Grog

New hitchhiker found. Purple-ish crab with black tipped claws. Black and white striped legs. Very skittish. Hard to photo as it is deep in the tank. I'm observing for now. Probably a bad actor, but I'm not worried as I have some serious crab-fu.

Checking in with periodic Hollywood Stunner growth pics. Filename bad. I overwrote my old file. Either way, tons of new mouths on the rims.

They are blueish depending on the time of the day. I'm running the standard Tuna Blue 'recipe' that comes wiht it. Amazon.com : Coral View Lens Professional Photography 10 in 1 Kit 2inch Large Reef Lenses : Electronics This $30 gadget will drastically improve your photos. I use the yellow and orange filters. It filters out the blue. Then I do a little post processing in GIMP. I can share my steps if you care.

I had a bunch of the black gulf ones on my rock. They do the job but I'd really like to add one of those tuxedo's as well. They look really cool.

New corals Getting some good colors. Gold hammer, you can see the birds nest in the to and the mystic sunset monti in the back. Gold looks cool and really opened up. Frogspawn and Hammer, orange monti cap in the back. Fire shrimp photobombed me but I'm happy with it. He owns that little hole and won't let the fish in. I LOVE frogspawn.

sold

Its official. I no longer have any macros in the 75G tank. The Lemonpeel angel has single-handedly removed 100% of it in about two weeks. At least I know what he likes to eat. And at least it isn't eating corals.

If you want the diversity but not a huge risk of odd hitchhikers. TBS will ship rocks that are basic overnight. You can get an 8# shipment. (They call it a Treasure Chest or Rubble Rocks or something.) Those rocks won't have as much cool critters, or bad critters. These have been less porous 'base' rock from the shipments I've received. Less visible stuff but lots of 'bugs' that really clean up a tank. I may have a few of rocks I got from them available in ~two weeks. Not a ton but like 2-4 pieces. If you are interested PM me, and let me know. Thinking of rearranging a bit and not yet decided on how I want to place things. (These are more porous rocks with more 'stuff' on them. About football sized +/-....) Could be good for tank diversity, but no pressure, your call, HMU if you like the idea. On the RODI, the BKM to me, is to run a float to stop the flow, not start the flow. When starting RODI processing the filers and system takes a few minutes to 'stabilize'. TDS at the start will be very high and your RO membranes and DI media would be blasted with high TDS. Best is to start it on a purge line, with the initial turbulent water being expelled. Then look at your inline TDS meter. once they are low. (I usually say 50 PPM) I switch to production. (Open clean water line and close purge line) It will save you a lot of media. BRS sells all that stuff. Bypass valves, relays, inline TDS etc. You could skip the inline TDS and save a few bucks and just say I'm purging for 8 minutes then switch to production. It would be a 90% accurate solution IMO. And probably is what i do most of the time.

Love to see pics when it gets going. And I agree. Nano is tough. I can totally see how a 14g could have heat issues. Little things matter a lot in nano tanks. IMO 65 will be much more manageable, especially with the Kessil as lighting. You may need a heater at some point, depending on what target temp you want. I run a small eHeim heater in my 40 breeder with that same light over it. It doesn't kick on much, but it does now and again and keeps the tank stable. (I keep the house at 71 when I'm home.)

One of the hitchhikers was trying to worm in underneath the galaxea. The hitchhiker doesn't look so good this am. And yes, i'm not-so-secretly rooting for the galaxea. Kinda mean, but it saves me from having to deal with the nems. 😅

Hollywood Stunner update. I like this thing. Seems to be doing good in its little corner of the tank. There is a row of new mouths on the left side. Neat how that side is growing outward and the right is curling upward. Side note: I'm much happier with my recent photos.

Tank is coming along nicely. Added a clown. Cool colorations, almost all black with an orange snout. The clown and the chromis did their jobs and have brought the angel and fox face out into view. This may be it for livestock for the tank. I may still add the fairy wrasse but I can go either way. Angel is definitely destroying the macros. There will not be any macro in a month. Found some additional light bulb anemones, or curley que anemones. Debating on removal. Kinda don't want to tear out the rock work. Blah. Part of me is wondering if the galaxea will kill them. Pic of the new clown.

BTW I love that light. Power went out the other day. When the power came back on, the thing automatically resumed where it left off on the time schedule. Automatically connected to WIFI etc. Top notch light. Zero complaints about it. 10/10

My AP9X is mounted way higher than I thought would be OK. Tim and I measured the PAR and it is strong, and mine is what? 18"-20" over the water? I cannot measure now, I'm down at the coast for the weekend. If you are worried about heat, raise it up. Their power penetrates. It's almost too strong.

I love how the tang gives you the full shot. Nice to see the stylos large. I have something to look forward to.

Purple Milka Stylo as promised. Just noticed it is starting to encrust the frag plug. Decent growth since I got them a few weeks ago.

A few additions and pictures. Coral pics are taken under the actinic LED phase of the day with minimal processing. Just cropping, sharpening, and a yellow filter on the camera. The fish picture is basically raw, just cropped. I'm happy with this cheap Amazon yellow filter lens kit. I'll be done adding things to this tank for a bit. Let things settle out. I may add a mandarin in a month or so, or a midas blenny. I'm open but gonna wait. I didn't take pictures of the purple stylos. I'll do that tomorrow. New Chromis added. Moved the fireworks clove polyps into here and mounted them. These are funny. They take a day or two to to acclimate to any movement. Very easy to irritate these guys. Mushroom rock is loving it. Even reproducing. Gonna be easy to 'frag' this I think as the newbies are dropping i to the sand bed. Woot! The green on these is strong under the actinic.

Thanks! I've ordered from TBS several times and always am super happy with all the things I find. I know random stuff in reef tanks isn't everyone's bag, but I like a challenge.

Oh, And new addition. Lemonpeel angel. Thing is a chonk! It is kinda buddies with the fox face. super active.

Yes, lots of sponges, cup corals, and crabs on this rock. Like I picked up like 20 crabs when unpacking. One gorilla and he went bye bye. Mostly, emerald and porcelain crabs. I don't think his sweepers will impact the sponge but we will see. And no, the galaxea is a mean one for sure. That side of the tank is pretty much reserved for it. I heard a lot of people say online that higher flow brings out the sweepers. I'm going to say that I don't agree. It is in lower flow here than in the last spot. These sweepers are the longest I've ever seen it put out. Sample size of one so maybe I just have a particularly onerey one 😅

Galaxa sweeping away. Those sweepers are no joke. It wants to tell everyone, "The new tank belongs to me!"

TBS ID on this was lightbulb anemone....

Dunno if that is good or bad but I'm leaving it for now. Enough of dipping my hands and arms in the tank today. I'm sure fox face agrees. Thanks tho.

Oddly enough after aquascaping this was on one of the new rocks, in almost the identical space as the original 'thing'. It is a cursed spot. Apitasia? Or a rock nem of some sort? It looks different than the last one. Last thing had clear plain tentacles and looked glassy or translucent. This one has striping. Looks more like a rock anemone to me. But I'm not a biologist. Also sent a note to TBS about it to see what their input is.

Big day today as the second part of "The Package" came in from TBS. Couple of developments before I get to the good stuff. DId a water change and tested everything, as is my normal Sunday process. Ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate were all at zero. I assume that algae was eating the nitrates and that is the reason for the mini-algae bloom I had. Either way tank was great parameter wise IMO. Rock came in on time at AUS from TBS. This is a flawless system in my experience. I've done it 6-7 times now and never had an issue. It is not cheap, but you get what you pay for. Including pickup time, it took me about 3 hours to get it into the tank and looking good. The worst parts were driving into town , avoiding getting spiked by the foxface, and avoiding trapping the foxface under the new aquascape. Rocks looked good. There were some meh pieces, but it put them underneath. Good mix of lumps, shelves, and arches. Now the fish have some hidey holes. Tons of life on the rock and in the bags. I put no less than 20 crabs from the bags into the tank. This does not consider what is in the rock. Nice mix of porcelain and emerald crabs. (I know I'm way more crab tolerant than others. Worst case I can pull them out. I have my crab game on.) Good assortment of macros but not as good as I've gotten in other shipments. I think this is a seasonal thing. I've adjusted the LED in this tank to a less blue spectrum that makes the macros look normal and not washed out. Maybe not the thing for most reefers but this tank is not for the color popping corals that most want. This is going to be green and purple mainly. Side effect? Very easy to take pictures. I do have a sunrise and sunset cycle that is mainly actinic so I can get that view when I really want it. The fox face was totally freaked out by this process. Hid the entire time. But now he is out and more active than I've ever seen him. Apparently happily munching away at little stuff on the rocks. One thing to note, these pictures were taken an hour after rescaping the tank. I'm super happy with the way the rocks had little detritus and the way my filtration system is clearing the tank up. It looks clearer now than this morning. Some of the goodies. Cup Corals I and II. II is in the back of the second photo. Great Caulerpa rock. Codium Foxface FTS BTW That top left rock may get removed. I put it in because of the macros on it. I'm NOT sold on it being there.