New Nano Reef Diary, the sequel

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Blinky

Blinky

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Jun 22, 2004
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Wonderful news! The LR I bought a few days back came with a VERY sickly looking LPS. I have the rock in a 5g bucket with a PH and a little PC light fixture overhead and have been watching all the life emerging, but had basically given up hope for the little coral. Then yesterday I swore I noticed it get a little puffier, and recede later. I thought my eyes were playing tricks. This morning it looked the same - no worse, no better. Tonight I was feeding the reef some Cyclopeeze and figured it was worth a shot to give some to the coral... one piece landed near the centre of a polyp and to my utter amazement a tiny mouth appeared, opened, grabbed the food and ate it! Then another polyp did the same, and the first had a second piece. I'm dancing for joy - it might just make it afterall! :D

I picked up another 4lbs of LR today, nice Tonga with loads of little holes and spaces, quite large for the weight - my boss went to price it and couldn't believe how light it was.

Tonight I'm cleaning buckets and equipment, mixing up some SW and getting ready for the big move. I'm sure it will be stressful, but it will be worth it in the end :)
 
Blinky

Blinky

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Jun 22, 2004
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Here I am!

Well, I guess it's good to have a plan B. Unfortunately the 14g didn't fit into the bottom of the stand, so we moved everything into the 30g. As promised, here are the pictures :D

This is the stand (and our kitty, she was such a big help ;))


The bottom is hollow - no good for supporting a tank or equipment:


We had some plywood cut to size to fill the hollow section:


Here's a shot through the top of the stand:


From the front, with the door open:


The last of the 'before' pics - the tank and a few odds and ends:
 
Blinky

Blinky

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Jun 22, 2004
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All in all the preparation, teardown and setup took about ten hours - it seems it took forever just to clean the tank and equipment, plan things out, get the 30g of water mixing and heating in tubs, and I was tired before I even started!

I couldn't believe how bad the sand smelled when I took it out - it STANK!! I don't even want to know what wierd biological and chemical processes were going on in there!

One interesting thing, I used a new bucket of salt to mix up the water. I'm not happy with the Kent salt I've been using, so I bought a bucket of RedSea salt. When I had my arms in the tank (gloveless, a no-no in my books but I wanted the finesse of working with bare fingers), I noticed that the water felt different - almost silky, very soft. The fish and corals seem happier in this salt too, though it could also be the size of the tank and increased circulation.

I'm using both the AC70 and AC70 fuge, along with a ZooMed 214 Powersweep PH, which provides 25 x turnover (760gph). The water is moving in a nice swirling, random pattern.

I'm happy with the layout, and the fish seem to really like all the caves. It was hard to arrange all the LR so that the attached corals were exposed to light but I think it looks pretty good. There's an awful lot of open water up top, but the wrasse really seems to love it! He's zipping all over the place, disappearing into a cave and reappearing on the other side of the tank. The clown goby looks happy as well, he's been exploring non-stop since I put him into the tank. Digger and his goby wasted no time at all, they hit the bottom and instantly began to renovate. With only an inch of sand, I don't think they're going to be able to do too much damage though :D
 
Blinky

Blinky

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Jun 22, 2004
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Thanks guys :D
I almost feel bad for not upgrading sooner - not only does the tank look nicer but the wrasse seems really excited to have the open space.

The tulip anemone is in the middle, in a cave that gets just a little light. It's comfortably stuffed into a hole so there was no way I was going to get it out - I figured if it wasn't happy, it could just get up and move. Well, it did something I didn't expect! Looks like it's split in two, but both the parent and clone are still sharing the hole.

I saw a BIZARRE creature on the glass, wish I could have snapped a picture of it but I'll try to describe it - it was white, pea-sized, and looked a little like a snail with a fuzzy shell. The 'shell' was split down the centre, fanned out at the back - roughly in the shape of a horseshoe that's flared at the end. The body was white, long and thin. Looked like a harmless critter, so I'm not worried about it but I'd love to figure out what it is. Hitchhikers are so much fun!
 
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