my reef GARden frenzY: majestic

I wasn't particularly busy this month but the SPS acquisitions were far and few. A few older SPS got bleached but the majority seemed alright. Ok, I have to admit that the lowered temperature must have helped partially since this is considered one of my more successful months in SPS keeping.

The updates are presented below.

Aquarium 3 (3 x 1.5 x 1.5 feet and sump - 250 litres)
I am quite sad that one of those mornings, I stopped seeing the Majestic Angel and I have never seen it since. Similarly, the Fire Gobies also seemed to disappear finally.

Last month, I mentioned that the Red Planet Acro was like an indicator species on the health of my reef aquarium. This month it looked even better with a green base and many extended polyps. However, the lights don't seemed to be able to colour up the majority of the SPS and they seemed to be less vibrant in colour than when I bought it.

On the other hand, some of my LPS e.g. bubble coral, octo-coral, flower pot coral, though seemed to deteriorate slowly and waste away gradually.

I have also added 3 zoas frags from Steven of LCK201 but a few earlier ones melted away after I attempted to detach them from the frag and pasted them directly onto the rocks etc.

The monthly updated list of livestock is as follows:

Fishes

Purple Tang
2 Blue-yellow Damsels
Yellow Tang
Flame Angel
Regal Blue Tang
Yellow Wrasse
Orange Striped Prawn Goby
2 True Percula Clowns
Golden Maroon Clown
Royal Gramma
Yellow Clown Goby
Black Percula Clown

Invertebrates

Turbo and Nassarius snails
2 red Linckia starfishes
purple Linckia starfish
2 Tuxedo Urchins
3 Cleaner Skunk Shrimps
Fire Shrimp
Golden Stenopus Shrimp

Corals

Horn Coral
Poccillopora
orange Cyphastrea
Red Planet
red Acropora digitata
monti (bleached)
brown Poccillopora
green Poccillopora
red digitata
red encrusting monti plate
watermelon Millepora
pink Millepora
purple green sps
blueberry sps
purple pink Millepora
green deep sea Acro
green base brown polyps sps

Acan
3 Hammer Corals (peach and 2 purple green)
3 Supersun Coral frags
2 branched Octo Corals (half green and half peach, light green)
3 Goniopora Corals (green tentacles and purple center, 2 purple tentacles green center)
Alveopora Coral
Elegance Corals (blue tip yellow body)
green Candy Cane
Duncan Coral
Fox Coral

Mushrooms

orange Ricordea yuma mushrooms
green Ricordea yuma mushrooms
red mushroom
purple mushroom
green mushroom

Soft Corals

Chilli Coral
red Flower Rock Anemone
2 pink Rose Bud Tip Anemones
Toadstool Leather Mushroom
branched Finger Coral
2 Gorgonians (purple branch with brown polyps, yellow branch and polyps)
luminous green tree
bleached Finger Coral

Polyps

purple Zoas
Fiery Red Zoas
5 assorted Zoas
green Palythoa
5 green Star Polyps
5 Clove Polyps (2 gold, 1 green and 2 common)
3 Daisy Polyps (brown and 2 green eyes)
grey pulsing Xenia
17 frag plugs of Zoas
Zoas
green Clove
green Palythoa
pink Zoas
yellow frag + green base purple skirt Paly + green base brown skirt Zoas

Macroalgae (in sump)

Chaetomorpha
red Bamboo
green Bubble algae

The technical details are:

Jebao Marine Aqua DC-6000 return pump
Maxspect R420R 16,000K 160W
Solite 2 x 24W T5 lights
Hailea HS-28A chiller
Reef Octopus BH1000 skimmer
Two Little Fishes Phosban Reactor running Phosban
MP25 and RW-8 wavemakers
Tunze Nano Osmolator
Marine Magic Triplet Dosing

this FTS is with white lights and 0% blue lights

a green Pocci looks brown

a newly acquired green deep sea Acro

a green SPS

another new SPS

one of my favourite green SPS

this piece bleached recently

a pink Millepora

top view of the Pocci

50% blue lights

a purple Millepora turned pink

this is the Red Planet SPS under white LED lights

this is taken from the top

2 clumps of Clove Polyps

the supposedly purple Millepora

another FTS

the green deep sea Acro

the purple Millepora

the Blueberry SPS and pink Millepora SPS

the top corner near the overflow

the Pocci under blue lights

the same Pocci

the new green deep sea smooth skinned Acropora

close-up of the Acropora

the purple Millepora

the pink Millepora

the green Pocci

Aquarium 4 with IOS (39 cm x 32 cm x 36 cm = 45 litres)

I am too embarrassed to show photos of this aquarium. Recently, I realized the corals in here were bleaching and I nailed down the cause to the temperature, which was abnormally high. So I am still contemplating whether to continue with this aquarium.

The livestock are:

Fishes

False Percula Clownfish
Hector Goby

Invertebrates

3 Turbo Snails
Nassarius Snail
Tuxedo Sea Urchin

Corals

Soft Coral

a few blue Actinodiscus mushrooms

Polyps

Zoas

Macroalgae

green Algae
red algae

The technical information is as follows:

Sanrise LED Pro lights (without wifi)

Tunze Osmolator Nano

Boyu Cooling Fan

the Goniopora budded off this frag

This is a post in the mid month, so that the post at the end of the month before my trip can be concise.

I bought quite a number of fishes this month, and now I have the big 5s - Yellow Tang, Purple Tang, Flame Angel, Regal Blue Tang and Majestic Angel now. When the juvenile-adult Majestic Angel was first added, there was quite a bit of aggression from the Purple Tang. However, I managed to take out the Yellow Tang instead and transferred it to Aquarium 1. When the aggression between the Purple Tang and the Majestic Angel died down, I put the Yellow Tang back and all was fine. I also bought 4 Fire Gobies but as of the day before, I only saw 2 left. I added an acrylic cover for the aquarium to prevent some of these fishes from carpet surfing.

I also bought a number of Zoas frag from Steven of LCK201 and they are all doing fine in the aquarium.

Separately, I want to decommission the office Aquarium 4, so I thought of combining this with the Aquarium 1 inhabitants. I plan to do it soon in a few days time, so right now I am consolidating everything from the office aquarium to the home one. Sadly, I lost 3 out of 4 Damsels in the process. In addition, I moved the pair of true Percula Clowns to Aquarium 3 and had to transfer the 2 black Onyx Clowns from this aquarium to Aquarium 1 with the big False Percula Clown from the office. Confusing? Now one of the black Clowns is dying, and I cross my fingers that it will recover instead. Aquarium 1 is packed to the brim now and hopefully all will go well. I also hope the Golden Boxing Shrimp and Anthelias from Aquarium 1 will make it through.

In terms of the equipment, I just purchased the Sanrise Aqua Pro LED today and hopefully, it would serve me well although if the LED lights burn out, I probably wouldn't be able to get a replacement.