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State of the Aquarium, 4 April 2021 Abstract Coral reefs of Pacific origin are generally represented in the central and western Pacific Oceans. Many times we see stock photos online or print media and I am willing to bet that 99% of the time such media is taken from Australia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. It makes sense. The Great Barrier Reef is relatively accessible. You need an international flight out of Los Angeles and before you know it you've landed in Sydney and then you take an excursion out to Queensland. If you want more exoticism you can travel to other countries and enjoy really cheap eats and entertainment while you're diving. If you are adventurous you find yourself in Tahiti, Fiji, and Samoa. All great destinations as long as a typhoon isn't looking for you. However, coral reefs are expansive and cover the most of the western Pacific rim. Through warm water currents delivering the right parameters and sending out small coral gametes, recruitment occurs in countries where we may not associate with corals. Japan is one of them and is home to some of the northernmost coral reef assemblages. Corals live as far north as Tsushima smack dab between Korea and Japan. Progressing poleward, assemblages will change as water loses its warmth from the equator. Sparing you the details, this aquarium is focused and curated towards commonly found species about the Ryukyu Islands, an archipelago south of the main islands (if you've heard of Okinawa then you may know what I'm referring to), within the confines of very shallow depths under 3-5 meters in protected environments (lagoons, moats, patch reefs, coral stands). the journal begins here: Didn't realize image compression and Figure 1 looks terribad. yikes! The story actually begins well before this photo on the 22nd. We rewind to December 27th to where I was moving a couple of aquariums in my wife's Honda Fit. (near professional aquarium mover at this point, it's my 4th move). She says she didn't say that, but from that video conversation through Facebook I started thinking real hard what would I make for a third aquarium. I wanted to be lazy and build another planted tank, but I was ready for something different like the tank I made before. I built an Amazon blackwater aquarium to just see how simple or hard it was to maintain that effect. Turns out it was just a matter of boiling botanicals to no end. Wife was okay with another tank. Good enough for me. I was a newly minted aquatics specialist at my Petco and I turned the saltwater section around by not killing all the invertebrates. (That's another story to tell.) Then I thought, hey you're not at FOWLR tanks why not building a reef tank at home? $1 per gallon sale happened right around the new year. I hemmed and hawed at the idea of getting a tank. I looked at Inappropriate Reefer's 10g build. Then I saw defekt's Sanity Saver. Perfect. I had to work around my property management for not having an aquarium of 15 gallons or more. I worked the legal gray area by getting a 20 gallon long since I remember measuring the inside dimensions came closer to 16 gallons than 20 gallons as advertised on the marketing label. I never enjoyed tanks that ran tall with a poor footprint. Bigger footprints mean more horizontal swimming room and unless you're caring for sea jellies or freshwater angels height can be a dimension to ignore. Fortunately there was only one 20L sold at my store and after 3 weeks of thinking really hard of how to build it and its life support elements I decided to go for it and blocked out the image of a nasty credit card bill (but hey points right?). I bought the tank around January 10th and it just sat there sad without a stand for about a week. I was still wondering if this was a good move, but I didn't like the idea of just wasting a perfectly good tank. I built one of those nicer Petco stands (because my wife doesn't have her woodworking tools right now). And that stood for another few days. I painted the back of the aquarium with clearance acrylic paint from Michaels. I waited another week as I was picking out parts. Life Support System: (thanks defekt) AC70 from a previous tank with stock foam sponge, 100g of GAC, and biomax rings (added PhosGuard 9/2020) Foam layer Media bag (currently running 16 grams/2tbsp of GAC and GFO each) Floss Bio Max rings 2x Koralia 240s 1x Koralia 425 - added October 3 Fluval 100w heater Current Orbit Marine LED 24-36" NICREW ClassicLED Marine 30" (peak hours only) - added August 15 Parts arrived on January 21st. Thanks Amazon Prime trial. CaribSea LifeRock, 20lb box arrived January 22nd. I bought CaribSea CORALine from my Petco store. Figure 1. Insert awful photo.

This thread will showcase the SPS corals currently have in my collection, as well as ones I pickup along my reefing journey! Currently housing these pieces in my 30 gallon long mixed reef, but I'm in the process of setting up a new tank that will be SPS dominated. Enjoy!

This live sale was brutal and things sold in seconds...... I did manage to get 3 frags but the $5 ones disappeared super quick. Hopefully these corals will do good in my evo, I already have a birdsnest that’s doing good.

My birdsnest is doing really good under my stock evo lighting. The polyps are getting much longer and have a lot of movement under the flow in my tank. It also looks like it’s starting to branch out a bit.

I've been on the periphery of the hobby for over a year now. As soon as I stumbled into it I was hooked. The combination of science, art, and living pets inspired me deeply. I instantly went from not even knowing about the hobby to suddenly wanting to know everything! To make sure I didn't jump into anything to hastily I gave myself a solid year to seriously contemplate things and do my homework. I mean seriously doing my research, not just masturbating to coral porn. Build a 10g Nano Reef for JUST $275 Then a few months ago I saw a YouTube video from Marine Depot that was something like, "Build a Nano Reef for just $275." They built a bare-bones system with an IM Fusion 10 that would probably be fine for the easiest softies. I don't care for softies. I know everyone starts with them, but I'm just not even interested in bothering. My favorite corals are Montipora (digitata) and Acropora (vermiculata, tenuis). I like a lot of LPS too. Zoas are the closest thing to soft corals that I have any interest in, but even they would languish under their light. But this Marine Depot build got me thinking about getting off the fence. I loved the form factor of the Nuvo 10, since that would fit perfectly next to my desk. So let's do it right, and start by adding a zero to the budget. Build a 10g Nano Reef for JUST $2,750 I despise conspicuous consumption so please do not take me for some rich kid showing off. I'm a grown man who will make rational investments for personal edification. See that shit? I just used "edification" correctly in a sentence. Grown man! If I want to learn to keep SPS, I need to make the investment in keeping these critters alive and healthy. So forget all that piddly nonsense Marine Depot was trying to sling, here is the package I put together: Hardware Tank: IM Fusion Nano 10 Lighting: Kessil A80 (I was tempted by the Nanobox Lights popular here, but this needs to be a silent build!) Skimmer: IM Ghost Skimmer Return: Sicce Syncra Silent Main Powerheaad: Aqamai KPS Controller: Neptune Apex 2016 Hardware Regrets The IM SpinStream nozzle was hugely unnecessary in this tank with a powerhead. And ****ING LOUD! Hardware Extravagances I wrestled for a solid week on whether or not I should get the Apex 2016; or any of the much cheaper options. I think it is over-priced by about $300, and I hate getting bilked. I want to keep this all as stress-free as possible, so I ultimately decided it would be an insurance policy for the tank and a sleep aid for me. The ORP is probably the only thing on here I won't use. I'm comfortable with coding and was instantly coming up with my own schemes in the controller. I also really like the features in the upgraded EB832 powerbar. With such a small water volume I need to know the second something fails. I really want to keep this hobby as stress free as possible. First Month I'm primarily going to be documenting my experiences on my YouTube channel, but I'll use this thread for supplemental stuff. If you like what you see, please subscribe! I'm nearing 5,000 subs and want to hit that milestone! Let's find out if a newbie can just show up and pull off a SPS Nano Tank if he's done his homework! August 2017 Update: I finally got to add corals to the tank this month! There were a lot of ups and downs along the way, but I'm still engaged in the hobby! September 2017 Update: Despite having no fish in my fish tank, I had a very eventful September in reefing! This video also includes reviews for the Aqamai KPS powerhead (an affordable programmable powerhead) as well the Seneye Reef ammonia & pH monitor. October 2017 Update: Things are doing great in the tank this month! No coral deaths! I didn't even lose a single Zoa polyp! My parameters are all stabilizing nicely. In this month's video I complete my review for the Seneye Reef Monitor, and talk about how I supplement with Kalkwasser and Vodka. November Update It's happening! It's all finally coming together for me. I've got the water chemistry stabilized to the point that I think I can start adding Acros to the tank! January 2018: The tank has been going for 6 months, and has managed to keep fish alive for the last 2 of those! I'm now out of the woods yet though and continue to have some challenges keeping the water chemistry stable in this 10 Gallon Nano!

So we just upgraded to our Fusion 20 from a generic 10 gal. We had the tank for a few days and were just waiting on a stand from Walmart. Once we got the stand, it took us about 4 hours to transfer everything over. Equipment: Fusion 20 Wal-Mart Flipper stand Eshopps nano skimmer AI Prime HD 2 hydor nano circulation pumps 1 spin stream 75 watt neo therm heater 2 IM Fish Guards for the overflows Auto Aqua Smart ATO micro Hardscape: Mostly used carib-sea aragonite sand 10 lbs Then new sand same kind 7 to 8 lbs 40 ish lbs live rock transferred over Corals: Green birdsnest Bird of Paradise birdsnest Pulsing Xenia Season's Greetings montipora Lots of Green star polyps Hollywood stunner chalice 2 various acans Red cap montipora Hammer coral Frogspawn Jack o'lantern lepto Florida Ridordea's: orange, blue, green Yuma Ridordea Duncan coral Meteor Shower Cyphastrea Lots of zoas: Eye of Sauron Gold Midas Sunny D Rasta Radioactive Dragon Eye Fire and Ice Gobstopper My Clementines Gatorades Blonde Blue Eyed Bitches Watermelons Darth Mauls Fish: 1 oscellaris clown 1 snowflake clown 1 mandarin dragonet Inverts: 2 RFA's Assorted Snails: astrea, trochus, margarita

Need to outfit my new shallow with easy sps and maybe some bright mushrooms. Any one have a few of these too ship to me or pick up around LA? Thx!