Our Mini Zoa Research Tank: 6.6g Fluval Chi Nano Reef

[gordonj1]

 

[gordonj1]

 

[gordonj1]

Also our snails mated and today we discovered some babies

They laid eggs on the glass and everything is was so kool! We have a picture somewhere but I think it was lost

 

[gordonj1]

Hi! My name is Jess, and my roommate (Court) and I will be building a 6.6g fluval chi nano reef for the competition.

We are currently conducting research on the phylogeny of zoanthids at the University of Findlay, and we would love to show off some of our nice zoas and palys that we have accumulated over the course of our research. We really enjoy collecting, growing, propagating, and trading these little guys. We have only been researching for 1 year, but we have made much progress. We hope that by entering the competition, we can spread awareness and possibly win a gift card or tank that can help us further our research. We have a small amount of grant money; however, the majority of our zoanthid purchases come out of pocket. Luckily many people have been very generous by donating many frags to us.

We will be using zoanthids and palythoas from our actual research project in this tank.

The plan:

6.6g fluval chi
cascade 10
tetra heater
2x 48 2- mode LED fixtures
lots of branched LR from a previous tank
Black sand

Fish and inverts:

1" percula named scout
randall's goby and shrimp pair Rob and Big
harlequin shrimp Quinny
a few blue hermies and some snails

Inverts and Corals:

Brown Palys 19 polyps at $2ea= $38
Baja Blast zoas 6 polyps @ $5 ea= $30
green no name palys 6 polyps @ $2ea= $12
feather dusters
maxi minis 3 @ $30 ea= $90
purple shrooms 4@ $10 ea= $40
r. florida $20
1" rock flower anemone $10 (my estimate)
toadstool leather $10

TOTAL: $250
$250 left

Addition: la laker zoanthids (bought frag for $20 but can't find tiny receipt ) roughly 30 polyps at $2 each is $60. Which brings my coral total to $310
Also, we got 2 more peppermint shrimp and another clownfish.

I ordered 2 more lights for it as well yay eBay!

This has been a very very cost effective reef for us!
2 led lights were ~$28 on eBay
Filter was $12 on sale at Meijer
Heater was also $12 from Walmart haha
Tank was $13 at a surplus store in Massillon
Rock was like $2 a pound dry from a local guy who bought out a tank from a house flipper after the drug dealer who owned it was shot in Toledo =\
Black sand was $5 a bag at Jacks's I think I got 2

Lots of good stories behind this one. It was a great build and I'm so glad to have shared it with everyone. Thank you for all of your support. I will make a new thread after the contest to keep everyone updated on the progress of the nano and our research

 

[gordonj1]

Everyone is happy this morning! And I just placed a huge order with happy corals in Michigan woot woot. I was going to post a video of the clowns and goby shrimp pair all chilling in the tank but it won't let me upload!

 

[gordonj1]

Someone must be happy in this tank!

Has anyone ever experienced this before? Anyone know how to make sure they survive? This is the second time that she? Has laid eggs

 

[gordonj1]

Also my peppermint shrimp is carrying eggs

 

[gordonj1]

Did some serious upgrades and added a couple new rocks and corals.
I just got 2 more led fixtures in. It looks super busy now but the tank looks great!
Bought a new filter rated for a 20g tank. Hopefully it will keep it clean

I know none of these count I just figured I'd update.

 

[gordonj1]

 

[gordonj1]

 

[gordonj1]

 

[gordonj1]

We won most thrifty nano!!!! Woooohooooooo!! Thank you everyone for your support. Thank you reef2reef! Thank you jbj and liveaquaria! We really appreciate it! Court and I are sitting here just ecstatic!

 

[gordonj1]

The peppermint shrimp hasn't released her eggs yet. We are hoping to collect the larvae when she does and try to raise them. There is a research group on campus who want to breed them. It's pretty nifty we picked up some amazing corals from tidal gardens the last time we were near Akron.

The Fiji ultras are ridiculous! The tentacles aren't all the same color it looks like two species morphed together. We can't wait to sequence these!

 

[gordonj1]

Hi all! We waited until the perfect time to buy from liveaquaria with our gift card we won, and disaster struck! We purchased 2 zoa colonies, and both arrived DOA! It is so nuts because you always hear good things about them. One had tons of Zoa pox and the other was being munched on by zoa eating nudis! I emailed them right away and they refunded my money. But we were so excited for these colonies. We literally waited months for the perfect colonies we wanted to show up. It was upsetting. So Now we are trolling live aquaria again waiting for our perfect colonies