My slice of nature

[SubzeroLT]

Was trying an experiment to trap my goby using the mineral water bottle method. Placed some mysis shrimp in the bottle.

Didn't feed it for a couple of days. It'll just sit in front of the bottle every day (very often just before the small opening) but simply refuse to go in.

On the other hand, the scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp would simply crawl in, have some food, then crawl out again.

Experiment ended after a week.

The battle with brown algae continues.

My sea cucumber does a nice job but its really slow though.

Water parameters :

Ammonia : 0

Nitrate : Currently ~ 0. Was ~2ppm before adding additional bio pellets about 4 days back

Phosphate : 0.03

Ca : 440

Mg : 1320

KH : 9.3

Potassium : 410

[asg]

Bro, give the bio pallets a month, the cynao should disappear by then. Dosing bacteria helps too.

[redsuns]

Very nice, I just wish I had half of your diy skills and I would be good.

Did you "open" up a hole round the back of your cabinet or it was like that from the start? Knowing freshwater setup usually has small holes at the back for just the canister tubes.

[SubzeroLT]

Bro, give the bio pallets a month, the cynao should disappear by then. Dosing bacteria helps too.

Noted. I'm dosing a couple of drops daily at the moment. The cynao really bugs me. Waiting it out.

Very nice, I just wish I had half of your diy skills and I would be good.

Did you "open" up a hole round the back of your cabinet or it was like that from the start? Knowing freshwater setup usually has small holes at the back for just the canister tubes.

I asked the cabinet maker to make the back panel as open as possible back then. Just a center structure for support & to screw things on.

Next DIY is a netting to prevent fishes from jumping out. Still thinking of concepts. Hopefully nothing too ugly.

[redsuns]

Noted. I'm dosing a couple of drops daily at the moment. The cynao really bugs me. Waiting it out.

I asked the cabinet maker to make the back panel as open as possible back then. Just a center structure for support & to screw things on.

Next DIY is a netting to prevent fishes from jumping out. Still thinking of concepts. Hopefully nothing too ugly.

I used this netting as a cover. Can get from home fix/ self fix, etc. There are different sizes too.

[Admiraltian]

On 12/8/2014 at 11:10 AM, SubzeroLT said:

Bubble coral :

I've tried a more shaded area & lower flow but the bubbles continued to look deflated.

The thing that helped was more food (thanks Admiraltian for the tip).

Fed it a market prawn over the course of a week & it seems to remain inflated all the time now. It does seem like excessive food though.

Good to know that ur bubble doing well now.

[SubzeroLT]

Spent the past hour testing concepts of a simple mesh cover.

Got an egg crate & DIY a 'mesh' using some spare fishing line.

Think i'll need to use thicker fishing line & to run another set of string in the perpendicular direction.

Current 'mesh' won't hold back a small jumping fish (eg. Goby)

And honestly, quite ugly having a screen on top of the tank. Haiz....

[SubzeroLT]

I used this netting as a cover. Can get from home fix/ self fix, etc. There are different sizes too.

Thanks for the tip. I might need to go for this if my DIY doesn't work.

[redsuns]

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/video/view/diy-screen-top-instructions/

Maybe you can do something like this? I wanted too but again, wasn't too confident of my diy skills so I took the easy way out.

[SubzeroLT]

Am still figuring out options to prevent fishes from jumping out.

In particular, i'm using a Skimz overflow box & the minimum water height from the top edge of the tank is just 2cm. High chance of fishes going over the glass edge when they swim up along the glass panel.

I increased dose of Micro Bacter & Bio Fuel & turned on the UV filter to run 12 hours a day. Brown algae disappeared almost entirely in 3 days.

I had some hair algae growing on the PVC pipe in the refugium (located about 3 inches from the light). That disappeared too.

Some new additions :

Inspired by Andtsg's pink short polyp goniopora, I found one at GO :

Several new Zoa

Got this from a fellow reefer clearing some corals the other day. There were many reefers there the other day but no one could recall its name...anyone can help here?

It opens up to palm size.

GSP from fellow reefer. Attached itself to another rock in 2 days.

Shots of other corals :

Minimum fishes in the display tank at the moment. New additions still in quarantine & getting them accustomed to pellet food.

[ahchris]

I increased dose of Micro Bacter & Bio Fuel & turned on the UV filter to run 12 hours a day. Brown algae disappeared almost entirely in 3 days.

I had some hair algae growing on the PVC pipe in the refugium (located about 3 inches from the light). That disappeared too.

Nice corals. I dose Micro Bacter too but my brown algae is still there :-(

[SubzeroLT]

Nice corals. I dose Micro Bacter too but my brown algae is still there :-(

Thanks.

Maybe you can try adding Bio Fuel as well. It was suggested by Ken (Madpetz).

[Admiraltian]

On 12/28/2014 at 9:03 AM, SubzeroLT said:

Am still figuring out options to prevent fishes from jumping out.

In particular, i'm using a Skimz overflow box & the minimum water height from the top edge of the tank is just 2cm. High chance of fishes going over the glass edge when they swim up along the glass panel.

I increased dose of Micro Bacter & Bio Fuel & turned on the UV filter to run 12 hours a day. Brown algae disappeared almost entirely in 3 days.

I had some hair algae growing on the PVC pipe in the refugium (located about 3 inches from the light). That disappeared too.

Some new additions :

Inspired by Andtsg's pink short polyp goniopora, I found one at GO :

Several new Zoa

Got this from a fellow reefer clearing some corals the other day. There were many reefers there the other day but no one could recall its name...anyone can help here?

It opens up to palm size.

GSP from fellow reefer. Attached itself to another rock in 2 days.

Shots of other corals :

Minimum fishes in the display tank at the moment. New additions still in quarantine & getting them accustomed to pellet food.

That pink Palm size coral is a cynarina.

[asg]

Yo bro, i just thinking of tennis racket string as tank cover...

[SubzeroLT]

That pink Palm size coral is a cynarina.

Thanks very much...

[SubzeroLT]

Re-did the mesh over the aquarium using thin fishing line (0.18mm thick). $5 for this reel.

They had thicker fishing line (line tennis string) but that would be unnecessary.

Spent an hour running a square mesh + diagonal around the egg crate.

This will suffice for now...functional.

Peace of mind that fishes won't jump out. And most importantly to keep them safe from accidental suicide.

[Evolutionz]

wow really nice DIY Mesh! If only there's a way to use better material other than egg crates!

[Mike Tan]

Great idea for Display Tank cover!

[SubzeroLT]

wow really nice DIY Mesh! If only there's a way to use better material other than egg crates!

Great idea for Display Tank cover!

Thanks. Its quite ugly but at least it works with minimum light blocked.

[kenyee]

Imho the tank cover is very nicely done..salutes bro..the egg crate can use black colour 1 for better look yea..

[SubzeroLT]

Some updates & photos....

A seemingly peaceful blue eye anthias. But it whacked & killed a fellow blue eye anthias & chromis. Leaves the rest alone though.

Purple Firefish from Coral Farm. Hides in odd places but comes out quite often.

Ricordia swallowing a piece of bait fish. Should have torn off a smaller piece before feeding.

Yuma

Long tentacle plate coral (Heliofungia actiniformis). Green body. Blue tentacles. Pink tip.

My fav coral at the moment.

Branching golden hammer (euphyllia paraancora)

[hermit]

Nice tank and very infomatic tank setting up thread.....keep up the good work bro.

Thomas yip

[SubzeroLT]

Some recent photos to share :

Harlequin shrimp

 

Sea slug feeding on blue sponge.

Seeking advice :

I started getting this on my glass after I started feeding/dosing phytoplakton. What's this?

[SubzeroLT]

Scarlet reef hermit crab

Zoa section

[ahchris]

Wah lovely photos!