SEVEN MONTHS

This month seemed kind of long, possibly because I didn't post any updates. However, this doesn't mean there wasn't much that went on with the tanks. Rather, there were quite a bit of ups and downs than I cared to admit. One thing is for sure though. My tanks are currently still unsuitable for sps because I had a hard time keeping the parameters stable.

Keeping sps is really not an easy thing for everyone unless one has a dosing pump and good lights. If there is one important thing I learnt, it is sps requires stability and doesn't like sudden changes in kH. A few of my sps showed rapid tissue necrosis (rtn) or slow tissue necrosis (stn) after I dosed a huge amount of kalkwasser into the top up tank. It is not an easy task trying to maintain stable amounts of kH, Ca and Mg with manual dosing. Despite all the efforts to measure these parameters, the fluctuations that arise with dosing are just frustrating. The other thing that suddenly dawned on me is that my sps are losing its colours, possibly due to the short lighting period or insufficient PAR from the Maxspect. I have since adjusted the Maxspect white and blue lights to be on for longer hours and hope the colours resume although I am skeptical about it. If the colours really do not revert, then that can only one thing - the Maxspect lighting spectrum is insufficient and this would be a huge disappointment.

Anyway, I decided from this post on, I would not be including the list of casualties anymore so as not to focus on the negative aspects of this wonderful hobby.

Tank 1 (1 ft cube - 27 litres)
The list of livestock is as follows: 

• Fishes 
• 3 Clown Fish 
• 1 Purple Dottyback 
• 1 Royal Gramma 
• 2 Fire Gobies 
• Invertebrates 
• 1 Cleaner Skunk Shrimp 
• 2 Pom Pom Crabs 
• 1 big red Hermit Crab & 3 small red Hermit Crabs 
• 2 Turbo Snails 
• 1 Nassarius Snail 
• 1 red Coco-worm 
• 1 small (yellow) and 1 big (brown) Feather Duster Worms 
• Corals 
• SPS 
• 1 bleached Acropora 
• 1 Pocci with stn 
• LPS 
• 1 pink Sun Coral 
• 1 Bubble Coral 
• 1 cream Elegance Coral 
• 1 green Frogspawn Coral 
• Mushrooms 
• 1 plate of blue Actinodiscus mushrooms 
• 1 orange Ricordea yuma mushroom 
• Soft Corals 
• 1 Rose Tip Bubble Anemone 
• 2 Chili Corals 
• 1 Xenia 
• Polyps 
• 1 mat of Green Star Polyps 
• 2 frags of green Palm Tree Coral 
• 1 rock of brown Daisy (Clove) Polyps 
• 1 green and 1 red Palythoa 
• 1 green and 5 pieces of Zoas 
• 1 Rasta (6) & Sunflower (1) Zoas 
• Macroalgae 
• 1 plate of red wavy macroalgae (Ulva) 
• 2 clumps of red branched macroalgae 
• clumps of green Caulerpa 

The technical information is as follows:

• 1 Ocean Free Hang-on-Back filter 2 
• 1 Easy Aqua Ex500 External Filter with wave deflector 
• 1 Green Element LED 60W (12 white 12000k and 8 blue 460 nm) with 2 mini fans 
• 1 Tunze Osmolator Nano 
• 1 Dymax Cooling Fan 

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

• Fishes
• 1 Yellow Tang
• 1 Flame Angel
• 1 Yellow Wrasse
• 1 Six Line Wrasse
• Invertebrates
• 1 Fire Shrimp
• 1 Cleaner Skunk Shrimp
• 7 Turbo snails
• 2 Nassarius snails
• 2 Bumble Bee snails
• 1 electric blue Hermit Crab
• 2 Coco-worms (1 red and 1 yellow)
• 2 brown and 1 grey big and 1 yellow small Feather Duster Worms
• 1 blue Clam
• Corals
• SPS
• 1 horn coral
• 1 blue-tipped and 1 green-tipped Acropora
• 1 green Pocci
• 1 encrusting blue-green Monti
• 1 brown Monti cap, 1 brown Monti cap with SPS, 4 frags of Monti caps (pink, brown, royal purple, mixed)
• LPS
• 1 rock of fluorescent green and blue Goniopora
• 1 fluorescent Octo Coral
• Mushrooms
• 5 orange Ricordea yuma mushrooms
• 12 Ricordea florida mushrooms
• 1 plate of purple Actinodiscus mushrooms
• Soft Corals
• 1 Xenia
• 1 rock of Finger Mushroom Coral
• Polyps
• 1 brown Palythoa
• 2 plates of Zoanthus
• plugs of Zoanthus (Incredible/KO 9, Emerald on Fire 6, Fruit Loops 6, Pink Panther 3, Eagle Eye 9, Sunflower 5 + Golden Clove 2, Red Eagle Eye 4, Fire and Ice 3, Nuclear Green 2, Nuclear Death 5, Purple Death 7, Pink unknown 6) 
• 2 mats of Green Star Polyps, 1 frag of GSP
• 1 Organ Pipe Coral
• Sea Fan
• 1 Blueberry
• 1 Purple
• Macroalgae
• 1 red Ulva macroalgae
• 1 red branched macroalgae
• Halimeda

The technical details are:

• Eheim 2213 external canister filter
• Atman hang-on-back filter
• Bubble Magus Q3 skimmer
• Maxspect Razor Nano 60W (10,000k)
• 1 Two Little Fishes Phosban Reactors running Phosban
• 1 Dymax fan
• 2 Hydor Nano wavemakers
• 1 Tunze Nano Osmolator

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.

DAY 46

Much has happened since the last post and it is a long story. To cut things short, my old Fujitsu laptop was dying, so I got myself a new Sony Vaio laptop yesterday and I am now posting from it.

Anyway, much has changed to my aquarium and the photos shown here are no longer updated. Just looking at these photos, I have to say that I replaced the OF 3 HOB filter with a Atman HF-0600 filter because  it has a surface skimmer when drawing in water through the inlet tube and the compartment is more spacious. However, I hate it now that the inlet tube is sticking too far out into my tank and obstructs the view. I also added the Tunze Nano Osmolator as an auto-top up for water so that when I go for my upcoming trip for 7 days, it will refill the water for me without me having to worry too much. I was running out of real estate area in my tank, so I took out the Boyu wavemaker since the currents appear too strong and blew everything in a haphazard manner. These are the only equipment addition and changes.

In terms of lifestock, I have to admit that I added a cute Clownfish Chloe and a Six-Line Wrasse Sally but both fishes perished. I have decided not to add any fish for the time being until I am back from the trip.

As for corals etc, I added the following which I will post on another day:

• Stick/Tree Polyp
• branching whitish Goniopora
• frag of luminous green and pink Ricordea mushrooms
• plate of mixed Zoas
• piece of brown Candy Cane which somehow broke into 2 and I brought 1 to the office
• rock of luminous Green Star Polyps which has not opened since day 1 on 19 Feb 13. I didn't know it has been 7 days until now.

Looking at these photos, somehow I must say I find the actual tank display looks better in person than on camera but I will strive to post better photos next time.