Azedenkae
Valuable Member
Hi all!
I have decided to share my aquarium here. It is not looking great at the moment, but hey, that's also part of the point right?
A short background: Perhaps because of my biology background and studies in ecology that I do very much embrace the 'from chaos births stability' ethos of aquarium-keeping, which works, even if it does not always generate the best looking at tanks. So I fully understand the other side as well. XD
With that said, I was trying to be a lot more controlled with my newest aquarium, but let just say things did not go according to plan and I had to re-embrace the chaos.
The aquarium was setted up in early January, and probably from using a combination of live sand, a single piece of live rock, and bottled bacteria, it was cycled within two weeks. Now, there are a lot of definitions for what 'cycling' entails. Mine is that it establishes the microbes needed to take care of the nitrogen compounds I need the microbes to take care of presuming a fully stocked tank, which for this tank is ammonia and nitrite as nitrates I wanted to predominantly delegate to algae. So I dosed 2ppm ammonia to start with, and waited until both ammonia and nitrite goes down to 0 before dosing ammonia again, considering the tank cycled if the microbes can oxidize ammonia to nitrate within a day. So yeah, that happened within two weeks, though I did continue to test its capacity to handle ammonia until there was fish introduced.
It was supposed to originally be an anemone and clownfish tank, but I have now just resorted to it being a clownfish tank - that's what I care about the most. I still have a mini maxi living it up in the aquarium (as far as I can tell), but it's not really a goal to have the clownfish embrace the mini maxi. I decided to instead just go with some easy corals and let them propagate as they like, just to give the aquarium a bit more life - but mainly it is the clownfish that I care about. Why? Well the whole goal of the tank was to crossbreed two species of clownfish that has not been crossbred before. Which is also why you will see that I have a cinnamon clownfish and an ocellaris clownfish. The cinnamon is named Orange and has tried to display dominance over the ocellaris. The ocellaris is named Nemo, and has submitted to Orange. You know, with Orange charging at Nemo and stopping just before hitting Nemo, and Nemo doing the submissive shake and all.
They have taken to my xenia and clove polyp, with Orange loving to smother the xenia. It still seems to be fine (so far XD), and with both my xenia and clove polyp dropping babies all over the tank (and even in the sump), I am sure I'll still have net growth. I also have some other corals that I have chucked it to see if they may grow or not, not a big deal if they don't. I mean I had to accept it since I still have issues with nutrient control and unwanted growth all over. I was ordering from a store that sent me some pretty bad specimens, but instead of tossing them out right away, I had added them in the tank. Well, not quite. There was one instance where I ordered five hermit crabs, and got six shells, one with aiptasia in it. Yeah that, that I handled right away.
I did not have a QT tank set up (just could not get it sorted out), and I had wanted to try to save everything I received. Long story short there were a bunch of deaths, and it was annoying for a while. At one point I actually measured nitrites, which implies just a lot of decomposition, but luckily I scoured the sump, found decomposing stuff stuck underneath two compartments, removed it all and even though there were still nutrient problems, hey at least ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate are measuring 0 again.
Things are going in the right direction now, and I don't plan to add anything else. So yeah. Will have a QT tank if I do, but for now probably just gonna try to set up a hospital tank and consider a QT tank in the future.
Setup
Innovative Marine NuvoAquarium Fusion 20 - media taken out of caddy, caddy instead used to contain algae in a second chamber
Innovative Marine Nuvo APS Stand [Fusion 20 | Encore 20] - do not get their stand, highly not recommended
AquaIllumination AI Prime 16HD Reef + AquaIllumination 12" Prime Flex Arm
Eheim 125w Heater
MLJ LED Aquarium Light, 18 cm - submersible, added to a second chamber to grow algae
MarinePure Gems (2 packs) - added to the bottom of the chambers in the back except the middle one
Poly-Filter - just extra chemical filtration when necessary
Rock from KP Aquatics (16lb) - most in the display, some in the chambers as extra biomedia
CaribSea AragAlive Pink Sand (20lb)
Live Stock
Amphiprion melanopus, cinnamon clownfish (Sea & Reef Aquaculture) - main fish
Amphiprion ocellaris, ocellaris clownfish (standard morph, Sea & Reef Aquaculture) - main fish
Mithraculus sculptus, emerald crab - cuc
5x Nassarius sp., nassarius snail (Mexico morph) - cuc
4x Nassarius spp. sand snails - cuc
1x Elysia spp., lettuce sea slug - cuc
1x Turbo castanea, chestnut turbo snail - cuc
1x Calcinus seurati, zebra hermit crab - cuc
1x Lithopoma tectum, west indian star snail - cuc
1x Turbo fluctuosa, mexican turbo snail - cuc
1x Engina mendicaria, bumblebee snail - cuc
1x Cerithium litteratum, cerith snail - cuc
1x Margarites pupillus, margarita snail - cuc
1x Neritina virginea, virgin nerite - cuc
1x Astraea tecta, Astrea turbo snail - cuc
1x Clibanarus tricolo, blue-legged hermit crab - cuc
1x Mexican red-legged hermit crab - cuc
5x Berghia sp., berghia nudibranch - pesticide
3x Wholefoods Littleneck Clams - filtration, species unknown but likely Leukoma staminea or Mercenaria mercenaria
CR's Mandarin Orange Clove
3x Acanthastrea
1x ORA Bird of Paradise Birdsnest Coral
1x LiveAquaria® CCGC Aquacultured Red Sea Pom Pom Xenia Coral
1x LiveAquaria® CCGC Aquacultured Silver Branch Pumping Xenia Coral
1x LiveAquaria® CCGC Aquacultured Glove Polyp Coral
3x Green and Red Bullseye Rhodactis Mushroom Coral (Tonga)
1x Brain Coral, Trachyphyllia, Green (Australia)
1x Blue Sympodium
1x Liams Clove Polyps
1x Blue Star Polyps
1x Mini Carpet Anemone
Current Aquarium State (needs so much work T_T)
5
I have decided to share my aquarium here. It is not looking great at the moment, but hey, that's also part of the point right?
A short background: Perhaps because of my biology background and studies in ecology that I do very much embrace the 'from chaos births stability' ethos of aquarium-keeping, which works, even if it does not always generate the best looking at tanks. So I fully understand the other side as well. XD
With that said, I was trying to be a lot more controlled with my newest aquarium, but let just say things did not go according to plan and I had to re-embrace the chaos.
The aquarium was setted up in early January, and probably from using a combination of live sand, a single piece of live rock, and bottled bacteria, it was cycled within two weeks. Now, there are a lot of definitions for what 'cycling' entails. Mine is that it establishes the microbes needed to take care of the nitrogen compounds I need the microbes to take care of presuming a fully stocked tank, which for this tank is ammonia and nitrite as nitrates I wanted to predominantly delegate to algae. So I dosed 2ppm ammonia to start with, and waited until both ammonia and nitrite goes down to 0 before dosing ammonia again, considering the tank cycled if the microbes can oxidize ammonia to nitrate within a day. So yeah, that happened within two weeks, though I did continue to test its capacity to handle ammonia until there was fish introduced.
It was supposed to originally be an anemone and clownfish tank, but I have now just resorted to it being a clownfish tank - that's what I care about the most. I still have a mini maxi living it up in the aquarium (as far as I can tell), but it's not really a goal to have the clownfish embrace the mini maxi. I decided to instead just go with some easy corals and let them propagate as they like, just to give the aquarium a bit more life - but mainly it is the clownfish that I care about. Why? Well the whole goal of the tank was to crossbreed two species of clownfish that has not been crossbred before. Which is also why you will see that I have a cinnamon clownfish and an ocellaris clownfish. The cinnamon is named Orange and has tried to display dominance over the ocellaris. The ocellaris is named Nemo, and has submitted to Orange. You know, with Orange charging at Nemo and stopping just before hitting Nemo, and Nemo doing the submissive shake and all.
They have taken to my xenia and clove polyp, with Orange loving to smother the xenia. It still seems to be fine (so far XD), and with both my xenia and clove polyp dropping babies all over the tank (and even in the sump), I am sure I'll still have net growth. I also have some other corals that I have chucked it to see if they may grow or not, not a big deal if they don't. I mean I had to accept it since I still have issues with nutrient control and unwanted growth all over. I was ordering from a store that sent me some pretty bad specimens, but instead of tossing them out right away, I had added them in the tank. Well, not quite. There was one instance where I ordered five hermit crabs, and got six shells, one with aiptasia in it. Yeah that, that I handled right away.
I did not have a QT tank set up (just could not get it sorted out), and I had wanted to try to save everything I received. Long story short there were a bunch of deaths, and it was annoying for a while. At one point I actually measured nitrites, which implies just a lot of decomposition, but luckily I scoured the sump, found decomposing stuff stuck underneath two compartments, removed it all and even though there were still nutrient problems, hey at least ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate are measuring 0 again.
Things are going in the right direction now, and I don't plan to add anything else. So yeah.
Will have a QT tank if I do, but for now probably just gonna try to set up a hospital tank and consider a QT tank in the future.Setup
Innovative Marine NuvoAquarium Fusion 20 - media taken out of caddy, caddy instead used to contain algae in a second chamber
Innovative Marine Nuvo APS Stand [Fusion 20 | Encore 20] - do not get their stand, highly not recommended
AquaIllumination AI Prime 16HD Reef + AquaIllumination 12" Prime Flex Arm
Eheim 125w Heater
MLJ LED Aquarium Light, 18 cm - submersible, added to a second chamber to grow algae
MarinePure Gems (2 packs) - added to the bottom of the chambers in the back except the middle one
Poly-Filter - just extra chemical filtration when necessary
Rock from KP Aquatics (16lb) - most in the display, some in the chambers as extra biomedia
CaribSea AragAlive Pink Sand (20lb)
Live Stock
Amphiprion melanopus, cinnamon clownfish (Sea & Reef Aquaculture) - main fish
Amphiprion ocellaris, ocellaris clownfish (standard morph, Sea & Reef Aquaculture) - main fish
5x Nassarius sp., nassarius snail (Mexico morph) - cuc
4x Nassarius spp. sand snails - cuc
1x Elysia spp., lettuce sea slug - cuc
1x Turbo castanea, chestnut turbo snail - cuc
1x Calcinus seurati, zebra hermit crab - cuc
1x Lithopoma tectum, west indian star snail - cuc
1x Turbo fluctuosa, mexican turbo snail - cuc
1x Engina mendicaria, bumblebee snail - cuc
1x Cerithium litteratum, cerith snail - cuc
1x Margarites pupillus, margarita snail - cuc
1x Neritina virginea, virgin nerite - cuc
1x Astraea tecta, Astrea turbo snail - cuc
1x Clibanarus tricolo, blue-legged hermit crab - cuc
1x Mexican red-legged hermit crab - cuc
5x Berghia sp., berghia nudibranch - pesticide
3x Wholefoods Littleneck Clams - filtration, species unknown but likely Leukoma staminea or Mercenaria mercenaria
CR's Mandarin Orange Clove
3
1x ORA Bird of Paradise Birdsnest Coral
1x LiveAquaria® CCGC Aquacultured Red Sea Pom Pom Xenia Coral
1x LiveAquaria® CCGC Aquacultured Silver Branch Pumping Xenia Coral
1x LiveAquaria® CCGC Aquacultured Glove Polyp Coral
1x Brain Coral, Trachyphyllia, Green (Australia)
1x Blue Sympodium
1x Liams Clove Polyps
1x Blue Star Polyps
1x Mini Carpet Anemone
Current Aquarium State (needs so much work T_T)
5
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