Reefyone's tanks.

[Reefyone]

I have more than one tank, will add others later.
Pardon the mess - fighting with it all the time.

While I'm able to keep most of corals and filter-feeders alive and well, I have to change setups (and add the new nano-tanks) to fit their needs, not set the tank and fill it with animals who will survive there.

Or I have some mental incapability, or the usual way to set and keep the tank don't work in some situations. My apologies, and any serious help, changing my aquarium world perception, will be necessary and appreciated.

90g tank, the biggest:

Started as 20g XH tank, bought clown fish and cleaner wrasse, they didnt filled the empty space. To fill this space, bought the fish, sympatetic to me, knowing that it will need 100g tank later (what I didn't know - that the cost of the tanks, larger than 90g, jumps up out of my means because of glass thickness). Meet them: Chaetodermis Penicillgerus, sargassum-looking tasseled filefish, and the volitan lionfish.



Prepared to feed:

Later volitan died, no visible reasons for that. Could be high alkalinity of the new salt bucket, or adding the safe for other aquarists amounts of vodka to lower nitrates.
Cleaner wrasse (the true one, checked this) tried to kill Fuzzy, moved to 6g Nano-cube with fish's treadmill, high flow. Don't beat me! And don't tell me to live the hobby because of my attitude. I'm very good with others. At least both are alive and well even now. And cleaner wrasses are supposed to be difficult to keep.

It become difficult for a Fuzzy of make turns in the tank with small footprint, bought 90g tank - the maximum to afford.

No sump, 2 maxi-jets (1200 and 400) and Fluval 404 (300 gph) canister filter, for biological filtration. Fluval's flow was intolerable forceful for a my slow swimming fish, added LifeGard CustomFlo flow distribution tubing - the clack one on the back. The new rock is curing this time.

The other fish;
- valentini puffer, not recommended to keep with my other fish, but this particular does harm only to snails, and is most intelligent and reasonable in the tank. Have to do puffer dentistry soon - the only drawback.
- antennata lionfish, was an infant at purchase, half-dried of starvation in LFS, very colorful, swims as asian fan dancer dances - exquisite an colorful. Behaviour of the mops (german pug): knows what wants, and knows how to get it, watches own interests. What I can do - lion, royalty... Was not able to wean it, as did this to volitan.
- much later, trying to form a cleaning crew, bought the scooter blenny - to pick dropped particles of the food at bottom (ridiculous idea!). Same day understood my mistake and started to feed it as Melev's Reef shows.
- blinded by easy success, bought a couple of mandarins - female was choosed by several people after long comparizon. Later appeared that it was adolescent male. But - they danced together, and the last one was an initiator. Later had to move the smaller one in another tank, because of aggression the bigger one. Mandarins were more difficult to wean, they still don't accept pellets. Their feeding totally screwed my tank water quality.

90g tank now, Dec 6, 06:

Note squareness of the rockwork - it's tied to the CPVC frame, creating caves and hiding space behind it: the tassle filefish and the lion required it.

I asked about aquascaping for a tasseled filefish on a forums, it seems not too much people are keeping them.
Well: it needs cave to hide from light and people (very shy, but playfull, like a big flaffy rigiculous dog), larger tank, than my - it likes to chase the live shrimp across the tank - the only time it looks full of life and energy, sleep on the safe platform - in the plastic basket on the right (accidentally found it), also serves as a tent from the light and a frag holder near the light. Have to re-aquascape soom, may be move some rock in the sump - need more swimming place, to make turns and avoid lion's dorsal fins.

Will continue.

[Reefyone]

Continue: 90g tank now, Dec 06 - Jan 07.

I'm non-English thinking, my apologies for an improper English usage, doing my best.

Current 90g tank specifications:

- 90g undrilled BB tank, side-by-side sump (basement, low ceilings, left just enough space to use a long claw to reach the bottom and be able to fit myself to reach the bottom too).- 15g BB tank for a sump, filled 8" for ASM G03 skimmer requirements.
- 5g BB bucket with chaeto as a refugium, Maxi-jet 600 (will be 900 soon) for a flow from the tank, passive 1" outflow tubing, 27W 6500K CFL bulb in a big round reflector (all are from Home Depot, except bucket and PH).

Filtration:
- Fluval 404 canister filter, really does the work. Media was replaced by filter floss (BAl's roll), 2 layers, changed in turns; the 2 baskets of biomedia - ceramic cylinders and Seachem Matrix stones, cleaned by toothbrush after a few months; last basket is with phosphate remover PhosGuard, double dose for a tank size, changed in turns too. Ribbed hoses were replaced by clear vinyl tubing. Canister is cleaned twice a week (if longer - too much of decomposting things start to accumulate), believe me - for this tank it's maximum. Started to leak recently, ordered the big water pump, Sequence Dart, to replace canister filtration by micron sock high volume filtration, on intermittent basis.
- Micron sock in the sump, usually 100 mk, sometimes 50 and less (after cleaning tank). The sock is washed every day or at the most - every other day. Return pump - Eheim 1250, strongly dislike it: size per gph and absence of the rubber feet. Admire Sedra 5000 design.
- ASM G-3 protein skimmer with Sedra 5000 pump, in-sump; difficult to adjust. No time or money right now for a modifications.

Flow (roughly 2000 gph per 90g now, slow swimmers in the tank. Not enought to keep BB clean):
- 300gph Eheim return pump,
- 300 gph Fluvall canister filter return,
- 160 gph refugium return,
- 1200 gph of the soft flow from 2 Sedra 620 powerheads (ten times better than Maxi-Jets 1200).


Light:
Low by choice: had red slime, and the fish hides from twice more light (have it installed, just turned it off):
- 2x 55W 50-50 PC, AH supply DIY kit. 11 hrs day- 13 hrs night. Refugium light for 1 hr more as twightlight.

Inhabitants:
Fish:
6" tassle filefish,
4" antennata lionfish,
2" valentini puffer,
1.5" clownfish, sold as percula,
2" mandarin dragonet,
1.5" scooter blenny (dragonet too).

Clean-up crew:
~6 turbo-snails, 1 tiger cowrie,
~20 hermits, half of them big, zebra, blue-legged, maroon,
- I, with battery-operated vacuum-gravel cleaner, elongated turkey baster and a loooong plastic forceps, every other day, rarely longer. Ready to trade places with another member of clean-up crew.

Medicine man in the cave (hermaphrodite really):
THE blood shrimp (now 2, both pregnant), choosen by all the fish, instead of cleaner wrasse. Surface cleaning, including raiding on the fish's side; deep-throat operations (you should see it by yourself: couldn't photographed it - it's short in duration and they can be easily startled). Emergency: what signals they give to each others, I don't know, but shrimp had run forward as the lion approached the cave entrance, only then he opened mouth and operation started.

Corals:
- planned to place there big open brains, bit the fish is not safe for them. Have to make setup for them now (see another tanks and advice),
- sun coral, Tubastrea, moved here because equipment of the other tanks was incapable to handle bioload. Fed 3 cubes of Ocean Plankton twice a week. Spawned twice: in this tank (few survived and attached to the rock), and before that in 1g (re-glued them by CA glue and returned half in 90g tank). Is high on the rock because of necessity of an easy access.
- 2 kinds of branching hammers and branching frogspawn, close to the light, not fed especially,
- Capnella, or a Kenya tree, was white at purchase, otherwise wouldn't bought it. Now big and brown, takes over red mushrooms and white xenia - beware. 2 trees x 6" diameter, likes light and flow. Fuzzy has a good time fragging it: chop-taste-drop. Done - in a day attaches to everything.
- Red mushrooms, indestructible and low light for everybody else, one of the high-demanding for me.
- White xenia, good-looking and was supposed to grow fast and help with nutrient export. Not in this tank. Why?
- Chili coral, 2 kinds, non-photosynthetic, in a very high flow and very well fed tank. Recovers, but could be better.
- White lemnalia, not sure in ID; low ligh, very high flow, smallest polyps, has to be in well fed tank; pronounces spicules inside the body, but not dendronephthya.
- Pink Scleronephthya in a soap holder, rather what was left from it; but is alive. Have it close to 1 yr. Most lovable coral for me.

Other invertebrates:
- Porcelain crab. Filter-feeder, yea... Piece of fish passed by, one moment it was floating, next moment it was in the crab's claw - no visible movements in-between. And when it molts, did you seen the size of the zig-zags on the gigantic sharp claws?

Feeding:
Fish - 2 times daily until the stomach starts bulge slightly, the middle-day snack - less. Chopped seafood, krill, ocean plankton, marine cusine, nori; mysis for dragonets, sea-food fed ghost-shrimp for a lion. Corals catch what they can or want, no special care. Same for the hermits and snails.
Shrimp - 1-2 days daily the same food as for a fish.

Maintenance:
Aw! Big PITA, the bigger tank - the bigger troubles (or it just me, see about mental predisposition in the first post):
- 3 times daily feeding (fish requires it), water drops removing;
- maintaining feeders FW tank, 18g;
- cleaning bottom, washing micron sock, adding top-off water, emptying protein skimmer cup - daily, rarely every second day;
- cleaning canister filter - twice a week;
- bi-weekly 20% water changes, refugium cleaning (need to increase flow);
- monthly - sump cleaning.
- powerheads - now and then. Glass - as needed, except the back - will be covered by coraline.

Plans for a near future:
Advice welcome!
- insufficient filtration, canister started to leak. Ordered Sequence Dart external pump, 3000gph, to make an intermittent high flow filtration, 3 times daily for 15 min into micron sock, other flow this time- off. Have no idea about undrilled plumbing for it, digging.
- reaquascaping - have to make more place for a swimming, probably part of the rock will come into the sump.
- have troubles with setting corals into the valleys in LR, fish and hermits drop them frequently. Don't want to attach permanently, because as corals grow and tank setup changes, have to move them in the more suitable place.
- unreasonable organization and too much work in general, it was a slow way to make the things work, now is the time to make it less time-consuming in inexpensive way.

[Reefyone]

90g tank, water parameters:
ammonia, nitrites - 0
nitrates - 20-40 ppm, phosphates - 0.25 - 0.5 ppm, (I know, I know, already ordered),
alkalinity - 9-11.5 dKH, pH - 8-8.4
calcium - 390-420 ppm, magnesium - 1200-1350 ppm (was-targeting).
Instant Ocean salt mix, 09/03, tap water, Prime, adding Ca and Mg into the new water.
Heaters are set on 79F. Grounding probe.

The next tank in work:
Was and probably will be, 20g long, higher light and as refugium for unfit fish. Picture was taken before crash (Nov 24 06),some toxic inhabitants died:







What was left now and need to be set the better way:

10g mixed reef and 4.5g large LPS corals:






10g BB tank with side-by-side 4.5g sump, same reason - knee high starts window, below is heating vent. No other space in the room is available. Some grape caulerpa and chaeto in the sump, sunlit.

Filtration: micron sock, ASM Mini-G skimmer (ordered for a then 20g tank). Mini-Jet 606 (150gph) as a return pump. Tried maxi-Jet 1200 - impossible to sleep.
Water flow: another Mini-Jet 606, half-strong setting, ~ 100 gph, total with return pump - 250 gph.
Light: 2x 36W PC, AH supply DIY kit, actinic: 10,000K=1:3. Plus sunlight, southern window.
Inhabitants:
- One-eyed male scooter blenny,
- blue-green chromis,
- purple-tipped anemone (just started to recover after 6 months ago being sucked into HOB filter intake),
- 2 toddlers Tridacna maxima clams, 3+ cm each, amasing resilience - survived crash and live in a such water,
- survived and slowly recovering Christmas tree rock (the central white one), and the old small one on the back, no worms, porites only.
- candycane, light-loving
- blastomussa Merletti, doing really good in good light,
- lobophillia, pink or peach,was bought damaged, recovered; the green one under Christmas tree rock - not, but still some tissue left.
- small pieces of softies:
white xenia, white lemnalia, GSP, yellow polyps, 1 small red mushroom.
- red dime-sized feather duster,
- red kelp (won't grow),
- hitchhikers: yellow sponges, feather dusters, red turnicate, algae, predatory crab.
- may be 5 spiny astrea snails, 1 micro-hermit.
- 2 small mintraxs.
Not much, really.

Water parameters:
-ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, phosphates are 0, but: red slime. Newly set skimmer helps.
- pH 8.2-8.6 sometimes, alkalinity 7.5-9.5 dKH,
- Ca - 390-420 ppm, Mg - 1200-1300 ppm,
Temperature 80F (other heater already ordered). Grounding probe. Temperature alert.
Water - same as for 90g.

Feeding:
2x daily, mysis and marine cusine, 1/4 cube each time. Some dry Cyclop-eeze for chromis to catch. Time from time - mysis for lobo and blasto. Anemone - piece of seafood almost each day. Others are on their own. Dried phytoplankton for Maximas is no longer used - degrades water quality.

Maintenance:
- skimming only during daytime,
- micron sock is changed daily,
- at least 2x daily rock basting,
- weekly 15% water changes with bottom vacuuming.

4.5g:
- all the same, only HOB filter, water is much cleaner because of less feeding. 7" scolymia, 5.5-6" cynarina, 4" Symphyllia valenciennesii, candycane.

Plans:
Advice is welcome!
- Have to make a lemonade from my lemons, still don't know what will be better: leave as is (more troublesome to maintain) or join again into 20g long, this time scolymia is bigger, and water flow should be higher to filter debris out. At least on intermittent basis, as planned for 90g, ordered Ocean Runner 2500, 625 gph. Same problem with undrilled plumbing with 2 closed side loops, plus really afraid that large brains, cynarina especially, will take this bad.
Oversized HOB filters didn't helped, tried.

[Loverotties]

Nice tanks!

[Reefyone]

Thanks for a kind words!

[Reefyone]

Somehow missed the main tank of interest - Nano-Cube 6g, since April.
Low light - 18W combo PC, flow - Mini-Jet 606, 150gph, filtration - occassional filter floss and micron pad, and this hitchhiker sponge, 1.5" in diameter:

Was started like this:

ended like this:


due to heavy feeding of non-photosynthetic gorgonian and chilies with insufficient filtration and no skimming:

Ready to disassemble for a cleaning, making it the common LPS-softies reef, and moving non-photosynthetic corals in the bottom-draining feeding chambers (the rectangular Brita filter is used as acrylic tank).

The quality of glass allows make such quality pictures with 3 Mpix point and shoot camera with macro mode, Pentax Optio 30, dirt or no:

[Eriksmack]

nice

[Eriksmack]

any updated pics dendro?

[Reefyone]

Sorry, was absent - walked over different forums, trying to find solutions to my problems. Images were deleted after advice to clean coraline from my tank, mount corals and cover bottom by a nice sand, as an answer on how to improve filtration and skimming
Now will chop off the unpresentable parts

Let see what happened since last posts.

Lost:
Lemnalia - white and purple - didn't survived low light and medications.
Scleronephthya: pink babies hanged on life for 1.5 yrs, without growth, until were lost during prolonged exposure to air and medications. Switched on the only available, orange ones. So-so, until was told to increase flow in several times and make small food almost in constant supply. Now much better, even half-melt new pink one opened.
Blueberry gorgonian: bought damaged, never seen it eating, melted rapidly, ended in bryopsis outbreak.
2 dendronephthya: bothe were never seen with open polyps, only inflated. Never opened and melted within weeks and other - days. Again, got advice to buy only the animals in prime health, right after arrival, only attached. It worked. Similarly looking dendronephthya, with polyps open while it was in store, several hours after arrival, attached to the rock, standing upright on the rock and thus never touching any object around - not in tanks, not during transporting. Opens and feeds, generally looks good in the same tank, with the same chemistry. Increased feeding for sclero, dendro uses this too. You see how combing through the forums helps!
Best fishes: Disease, jumper, didn't wake up after 3rd anesthesia for dental surgery. I need to improve filtration and skimming. So far - no more fish, no unweanable fish, no fish, having risk of necessity of dental surgery. Not much choice of interesting fish left.
Bryozoans: hair algae growth.
Orange tree sponge: brushed it by soft toothbrush from red slime or dynos. Of course it didn't make it.
And so on.

Trice downsized, moving bags and boxes of content to good people and LFS. Now most photosynthetic corals are off, troublesome small fish too.

[Reefyone]

What is good:
Baby Maxima - initially 2 cm (3/4") long two young Tridacna maxima survived without dosing live phytoplankton. Now are 1.5 yrs old. Gone through bryopsis, bacterial and algal growth on the rock, diatoms, red slime, flat worms. Now are still covered by turf algae. ChemiClean helped to reduce film on the shell and tank surfaces, no ill effects.

Christmas tree rocks - oldest worms also are 1.5 yrs old, visible growth, but no reproduction. Were through beaching to snow white and recovered.

Now have brown porites with big crown worms, bought the same kind - 2 more small rocks with a lot of very young babies. They are growing too. Beige fine porites with different, small crown worms. All alive, but these porites require cleaner water and better light. Green porites with wine red worms, recovered after shipping and handling. Same kind on worms on dead porites rock: half-rescue, half want to check how they will be doing without porites. Thought about making transplant of porites from one rock to another, but I'm now under more pressing need to downsize and organize, so they are just growing too. Even green pavona with green Christmas tree worms, but will return it in LFS, have to downsize. Had hitchhiker on hairy muchroom rock - the same green Christmas tree worm, without any porites at all. Interesting.

Set culture of live rotifers, SS strain (super small), for them, crinoids, sea apples and scleros. Not too bothersome, by the way.

Chili corals, the oldest is 2 yrs 4mts old, are recovering nicely after addition the enriched fish food (flake recipes by Garf and mcox33 from Dendronephthya study group), now gets the simplified version - powdered fry food, Hikari First Bites. Now aiptasia is the biggest problem for them. Tried kalkwasser paste, Joyce Juice (sp?), hot water, peppermint shrimp - no long term solution. Planning berghia nudibranches, but I have to reduce number of tanks. This is my biggest problem, after skimming.

Condy anemone, 2 yrs in 10g and, later, 20g tank. Recovered and grows. Have to find it another home.

Red finger gorgonian, the oldest is almost 2 yrs old, alive and kicking, but no new growth. Newer red were in tank with low flow and 1x a day feeding, started to die. Cutting off the healthy parts and gluing them helped. Details - on my website, where I'm talking mostly to myself
Yellow finger gorgonian frag, 1 yr old, has actual growth, even if it had a really rough time with bacterial growth in unlit tank. Ultralife Red Slime Remover helped to break decline. Now the new branch seems to be starting to grow.

Guaiagorgia (thin gorgonian with middle blue fine polyps), 1 yr old, what survived after bryopsis, now is in a good shape, one frag even shows an actual growth. Just mount it with outer tissue close to the support and feed.

[Reefyone]

Swiftia kofoidi, also non-photosynthetic gorgonian of the cheerful tangerine orange color, also 1 yr old, overcame rapid tissue necrosis, that it had during shipping, is resistant to bryopsis and microalgae growth, but intolerant to prolonged contact with sun corals and floating big pieces of seafood, given to suns. Rapid die off of the soft outer tissue. Had seen fast recovery once. Had basal growth, as any other gorgonian, but unlike then dripped babies - just like paint drips, drop by drop. Conditions should be good, no red slime, high phosphates or hair algae in the tank.

Sun coral colony, likely Tubastrea faulknery - pale pinkish orange body, yellow tentacles, orange mouth - continue spawning, larvae settles and grows new colonies, all this time. Now I'm making a list, on what materials in the tank it settled, quite a choice. There shouldn't be any problem with larvae settlement preferences. More about this again on my website.

You see, I'm attending many forums now, and trying to keep all in one place for easy reference. By the way, if you have non-photosynthetic, fine filter feeders or less known animals website - let me know, and I'll link you to my website, again, for easiness of locating information for everybody.

Removing new colonies, settled where they are not supposed to settle, is quite a nuisance, but seems I found the way to fight it: remove the breeding colony to a separate breeding tank, cover the walls by accepted for settlement material (LR or artificial, doesn't matter), and let the settle of removable pieces. Then remove them and place in grow out tank, and place a new pieces in the breeding tank. Just like with clownfish.

It was impossible to find anything interesting in LFS, and I - this hobby keeps interest alive mainly by new additions - acquired one by one the sun coral collection, starved to the tissue recession, but recovering on more frequent feedings.
Now I have (ID is always guesswork, give your input with refernces to the sources):
Tubastrea faulkneri and its babies, T. coccinea (intense orange), T. diaphana (the low growing black one, this almost gave me a heart attack at beginning), lemon yellow non-branching, high skeleton of individual polyps, similar lemon yellow, but intensely branching (donation, thanks again!) and Cladopsammia gracilis (pinkish orange small polyped low growing branched). Nice!
Same skimmer handles with the same result one and many sun corals and their relatives.

[Reefyone]

Sorry, I'm running out of time. Now some pictures, all have dates on them. Starting date is February 2006.

90g tank, Mar 2008:

Big tubastrea colony is fragged and glued to tiles.

90g tank, May 2008:

they are reglued to the rock, but at present moment cleanup crew bulldozed all, but two, from the rock. Hate this! Every morning some trouble.

Few months old species tank, 10g plus skimmer and sump for sea apples, big (6") and small:



And this is why sea apples:


See you later, feel free to browse my photobucket and website. Or wait here, I should come in near future to continue.

If anybody wish to help me with planning of downsizing and reorganization, post here, I'll come immediately.

[Vdituri]

I can't believe you've had the suncorals spawning!
Amazing research. Kudos to you and thank you for sharing!

What is the website?

[Reefyone]

Mmm. actually, I'm not the first with sun corals spawning and larvae settling, and not the last: in last November I found on the web more than 20 people (and not all forums are searchable by search engines), more posts followed later, and I stopped to count

The old list reefkeepers, that had Tubastrea spawning is here.
Some posted detailed information and advice on inducing spawning, some only mentioned the fact.

Daniela Stettler has for years one third of sps tank stuffed with sun corals, both kinds are reproducing all the time. 13Mb pdf presentation is here. Well worth to take a look, including what she is using as an artificial substrate for settling. Translation can be made trough Google Language tools, copy-paste text in window. Details are here, in German too, but enough to enter url in the language tools, and more - in French.

The water is crystal clean. If somebody finds more details on her filtration, then in the links above, post please. Water quality issue is a problem for all of us. Vodka isn't an answer, it's only small part of the filtration system.

Now I see more and more photos of spawning. This floating planula could be collected in 800 micron filter media mesh bag (I used 250, but it clogs fast), and be kept in tank until it attaches, then the bag (it's cheap) can be cut in pieces and glued to the rock.

Index page on my website is here, slightly out of date. Photobucket - here, but the webpage of any member can be seen by clicking on member's name in the thread, it will show something like "See website". Photobucket (at least in Firefox) - by right click on image, View image, the address will be in address bar.

If you are keeping non-photosynthetic corals or fine filter feeders, make th information you found and observations public. Each of us starts on it's own again and again. It's unreasonable and frustrating.

The fun part: old thread, then I found the first sun babies, thinking, that it's a chili coral returned to life (Why my chili coral reminds me sun coral? and follow-up).

[tbittner]

WOW!!! That sea apple is GORGEOUS!!!

I really LOVE the look of all those suns! Absolutely incredible work! Congrats!