Jimbo's 6gal Nano Diary - Page 6

Jimbo327 · #**126** 08/16/2007, 11:47 AM

Hi Shortie,

I think smaller hermits are fine. And I think this hermit is too large, and he wanted the snail's shell, that is why he kept going back to the same snail. You should be fine with the scarlet hermits.

Now back to some updates:

This week, I sold a frag of my frogspawn and pink zoas for dirt cheap ($13 total), and gave away some red grape macroalgae & the large halloween crab as a freebie.

And the 2 new snails are doing a wonderful job of cleaning my glass, and definitely earning their stay in the tank. I see them 24/7 on the glass nowadays.

In the past few days, I also bought some ricordea floridas from a local reefer and LFS around me. The greens were a little cheaper than the orange ones. Overall, I'm happy with what I got.

And I've been fragging the corals from their plugs, and glueing them everywhere in my tank...background, surface skimmer, rocks, coco worm tubes, etc. I have used 4 tubes to superglue gel because it is so hard to keep it sticking to where I want it to. The ricordias absolutely just slime up immediately when you take them out of the water.

I sliced one of the orange ricordea floridas in half because it had 2 mouths, but I missed the cut it between the mouths. Oh well. Hope it heals back. And I've been toying with a new way to frag ricordea yumas, but it will take a long time. And the annual reef club event, RAP, is this weekend at Orange County. Both my wife and I are heading there and looking to find some corals/fish. It is going to be fun.

Jimbo327 · #**127** 08/17/2007, 12:13 PM

Changed out carbon last night.

Also found a tiny little sundial snail in the tank. These eat zoas, so I immediately took it out of the tank. Hopefully, it didn't lay any eggs or it is just a shell.

Knocked over a bunch of glued frags when I stuck my hand in the tank. Use a couple small plastic containers to put the frags in. Trying to make it not so noticeable by glueing some crush corals to the side of the containers....haha...I ran out of superglue during the project. Will need to get more, and continue with project.

My ricordea prop experiment has started. The Floridas was cut in half a few days ago, and it is looking fine, it hasn't melted or anything. The Yumas are another story, so far it's not looking so great. The Yumas started to slime and melt, so I stopped for the moment, didn't want to take a chance with my $$$ yuma. And to think of it, why the hell did I start experiment with my high $$$ yuma in the first place.

Jimbo327 · #**128** 08/19/2007, 06:32 PM

Here's some photos, I had time on the weekend to crop these and update.

This is a FTS in July before my frag mounting fest. Most of my frags were just sitting on the sand before this.

Here is the newest FTS this month after my glue fest. As you can see, the tank is pretty packed now. And I still have a ton of stuff sitting on my sand. And you can SEE the snails are doing a great job of cleaning up my background. BRAVO!

And I took the glass cleaner out of the tank. I'm thinking to myself...ummm, why am I leaving this hunk of plastic in my nano when I'm not using it...dummy.

Jimbo327 · #**129** 08/19/2007, 06:42 PM

Here is some new yumas I picked up at the annual Southern California reef convention yesterday called Reef-A-Palooza 2007.

Reefapalooza 2007

Here is a baby yuma I got for $5 from a reefer selling at the convention. It is a nice green with purple edge/base.

Here is a salvage yuma I got for $10 from LFS Reefermadness at the show. It is completely ripped in half by the vendor who was selling it. So he sold it to me to try to raise it back to health, that's why it was cheap. Gorgeous mint green with purple base and tips. This one is very exotic looking. I hope it survives though.

Finally, caved in and got a light pink one as well. I walked the whole show, and most vendors were selling them for $100+. I paid $75 for this one from LFS Oscar's Exotic Fish at the show.

And with that, I'm done with buying corals. It is time to move into the next phase of the tank. Just sitting back and watching it grow, perhaps do a little pruning of frags if it grows too quickly.

Jimbo327 · #**130** 08/19/2007, 06:55 PM

Updated cost so far:

Used tank & stand w/ misc equip (Reefer): $100
Tunze Osmolator (LFS): $185
Yellow Cocoworm, Blue R. Florida, Pink zoos (LFS): $54
Blue Zoos (Reefer): $15
Bag of Instant Ocean Salt (LFS): $12
Dosing Pump (Ebay): $30
1/15hp JBJ mini chiller (LFS): $325
Mini-Jet 606 (LFS): $20
Tubing & Bulkhead (LFS): $15
New PC bulbs (LFS): $32
2 Orange and 1 Grayish R. Yumas (LFS): $115
Berghia Nudibranch (Reefer): $15
2 Pom Pom Crabs (LFS): $20
Rainfordi Goby (LFS): $18
Tubing (Ebay): $10
Yashia Goby w/ Shrimp (LFS): $50
3 Sexy Shrimps (LFS): $27
2 Red Zoo, 2 Purple Zoo, 1 Green R. Yuma (Reefer): $70
Test Kits, Purigen, Prime (Online): $62
Extra PC bulbs (Online): $62
2 Red, 2 Pink, 1 Watermelon Zoo Frag (Reefer): $43
2 Orange Yuma (LFS): $75
LED Refugium light (Ebay): $30
Nalgene container & parts: $15
Zoo Frag pack (reefer): $170
Cocoworm (LFS): $40
Phosphate Remover & Micron Bag (LFS): $40
5 green/blue R. Floridas (LFS): $65
Reef Crystal Salt, Sun polyp, 2 snails (LFS): $28
2 Orange R. Florida (LFS): $38
1 Orange R. Florida (Reefer): $15
Pink R. Yuma, Mint Green Yuma, Purple Yuma, Bone Cutter (Show): $108

Total Cost: $1889

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Items sold:

4 heads of frogspawn, pink zoas: $13

Total Return: $13

reefer1024 · #**131** 08/19/2007, 07:42 PM

Keep it up you will make back your money in no time.

Jimbo327 · #**132** 08/20/2007, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by reefer1024
Keep it up you will make back your money in no time.

Hehe. I highly doubt that. I'll be happy just to sell a few frags for the maintenance fee like bulb changes and additives.

Anyways, I'm thinking of switching salts very soon. Going to change to Reef Crystals, which is just Instant Ocean with more calcium. I may just toss out my half bag of remaining Instant Ocean salt, it's too much hassle trying to bring the calcium up to my desired levels.

gemini aquarius(t) · #**133** 08/20/2007, 05:15 PM

nice tank, love all the rics

Jimbo327 · #**134** 08/21/2007, 12:52 PM

Thanks! Mr. Mantis! I'm pretty much set up only for softies with my PC lights, so my choices are pretty limited to shrooms and buttons.

And I suck at taking pictures. I can never capture the true colors of my tank. I'm using a Canon G2, which is really old but takes decent pictures of outdoors. I just use the automatic setting on the camera. Anyone got any tips on taking good photos with this camera? With actinics on, my tank glows when looking at it in person, but when I take a picture...it is just all washed out in purple.

gemini aquarius(t) · #**135** 08/21/2007, 05:31 PM

ya actinic pictures are hard for just about everyone. i say stick to the regular light pics, and make sure the lens is up against the glass, the glass is clean inside and out(that why all my pics suck

) and make sure to hold it REALLY steady foccus and shoot

hth

Jimbo327 · #**136** 08/23/2007, 12:26 PM

Oh well, I will try to play with the camera a bit more.

This morning, my return pump was pumping very slow. Usually, the surface of my tank is ripping because I'm blasting a minijet 606 up via the nozzle. So I had to rip everything apart and saw a bunch of short loose chaeto plugging the intake of the pump. Took it out, and the surface immediately was rippling.

So now, I placed a small piece of filter floss in the small opening between the 2nd and 3rd chamber of the Nanocube. Seems to be working, and this will need to be cleaned every week.

And did a 2 gallon water change last night with the new Reef Crystal salt mix. All of the corals looked fine in the morning since I did it when the lights were out. I placed a small bag of rice into the bucket to help control moisture. So far so good. I plan to do more water changes in the next few days to get the new mix in. Normally, I don't suggest changing salts, I've done it in the past with IO --> Crystal Marine, and that was a disaster...I lost almost all of my SPS in my previous tank.

Jimbo327 · #**137** 08/24/2007, 05:21 PM

Did another 2 gallon water change again with the new Reef Crystals salt.

And had to take out the filter floss because it was clogging badly. Need to figure out another way to stop the loose chaeto from going into the return pump. My idea is to wrap the whole minijet pump inside a screen door material to try to maximize the surface so the intake will not clog.

Jimbo327 · #**138** 08/30/2007, 12:05 PM

I have been exchanging a cup of new Reef Crystal saltwater every day for the past week. Also, the salinity is slowly being raised to 1.0265 from the previous 1.024-1.025. Hopefully, this will boost a little bit more calcium into the system.

I'm confident that my ATO will maintain the salinity at this level because I've been keeping track of the eye sensor of the Tunze osmolator in action. It is very sensitive. And my modification with the ball valve had really slowed the ATO pump output to a drip.

In the past week, I'm seeing spots of coralline starting to deposit on my background and surface skimmer mod. The spots are still in its initial green phase, but eventually it will turn purple. And this is definitely coralline algae because it is circular shaped. Previously, I thought I had a lot of coralline on my background when I first set up the tank, but I've come to realize that was just nuisance algae because it developed in sheets.

Jimbo327 · #**139** 09/06/2007, 12:38 PM

I'm seeing nuisance macroalgae and bubble algae on some of my rocks. I also saw like 5 aiptasia. It is really getting on my nerves.

I may dedicate this weekend to fight back these unwanted algae.

My plan:

1) Tweezer by hand as many bubble algae as I can get to.
2) Remove small rock with feather caluerpa looking algae, let it dry, scrub, vinegar, and boil it.
3) Kalk paste as many aiptasia as I can. Repeat next day.
4) Clean glass and hair algae growing on nozzles
5) Use bone cutter to remove rock area with weird stiff hair algae. Need a nice clean cut.
6) New Phosphate removing media.
7) Large water change.

I need to nip all of these problems in the bud before they get out of control.

Jimbo327 · #**140** 09/06/2007, 09:20 PM

I came home to find one of my new purple yuma is melting. The mouth was completely open (not good) and it was starting to slime away. You can see the guts oozing from the body. I took the razor out and cut it. The chances are slim any will survive.

What a bummer. Because this one was sweet, but I knew it was not as healthy because the LFS I bought it from had really poor husbandry. He would take corals from tank to another tank without acclimation, and these tanks are not plumbed together. And dead fish everywhere. This is the last time I buy from that store. Just aggravates me.

While in my bad mood, I cut up another ricordia green/orange Florida in half because it was getting too big and fighting for light with my yuma.

I bonecut the zoa rock with the stiff hair algae. It is all clean now.

Jimbo327 · #**141** 09/19/2007, 01:05 PM

Quick update.

Purple Yuma is completely melted. There goes my money down the drain, and a beautiful specimen dead.

I made up a big bucket of saltwater, getting ready for a good water change. Might even get a chance to zap a couple aiptasia in my tank. Microalgae is starting to take over the tank again, that probably means I need to change out my carbon and phosphate remover this week.

After reading a couple research papers on asexual reproduction of sea anemone, and also how their cells change during reproduction. These studies were fairly recent, the ones I read are from 2000 and 2005. It gives me an insight on how the different types of corals reproduce, and how one may not just use a razor to cut and expect results for all. Very interesting, and correlates well with what we know from just observing in our tanks. Now armed with this information, I can try other things that I've been thinking of doing.

Jimbo327 · #**142** 09/26/2007, 02:25 AM

Tonight:

20-30% water change.

Shot 2 of the aiptasia with some kalk paste.

New PhoSar Media.

New Carbon.

Trimmed red macroalgae way back. Pulled hair algae manually. Cut coco-worm tube shorter, and moved coco-worm to left back corner of tank. Glued Rics Floridas to the main rocks. Glued some loose zoa frags to the main rocks and the surface skimmer.

Jimbo327 · #**143** 09/28/2007, 09:47 PM

2 new yumas I picked up from a local LFS. Pricey, but worth it.

I also made a DIY refugium light following another reefer's design in this thread:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1215893

It turned out really well and easy. I just need to trim off that back piece on the socket there.

Jimbo327 · #**144** 09/28/2007, 09:50 PM

Here's a couple shots of my zoas.

I know it has a lot of glare, but hey, I admit I'm a terrible photographer.

And I glue stuff all over the place.

Jimbo327 · #**145** 09/30/2007, 02:26 AM

I traded some of the zoas in the previous post's picture for some blue zoas (tubs and spiderman) with a local reefer.

And he recommended a coral food called "coral frenzy". I've never heard of it, but I'm willing to try it if I can find it at the LFS.

Jimbo327 · #**146** 10/04/2007, 04:09 PM

I checked my water yesterday.

Calcium at 380 ppm
Alk at 8.6
pH at 8.4

Not too happy about that, I really want to get the calcium above 400.

I pulled out a bunch of the chaeto macroalgae from the back chambers, it was packed. The new refugium light is really helping.

My stupid pistol shrimp kept pulling rocks (with zoa frags on them) to make his burrow entrance....hey buddy....this ain't the Taj Mahal! He is a great builder though, I gotta give him credit for his effort. Everything looked fine and thriving, I wish my coralline would grow faster.

And the temperature of my tank was 76.4F this morning, I was not too happy about that. Seems like my 50w heater's thermostat is not working properly. I cranked the heater setting higher.

I added 3 new yumas from a LFS near my work, they were in the frag tank, so I scooped them up for like $10 a piece. Amazing. I plan to go back and see what else they got in the frag bin. I like to browse through and try to find some gems in the frag bin.

Jimbo327 · #**147** 10/15/2007, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo327
And the temperature of my tank was 76.4F this morning, I was not too happy about that. Seems like my 50w heater's thermostat is not working properly. I cranked the heater setting higher.

OK, recently, as the ambient temperature has been dropping, my tank has been dropping below 76F in the morning. I thought, it was because I'm losing too much heat from the chiller tubing. So I went to Home Depot, bought some pipe insulator and put it around the tubing.

Fine. Then I pulled out the heater and touched it...stone cold. It was dead. Cheap junk!

So I put my 250w heater in my tank right now until I can find a good replacement. Haha, I can't even fit this thing in the back chamber.

It's good I checked the temperature every morning. At least I found the malfunction before anything died.

And did a large water change yesterday.

spleify · #**148** 10/16/2007, 12:05 AM

Tank looks awesome!!! Very nice job.

Jimbo327 · #**149** 10/18/2007, 11:52 AM

Thanks, Spleify. I like your in-wall tank too. You're lucky to have a bigger tank.

Most reefers, myself included, are always being urged to upgrade, but I find the beauty in having a mature tank that has been up years. So I'm determined to keep my little nano up for as long as possible.

To me, longetivity is more impressive than eye candy. I mean, it doesn't hurt to have a lot of eye candy, but to keep a small nano going for a long time (years) takes a lot of dedication and knowledge. I only wish my corals would grow faster to overcrowd my tank, I would be very happy if that was true. I'm quickly approaching (December) having this tank under my care for 1 year...this tank would have been more mature if I have not neglected it for the first 4 months.

bad santa · #**150** 10/18/2007, 01:38 PM

Have you found a good heater to put in your nano?