etannert

Awwww, it's kinda cute.

I'm going to have to make some kind of lid for the pico when I set that thing up (hoping for next Monday when we're off). Maybe I can get some very thin light acrylic from Regal and make a little cap for the opening... Hmmm......

More pics:

Full set up

With sump

In case you're wondering why the pico (which is dry right now) has a towel over it, here's why...

Sorry for the sideways pics, I've been emailing these from my phone to my work email, saving to my work desktop, then uploading, so I haven't been able to fix anything.\

I am ready for this workweek to be over as I'll have logged my 40 hours by the time I get to leave tonight, but it runs through late Saturday evening... ugh.

Dose iodine to get your Xenia to pulse.

Oh, do you use RODI for water changes and top-off?

Do you test for phosphates?

Algae blooms are a normal part of the aging process of a tank, how old is yours? You definitely want to get on top of it if this is the first cyano you've seen. GFO can help address excess phosphates while some kind of red slime remover can get rid of it while you address the root issue.

I'm starting to think through stocking for the bigger tank. I've always been one to "overstock" a tank (I kept three small fish in a Biocube 14...) so while it may seem like quite a few fish, I feel confident the tank and my husbandry can handle the bioload.

Currently I have three fish:

Helfrichi firefish

small Atlantic blue tang

medium skunk clownfish

I want to add:

tribal blennie (to replace mine that got lost in the tank move)

pajama cardinal (to replace the one that jumped a few weeks ago)

banggai cardinal

chevron tang

McCosker's wrasse

twinspot hogfish

green (spotted) mandarin

harlequin shrimp

I used to have an orange spot prawn gobie... to be honest, I can't recall the last time I saw it and don't know when it departed me. (I feel sort of awful about that...). Might consider replacing that as well, just to have a ground dweller/sand sifter.

I prefer lots of small fish in general, and I want all of these to be smaller. I know you have to worry about fish outgrowing their tanks, but I'm not a heavy feeder and my Atlantic blue tang hasn't grown much since I've had him.

My question is: many people say you should add certain fish at once to eliminate territorial issues... I can see that between the tangs or between the hogfish and wrasse; cardinals don't tend to mess with each other so I'm not worried about them. However, with a younger/newer tank I need to be careful about overwhelming the bioload and kicking off an algae bloom. How many fish can I safely add at once, and how long should I wait between deposits of new fish?

Yes, that's my pride and joy Helfrichi. My kids don't understand how a fish can cost $75...

Jeeper, I'll take some pics of the whole set up tonight or tomorrow. I'm currently posting from a band booster meeting, i.e., still at work.

Sorry it took me so long... I was at work till 8:45pm, gotta love those long band director days... had to turn the lights back on to get a snapshot! I'm not in love with how high the rock is but the arches are pretty cool, as is the fact that half the sand bed is clear! (sorry the pic is sideways)

Cyano algae. Usually a product of excess nutrients and lack of flow. Looks like you have some other algae there too. What is your set up, stocking, feeding, GFO, etc.?

Lots of stuff last week. The old tank went away - sniff - it was the first time that patch of wall in my apartment has been bare since I moved in last summer, and it was disconcerting.

The same night, I picked up all H20Cool's livestock, and because that involved taking home about half a Solana's worth of liverock, I suddenly had WAY too much rock in the tank. I've never liked the "wall of rock" look (I know it works fine as a method of reefkeeping, I just prefer more openness in my own tank) and it had caused me to loose my entire sandbed. I also now had frag plugs out the yin-yang since H20 had quite a few to add to my own. Time to get on the rescape!

I'd sworn against having a frag rack in this beautiful, rimless, no-visible-equipment tank, but I really had no choice. So Ty hooked me up with some eggcrate and I glued it to an old Magfloat. I also removed two large rocks (from the dry rock that I had added to the tank) and rescaped the remaining rock. Yesterday when I went to bed the tank was still pretty sandy from everything that I shook up in the move, but I glimpsed it this morning on the way out the door and it looked pretty good. I'm looking forward to seeing it with the lights on and all the coral opened up!

H20's livestock mainly consisted of zoas (and zoas and zoas and zoas) so I'm curious to see what sprouts now that everything is well positioned. I hadn't really planned on having a zoa-heavy tank as I really want to focus on LPS, but he gave me a great deal and I want to take good care of his stuff in return. A beautiful chunk of blue sympodium has already opened up, and there's a Christmas-tree worm rock that I'm very hopeful about. It is currently covered in some turf algae, but the emerald crab that hitchhiked in with the zoa rocks is getting after cleaning it up.

Sadly my tribal blenny has not turned up. I really can't figure out where he might have gone, but I think it's pretty safe to say that he's no longer with us. RIP, little buddy. You did a great job perching on a plate coral for the last year. I hope there's one there for you in the big aquarium in the sky...

I'm still at work, but I'll try to get pics posted later tonight!

I built my own ATO reservoir and sump, I got the supplies at Regal Plastic and as stated above, it's really easy to do.

Have not weighed it but it's enough for a 30+g tank. Some live, some that started dry, all is in a bucket with powerhead and water now. Warning, there is some blue clove polyp and a couple aiptasia in there, not many, just didn't have time to kill them off. Several very nice flat shelf rocks and some interestingly shaped porous rocks. Bring your own bucket!

$60 firm

Really would like it gone by the end of the weekend if possible. PM with interest or q's.

Thanks for looking!

You could try Dr. Tim's Waste Away. Mr. Saltwater Tank swears by it.

I do think that LR can leach PO4 if it had the opportunity to get packed with detritus. A lot of the LR we use is extremely porous and you may not even be able to see all the gunk that has settled in it. If you go slowly and swap out rocks one at a time, maybe one per month, you could probably do it. But there are other solutions, like Waste Away, a PO4 binding solution, heavy wet skimming, etc.

Tank/stand and skimmer gone. Rock still available.

So if everything is out of this tank, where are the pictures of the new tank?

In my tank build thread, of course...

Tank and skimmer pending. LR still up for grabs. Looking for $60 for the lot. Just trying to get stuff cleared out of my fairly small apartment.

I've been wondering about this... I have a mix of live and dry rock in the new tank, but more dry by weight and volume. I've had the skimmer online hoping to avoid a bad algae outbreak, but I think I'll take it offline. I'd rather wait out algae than have to add microfauna on down the road.

Bump. Here is tank empty - needs to be cleaned. I've had some interest in the tank/stand and in the rock, but nothing firm yet. First come first served!

Try a French press... for your coffee, that is, not your tank!

Well, returning to the thread topic, the number of posts per member is up also. At 2500 members we had about 64.4 posts per member and now we're up to 3003 members we at about 73.35 posts per member.

...unless we take Victoly out of the equation, and then we're down to 20 posts per member...

I know they have them at RCA.

My tank is fresh with brand new, clean water if you want me to hold anything. I also have 10g of saltwater you're welcome to.