First Tank Nano Tank

[Garbonzo]

Cool nano! I know the feeling of wanting a bigger tank as every time I set up a bigger tank, I'm already thinking that it's a step towards an even bigger tank. LOL

 

[DangerDave]

Welcome aboard, great work too!

Dave

 

[Lulu_Lunette]

Looks great, I've just started with an evo as well, I'll try to post a few photos later.

I look forward to seeing it :)

 

[Lulu_Lunette]

It’s been a little over two weeks since securing the rock work. So far everything appears to be hanging on and getting bigger. I really wanted to add more inhabitants to my tank. I am finding it rather difficult because my clownfish are such… jerks. I honestly was/am considering adding a six line wrasse to the tank bit with no quarantine tank am able to talk myself out of it. Still having the itch, I decided on adding some different invertebrates – sexy shrimp.


The only photo of my sexy shrimp

I cannot believe how small these guys are. But their butt bobbing makes a great new form of movement for my tank. I ended up with three in total and was assured that the clownfish wouldn’t think anything of them. After acclimating them and getting them in, I watched them walk around exploring when out of the corner of my eye a clownfish made one of them a snack, an expensive snack… jerk. I don’t think the other two lasted the night. Discouraged after the sexy massacre I have come to the conclusion that only replacement cleanup crew and corals can be added to the tank.


About a month ago I decided to try my hand at keeping zoanthids. I had been putting off getting any of these since the initial setup, mainly because I kept hearing that they were toxic, but after hearing they are only toxic when fragging decided to give them a go. Before restructuring the rock they seem to be doing great. However the last few days they have not been opening up, this causes me to worry. I checked my parameters and salinity and temp were both a little high – I got these back in line and waited. Within the next few hours they began to open up. I posted a photo of them on my Instagram story and someone noted there was detritus that needed to be removed. I removed it but they still were not opening. The last two weeks my kenya tree has grown a lot, so much that I believe that is was shadowing the zoas. Tonight I cut it back to allow more light to reach them, and hopefully they will make a full recovery within the next week or two.

Before

Not looking so great

After

Here is the latest full tank photo and some macro shots of critters… enjoy!

02.01.18

Blue legged hermit

Asterina starfish

Clownfish’s new digs

 

[Lovemyreef2015]

Hey @Lulu_Lunette I had the same tank but I updated the light. How is your tank doing? I like how you set up the rock work:)

 

[Lulu_Lunette]

Wow - it’s been awhile since I have updated this thread, time for a long overdue update.

First off, the original pair of clownfish that I had one developed a severe case of popeye. His eyes eventually went back to being normal but I fear his vision never returned to normal and he ended up passing away a few months later. The remaining clownfish was so aggressive that I did not dare add another fish to the tank.


I made the difficult decision of rehoming my remaining clownfish for a new pair. This time I chose a pair of snowflake clowns. I love the patterns on these guys.

Full tank with new clowns


Eventually one of the clowns turned into a black snowflake clown - making them a unique awesome looking pair

I ended up picking up a falco hawkfish from a local reefer. The original intent on adding him to this system was he would eventually be moving to the new build I was working on. That still is the plan but I have had some hiccups that is delaying that process. For now, he will remain here king of the castle.

One of the weirdest things that has happened was I was in the process of cleaning out the sump area of this tank and out came one of the sexy shrimp that I had added and thought had died five plus months prior. I ended up moving it to the lagoon right away to save it from being a snack for the hawfish. The GSP in this tank also started to climb the side wall of the tank making a really cool feature of the tank.

I continued to collect new coral pieces and house them in the Evo while the lagoon was being setup. It became packed quick but looked so amazing. I made myself a frage rack with some egg crate and suction cups to house all the zoa frags I was collecting for the lagoon. I was able to manage all the coral needs with regular weekly water changes and dosing Tropic Marin’s All-For-Reef.

Sadly for reasons unknown the black snowflake clownfish passed away. I then decided to just have a solo clown for awhile. The lagoon was now up and running and I slowly started to move frags over to the new system. I did end up moving the remaining clown to the lagoon.


This is the current state of the Fluval Evo -

The Evo has turned into a softie tank. I tried taking out the Kenya trees that were put in there a while ago. It seemed to have worked until one day they came back with a vengeance. The fair dust polyps that I have added along with the GSP have almost completely overtaken the arch. For awhile I had a bad hair algae problem and was slacking on my water changes. The rock I had with xenia on it has almost no xenia on it anymore. I think with Kenya trees, GSP and the polyps running rampid in this tank the xenia can’t keep up.


To combat the algae problem, I ended up picking up a tuxedo urchin and cutting the light schedule wayback. I also manually removed a lot of it from the sand bed. This took care of most of it but the stuff on my frags wasn’t going down without a fight. I ended up doing a hydrogen peroxide dip on them and now they are squeaky clean.

how bad the hair algae is

frage after a hydrogen peroxide dip


For the past few months between the two tanks I have been faced with a lot of issues that I wasn’t sure how to handle and to be honest - I almost threw in the towel. But I just stuck with it and just focused more on maintaining and getting both tanks back on track. I’m honestly not sure what the plan is for this tank. I have been debating pretty seriously on tearing it all down and starting over. Mostly because the corals that I have in it are so invasive. I have also been thinking of making the first upgrade to it - upgrading the light and making it a clown nem tank. I This past week I ended adding a new pair of clowns to the Evo - two snowstorms

 

[siggy]

I ended up doing a hydrogen peroxide dip on them and now they are squeaky clean.

I have to try that some time. Still looking good;)