An ignorant fish store employee's first reef

[Cyprinodont]

Hello! 

 

This will be my first reef journal (though not my first tank journal). So let me get some background out of the way.

 

About a year ago the owner of my LFS that is about 5 minutes from my house, and that I had frequented for the last 5 years since moving to my current city, approached me offering me a job since they had a recent opening and he likes to hire customers over strangers. I had just started another full time job but after a little deliberation and conversation I accepted the job covering for one of the full time employees on Sundays. 

 

Now! The reason I say all this is that prior to starting my job there, I had basically zero experience, and very little knowledge or interest in the saltier side of this hobby. I am (was?!) A die hard planted tank lover, most of my tanks were set up for the plants, and the fish came later. I had eyeballed some macro algae tanks but that's about as far as I got towards considering salination. I knew the way that led, thousands of dollars in equipment, hauling buckets, $200 for a square inch of colorful rock, crusty salt creep slowly devouring your home and family. Our store is pretty evenly split between fresh and salt, as is our local fish keeping community (with the fresh side leaning towards African cichlids and not planted tanks or nanos, my specialities!) And as I started working there, I became increasingly nervous when someone standing near the reef tanks started getting an inquisitive look on their face. I avoided the entire salt side of the store for fear of being asked a question and revealing my ignorance. My coworkers helped me learn and soon I could tell SPS and LPS apart, but I am a person who needs to dive into something, get way in over my head, and then dig my way out to learn (as I'm sure many of us are) 

 

Which last August led to me starting my first ever salt water aquarium to finally see what is up with all of this. So yes, unfortunately I didn't have the forethought to start this journal when I started the tank so much of the most exciting and ugly parts of me flailing wildly will not be captured live, but I will attempt to give a riveting recollection. 

 

The philosophy with this tank was threefold:

1- To be a testing ground for me to experiment and learn about aspects of the saltwater hobby like corals, macro algae, more diverse selection of invertebrates.

2- To test whether my methods translate from freshwater to salt. I enjoy low tech tanks, low equipment count, and a focus on strong ecosystem vs artificial nutrient export. So this tank does not use much more equipment than I would use for a planted tank. 

3- To look good and be enjoyable! Yeah it's an experiment but an experiment in making a good looking tank, after all I want to be able to translate this experience to advice to my customers to make their tanks better. And this tank is right next to where I spend most of my time at home and in a public place so it's got to look good and be neat and tidy equipment-wise. 

 

Now let's get to the system itself.

Tank: Regular glass 20 long, just a tank that I had. Back sides and bottom were painted black with krylon fusion spray paint.

Light: Nicrew marine LED light bar, think it was like $50. Not a huge fan of this light from a usability standpoint and the built in timer is maddeningly terrible, but it makes enough photons so far. 

Filtration: Seachem Tidal 35 HOB, on the flip side I have been a hug fan of this little guy for the price point, I'll have to make a whole post on why I like this filter vs the Aquaclears we use on many tanks at work later. Just running filter floss mostly, sometimes poly pads or carbon but mainly this is just mechanical (the tidal has a built in surface skimmer also) and flow. 

More Flow: Aquaclear power head, it's way too big (size wise not power) for this size tank but it's something I had, and this is a budget tank as all my tanks are. These are great powerheads though, it's also my mixing pump when I mix salt water, and I can attach a media chamber to run chemical or more mechanical filtration if necessary.

Heater: 150w glass heater that I had, this will almost certainly get replaced first out of anything because I'm not sure I trust it, though I've used these same ones in freshwater for years with no issues. 

Rock: Around 20lbs of seasoned live rock from the dark sumps at my work, some of these pieces were probably cooking for years. A mix of Marco rock and caribsea life rock mostly. I attribute most of my current success to the bio diversity I brought in with these well seasoned rocks and this tank would likely still be a mess if I started with dry rock. 

Sand: 10lb Ocean Direct carribean sand. I liked how this looked and wanted to test the bio diversity claims, I only have about an inch thick layer. I enjoy how it's a mix of grades and shell and rock fragments. Not sure how I would test if the live bacteria claim worked but it very well may have contributed. 

 

After all of that it looked something like this:

 

And I was ecstatic. My back hurt from carrying buckets I mean c'mon, buckets! I've been on the python life for nearly 5 years it's been so long since I carried buckets of water around my house. But I was excited. 

 

Working at a fish store has its advantages when it came to procuring livestock and after a 3 week cycle I added the first intentional inhabitants, 5 blue legged hermits. The only hitchhikers that I had previously seen were the tiny feather dusters covering the rocks from the sump and some nuisance algae. The week after that I added 6 Cerith snails and a red mushroom (I believe it's a discosoma but I'm still very new to coral taxonomy). We did it, we had a coral. Let's see if it survives. 

 

 

The tiny little rock island started to look sad and I figured that the majority of our bio filtration is going to be happening in the live rock so since I had only started with 10lbs this is when I added more to bring us up closer to 20lbs. This is also the end of the honeymoon fresh clean tank stage and the beginning the first ugly stage. Orange diatoms had already begun to show on the most well lit parts of the sand and rocks, some variously brown and green colored dusty films had taken their turns on the back and sides glass (front kept diligently scraped with a tiny magfloat) but now every type of ugly (and horribly beautiful) single celled photosynthesizers made their war on the virgin rock surface and sandbed. Bryopsis made the first move, blooming an actually lovely flowing lawn across the back glass mostly, the orange diatoms still claiming the sand and most of the rocks, though GHA had begun to contest the rocks as well. These simple eukaryotes fought their petty land squabbles as I watched in bemused horror until the big bad arrived, the prokaryotic terror, cyanobacteria herself. In a nice twist from my experience with this stinky astroturf from freshwater systems, this time it was a nice velvety red. 

 

 

This is nowhere near the peak of it before I decided the experiment had ended and murdered it overnight with chemiclean. At it's worst that entire rock on the right would get covered in a sheet overnight as well as the entire back wall which you can actually see in this picture. I had also added a GSP frag as well as a green mushroom. The red mushroom as you can see in the center seemed to actually enjoy the messy tank and started making a clone off of its foot around this time. 

 

The chemiclean completely worked and the cyano was annihilated and has not shown it's roguish face again yet. After that, stability seemed to begin to set in as well as the army of pods that I saw after the lights turned off got to work devouring the diatoms, stomatella snails also made an appearance at this time and chomped down most of the green algae. 

 

With everything looking good and parameters stable for 2 weeks, the first and so far only fish were added. A pair of skunk clown fish, not much larger than an inch when purchased but observed at my work for those 2 weeks while I waited for the tank to stabilize and I knew they ate well and were free of any obvious disease. This is not exactly a quarantine because they were also in a system with other animals but it was an extended period of observation and they would also be the only fish in this tank maybe ever. I do not endorse the idea that just seeing a fish at the store for a few weeks is quarantining if it shares water with other fish and you are not in constant observation. But I trust my coworkers.  

 

 

This is a current picture but I don't have a good one from when they were added. They still don't have settled names so I'd take suggestions on that, I usually don't name my freshwater fish as I usually keep schooling fish or ones that are not remarkably charismatic. I am quite in love with these two and I could watch their interactions with each other and me for hours and often do. Still not quite sure which one is female or if they have to be larger to even differentiate but one is slightly larger and their fins are yellow-er than the other one whose fins are clear. Idk if that's relevant. 

 

Everything is honestly pretty clear sailing since then, my only struggle is that as I have added more frags, usually taking one home with me after every Sunday shift, they and the remaining GHA that I allow to grow on the back and side glass only suck up all the nitrates and phosphates from my feeding (which is not light!) And a few of my corals had halted growth and a bit of color loss. I think I have mostly balanced that out though and as I'm writing this every single coral in the tank looks great, nothing that I have added to the tank has died yet besides a small hermit that somehow climbed up on top of a toadstool coral and got stung to death. 

 

 

The current coral stock list in order of addition is:

Red mushroom

Green mushroom

Green star polyps (that have doubled in size in 2 months, now I get it!)

Purple rhodactis(?) mushroom

Purple star polyps

Long polyp toadstool leather

Fire and Ice zoas (took a long time to acclimate, finally starting to look happy)

Unknown clearance frag, possibly a mushroom? Will post more pics of all corals but especially this one to hopefully identify it. It's also possibly bleached but idk? It has good color it's just very light and translucent. 

Kenya Tree

Rainbow Clove Polyps

Medium sized overgrown frag plug colony (there are at least 2 frag disks encrusted in there) of encrusting montipora about 2" diameter that I swear has been growing in our discount frag rack since I set this tank up in August. I believe it is possibly sunset montipora, it's pink/orange flesh with green polyps. Has done well and had good polyp extension since being added to the tank this Sunday. This is my most experimental coral as I have entirely stuck to soft corals and corallimorphs up to this point. Hoping it goes well and my coworkers assure me this is an easy SPS that many people consider a nuisance in high end reefs, which sounds great to me. I have a huge soft spot for weedy, aggressive, unpicky organisms, flex those evolutionary adaptations! 

 

Well I've almost certainly typed more than enough to hit post so we will make that the end of entries 1-5 of this journal with hopefully many more to come. Next will be better pictures of the corals, and you can rest assured that nearly every Sunday there will be a new addition until there is no more room in here. 

 

Thanks for reading!

 

[yondermountain91]

Hello, I am new to the marine side of the hobby as well. Thanks for this informative tid bit, great read!

[Cyprinodont]

1 hour ago, yondermountain91 said:

Hello, I am new to the marine side of the hobby as well. Thanks for this informative tid bit, great read!

Thanks for reading! Not sure what would be informative in that unhinged rant lol but glad it could help 😉. 

 

As promised here are some coral beauty shots. The first frag is that mystery coral, could use some help on ID on that one. 

 

The monti had really good polyp extension today!

 

 

[mitten_reef]

first one looks like a very unhappy rhodactis mushroom (if it's all soft).  If it had any skeleton at all, it could be an unhappy blastomussa.  But i'm leaning mostly toward the mushroom...

[Cyprinodont]

4 minutes ago, mitten_reef said:

first one looks like a very unhappy rhodactis mushroom (if it's all soft).  If it had any skeleton at all, it could be an unhappy blastomussa.  But i'm leaning mostly toward the mushroom...

I'm leaning towards mushroom, I loved it power in the tank last night (it was in the highest light spot in the whole tank after I did a rescape) and it started to peel off the rock a bit finally and I got a look under the polyp and it looks more like a mushroom foot than a hard skeleton. I don't wanna stress it too much by probing. It had its mouth wide open for a week and I could see mesenterial tissue I think? It's finally closed it. 

 

Does your name mean that you are in Michigan? I am too!

[mitten_reef]

54 minutes ago, Cyprinodont said:

I'm leaning towards mushroom, I loved it power in the tank last night (it was in the highest light spot in the whole tank after I did a rescape) and it started to peel off the rock a bit finally and I got a look under the polyp and it looks more like a mushroom foot than a hard skeleton. I don't wanna stress it too much by probing. It had its mouth wide open for a week and I could see mesenterial tissue I think? It's finally closed it. 

 

Does your name mean that you are in Michigan? I am too!

sounds like shroom then. 

I'm in East Grand Rapids, MI

[Cyprinodont]

11 hours ago, mitten_reef said:

sounds like shroom then. 

I'm in East Grand Rapids, MI

Ah yeah I'm near Ann Arbor, used to live in Kalamazoo but wasn't really in the hobby then so I haven't had the chance to visit places like Watercolors yet. 

[Cyprinodont]

Quick update (tomorrow is a fish store work day so I'll probably bring something else home then!)

 

Went to a slightly less than local fish store (like a 20 minute drive but basically in the middle of nowhere) which is actually the huge basement of this guy's house (which is like the size of 3 houses stitched together!) Pretty weird place and I had never checked it out. 

 

They had some awesome greenhouse ponds

 

And some Sharks! (I think these are cat sharks?!)

 

Fish always look so good in the sunlight, and corals do too! I actually love the look of sunlight corals, even though you're missing a large part of the possible color variety, it looks super natural. And all the fish in here looked great, there were some like baseball sized bangai cardinals in the coral pond. 

 

I strongly considered for the second time buying a Hector's Goby for this tank, I still think it would be a good addition but im not sure it would be wise so I'm waiting until we get one at my workplace so if something goes bad I can easily return it. 

 

I did get a small mini colony about 12 or 13 polyps of Rasta Zoas, and had my first little mini frigging session cutting it into two and gluing them to a piece of rubble. 

 

Some of the polyps are already opening an hour later.

 

I have been testing nitrates and they are still consistently too low for what is in this tank I think so I will probably pick up a bottle of brightwell tomorrow and start slowly dosing to keep like 5-10ppm available for the softies. 

[Cyprinodont]

The zoa takeover continues!

 

Grabbed two new frags from work today as well as some brightwell neophos and neonitro. Dosed to 5ppm nitrate, I need to get an ULR phosphate checker cause I still can't read them even after dosing. 

 

The internet says these are called Daisy Cutters which I think is a dumb name, I get the daisy part though. Will have to come up with a better name for these. 

 

These are much bigger polyps, not sure what they are called, they still haven't fully opened after an hour.

 

And the Rastas from yesterday seem to be loving life.

[Cyprinodont]

That right, it's Sunday, you know what's up. 

FTS to start

 

 

Pretty wild to think that it's only been a week since that last post, quite a lot has happened in my personal life! And in the tank, well everything is going fine but there's a lot of kinda invisible things happening. 

 

Added a fluvial sea marine light mainly to flesh out the spectrum beyond the white and blue of the NICREW (which was still growing corals fine btw, just didn't look good to me) and the coloration of everything seems to be responding well.

 

Since last week I acquired and started dosing brightwell neophos and neonitro. Dosing 1ml P and 6ml N per day, which takes me to about 0.1ppm P and 10ppm N, and a big surprise which I'm still a bit puzzled by is that my tank uses that all up in 24 hours! Now I do still have a wall of GHA on the back, perhaps that and some of the tiny pieces of pom pom macro were sucking it all up but I'm starting to think the corals were definitely using some of that? Current plan of attack is slowly removing 2"x2" patches of GHA at a time whenever I think to, and waiting to see if it comes back where I removed it which it hasn't yet. Keeping a very close eye (2-3 tests per day) on N and P (though I need to get a good ULR Phos test, the Hanna is the gold standard there I understand?) But continuing to dose up to 10ppm at least once per day using the helpful calculation on the bottle and assuming a functional water volume of ~15 gallons. 

 

So far I have seen quite a response from the additional nutrients, especially to my Zoas. The orange mystery ones continue to regain their fluorescence day by day, and the rest still look healthy and happy though I haven't seen much growth from them yet. Funnily enough the orange ones are growing the fastest despite looking the worst, having easily doubled the number of polyps I started with. I guess the new ones are still acclimating. 

 

 

Also I've been very happy with the direction these baby lava lamp mushrooms are going, I moved them up front just so I could look at them more. 

 

 

As far as new corals, I just dipped and added 4 new frags about 20 minutes ago, all already looking happy. 3 of them are from a local hobbyist, I got a striped Duncan with 3 heads, a "wannabe rainbow" acan (are these ones now micromussa? Idk much about LPS) and a "bubblegum" digi. 

 

 

And from work just because I wanted to try it and we had a bunch, a birds nest seriatopora, I don't think it's any kind of fancy variety. 

 

 

Looking forward to having some LPS in here to truly meet my "try everything" philosophy. They're all gonna hang out on that ad-hoc frag rack for a bit until I decide where they go. I need to start gluing some things in place finally, having everything still on plugs is a double edged sword for sure, especially in a tank with rocks and sand and not just bare bottom. I'm already getting that itch that this will eventually become the frag tank for a larger display because I really hate having to do both things in one tank basically. 

 

Still no new livestock, I'm still heavily considering another fish but I can't quite find one that's right, strongest competition right now is a bicolor blenny or some other kind of medium sized blenny but there really aren't that many 2-3" blennies that I am aesthetically interested in. I'm not a fan of the look of tailspots, and most of the cool blennies get maybe 4-6" which is definitely too big for this tank. I could obviously add like a Goby, clown and Hector's gobies being my personal top choices. If anyone else has suggestions I'd definitely welcome them!

 

 

[geekreef_05]

Ya a blenny is gonna be too big for that tank. Have you considered a watchman goby? 

[PJPS]

44 minutes ago, geekreef_05 said:

Ya a blenny is gonna be too big for that tank. Have you considered a watchman goby? 

I’d like to second this, and give you a tempting ROE (return on effort)..get the blenny out, let the sand bed grow active or speed it up by putting in pods to seed the sand for any sand munching small goby (wathmen, wheeler, shrimp, vampire,ertc).  This is their natural food source, but they will inevitably eat anything small.  They can gum down a shrimp, but they’re built to filter TINY food from the sand.

 

Regardless, you can pair them with a pistol shrimp.  I’ve never added two to a nano and not had them  pair (4/4) And in return, to me, their symbiotic relationship is the best to watch in a nano.  They are constantly building new entrances and exits to their little dugout.  Endless tank hijinx.

 

On it’s own the watchmen is a cool fish.  In my experience you can add a pistol to a watchman, they’ll make friends in minutes.  Goby first, 2 days later (or anytime aftet) add the shrimp.  In my experience the pistol finds the goby within 30 seconds, but I wouldn’t guarantee it. , the blenny is too big sorry 😔

 

This is not meant to convey you must do this, only that it’s my opinion about your current stocking.  You are an adult of free will and may choose anything to do what you like 💯.  I must convey that I won’t be bothered either way ❤️

[Cyprinodont]

25 minutes ago, PJPS said:

I’d like to second this, and give you a tempting ROE (return on effort)..get the blenny out, let the sand bed grow active or speed it up by putting in pods to seed the sand for any sand munching small goby (wathmen, wheeler, shrimp, vampire,ertc).  This is their natural food source, but they will inevitably eat anything small.  They can gum down a shrimp, but they’re built to filter TINY food from the sand.

 

Regardless, you can pair them with a pistol shrimp.  I’ve never added two to a nano and not had them  pair (4/4) And in return, to me, their symbiotic relationship is the best to watch in a nano.  They are constantly building new entrances and exits to their little dugout.  Endless tank hijinx.

 

On it’s own the watchmen is a cool fish.  In my experience you can add a pistol to a watchman, they’ll make friends in minutes.  Goby first, 2 days later (or anytime aftet) add the shrimp.  In my experience the pistol finds the goby within 30 seconds, but I wouldn’t guarantee it. , the blenny is too big sorry 😔

 

This is not meant to convey you must do this, only that it’s my opinion about your current stocking.  You are an adult of free will and may choose anything to do what you like 💯.  I must convey that I won’t be bothered either way ❤️

Oh there is no blenny in the tank yet! Just two skunk clowns. Was just musing on hypothetical options. 

 

I agree that I think if any other fish are to be added it will be a Goby of some type. Still really like Hector's gobies. There are also MORE than enough isopods, copepods, and worms of all sorts and sizes. I have at least 4 types of pods in here that came from the dark cured live rock that was in our store sumps for years and years. Any single micropredator is going to have more than their fill in here, especially a Hector's Goby which I'm led to believe also eats some algae. 

 

I'm basically just waiting for a good looking Goby to come in to our store. We get yellow watchmen but honestly I don't particularly care for them. If I wanted a yellow Goby I would get a yellow clown Goby which I think are very cute. 

 

Thanks everyone for agreeing that a blenny is too big, guess I will have to wait until I get a larger tank set up (definitely going to happen within 12 months) and then have whatever blenny my heart desires. 

 

Bonus coral list pics because I'm in love with this Duncan. 

 

[PJPS]

6 minutes ago, Cyprinodont said:

Oh there is no blenny in the tank yet! Just two skunk clowns. Was just musing on hypothetical options. 

 

I agree that I think if any other fish are to be added it will be a Goby of some type. Still really like Hector's gobies. There are also MORE than enough isopods, copepods, and worms of all sorts and sizes. I have at least 4 types of pods in here that came from the dark cured live rock that was in our store sumps for years and years. Any single micropredator is going to have more than their fill in here, especially a Hector's Goby which I'm led to believe also eats some algae. 

 

I'm basically just waiting for a good looking Goby to come in to our store. We get yellow watchmen but honestly I don't particularly care for them. If I wanted a yellow Goby I would get a yellow clown Goby which I think are very cute. 

 

Thanks everyone for agreeing that a blenny is too big, guess I will have to wait until I get a larger tank set up (definitely going to happen within 12 months) and then have whatever blenny my heart desires. 

 

Bonus coral list pics because I'm in love with this Duncan. 

 

Aaah!  As blennies have THE BEST personality, a tailspot blenny is tiny, and is like that slightly dumb friend with a big heart.  (Yes I anthropomophize fish behavor, come at me bro 😂).

 

Corals be poppin!

[Cyprinodont]

1 minute ago, PJPS said:

Aaah!  As blennies have THE BEST personality, a tailspot blenny is tiny, and is like that slightly dumb friend with a big heart.  (Yes I anthropomophize fish behavor, come at me bro 😂).

Oh believe me, I and all my coworkers do too. For particularly feisty fish we give them a nickname. I spend a good portion of my day at work talking to the fish lol. 

 

Blennies to me all seem to have the personality of a slightly lost older British man.

[PJPS]

5 minutes ago, Cyprinodont said:

Blennies to me all seem to have the personality of a slightly lost older British man.

OMG!  That is the perfect comparison.  If you want a kindly pensioner.in your tank, to be perpetually look if not lost, pretty unsure of the latest music/things, but damned if they’re not a blast for stories ❤️

[Cyprinodont]

Quick update but I missed a Sunday or two. Had some... Employment issues. No worries all things are good. In fact it means I get to work more hours at the fish store! I'm doing around 16 hours a week there now. 

 

 

Few new things, I FINALLY got a 3rd fish. I did go with the citron Goby because we got a good looking one in at work and she kept coming to check me out, so she's been in the tank for 2 weeks now. I still have not really seen her eat but she must just be when I'm not seeing, right? She doesn't seem skinny. I've tried many types of food, frozen, live, etc. There are more than enough pods in there though if she likes those. 

 

 

Also got a few new corals, a Hollywood Stunner Chalice that I managed to only partially mangle while chopping off the frag stem. Dang those things are brittle!

 

And a green favia (?) 

 

And a strange toadstool that either has white polyps or is not doing so well, if it's actually white I'll be very happy. 

 

I lost the birds of paradise, that just entirely melted away just leaving a skeleton in about a week and a half. 

 

And I had to toss the cats eye Zoas cause their frag was infested with aiptasia and it was killing them. 

 

Everything else is doing really well including my current favorite coral in here the blue stripe Duncan. 

 

 

[Cyprinodont]

 

🙂

[Cyprinodont]

Not really a whole lot has changed in this tank, it did pass it's 6 months anniversary and I recently rescaped a bit. I've still regularly been adding frags and it's starting to be a bit cramped. 

 

 

Some of the most interesting additions were a rock flower anemone which has probably caused me more stress than any coral haha. It refuses to open most of the time and tries to hide in cracks and caves! Most of the time it looks like a pile of tentacles in the sand. 

 

Also just the other day I added this frag of something that nobody at my work could reliably identify to the genus, but i've definitely identified it as Heliopora aka Blue ridge coral. The fact that it's a stony skeleton forming octocoral is extremely cool to me and it's actually going to be going in a new build I have been working on 😉

(Sorry for the crappy pic)

 

Also the Grube's gorgonian in the center of the tank is one of my favorite corals in here now. 

 

I added a Carpenter's Flasher Wrasse but I actually haven't been able to get a good picture! It's getting along very well with the clowns and is a super awesome little fish. 

 

I've been dosing All-For-Reef to keep alkalinity at around 8.0 and feeding corals and fish heavily. Nitrates stay around 10-15 and phosphates are in a good range, I have had literally no pest algae in months. 

 

My only real "issue" with the tank is that I wish the corals would grow faster lol. Which I'm sure I could achieve by increasing light but if the current level is what's keeping the algae back, I'm happy with the growth I'm getting. And I am getting growth on everything that's not brand new, I just dragged the "mint green" (what I call it) star polyps because it had fully covered the frag plug and I want to spread some back to the store and speed up propagating it. All the Zoas are growing pretty well, the first frag I added has maybe twice as many polyps as when I got it. The Hollywood Stunner chalice is maybe the fastest growing coral in here even matching the soft corals in mm/week. Luckily it's still pretty isolated and the Grube's gorgonian next to it is also going in the new build (whenever that happens) and I can move that rock if the chalice seems aggressive. I do see it's sweepers out when I feed reef roids, they're like tiny hairs. The green toadstool continues to pack on weight and polyps. 

 

The new build is going to be an IM nuvo abyss drop off tank which I got second hand but the pedestal that supports the drop off portion of the tank is totally ruined and now I have to build something to go under there and... I'm not the best at DIY lol so if anyone has any advice on that I'm all ears!

[Cyprinodont]

 

I keep thinking it's been so long since I've updated but it seems like I'm on a consistent month schedule! 

 

Tank is still chugging along, currently powered by an AI Prime though that was just temporary to "test it" until it gets moved to my new build. Frags keep appearing from somewhere, idk. But I'm running out of space. 

 

There's also a tailspot blenny temporarily being housed in here until the new tank is ready. I really like him and he gets along just fine with the clowns, they just creep on him while he calmly sits on their favorite mushroom and anxiously wait for him to leave. 

 

The new build will have its own thread but... I lied in the last update, it's not going to be the IM Nuvo drop off tank. Because it freaking leaked! 

 

 

The short lived life of this tank. It never even got to grow any algae. It sprung a slow leak in the drop off corner and I decided that I couldn't live with it, repaired or not, so it's currently empty awaiting an idea (maybe a nano riparium/ paludarium with only the deep part filled? Idk.)

 

Here's a tease of the replacement. 

 

 

 

[debbeach13]

It's too bad the drop off leaked. How are the goby and wrasse doing? 

[banasophia]

13 hours ago, Cyprinodont said:

it's currently empty awaiting an idea (maybe a nano riparium/ paludarium with only the deep part filled?

Bummer about the leak, but yes, that would be an awesome use for it!

[Cyprinodont]

5 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

It's too bad the drop off leaked. How are the goby and wrasse doing? 

I think I may have mentioned it but the citron Goby didn't make it. Not entirely sure why, it wasn't eating, then it started eating and looking better, then I found it convulsing near the RFA so not sure if it was weak and got stung or if it just ended up there at the end but yeah, didn't work out. 

 

The carpenter's wrasse on the other hand is doing amazing! She's very active and eating all the time, her color has changed from pale reddish when I got her to bright iridescent red. Shes actually going in the new tank also when Im sure it's good for fish, I want to let some pods grow on before adding it. 

 

 

1 hour ago, banasophia said:

Bummer about the leak, but yes, that would be an awesome use for it!

 

Yeah it was a huge bummer, it didn't leak when I leak tested it! But after letting it run with salt water in it I started noticing spots of salt forming in the same spot on the front despite wiping them off. And when I lifted it up after draining it was moist underneath. Luckily no real damage was done to anything but my wallet. I spent $200 on it but the seller actually refunded me $100 after I told them what happened and I kept the tank and an eshopps nano skimmer that came with it that I'm using in this tank and is actually pretty good so if I find a use for the leaking tank maybe it won't be a total waste! And the new tank will have more space for corals anyway. 

[banasophia]

On 5/16/2023 at 9:04 AM, banasophia said:

Bummer about the leak, but yes, that would be an awesome use for it!

Check out this YouTube video I just watched, I wonder if you could do something like this with the drop off. 

 

 

[banasophia]

Or maybe an ocean themed paludarium, with a tide pool with some tiny urchins fish and nems in the water, small plants that look like sea grass and maybe some small crabs? Do people do that?