RicordeaFreak

16 hours ago, FarmerTy said:

Looks great! Those pictures are amazing! What are you taking them with?

Thank you! Samsung Galaxy S7 shot in pro mode with no filter or clip on lens. The clowns are hard to get a good shot of, but those images of them were screen shots from a video. Still working out how to take better photo's and video as it was my first time using this phone.

6 hours ago, Jimbo662 said:

Glad to see the clowns...and everything else doing well...and yeah...great pictures.

Thanks! They've recently started attacking my hand when siphoning the bottom of the tank with water changes. Looks like i'm going to have to get some rubber gloves in the near future...

2 minutes ago, jolt said:

Everything looks happy to me.  The jack o'lantern seems to be doing well!

Thanks! Its encrusting more and more each day, my wife was really happy to finally check this one off her list. Now to just find the space to glue it down...

Its about time they got you that fixture haha. looks awesome, I bet the corals will love it!

Around the end of October I picked up these two black picasso clowns from Jimbo662 and continued to let the system go. 

In November of 2017 I attended my first ARC meeting had a great time and took home a plate coral from Ty, this plate would be the first addition of coral to the tank. Such an awesome coral and its grown like crazy. It's easily my favorite coral to feed and watch eat.

In December I finally moved over the once single head duncan which is now 7 heads and toadstool leather from my pico as they were now getting way to big for the tank. I had also picked up a gold hammer, green and purple frogspawn and a RBTA from Jen_H.

This month I attended the ARC frag swap and took home a few nice corals. I wouldn't be holding up to my account name if I didn't walk away with at least a couple new Ricordea Florida. I also picked up a jackolantern leptoseris from Jolt and was gifted a burning banana stylocoeniella as well as a really nicely colored leptastrea from one of the vendors for helping them out. Don't tell my ricordea this, but I the stylo was my favorite piece I took home that day. I also moved over some zoa's that had been growing out in my wifes 10g as she needed to free up space, I'll probably be fragging these in the future. I also started my first frag of the stylo as there was 3 tiny polyps grown on the stem of the plug its been doing well so far since cutting it and is spreading.

Taken on 1/22/18

Been meaning to start this thread. Lets jump right into this one shall we.
 

20G Nuvo - I won this tank in a raffle at Reef currents 2017.

Light: 300w No named black box I bought from Austin Aqua Farms that they had been using, but were replacing with a Radeon XR30 G4 Pro. I figured if the light was working for them it should work for me. Its been working well so far it only has two channels, but I haven't gone past 50% power yet. I run it at 50% blues and 40% white.

Pump: I'm still using the original for now, but plan to upgrade to a MJ1200, I also have a rio 180 for extra flow along the back until I get a proper power head.

I used some left over dry pukani that I had from setting up my wife's 10g Nuvo and decided a while back that I would attempt a bare bottom tank on this setup. I'm not really too happy with the layout of the rock and could probably add more, but I haven't really started gluing anything to the rock yet so It's not too late to redo it. I mainly just tried to stack it as secure as possible and left it alone to cure.

After a week of letting the tank cycle I added a piece of rock from my wife's 10g that she no longer wanted in her tank to allow the pods to start populating.

FTS

Taken on 10/22/17

Is 10 months about average for coralline showing up? The 20G I set up a few months back with dry pukani went through the dino stage which wasn't too bad as I kept the lights off. I did seed the tank with some gunk collected in floss from one of my other tanks and had a big explosion of amphipods which I personally think helped keep the algae from overgrowing while going through the "ugly" phase. I would wake up and see areas of rock that had algae on them the night before completely clean or very little algae left.

I noticed a few different colors of green encrusting algae starting to grow at about 2 or so months in, then my 1st couple of specs of purple coralline about another month later.

Was there no other purple coralline in the tank to start with? like on a snail shell or whatever?

6 hours ago, FarmerTy said:

Finally threw my ORA Chips colony into the DT. Its appreciating the flow.
 

This coral is really cool! I love all the movement. I think I might be turning into a stickhead...

I have a 4gal aquarium with rock and whatnot is probably more like 3.5 gallons of water. I would agree with mFrame that temperature hasn't been a problem except for when my HVAC went kaput over the summer, but normally I don't need to have a fan on it and the thermometer usually reads 78~80. Again I agree that evaporation is definitely a big problem with pico's and have a plastic cover on the tank so that condensation drips back into the aquarium. I manually top off in the morning before I leave for work and whenever I get home from work. To be honest I don't test nearly as much as I should, but with water changes once a week things seem to stay happy.

4 hours ago, mFrame said:

I've kept a few in the 3-5g size.  Temperature isn't a problem at all, a small fan is enough to create surface agitation and evaporative cooling.  Evaporation becomes the biggest problem.  I had a 3g on my desk at work. If .5g evaporates over the weekend then you get wide parameter fluctuations.  I resolved mine by having a cover on the tank and ultimately set up a mini ATO.  It was incredibly fun to have a goby and emerald crab at work with me every day.  The crab would see me come in each morning and immediately climb the rocks and wave at me until I hand-fed him a piece of nori.

What sort of mini ATO did you end up using mFrame? I've been wanting to set up one, but most of the double sensor style of ATO's are too big to fit in the rear chamber of my aquarium.

looks awesome! I really like that rock in the center for some reason. I'm interested in how the aquatic life fixture works out for you. I'm looking at doing the 36" with 2 AI prime HD for a 40b SPS build in the future.

On 12/3/2017 at 8:34 PM, mFrame said:

Thanks!  Excuse the dirty glass, just back from a trip but wanted to show the size of these things.

The  toadstools have never really shed if you mean like sliming.  Occassionally they'll go dormant for a few days and pull all their polyps in but then they come back bigger.  Here are pics from the other side, where the large one is against the glass.  It's about 18" wide and 14" or so tall, but if the rock to each side of it weren't there it would open up to about 26"+.  It started as a 2" frag from RichardL about 2 years ago and has gone nuts.  The pink toadstool drops babies all the time.  They really don't cause problems other than making everything crowded, except that the frags that the pink one drops have to be collected or they take root everywhere.

The bubble coral was literally dead during my green hair algae battle.  It is sitting on top of a Cerameco cave rock that was covered with GSP.  The GSP had overgrown the entire bubble coral structure leaving a lone tiny bubble smaller than a bb.  Tim cleaned the GSP off the bubble skeleton and down the Cerameco rock but I assumed it was dead.  Now it is not only back with a vengeance, but has taking its revenge almost entirely eradicating the GSP.  Now if I can only get it to attack Anthelia!

That leather is amazing from a 2" frag to 26"+ in 2 years is impressive. My toadstool does the same thing with retracting its polyps for a couple days to grow bigger, but it sheds a "skin" from the surface which I've noticed irritates some of the other corals. What an incredible recovery on the bubble coral from a single bubble to how massive it is now, awesome!

Getting close there Jimbo! Have you started playing around with the rocks yet? Messing with the hardscape is my least favorite part of setting up a new tank and usually leaves me frustrated and just settling for what it looks like haha. Its looking good though!

Truly spectacular! What a nice build and that stand is incredible. looking forward to seeing this tank grow out in the future. Awesome work!

Lookin' good Ty! What a happy looking helper you got there haha. Do you take appointments for tank viewings? Should I schedule it through your assistant? One of these days I need to check out your system in person and pick up another piece of acro for testing a different tank I have set up. The piece of green slimer you gave me during the last meeting is currently doing well in my pico. Staying bright green with a bit more encrusting on the plug and good polyp extension, but not much vertical growth.

Very nice tank you got going mFrame. +1 to what Jimbo said, those toadstools are huge. Do they cause you any problems when they shed? That bubble coral is awesome and those orange mushrooms have really grown in.

I had no idea that an automated skimmer cleaner was a thing until now. Thats pretty cool, yay for automation. Looking good Ty. 

Sharp lookin' tank. looking forward to future updates.

50 minutes ago, Gig 'em @ NDstructible said:

Thank you for the kind words. You should really jump on the acro train, it's a wild ride!!

 

As for food I use a dollop of fish eggs, a dash of mysis shrimp, a pinch of shredded dried seaweed, a dusting of fish meal, a few spritzes of Selcon, and of course the most important ingredient, LOVE.

 

HAHA, I'll probably make an attempt to keep some acros in the inevitable future when set up a tank that holds more than a handful of water. 100% agree with love being crucial.

Holy crap Gig'em your tank and corals are incredible. I'm not huge on acropora, but some of these are simply amazing. Could you share whats in your mixture of food?

On 11/6/2017 at 2:07 PM, ShawnM said:

FTS




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Man, you weren't kidding about the coralline growth. Awesome looking setup.