ELEVEN MONTHS

Tank 1

I didn't do much about the two home aquariums this month until yesterday when I had some time to purchase some fishes and corals to stock up the tanks. Prior to this, I shifted some stuff to my office tanks. Yes, I probably forgot to mention this before but I have two nano aquariums in the office.

Anyway, I am still quite pleased with tank 1 because of the wonderful colours of the Zoas and others. Interestingly, this small setup proves to be very good for the LPS and softies because the mushrooms and Acans seem to thrive under these conditions. One of the Acans in tank 2 started to bleach previously under the high light intensity and low nutrients system and after being transferred to tank 1, it recovered well and is starting to look exactly like the existing grey and red one in the same tank. The Zoas are growing fast here but so are the purple filamentous algae, which looked sickly when I placed it in tank 2 previously. Every evening, I see the bluish-purple Actinodiscus mushrooms swell up to large discs and I think it is a haven for mushrooms. There are now 2 Clean Skunk Shrimps in this tank and one appears to be carrying eggs. I must also report success in netting the large crab in this tank last week and threw it into my main office tank with the bigger fishes. Hopefully it will be useful enough to scavenge the food scraps in the tank.

For tank 2, the algae problem persists because I still didn't do anything about it other than the usual scrubbing of the green filamentous algae on the aquarium walls. The introduction of the Yellow Tang did seem to provide some help in controlling the algae growth and it is working very hard 247. But even the foam sponges are now a media for the filamentous green algae to grow on. I kind of stopped dosing the Grotech and Polyp Lab products and have completely removed almost all the SPS and replaced them with more Zoas and softies although I do not wish to replicate tank 1's look. The newly acquired Peppermint Shrimp made a brief appearance when the blue lights were on but it is often out of sight. I continued to remove a few Zoas-eating nudibranchs over this month but it is getting less now and I am introducing the Zoas slowly. I am actually glad that this tank is a bit more colourful now and I will try the SPS again some other time.

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 
• 2 big (brown) Feather Duster Worms 
• Corals 
• SPS
• brown Monti Cap
• grey Monti Cap
• LPS 
• grey red Acan
• pink Acan which is looking at the top one now
• orange green Acan (from tank 2)
• 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 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:

• Easy Aqua Ex500 External Filter with wave deflector
• PS 2012 protein skimmer
• Maxspect Razor Nano 60W (10,000 K)
• Tunze Osmolator Nano 
• Dymax Vortex W-8 Cooling Fan (10.5 CFM) 

Tank 2 (1.5 feet cube - 56 litres)
The updated list of livestock is:

• Fishes
• Flame Angel
• Hector Goby (no sign of it anymore)
• Royal Gramma
• Yellow Tang
• Yellow Wrasse
• Invertebrates
• Fire Shrimp
• Cleaner Skunk Shrimp
• Peppermint Shrimp
• 7 Turbo snails
• 2 Nassarius snails
• 2 Bumble Bee snails
• electric blue Hermit Crab
• red and yellow Coco-worms
• brown Feather Duster Worms
• blue Clam
• Corals
• SPS
• unknown white
• Mushrooms
• orange and rock of purple-pink Ricordea yuma mushrooms
• 3 Ricordea florida mushrooms
• 4 red Actinodiscus mushrooms
• Soft Corals
• rock of Finger Mushroom Coral
• Polyps
• green Clove Polyps
• plate of green skirt orange center Zoas, plate of mixed green and green skirt orange center Zoas
• plugs of Zoanthus (Incredible/KO 9, Eagle Eye 10, Sunflower >20, Red Eagle Eye 17, Nuclear Death 6, Purple Death 7, Rasta 14 and Sunflower 2) 
• 2 mats of Green Star Polyps
• brown Daisy Polyps
• yellow Parazoanthus
• 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

Addition of a Cleaner Skunk Shrimp

Cross Damsel for the office tank

Grey red Acan partially covered by Caulerpa and orangey red Acan

Green red Acan

Top view of tank 1

Changes to tank 2 after yesterday's new introduction

Small Yellow Wrasse is the latest member of the fish family

Actinodiscus mushrooms (L) and green Palythoa (R)

Interesting mushrooms yet to open up

Yellow Parazoathus rock (C) and red Zoas (R) for office

Daisy Polyps (bottom L) and Clove Polyps (top R)

Purplish-pink Ricordea yuma mushrooms

THREE MONTHS

Finally, this is the update at the end of the 3rd month. Let me start off with a photo of what I thought was the corpse of the blue hermit crab that I found in my 1.5 feet tank yesterday. Thankfully, it was just a moult but it sure fooled me until I saw the real hermit crab moving.

Next is the full tank shot (fts) of the 1.5 feet tank showing the amended scape yesterday.

Then it is back to the fts photos, of the 2 tanks, taken just a while earlier. Clearly, there is still a lot of room for changes and improvement and that would happen in this 4th month. Until then, this is the most updated information on the 2 tanks:

Tank 1 (1 ft cube - 27 litres)
This tank had a brown oily film about 2 weeks back and I had to scoop it out during 3 water changes. I suspect this had something to do with the freeze dried Cyclop-Eeze that I fed in copious amounts to the tank because of the Sun Corals. Since I was caught up with other stuff and didn't have time to feed the Sun Corals individually, I realized the oil slick is gone although Sunny the orange Sun Coral doesn't look too happy. I am not sure if the water parameters are good but when I tested for phosphates with the Salifert test box about a week back, it registered 0 although I am still skeptical about it.

On a separate note, I am amazed that there are still 10 Sexy Shrimps around but I lost a brown Xenia and Yellow Polyps and I have a feeling that they may have something to do with it. I bought a grey Xenia recently but just two days in, I realized there were less clumps on the rock and had to transfer the rock over to tank 2. Again I am unsure if the shrimps are the culprits because I haven't been feeding them Mysis Shrimps.

I also observed that the new crown that Coco the Coco-Worm grew seemed to take on a more uniform pinkish crown instead of alternating strips of red and white before the two crowns were shed. I wonder what is the cause of this?

Overall, I am quite happy that the tank is quite stable and the fishes, invertebrates and macroalgae include:

• 1 Clown Fish (Candy)
• 1 Hector's Goby (Hector)
• 1 Six Line Wrasse (Wendy)
• 1 Diagonal Bar Goby paired with 1 red and white Pistol Shrimp
• 1 Cleaner Skunk Shrimp (Chris)
• 1 Fire Shrimp
• 10 Sexy Shrimps
• 1 Pom Pom Crab (Penelope)
• 3 Turbo Snails
• 2 Nassarius Snails
• 1 small Yellow Cucumber
• 1 Coco-worm
• 3 big and 2 small (yellow and red) Feather Duster Worms
• 3 pieces of Green Star Polyps
• 1 orange Sun Coral
• 1 pink Sun Coral
• 1 branched Sun Coral
• 1 Stick/Tree Coral (transferred to 1.5 feet tank)
• 2 frags of green Palm Tree Coral
• 1 frag of orange Palm Tree Coral
• 1 branched Goniopora
• 1 fluorescent Goniopora with white eye (with a bubble algae)
• 1 fluorescent Goniopora with pink eye
• 0 Candy Cane Coral (remaining 1 was brought to the office to make space here)
• 1 pink Cauliflower Tree Coral (1 clump moved to the rock formerly with Xenia)
• 1 plate of brown Daisy Polyps
• 1 plate of red Actinodiscus mushrooms
• 1 plate of blue Actinodiscus mushrooms
• 1 plate of Ricordea mushrooms
• 1 branch of Rhodactis mushrooms
• 1 orange Ricordea yuma mushroom
• 2 frags of green Zoanthus (5 small plugs, 1 medium plug and 2 plates transferred to 1.5 feet tank) 
• 1 Mushroom Finger Coral
• 1 Acropora Coral
• 1 unknown coral (not sure if it is Sympodium) with a small piece that broke off and it is still not opened up yet
• 1 rock of red bamboo macroalgae, 1 plate of red bubble macroalgae, 1 plate of red wavy macroalgae and 2 clumps of red branched macroalgae

The casualties are:

• 1 Red Spotted Goby (Renee) - committed suicide by jumping out of the tank when I was away in Taiwan
• 1 Fire Shrimp (Felicia) - disappeared after I came back from Taiwan
• 1 Xenia (presumably eaten by Sexy Shrimps)
• 1 rock of Yellow Polyps (it just slowly disappeared even though I fed it occasionally with Mysis Shrimps while the one in the office which is unfed is still growing)

The technical information is as follows:

• 1 Ocean Free Super Hang-On Filter 2
• 1 Atman HF-0600 hang on back filter
• 1 Green Element 3W LED light (4 white, 2 blue)
• 1 Beamworks LED light (31 white, 2 blue) - just a supplement for viewing
• 1 Tunze Osmolator Nano

Tank 2 (1.5 feet cube - 56 litres)

In comparison to tank 1, I am kind of disappointed with this newly setup tank. It is up for nearly 2 weeks now and the inhabitants are not happy and are not really feeding. Diatoms are appearing everywhere, on the glass and sand. Just the other day, I was sad to find 2 dead Cleaner Skunk Shrimps and a dead Tree Coral. One was actually carrying eggs. When I touched the water, it was so warm. I dipped my hand into tank 1 and surprisingly, the water was cooler. I immediately turned off the skimmer because I was worried the running submerged skimmer pump might have contributed to the heat. I guess I need to do something about this before adding any more shrimps.

These two days I also had to clear the carcasses of 2 dead Six Line Wrasses, which were absolutely gorgeous when I bought them. The remaining 3 Tigertail seahorses are very emanciated and I suspect their ends are near. They have taken on a pale yellow look but I could still make out their bony exoskeleton and their heads looked brown as if diatoms were growing on them. I do know that they can get infection easily in warm waters.

I have 2 clumps of Caulerpa (a feather and a bubble) and because of that, alternated the turning on of two sets of lights in my bid to prevent them going sexual. However, I am not sure if this is a permanent solution. The bubble is looking kind of strange now and if it does die on me, I may not grow anymore Caulerpa in the tank. Anyway, I doubt having the lights on almost 247 is the cause of the high water temperature.

A plate of Zoanthus in this tank and a Goniopora in tank 1 were purchased from Go Octopus and both are sprouting bubble algae. I have to find some means to remove the bubble algae sometime. By the way, all the Zoas have opened buttons here. So I suppose the Sexy Shrimps were the cause of them not opening up in tank 1 previously.

To end this post, here is the list of fishes, invertebrates etc:

• 3 Tigertail seahorses
• 3 Banded Pipefish
• 1 Yellow Wrasse
• 9 Turbo snails
• 2 Nassarius snails
• 1 electric blue Hermit Crab (meant for the office tank)
• 1 big and 1 small (yellow) Feather Duster Worm
• 1 salmon Tree Coral
• 1 Stick/Tree Coral (lost its fluorescence)
• 1 plate of grey Xenia with a sponge/tunicate
• 1 rock, 2 plates and 6 plugs of Zoanthus
• 1 rock of Green Star Polyps (not opened yet)
• 2 red mushrooms
• 2 green Ricordea mushrooms
• 1 purple Rhodactis mushroom (from office tank)
• 2 frags of orange Palm Tree Corals
• 1 red Bamboo and 1 red Bubble macroalgae

The casualties are:

• 2 Cleaner Skunk Shrimps
• 2 Six Line Wrasses
• 1 Tree Coral

The technical details are:

• Ocean Free Super Hang-On Filter 3
• Easy Aqua Ex500 External Filter
• Tunze 9004 skimmer
• 40 cm Green Element LED light (7 white, 3 blue)
• 40 cm AquaZonic T5 lights (2 tubes of 14W)

2 MONTHS

I was supposed to post this on 1 Mar 13 but I could make it. These are photos of the latest layout with new additions to celebrate the 2 months anniversary.

The final list of livestock is as follows:

• 1 Red Spotted Goby (Renee)
• 1 Clown Fish (Candy)
• 1 Cleaner Skunk Shrimp
• 1 Fire Shrimp
• 10 Sexy Shrimps
• 1 Pom Pom Crab
• 3 Turbo Snails
• 2 Nassarius Snails
• 1 small Yellow Cucumber
• 1 Coco-worm
• 4 Feather Duster Worms
• 3 Green Star Polyps (1 brown, 1 wavy long tentacles faint fluorescent with white eye and 1 short tentacles fluorescent with pink eye)
• 1 orange Sun Coral
• 1 pink Sun Coral
• 1 Stick/Tree Coral
• 1 Palm Tree Coral (broke into 2 frags)
• 1 branched Goniopora (1 white branch and 1 light brown branch)
• 1 Candy Cane Coral (broke into 2 frags and 1 was brought to the office)
• 1 pink Cauliflower Tree Coral
• 1 rock of Yellow Polyps
• 1 plate of Daisy Polyps
• 1 plates of red Actinodiscus mushrooms (1 plate was brought to the office)
• 1 plate of blue Actinodiscus mushrooms
• 1 plate of Ricordea mushrooms
• 1 branch of Rhodactis mushrooms
• 2 plates of Zoanthus
• 1 Mushroom Finger Coral
• 1 Xenia (1 hidden)
• 1 rock of red bamboo macroalgae, 1 plate of red bubble macroalgae, 1 plate of red wavy macroalgae and 2 clumps of red branched macroalgae

It is almost unbelievable that I managed to pack so many things into this small 27 litres pico aquarium. I will be going on a Taiwan trip in a few days time and this would be a test of how the tank will function without me around for a week. I am worried about Sunny since it has been very grumpy.

Anyway, the newly recorded casualties for this month are:

• 2 Clown Fishes (Claudia and Chloe)
• 1 Six-Line Wrasse (Sally)
• 1 clump of Chaetomorpha macroalgae

The technical information is as follows:

• 1 Ocean Free Super Hang-On Filter 2
• 1 Atman HF-0600 hang on back filter
• 1 Green Element 3W LED light (4 white, 2 blue)
• 1 Beamworks LED light (31 white, 2 blue)
• 1 Tunze Osmolator Nano

1 MONTH

It is with much excitement for me to announce that a full month has past and these are the latest photos of the aquarium that was set up at the turn of the year. I am personally proud that I have accomplished much and the following is the latest update in terms of the livestock (not in order of purchase or stocking):

• 1 Clown Fish
• 1 Cleaner Skunk Shrimp
• 10 Sexy Shrimps
• 1 Pom Pom Crab
• 3 Turbo Snails
• 2 Nassarius Snails
• 1 Coco-worm
• 2 Feather Duster Worms
• 2 Galaxy Star Polyps
• 1 Sun Coral
• 1 pink Cauliflower Tree Coral
• 1 plate of Daisy Polyps
• 2 plates of red mushrooms
• 1 plate of blue mushrooms
• 1 plate of Rhodactis mushrooms
• 1 plate of mixed green Zoanthus
• 1 Mushroom Finger Coral
• 2 Xenia
• 1 rock of red macroalgae
• 1 Chaetomorpha

Interestingly, the blue and red mushrooms seemed to recover from the shock of being newly introduced into the aquarium and are getting bigger everyday. The Daisy Polyps, Rhodactis mushrooms and Mushroom Finger Coral are also growing larger. Even the rock with the initial clump of Xenia is recovering back.

The only recorded casualties thus far are:

• 1 orange Cauliflower Tree Coral
• 1 green Zoanthus
• 1 Caulerpa macroalgae

The other technical information is as follows:

• 1 Ocean Free Super Hang-On Filter 2
• 1 Ocean Free Super Hang-On Filter 3
• 1 Green Element 3W LED light (4 white, 2 blue)

DAY 8

I visited the Sago Lane aquarium again with the intention to look out for the Aiptasia medication to eradicate it but couldn't find it. My hunt for it continues!

Instead, there were lots of beautiful Bubble Coral, Tree Coral, Zoanthids, hard corals and even an Emerald Crab. Unfortunately, all the pieces of corals look too big for my pico tank. I was worried about the Bubble Coral stinging others around it, so I didn't buy it too.

In the end, I bought an Orange Rhodactis mushroom  rock which I fell in love with when my eyes first settled on it, a relatively large Green Zoanthid and two different types of Feather Duster Worms. I did a freshwater dip for the the first two before introducing it into the aquarium. Well, I am giving it some time to recover from the shock but fed it a concoction of AquaPharm Pro-Series sea plankton, Marine Snow and Aqua Medic Plancto and see how they respond to the feeding.