Starting Anew

[Surskit]

For various reasons, I had to sell off most of my livestock and leave my tank empty for several months. The only thing I was able to keep were my clownfish, who patiently waited in my old hospital tank, but I'm back now, and hopefully better than ever! That being said, it would appear I've hit my new tank ugly stage at this point. I'm trying an unconventional scape by my standards, even passing the pre-bought tank decor I tried something wildly different with my rocks. I'm not super sure about flow but I was very careful in organizing them so there were a lot of little pockets and caves back there, and theoretically some room for an island up front. I wanted to avoid tall rock structures, as I'm too finnicky and prone to changing things to commit to epoxying my setup and engineer gobies are one of the main fish I wanted to do in this tank. I didn't want to have things they could knock over. I'm curious on if anyone here has thoughts on the scape. The decorations can go, besides the tressure chest. That one needs to stay for sentimental purposes. Here's photo of the tank (under a whiter light than I'd normally do, that will change soon).

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along!

 

[Surskit]

Update! I switched around the scape a little bit so it was less of a big rock wall in the back of the tank! I also got some cleaner crew in, just some margarita snails for now. I don't know how it is in other parts of the country but at least here in Utah there's a crazy shortage of any clean up crew stuff right now, so I was happy to find these! Hopefully I can expand it soon. I also finally switched over my lights to blue, so it looks like a real deal reef tank again! I also grabbed a pair of Scissortail Dartfish while I was there, and they look super nice so far! In negative news, my favorite LFS closed! So now I'm gonna need to try a couple others to see if they're any good. This trip was great and the store is great, but it's a hybrid freshwater/saltwater store with a focus on fresh, so they don't have much. Still my favorite place when they get a shipment in though.

 

[Surskit]

Oh, forgot to mention! We're still in a bit of an ugly stage, but it's definitely slowed down. In addition to running my lights bluer, they're running at about half the power they were before. Hopefully it'll be even better once I can grab some chaeto and get my fuge running again!

 

[Surskit]

i should post more!! for now, here's a picture of my falco hawkfish! i love this thing, one of my favorite fishes i've ever owned, it's so cute to watch it scuttle around all day lol

 

[Surskit]

didn't realize it's also been so long i don't have my new scape up here! this is a pic i took on the rescape so the lights are different from how i'm running them now, but it still shows the general look! i like it, it's got tons of little caves for stuff to poke around through.

my current livestock is my clownfish pair, a trio of blue sapphire damsels that have thankfully been out and about but peaceful as can be, my falco hawkfish, and a mandarin goby. the mandarin was definitely a risk, but it's doing well! i don't get to see it much since it's super shy, but it's fatter now than when i got it about 6 months ago so i'm gonna call that a win. hoping to add some more, but not much. i think the main thing it's lacking is just a wrasse.

as for inverts, i just have my skunk cleaner, two tuxedo urchins, and my black longspine urchin who is my favorite animal to watch but also stung me which sucked! plus i have a colony of gsp. i'm currently leaning to making this mostly a nem tank rather than a coral focussed tank, but i'm not committed to that quite yet (hence why i don't have the anemone, lol).

i'll try to get into the habit of posting here more!

 

[Surskit]

Uh oh! Aiptasia! I'm not sure where it came from, the last thing I added was my Mandarin months ago, and the last thing I added in terms of rocks/corals was all the way back in January. For the time being, I'm just gonna have to try and stop them now before there's more. I've been able to count 3, but one is completely unable to be photographed and is behind my rockwork. Because of the awkwardness of reaching it, I'll be going for predation as my method of removal for now.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Uh oh! Aiptasia! I'm not sure where it came from, the last thing I added was my Mandarin months ago, and the last thing I added in terms of rocks/corals was all the way back in January. For the time being, I'm just gonna have to try and stop them now before there's more. I've been able to count 3, but one is completely unable to be photographed and is behind my rockwork. Because of the awkwardness of reaching it, I'll be going for predation as my method of removal for now.

Good luck with getting rid of the aiptasia!

 

[dvgyfresh]

Pipette and kalk paste always worked for me to kill aptasia! Tank is looking good