12G Aqua Excel Cube - "Acid Lake"

[+FluxCapacitor]

Hello Everyone!

I have been encouraged by a few people that saw pictures of Bry's tank to show some here on the forum. Bry's (my girlfriend) birthday was last month and I decided after much thought it was time to get into this hobby properly. I've wanted to play with salt water stuff for years now and I think I'm at a time in my life where I can do it successfully. I've had some really good guidance and I wouldn't even think of buying and taking care of something like this if Bry wasn't so wonderful. Ok cheesy crap aside.... The tank was purchased brand new on April 14th and the first live rock/sand/water was put in the tank. I cycled the tank with a product I got from Just Reef called "Turbo Start 900". The cleanup crew got into the tank within 4 or 5 days of putting the fist freshly mixed salt water into the tank due to the speed at which the bacteria was able to cycle the tank (amazing right).

The first cleanup crew was 2 nessarius snails, 2 emarald crabs, and 2 sexy shrimp.

Corals (from left to right in tank):

Australian Gold Torch

Some brown/red/orange colored chalice

Red/blue/green/yellow lobophylia

Australian Duncan

Acan's (3-5 different color/head types) that I've glued to one piece of live rock.

Rainbow rock in back right of tank that has GSP, richordia, zoanthids, and some pink/yellow coral that looks like a pine tree when it's opened up (please help identify if anyone knows what this is).

Inhabitants:

I bag of "pods" that seem to be thriving... they're all over the place if you just look for them in the tank.

5 x sexy shrimp. 2 females and 3 males. I'm thinking of getting another female so we don't have 5th wheel weirdo trying to hang out at the end of the bar while the other couples are mingling.

2-4 brittle sea stars that snuck in on the rainbow rock.... they stay hidden but you can see their tentacles reaching out from between the zoanthids pretty often.

at least one amphipod. He's almost the size of the smallest sexy shrimp. I'm not sure where he hides and I've only seen him twice early in the morning.

some sort of worm or something that is making "sand tubes" all over the place in the tank.... no idea, only am able to find the sand tubes after the fact. I've never seen what's making them.

Casualty list:

2 emerald crabs, one died almost immediately after being put in the tank, the other lasted about 2 weeks before dying for no reason that I could find. We speculated that it may have starved due to lack of algae, but not sure.

1 blue tux (?) urchin, he seemed ok for two or so days then he dropped his spines. I think my tank's slight salinity difference may have bugged him out.

Here is some weird creature I filmed today. I think it's a small shrimp of some kind. If anyone knows what it is or if it should be taken out of the tank I'd appreciate it.

[+BobcatReefer]

Very cool little tank! Love the Torch and Duncans!

[+FluxCapacitor]

Thank you very much. I've quickly learned that you have to be very selective on a tank this size. We have **probably too much coral for this size or the coral was not properly selected/placed.

Yesterday a ricordia stung the crap out of one of my acan's. The acan has "recovered" as in it's not acting like it was attacked anymore, but the spot it got stung on seems to have burned for lack of better term. Also, yesterday, the lobophyllia stung and killed the lowest head on the duncan coral. I worked from home last night and went through the master bedroom to use the restroom.... when I was passing by I used my cell phone light to glance in the tank and found what looked like a large amount of spider web between the lobo and the duncan. The duncan's head was "engulfed" in these stringy white tentacles.... the lobo seems fine, the head on the duncan seems like it's toast.

So, I rearranged everyone so that they can be nice neighbors but the aquascape doesn't look as good as it did before IMO. I really need to get this 32G tank I have up and running ASAP so I can move some of this coral around. At least we've been very selective, aka not gotten one yet, about a fish for the 12G cube.

I added a striped turbo snail yesterday and it immediately started doing work on the algae that has bloomed across the acrylic.

[+FluxCapacitor]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to provide a little update. The tank is doing well.

New corals have been added:

Orange fungia plate

Mystery Center acanthastrea echinita

Rainbow Pectinia

New inverts:

5 x hermit crabs (the tiny kind with the ice cream cone shaped shells)

1 x conch (this dude does work on the algae... maybe a dudette.... either way)

2 x striped turbo snails

With the addition of the above inverts, the tank looks nearly spotless now. The red cyano that was trying to go willy nilly in the tank seems to have backed off. The sand looks white again.

I've been testing the water for dKH, Ca, and Mg. Everything seems to be testing out ok and the levels are relatively stable. I've been using the results from the tests to determine how much "All-for-reef" by tropic marin to add. I don't think I've screwed anything up because all the levels are coming out fine and the animals/corals all seem to be pretty happy.

Yesterday, I got 2 rockmag jr's from aquamags.com in. One is being saved for my 32G tank I'm setting up soon (everything is soaking in vinegar water right now with a power head on). The other rock mag was mounted to the rear acrylic in the 12G cube. We took a small piece of rubble rock, mounted the gold torch to it, and then mounted the rubble rock to the rock mag. I chose to do it this way because later on if I want to get the torch off the rock mag I don't want to destroy the rock mag to do it.... or be stuck with a coral that is on a magnetic rock. For now it is just a solution to get one of the more potentially aggressive corals away from the others in a tank that is limited on real estate.

Sorry for the crappy pictures. I haven't figured out how to get good pictures of the tank without getting into another hobby (photography).

[+FluxCapacitor]

Also if anyone could PLEASE help ID whatever that neon yellow and pink coral is in the first picture. I've been looking at pictures of corals for weeks and have no idea what it is. When it recedes it looks like little yellow balls and you would never guess that it would open up and look like a pink and yellow christmas tree like it does.

[FarmerTy]

Also if anyone could PLEASE help ID whatever that neon yellow and pink coral is in the first picture. I've been looking at pictures of corals for weeks and have no idea what it is. When it recedes it looks like little yellow balls and you would never guess that it would open up and look like a pink and yellow christmas tree like it does.

My guess is palau nepthea but I'm not a softie guy. I'm only guessing because I'm surprised nobody has identified it yet. [emoji4]

[+FluxCapacitor]

Thank you, I am going to read about that now.... hopefully someone can come along and confirm.... it's definitely not a common one if you look through what people sell in their online stores. It may be for several reasons, but in either case I would like to know so that I can make any needed adjustments for it's care.

[+KimP]

Also if anyone could PLEASE help ID whatever that neon yellow and pink coral is in the first picture. I've been looking at pictures of corals for weeks and have no idea what it is. When it recedes it looks like little yellow balls and you would never guess that it would open up and look like a pink and yellow christmas tree like it does.

My guess is palau nepthea but I'm not a softie guy. I'm only guessing because I'm surprised nobody has identified it yet. [emoji4]

I was thinking nepthea or sinularia myself, but those don't roll up into balls that I've seen. Nepthea/sinularia seems really popular around our club. Gets traded around like gsp or devil's hand.

Here are the 2 pieces I have. One in low light, the other in high light.

[+KimP]

Your tank is sure coming along. You have a really nice collection of corals going! I love aqua-mags! I used to use several in my first tank. I'm glad to see they're still in business

[+FluxCapacitor]

Thank you for the kind words. I've been nerding out ever since we got this tank.

We're still being patient about what kind of fish to put in here, but we also need to do it soon since it's the ammonia part of the whole system cycling.

I love the aquamag. It's going to look pretty cool when it gains the coloration of the rest of the live rock. On other notes, the orange fungia plate is a PIG. This thing can eat ridiculous amounts of mysis like it's a bottomless pit. I think the picky eaters in the tank are the pectinia, the echinata, and the torch. The torch seems kinda "lazy" about eating, it really takes it's time and if you turn the pump on before it's done you'll sure know it because there will be a bit of shrimp floating around in the tank that it lets go of. The pectinia and the echinita seem to eat with their mucus so small water disturbances will make the shrimp fall out of their web of doom easily. Also, the necassirus are relentless, they will climb on anything trying to get food and it's funny to see the fungia plate swalling down shrimp as fast as it can almost as if it knows they're going to come try to steal from it.

I'm curious about making my own human grade coral food from stuff i can buy locally. I'm also going to make a diy sump out of an old aquarium for the 12G cube to expand it's water capacity and add a refugium to it. My goal is to have a "display refugium" attached to the main display tanks.... because a happy place for pods and macro algae can look pretty cool vs. all gunked up with fish turd residue and crazy diy plumbing.

If anyone lives in the South Austin area and would like to come by and try to ID that pink/yellow coral they're more than welcome to. Just contact me via PM or text me @ sea vin ate for 5236.

[+FluxCapacitor]

Last night I put the 4 sexy shrimp in "jail" because they have been repeatedly picking on one of the acan corals... to the point of it showing some white skeleton. Someone offered the idea that they're just "cleaning" it.... but the acans were doing fine and always seem to be "out" until the very large female sexy shrimp decides to walk all over it and start picking at it. I'm fairly certain they've irritated the coral.

I thought it was just the large female doing it, but after removing her the males just took her place and started doing it. The acans aren't super expensive or anything so it's not like a disaster but I cannot have them doing this to the other corals in the tank. I'll have my 32G setup going w/ a sump soon and they'll just stay in jail until they can become little sump monsters.

Make shift jail is:

* tea bottle that had a label form fitted, not glued, to the bottle

* holes drilled in it for water venting

* Bry's hair tie + sharpie to affix it to the side of the tank.