20 Gallons of Life, a hand collected Bahamian reef.

[Island Reef 242]

+1 My tank is a year old too. I started it at the end of december/beginning of january.

Cool, Happy Birthday to your tank as well.

 

[Island Reef 242]

Weekend before last I braved the cold and went on the boat and searched for more coral and fish. After the first 15 min I had to put on a short wetsuit. It was the first beautiful calm day in weeks so I brought my family and my cousin and his family, they had a fun time at the beach while my cousin and I looked for stuff for our tanks. Everything I put in my tank is doing well, except I had to let one fish go, will explain below.

These were the two fish I caught. A juvenile Queen Angelfish and a Royal Gramma.

The Royal Gramma's tail appeared to be bitten one day after I put him in. The only other fish in the tank is the Queen Angel so something had to be done.

The Juvenile Queen Angelfish, one of the most beautiful fish you can find in the Bahamas, I feel. He picked off all the tentacles off my Paly's. And even though he did not chase the Royal Gramma, it was clear that the RG did not like him to get to close. I am pretty sure he took a chunk out of the RG's tail. So unfortunately I had to catch him and let him go.

In the center of this pic is a small type of carpet anemone, I think.

A cool little Gorgonian I found.

In the center is a cool blue finger coral. You can only see about half of him, hi is in the back of the tank.

This little rock had about 5 ricordea's on it. It is darker than the next one, and has a blue/purple tint to it.

These Ricordea's are green and is phosphorescent. The big one in the center has three mouths and looks like it is trying to split.

I blended up these clams, squid and silver sides, along with some old pellet food. I froze the concoction is small ice-cube trays and then cut them even smaller. I take out less than a pencil eraser size portion add a tiny bit of NLS probiotix pellets, put a couple drops of Selcon on it, and let it soak in a small cup. After a few min I add some tank water, stir it up, and feed it to the tank. I do this just about every day. I spot feed the ricordea's and carpet neem, they love it. The whole tank goes crazy for this stuff, I have caught the coral banded shrimp stealing the food right out of the ricordea's mouth a couple times. The Royal Gramma eats everything he can fit in his mouth, and I am glad to say that his tail is almost completely grown back, in less that two weeks.

 

[Island Reef 242]

Well another month has passed and everything in my tank looks like it is doing great. The tail of the Royal Grama healed up completely within two weeks. I also added some new coral and a new fish two weeks ago, that I found while swimming at the back of my house.

I caught this green stripe goby, who has overcome his shyness and is eating well. I also added that nice colony of finger coral you see above him.

One of two rocks covered in small red tube worms / feather dusters.

A new type of Paly I found.

Any one know what laid this gelatinous blob with tiny white specks in it ??? I have a feeling it might be a snail, but not sure what type. I will post a thread asking if any one can identify it origins.

Over all I really like how this little tank looks right now. I really is looking like a real reef.

 

[MombasaLionfish]

Well another month has passed and everything in my tank looks like it is doing great. The tail of the Royal Grama healed up completely within two weeks. I also added some new coral and a new fish two weeks ago, that I found while swimming at the back of my house.

I caught this green stripe goby, who has overcome his shyness and is eating well. I also added that nice colony of finger coral you see above him.

One of two rocks covered in small red tube worms / feather dusters.

A new type of Paly I found.

Any one know what laid this gelatinous blob with tiny white specks in it ??? I have a feeling it might be a snail, but not sure what type. I will post a thread asking if any one can identify it origins.

Over all I really like how this little tank looks right now. I really is looking like a real reef.

Full tank shot?

 

[Island Reef 242]

Full tank shot?

Here is a FTS along with some close ups. All two of my fish and the coral banded shrimp were hiding when I took these picrures.

Left side.

Right side.

Sorry to end on a bad note but my Royal Gramma jumped out the other day RIP little gal.

 

[MombasaLionfish]

Man sorry for your loss. I have been lucky so far no carpet surfers for me.

 

[MombasaLionfish]

Also are those mangroves to the right of the firs picture?

 

[Island Reef 242]

Man sorry for your loss. I have been lucky so far no carpet surfers for me.

Ya, I have had a few in the past. I hope your fish never get that crazy idea that they believe they can fly. I really need to build some sort of barrier.

Also are those mangroves to the right of the firs picture?

Yes, there is about 8 mangroves. They only have two leaves each, cause honestly I have not been misting them, and a Kessil tuna blue is not the best light to grow trees under, but the roots have grown plenty.

The prupleish glow to the right of the tank is from my phytoplankton cultures.

 

[Island Reef 242]

Well it has been a long while since I have posted anything. Things were going well with the tank till last weekend when hurricane Isaias passed by. I was out of power for over 48 hours. I have a small generator that I was using conservatively, switching it between my two fridges, fans, and fish tank. Unfortunately I ran out of gas, and because we were on a complete lock down over the weekend cause of covid-19, the gas stations were closed.

By the time I got the tank running again, I had lost all but one fish, my clown wrass. The coral banded shrimp were also gone, and some of my corals do not look like they will survive.

It is a sad time, but at least I did not have a complete tank crash. The tank lives on, and I will replace what has been lost.

 

[MrsBugmaster]

Sorry for you losses. Glad you are ok!

 

[najer]

So sorry to hear that, good luck with the comeback.

 

[Devaji]

what I cool little project. so sorry for the loss but glad the tank lives on.

I lived in Hawaii a while back and I would collect small things for the tank from the shore it was fun. I had a permit to collect fish but never did it.

 

[Island Reef 242]

Sorry for you losses. Glad you are ok!

So sorry to hear that, good luck with the comeback.

what I cool little project. so sorry for the loss but glad the tank lives on.

I lived in Hawaii a while back and I would collect small things for the tank from the shore it was fun. I had a permit to collect fish but never did it.

Thanks all, I did find another fish survivor, a tiny juvenile yellow headed wrasse .

Some of my mushrooms shriveled up into nothing, one of my gorgonia's lost a bunch of polops, and one of my SPS is losing color, but the rest of the corals seem OK, for now. I did a 40% WC yesterday, and will do another one this weekend.

I don't need a permit to catch fish or coral in the Bahamas, it is only illegal to export them. It can be hard to catch some fish, and finding corals that are easy to keep (for me in my tank) can be difficult. But all the fun is in the hunt, especially when you find something new. I have lived in the Bahamas all my life, and have been diving/catching fish for over 30 years, and I am still finding and seeing things I have never seen before.

 

[Blutspitze]

So sorry to hear about the hurricane issues . Glad to hear that you did the best you could, at least, and it's great that you found at least some survivors. That's wonderful news!

It's pretty awesome that you're able to build up from the wild, as well - that's definitely something that not very many folks are able to say.

 

[Island Reef 242]

So sorry to hear about the hurricane issues . Glad to hear that you did the best you could, at least, and it's great that you found at least some survivors. That's wonderful news!

It's pretty awesome that you're able to build up from the wild, as well - that's definitely something that not very many folks are able to say.

Thanks

 

[Island Reef 242]

Well, I kind of neglected the tank since the hurricane and green hair algae took over. The zoas and paly’s closed up, and the corals that weren’t doing to well died. Only the neems and some feather dusters were still open but were beginning to get smothered by the algae.

Over the weekend I decided to do something about it. I drained the tank to 50%, then one by one I took out each rock and scrubbed it with a tooth brush to get all the green hair algae off. I had to be very careful with the rocks that had the paly’s on them, I couldn’t get all the algae off the one with the zoas. I then took out the fish, sea urchins, hermit crabs, snails, a flame scallop, and a sea cucumber. I put them all in a bucked with the cleaned off rocks.

I then took out the rest of the water and put the sand in a bucket. Then I went to clean the sand by spraying it with a hose and then draining the water. I repeated until the water was clean, then I rinsed the sand in salt water. Lastly I scraped the tank and cleaned it.

Now I was finally ready to put it all back together. I added the sand, NSW, rocks, and finally fish and critters. The scape is a little different but still the same concept of two islands. The tank looks great again, just needs more corals.

Now I wait to see if the zoas and paly’s will open back up again. I can’t wait to go back out and collect some new corals.

 

[Subsea]

Well, my tank is a little over 6 months old now, and everything seems to be doing good. Over the last two weeks I have added a few new things, see pictures below.

A very cool Branching Anemone, he has moved around a lot. I have seen large ones, about 9 inches in diameter, hidden deep in reefs. Was lucky to find this small one on the edge of a small rock on just off of the reef.

Encrusting Zoas. Found them growing on the rocky sea floor. They stayed mostly closed up the first week, now they are open all the time.

Got this Spotted cleaner shrimp off a giant anemone. In this pic she is holding on to the exoskeleton of a crab that just molted.

Caught these two, a cleaner goby and a juvenile yellow head wrass, off a reef near Rose island. They both disappeared shortly after I put them in the tank. The Yellow head wrass showed up to eat two days later. I still have not seen the Goby.

My new favorite coral, some type of Ricordea. It has a greenish glow to it. Isnt it amazing how the UV spectrum can bring out colors that otherwise would not be seen. By the way, I have a Kessil A360WE Tuna Blue over this 10 gal tank, it hangs about 15 inches above the water and is only on 50% intensity and color. If anyone has a recommended intensity and color level for my tank, please let me know. So far everything seems to be happy.

The only other change I did was take out the Damsel fish and set him free. He was one of my first fish, but he was a bully and I blame him for some of my fish jumping out. I have also made a screen top, cause now the Sergeant Major and the Green Stripe Goby are trying to act like bullies.

Oh ya, I was able to catch some amphipods (like 100) with a very fine net they were floating around the reef. And when I was at the beach, the sea was extremely calm, I dug a hole in the sand right along the water line. And found a bunch of copepods swimming in the pool I had made. I put both in my tank hoping they will survive and possibly reproduce. Will have to check at night time to see if i can find any left.

It has been three weeks since I have done a water change or tested for anything, but everything is looking great. I will leave you with a few more pics.

This is the widest I have ever seen them open

Full Tank Shot first thing in the morning. Not everyone is awake yet, and some will be going to sleep soon.

Until next time,
Chris

Enjoying reading your journal. For observation, I like a color spectrum of 10K. It highlights red, yellow, orange and blue. With respect to intensity, I suggest less is better than more.

 

[Subsea]

Well, I kind of neglected the tank since the hurricane and green hair algae took over. The zoas and paly’s closed up, and the corals that weren’t doing to well died. Only the neems and some feather dusters were still open but were beginning to get smothered by the algae.

Over the weekend I decided to do something about it. I drained the tank to 50%, then one by one I took out each rock and scrubbed it with a tooth brush to get all the green hair algae off. I had to be very careful with the rocks that had the paly’s on them, I couldn’t get all the algae off the one with the zoas. I then took out the fish, sea urchins, hermit crabs, snails, a flame scallop, and a sea cucumber. I put them all in a bucked with the cleaned off rocks.

I then took out the rest of the water and put the sand in a bucket. Then I went to clean the sand by spraying it with a hose and then draining the water. I repeated until the water was clean, then I rinsed the sand in salt water. Lastly I scraped the tank and cleaned it.

Now I was finally ready to put it all back together. I added the sand, NSW, rocks, and finally fish and critters. The scape is a little different but still the same concept of two islands. The tank looks great again, just needs more corals.

Now I wait to see if the zoas and paly’s will open back up again. I can’t wait to go back out and collect some new corals.

With a small tank, this is called a RIP clean and is necessary when insufficient detrivores and/or insufficient sand/vac maintenance during partial water changes. With respect to bits of GHA on rocks with coral, soak rock for ten minutes in 10% solution of 3% h2o2.

 

[Subsea]

With respect to power failures, consider this for automatic backup to air demand.

 

[DothanReefer]

This is so cool dude!! What a dream scenario for probably most on this forum...definitely can speak for myself! Cant imagine going into the "backyard" to find actual reef-life for my tank. Sooooo jelly my man!

Definitely following!!