Friday, October 31, 2014

22 MONTHS

Time passes by so quickly and we are approaching the end of the year soon. I can't believe that I have almost been reefing for close to 2 years since I restarted in Jan 2013.

Interestingly, I have 2 marine aquariums in the office and 2 at home. It's addictive and each aquarium allows me to keep different lps stuff. The following cube aquarium in my office is a high nutrient aquarium because I do not run a skimmer or do not have any very effective filtration. So I get frequent algal blooms like what is seen below. However, this allows me to keep the Anthelia (Waving Hands) which is spreading like a carpet now across the sandy bottom. I am also trying to grow the Caulerpa macroalgae here.

Anyway, the poor blue-yellow damsel which was originally from this aquarium was bullied by the blue devil damsel in the other office aquarium after I tried to introduce it into the aquarium and had its tail bitten off. It is recovering from the attack and is still lacking a tail but otherwise it is fine. Fishes can really be vicious, I must say.

this carpet is really beautiful!

the golden maroon clown and damsel


the leather coral at the right corner is also growing very big



it's a dumping ground for my bleached lps too

the green algae and cyanobacteria is disconcerting

Aquarium 1 (1 ft cube - 27 litres)
I discovered the carcass of the dead Flameback Angel at the back of the aquarium on one of the mornings when I found it missing. It has been with me for months now and I don't even know why it died suddenly. 

Anyway, I just added a Royal Gramma a few days ago but somehow it has not reappeared and I am afraid it might be gone too. What a shame!

The list of livestock is as follows: 
  • Fishes 
    • Yellow Shrimp Goby
    • 2 true Percula ocellaris clowns
    • Hector Goby
    • Royal Gramma
  • Invertebrates 
    • 3 Turbo Snails 
    • Nassarius Snail 
  • Corals
    • SPS
      • bleached Monti Cap
    • LPS
      • 2 Acans
      • mega Blasto
      • Bubble Coral
      • Torch Coral
    • Soft Corals
      • Rose Bud Tip Anemone and Bud Tip Anemone
      • bleached green tipped Leather Coral
    • Polyps
      • unknown green coral
      • Anthelia frag
      • pink Goniopora
      • Zoas
    • Mushrooms 
      • a few blue Actinodiscus mushrooms
      • a few green Rhodactis mushrooms
  • Macroalgae
    • green Caulerpa
    • red algae
    • purple algae
The technical information is as follows:
  • Dolphin H-200 hang-on-back filter
  • Shiruba XB-303 External Filter
  • Maxspect Razor Nano 60W (10,000 K)
  • Tunze Osmolator Nano
  • Aqua Cool Fan 


somehow this Monti cap seems to regain some colour

this Zoas from aquarium 3 wasn't growing well so I transferred it here

even some of the Acans are plumper here

this Acan has also regained some flesh


I tried to seed the same Anthelia here but it's not taking off



the Hector Goby is getting plump too



hopefully the Zoas will spread quickly



this mega Blasto is also doing well here

the stinging tentacles are always out

the patches on the Monti cap are taking on a yellow colour
















































Aquarium 3 (3 x 1.5 x 1.5 feet and sump - 250 litres)
I did a rescape with 4 new pieces of live rocks from SeaLife this month and a number of frags were added gradually. Somehow I find the bigger colonies that I buy from GO has a higher incidence of stn when compared to the smaller frags. I have lost a purple and a green SPS to stn and rtn. I am not sure if it's because I moved them multiple times over a couple of days due to the rescaping.

By the way, I like the look of the raised bridges towards the back that gave me lots of room to add the SPS frags. There is still some room for some SPS but once it is filled, I would probably have to be contented with watching them grow over the upcoming months.

I have a tube worm problem which I mentioned previously and I added a Copperband Butterfly to help control the population but somehow I don't see it feed on the tube worms or pellet food although I am not complaining about its beauty. It is the biggest fish in this aquarium now.

The updated list of livestock is:
  • Fishes
    • false Percula Clown Fish
    • 2 black Clowns
    • Purple Tang
    • Blue-yellow Damsel
    • Six Line Wrasse
    • Yellow Tang
    • Flame Angel
    • Hector Goby
    • Copperband Butterfly
  • Invertebrates
    • Turbo, Nassarius and Bumble Bee snails
    • electric blue Hermit Crab
    • 2 red Linckia starfishes
    • 2 Tuxedo Urchins
    • 4 small Hermit Crabs
    • Cleaner Skunk Shrimp
    • Fire Shrimp
    • Clam
    • orange Sea Squirt
    • blue Tunicates
  • Corals
    • SPS
      • Horn Coral
      • 2 frags of green digitata
      • frag of pink Pocci
      • frag of Birdnest
      • frag of pink Birdnest
      • frag of purple digitata
      • 2 frags of radioactive Birdnests
      • frag of salmon digitata
      • 2 frags of Optic Fibre Pocci
      • frag of green Stylophora
      • green Monti cap
      • frag of red digitata
      • frag of green Monti with orange polyps
      • frag of unknown green stag
      • pink tabling Millepora
      • blue valida
      • tabling sps
      • unknown Millepora
      • 2 green frags
      • purple stag
      • blue sps
      • blue stag
      • white Monti cap with purple polyps
      • purple digitata frag
      • purple Birdnest
      • orange sps
      • red sps
      • purple sps
    • LPS
      • 4 Acans
      • Hammer Coral
      • Supersun Coral
      • red Brain Coral (recovering from bleaching)
      • 2 Blastos
      • orange Chalice
      • yellow Bubble Coral
      • unknown orange coral
    • Mushrooms
      • orange Ricordea yuma mushrooms
      • rock of blue Actinodiscus mushrooms
      • brown hairy mushrooms
    • Soft Corals
      • 2 Chili Corals
      • red Flower Rock Anemone
      • 2 pink Rose Bud Tip Anemones
    • Polyps 
      • purple Zoas
      • green Palythoa
      • Glove Polyps
      • 1 brown and 4 green Star Polyps
  • Macroalgae
    • Caulerpa
    • Chaetomorpha
    • red Bamboo

The technical details are:
  • Jebao Marine Aqua DC-6000 return pump
  • Maxspect R420R 16,000k 120W
  • AquaBeauty 70W LED lights
  • Reef Octopus BH1000 skimmer
  • 2 Two Little Fishes Phosban Reactor running Phosban
  • Dymax cooling fan (42 CFM)
  • Fluval 3 external filter
  • MP25 and RW-8 wavemaker
  • Tunze Nano Osmolator
  • Marine Magic Triplet Dosing

close-up of the Supersun Coral






the purple Birdnest from Iwarna

FTS


the left side

the center

the right side


sps frags on bridge 1


another FTS





the second link


top view of the left side

top view of the center

top view of the right side


this green Monti cap has turned brown





purple Zoas

purple digitata frag

yellow Fan Worm

recovered Acan



close-up of Supersun

true Optic Fibre Pocci

blue Tunicates from Marine Life

blue sps from Iwarna


orange Sea Squirt from Marine Life

Glove Polyps


true Optic Fibre under 100% blue
FTS under 100% blue lights


the newest gsp

I am still figuring out what this is



I cannot really tell if the Copperband Butterfly is doing well or not?