Glasscages 230G New Build

JXNATC · Jan 23, 2022

I very carefully watched and rewatched Ryan's NSA Habitat aquascape video. I very carefully broke rock, pieced, glued and mortared rock. In the end it looked NOTHING like I envisioned before starting, but I like it anyway.

JXNATC · Jun 9, 2022

It's been a while since I posted. I got the tank (thanks again @Joe Glass Cages!) wet back in February or so. I put 260 pounds of CaribSea Seaflor Special Aragonite sand in. I caught a sale at Chewy.com so the price wasn't too hateful. The cycle was pretty quick and painless. I had diatoms show up but got a CUC from Reef Cleaners. I had 106 Dwarf Cerith, 40 Florida Cerith, 10 Nerite, 10 Ox Tongue Nerite and 50 Zig Zag Periwinkles. Most of the Periwinkles went into the sump. Everything else went in the display.

They did a fair job but weren't nearly as fast as I'd hoped they would be. So, I got 4 Tuxedo Urchins. Though slow, they did a GREAT job on the rocks until the cyano outbreak showed up. I've no pictures from that time. I still have PTSD. Prior to cyano rearing its ugly head, I had a trumpet coral, a pretty decent torch coral, a rainbow acan, and a Duncan. As I was slowly losing the fight, I was slowly losing my corals. A GSP that I had made it through as did a fairly good-sized firework polyp. I lost two maxi-mini anemones as well. I skimmed; I turkey basted; I vacuumed; I overfed; I was about ready to get out of the hobby...sort of. I had ordered quarantined fish (Blonde Naso tang, Yellow Eyed Kole, 9 Blue Green Chromis, and a Lawnmower Blenny) from Dr. Reef and they were due to show during that whole mess. Everybody showed up but the Naso; he stopped eating so Dr. Reef decided to hold on to him until he was ready. I gave everybody a week or so to get established and then I ended up getting some ChemiClean, put airstones galore in the tank and nuked it. I was pretty satisfied with the results. Everybody pulled through. I've lost some Chromis since then but that appears to be more related to bullying by the bigger chromis' than any other issues. I ended up getting a Goby because I wanted the sand sifted a little better than what it was.

Everybody has been doing well and Dr. Reef shipped the Naso. The guys at @Queen City Corals had rescued a good size Vlamingi from a small biocube and wanted to rehome him. They came out and saw my set up and I committed to the Vlamingi as well as a Yellow, Scopas, and Sailfin. We thought that the tank would be big enough to discourage any bickering between the similar fish and it was decided to introduce them all together. I had Dr. Reef ship to @Queen City Corals and they came out to my office and introduced them to the tank. It looks awesome and like more than a snail tank finally

One of the Tuxedo Urchins is waltzing around with a few of the firework polyps on him like a party hat.