nikkiheartfish
New member
Hey guys. I'm new to Reef Central and figured the best place to start would be here in the NPS forum, as my current set up is a 20 gallon NPS reef. I have been in the hobby for around 10 yearsish as a hobbyist and also a LFS employee for the greater part of that (7 years of it) time. However my career goals (veterinarian) brought me to work at an animal hospital as a veterinary technician while I go to school (undergrad), so I can focus on aquariums more as a hobby.
Anyway, enough of that stuff. Here is a bit of back story and a few pics of the setup. I don't have the best camera but I hope the picture quality is acceptable. New camera hopefully is in the near future. I tried to keep the pics relatively small because I'm not really sure how to do thumbnails.
I bought a sea clear acrylic aquarium on a whim and at a cheap discount because I thought it looked nice. I set it up with a good amount of rock, good quality water, added a zoo med nano canister and pondered what to do with it. The tank stayed in this condition for roughly 6 months. I was still working at the LFS and had little time to tend to a tank at my home. It gave the tank a convenient period of time to mature with a mixture of different types of live rock(i.o. cultured, some fiji cultured, and some man-made rock). Plenty of copepods and micro/macro life was observed to develop during this time period. I have yet to add any fish to it, but it does have a few snails and a few blue legs floating about. I thought for a long time about what type of set up I planned to do, and I came across NPS reef pictures and became immediately interested, as I've already done mixed photo reefs before and wanted something different. I spent a lot of time doing research and reading this forum before I decided I could handle the care.
My first addition was two D. nodulifera gorgonians. Unfortunately when I purchased them I did not notice a fairly grievous injury that one of them had. I wish I had checked them over a bit more thoroughly; both had polyps extended, so I grabbed the two open ones. Upon getting home, I noticed that the smaller one had sloughing tissue and a lesion on the base of the gorg. It seems to have readily improved since I acquired it, showing more polyp extension and a bit of growth. The lesion seems to actually be getting smaller and closing up a bit, so I hope it will survive. The larger one is doing fantastic. I've had them for about 2 weeks.
They seem to love cyclopeeze.
Some polyp extension on my healthier specimen. If you look in the back you might see a few stumps planted in the pathway-- the sickly gorg lost a couple branches on the way out of the LFS bag because it was so thin in some places. I planted them very shallow in the sand and they are doing well, too. They seem to stay open almost all the time, and I feed them practically every time I walk by the tank. It's not a perfect system yet, and I have a lot of changes to employ to this new system, but they are thus far doing well. The water quality is surprisingly easy to manage, and less loaded than I expected it to be with the frequency of my feedings (easily 10+ times a day in batches). I do 15% pwc's 2-3 times a week currently and that is keeping everything in check with nitrates between 5-10 ppm max observed.
I've also found some unidentified LPS corals on the man made rock I got. At first they had zero color and I mistook them for Aiptasia before I saw they had an actual skeleton. There is a small colony of 3 of them on the rock and they are starting to develop bright orange almost red and green ish coloration around the mouth area. The tentacles have yet to get any color. Their corralites seem to just protrude from the rock itself. No idea what they are, but I think they are pretty and they seem to be improving in health and enjoying cyclops.
"Profile" picture of same colony of corals, showing tentacle length.
Another small colony of an unknown LPS coral. When I got the rock, I didn't think the colony would make it. It was missing a lot of flesh and had almost no color. Over time it has fleshed out quite a bit and gained a brownish orange color. Not sure what these little colonial LPS are. There are probably like 6 or 7 of them in a 1 inch diameter space. I don't really expect IDs for any of these corals because I know the camera just isn't good enough to get any true definitive details to even potentially place a genus, but I like them, so I took pictures of them.
Projects:
Before I go any further with additions of coral and livestock, I plan to undertake a few projects to increase the viability of the aquarium. A 15g sump/fuge/protein skimmer build is in the very near future with plans to set it up in the bottom shelf of the bookcase if plausible (anyone can confirm plausability of this idea? I plan to reinforce the bottom bookshelf with either bricks or thick wood as it is hollow under the shelf. Hoping pumping wont be a problem here because I love the idea of having the 15g plumbed to the tank and also on display. The shelves are all adjustable so I can adjust the height of the shelf above to fit my needs). I also plan to purchase/develop a continuous feeder system. I also need to buy more foods, as the menu is limited currently (cyclops). Until this happens there won't be any additions. My boyfriend is ready to choke me because he just wants to see fish and things already. These projects are slated to start mid feb, as I am so excited to get this thing going. Nice to meet you all !
Anyway, enough of that stuff. Here is a bit of back story and a few pics of the setup. I don't have the best camera but I hope the picture quality is acceptable. New camera hopefully is in the near future. I tried to keep the pics relatively small because I'm not really sure how to do thumbnails.
I bought a sea clear acrylic aquarium on a whim and at a cheap discount because I thought it looked nice. I set it up with a good amount of rock, good quality water, added a zoo med nano canister and pondered what to do with it. The tank stayed in this condition for roughly 6 months. I was still working at the LFS and had little time to tend to a tank at my home. It gave the tank a convenient period of time to mature with a mixture of different types of live rock(i.o. cultured, some fiji cultured, and some man-made rock). Plenty of copepods and micro/macro life was observed to develop during this time period. I have yet to add any fish to it, but it does have a few snails and a few blue legs floating about. I thought for a long time about what type of set up I planned to do, and I came across NPS reef pictures and became immediately interested, as I've already done mixed photo reefs before and wanted something different. I spent a lot of time doing research and reading this forum before I decided I could handle the care.
My first addition was two D. nodulifera gorgonians. Unfortunately when I purchased them I did not notice a fairly grievous injury that one of them had. I wish I had checked them over a bit more thoroughly; both had polyps extended, so I grabbed the two open ones. Upon getting home, I noticed that the smaller one had sloughing tissue and a lesion on the base of the gorg. It seems to have readily improved since I acquired it, showing more polyp extension and a bit of growth. The lesion seems to actually be getting smaller and closing up a bit, so I hope it will survive. The larger one is doing fantastic. I've had them for about 2 weeks.
They seem to love cyclopeeze.
Some polyp extension on my healthier specimen. If you look in the back you might see a few stumps planted in the pathway-- the sickly gorg lost a couple branches on the way out of the LFS bag because it was so thin in some places. I planted them very shallow in the sand and they are doing well, too. They seem to stay open almost all the time, and I feed them practically every time I walk by the tank. It's not a perfect system yet, and I have a lot of changes to employ to this new system, but they are thus far doing well. The water quality is surprisingly easy to manage, and less loaded than I expected it to be with the frequency of my feedings (easily 10+ times a day in batches). I do 15% pwc's 2-3 times a week currently and that is keeping everything in check with nitrates between 5-10 ppm max observed.
I've also found some unidentified LPS corals on the man made rock I got. At first they had zero color and I mistook them for Aiptasia before I saw they had an actual skeleton. There is a small colony of 3 of them on the rock and they are starting to develop bright orange almost red and green ish coloration around the mouth area. The tentacles have yet to get any color. Their corralites seem to just protrude from the rock itself. No idea what they are, but I think they are pretty and they seem to be improving in health and enjoying cyclops.
"Profile" picture of same colony of corals, showing tentacle length.
Another small colony of an unknown LPS coral. When I got the rock, I didn't think the colony would make it. It was missing a lot of flesh and had almost no color. Over time it has fleshed out quite a bit and gained a brownish orange color. Not sure what these little colonial LPS are. There are probably like 6 or 7 of them in a 1 inch diameter space. I don't really expect IDs for any of these corals because I know the camera just isn't good enough to get any true definitive details to even potentially place a genus, but I like them, so I took pictures of them.
Projects:
Before I go any further with additions of coral and livestock, I plan to undertake a few projects to increase the viability of the aquarium. A 15g sump/fuge/protein skimmer build is in the very near future with plans to set it up in the bottom shelf of the bookcase if plausible (anyone can confirm plausability of this idea? I plan to reinforce the bottom bookshelf with either bricks or thick wood as it is hollow under the shelf. Hoping pumping wont be a problem here because I love the idea of having the 15g plumbed to the tank and also on display. The shelves are all adjustable so I can adjust the height of the shelf above to fit my needs). I also plan to purchase/develop a continuous feeder system. I also need to buy more foods, as the menu is limited currently (cyclops). Until this happens there won't be any additions. My boyfriend is ready to choke me because he just wants to see fish and things already. These projects are slated to start mid feb, as I am so excited to get this thing going. Nice to meet you all !
