20 long AIO build

[Flameback Pair]

@dansyr glade you’re back in the hobby. I like doing diy electronics and stuff too. What is your diy food kit? Haven’t seen that one in awhile. Subbed. :;-):

-Mitchell.

 

[dansyr]

I am so sorry dude, hopefully the losses have stopped since then and everything is under control?

thanks friend! So far things seem under control, i've been out of town for a week and my wife has been monitoring the tank and so far no reported issues but we'll see when I'm back in a couple days. If nothing seems to have arisen it will be almost 1 month plus since any activity so I'm sure it's still there but plan to try to slowly bump up nutrients to a steady 10/0.05 ± 50%, but i'm still a little cautious about either shocking system or fueling the wrong microbes if things are still out of whack there.

Have you ever been in this situation, any experience or advice on the recovery?

 

[dansyr]

@dansyr glade you’re back in the hobby. I like doing diy electronics and stuff too. What is your diy food kit? Haven’t seen that one in awhile. Subbed. :;-):

-Mitchell.

Thanks and welcome fellow DIYer! DIY is the best, excellent way to scratch the itch to tinker without messing with the interior of the tank itself :)

DIY food for my small-scale batches is
Fresh: 1 scallop, 1-2 clams (live, remove gut), 1 table shrimp, 1 octopus/squid chunk
Frozen: reef plankton (2-3 cubes), fish eggs (2 cubes), spirulina brine shrimp (1), mysis shrimp (1)
Dry: small ~2cm x 5cm chunk of dry nori, manually shred, ~2 scoops of Reef Chili, ~1/4 chunk tubifex worms, 1 teaspoon freeze dried calanus (from BSD).

Chopping is basically the same as everybody, then just pour / pipette into mini ice trays, freeze, pop out. Lately I do flat packs for myself but the cubes are easier to portion control for people taking care. I do all the feeding with a long pipette, basically a 10ml pipette/baster, easy to feed small bits with more control.

 

[dansyr]

Made it back, no signs of disease progression although the new yellow clown goby addition continued to stress out one of the acro frags with a little too much love, I'm chalking that one up to 'predation' rather than disease so I can hopefully count this as nearly 2 months disease free?

Also added a giant chunk of green slimer from a very generous local reefer to hopefully get the yellow clown goby into a more natural if not commensal (possibly mutualistic?) relationship.

Bonus photo of derasa looking happy:

 

[dansyr]

So far things keep coming along. Slimer chunk seems to have worked on the yellow clown goby, it now has a very peaceful relationship. The first acro frag it decided to attack ended up succumbing, but after the addition of slimer it still perches everywhere but doesn't pester any corals, except for very infrequently on the slimer. But the green slimer is fine with it. no signs of damage and even decent PE (as much PE as I get with limited nutrients).

Other new addiiton is a male scooter dragonette (scooter blenny). This was a bit of an impulse addition I will admit, my wife saw it in the LFS and had to have it. It was eating frozen brine there, looked skinny but healthy. So far so good, he now eats frozen spirulina brine and frozen bloodworms greedily and starting to get fat, and I've sneaked a couple pellets and frozen calanus but I wouldn't say he's onto those fully yet. Also trying to grow pods, I still have pods left in the tank after about 2 weeks but they're definitely lower.

Keeping this honest, this is the amount of death that happened on birdsnest from that disease episode 3 months ago now, less the branches that had to be removed. Been fighting cyano from persistent low nutrients, its on remission (knock on wood) but look how much was lost. Still makes me sad, but glad the outer branches are still growing.

 

[dansyr]

In some happier growth progression, the melonberry montipora is growing nicely, the old purple tip stag above it has been getting more growth tips

I attribute this to finally being able to keep nutrients detectable after all the events from being out of town and the disease event. Currently nitrate sits around 2-10 ppm, and phosphate at barely detectable to 0.06 ppm just after dosing. This is with 2-3 daily feedings of frozen and pellets, ~5-10 mls of homegrown phytoplankton at night, and every morning it's barely detectable so I bring back up to 0.06-0.8 with a liquid phosphate solution. Too many autotrophs, not enough heterotrophs.

And the original tester Acropora frag that has been thickening and puddling but no real branching looks like it's waking up

Random no name favia freebie from ASD about 1.5 years ago that was 1.5 polyps is now up to 7, hoping it keeps up with the recent pace.

 

[kyreefville]

Looking good just read through ups and downs gllad it’s back on up

 

[dansyr]

Looking good just read through ups and downs gllad it’s back on up

Thanks! Yes it's been a journey. I consider myself lucky so far to not encounter anything super bad, disease event being the one issue. So far things are still going smoothly. Wishing you similar good luck on your system!

 

[dansyr]

Update on the yellow clown goby, it's really been hitting its stride. It is definitely chubby now, eats everything from pellets, and likes to perch on the acros without bugging them too much since adding the green slimer colony. Very happy with this little dude. There's some food aggression between green and yellow clown gobies, ironically the yellow clown goby is the aggressor although it's smaller than the green. But it's been non-violent, it has the tone more of cats play-pouncing.

 

[dansyr]

Update featuring the sand-dwelling clams in here. There are 4 clams in here (my wife has taken to calling this tank the clam farm) - two maximas, one derasa, and one hippopus. Trying to document the sand dwelling clams (and some of the other random favias and such I've got) a bit more.

CUC are hard at work cleaning the derasa. I promise the derasa has a good growth, just the cyano grows so fast on solid surfaces and I don't like cleaning the top of the valve too vigorously. But lately CUC have remembered their job.

side view of the hippo, it's got a touch of green to it from the top but hard to photo in its current spot. Really like this little guy, one of my favorite clams.

Recently upped my light intensity in the clam area of the tank (around august/september) and the derasa has really liked it.

And the "favias" - whatever they actually are

 

[dansyr]

I love iridophores

 

[dansyr]

Hippopus getting cleaned

 

[dansyr]

Photo dump - it's been a minute! All is going well, realized I had screwed up my 2-part dosing and my Mg was way off (low) over the course of several months, but has been corrected and things are looking back to normal colors and happy. I also started dosing DIY manganese around this time, but I attribute the return to good growth rates to be mostly due to the Mg.

The purple tip stag acro has been filling in nicely, it's getting great contrast with the green slimer and the clown gobies love bouncing back and forth between them.

Photo dump:

 

[exnisstech]

Tank looks awesome. A true mixed reef very natural looking compared to many neon tanks trending these days. I don't see nice bubble corals often. My oldest coral of 9 years is bubble coral. Clams look great also.

 

[dansyr]

Tank looks awesome. A true mixed reef very natural looking compared to many neon tanks trending these days. I don't see nice bubble corals often. My oldest coral of 9 years is bubble coral. Clams look great also.

Thank you! I really appreciate that, very much going for a natural looking mixed reef / lagoon environment. Bubble corals are some of my favorite. Yours is a really nice one. Somehow they are gentler IMO than torches, truly an underrated LPS. They may sting hard, but not too aggressive.

I have been stalking your tank threads over the past year or so, I have enjoyed watching your builds develop. I think your little filter feeder nano is very cool, I need to actually post something on that thread so I get updates :)

 

[dansyr]

Been awhile since I updated, was looking at the clams while feeding and figured it was time for some updated top-down shots:

 

[Mac8128]

Those clams look amazing. Based on their current size and growth history, how long do you think you will be able to keep them in a 20g long?

I currently have a Ruby Red Dragonette and a Yellow Clown Goby in my QT tank pending their move to my 13.5g nano. They both are eating Calanus and Frozen Brine shrimp. The feeding response is excellent with the goby while the dragonette seems a little more hesitant. But is accepting the frozen foods. Plus they both get an occasional Tiger pod.

They seem to enjoy each others company as they rarely get more than 4 inches or so apart. They take turns leading the other around the tank.

 

[dansyr]

Those clams look amazing. Based on their current size and growth history, how long do you think you will be able to keep them in a 20g long?

I currently have a Ruby Red Dragonette and a Yellow Clown Goby in my QT tank pending their move to my 13.5g nano. They both are eating Calanus and Frozen Brine shrimp. The feeding response is excellent with the goby while the dragonette seems a little more hesitant. But is accepting the frozen foods. Plus they both get an occasional Tiger pod.

They seem to enjoy each others company as they rarely get more than 4 inches or so apart. They take turns leading the other around the tank.

The maximas could probably stay awhile. The derasa is getting pretty big but slowing down. Still got a growth band just not like the double-every-year stage.

I unfortunately need to move overseas, so sadly these will be going to a friend. If I was staying her longer, I had plans to remove that rock behind derasa that the favia is on to give it another couple years of space.

And tht's awesome about the goby and dragonette. Both awesome fish, and good job getting them feeding. If you can, I really recommend gtting a god sized piece of green slimer or other acropora yongei type slimy stags. Total behavior chand when I got my yellow clown goby a green slimer and he loves it (and no damage to slimer).

 

[Rhetoric]

I love seeing a well kept 20g. Cheers to a beautiful aquarium.

 

[Mac8128]

The maximas could probably stay awhile. The derasa is getting pretty big but slowing down. Still got a growth band just not like the double-every-year stage.

I unfortunately need to move overseas, so sadly these will be going to a friend. If I was staying her longer, I had plans to remove that rock behind derasa that the favia is on to give it another couple years of space.

And tht's awesome about the goby and dragonette. Both awesome fish, and good job getting them feeding. If you can, I really recommend gtting a god sized piece of green slimer or other acropora yongei type slimy stags. Total behavior chand when I got my yellow clown goby a green slimer and he loves it (and no damage to slimer).

I will keep an eye out for a small piece of Green Slimer. My plan is to upgrade to a 40g breeder tank at the end of the year, so maybe I will try to get a small blue maximas clam in the near future. Maybe set it up as one of the focal points of my new tank.

If you don't mind me asking, what's causing the move overseas? Sorta wondering if you're in the military?