my reef GARden frenzY: October 2013

This is a month of little change. In fact, I shifted a lot of the corals around the two aquariums and moved some to my office tank. These days, capturing the photos is a problem for me because somehow my iphone and Nikon cameras are unable to record the true colours of the fishes and corals.

For tank 1, I still find that the assortment of Zoas provides a richer palette of colours.

For tank 2, there was a significant reduction in corals. For October, there were only additions of 3 rocks of Yuma and Actinodiscus mushrooms and shifting of some of the rocks and Zoas. Unfortunately, this tank suffered a nudibranch attack, presumably from some corals that I last bought. Things are still not under control and sadly, the Zoas are not opening up optimally. Things are also not looking too good in this tank because I have problems maintaining the kH of the water. I am left with only a few pieces of SPS and the green and red digitatas have almost lost all its colours. I guessed it was due to bleaching under the 80-100% of the white intensity of the AquaBeauty LED lights but I have since reduced it to 10% daily but there is still no improvement. I suspected the phosphates were high since I started seeing the appearance of algae and had since replaced the phosphate removers. Ruling out the high light intensity and phosphates as the causes of the poor appearances of the SPS corals, I can only suspect the water quality as well as the delicate balance of kH, Mg and Ca as the principal causes.

Another astonishing thing for me was also the discovery of one big crab in each of the two tanks. The one in tank 1 has a rougher exoskeleton while the one in tank 2 looks like a solid black. They looked menacing to me and I wonder if they were accountable for the disappearance of some fishes.

As for the LED lights, whilst I did receive the Maxspect Razor 120W early this month, mounting it proved to be an issue. Hence, I replaced back the AquaBeauty.

All the information on the two tanks are listed below:

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

Fishes

3 Clown Fish
Flameback Angel

Invertebrates

Cleaner Skunk Shrimp
3 Pom Pom Crabs
big red Hermit Crab & 3 small red Hermit Crabs
2 Turbo Snails
Nassarius Snail
red Coco-worm
big (brown) Feather Duster Worms

Corals

brown Monti Cap
grey Monti Cap

grey red Acan
pink Acan

Mushrooms

plate of blue Actinodiscus mushrooms
orange Ricordea yuma mushroom

Soft Corals

Chili Coral

Polyps

purple Goniopora
frag of green Palm Tree Coral
rock of brown Daisy (Clove) Polyps
green Palythoa
red Palythoa
mixture of Zoas

Macroalgae

clumps of green Caulerpa
purple algae

The technical information is as follows:

Easy Aqua Ex500 External Filter with wave deflector

PS 2012 protein skimmer

Maxspect Razor Nano 60W (10,000 K)

Tunze Osmolator Nano

Dymax Vortex W-8 Cooling Fan (10.5 CFM)

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

Fishes

Flame Angel
Hector Goby
Royal Gramma

Invertebrates

Fire Shrimp
Cleaner Skunk Shrimp
7 Turbo snails
2 Nassarius snails
2 Bumble Bee snails
electric blue Hermit Crab
red and yellow Coco-worms
brown and grey Feather Duster Worms
blue Clam

Corals

green digitata
red digitata
Acropora secale
unknown white
green Horn Coral

orange green Acan

Mushrooms

2 rocks and 5 orange Ricordea yuma mushrooms
12 Ricordea florida mushrooms
4 red Actinodiscus mushrooms

Soft Corals

rock of Finger Mushroom Coral

Polyps

Pink Clove Polyps
plate of green skirt orange center Zoas, plate of mixed green and green skirt orange center Zoas
plugs of Zoanthus (Incredible/KO 9, Fruit Loops 5, Eagle Eye 10, Sunflower >20, Red Eagle Eye 17, Nuclear Death 6, Purple Death 7, Rasta 14 and Sunflower 2)
2 mats of Green Star Polyps, frag of GSP