non-branches. That's exactly what I got. Unique Corals delayed shipping for a day because of flooding issues around the hub, then another day on my request just in case it was needed. 

 

The rocks were wrapped in many layers of wet paper, then in multiple plastic bags, then in these shredded-up boxes, then in a garbage bag, inside a Styrofoam-lined cardboard box with some cooling packs. 

 

The whole top end of this rock is a mostly-clean coral skeleton. It only has traces of algae on it, pretty clearly defined around the edges, so I'm hoping there's some life in that. Also a few bits of halimeda on here. I think that small coral skeleton on the left is dead, as it's covered in red algae, but we'll see. 

I've never gotten fresh live rock from before. I've seen people saying that this particular rock definitely has the real-live-rock smell, and I think I know what they mean now. It's not an overwhelming stench, but this rock definitely smelled spicy when I opened it. As in, genuinely spicy. Like something merfolk would use to make chili. Almost pleasant, actually. 

 

This fuzzy little brittle star was in the paper it had been wrapped in, and started moving when I put it in the water. It's roaming all over the place in the holding tank. Hopefully that's just it being freaked out by the shipping, and not a sign that something is wrong in there. 

(Actually, now that I've said that, I'm going to go catch it and put it in my invert QT tank that I know is suitable for invert life. It's been through enough in shipping without having to deal with the rock die-off, especially since it looks like part of its top/back was scraped off. Hopefully it recovers, it's interesting.)

 

Tiny crab, probably dead. There was also a probably-dead sphaeromatid isopod that was too small to photograph at all. Both are in the tank just in case they're actually alive. Unique Corals said they haven't seen any mobile life other than copepods, but I'm taking the presence of these as a sign that I should check on this with a red light at night, maybe with some bait, and see what's in there. Maybe something got lucky hanging out in a pocket of water and survived. I'd be happy to get some Australian crabs; my LFS will happily sell them if they wind up being something big. 

 

The other rock has a cluster of what I think is empty tubeworm tubes on it. 

 

Lots of promising areas of color on this rock, including that patch of what I think is some sort of thick encrusting coraline near the base of my thumb, and a couple chunks of halimeda. 

 

I caught some sort of long-armed amphipod. There's a few of these definitely in there. 

 

I ordered 5 pounds of rock, and this is what I got. I didn't actually weigh it and check how much it weighs, but apparently the package weighed 11 pounds. Now, some of that was packing materials and wet paper, but I think this might be more than 5 pounds of rock. 

 

I'm going to keep this 10gal tank half-full for a few days, doing daily water changes to prevent the die-off from killing more things. Once it stops being quite so prone to ammonia in there, I'll fill it up all the way and let it sit. There's a metal halide plant light over it, which should be reasonable enough for coaxing anything that's alive to grow, and a couple of pumps for circulation. 

 

It remains to be seen exactly how lucky I got in the lottery department. I'm thinking I'll need a month or so to see what algaes start to sprout and find out if those coral skeletons are dead, and then, what, maybe a year to find out if there are any coral spores hiding anywhere? Regardless of lottery wins, I've definitely gotten some good microscopic biodiversity, and these are pretty neat shapes. Some creature or another is going to love the little cave in that bigger rock, I'm sure.

 

[Tired]

We have worms!

Under an inch long. Probably some sort of eunicid. There's a few in there that look like this, and some of those sediment tubes on the rocks are inhabited. These guys might be what's inside, I know some eunicids build tubes. 

Once the rock is done curing, I'm going to move it to a smaller tank to free up this 10gal. When I do that, I'll probably get a couple of cheap zoas from my LFS and pop them in there as canaries, see if anything eats them. I'm going to assume that the worms on here are detritivores, but it won't hurt to check. 

 

 

[Tired]

I have been reminded that Australia does have bobbit worms. These are probably not bobbits, since bobbits are large predators and are therefore fairly rare, but does anyone happen to know what teeny-tiny bobbits look like? Just to check. As cool as they are, I don't want one in my tank with my small fish. 

[Tired]

Putting a note here to look into maybe getting some P. cyanodorsalis. They're tiny rainbowfish that live in brackish to marine habitats in the wild. Outside breeding season, they're cute little minnowy shoaling things with hints of color. During breeding season, they get some nice colors. They get barely over an inch long, so a nice shoal should be fine in this tank, I'd think. The main downside is that they only live a couple years. They do readily breed in captivity, but I'm not sure if the fry will survive of their own accord to keep the population up or not. Probably depends on the amount of cover I can manage. 

[Tired]

Not the best photo, but we might have hydroids on this rock. Those white branching bits near the top. Unless they start spreading wildly, I'm ignoring them, aside from not putting any corals directly on top of them.

The halimeda seems to be making an effort at growing, and there's some sort of red turf algae in a few spots. I'm also seeing a couple of worm tubes that have something bright red inside them, though whatever's in there hasn't come out enough for me to see what it is. And I'm pretty sure that big coral skeleton has some live patches, because a couple of spots on it have coral-flesh brown inside the polyps, only inside the polyps, and white skeleton all around those. Hopefully it's like the starlet coral that I have in my pico, and it'll come out once things stop being terrible. The polyps on this one are too small for me to confirm that it is flesh in there, but it sure looks like there is. 

So, what is that? Porites of some sort? I'm not sure if it's a mounding or encrusting coral, but I think mounding, by the outlines. The polyps are tiny, only a few millimeters across. 

 

I've seen some really cool pictures of those bookshelf-style aquariums mounted above larger display tanks, used as above-tank refugiums. That might be an option, if I could figure out a way to have the overflow back into the main tank be completely silent. After a couple of times waking up to trickling water noises that meant something had overflowed, I don't want to hear any trickling water noises whatsoever. 

I've also thought again about an in-tank refugium, and will be keeping that in mind as an option. I don't want to deal with in-tank sump plumbing, so it either needs to be an overflow-style 'fuge, or one set into the tank. If it was in-tank, I think I'd have the dividers black, with only external walls being clear. Maybe section off a corner. 

I do want to have some cool beastie in the refugium. Pitho or emerald crab, or, if there's enough room and I can figure out a good way to feed it, maybe a decorator crab. Or one of those saron shrimp that's not really reef-safe. 

Or, heck, if I could manage enough space and lighting, maybe even a mini-maxi nem and some sexy shrimp. That might be worth some serious consideration; I love their colors, but I do not trust them with perching fish, and a 'fuge anemone would be the perfect solution. Or, if I couldn't manage enough light, some mushrooms for the sexy shrimp. I don't trust sexies in my main tank with zoas, but, again: 'fuge. 

(Though I guess the nem might reduce the pod count in the 'fuge pretty badly. Maybe if it was a bookshelf-tank 'fuge and the nem was in the upstream portion, so the pods would be safe downstream.)