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Progress

3 Gallon Pico

Overall the tank is doing great, it currently looks great, and that’s the point, right? There are a few things that have happened that I thought I would detail.

• Filterless to Filter – The tank was getting messy, no amount of water changes could keep it clean. I ended up giving up and getting a little nano sponge filter. It has helped dramatically. Cleaning the sponge every few weeks seems to be enough to keep everything crystal clear. I think making sure I don’t keep the light on for 4 days straight helps, too.
• The Cichlid Massacre – I picked up 6 victorian cichlids and put them into the tank. After doing a water change, I poured in the replacement water too fast and it stirred up the sandbed more than I wanted. As a result lots of detrius got pumped into the water column. All but one of them died. So there is just one tiny yellow cichlid in my tank now, but I like it like that. I think I will keep him alone for awhile.
• Scum – I still get a lot of this oil slick on the surface of the water, I cure it with water changes that include using a plastic cup and ’skimming’ the surface of the water.

12 Gallon Nano

My 12 Gallon planted tank has not been doing so well. I have this invasive (carnivorous, im told) hitchhiker plant that grows like crazy and looks nasty. Additionally, the algae growing on the glass grows at an unacceptable rate. Last night I turned off the light and plan to leave it off for a few days to help kill off the algae. Additionally, I lowered the lighting period from 12 hours to 7. Hopefully this will help.

I almost never touch this tank, and want to try to keep it this way. I am going to seriously need to figure out how to get rid of this hitchhiker. It seems to be very invasive so I am not optimistic about it. I may have to resort to ’starting over’. I am not looking forward to that.

Little picture to satisfy the fanboys.

So today I had a plan. A plan to make my tank look a bit more awesome than it did yesterday. I have several main problems with my tank.

1. Lack of color (other than the PINK of the Xenia and Bubble)
2. Lack of fish population
3. I lack check valves in my return lines, which could lead to a (very bad) spill

With some goals in mind I trotted off to the 2 fish stores, and Home Depot. LFS got me two buckets of fresh Catalina seawater. This particular LFS has great big colonies, but nothing that ‘exciting’ if you know what I mean – lots of the normal sort of stuff.

I went to the second LFS, this LFS is different because it has more exotic things. I picked up a big colony of Tri-color Red/Green Zoonathids, a Niger Trigger, a Spotted Mandarin, and some live brine. In reading this, you may think I am crazy, likely for a few reasons:

1. Spotted Manadrins are Impossible to keep! – That is true enough, but happen to use a few special tricks to keep mine up and going with such a small tank. First, I had a blue striped Mandarin long ago, he was sucked into a powerhead – it was downhill from there. So when I got home I put the spotted Mandarin into a bucket and filled it up with an inch and a half of water from my tank (the begining of my water change). I put a few hundred live brine shrimp in the bucket with the Mandarin. I left the Mandarin alone in there for a good 30 minutes while he feasted on the brine, then I plopped him into the display tank. As we speak he is grazing the live rock for pods and getting one every few seconds – but I suspect he is a bit full.
2. Niger Trigger – I keep shrimp, I love shrimp – they are the most interesting things in my tank right now. So you might be thinking that I am insane for putting a known predator of these into my tank. Well, not really. First off – the Niger Trigger is the most docile of all triggers and is largely regarded as docile, especially when introduced to an established reef environment (check). Secondly, they are only dangerous to shrimp. I have 3 shrimp in my tank currently. A (big) cleaner, a (giant) camelback, and a 1″ pistol shrimp paired with a goby. The Pistol is safe for obvious reasons, as is the cleaner. The Camelback is about the same size as the Trigger (the specimen I got is only about 3″ long). I haven’t seen any quarreling yet, and I don’t expect it going forward.

After my visit to LFS #2 I went to Home Depot and I picked up 2 check valves and some misc plumbing parts. I introduced the new fish as mentioned above and I turned off the return pumps. I put in the shot of live brine shrimp, and then I took the piping apart at the unions and installed the check-valves. I let the check-valves sit for a good 30 minutes with the quick-dry PVC cement before turning the pumps back on. During that time the fish went wild for the brine, but there was WAY too much brine to go around.

I made sure that my filter sock was attached properly and turned the return pumps back on. After about an hour most of the brine had either gone down the overflow or was eaten. I tossed the filter sock into the washer with a towel I had used, cleaned out the collection cup on the protein skimmer, and wham – I have a clean tank.

I rearanged a bunch of my coral today to move some of the coral that wasn’t liking the new and improved lighting, and made room for the 150+ polyp zoonathid rock. Specifically I moved one of my leather corals up higher ( it responded nicely to the new lighting so I figured it was happy). I moved a toadstool leather coral down and to the side (it hated the new light). I also moved my torch coral from the top, to the bottom side. All of these placements seem better for each piece than the position prior.

The Clam is still doing great, I am eying another. This time I think I would go for a blue (with stripes?) Maxima. The SPS frags that I got last week are looking good, their (tiny) polyps can be seen extending at various times, which is a good sign. Hopefully they will do well. Below are a few pic’s that I took today. Enjoy!

Full Tank Shot

Red and Green Zoonathids

Purple Clam

My Bicolor Blennie has been picking at my new clam. He was banished to the fuge. I chased him into a piece of live rock an d put it into the fuge until he swam out. I additionally banished 4 of the aggressive Snails – I saw one of them crawling on the clam.

With all the new light I am getting a slight diatom bloom on the glass – to be expected. Additionally, some of the coral is a bit freaked out by all of the light. Specifically the Xenia sp. and the Toadstool leather. The new SPS and Zoo’s are doing great.

Much to my delight and surprise the new halide lighting fixture that I ordered on Wednesday arrived yesterday. Last night I set it up on the mounts. It was only on for a few hours but WOW what an amazing difference. The unit has a great fit-and-finish and the 14k Metal Halide bulb looks fantastic with the true 192W of true atinic CF.

I will take some pictures in the next few days and post some before / after shots.

One of the big reasons that I waned this light was so I could house some clams. They are the best looking thing in reef tanks I think. After my system gets used to the additional light (I am expecting an algae bloom) I think I will pick one up.

I have had my current (192W CF 50/50) lighting fixture for about a year. I need to replace the bulbs. In looking into getting new bulbs I decided that I should just get a new, more powerful fixture. I selected a fixture with the following specs:

• 1x 250W Metal Halide 14k
• 2x 96W CF Actinic

I am thinking I am going to hang it from the celling with some wire. The fixture is not designed for this but I think I can rig it up to hang from the fan vents in the top. It also has standard mounting brackets which I may use.

Now with the Halide lighting I can keep things like Clams and SPS, which I could not keep with the CF alone.

Additionally, I am going to attempt to get my reef on real parameters. This means actually testing various settings and adjusting things based off it. I have a feeling that I have a few things awry. Some of my coral do GREAT and others do AWFUL, examples: My Torch, Bubble, an Xenia do GREAT. However, Zoonathids slowly whither and die, as do Gonaporia. Muchrooms do OK but don’t seem to grow as much as they should. I suspect a Phosphate or trace problem.  To put this into perspective, I have never tested. Like not even ONCE any parameter in my aquarium other than salinity.  I don’t do any dosing other than weekly 10% water changes with real saltwater from Catalina.

I am going to pick up a test kit at the LFS today so that I can hopefully get the problem(s) identified before the new light arrives in a few days.