Monday, March 31, 2014

15 MONTHS

There are a number of updates for March 2014.

The first few photos are taken of one of my office tanks. In terms of lighting, it is looking good in the photos, unlike the home aquariums photos which I took using the same iphone camera.

For Tank 1, sadly it seems like all the purple algae are all eaten by the Tang. This algae was both a boon and a bane for me in that I love how it looks and it grows very fast but it spreads like wild fire. On the other hand, now that it's gone, I hope there are still some left for me to grow.

For Tank 2, I just added some sps recently and I am having a silicates problem with it now because I have been using tap water to top up the evaporated water. What is interesting is I finally knew what the strange snail is - a Cowry! The shell may be shiny but the mantle completely wraps around the shell and engulf it. The Sympodium coral is also growing very well and has almost covered the entire frag of rock.

The exciting news is I have ordered a 3 feet x 1.5 feet x 1.5 feet tank with a sump from East Ocean Aquatic about a week ago and it should be coming in probably a week's time. I shall name it Tank 3 and I am feeling very excited about it because I haven't had a 3 feet tank since the time I lived at Newton more than 8 years ago. Over the last year, I have gained a lot more experience and there are a lot of technological advancements e.g. LED lights, that have made marine or reef aquariums more colourful, interesting and sustainable. In addition, I started dabbling in sps and am rather confident that this time I should be able to make it look much better than months before, especially with the regular programmed dosing.

This should be the last post on the Tank 2 aquarium (the 56 litres, 1.5 feet cube) since I intend to decommission it and shift everything over to the main 3 feet display tank. For tank 1, I may not dismantle it since it takes up only a small footprint and can be used for keeping some stuff that cannot be kept in Tank 3.

The following are the livestock and technical updates:

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

  • Fishes 
    • Clown Fish
    • Flameback Angel
    • Purple Tang
    • Yellow Goby
  • Invertebrates 
    • 2 Cleaner Skunk Shrimps
    • 2 Pom Pom Crabs 
    • big red Hermit Crab & 3 small red Hermit Crabs 
    • 2 Turbo Snails 
    • Nassarius Snail 
    • 1 big brown, 1 big yellow-brown, 1 purple and 2 small yellow Feather Duster worms
    • 2 big and 1 small clams
    • Fromia starfish and red Linckia starfish
  • Corals 
    • LPS 
      • grey red Acan
      • orange blue Acan
      • orange Fungia
  • Mushrooms 
    • plate of blue Actinodiscus mushrooms 
    • Ricordea yuma mushrooms
  • Soft Corals 
    • Chili Coral
  • Polyps 
    • frag of pink-green Palm Tree (Clove) Coral
    • mixture of Zoas
    • yellow Parazoanthus
    • Sympodium and Xenia
  • Macroalgae
    • green Caulerpa
The technical information is as follows:
  • Sobo WP-607H hanging filter
  • Dolphin H-200 hang-on-back filter
  • 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
    • Yellow Tang
    • Blue-yellow Damsel
    • Flame Angel
  • Invertebrates
    • Fire Shrimp
    • Cleaner Skunk Shrimp
    • Turbo snails
    • Nassarius snails
    • 2 Bumble Bee snails
    • electric blue Hermit Crab
    • 2 Clams
    • red Linckia starfish
    • green Carpet Anemone
  • Corals
    • SPS
      • grey Monti Cap
      • pink Birdsnest
      • Acropora
      • 1 pink and 1 yellow Millepora
      • purple Acropora secale
    • LPS
      • green red Acan and orange green Acan
      • Hammer Coral
    • Mushrooms
      • orange Ricordea yuma mushroom
      • 4 red Actinodiscus mushrooms
      • 2 rocks of Discosoma mushrooms
    • Soft Corals
      • Chili Coral
    • Polyps
      • 7 rocks of mixed Zoas & plugs of Zoas
      • 2 mats of Green Star Polyps
      • brown Daisy Polyps
      • yellow Parazoanthus
      • mixture of Palythoa
      • mixture of Zoas
      • white Organ Pipe Coral
      • blue Sympodium 
      • 1 green and 2 purple Goniopora
      • green Alveopora
  • 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 
  • Marine Magic Triplet Dosing
I just planted the Caulerpa in the sand

the Flower Pot anemone is growing bigger

What I think is the Anthelia on the left is growing so fast

the 3 sps that I introduced to Tank 2 on 28 Mar 14

the other 2 sps

the Birdnest sps

close-up of the twin-stalk pale green and yellow Millepora

close-up of the pink Millepora

close-up of Acropora

close-up of the Acropora valida

close-up of purple Millepora

Tank 2


taken on 29 Mar 14 with more polyps extension than on 28 Mar 14

more polyps extension on this too












red Linckia starfish


boring Tank 1 taken on 31 Mar 14


top view of Tank 1