From FOWLR to Mixed Reef to Mangroves to Softies

[soggycookies]

What I use as my ATO reservoir: a FILUR model laundry bin from Ikea. This one in particular can store up to about 28L of water. Running my system at 27.7 degrees celsius, I replenish the ATO reservoir once every 8-10 days.

 

 

Personally, I find it compact, and it doesn’t take up much surface area at the base due to its small width footprint. Isn’t an eyesore to look at(if you need to place your ato anywhere other than within the sump cabinet)too. Definitely not as bulky and unsightly as a regular mixing bin/barrel. It can also easily store more than 20L of water, and comes conveniently with a flippable lid. Great for large systems.

 

I also have the larger model that can contain up to 40L, which I use for my semi-outdoor system that runs without a chiller and has a higher average temperature. Depending on the day-to-day temperature, it can take anywhere between 10 and 15 days to completely empty.

 

 

 

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[Admiraltian]

12 hours ago, soggycookies said:

Leathers:







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Nice to see so many different varieties of leathers.

[soggycookies]

Nice to see so many different varieties of leathers.

Thanks! The only staple with more leathers in the tank imo(besides the fundamentals like a skimmer, chiller etc) is the need to run activated carbon, so that every coral stays open/extended more often. 

 

Here’s a Skimz FM-150 fluidized reactor running AC that reliably processes my tank volume(approx. 1,200L)

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[soggycookies]

My favorite Pink Pulsing Sinularia leather comparison shots from:

17th Mar ‘20

to

9th May ‘20

 

 

[danano]

13 hours ago, soggycookies said:

What I use as my ATO reservoir: a FILUR model laundry bin from Ikea. This one in particular can store up to about 28L of water. Running my system at 27.7 degrees celsius, I replenish the ATO reservoir once every 8-10 days.

 

 

Personally, I find it compact, and it doesn’t take up much surface area at the base due to its small width footprint. Isn’t an eyesore to look at(if you need to place your ato anywhere other than within the sump cabinet)too. Definitely not as bulky and unsightly as a regular mixing bin/barrel. It can also easily store more than 20L of water, and comes conveniently with a flippable lid. Great for large systems.

 

I also have the larger model that can contain up to 40L, which I use for my semi-outdoor system that runs without a chiller and has a higher average temperature. Depending on the day-to-day temperature, it can take anywhere between 10 and 15 days to completely empty.

 

 

 

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Nice. What do you keep in your semi-outdoor system without a chiller?

[soggycookies]

Nice. What do you keep in your semi-outdoor system without a chiller?

Thanks. Currently there’s a 9” Batfish, desjardini tang, green pastel wrasse and several other small fish in it with mangroves.

 

But planning to do away with the latter eventually cause getting too squeezy in there(it’s a 4x2.5x2.5ft display) for my batfish. thinking of just going back to a peaceful fowlr and getting a cowfish and some tropical butterflies or a nice blueface angel

 

 

 

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[soggycookies]

Lately been attempting to save a BTA that expelled a whole lot of zooxanthellae(after i made the mistake of dosing polyplab medic directly into my main display) and it was close to bleaching out completely(only had colour at the edge of its tips.)

2 months in and it looks a whole lot better.



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[soggycookies]

Turbo snails in my display spawning(releasing semen) into the water column at night:

 

[soggycookies]

Mangroves excreting salt via glands in their leaves. Notice the white blotches on their leaves. Typically when I see this, I make sure to spray/sprinkle slightly more freshwater on them to help with the natural process.



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[soggycookies]

My old Map Puffer before I converted from a FOWLR setup. One of my favorite large puffers



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[soggycookies]

Fish spotlight: Chain-line/Greyhead Wrasse(Halichoeres leucurus)

 

A burrowing wrasse species that grows to about 12cm, this is a cousin of the likes of more popular aquarium fare such as H. melanurus. The coloration and body pattern between male and female specimens is very different, with female specimens closely resembling many other related burrowing wrasse species in the genus Halichoeres.

 

The photos below are of a male & female specimen respectively, both photographed before introduction to my main system. The males are territorial against other males but can coexist peacefully with several other females as the alpha. Like most wrasses, they are a great coral-safe addition as a pest control option and spend the daytime prowling for small invetebrates and dig into the sand in the evening.

 

 

 

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[soggycookies]

Lately been attempting to save a BTA that expelled a whole lot of zooxanthellae(after i made the mistake of dosing polyplab medic directly into my main display) and it was close to bleaching out completely(only had colour at the edge of its tips.)

2 months in and it looks a whole lot better.



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Here’s another shot from today journaling its recovery:




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[soggycookies]

Here’s a recovery shot of the stump of a toadstool I got early in March whose cap broke off from it. The stump has since begun to extend polyps of its own:



And here’s what became of the toadstool cap that separated from its base:






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[soggycookies]

My floral wrasse hiding amid my mini toadstool garden. please pardon the strong violet-wash in the photo

 

 

[soggycookies]

Documenting the behavioural patterns of a self-collected blue-ring angel in a reef setting was a calculated risk I was apprehensive about initially but since I’m a bigger fan of fish than coral, I went with it anyway. (granted, I went through with this coming out of the forced decommissioning of an older system that crashed with leftover pieces of coral that weren’t doing great or I didn’t mind parting with)

 

 

It’s been some time since I acquired this P. Annularis specimen and felt it best to keep coral stocking to a minimum ever since I decided to add it in a reef setting lest I burn my pocket. I began with a couple frags of hammers and a torch, some acans, mushrooms, a few assorted leathers and 2 rocks full of zoanthids.

 

After 3 months, the 20x20cm rocks that were formerly covered in zoanthids were completely devoid of them. The hammers remained fine, but the few acans I had were gone too. The hammers, leathers and mushrooms were doing fine. The 1 torch that I had had receded into its skeleton, probably due to curious nips by my angel over time.

 

Following this, I let my tank run as per normal without stocking up on any new corals for 6-8 months just to see if its behaviour would change or remain the same. Fed it chopped assorted seafood, and got it to eat flakes, but to this day it is still picky about what pellets it will eat.

 

Thankfully, none of my leathers(toadstools and fingers) were harmed during this period, so earlier in 2020, I decided to add new softies to my display again. It’s been another 2-3 months since and so far, i’ve observed nothing but the occasional nip at a long-tentacle variant of xenia on days when the tank is fed very sparingly.

 

 

I have since added a frag of clove polyps, a couple of new sinularias, new GSP, a few mushrooms and several different small toadstool frags. My angel has ignored the clove polyps for 3 months now, to my delight- allowing them to colonise more of the rockwork I placed the frag on.

 

All in all I know having any kind of angel outside the genus genicanthus in a reeftank with corals is a risk, but I’m quite content with the equilibrium I’ve managed to create with my pomacanthus angel in a reef tank with mostly softies. She is now 9” long, chunky and adores flakes and market shrimp. The primary downside is zoanthids are a big no-no as long as she’s around. Meaty LPS like acans and scolys are probably going to be food as well, so those are out of the question- especially considering their generally higher prices.

 

If she one day decided to mow down every coral in sight, I guess I’ll have no choice but to dedicate another system to those corals or sell them off, because this fish has become pretty priceless to me over the years.

 

 

 

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[soggycookies]

Fish Spotlight: Teira Batfish (Platax teira)

 

 

One of the easier species of Batfish to keep in aquaria compared to the more delicate but prettier P. Pinnatus. Batfish IME are even less reef-safe than angelfish due to their voracious appetite, and will graze on coral as one of their food sources. As juveniles, they are very delicate and do not cope well in a boisterous setup with other more aggressive fish such as triggers, puffers, large angels and more stereotypical damsels. While shy in the beginning, they are not difficult to feed and can be easily hand-fed once they feel comfortable in their captive environment.

They also grow rapidly during their juvenile to sub-sub adult stage until they reach about 8~11” in size, where their dorsal and anal fins at this point begin to shorten in vertical length. At these sizes, they’re great for large fowlr setups that feature other large peaceful to semi-aggressive species, but certainly not in reeftanks with coral. (Mine ate a 5” kenya tree and large mats of gsp)

 

 

 

 

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[soggycookies]

Some tiny leopard discosomas popped out of nowhere on this rock with a couple of elephant ears. A welcome surprise!




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[soggycookies]

Aside from chopped fresh seafood once a day, I feed the 17 fish in my main display 3-5 teaspoons of flakes a day and vitalis’ marine grazer occasionally(twice a week or so).

Opted for flakes over pellets as they’re easier for most of my fish to spot over pellets especially when they sink cause I use black sand in my 300G.

My annularis angelfish in particular absolutely loves the flakes. Definitely getting more of these Omega One flakes in the future. Cheap, nutritious and loved by my fish!




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[soggycookies]

Surface agitation helps a lot in preventing a layer of dust and tiny particles from all around the tank accumulating at the surface, which aside from being unsightly, also reduces the efficiency of your lighting and the PAR your corals receive!

 

An easy way to create better surface agitation is having a flow nozzle or extension attached to your return line in your main display directed at or situated near the surface of the the water.

 

If you have the newer generation of maxspect gyres(xf330/350 series), the flow directors included make it such that you can place these laminar flow wavemakers closer to the surface of the water without worrying about them blasting water out of your tank or creating vortexes above where they intake water.

 

 

Personally I find gyre flow wavemakers very useful in eliminating deadspots in a tank, especially if the rockwork is already advantageously scaped to incorporate plenty of open caves for water to pass through and around.

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[soggycookies]

bro i see u keeping cowfish, mine died after about 3months, suddenly stop eating, it has been eating seaweed and pallets very greedy, but i noticed it keep gulping air during feeding so i suspect maybe its death related to this. any special diet u feed to it?


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so sorry for the very late response bro! I just saw this. I don’t have one at the moment, but I kept a cowfish back in my old 5ft for about 9months. I fed it chunks of prawn and algae sheets. it also ate pellets, but seemed to have a hard time keeping them in its mouth with the way it’s used to eating.

Mine eventually died cause of tankmate incompatibility. After keeping 3 of them over the years, I realize if kept in a system that’s large enough(with activated carbon if you’re worried it might crash your tank, which mine never have) they are actually not as hard as many assume they are to keep, just avoid fast-swimming/numerous tankmates at all costs. they don’t do well in a system that had many other fish that can easily outcompete them for food or overwhelm them when they’re trying to feed.




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[soggycookies]

technically most angels other than those in the genus genicanthus are never truly “reef-safe”, even dwarf angels. you can keep them with certain corals but can’t be trusted to be considered reef-safe until you’ve monitored the behavior of individual specimens for a certain amount of time.  
in the past i had a regal angel and it didn’t touch my euphyllia. but it mowed down my gsp. in this case it’s the opposite with my current annularis angel that leaves gsp alone but will nip euphyllia, at least torches
 
 
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elaborating a little further on this: the regal angel i had that actively ate my gsp didn’t go after it while its polyps were out, but enjoyed tearing chunks of them off while they weren’t extended, like this:



perhaps confused them for sponge matter.


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[soggycookies]

A shot of a couple of mushrooms(i believe one is a forest fire shroom) with one of my three redcoat squirrelfish(Sargocentron rubrum) taking refuge under the cavernous rockscape. They typically seek refuge in shaded areas of the tank during the day and tends to become more active before my lights ramp up and as they ramp down.




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[soggycookies]

I opted to run my system’s water temperature in the mid 27 (degree celsius) ranges, with the max hitting 28.0 degrees.

Two reasons for this:

1. Main reason being to ameliorate large temperature swings in the event of an extended power outage or chiller failure and I need some time to get everything running again.

 

2. I’m running a system with a fairly large water volume for a home aquarium of approx. 1,200 litres on a 1hp chiller. I had to compensate for the reduced efficiency that wouldn’t be able to hold up punching above its weight in terms of chilling the water to temperatures more than 2 degrees lower than the ambient temperature, particularly given our typically hot climate.

 

 

I’ve also gotten used to reading the temperature a la fahrenheit, as I find it more attuned when monitoring a smaller temperature range.

 

While I plan to upgrade to a better unit in the future, I have no qualms with the chiller I’m using now in tandem with an external thermostat.

 

This external temperature controller with its own probe allows me to adjust more precisely at what temperature I want my chiller to kick on and off. The main benefit of this is I can more closely tweak the temperature range of my system for better stability, for e.g. having less than half a degree celsius’ worth of difference in between the chiller cooling the tank and shut-off periods.

 

Currently, I’ve calibrated it to switch the chiller on when the probe reads 27.5 degrees celsius on its display panel. I set it to kick on with a temperature difference of only 0.3 degrees celsius, and going by these settings, the chiller kicks in on average every 50mins~1h20mins depending on the ambient temperature/time of day(also influenced by my light schedule ramping up and down, max intensity etc). It usually takes between 20-25mins to cool 0.3 degrees, which is acceptable to me considering the large overall water volume in my system.

 

 

The controller also allows me the customisability of a delay time between switching the chiller on and it kicking in, which I’ve set for 60seconds.

 

 

 

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[soggycookies]

By far the favorite flake food among my fish. Definitely gonna need to grab a couple more of these since I just ran out yesterday.



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[soggycookies]

Some of my old QT setups. Simple 2’ tanks suitable for fish between 1~4inches in solo quarantine. Got a 3-tier shelf unit from Ikea and added additional bracing for support. Each tank held about 50L of water

 

 

 

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