336 Peninsula build

[Tub Life]

mid April 2024 Popeye the sailor visited...

Diagnosed that this was a result of trauma. No infection.
Was lethargic for a few days. Resting on tank bottom.
Then started eating, barely.
Looks about fully recovered now!

 

[Tub Life]

Lysmata kuekenthali
added a pair of these for Aiptasia control

 

[Tub Life]

Vodka > Vinegar
Had begun trying out vodka dosing...
Dropped my Nitrates significantly... was getting some red slime... and eventually some bacteria snot lol
Eased up on the vodka dosing and since I was nearing the end of the bottle anyway, decided to make the switch and try out vinegar dosing. From my reading it should not encourage red slime like vodka. That and psycologically did not make sense to dose vodka, I drink enough myself, don't need my reef doing it lol. Just feels weird lol.

100ml a day; 10ml dosed at the top of the hour for 10 hours during light schedule.

 

[Tub Life]

Neon Damselfish - Pomacentrus alleni - Allen's Damselfish​

Never seen these damselfish before, they have a stunning vibrant deep electric blue body.
They can switch color instantly, example is the pic of them in the bucket. The 3 brown ones typically always have there best colors on. Oddly, the one showing off is the one that is not eating.

Bringing the fish home, picked up my kids and told them we got some new cool super blue fish.
They looked in the bag, "Dad I think they gave you the wrong fish, they are all brown."
I took a look and yup, they had all turned brown. lol

https://www.freshmarine.com/neon-damsel.html​

 

[Tub Life]

Deaths. June 2024

Banggai Cardinal: unexplained death.
Was found in morning already partly consumed by clean up crew. It's breeding partner seems perpetually sad now. RIP

Copperband Butterfly: long time coming.
I believe over the last couple of years it had been suffering from a tumor of sorts in it's gill.
Rapid breathing 24/7 and seemingly unable to close its mouth all the way.
Quite certain this condition was impeding it from eating properly and was slowly wasting away. RIP

Pintailed Fairy Wrasse: carpet surfing.
Ironically I was away with my son and we had taken our first surfing lesson.
Wife informed us, the wrasse had also gone surfing. RIP

 

[Tub Life]

RO/DI maintenance. July 2024

Finally added a triple in-line TDS meter.

Subsequently replaced RO 100gpd membrane and color-changing DI cartridge.

Water reads:
Line 1: 27 = city water source
Line 2: 5 = post RO membrane
Line 3: 0 = post DI filter

 

[Tub Life]

Light Rack

Finally put some hours in to work on the light rack.

Went from this:

To this:
Still not complete, but gettin there!

I am not good at translating my DIY into finished product. Never mind measure twice, cut once. I measure mutliple times, cut multiple times and scratch my head inbetween lol.

 

[Tub Life]

Upgrade RO/DI Resevoir

from 30g to 75g.

 

[Tub Life]

Vacation & power outage

set up auto feeders for pellets and flake.
arranged for my parents to come feed frozen daily.

Removed filter socks and skimmer cup.

only real concern was keeping the fish fed well, didn't anticipate anything else.

So of course we had some wind storm which resulted in some power outages.

So tank went with no power for several hours. Had some salinity swings for several days. All fish are fine, but lost a few corals.

Grew a few giant patches of algae, tons more aiptasia and bubble algae to deal with.

 

[Janci]

Power outage is never good and less when not at home.
Algae is not the worse to overcome so hoping for a swift recovery.
Take care.

 

[Tub Life]

Power outage is never good and less when not at home.
Algae is not the worse to overcome so hoping for a swift recovery.
Take care.

Yes, things could definitely have gone worse.

Looks like I lost a damsel and maybe a chromis.

Working on the algae and an aiptasia outbreak.

Dealing with the aiptasia with kalk paste currently.

 

[Tub Life]

More light!

Got around to cutting and spraying some cross braces. So was able to add my other 4 Hydras.

1 x Hydra26
3 x Hydra26 HD

The 1 x Hydra26 along with the 5 x Hydra52s are run off the Director, so need to try color match the HDs to them.

 

[mch1984]

Sounds like you've been through some adventures. At least you could save some of the inhabitants during the time of the tub. I'm looking forward to watching this one.

 

[Tub Life]

Yup, reefin' ain't easy. Lol

Couple weeks ago I was mucking around in the tank, and I knocked over some of the rockwork on the right hand side. I knew it would happen at some point as that structure wasn't very stable.

So I moved some rock, shifted some, flipped some. And ended up with this. A bit lower profile than before. I like it, I had always felt the right side felt too "heavy" visually. This lightens it up, opens up the water column a bit and I think it will allow for a bit better flow in that area.

 

[Tub Life]

T.Derasa

Got me a T.Derasa for my birthday a couple weeks back, courtesy of the wifey!

It's about 2-2.5"

Tank lights

No lights

Morning lights + flash

 

[Tub Life]

male Dispar

Finally saw some nice Dispars at the LFS so picked up a male to go along with the lone female in the tank.

He seems to spend more time with the blue/green chromis than her though...

 

[Tub Life]

Built a few pedestal rocks structures.

Turned out to be sm - med - large.

This was done in anticipation of adding more fish to the system.

To add more hiding spaces and alter landscape, territories.

 

[Tub Life]

Copperband Butterfly, Powder Blue Tang and Anthias trio

Added some favorites to the display!

Got a smallish 2-2.5" Copperband Butterfly. My daughter's favorite, one of mine too. Eats well on a variety of frozen, hopefully will become more aggressive at eating now that it's in the display and has many other mouths to compete with for food. This guy is believed to be a male ( straighter forehead, females having a slight hump ).

My all time favorite tang, the Powder Blue! Beautiful specimen, bold striking colors. A trio would be a dream, but you rarely even see a duo long term.

You can make out my Red Sea Sailfin Tang in both the CBB and PB photos. Took a couple days of him flaring fins to calm down and accept the new additions. Never aggressively chased or nipped them, but would do fly bys with fins flaring and changing from his dark coloration to a light pale gray.

Just to note, the Red Sea Sailfin is about 4x the size of the PB and 5x the CBB!

Added a trio of smaller anthias to make the Dispar pair a harem. However, while in observation I noticed they had a white distinct snout. About a week in I noticed the larger of the trio has a elongated dorsal ray, indicating male. And after introducing them to the display, different coloration is also apparent. They have a yellow-pink color to them. So far they are often close together. Hopefully the remain as a tight group.

The male, with the dorsal spine.

And the females:

I did not feed them yet before I transferred them, hence the small tummies. These guys are good eaters and high energy fish, with fast metabolism. If they don't get fed, it is very visibly apparent.

 

[Tub Life]

Baby Trochus!

Spotted a baby trochus snail! Pretty stoked, in my last display I had several generations of babies, so I am glad to see that they can survive in my system once again! This guy might be 5mm round.

 

[Tub Life]

Nemathias Carberryi
- carberry anthias
- threadfin anthias

Have identified the latest 3 anthias as Carberry, thought they may have been Bartletts due to the snout and yellow pink coloration. But have now seen them with 2 distinct dorsal spikes, leading me to identify them as the Carberry.