12 glorious gallons (lotta pix)

[brandon4291]

excellent picture! There is no way my kodak cam could get that close up...

Hwarang it is neat you commented on the dosing requirements of nano tanks, I was never able to sustain the 400 calcium range in my tanks until I was dosing them almost every day and in amounts I would have never thought required. It is my belief that water changes are not enough to keep up with calcification demands in a properly designed nano, but they are great for exporting nitrates and used water. To get strong stony coral growth in nanos, I think it is ideal to find a stout dosing regimen (Ca+/Alk) that works and stick with it.

Interestingly, I stopped dosing iodide for about 10 months now and there is no change in the coloring or polyp expansion. That may be something the corals acquire in a different oxidative state or what not, maybe from fish food and other entrance pathways but it does not appear in short supply since the dosing stopped. Then again I'm not testing for it, just going on general coral health and longevity. Are you adding iodide or iodine?

 

[Anonymous]

Nope, I'm only dosing the b-ionic right now. I even quit adding DT's ...

At first I was just adding the b-ionic 2 parts one after another, right after every water change ( weekly ) ... but then I bumped it up to like twice a week and now it's pretty much every other day.

Definitely this nano has reinforced my overall ideas on how to run a successful nano:

Dose the crap out of it and keep a regular steady influx of clean water. I'm thinking about doing my W/C's daily now. A gallon a day is quick and easy. Before I do that, I need to get my RO unit running again, I guess. I'm already getting sick of lugging water jugs from the LFS.

*rocks back and forth like a peppermint shrimp sweeping the driveway*

 

[Meloco14]

Hey Hwarang, how are your anemone crabs doing without the anemone? Do they hide more now or do they associate with certain corals? I want to get one or two of these guys but I'm not ready to get an anemone, so I was hoping they'll host in a coral or something

 

[Anonymous]

She's doing allright, but I can tell she misses her home. I keep finding her in my GSP, under the shade of my hammer coral, even hiding in a patch of mushrooms ... looking all like, "Is this my home? Can I live here?"

... I'm still looking for an anemone to get her, but it's kinda crowded. She doesn't hide that much. She's usually visible, which I like. The porcelain decorator I have is much much more reclusve. She's eating and stuff just fine.

I'll try an anemone a little bit later when the algae problem is fixed and the tank has matured a little more.

 

[Meloco14]

You have 2 clown gobies right? Do they get along? I read somewhere that they will fight with their own species.

 

[Anonymous]

That's odd. I read somewhere that they behave like clowns and one will even morph into a dominant female, just like a clownfish. One is dominant, and a little larger, but it's nice to the little one.

 

[Newreefer1]

Hey H-dog what type of anemone was that you had (the purple one) that the crab liked? and sorry it died on you, my condolences brother.

 

[Anonymous]

hard to say since it was so young, but it was marked as wild caught so it's possible that it was a hybrid produced through sexual reproduction in the wild ... best guess was Heteractis aurora x malu ... the crab still wanders around trying to host in "bushy" type corals like my GSP

 

[Anonymous]

Heya!

Well yesterday I did some cleaning and stuff, so the tank looks all purdy for pictures. Below this little update you'll find the most recent frontal shot, a pic of one of my two electric blue hermit crabs and a staghorn. I don't really like the staghorn and I might "downsize" him back to the LFS ... his prongs are a little too awkward for the nano, and he's too heavy for the soft substrate I have. Also, I didn't care at first, but now I do, that the coral he lives in is dead.

Tank update: the surface scum is getting on my nerves. I hate the hazy hue it casts on the aquarium, and envision all kinds of gas exchange problems... I'm going to install a surface skimmer soon (the little overflow box) and then perhaps even a real skimmer ...

Other than that, this baby's still rock steady. You can even see a little green coraline beginning to bebop on the back wall (left side, middle height).

Lastly, an apology for the lower than usual quality of the pix ... I'm in a bit of a rush as I have guests coming over and I'm fighting with some PHP scripts.

Enjoy!
-meh

 

[Anonymous]

Sweet!

 

[birdman204]

Dang Hwa, why don't you grace us with these nice pics over at NR.com?

 

[Anonymous]

Sup birdman!

I do have all these same pix (and more) posted in my gallery! And I posted a thread for them when I uploaded them (maybe it scrolled away or something).

HF and thx for the compliments!

 

[Anonymous]

Hwarang, did your feather-duster move? I seem to remember it being closer to the xenia, but maybe its the camera angle, right?...

 

[Anonymous]

Wow!

You people don't miss anything, do you?

My xenia is doing very well, and it spread onto the rock above and behind it. So when I set up my 2.5g mantis tank, I took the original rock w/ xenia and moved it over to that tank. This solved another problem of how to rearrange the hammer coral - it needed more space and was stinging the crap out of everything nearby. So the GSP you see in that pic is where the xenia rock used to be. This is also cool because I've twice now relocated the GSP and it has left behind a weentsy little bit of the mat, so I have little GSP satellite colonies going. Woot! The hammer coral is moved a little lower. Here's a pic of the Xenia rock's new home:

 

[Anonymous]

So, mantis shrimp wont hurt the xenia at all? I had thought that mantis shrimp loved to KKND (Kill Krush N Destroy, for those who dont know) any and all corals they could get their claws on!

Yeah, I noticed things looked a bit different, and I hadnt even looked at the original pics, just off the top of my head...

Just looked at the orginals; what happened to your blastomussa wellsi?!?!
And what kind of macro algae is that growing in the back there now?!
Looks like you lost a few shrooms, including your ricordeas, and gained a few different ones!
And that orange thing, under the feather duster on the right, and back a little; what is that?!

Holy crap, more changed than I thought!

 

[Anonymous]

I scored and snapped a 2"x4" section of acrylic and hot glued it to the vent. Then I used a hacksaw to cut even little slits all along the length of the left section. Then I used a needlenose pliers to snap the teeth out one by one. I actually snapped them all out, opting for a smooth overflow versus a thoothed deal. It skims the surface like a mofo. It was cool, I watched all the scum go within 10 seconds of turning on the filter. When I used the hacksaw (it was a mini one with a fine blade) I put my small fish net under it to catch the shavings and it worked awesome. Only problem is that it's kinda oogly. It was too awkward to glue it to the back so I glued it to the front. It'll look better after I put a flat black strip of plastic over it to make it blend a little better.

WOOT.

I was going to assemble Matt_W's DIY skimmer in the sump area, but when I measured, I discoverd that the sump area is way too thin. It's a full inch or two skinnier than it can be.

...

DewrGleision,

The mantis might eat some of that if he's hungry, but by all reports he will ignore corals.

The blastomussa is in the pic - but it's all washed out - look between the macro algae and the hammer coral - you can't see the green but you can see the red ring.

I'm really pissed about the shrooms. I don't know what it is, but they are not thriving in my tank. I'm guessing too much light or too much flow. *shrug*

The thing by the feather duster is actually a ball sponge (yellow moon sponge), and it's not by the duster, that's just a perspective trick. It's against the back wall, tucked under an overhang.

I'm already getting itchy to set up my new system.

 

[Anonymous]

C'mon Hwarang! New pics! Pronto! Now!
JK... I do want to see where its at now though! And bloody hell if I dont wish I could post as nice of pics of my tank! Does 29 gallons surpass nano-dimensional qualifications?

I had a crazy idea once that quickly left my thought processes, but was interesting nonetheless (to me, at least [nyah])... I thought about putting a divider in my tank, sectioning off about one third of the tank width-wise, so as to make a smaller, more cube-like area on one end. That way, I would use the divided area to act as a sump/refugium for the whole setup; Id essentially be left with 20 gallons and a 9 gallon area for assigning different things to! I could have a nice fuge, an in-sump skimmer, and some regular carbon or other chemical media plus some mechanical skimming and prefiltering--as per normal sump arrangement--and call it an UBER-NANO! You see? Im not ripping your name off; since mine would be bigger, I get CAPS!!! BaZING!
Whadya' say? SOund too crazy for a loser-newb like me to pull off? The coolest thing is, I would get to keep my CSL PC/moonlight fixture, and since it extends over the sump, I wouldnt have to light the fuge with anything extra, and I could enjoy the macros and mangroves and "fuge-scenery" at the same time! Thats what seemed coolest to me, other than having supreme, lazyness-inducing filtration for a 20 gallon tank! Since I have it on my dresser, the broad part facing outwards (of course), I would divide the new 9 gallon section length-wise, and I would put the fuge in front of the sump area, so as to hide the sump, and then even use some backround on the refugium, which would have like a 6 inch sandbed and PLENTY of LR and macros and stuff!

Hmm.... Just a crazy idea... At least it would let me get rid of some of that junk hanging off the back of my tank!...

 

[Anonymous]

Ok here ya go! a buttload of pix for the masses.

dewr, do it but use a new tank and keep the old one running strong

Here are some recent pix from my nanocube. Recent updates:

Peppermint shrimp has wiped out all the baby stomatella sp. snails, I need to get her out of there but she's wiley. Grr.

Chemipure seems to be taking care of my algae problem *hangs head and whines* i partly added it to clean the water (plus did lotta w/c's) when the hammer when slimer on me.

The surface skimmer mod is working great.

Added a nice neon green pagoda coral, no pix because it's still adjusting.

Removed the hammer - 2nd polyp looked like it was going to die, I was sick of the fishy smell (kept being tipped over and stressed by bulldozer hermits).

Saw the mother of all amphipods crawlin about. Yeesh!

 

[Anonymous]

part deux:

Supervising the photoshoot wore him out:

 

[Anonymous]

So, things are looking good. The tank has a few problems, but I've made a plan and learned from my mistakes.

1. I am too rough on corals. Moving them around, I tend to bang them up. Stop rearranging!

2. Too much chaos. Shoot for stability. Be more diligent topping off water and dosing at regular (vs. irregular) intervals.

3. No new additions for a while, concentrate on making what I've got happy.

4. The shrooms are generally not doing well. I think I have too much light and/or current. Other stuff does very well (hammer until it got tipped 32000 times, GSP, zoos). I'm going to take the hint from my tank and stock stuff that works from now on.