Tuesday, December 31, 2013

ONE YEAR

The Flameback Angel is elusive and shies away from the camera
Wow, it has been 366 days since I started the tank 1. It is actually quite unbelievable that a year has gone by so quickly and I now have a total of 5 marine tanks (2 at home and 3 at the office). It is crazy, I know. I actually spent more than half the time wiping the glass of algae etc. Naturally, I am still far away from the big guys with sps and I may still try them at a later time when I have more time to manage the tanks, but for now, I am happy with just other corals.

December is kind of a slow month for me in the sense that I didn't add much stuff into the 2 home tanks. However, I did more shifting of soft corals etc around both tanks.

In terms of colour, tank 1 is not as colourful anymore. It is quite pink and purple against my wishes and I wish to add more yellow and orange if I can. For tank 2, I have stocked a number of the Zoas from tank 1 and it is kind of crowded but I am still not completely pleased with it yet.

To end the year, the information on the two tanks are below:

Tank 1 (1 ft cube - 27 litres)

The list of livestock is as follows: 

  • Fishes 
    • 3 Clown Fish
    • Flameback Angel
  • Invertebrates 
    • 2 Cleaner Skunk Shrimps
    • 3 Pom Pom Crabs 
    • big red Hermit Crab & 3 small red Hermit Crabs 
    • 2 Turbo Snails 
    • Nassarius Snail 
    • red Coco-worm 
    • 1 big brown, 1 big yellow-brown and 2 small yellow Feather Duster worms
  • Corals 
    • SPS
      • brown Monti Cap
      • grey Monti Cap
    • LPS 
      • grey red Acan
      • pink Acan turned orange blue
      • orange green Acan which looks a bit like the topmost one
  • Mushrooms 
    • plate of blue Actinodiscus mushrooms 
    • 2 orange Ricordea yuma mushrooms
    • a few assorted colour Ricordea florida mushrooms
  • Soft Corals 
    • Chili Coral
  • Polyps 
    • purple Goniopora
    • frag of pink-green Palm Tree (Clove) Coral 
    • rock of brown Daisy Polyps 
    • green Palythoa
    • red Palythoa 
    • mixture of Zoas
  • Macroalgae 
    • clumps of green Caulerpa
    • purple algae
The technical information is as follows:
  • Sobo WP-607H hanging filter
  • PS 2012 protein skimmer
  • Maxspect Razor Nano 60W (10,000 K)
  • Tunze Osmolator Nano 
  • Dymax Vortex W-9 Cooling Fan 

Tank 2 (1.5 feet cube - 56 litres)
The updated list of livestock is:
  • Fishes
    • Flame Angel
    • Royal Gramma
    • Yellow Tang
  • Invertebrates
    • Fire Shrimp
    • Cleaner Skunk Shrimp
    • Peppermint Shrimp
    • Turbo snails
    • Nassarius snails
    • 2 Bumble Bee snails
    • electric blue Hermit Crab
    • yellow Coco-worms
    • blue Clam
  • Corals
    • Mushrooms
      • orange and rock of purple-pink Ricordea yuma mushrooms
      • Ricordea florida mushrooms
      • 4 red Actinodiscus mushrooms
      • 2 rocks of Discosoma mushrooms
    • Soft Corals
      • rock of Finger Mushroom Coral
    • Polyps
      • 6 rocks of mixed Zoas & plugs of Zoas
      • 2 mats of Green Star Polyps
      • brown Daisy Polyps
      • yellow Parazoanthus
      • green Palythoa
  • Macroalgae
    • Halimeda
    • Caulerpa
The technical details are:
  • Eheim 2213 external canister filter
  • Bubble Magus Q3 skimmer
  • AquaBeauty 70W LED lights
  • Two Little Fishes Phosban Reactor running Phosban
  • Dymax Windy W-7 cooling fan (42 CFM)
  • Hydor Nano and Boyu (WM-101) wavemakers
  • Tunze Nano Osmolator
  • Dosing container
I lost the earlier pink Palm Tree Coral and this is the second



One of the Acans

I love the combination of this Zoas rock

Another Acan
This purple Goniopora is one of my favourites for a long while

Tank 2 still looks flat in terms of colour and texture
Without other similar fishes, this Royal Gramma is doing well

The algae eating Yellow Tang

The gregarious Fire Shrimp

Thank goodness the Cleaner Skunk Shrimp occupies another corner


The most colourful fish in my tank is the Flame Angel

The combination of Zoas

The Daisy Coral and yellow Parazoanthus

This blue clam is the only one with me for the last 9 months

Close-up of these 3 Zoas colonies

A beautiful mushroom

The Sunflower Zoas is the brightest in my tank

Saturday, December 28, 2013

FLOWER POT ANEMONE


I was shocked to find my Fire Goby head over heels in the flower pot anemone in the office tank the other day. I don't know if it was eaten alive or was it eaten after it was dead. There seemed to be no struggle though and since it was already dead, I decided not to pull it out since I didn't have the heart to do it too. I just let it be food to the anemone.