The Dr. Seuss Tank | Northwest's 29 Gallon NPS Aquarium

[Northwest_Scapes_]

Happy 1-year anniversary to your tank!

Thank you! Hopefully I can keep it up, I'm definitely trying to get a chiller for this summer. Don't want to lose everything again and start from the bottom up.

Just discovered your wonderful Dr. Seuss Tank and have read the entire journey thus far. To say magical, doesn’t do it justice. From your aquascape and placement of corals, to the choice of corals, to the fish that complement it and those incredibly cute worms!

The fact that you persevered through many losses, and continued to be genuinely excited about what you were creating, is a testament to your dedication and maturity. It also got me so interested to find what was happening next, that I found myself sitting on the edge of my seat, turning to the next page with trepidation and excitement.

I look forward to watching this tank’s continuation and your new build on the Mangrove tank.

And don’t even get me started on your photography!

Thank you! That means a lot, hopefully the same doesn't happen this Summer fingers crossed, trying to take every measure possible to prevent it.

1 year anniversary of the tank! | March 2nd marked the 1 year anniversary of this tank being up. Though I'm not sure if I can truly count it as the one year since this tank went through a major overhaul. I think a better term is more like "1 year of NPS keeping experience under my belt" lol. It's definitely been a wild ride full of ups and downs but I don't plan on stopping here. I'm currently trying out a new feeding strategy using Live Baby Brine Shrimp that is a massive game changer and seeing what kind of results I can pull. So far the corals have had an amazing response so it's looking good.
Unfortunately it looks like the Springeri Damsel did pass away. I'm not sure what's been going on but I won't add anymore fish for a while till I make sure everything is safe. Speaking of, here's an interesting thing that happened:
Stinkbugs are a really common pest in the winter because they like to crawl into houses to escape the cold. Somehow one got into my room and fell into the tank and I'm guessing drowned after I forgot to put the lid back on one night. I don't know how long it was in there for, but it definitely caused some effects. Around that same time, a lot of corals experienced some tissue loss that I couldn't explain, but I'm guessing the chemicals produced by stink bugs had something to do with it. While dying, it must've released that chemical odor that went into the water and must've caused an imbalance of something that ticked off the corals. I did a 60% waterchange and changed out the carbon and things are looking better but I thought it was weird with the timing of it. Someone had also brought up the same about Lady Bugs that also are poisonous, if that poison would leach into the water as well. I'm not sure it was the exact cause but think it could be something to look out for just to be safe.

So now that leaves the Pair of Randall's Anthias and the Yellow Banded Possum Wrasse. I'd like to add 1 more fish, I'm eyeing a Randall's Assessor Basslet currently but will hold off as said. As for corals, hopefully I have space now with moving things around but these are ideally the species I'd like to add to top it off:
Pink Warty Gorgonian of course (A. Isoxya)
Blueberry Gorgonian
Pink (or other color of) Chromonepthea
Fiji Orange Sclereonephthea (these look super awesome)
Pink Gorgonian (Muricella, the species the pygmy seahorses live on).

Also would like to add 2 to 3 more Coco Worms to make a small garden now that I'm moving the Christmas Tree Worms to the Mangrove Tank, and another small colony of Fathead Dendros that don't have their skeleton covered in buildup so I can get more heads out of them.
Enjoy these new photos! Everything seems to love their new spots

Well I'm happy to say next week I have two of the species on this list coming that I'm super excited about. Which means 2 down, then 2 out of 3 remaining should be pretty easy to obtain, the only problem is if I can keep them thriving. Then the Muricella is for sure going to be tricky to find but I've seen ACI get them in on occasion so maybe I can ask my LFS if I see one.

 

[Northwest_Scapes_]

Well well, I'm super excited to show off the newest additions that I've been wanting back for a while: Check out the super stunning Purple & Yellow Seafan! This is a super stunning species, I've wrote about it more earlier in the thread when I had my other colony but I'll recap a bit here. This was sourced from ACI Aquaculture (Shoutout Chris) through my LFS. This one is a little bigger than my previous one. Hopefully I can keep this one alive, besides the heatwave, I didn't encounter any issues previously so I hope I'll be fine. This one also some commensal orange micro brittle stars I'll have to get photos of. So far it's super happy, unlike the Blueberry Gorg that I also picked up from ACI which fell onto the Fathead Dendro because I didn't glue it well enough so that one will take a bit of time to open back up. My fault
On a sadder note, pretty much all of the Sun Corals have withered away. I thought they'd make a comeback but unfortunately, they still lost a lot of tissue. I recently found out that Fathead Dendros are actually a species of Tubastraea, so they're in the same genus as the other suns but mine is still doing pretty well. Perhaps a bad batch just came in and I got unlucky (They were all from Australia) or something else I haven't figured out yet is bugging them. I won't be adding anymore Suns into the tank till I figure out.

I don't believe I have room for a Muricella, if I find one I'll 100% take it but this tank is getting so full Seahorse Savvy has a Dark Red Chromonephthya I'm eyeing, but I think I'll wait till a different color such as Pink comes in as I'm lacking that color in the tank. The good thing is, after these last few additions, now I can really start documenting my progress at keeping these guys alive. Wish me luck

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Well well, I'm super excited to show off the newest additions that I've been wanting back for a while: Check out the super stunning Purple & Yellow Seafan! This is a super stunning species, I've wrote about it more earlier in the thread when I had my other colony but I'll recap a bit here. This was sourced from ACI Aquaculture (Shoutout Chris) through my LFS. This one is a little bigger than my previous one. Hopefully I can keep this one alive, besides the heatwave, I didn't encounter any issues previously so I hope I'll be fine. This one also some commensal orange micro brittle stars I'll have to get photos of. So far it's super happy, unlike the Blueberry Gorg that I also picked up from ACI which fell onto the Fathead Dendro because I didn't glue it well enough so that one will take a bit of time to open back up. My fault
On a sadder note, pretty much all of the Sun Corals have withered away. I thought they'd make a comeback but unfortunately, they still lost a lot of tissue. I recently found out that Fathead Dendros are actually a species of Tubastraea, so they're in the same genus as the other suns but mine is still doing pretty well. Perhaps a bad batch just came in and I got unlucky (They were all from Australia) or something else I haven't figured out yet is bugging them. I won't be adding anymore Suns into the tank till I figure out.

I don't believe I have room for a Muricella, if I find one I'll 100% take it but this tank is getting so full Seahorse Savvy has a Dark Red Chromonephthya I'm eyeing, but I think I'll wait till a different color such as Pink comes in as I'm lacking that color in the tank. The good thing is, after these last few additions, now I can really start documenting my progress at keeping these guys alive. Wish me luck

Wow, the purple and yellow seafan is crazy looking!

 

[Northwest_Scapes_]

After much thinking, I've decided that I don't think I'll keep this tank up much longer.
BUT IT'S BECAUSE IT'S GETTING AN UPGRADE!!

Since I won't be dorming at College, I decided to take the opportunity to make a slightly bigger upgrade. As much as I'd love to go with an Innovative Marine or one of the new UNS Reefer tanks, my parents don't want anything with plumbing incase something goes wrong and I'm not home (fair), so instead I'm taking advantage of Petco's 50% sale and going with a 40 Gallon Breeder (holds 44 gallons). This is because I can move over all the equipment, all I just need is new sand and rock. While I could go with a 55, the width on the 55 is terrible (only 12" width, just like the 29). The 40 Breeders have a dimension of 36" L x 18" W x 17" H. So I'm losing an inch of height but gaining 6" of length and 6" of width which I'd much rather have. I'm not sure when that tank will be going up, hopefully in the the next month or so. I'm hoping i can move everything over in one day since the filter will be moving over that is more than enough for that tank. I'm very excited about this since not only will it mean more space for new corals, I can add another fish or 2. And I have my eye on one species in particular.

When that happens, I'll take one last FTS of the tank and then move over to another thread I'll post here to mark the new chapter. Let's see where this goes!