Head First Into The Salt

[-Nemo-]

I vitamin C dosed my 75g for months Llj.. There's a link in my siggy to a topic i made when I originally started it in my 29g... I'm a MAJOR advocator of it. It has done amazing things for my tanks.

Trev, those cleaners of yours are probably providing free fish food every 2 weeks

 

[lljdma06]

I vitamin C dosed my 75g for months Llj.. There's a link in my siggy to a topic i made when I originally started it in my 29g... I'm a MAJOR advocator of it. It has done amazing things for my tanks.

Trev, those cleaners of yours are probably providing free fish food every 2 weeks

Saw the topic and pinned it Nemo. Why wasn't that pinned before? Also pinned the little nemo diary. I'll be doing that. I see something I like. I pin it. LOLOL Did this all the time in Planted. It eventually turned into the resource center there.

I have a ton of zoanthids in my 8g, it may well be something for me to consider, as from what I've read, seems to really help zoos, as does vodka dosing. Definitely can't do it in the 36g, though that is a macro tank, and I'd probably have to convert the refugium in the 8g to a pod factory.

Sorry for the hijack, Trev. I'm getting some good shedding activity too. Haha, still scares me. 2am... "Oh no! I lost my porcelain crab. No!!!!" 2:15am "Oh wait, why do I have 3 porcelain crabs, I only bought two..." 2:30am "hehe, he shed..., back to bed."

 

[wildechild_01]

I vitamin C dosed my 75g for months Llj.. There's a link in my siggy to a topic i made when I originally started it in my 29g... I'm a MAJOR advocator of it. It has done amazing things for my tanks.

Trev, those cleaners of yours are probably providing free fish food every 2 weeks

Saw the topic and pinned it Nemo. Why wasn't that pinned before? Also pinned the little nemo diary. I'll be doing that. I see something I like. I pin it. LOLOL Did this all the time in Planted. It eventually turned into the resource center there.

I have a ton of zoanthids in my 8g, it may well be something for me to consider, as from what I've read, seems to really help zoos, as does vodka dosing. Definitely can't do it in the 36g, though that is a macro tank, and I'd probably have to convert the refugium in the 8g to a pod factory.

Sorry for the hijack, Trev. I'm getting some good shedding activity too. Haha, still scares me. 2am... "Oh no! I lost my porcelain crab. No!!!!" 2:15am "Oh wait, why do I have 3 porcelain crabs, I only bought two..." 2:30am "hehe, he shed..., back to bed."

Hahaha... yeah the one shed there was a fully formed shell sitting on top of a rock and i thought.. thats odd, ive never seen cheech or chong up there before... then my sleeper Banded Goby grabbed it and i almost freaked out.

Speaking of my sleeper Banded Goby...seems that he alone is unable to keep the substrate as clean as I would like, now I never really expected him to sift and clean all the sand in a 90g tank anyway but now i am looking into some stuff to help him out. As you may have heard i had some strange issues with snails.. unfortunately it wasnt just snails i had issues with, the symptoms affected most cuc style inverts, meaning things like starfish also didn't survive. Now that i have the snail situation sorted out (knock on fake wood desk) i am looking at giving some other additions a try.. namely a sand sifting starfish or two to help out with keeping the sand turned over and maybe a little cleaner... i was also looking at maybe adding a species of smaller Goby to the tank, either a mated pair of something or a couple different species if they will get along... my concern with the Gobies, is that the Sleeper is quite large compared to other Goby species and i worry he will be agressive towards and or just generally stress any other smaller gobies into hiding and or death... any thoughts

Also if the clowns don't start to show some interest in the Carpet Anemone relatively soon i may look into re-homing it to make room for more corals.

Speaking of Corals, I need to re-work where some of them are sitting, i seem to be bleaching out a few of my mushies... they are at the top of the tank and well... lets just say the Marineland Reef LED lighting is pretty bright and intense, so looking to move them a little lower.. which should open some space where i may put something from the SPS category, at this point all i have is softies and LPS as my orriginal lighting that was all i was comfortable with but these LED's have been pretty awesome so who knows...

Well, time to go do water changes and walk the dog, then i may cruise on by some LFS's today and see what i see.

 

[lljdma06]

How deep is the substrate? Jawfish? Maybe. I love my yellow heads, but there's an indo-Pacific species that is to die for!!! Blue spotted jawfish I think.

Yeah, I'd rehome the nem. Clowns will host practically anything. You'll have a lot more room for corals.

I find that coral placement is trial and error. I'm sure you'll find a good spot for your mushies.

Yeah, I gotta change my tanks too. Meh... That's the thing with picos, I gotta change my tanks a lot.

L

 

[wildechild_01]

How deep is the substrate? Jawfish? Maybe. I love my yellow heads, but there's an indo-Pacific species that is to die for!!! Blue spotted jawfish I think.

Yeah, I'd rehome the nem. Clowns will host practically anything. You'll have a lot more room for corals.

I find that coral placement is trial and error. I'm sure you'll find a good spot for your mushies.

Yeah, I gotta change my tanks too. Meh... That's the thing with picos, I gotta change my tanks a lot.

L

Could probably do a jaw fish, my concern is that i dont have as much open sand bed as i'd like... would require rock re-scape... maybe one of these days i will pull all the rock and coral out, put it in buckets and re-scape...

As for clowns hosting anything..... that may be true unless they are my clowns... notorious for not hosting anything.. and i really do like the carpet nem and if they host it im more than happy to keep it... maybe i should just make more room in my living room and get a 6' tank... hahaha

of course that would mean building a new stand... not something i feel like doing right now.... maybe i could just find a way to extend the existing one......... I should take some new pics.. i may stick the camera in its waterproof case and take some in the tank shots of corals

 

[-Nemo-]

Looking forward to pictures

 

[wildechild_01]

Ok so i guess i will get some pics up tomorrow, camera is charging right now.. ive decided that next week the tank is getting a facelift, so i need to take before and after pics. As for the re-scape, my plan is to get some buckets and pails to put all my corals in, im pretty sure they will all be okay like that for a few hours, thinking i need to keep them apart though so they dont fight with each other. my plan is to create some shelves with the rock and possibly more important some open sand bed. as far as filtration goes im guessing it doesn't really matter if rock is in my display or in the overflow or sump so i may end up with significantly less in the tank will just have to see how it goes... but for now off to the internet to see what other people have done and look for ideas

 

[lljdma06]

Haha, rescape time. I love me a good rescape!

An open sand bed will allow for a certain fish.

 

[wildechild_01]

ok so not sure whats wrong with me but cant get pictures to come out how i want but here are a few

same rock under blues very out of focus

this Duncan is cool, not very extended at the moment as just fed the tank but easier to count heads... including the new small ones i counted about 16 heads on it... there were 5 or 6 when i got it

Terrible FTS

definitely looking forward to the re-scape next weekend

 

[lljdma06]

Very nice, I'm looking forward to it too. Sorry I haven't been on much. Been tired from work.

 

[wildechild_01]

Well, today the 90g tank got a face lift

before....

during...

had to bust up some rocks

AFTER...

All in all im quite happy, not what i initially set out to do, but i think it works pretty good

As you may have noticed, no longer have the carpet nem, traded him in for some blue green reef chromis' and my first sps.. huzzah for today... and the re-scape only took 6 hours

 

[wildechild_01]

Holy active tank... so when i was taking the rock out i found lots of open spaces in and behind my rock work... no wonder i didn't see my fish swimming all over the tank, they were all in the back.. this morning... wow... there is so much going on, chromis seem to be settling in nice, and the clowns are all over the tank. The new Acropora had polyps extended withing a couple hours of being placed in the tank and is looking happy with its placement this morning. The Goniopora is definitely working on coming out again, i find it to be a very sulky coral any time i do any work in the tank more intense than running an algae magnet it pulls in and sulks for a bit. the Duncan who i expected to sulk a little more is almost fully extended this AM so im pretty happy about that. All of the other corals look to be quite happy with their new tank spots as well, except maybe some of the zoa's but that is due more to Hermit crabs taking a stroll through the garden rather than tank placement.

LFS has a purple Goni.. im kind of tempted to add it to the tank but want to wait and see how the green one does, it did amazing in its previous position and light/flow are very similar where it is now.. and decide where i would put the purple...although nothing i have read seems to suggest i couldn't just put it on the same shelf right beside the current one.

My skimmer is going absolutely ape.... not 100% sure but i think it may have to do with all the crap that will have been stirred up from the sand bed. not sure what the best option is here... turn skimmer off for a bit and try later or empty the skimmer cup ever 20min today and see what happens... i've decided to stop the Vit C dosing for now as that also makes the skimmer more active.

Still trying to decide on how to keep my sand bed looking cleaner.. (it looks terrible atm) do i want one or 2 bigger sifting fish that drop sand all over the tank or would a pair of something like orange spot gobies eventually get to it all... now that snails live in my tank i've added a sand sifter starfish who seems to be hanging out on top of the sand lately hahaha... thats how much crap there is he can just eat off the surface... anyway.. thoughts and ideas on keeping the sandbed clean are welcome and appreciated.

but thats all for now...

 

[lljdma06]

How deep is your sand bed? I saw the most lovely blue-spotted jawfish at the lfs the other day. Stunning. But nassarius snails will also do a great job sand-sifting too. I love mine.

In my 8g, my pistol shrimp does all the sand sifting for me. He is never satisfied.

L

 

[wildechild_01]

In my 8g, my pistol shrimp does all the sand sifting for me. He is never satisfied.

L

well then i should just get 11 pistol shrimp hahaha

 

[SaltNoob]

LOL. That would be a lot of shrimp!

I love the side shot of the tank. Looks awesome! Sad your carpet is gone, but they get big it looks like. Did you get rid of it because of the size? Did your clowns ever host it?

-Tyler