17 MONTHS

enhanced photo of Aquarium 2

Looking at this photo of the former Aquarium 2, I must say I really miss this setup, especially the inhabitants that were with me for a long time and which perished in the transfer to the new aquarium.

I always found that the photos I took were not representative of what I saw because of the colour misrepresentation. But one thing I did recently was to turn up the lights to increase the illumination to capture better lit photos.

So, anyway the following are the livestock and technical updates and the photos:

Aquarium 1 (1 ft cube - 27 litres)
I have recently removed another batch of basal sand with a lot of accumulated debris from this aquarium. It is still a far cry to how it used to look like because my attention was mostly spent on Aquarium 3. My Acans also deteriorated for a while since the damages by the Yuma mushrooms and recently it was worse because the Hector Goby loved to spit sand onto the Acan, causing some death of the heads. Anyway, I moved them to Aquarium 1 for some recuperation.

The list of livestock is as follows: 

• Fishes 
• Flameback Angel
• Yellow Shrimp Goby
• 2 black Ocellaris clowns
• Hector Goby
• Invertebrates 
• Cleaner Skunk Shrimp
• big red Hermit Crab & 3 small red Hermit Crabs 
• 3 Turbo Snails 
• Nassarius Snail 
• small yellow Feather Duster Worm
• medium Clam
• Corals
• Soft Corals
• unknown Anthelia (with a lot of dieback recently)
• Zoas
• Xenia
• Rose Bud Tip Anemone
• Mushrooms 
• a few loose blue Actinodiscus mushrooms
• Macroalgae
• green Caulerpa
• red 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 

sand can be seen on the dead heads

close-up of the dead heads

none of the Acans was spared

pair of black Ocellaris Clowns

rose bud tip anemone I added for the clowns

Hector the Goby

Aquarium 3 (3 x 1.5 x 1.5 feet and sump - 250 litres)
There is still quite a bit of frustration that I felt with regards to this aquarium. A lot of the sps now started to show rapid tissue necrosis (rtn) or slow tissue necrosis (stn) and I lost a number of them already.

The updated list of livestock is:

• Fishes
• 2 Clown Fish
• Yellow Tang
• Purple Tang
• Blue-yellow Damsel
• Flame Angel
• Royal Gramma
• Six Line Wrasse
• Yellow Wrasse
• Fathead Sunburst Anthias
• Two Spot Goby
• Yellow Shrimp Goby
• Hi Fin Red Banded Goby
• 2 true Percula Clowns
• Invertebrates
• 2 Cleaner Skunk Shrimps
• Fire Shrimp
• Turbo, Nassarius and Bumble Bee snails
• electric blue Hermit Crab
• 1 big and 2 small Clams
• red Linckia starfish
• small yellow, big brown and yellow-brown Feather Duster worms
• Cowry
• 2 black pistol shrimps
• black crab in sump refugium
• Corals
• SPS
• 5 Acropora (bleached)
• 2 unknown branching sps
• 2 red digitata
• Green Millepora
• Red Millepora
• 3 Monti Caps
• LPS
• 7 Acans (nursing back the ones from Aquarium 1)
• Hammer Coral
• 2 Blasto
• mega Blasto
• Elegance Coral
• Sun Coral
• Supersun Coral
• Green Chalice
• red Plate
• Brain Coral
• Bubble Coral
• Mushrooms
• 7 Ricordea yuma mushrooms
• rock of blue Actinodiscus mushrooms
• Soft Corals
• 2 Chili Corals
• green Carpet Anemone
• red Flower Rock Anemone
• Polyps 
• frag of pink-green Palm Tree (Clove) Coral
• mixture of Zoas
• mixture of Palythoa
• 2 yellow Parazoanthus
• 3 Green Star Polyps
• 1 green and 1 purple Goniopora
• Macroalgae
• Caulerpa
• Chaetomorpha
• purple algae
• red Bamboo

The technical details are:

• Jebao Marine Aqua DC-6000 return pump
• Maxspect R420R 16,000k 120W
• Tunze 9004 Nano Skimmer
• 2 Two Little Fishes Phosban Reactor running Phosban
• Dymax cooling fan (42 CFM)
• Fluval 3 external filter
• MP25 and Boyu wavemaker
• Tunze Nano Osmolator
• Marine Magic Triplet Dosing

enhanced photo of right side of Aquarium before rescaping

it's hard to capture photos of the Two Spot Goby

left side of aquarium

panoramic view of fts

unknown red plate, green Blasto, branched sps and green Monti Cap

slightly bleached digitata spa and a brown Monti Cap

a new Bubble Anemone

another branching sps and red Millepora

a red Millepora with stn which I clipped off some parts

close-up of more stn

new rainbow brain

amazingly beautiful green Chalice

3 Acans and red green Blasto

pair of true Percula clowns, Sun Coral, Supersun Coral with Acans

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

DAYS 50-53

These are some of the photos taken on days 50-53 before more changes to the layout were done.

The Palm Tree Coral, Yellow Polyps, Candy Cane Coral, Ricordea mushrooms, Stick Coral, Sun Coral were still performing fine. Penny always comes out waving its arms in the water, as if asking for attention, whenever I dose the tank with microplankton etc. I am glad the green Button Polyps were opening up.