This tank is starting to look good, before I get even further ahead I should have a build thread. I started this tank in February 2018. This is my 3rd time keeping sexy shrimp. I had them in a 2 gallon pico reef and they were able to do enough damage to some corals since most things were just 1-2 polyps. I briefly had an anemone cube tank that had sexy shrimp as well. Both previous times they had eggs a lot, I figured I'll do a tank around them and hopefully get a chance to raise them. Interestingly enough since I am now ready to make an effort to raise them I've only seen eggs a couple of times. I actually have a tank almost ready to relocate egg carrying females and brine shrimp eggs in my fridge. I suppose I should put some water in it and get it going so next time I see eggs I'll just net her and leave her in the tank until she releases.
The big reason I went this route was I thought they'd make a good species as a first try at captive breeding, I may or may not get there but regardless this has turned into a fun little reef over the past 6 months.
This is also quite a budget reef, if this was my main tank I would probably have more on it but at this point there really isn't much need for more other then maybe a second powerhead. There are just 3 things plugged into this tank.
Equipment :
Standard 10 gallon tank
micmol Aqua Air AA-300 - I had my doubts about this cheapo light but it grows soft corals without issue includes ramp up and ramp down features and a built in timer all for less then $100 cnd. It's nice looking and low profile but under most circumstances any standard black box is probably a better buy. I just wanted to try this.
koralia nano powerhead - I forget which model its either the 240gph or the one up from that.
random heater I had laying around and that's it. I originally had a small hob filter with a tiny bit of carbon, I would actually prefer to still have this but the sexy shrimp would end up inside the filter frequently and I did not want to lose any this way.
Livestock :
5? lbs of live rock. I have a mess of a frag tank which has tons of live rock I just want to keep live. This was not lit so it was ghost white when I put it in however it had been live for some time. A super shallow sand bed. My reef is bare bottom but I decided to add some sand here. I don't like all my tanks to be the same.
Sexy Shrimp Thor amboinensis - I started with 11 and have 8 now. One just died, one disappeared and one died a while back.
The only livestock I bought for this tank was 2 flower anemones, one also died but the other is doing great. The remaining livestock comes from my other tanks. I have decided to keep this tank soft corals only. My main tank is a mixed reef and the reason it's mixed is because I like almost every coral. I want a themed tank. The bending of softies only includes the anemone, a gorgonian which technically has a skeleton but is still considered a softy and some sponges.
Photos :
Initial setup
This surprisingly decent light - less then $100 and it has 3 channels (blue, UV and white)
March
April
Early July
End of July.
I am in the process of adding a few more random softies so I'll have new pictures in a few days. There are a few issues with this tank, nothing too serious. Since this is getting long I'll add them to my next post.
The big reason I went this route was I thought they'd make a good species as a first try at captive breeding, I may or may not get there but regardless this has turned into a fun little reef over the past 6 months.
This is also quite a budget reef, if this was my main tank I would probably have more on it but at this point there really isn't much need for more other then maybe a second powerhead. There are just 3 things plugged into this tank.
Equipment :
Standard 10 gallon tank
micmol Aqua Air AA-300 - I had my doubts about this cheapo light but it grows soft corals without issue includes ramp up and ramp down features and a built in timer all for less then $100 cnd. It's nice looking and low profile but under most circumstances any standard black box is probably a better buy. I just wanted to try this.
koralia nano powerhead - I forget which model its either the 240gph or the one up from that.
random heater I had laying around and that's it. I originally had a small hob filter with a tiny bit of carbon, I would actually prefer to still have this but the sexy shrimp would end up inside the filter frequently and I did not want to lose any this way.
Livestock :
5? lbs of live rock. I have a mess of a frag tank which has tons of live rock I just want to keep live. This was not lit so it was ghost white when I put it in however it had been live for some time. A super shallow sand bed. My reef is bare bottom but I decided to add some sand here. I don't like all my tanks to be the same.
Sexy Shrimp Thor amboinensis - I started with 11 and have 8 now. One just died, one disappeared and one died a while back.
The only livestock I bought for this tank was 2 flower anemones, one also died but the other is doing great. The remaining livestock comes from my other tanks. I have decided to keep this tank soft corals only. My main tank is a mixed reef and the reason it's mixed is because I like almost every coral. I want a themed tank. The bending of softies only includes the anemone, a gorgonian which technically has a skeleton but is still considered a softy and some sponges.
Photos :
Initial setup
This surprisingly decent light - less then $100 and it has 3 channels (blue, UV and white)
March
April
Early July
End of July.
I am in the process of adding a few more random softies so I'll have new pictures in a few days. There are a few issues with this tank, nothing too serious. Since this is getting long I'll add them to my next post.
