Greyson's 18G Nano Build

Its been a few years since I used it but I think I did a couple drops ever other day or so? I followed the directions on the bottle. I'd mix it with fish food to get the fish excited, but it was really for the coral.
 
Picked up a nice orange with green center lobo today that will be added as a "center piece" of sorts. i also got a few free stalks of xenia which i will be mounting to a small piece of rock and kept separately since it is so invasive.

Polyp extension has gotten better on all my sps, with the exception of the acropora echinata..i have yet to see any polyp extension there but it is encrusting the plug.

Heres a pic of the new lobo, its still shrunken and not puffy yet, will take a better pic when its fully open.


lobo
 
Greyson - very nice aquarium. What strikes me is the rapidity at which you have developed your nano-reef. I'm not criticizing, mind you, I'm just amazed that you haven't lost more than just the two sps. The rule of thumb in marine aquaria is to go slow. You've managed to break that rule and are getting away with it. I wish I had your touch. I know if I tried to do what you've done, all of the corals - especially the sps - would have died off. My hat's off to buddy. I look forward to seeing continued progress.

Best regards...
 
elwaine said:
Greyson - very nice aquarium. What strikes me is the rapidity at which you have developed your nano-reef. I'm not criticizing, mind you, I'm just amazed that you haven't lost more than just the two sps. The rule of thumb in marine aquaria is to go slow. You've managed to break that rule and are getting away with it. I wish I had your touch. I know if I tried to do what you've done, all of the corals - especially the sps - would have died off. My hat's off to buddy. I look forward to seeing continued progress.

Best regards...
Click to expand...

Thank you for the words.

I do agree that it may be a little on the fast side, but i have been pretty attentive of the tank, and by no means is it perfect. I believe in a simple approach and i think we are believed that it's alot more complicated than it really is. I think consistency is more important than any piece of equipment that you can ever get. I'm constantly manually stirring up the sand bed,dusting off the rocks with a turkey baster, switching my filter floss. I also decided to use distilled water over RO water. I've had better success with distilled water. I also believe that flow is more important then lighting when it comes to sps, so i am going to be adding a second koralia 240 on the other side of the tank to make random "turbulent" current. I would also like to say this is my first time keeping sps and i seem to be doing okay, they are all growing. The color can be slightly better but i will be working on improving that. I am adding a second actinic strip probably this week, and i am getting a dimmer for the actinic strips as well for night time. If i end up getting a skimmer i will probably start feeding my coral a lot more.

On another note, The female emerald crab that i got finally started doing what i got her for...eating briopsis !! thank god i was starting to get frustrated with it. She cleared out a nice amount on my "zoa garden" where the problem was and the polyps look wayyyyyy happier. so +1 for the emerald crab. I was considering getting a fighting conch, but i feel like they get too big.. and my tank is not that big so i might end up starving it, i may pick up a few cerith snails instead. My other snails and crabs poop so much i have pellets all over my sandbed lol.

I also noticed that my ph has finally increased, it was 7.8 for a while.. and today it was 8.0 which is a great improvement, i will be much happier once it hits about 8.2
 
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Greyson said:
I believe in a simple approach and i think we are believed that it's alot more complicated than it really is. I think consistency is more important than any piece of equipment that you can ever get. I'm constantly manually stirring up the sand bed,dusting off the rocks with a turkey baster, switching my filter floss. I also decided to use distilled water over RO water.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Thank you for that. I've never been one to argue with success. Here's to you: :beer:

After being "a reefer" for quite a while, I exited the hobby after moving. I'm just now getting back into it with a 4 gal pico. It's certainly a change from the 90 gal and 37 gal aquaria I used to have. Your results are encouraging!
 
elwaine said:
Interesting. Thank you for that. I've never been one to argue with success. Here's to you: :beer:

After being "a reefer" for quite a while, I exited the hobby after moving. I'm just now getting back into it with a 4 gal pico. It's certainly a change from the 90 gal and 37 gal aquaria I used to have. Your results are encouraging!
Click to expand...

Awesome ! i too myself just got back few months ago from being out of the hobby since 2007. I had a 3 Gallon Pico as well that was ricordia dominated with a few other things. With a pico i also like to put a few nice pieces and keep it really simple.
 
Finally got one of the Xenia stalks to attach to a rubble rock, i then glued it to a bigger piece. I really love pulsing xenia i think they are beautiful and add character to a tank, even though people don't like them. I don't plan on putting this on my main rock work since i do not want it to spread, just like having a little bit of it in the tank. I also like that they are great at absorbing nitrates, thats always a plus !


xenia
 
Xenia are cool polyps and I really like the pulsating rhythm they exhibit; but once they are well established they tend to spread rapidly and can take over the tank.
 
elwaine said:
Xenia are cool polyps and I really like the pulsating rhythm they exhibit; but once they are well established they tend to spread rapidly and can take over the tank.
Click to expand...

Thats why i have them seperated on a small rock. I don't think i will have a problem this way.
 
Just a word of warning, xenia can spread thru your tank by budding off pieces that reattach else where. So they move off that rock and 'grow legs' if they grow well. I didn't have that problem, but it's every where in my brother's tank. Luckly most everything is tougher so it doesn't kill anything it touches.
 
Radioheadx14 said:
Just a word of warning, xenia can spread thru your tank by budding off pieces that reattach else where. So they move off that rock and 'grow legs' if they grow well. I didn't have that problem, but it's every where in my brother's tank. Luckly most everything is tougher so it doesn't kill anything it touches.
Click to expand...

Yeah i will keep my eye on it, its a small tank so it shouldn't be hard to spot.
 
Got another bag of phosguard, a salifert test kit and a dimmer for my actinics.

Thank god i got the salifer alk kit,my alk was 4.5 DKH !! i almost SH!T myself.
I ended up running to petco and getting some fluval sea alk. and that seemed to do the trick. will be monitoring it tomorrow and raise levels accordingly. Aside from that everything is fine
 
Just remember not to raise Alk to fast. A few years back my alk was even lower sO I tossed in half a teaspoon of Baking soda into my 47 gallon total volume system and almost totally nuked my tank. Then of coarse I bought a hanna checker and it's been spot on ever since.
 
reret10 said:
Just remember not to raise Alk to fast. A few years back my alk was even lower sO I tossed in half a teaspoon of Baking soda into my 47 gallon total volume system and almost totally nuked my tank. Then of coarse I bought a hanna checker and it's been spot on ever since.
Click to expand...

It should be okay, everything looks happier.
 
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