28g JBJ Nanocube

[MaxTremors]

Here’s a pic of the dang BTA the morning after splitting, gone have to find someone to take one of them once they’re healed because two is one too many for my tank.

So you aren't happy about it?

I mean, I won’t lie, it’s kind of exciting, but the original was kind of a wanderer, so I’m just worried this is going to result in having two of them wandering around (or more if they split again). I don’t know, before it split it had staying in the same spot for a while, so if I can get them to both stay put, I’ll let them stay, but if they start wandering a bunch, I think I’ll probably rehome them.

The guy that I bought it from started with one, and ended up with over 30 in around a year (his build thread is on here, its an epic tank), they were taking over his tank and so he tried to sell them and get them out, but could only get 5-6 off the rocks to sell, so he eventually pulled the rocks and scraped them off like Aiptasias. I don’t want to get anywhere close to that point, so I’ll be keeping a close eye on them.

 

[Goaway]

New full tank shot (probably should’ve cleaned the glass, lol).

Has there been any signs of the dragon soul and blastomussa trying to kill each other?

Also, love the way your corals look so happy in your photos!

Also, very jealous of the anemone splits
VERY JEALOUS.

 

[Goaway]

Your build needs a little more attention

 

[MaxTremors]

Has there been any signs of the dragon soul and blastomussa trying to kill each other?

Also, love the way your corals look so happy in your photos!

Also, very jealous of the anemone splits
VERY JEALOUS.

I haven’t seen any aggression (more worried about the dragon soul killing the the blasto than vice versa), but there is more room between them than appears in photos. I’m going to be doing some rearranging in the next few days because I’ve got a bunch of stuff coming in towards the end of the week. I’m starting to reach the point where I’m running out of room. But I’m thinking about setting up a small frag tank pretty soon, I’ve got everything I need (though I might wait, we’re going to be painting and redoing our floors soon, so I may wait so I don’t have to move it), I really don’t want to end up with multiple tanks, but having somewhere to put what I prune back is kind of becoming a necessity at this point.

Thankfully the anemone splits have been staying put, though one is at the base of my toadstool and the toadstool doesn’t seem too happy about the arrangement (but I’m not seeing any damage, so I’m not going to intervene yet). But they seem to be almost fully healed already, it’s crazy how quickly they recover from tearing themselves in half.

 

[Goaway]

I love all my corals. But, I keep seeing these "my bta split" threads. ;Sour Mine keeps getting bigger though. Keeps changing color and what not, I'll just enjoy.

Blastos are just so fluffy and awesome!

You've got a happy looking reef. I'd be looking forward to seeing the new additions.

 

[MaxTremors]

I love all my corals. But, I keep seeing these "my bta split" threads. ;Sour Mine keeps getting bigger though. Keeps changing color and what not, I'll just enjoy.

Blastos are just so fluffy and awesome!

You've got a happy looking reef. I'd be looking forward to seeing the new additions.

Mine got probably 5-6in across before it split, the guy I bought it from was surprised at how big it was and that it hadn’t split yet. Less than a week later it split, lol. I will say that I forgot to top-off my tank for almost a week, and the salinity got to around 1.027, and then I dumped a bunch of water in (to 1.0255), and it split that night, so I’m starting to think I maybe accidentally induced it.

 

[Goaway]

I dont want to force mine to split, I can wait for sure. 10" bta would be awesome!

 

[MaxTremors]

New picture dump. I finally got some lenses to take better pictures, still figuring out the best combo of lenses, but so far the pictures are so much truer to life than without the lenses (I’m using the Orphek phone lenses, mostly the 15k, 20k, and a few with the macro).

(that’s not a crack in the lower right hand corner, it’s my Banggai’s little tassel)

Torch is a little upset because I tried to clean the glass with a mag scrape right before taking pictures which always upsets her.

thought I was using the macro lens for this one, but it was actually the polarized lens

New split really pushing its luck.

dirty glass yuma

Anyway, that’s all for now, got some cool stuff coming in later in the week!

 

[PandorasChalk]

The tank looks great! Those closeup shots look amazing, what brand phone are you using the lenses with? I thought about picking up a set of the Orphek lenses also.

 

[MaxTremors]

The tank looks great! Those closeup shots look amazing, what brand phone are you using the lenses with? I thought about picking up a set of the Orphek lenses also.

Thanks! It’s an iPhone 11.

 

[James_O]

New picture dump. I finally got some lenses to take better pictures, still figuring out the best combo of lenses, but so far the pictures are so much truer to life than without the lenses (I’m using the Orphek phone lenses, mostly the 15k, 20k, and a few with the macro).

(that’s not a crack in the lower right hand corner, it’s my Banggai’s little tassel)

Torch is a little upset because I tried to clean the glass with a mag scrape right before taking pictures which always upsets her.

thought I was using the macro lens for this one, but it was actually the polarized lens

New split really pushing its luck.

dirty glass yuma

Anyway, that’s all for now, got some cool stuff coming in later in the week!

Amazing coral!

 

[MaxTremors]

Got a bunch new Zoanthids/Palys, some blastos, a birdsnest, a Japanese tree leather, and a scoly. These are from the prize for the pumpkin carving contest. They just came in this morning, so not all are completely opened yet, but here they are:

Here’s the birdsnest. When I cut the end of the frag plug off, the coral came off the plug and landed on the tile floor and broke into several pieces, so I glued tall the pieces back onto the frag plug. I’m sure it’ll be fine, but still sucks, was kind of surprised it made it through shipping without any breakage.

So, there are some nirvanas, kaleidoscopes, dragon eyes, chiquitas, skittles candy apples, and a few no-names (this isn’t all of them, will post more pics when they open up more).

its hard to see it (especially with the mushrooms in the background), but this is the Japanese tree leather. Feel a little bit ripped off with this one. In the photos it looked like it was 3-4” tall, in person it will maybe be 1” once its fully acclimated. It was $100 (and that was on sale). Maybe I’m missing something and it will be really cool when it gets comfortable and starts growing, but as of now I don’t think it was worth it.

and lastly, here is the scoly. It’s a Warpaint and I’m super happy with it. It’s big, bright, and healthy, way prettier in person.

Anyway, that’s all for now, I will most more pics once everything settles in. Other than the Japanese leather, I’m really happy with everything (they also threw in a free blasto and Duncan - the green branching kind I’ve been looking for - so that was cool). I was worried about getting corals shipped with it now getting down to freezing at night, but the heat packs were still warm and the water temp was 77°, so they did a great job packing everything. AquaSD is a great vender, I just wish that they’d list the sizes of corals (or even just what size frag plug they’re on so you have a better idea of what you’re getting).

 

[MaxTremors]

Just kind of tore my tank apart to get to a tiny little aiptasia that was on the bottom/back of a zoa colony. I ended up taking the whole rock out and scraped it off, then covered the area in kalk paste, and then sealed the whole area in super glue. It was fairly routine, but still kind of a job. The crappy part is that as I was scraping the aiptasia off with a scalpel, my GF interrupted/distracted me, and I poke the scarpel through a zoa and right into my finger. I was wearing gloves, but the scalpel went right through them. So now I’m sitting here being a hypochondriac thinking I feel weird and panicking that I was poisoned by palytoxin. I’m totally fine, but my mind like to go to worst case scenario and I end up psychosomatically making myself feel weird/awful. Anyway, that’s the update for today!

 

[MaxTremors]

Brief update: I couldn’t resist a few Black Friday sales and end up buying two firefish and a ruby red dragonet. I put them in the tank Friday (now Monday) and I hadn’t seen any of them since around 30 minutes after I put them in the tank. I was kind of devastated and thought they were all dead, well today while all the pumps were off while I fed the corals, both firefish came out. To promptly be chased back into hiding by my six line (I feel betrayed, I defend her, I said her reputation was undeserved, that she was a model citizen…nope, she’s got a serious anti-social personality disorder), so now I’m trying a few different ideas to try and disorient him so that he thinks he’s in new territory. So, I was really relieved when I saw they were both alive today.

Which brings me to the ruby red, it’s still MIA. I haven’t seen my coral banded shrimp carrying around a corpse, so that’s good, but I think things aren’t looking like they’re in his favor. I’m a little upset at the store I bought it from, I asked them what they kept their salinity at and they said 1.025. Well, that was true for the system the firefish came out of, but the system the dragonet came out of was 1.032 (I verified with two freshly calibrated). So I drip acclimated him for 3 hours, but I still worry that it was too much too soon (I had to leave, otherwise I would’ve gone slower). I called the fish store and they weren’t helpful at all and basically called me a liar, said that they’d never keep their tanks that salty, which is a blatant lie. Anyway, I’m still holding out hope that it’ll show up, but I can’t say I’m not worried/anxious about it.

I also ordered some pretty sweet coral from some of the sales, won’t be here for a couple weeks, but I’m excited for it to get here.

 

[MaxTremors]

Another update. Still haven’t seen the Ruby Red, but both firefish are doing great, the sixline has accepted them as part of the community. Overall corals are doing great, except for my lobo (which is really Acanthestrea Pachysepta) which just flipped out last night and decided that the dragon soul Favia (goniastrea) and Yuma that have been near it for ages were no longer welcome on this planet and spewed it’s guts all over them both (at the same time) and promptly started digesting them. The dragon soul isn’t looking like it’s going to make it (still holding out hope though), but the Yuma will most likely be okay.

Aside from that drama, I’ve added some more zoas/Palys (sunny D’s, pink galaxies, and gator eyes are what they were sold as, but I think the Sunny D’s are the only accurately named ones, which is fine, I don’t really care about names anyway). Also added a little pipe organ and this really cool mosaic rhodactis mushroom. And lastly, I added a cynarina. They’ve all only been in the tank for 36 hours or so, so I’m not claiming shenanigans quite yet, but the cynarina is not as colorful as it was in pictures. It was supposed to be green, pink, and white, and in person it’s sort of brown, pale olive green and white. Still pretty, but not that close to what was advertised. We’ll see if it colors up.

Also, the few sps that I have have been growing super fast under this Noopsyche light, you don’t notice it daily, but a week will go by and I’ll realize that it’s grown several new arms has already started shading out the Turbinaria next to it.

Picture dump:
Cynarina:

mosaic Rhodactis

Sunny Ds (in the middle). My pink bar has taken to perching on this colony of red and black zoas, so much so that they’re basically never open and algae has started to grow on them. I think I’m going to try to move them if I can and see if they get better.

Little pipe organ (in the middle

‘gator eye

birdsnest today

Birdsnest October 6th (it was knocked off after this and re-glued at a different angle, buts its nearly tripled in size in around 2 and half months).

 

[CincyJDH]

How did you mount your noops? I ask because I would like to drop the same skimmer in the basket chamber but the RMS arm mount for my XR15s kinda gets in the way. With it attached in the center I'm afraid there isn't enough room for the skimmer.

 

[MaxTremors]

How did you mount your noops? I ask because I would like to drop the same skimmer in the basket chamber but the RMS arm mount for my XR15s kinda gets in the way. With it attached in the center I'm afraid there isn't enough room for the skimmer.

I have it attached to the side of the tank. I had an AI Prime before the Noopsyche and couldn’t find a way to run the skimmer and put a light mount on the back, so I put on the side. The AI mount wasn’t that sturdy on the rim of my tank, but I made it work. The Noopsyche mount fit on the rim much better and is altogether more sturdy. I think if you had a flex mount you might be able to put it in the back off to the side and then just bend it so the light is roughly centered. Luckily the Noopsyche light can be mounted sideways on the mount so I didn’t have to rig anything up to get the light to sit in the right orientation.

 

[MaxTremors]

Man, I feel awful today. I’ve been thinking about rehoming my coral banded shrimp and fighting conch, so I called the lfs today to see if they’d take them. They said they would. So I go about trying to catch the CBS and it was a nightmare. She’s usually not shy of me at all, in fact she is usually picking at my arm/hand whenever I put my hand in the tank. Anyway, I finally got her cornered without totally tearing the tank apart and right as I got her in the cup, she slipped out and I pinned both of her pinchers between the cup and the glass and ripped them both off. So I after that I gave up. I know they’ll grow back, she only had one pincher when I got her, but I still feel awful about it. I did take in the conch though, they’re great at stirring the sand and eating algae, but every morning all of my corals on the sand would be moved and it moved my dragon soul favia/goniastrea into my lobo/Acan pachysepta the other day and the lobo just obliterated it. So glad the conch is gone, but feel like crap about the CSB.

Also, I finally found a HOB refugium that would work with my setup (I think), the Fiji Cube large HOB refugium, I email BRS to get the exact dimensions, but it looks like it should fit, hopefully it will, it’d add a few gallons of volume, allow me to grow some macro algae, and even keep some frags in there.

 

[MaxTremors]

Added a new refugium this week. It’s the large Fijicube HOB refugium. It was the only one I could find that would fit my particular setup (needed to be wide enough between the intake and return for my skimmer to fit between them, but no so wide that the intake tube would be in the return chamber). Anyway, it fits perfectly, as of now I’ve just got a marine pure cube, some chaeto, a little bit of Xenia, some caulerpa brachypus, and some purigen. I’m lighting it with an AI Prime until I decide what light I want to run on it. Because the AI Prime sits kind of high, I’ve put a piece of foam to block out the light from bleeding into the DT (since I’m running it opposite of the DT). So far it’s running better than I expected, hopefully it will help with nutrient export.

 

[MaxTremors]

Couple updates.
Around a week ago, I left my lid slightly open for a few hours and one of my firefish jumped. Didn’t find it in time. The next day the other firefish was out and seemingly fine, but I haven’t seen it since that day (it’s been around a week). Don’t know if it’s hiding or what, but haven’t seen any corpses and haven’t left the lid open.

Two days ago, one of my RBTA went on a little power walk around the tank and stung the crap out of my torch. At first I thought it might be okay, but the next day it brown jellied out, all four heads were dead.

Not many new additions, just a purple birdsnest I picked up from a local reefer for $5.

The refugium is doing amazingly. Been going about a month. Started with a softball size of chaeto, and it’s probably 20x as much as I started with (have harvested and given away tons of it). Nitrates have gone from the mid twenties down to 5-10ppm (I’ve increased feeding to ensure nutrients don’t bottom out, also dosing phosphates). So, super happy with how it’s going.

Anyway, that’s the update.

oh, also, I was sent a bristleworm trap from Printed Reef, and I’ve tried it a couple times, but haven’t caught any. It’s not that the product doesn’t work, it’s just that I’m pretty sure my coral banded shrimp has taken a liking to them and there’s just not very many in my tank. Now, spaghetti worms, there are tons.