November, 2012 - One and a half years old.
 | |||||||||||||||||
| November, 2012 -18 months |
Size: 10 gallons.
Age: 1.5 years.
- 2, 36 watt Compact Fluorescents. 1 combo 10000K/DeepBlue and 1 DeepBlue (380-450nm).
- 11 hours per day.
Filtration:
- 15 pounds of live rock.
- 2.5" sand bed.
- CPR Bak-Pak protein skimmer with BioBale. To reduce noise, I use a wooden airstone instead of the venturi. The skimmer is probably overkill for a 10 gallon tank.
- No filters, carbon or other chemical filtration.
- I keep a package of PolyFilter on hand in case of emergency.
- Temp: 78 degrees (F)
- Salinity: 1.024
- pH: 8
- kH: 8-10 (This is the only test that I use on a regular basis)
- Zoo Med Power Sweep Automatic Self-Rotating Powerhead. It is perfect for creating 'waves' in a small tank.
- One gallon every 4-5 weeks (when stable).
- Tropic Marin Salt.
- Reverse Osmosis Water (Kent Marine, 2 stage).
- I never filter or stir the sand bad.
Kalkwasser - 3/4 teaspoons per gallon of RO water and drip solution in AM to makeup for evaporation
- Kent Marine Nano Reef Calcium and alkalinity supplement: 10 drops each part on a semi-consistent schedule.
- Feed with flake, pellets and frozen brine shrimp: Target feed the corals once a week or so.
| Acan | Aussie Acan Candy Stripe |
| LPS | Candy Cane Blue |
| LPS | Green Favia Brain |
| LPS | Hammer Coral Branching |
| LPS | Favia Brown/Green |
| SPS | Orange Montipora |
| SPS | Green & White Montipora |
| SPS | Acropora |
| SPS | Bright Yellow Scroll Coral |
| SPS | Pavona Coral |
| SPS | Pink Stylophora |
| SPS | Green Tipped Birdsnest |
| SPS | Electric Green Hydnophora |
| Mushroom | Purple Mushrooms |
| Mushroom | Green Hairy Mushroom |
| Mushroom | Bumpy Red Mushroom |
| Mushroom | Striped Blue Mushroom |
| Mushroom | Metalic Red Mushroom |
| Soft | Gold Capnella |
| Soft | Toadstool |
| Soft | Pink Pulsing Xenia |
| Soft | Metalic Green Star Polyp |
| Soft | Striped Pulsing Xenia |
| Zoos/Palys | Brown Palythoa |
| Zoos/Palys | Whammin Watermelon Zoanthids - Zoanthus sp. |
| Zoos/Palys | Caribbean Long tentacle Palythoa |
| Zoos/Palys | Radioactive Dragon Eye Zoanthids |
| Zoos/Palys | Yellow Colonial Polyps |
| Fish | Ocellaris clownfish |
| Invert | Red Leg Hermit |
| Invert | Peppermint Shrimp |
| Invert | Fan Worm |
| Invert | Sea Cucumber |
| Invert | Small Brittle Star |
| Invert | Nassarius Snail |
| Invert | Peppermint Snail |
| Invert | Margarita Snail |
| Invert | Large Tonga Nassarius Snail |
| Invert | Banded Trochus Snails |
Bonded - August 2012
Rocky recently bonded with the Pink Pulsing Xenia. As soon as the lights turn off for the night, you can find Rocky snuggling with his new buddy.
Macro - June, 2012
 |
| Green Tipped Birds Nest |
 |
| Electric Green Zoanthids |
 |
| Bam Bam Zoanthids |
 |
| Caribbean Zoanthid |
 |
| Gold Capnella |
 |
| Candy Acanthastrea |
 |
| Green Montipora Digitata |
 |
| Red Montipora |
 |
| Red Mushroom |
7 Months - Surviving the Cyanobacteria War.
I am so glad that my tank, Bonsai, is happy and thriving again. For almost 2 months, I have been trying to control Cyanobacteria bacteria (red slime algae) that was trying bloom and ruin the tank. Traces of Cyanobacteria are always present in a reef tank, but excess nutrients or improper lighting can cause a bloom that will quickly overtake and destroy a tank. At first the red slime was noticeable just under the sand bed. I tolerated that until it started to creep up the tank wall and eventually a little spot on the sand. I reduced the lighting and tried to carefully siphon out the colony without causing it to further disperse and multiply. That did not work. Every day it would grow a little more. My red legged hermit crabs were occasionally attacking my snails for their shells. I tried to remove the dead snails as quickly as possible, but I suspected that the extra nutrients from a dead snail could be the cause of the problem. I removed the the crabs, but the Cyanobacteria spots kept growing. So far, no corals were affected, but I felt pressure to resolve this before everything became smothered by red slime. Even though I was doing extra water changes, the Cyanobacteria kept growing. I realized, that I better check the quality of my fresh water. I was using "RO" water from the grocery store. I tested that water and lo and behold, it was loaded with Phosphates! Problem identified. I changed my water source to true Kent Marine RO water. After one dose of Chemiclean and two 20% water changes with pure RO water and Tropic Marin salt, I have not seen a trace of Cyanobacteria for two weeks. I am sure the battle is not over, but I feel a lot more confident that I can prevent this problem in the future.As you can see in from the pictures, my corals continued to grow, reproduce and thrive even as I was pulling my hair out worrying the tank would fail. The hammer coral grew a third head, I can see new growth on the scroll coral. The brown polyps are reproducing like crazy and I have to keep cutting gold capnella frags so it does not take over the tank. I am very pleased about the progress. I am now at a place where I can step back and watch the corals battle for territory in their 10 gallon ecosystem.
Jon
 |
| Yellow Scroll Coral |
 |
| Neon Green Horn - Hydnophora rigida |
 |
| Striped Pulsing and Silver Pom Xenia with Blue Mushroom |
Protein Skimmer
The skimmer extracted dry foam and dark green liquid the day after we gave Pooka a heavy feeding. Since adding the skimmer, the corals are open more and look better than ever.
Snail
I have only seen this cute snail three times, but it has doubled in size to a 1/4 inch long since the first sighting.
Day 114, September 18, 2011
 |
| Everything in the aquarium has been growing very nicely. I moved the Gold Capnella and Pulsing Xenia to make room for the Hammer Coral, but for the most part, I have been trying to keep my hands out of the tank. I was hoping to get a Goby as my first fish, but my daughter fell in love with this Talbot's Damsel (Chrysiptera talboti). Her name is Pooka and she has been thriving since we introduced her a couple of weeks ago. The Yellow scroll coral (Turbinaria reniformis) frags in the foreground are my first Small Polyp Stony corals. Once they are happy, I will epoxy them onto a rock closer to the light. |
Hammer Coral Frag - A new addition
 |
| This Hammer coral has two heads. You can see the mouth of one of them in this picture. There is also a tiny head starting to develop on the base. A Hammer coral is a Large Poly Stony or LPS coral. It differs from the other corals in my tank because it builds it's own calcareous skeleton. |
  |
| Iridescent green under the actinic lights |
 |
| Day 86 - I rearranged the tank to make room for the hammer coral. Now the tank has two viewable sides. |
42 Days of Pulsing Xenia
Coral reproduction documented. In the wild, pieces of corals break off during storms and new clones start to grow. My Pulsing Xenia reproduced the same way, except the trigger was a snail instead of a storm.  |
| Day 47 - Pulsing Xenia attached to frag disk. It will eventually attach to the hungry snail in the background. I freed the snail and replaced it with a piece of rubble. The Xenia quickly attached to it. |
 |
| Day 65 - Pulsing Xenia has attached to a piece of rubble. The rubble was not attached to the frag disk and the two will eventually separate. |
 |
| Day 72 - The Xenia was knocked over during the night and it separated from the frag disk. The remaining foot will quickly start to develop into a clone of the original Xenia. |
 |
| Day 77 - Polyps starting to develop |
 |
| Day 83 |
 |
| Day 86 |
 |
| Day 89 - Pulsing and ready to grow to maturity |
Baby Mushroom
 |
| Baby red mushroom 1cm in diameter. When I discovered this mushroom, it was literally slime on the bottom of a rock. It took weeks, but it developed into a mushroom. It is just starting to develop color. |
Moon-Glo Lighting
For some time, I have been drooling over the idea of having moon-glo lighting. It provides a cool lunar look and extends the viewing hours. Since I am happy with my low-end lighting system and don't want to invest a lot of time and money in a new system, I decided to try a do-it-yourself hack. My local automotive store had a blue LED strip for about $14. It has 8 LEDs and runs off of 12 volts DC. I mounted the lights on a narrow strip of plexiglass that fits under my light hood. I connected the lights to a power brick that I made from spare parts and a Radio Shack project box. When I powered them on, they produced a lot of light. It makes the tank look great when I run them with my daylight bulbs, and even creates a small shimmer. I have the lights on timers so that I get an hour of "moonlight" after the daylight bulbs turn off. It adds a really nice effect...
Day 47, July 13 - Six new additions....
Four days ago I added 6 soft coral frags that I bought from Penny at AquaCorals. They made a successful transition and have opened beautifully.
Here is what I got:
Red Mushroom
Blue Mushroom
Silver Pom Xenia
Stiped Pulsing Xenia
Mint Green Star Polyps
Gold Capnella
This is how it looks....
Here is what I got:
Red Mushroom
Blue Mushroom
Silver Pom Xenia
Stiped Pulsing Xenia
Mint Green Star Polyps
Gold Capnella
This is how it looks....
The gereral layout....
Left half of tank.
Right side of tank
Silver Pom Xenia
Mint Green Star Polyp
Gold Capnella
Pulsing Xenia Video. It is Hypnotic.
-JFW
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)