peacemaker

I can literally hear him say... "check out my matching pipes!". Zzzz...

A pic of my hermit attacking my snail... trying to upgrade his 3 room to a 4 room "flat" . It was too late when I spotted this. Poor little snail...

Haha... making full use of whatever space I have in there! I added the smallest power head I have to circulate the flow to keep the chaeto growing fine. Have not monitored it yet, will keep you guys posted. I got the Dymax skimmer from one of the reefers here. Saw it at work in his 4 Ft FOWLR tank before getting it from him. Just require a little fine tuning, and it goes to work! Likewise, I do wish you all the best in your tank setup as well, and hope to see you post your tank thread too!

Hey! Thanks! Nothing much, really. Keeping SPS in a nano tank would really up the bar quite a bit. Hope to see you get the type of tank you want and start posting your own tank thread here!

Welcome to SRC, papaya! Wow... your tank looks like it is part of a spaceship. Hold your horses, and let your tank complete the ANN cycle before adding life stock, slowly... We have all gone through the phase of getting a new tank, and getting all excited to start adding all the fishes and corals we want so badly, but must å¿. Judging by the size of your home and choice of equipment, you must have deep pockets... GO would most likely be your usual hang-out LFS in the near future. More pics!

Looking solid, bro! Nice macro shots too! Good stuff.

Purple Firefish & Diagonal Bar Prawn Goby, altogether.

Oh... the one that comes in twos and threes. I always had the impression that they weren't powerful enough to cool the tank due to plastic blades. Why don't you fix the fan at the same time your light switches on (I'm just assuming your lights are controlled by a timer)? Usually, its the heat produced from the lights that increases the temperature quite a bit, more so for a hooded tank.

Haha... must be the cooling fan meant for planted tanks, right? Just take note of the rust and dirt collection. Yes, quite a pain to keep up with the water evaporation. There were some reviews on the Dolphin "chiller"... I'm not sure how effective that is, but should be good enough for nano tanks. Thought of giving that a try. The one I used to have kept messing with my coral placement, but was quite greedy with algae, including the red slime.

I used to run a tank without a chiller, and the only cooling device is a fan. I used tap water to perform top ups, and I had this major outbreak of this red slime algae. Even my hermit couldn't keep up with the growth. I'm just guessing, but you could try to bring the temperature down a bit, like below 27 deg C? Get some chaeto to help with the nitrate and nutrient export. My 2 cents.

Can you post pics of your zoas and mushrooms?

Aquatronica for planted tanks...? It really shows the passion and commitment for the hobby. Very nice tanks! I like the cube best.

Are you serious...? Noooooooo.........

You should name this scaping, "Rubiks cube". Can't wait to see it all grown and matured. Can I chop a few mushroom frags?

Hahaha... balancing between being a family man and a reefer.

One of my rics are finally recovering from bleaching... it turned almost translucent before. Hope it regains all its previous intense colours.

Managed to take a better picture of my electric blue legged hermit crab. Hard worker, this one.

Upon request from Firestarter, I took some pictures of my filter compartment. Nothing much though. The ugly side of the tank...

Quite unusual to see an open brain "attack" a live shrimp... Probably needs more food, since the skeleton is a little exposed.

I'm not sure what kind of help it does for leaving the water untouched for a week, but if you put an air stone in with a pump, the chlorine will evaporate. I do this for my fresh water tank, with a minimum bubbling of 24hrs. Mine's a small tank, so I top off with bottled DI water. Water changes are made with the same DI water mixed with Crystal Sea salt. The reason that tap water is not the preferred choice is because it contains phosphate, which is a source for algae growth. You can use an RO/DI unit, but it is rather costly. Anyways, no one said this hobby was going to be cheap!

You might wanna try other brands of test kits to see if yours have any problems? It could be expired... salifert seems like the most popular brand among reefers here. I use them myself as well. Some questions that might help: Do you use tap water to perform top ups? What type of lightings and for how long do you switch them on in a day? Any equipment or form of nitrate export (ie chaeto) do you have? Any cleaning crew (ie hermit crabs, snails, etc)? Are there possible dead spots (no or poor water flow) in your tank?

I don't think its exposed to air, but it sure is stagnant in that compartment. I'll add a powerhead for the flow. Thanks for the tip, Bro bgrking!

Thank you for your kind words! There's nothing much to show for the filter compartment though... pretty much the same as my previous tank. Left side for the mechanical and bio filtration, right side for the skimmer & return pump, and a bunch of chaeto in a basket. I just trimmed a little today due to some parts starting to turn white. I'm not sure why is this happening, but looking at the other thread on this topic, it shouldn't be anything serious. Maybe its just too much light (I keep it switched on 24/7). Yeah... I like the suggestion of adding the black tape... I'll look for something nice and decent, a proper tape from the LFS.

I went back to the office and did some maintenance today... there was a lot of crap at the filter compartment, so I removed all the bio homme, siphoned the mess and sucked out the dirt (industrial vacuum cleaners come in handy ). I gave the bio homme a gentle rinse with a bucket of fresh salt water mix before putting it back in. Now its nice and clean! Quite happy with the accomplishment. I also did a thorough cleaning of the whole skimmer and both pumps (skimmer & return). They are running at highest efficiency like when I first bought them. See how good periodic maintenance does to your equipment! I bought 2 small flame gobies and 1 diagonal bar prawn goby. Unfortunately, after releasing them in the tank, I spotted one nuisance crab hiding in the rocks. I wanted to catch it, but as soon as I moved the corals, that fella ran away... I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't harm my gobies.

Very beautiful... what camera are you using btw?