SEVEN MONTHS

This month seemed kind of long, possibly because I didn't post any updates. However, this doesn't mean there wasn't much that went on with the tanks. Rather, there were quite a bit of ups and downs than I cared to admit. One thing is for sure though. My tanks are currently still unsuitable for sps because I had a hard time keeping the parameters stable.

Keeping sps is really not an easy thing for everyone unless one has a dosing pump and good lights. If there is one important thing I learnt, it is sps requires stability and doesn't like sudden changes in kH. A few of my sps showed rapid tissue necrosis (rtn) or slow tissue necrosis (stn) after I dosed a huge amount of kalkwasser into the top up tank. It is not an easy task trying to maintain stable amounts of kH, Ca and Mg with manual dosing. Despite all the efforts to measure these parameters, the fluctuations that arise with dosing are just frustrating. The other thing that suddenly dawned on me is that my sps are losing its colours, possibly due to the short lighting period or insufficient PAR from the Maxspect. I have since adjusted the Maxspect white and blue lights to be on for longer hours and hope the colours resume although I am skeptical about it. If the colours really do not revert, then that can only one thing - the Maxspect lighting spectrum is insufficient and this would be a huge disappointment.

Anyway, I decided from this post on, I would not be including the list of casualties anymore so as not to focus on the negative aspects of this wonderful hobby.

Tank 1 (1 ft cube - 27 litres)
The list of livestock is as follows: 

• Fishes 
• 3 Clown Fish 
• 1 Purple Dottyback 
• 1 Royal Gramma 
• 2 Fire Gobies 
• Invertebrates 
• 1 Cleaner Skunk Shrimp 
• 2 Pom Pom Crabs 
• 1 big red Hermit Crab & 3 small red Hermit Crabs 
• 2 Turbo Snails 
• 1 Nassarius Snail 
• 1 red Coco-worm 
• 1 small (yellow) and 1 big (brown) Feather Duster Worms 
• Corals 
• SPS 
• 1 bleached Acropora 
• 1 Pocci with stn 
• LPS 
• 1 pink Sun Coral 
• 1 Bubble Coral 
• 1 cream Elegance Coral 
• 1 green Frogspawn Coral 
• Mushrooms 
• 1 plate of blue Actinodiscus mushrooms 
• 1 orange Ricordea yuma mushroom 
• Soft Corals 
• 1 Rose Tip Bubble Anemone 
• 2 Chili Corals 
• 1 Xenia 
• Polyps 
• 1 mat of Green Star Polyps 
• 2 frags of green Palm Tree Coral 
• 1 rock of brown Daisy (Clove) Polyps 
• 1 green and 1 red Palythoa 
• 1 green and 5 pieces of Zoas 
• 1 Rasta (6) & Sunflower (1) Zoas 
• Macroalgae 
• 1 plate of red wavy macroalgae (Ulva) 
• 2 clumps of red branched macroalgae 
• clumps of green Caulerpa 

The technical information is as follows:

• 1 Ocean Free Hang-on-Back filter 2 
• 1 Easy Aqua Ex500 External Filter with wave deflector 
• 1 Green Element LED 60W (12 white 12000k and 8 blue 460 nm) with 2 mini fans 
• 1 Tunze Osmolator Nano 
• 1 Dymax Cooling Fan 

Tank 2 (1.5 feet cube - 56 litres)
The updated list of livestock is:

• Fishes
• 1 Yellow Tang
• 1 Flame Angel
• 1 Yellow Wrasse
• 1 Six Line Wrasse
• Invertebrates
• 1 Fire Shrimp
• 1 Cleaner Skunk Shrimp
• 7 Turbo snails
• 2 Nassarius snails
• 2 Bumble Bee snails
• 1 electric blue Hermit Crab
• 2 Coco-worms (1 red and 1 yellow)
• 2 brown and 1 grey big and 1 yellow small Feather Duster Worms
• 1 blue Clam
• Corals
• SPS
• 1 horn coral
• 1 blue-tipped and 1 green-tipped Acropora
• 1 green Pocci
• 1 encrusting blue-green Monti
• 1 brown Monti cap, 1 brown Monti cap with SPS, 4 frags of Monti caps (pink, brown, royal purple, mixed)
• LPS
• 1 rock of fluorescent green and blue Goniopora
• 1 fluorescent Octo Coral
• Mushrooms
• 5 orange Ricordea yuma mushrooms
• 12 Ricordea florida mushrooms
• 1 plate of purple Actinodiscus mushrooms
• Soft Corals
• 1 Xenia
• 1 rock of Finger Mushroom Coral
• Polyps
• 1 brown Palythoa
• 2 plates of Zoanthus
• plugs of Zoanthus (Incredible/KO 9, Emerald on Fire 6, Fruit Loops 6, Pink Panther 3, Eagle Eye 9, Sunflower 5 + Golden Clove 2, Red Eagle Eye 4, Fire and Ice 3, Nuclear Green 2, Nuclear Death 5, Purple Death 7, Pink unknown 6) 
• 2 mats of Green Star Polyps, 1 frag of GSP
• 1 Organ Pipe Coral
• Sea Fan
• 1 Blueberry
• 1 Purple
• Macroalgae
• 1 red Ulva macroalgae
• 1 red branched macroalgae
• Halimeda

The technical details are:

• Eheim 2213 external canister filter
• Atman hang-on-back filter
• Bubble Magus Q3 skimmer
• Maxspect Razor Nano 60W (10,000k)
• 1 Two Little Fishes Phosban Reactors running Phosban
• 1 Dymax fan
• 2 Hydor Nano wavemakers
• 1 Tunze Nano Osmolator