Llj's 36G Corner Bowfront... Out Of The Ashes...

[lljdma06]

The main body was about the size of my thumb, so for a tiny crab, I'd say decent size.

Yep, that's a good size crab.

I prefer to start with smaller frags and have them grow with the tank, but starting out with a big colony is good too haha.
My Lfs the other day had a spongebob yellow turbinara coral that grew vertically, I really wish I could have gotten it but its was 80$

Also if you want weird, try to find some snake capsule polyps

For my picos, yeah, frags are great, but this is a 36g and sometimes I can get a cheap colony in a tank break down.

Googled those, those are funky. LOLOL

L

 

[FishFanatic04]

Goodluck with this new setup and I can't wait to learn from it. I'm sorry to hear about the disaster that led you here. I've recently been through a similar loss {freshwater though} and the joy I'm getting out of my restart is huge! I'm sure yours will be too!

 

[SaltNoob]

This is coming along nicely. I will be making the move on my fish tank today. I ended up getting all of the new baseboards installed yesterday and had to push this back to today. Should be fun and tedious.

-Tyler

 

[lljdma06]

Thanks guys. Well, most of my CUC arrived yesterday.

6 banded trochus
10 nassarius vibex
15 Florida ceriths, not the dwarfs like I thought, that's great. Means they'll do more
2 emerald crabs
3 Caribbean porcelain crabs (well porcelain anemone crabs were sent by mistake, but luckily there were three Caribbeans already at the lfs)

Still waiting on the Electric Blue hermits.

Haha, but get this... One of my powerheads, the Koralia 750 fell too close to the substrate and now there's sand everywhere. Hello oolite sandstorm! So, I got another aqueon 500 and a 750. No more Koralias, I like the aqueons. Cheaper, smaller, yet more powerful. The Koralias I'll use to agitate SW or for backup.

Parameters are fine, there's just substrate everywhere, so adding the CUC wasn't going to be an issue. Water'll clear up by today I'm sure, when I got to check on the CUC. One trochus wasn't scouring the tank by the time I left for my boyfriend's yesterday, so I'm suspect and will check him today. If he's moved then good, if not, I'll slap him in quarantine. I should've from the beginning I think.

Florida ceriths...

Nassarius vibex. I still have a babylon snail as well. I may go visit an old lfs and see if I can track down another. I really like them. Amazing scavengers and sand sifters.

Banded trochus

And the crabs.

Now, I wait on the Electric blues and for the CUC to get this tank stunning and clean again. Then I get a display invertebrates. I love fire shrimp and skunk cleaners, so I'll probably get a pair of each. They get along fine together, I have both in my old 8g. If I can find mated pairs, all the better. I really liked that in the old 26g. I'll discuss this with my Lfs.

Thanks for looking,

L

 

[ZoddyZod]

and when did you take the loan out to pay for all of this lot?

I shudder to think how much it will cost to get this to its former glory again.

 

[lljdma06]

and when did you take the loan out to pay for all of this lot?

I shudder to think how much it will cost to get this to its former glory again.

Nah, it's not that bad. Once fall semester kicks in, I should be ok. I'll be looking at a lot of tank breakdowns in the coming months and buying colonies from them rather than the lfs for this tank. A coral here, a coral there is all my budget will allow. I usually don't skimp on inverts and fish though.

I'll be upgrading the quarantine from a 4g to an 8g this weekend. The rocks have recovered from the treatment for the ocellaris and I see pods and stuff. Good. I plan on getting larger fish and will be implementing a standard 30-40 day quarantine for fish, so things are going to move very slowly in this tank with regard to livestock...

L

 

[lljdma06]

Not much going on here except that you can see that the CUC has done some work.

I also replaced the Koralia powerheads with Aqueon powerheads. I have

2 Aqueon 500s
1 Aqueon 750

Some serious flow now. Will do corals that like the motion.

Picture

L

 

[crazyforcordoras]

It already looks better!

 

[lljdma06]

Well, what started out as only getting some hermit crabs and cleaner shrimp thing turned into a coral saving operation when...

I forgot to turn the power heads on in my nps tank after target feeding. I came back about 2 days later and found a lot of dead livestock. So I rush to save things like a mad woman. Silly mistake, which happens sometimes. Shame as I really wanted my nps pico to be longterm.

Fortunately, corals came out of the fiasco in better shape than I anticipated. I didn't lose any for now, which is excellent. They are now recovering here. Guys, please don't do this. This tank isn't ready for corals, IMO, and I didn't want to put these in there, but I was stuck with this situation and now I have to do extra work to compensate for my blunder with the nps tank. Thank goodness for extra systems kept at the same parameters.

So they are now here...

And here are the cleaner shrimp.

I also got 4 Electric blue hermits, which was the original plan.

Finally, some hardware stuff, because I didn't want to leap into Livestock so quickly. Meh!

I received my in tank refugium from Drs Foster & Smith yesterday and set it up today. It's awesome...

Out of the package. Yep, a Barber of Seville score. I do tank stuff, then I practice for a show on the 18th.

Top view... Easy, easy, easy to set up!

And the refugium in the tank... I also added another Aqueon 500, I like top agitation, so coral choice will bear this in mind. Organisms seem to be handling the flow very well. I'm sure fish will be fine. It's not that wild in there. They are well-placed.

LFS lost one of the planned jawfish, so second pair is on order for me. Those are the first fish. Again, I love them. They are like cute little ballerina aliens and now that I removed the Aquaclear filter I had for backup, I can put the cover that allows me to keep jumping ballerina alien fishies. They'll be going into quarantine first (also with secure cover), so that'll give this system some time to recover before I go adding fish. I'll have to secure the sun corals, or find a little section where they can be together. Right now, the target feeding is a bit spread out, which is silly to me.

Yes, these corals are in direct light. NO, this is not wrong and no, I'm not killing my corals. They are non-photosynthetic, but tubastraea in the wild are also found in direct sun as are balanos and dendros. They are just not dependent on the sun for food.

Thanks for looking.

L

 

[56jman]

Great that it is coming back

Try a chiton great cleaners, cool to look at too

 

[GAB99]

What did you lose in the pico?
And yes, tanks with same parando are great, when my tang needed to be moved asap it only took a few minutes to move the crab and urchins around to other tanks ( inverts safe medication my butt, I forgot about the conch but he seems fine if anythig a little depressed looking). And he was in in a pinch.

Also for stock have you though about maybe cardinals or possum Wrasses? They'd do good in your tank

 

[lljdma06]

What did you lose in the pico?
And yes, tanks with same parando are great, when my tang needed to be moved asap it only took a few minutes to move the crab and urchins around to other tanks ( inverts safe medication my butt, I forgot about the conch but he seems fine if anythig a little depressed looking). And he was in in a pinch.

Also for stock have you though about maybe cardinals or possum Wrasses? They'd do good in your tank

I lost Armand, the pompom crab, my two porcelain anemone crabs, a hitch hiker gorilla crab that I had for forever, and more than likely Lemmiwinks, though I suspected he died a week or two before. Panda gobies are hard to keep. I know I want my mated pair of pearly jawfish. Other than that, I have no idea. Mom wants clowns, sister want a six line wrasse. Both will be fine with the jawfish, so I don't mind.

Well, I did a nice big water change today and target fed the nps corals. Yes, I remembered to turn the power heads back on.

I had rearranged the nps a little bit, so it doesn't look quite so stupid. I may frag my balano. It suffered damage and I want to separate the good polyps. That's not what's pictured below, that's my dendro, which are doing great.

 

[56jman]

Good to hear the NPS corals are doing alright

 

[lljdma06]

Good to hear the NPS corals are doing alright

yeah, I'm glad too. I see growth, so this is an excellent sign. Some polyps will be going into my new Fluval Spec, but most of them will stay here, I think, in a section of the tank. Saves me money on corals actually.

I really need to change the filter pads on my RO unit, that's next week's project. Today, I'm getting my mated pair of jawfish. Finally.

Of course, I'll post pictures.

L

 

[lljdma06]

Ok, I was supposed to get a pair of pearly jawfish today and my LFS had a pair of pearly jawfish. I, however, am stupidly picky about my fish and one had a ripped fin. On the other hand, there was a delightful single pearly jawfish that looked better, so I just took him.

Already digging...

And digging...



And still digging...



That's me and my boyfriend you here jabbering away in the background. Not even 5 min inside the tank, and he already began work on his burrow. Somebody was happy to have sand.

But... There's more...

I saw this little beauty again today too... He had been in the store for quite some time, about a month. Can't believe nobody wanted him. A steal at $25. Liveaquaria charges $44-49 depending on what species it was. I remember his acclimation actually. So since I only got the one jawfish, I got him too.

An unusual choice. It is a flasher wrasse. Either a Carpenter's or a McCosker's Flasher Wrasse. I'm leaning towards a McCosker's.

L