I've finally transferred both my year old 15 gallon reef and five month old 2.5 gallon pico into the 'pod and even added a few new items.
Here are some details of what our reef is like now:
Sand bed:
There is about 20 lbs of sand here. I'm of the "thin sand bed" school when it comes to nano reefs, nothing more than an inch.
Live rock:
The rock from the 15 went in here as well as the pico rock. I added another pound or two so now there is maybe 25 lbs all together.
Rear Chambers:
Two maxi jet 900 pumps, 50w visitherm heater, Chemi-pure carbon and some bio-bale. That's it.
I'm going to continue my practice of large scale weekly water changes in this tank. 50% each week maybe more.
I'm running the tank at 81 degrees.
Aquascape:
Since most of the zoas had been moved from the 15 gallon to the pico they were kinda consolidated onto a few rocks. I broke out the superglue and managed to create a little (well, kinda big actually) zoa garden section to left in this display. I think its a kinda neat effect and should get more impressive as things grow out a little more. There is some macro growing in various spots of this section that I know I'll constantly be trimming back. I've also planted the toadstool in the middle of this garden. The anemones are here as well, both the carpets and the flower anemone. Other than that I pretty much moved the 'scape from the 15 in as is. Only a few things got shifted around slightly.
The rock work is for the most part half an inch off the back wall. One of the loc line outlets is pointed back there to help keep it flushed. In addition to that part of my maintenance routine is to flush out the rock work a bit with a turkey baster when I do a water change.
Ya know, here we got a bigger tank and still don't have room for much more. (that's what I get for combining two tanks into one)
Live stock list:
Fish:
1 Perc
1 Pygmy cherub angel (new)
1 Midas Blenny (new)
Shrimp:
1 Peppermint Shrimp (aiptasia control)
1 Skunk Cleaner shrimp
Anemones:
1 Rock/Flower anemone
2 Mini Carpet anemones
Soft Coral:
25 varieties of zoanthoids or palys
5 varieties of Mushrooms
5 varieties or Florida Ricordia
2 Varieties of Gorogoina (1 is new)
Pumping Xenia
Kenya Tree (green polyps)
Long polyped Toad Stool
Green Sinularia
Finger green star polyps
LPS:
Green Open Brain
Red Balsto
Green tipped Branching Hammer
3 varieties of Canday Cane
Cup corals
Misc Inverts:
3 porceline crabs (new)
1 Blue Brittle Star
1 Orange serpant star
A number of misc micro brittle stars
15 Nass OB Snails
4 Nass Vibex Snails
4 Astrea Snails
3 Nerti Snails
2 stometella snails
1 Huge zebra turbo snail
1 Yet to be identified snail (maybe a variedly of Naussurious)
1 hitchhiker xanthid type crab that's given me no reason to try and remove it yet.
1 light blue feather duster tube worm
A bunch of bristle worms (I never seen them munch on a live coral, so they get to stay)
A couple of peanut worms
half a dozen spaghetti worms
More little feather dusters than I care to try and count
Misc sponges and tunicates (a couple that are getting kinda big)
Other little things that I've yet to identify. Even after a year something new seems to pop out every week
1 gazillion pods (that would be just an approximate number, however dwindling by the minute since the new fish have been added)
What's gone:
One of the mistakes I made with the 15 gallon was not allowing room for things to really grow out. One mushroom polyp became three quickly, GSP really does grow as fast as people say it does... etc. So some things got culled back a bit. I also had too many leathers in the tank and have removed the finger leather and devils hand. ( I still have the toadstool, green sinulara and kenya tree )
The yellow clown goby is not moving into the 'pod. It's chronic perching on my candy cane was causing those corals to bleach out. In general it's a pretty boring fish anyway.
During the transfer I accidentally crushed the anemone crab. Ouch. I got a deal on a trio of "regular" porcelain crabs to replace him.
What's new:
One of the incentives for the upgrade was new fish. I know the pygmy angels have a spotty rep for picking on coral, but lets see if I can keep him fat and happy enough to leave the zoas alone. So far so good. It was really a toss up between the pyg and a six line wrasse. ...the pyg seemed just a little more unique. I've been eyeing midas blennys for a while... very interesting fish. I don't foresee adding any more fish to the mix at this point since the blenny will get considerably larger.
Both new additions were eating (and pooping) like champs from day one.
I added a new gorg, the first I added back in November is doing well enough that I decided to give another variety a go. This variety is muricea elongata.
If anything else goes in it will likely be some sort of acan lords or other very colorful LPS. Having said that my zoanthoid addiction will likely cause me to try and jam a few more morphs in the garden. ... you can really pack those suckers in together. Regardless, I'm going to be very selective about any future additions.
Feeding:
I use a pretty wide variety of food. Chopped up Krill, silversides, scallops and chunks of life line frozen or formula one frozen. Marine one flake, and algae flake get added once in a while as well. The pyg will take flake out of my hand which makes it easy to get some plant matter into it's diet (actually I can hand feed all these fish). I am using a little of the Julian Sprung "sea veggies" green sea weed as well. I also will put a drop or two of dt's Reef diet oyster eggs or phyto/plankton mix in once a week ( I switched to this from cyclopseese) for the filter feeders and coral. This gets done the day before the water change. I feed the fish three or four times a week and the anemones twice a week (I do NOT feed them every day, and in general I think feeding fish several times a day much less daily is severe overkill). I mix up what I feed, trying not to feed the same thing twice in a row. I'll spot feed most of the LPS every other week or two.
I gotta say, I'm really happy with this set up. ...I think it looks really nice for a "box" set up with not much to it. As much as people diss this style of tank it has a lot of potential without having to do much to it. The next project down the road will be to design a protein skimmer that will fit in the rear chambers. Till I figure that out I'll just keep up with large scale weekly water changes.
OK... now just grow. ...here we go into year two.
Here are some pics, everything is still kinda PO'd because of the move. I had been torturing them with the transfer.
Just kidding..haha
