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)

DAYS 39-40

Now everything I feed Sunny and the pink Suns, it becomes a feeding frenzy for Felicia the elusive Fire Shrimp, Chris the Skunk Cleaner Shrimp, the Sexy Shrimps, Penny the Pom Pom crab and even the Nassarius snails. All the shrimps learnt to station themselves next to the Sun Corals and snatch whatever mysis shrimps that they can land their hands, oops I mean, claws on immediately after I feed them. Next to the pink sun are some unknown purple sponges? Only time will tell what they are. Today I even spotted a small crab, which probably hitch-a-hike from the other corals that I am temporarily holding here before introducing them to my office tank.

Yes, my colleague bugged me to start a new pico reef in the office and that was what I did. We started one just a couple of days ago and there is now Franco the Clown Fish with two feather duster fan worms. I will be bringing the Jasmine Polyp that I kept in the breeding container shown here soon.

By the way, the 16th photo onwards were taken using my iphone 5. From one of the photos, Coco can be seen growing out 2 new crowns. Thanks goodness!

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 13

Nothing much changed on most of day 13 except that I was freaked out again when the Turbo snails didn't move. Later on, 2 of them were actively scouting around the rocks, glass and sand for algae but 1 was immobile. If it is dead, I would have to quickly remove it before it polluted the water.

Luckily, this 1 here was happily coasting on the glass.

By the end of the day, I bought myself a small Clown Fish and a Sun Coral which I shall named Claudia and Sunny respectively. The Clown Fish has always besotted me and I don't think a marine setup is complete without this amazingly cartoonish yet attractive orange fish. The Sun Coral is orange too and I had a hard time coaxing it to feed on the Mysis Shrimps and freeze-dried Cyclop-eez. Hopefully I have better luck keeping it alive. I added a small filter at the same spot where I placed the wave maker to create some flow but the current seemed quite weak. This was also where I placed the Sun Coral.

DAY 12

In this post, the top half of the photos was illuminated with my existing 2 14W, 12,000k lights. In the second part, I turned on my new LED lights with 4 10,000k and 2 actinic blue partially and switched off the former towards the end.

Oh yes, the tank obviously looked different because I added the following:

• a plate of mini Zoanthids
• 2 stalks of Green Star Polyps (GSP)
• an unknown soft coral
• a Xenia at the corner
• 3 Turbo snails
• a live rock with Caulerpa and a Chaetomorpha in an old fish breeding container

I know I probably shouldn't stock the aquarium so quickly and one can tell my impatience from all these because I just couldn't wait any longer. Anyway, the Xenia looked like it was gone but I placed it in a corner with good flow and hope it would recover. If it is dead, it would definitely pollute the water significantly. One GSP opened up a bit while the other remained close. I actually wanted 3 Nassarius snails but they gave me 3 Turbo instead. I threw all of them in without acclimatizing them and for a while I was worried because they didn't seem to move at all except occasionally. Hopefully, they would do a good job of cleaning up the tank of hair algae. I got the Caulerpa first then managed to get the Chaetomorpha subsequently to help with nitrate export.

I was checking out the Clown Fishes and Six-Line Wrasses in the local fish shop (LFS) because I love both but ended up not buying any of them since the staff were busy. Well, at least I managed to curb myself and left the place before I succumbed to temptation again.