Sierra_Bravo's Waterbox Cube 10 nano and Murdershrimp lair. . .

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Sierra_Bravo

Sierra_Bravo

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Cut down the amount of rock and tried to arrange it a bit. I suck artistically. Took me an hour to come up with what is still basically a pile of rocks. :rolleyes: Oh well - cover it in corals and no one will know anyway. :)

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Phosphorus is off the chart for the Hanna Phosphorus ULR, which means my phosphates are higher than .613. I ran the test twice to make sure. Not sure why; I did not have readings like this with my TBS rock before. I'm making a little mesh bag of GFO and charcoal to put in a sump chamber. I have no corals planned in the near future so It's not a big deal at the moment.

As soon as my media baskets from InTank arrive - whenever that will finally be - I'll place some cheato as well.
 

reef-rc

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As soon as my media baskets from InTank arrive - whenever that will finally be - I'll place some cheato as well.

It's funny you had mentioned this. I heard this before somewhere on the forum and when I had decided I give it a try for Chamber One last week, I just got one from Amazon as it was in stock and got it in 2 days. I saw both media baskets were available in their inventory. Curious where u had ordered it from?
 
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It's funny you had mentioned this. I heard this before somewhere on the forum and when I had decided I give it a try for Chamber One last week, I just got one from Amazon as it was in stock and got it in 2 days. I saw both media baskets were available in their inventory. Curious where u had ordered it from?

Directly from InTank. I had posted on R2R about a presale they had sent me an email about. They were due to ship on Jan 30; that has become Feb 15, which of course has come and gone. Reaching out to their customer service last week they said they ran out of materials and were waiting for additional to restart production.
 
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It's here! I have a murder shrimp in my office tank! ;Woot
(Gonodactylus smithii)



I purchased him (her? - not sure yet) from Bluezoo. Well packed, water was cold, but otherwise in great shape. They included an acclimation kit which was nice, and the water's salinity was at 1.024 which made for an easy transition.

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Update:

So the murdershrimp absolutely hates snails. He hates them with a passion! Out of 10 only two remain, and that's because they are hiding behind a powerhead. I watched him snatch an astrea off the rock like it was nothing. I have a hard time getting a snail off the rock. He doesn't even eat them, he just takes them into his lair and beats them like they owe him money. He's using their dead bodies to roof over his hole.

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I'm getting a dusting of algae, though, so I need something. I went to the LFS and bought a large Turbo who hopefully has a thick enough shell and is big enough to keep him off the beat-down list.

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I also added a few zoas and a ricordia to see how they do in the tank. They are starting to open up from this morning:

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reef-rc

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I am curious to see how your mantis tank comes out. Outsides snails, I am assuming other inverts are also out of the questions unless it's dinner?

How to do you plan to handle algae without snails?
 
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Sierra_Bravo

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I am curious to see how your mantis tank comes out. Outsides snails, I am assuming other inverts are also out of the questions unless it's dinner?

How to do you plan to handle algae without snails?

I'm curious as well - I'm winging it! :)

As far as snails I'm going with size over quantity. I think one or two large trochus or turbos will be sufficient. The large turbo I bought this weekend has been left alone to do his thing without the mantis messing with him. Snails are cheap enough and available at my LFS any time I need to replenish the cuc, if it comes to that. Crabs and shrimp are another matter. I have not seen a crab since the third day I put him in here and I know that there were at least three small hitchiker crabs. I would guess he'd hunt a peppermint or cleaner shrimp.

I need to determine how often it needs to eat. I have been feeding him krill or clam twice a week. I'm not sure if that's enough, but I've read they hoard food and I don't want that to happen.
 

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Make sense on the size factor. I did not think of that. Ironically my LFS gave me a gigantic trohus snail just because he was too lazy to take it off the frag I bought a few weeks back. Needless to say it's a heck of algae cleaner for the new tank.
 
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Sierra_Bravo

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OK, I don't know what it is about these AI Primes, but I can't get the colors right post-processing like I can on my display tank. Went to a frag swap yesterday and picked up a euphyllia, great rainbow acan, and some more zoas.

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I really had to play with the curves and hue to get this near what I see, but it's kind of a tan/gold. Should have a bit more goldish color but I couldn't get it there in the camera.

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Tested nitrates - I'm at zero. Thank you TBS rock and cheato combo. I can't believe I have to dose NaNO3 on this 10 gallon. . .

Few more zoa acquisitions - I'm almost ready to start putting things on the rock. I have not seen my mantis for a week, but I have heard him. From what I can tell he is probably molting.

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A little update on the tank:

I haven't seen the mantis for a few weeks now and suspect he's molting. I have confirmed he's there and alive; I can see his swimmerets moving when I peek between the rocks. As far as the corals, everything appears healthy. The blasto is full, the zoas are producing new heads, and my hammer, which for a while I thought wasn't going to make it, seems to be doing better.

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