my reef GARden frenzY: November 2016

It is almost the end of the year soon. Today is an important day because I spent 6 hours tearing Aquarium 3 apart so that I could net a few fishes that I intend to give away and eventually decommission Aquarium 1.

Aquarium 1 (1 feet cube - 27 litres)
I don't intend to post anymore embarrassing photos of this aquarium since I am decommissioning it soon.

I finally found the problem that caused the Sea Urchin to drop its spines and the severe algal bloom after I changed more than 50% of the aquarium water. Apparently, the big snail died and it polluted the water with the high ammonia, which in turn caused my 2 Camel Shrimps to die. The spike in ammonia and nitrite resulted in the tank crash which probably stressed the Sea Urchin and Tree Coral so much that they almost died too.

The 2 Clown Fish, Royal Gramma, Cleaner Shrimp, Zoas, Tree Coral and a Nassarius snail survived and I transferred the 2 Clown Fish and Royal Gramma to Aquarium 3. It now housed the 3 inch Blue Tang, the 2 inch Tomato Clown, a Blue Damsel which I will give to a LFS tomorrow. The bigger Royal Gramma from Aquarium 3 was also temporarily housed here so that when I put it back to Aquarium 3 together with the Cleaner Shrimp and snail, hopefully it wouldn't go after the smaller Royal Gramma.

The tank glass is so badly covered with algae that I don't intend to keep the tank after I decommission it.

Aquarium 3 (3 x 1.5 x 1.5 feet and sump - 250 litres)
This will be my default aquarium for the next 2 years until the big move comes along. Today's massive cleanup and rescaping ended with one casualty and two stowaways that I found.

Although the Blue Tang brought along a beautiful blue with it, it pooped so much and I was worried about how I would net it someday, so I decided to part with it. The Tomato Clown was so aggressive that it wouldn't tolerate the 2 smaller False Clown Fish, so it had to go.

My Orange Striped Prawn Goby that I had for months was the casualty that got sucked into the siphoning tube. I didn't know it until I poured away the pail of brown dirty water and found the fish struggling in my sink. It was a sad thing but I don't wish to dwell on it further.

To my surprise, I found a 2 inch Mantis Shrimp and a 2 inch hairy Crab. Even as I am typing this, the crab is attempting to escape from the trap I put it in.

I realized my Chaetomorpha completely died out after I started running the NP reducing biopellets.

Sadly, my Jebao Marine Aqua DC-6000 return pump died on me when I was doing the makeover. Looks like I have to head out to get a replacement pump tomorrow. By the way, since about 2 months back, my Aqua Illumination Hydra 52 HD lights blacked out on me every night at midnight for half an hour before resuming the lighting. I checked and reset the settings but it didn't help. Since it is for half an hour only, I decided not to pursue the matter.

So anyway, the final livestock is as follows:

Fishes