FIVE MONTHS

It has been a long one month and many things have changed in the tanks. I am still highly dissatisfied with the layout and scaping and am trying to be more selective in the addition of any new members into the tanks. I said trying because it is hard to resist the temptation of buying the corals when I go coral shopping and there is a fair share of regrets when it comes to new introductions.

Anyway, the updates on the 2 aquariums are as follows:

Tank 1 (1 ft cube - 27 litres)
In the last monthly post, I mentioned that I was irked by the thick protruding inlet tube of the Atman hang-on-filter. So I got it replaced with the Easy Aqua Ex500 External Filter.

The list of livestock etc is as follows:

• Fishes
• 1 Clown Fish (Candy)
• 1 Hector's Goby (Hector)
• 1 Six Line Wrasse (Wendy)
• 1 Blue Neon Goby (Bernard)
• Invertebrates
• 1 red and white Pistol Shrimp (Paul)
• 3 Pom Pom Crabs (Penelope, Phoebe and Phyllis - 1 of them was no where to be seen though and could possibly be dead)
• 4 Turbo Snails
• 2 Nassarius Snails
• 1 small Yellow Cucumber
• 1 Coco-worm (Coco)
• 2 small (yellow and red) Feather Duster Worms
• Corals
• LPS
• 1 red Acan Brain Coral
• 1 pink Sun Coral
• 1 Bubble Coral (Badly shrunk from tank 2)
• 1 brown Elegance Coral
• Mushrooms
• 2 plates of red Actinodiscus mushrooms (1 is bleaching)
• 1 plate of blue Actinodiscus mushrooms
• 1 plate of Ricordea mushrooms
• 2 orange Ricordea yuma mushrooms
• Soft Corals
• 1 Rose Tip Bubble Anemone
• 1 Chili Coral
• Polyps
• 1 piece of Green Star Polyps and 1 mat of GSP
• 2 frags of green Palm Tree Coral
• 1 frag of orange Palm Tree Coral
• 1 fluorescent Goniopora with pink eye (It has not opened for weeks now although it is not dead)
• 1 brown Goniopora (It expands so big all the time that Candy prefers to be hosted here than at the RBTA)
• 1 rock of brown Daisy (Clove) Polyp (It shrunk so much that only a few remaining polyps are seen)
• 1 green Palythoa
• 1 frag of green Zoanthus (cannot find 1 frag)
• Macroalgae
• 1 rock of red bamboo macroalgae
• 1 plate of red wavy macroalgae (Ulva) 
• 2 clumps of red branched macroalgae

The casualties are:

• 1 Red Spotted Goby (Ralph)
• 1 Cleaner Skunk Shrimp (Chris - I woke up one morning and saw a Nassarius snail eating the body of the shrimp. It was disgusting.)
• 1 Pom Pom Crab (I don't see it anymore)
• 3 big Feather Duster Worms
• 1 piece of GSP (Polyps were all withdrawn)

The technical information is as follows:

• 1 Ocean Free Hang-on-Back filter 2
• 1 Easy Aqua Ex500 External Filter
• 1 Green Element 3W LED light (4 white, 2 blue)
• 1 Tunze Osmolator Nano
• 1 Dymax Cooling Fan

Tank 2 (1.5 feet cube - 56 litres)

I am still battling some phosphate problems and transferred my Two Little Fishes Phosban Reactor home to run the NP biopellets and am also dosing the Brightwell Aquatics Reef BioFuel daily. It looks like I have to set up one more reactor to run phosphate removers.

The updated list of livestock etc is:

• Fishes
• 2 Clown Fish (Cindy and Cynthia)
• 1 Yellow Wrasse (Yogi)
• 1 Six Line Wrasse (Selena)
• 1 Hector's Goby (Henry)
• Invertebrates
• 1 Fire Shrimp (Felicia)
• 1 Cleaner Skunk Shrimp (Calisto)
• 7 Turbo snails
• 2 Nassarius snails
• 3 Bumble Bee snails
• 1 electric blue and 1 red Hermit Crabs
• 2 Coco-worms
• 1 big and 1 small (yellow) Feather Duster Worm
• 1 blue Clam
• Corals
• SPS
• 1 pink digitata sps
• 1 brown Millipora
• 3 frags of white sps
• LPS
• 
  
• 1 orange Sun Coral
• 1 rock of fluorescent green and blue Goniopora
• 1 rock of shrinking fluorescent Goniopora
• 1 cream Elegance Coral
• 1 pink Hammer Coral
• 1 green Frogspawn Coral
• 1 branched Candy Cane (bleached and transferred to office tank)
• Mushrooms
• 1 rock of orange Ricordea yuma mushrooms
• 2 green Ricordea mushrooms
• 1 branch of Rhodactis mushrooms
• 1 plate of purple Actinodiscus mushrooms
• Soft Corals
• 2 rocks of Xenia
• 1 rock of Finger Mushroom Coral
• 1 Leather Coral (from office tank)
• 1 pink Cauliflower Tree Coral
• 1 Chili Coral
• Polyps
• 1 rock of Clove Polyps
• 2 frags of orange Palm Tree Corals
• 1 brown Palythoa
• 1 rock, 2 plates and 6 plugs of Zoanthus
• 1 mat of Green Star Polyps
• 1 rock of Green Star Polyps (polyps disappeared and growing Halimeda macroalgae)
• 1 branched GSP (from tank 1)
• 1 Organ Pipe Coral
• Macroalgae
• 1 red Bamboo (transferred to office tank)
• 1 big and 1 small red Bubble macroalgae
• 1 red branched macroalgae
• Halimeda

The casualties are:

• 1 Tigertail Seahorse
• 2 Banded Pipefish
• 2 purple Clams
• 1 blue Millipora

The technical details are:

• Eheim 2213 external canister filter
• Tunze 9004 skimmer
• Green Element LED (12 white 12000k and 8 blue 460 nm) with 2 mini fans
• 1 Two Little Fishes Phosban Reactor running NP biopellets
• 1 Sunon fan
• 1 wavemaker

DAYS 100-101

I told myself I must post about this before I forget about it.

When I first re-started reefing in January 13, I noticed there was quite a bit of small, white creatures, presumably copepods, that were crawling over my tank. However, I realized that I stopped seeing them altogether recently. I wonder if my current tank parameters are non-conducive for them to survive.

On a different note, I would usually look at the tank inhabitants in tank 1 and count the number of Sexy Shrimps in it to check if all 10 that I bought are still around. I would always heaved a sigh of relief when all of them are accounted for. However, just 2 days ago, I counted only 8 Sexy Shrimps and wondered if the remaining 2 were hiding behind the rock works. Yesterday, I found it very strange to spot only 1 shrimp and this morning even the only one was completely missing. 

I also found the white branched Goniopora either dead or dying. The typical tentacles didn't extend beyond the skeleton but looked as if they have receded almost completely.

While checking out the tank for any trace of the Sexy Shrimps, to my horror I spotted 2 small crabs. I initially thought that something must be eating them and I seriously wonder then if it was these crabs. How else can anyone explain the sudden disappearance of the Sexies after I had all 10 of them with me for 3 months now? I must start to set some traps for these crabs soon before I decide to purchase and add new Sexy Shrimps.

By the way, I added 2 gobies to tank 1 recently but I have not seen the Neon Goby ever since it was introduced. I feared it is dead. At least I could see the Red Spotted Goby hiding behind the rock works but I too am worried if it would be preyed upon by the crabs.

As for tank 2, there were a number of additions. The second seahorse was found to be dead when I came home from work. The Neon and Yellow Gobies got along fine initially when they were sharing the same container but I now noticed the Neon Goby has been chasing the Yellow Goby around.

The red Coco-Worm and the Tridacna maxima clam are simply amazing! The branched Gonipora has not opened up properly yet and I brought back the Chilli Coral and the branched Candy Cane from the office today. Unfortunately the Sympodium in this tank sort of melted away completely.

All in all, it was both a sad yet exciting day that saw the disappearance or death of some but addition of others