My 6 gallon NPS tank

[dpdp225]

It's a 6 gallon Eclipse plumbed to a 5 gallon refugium

Corals:
Tubastra- yellow, orange & black
Dendro
Swiftia
Various sponges
Fish:
(2) Rusty goby - Priolepsis hipolitti
(1) High fin goby
(1) pistol shrimp
(1) peppermint shrimp

Feeding:
For gorgonians several times a day: mixture of coral food mix, reef plankton, rotifers, Microvert, instant baby brine shrimp, Oyster feast, CoralAmino, Restor, FM Ultra Min F mixed in the a.m. and kept in a cooler, hand feed throughout the day.

For Dendro & tubastrea: mix of Rod's coral food, mysis, frozen brine, reef plankton. Sometimes I add finely chopped shrimp and clams.

The fish eat all day. Pipette chunky food to the pistol shrimp, which he pulls out.

1 - 2 gallon water change daily. BioCube skimmer, Canister filter with carbon. Dose Microbacter7 & Reef BioFuel.

 

[flying_dutchman]

very pretty tank, that's a lot of fish in a 6 gallon :eek1:

 

[dpdp225]

very pretty tank, that's a lot of fish in a 6 gallon :eek1:

Thank you. They stay pretty small, but they certainly don't add any more bioload then all the food I put in for the gorgonians.

 

[tom499]

From the pic I can't tell if your black tubastraea is open. Mine won't open for anything and i've had it three weeks. What's your secret?

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Beautiful little tank! I can imagine you really have to keep on top of the water changes due to all the feeding.

 

[dpdp225]

From the pic I can't tell if your black tubastraea is open. Mine won't open for anything and i've had it three weeks. What's your secret?

I think the key is to get healthy animals that have been eating. If they've not been fed for a while and just being displayed at the LFS it will take longer to get them to open. What I had to do in the past with sun corals that wouldn't open is put them in a separte container in the tank to keep the water temp stable but not with waterflow. Cover the coral with a little food (small bits like choped mysis or reef plankton) and let them sit. I had some that wouldn't open and found they exuded a slime coat to capture the food and would suck in the food but not open their tentacles. It took a long time... months... before I finally got them to open up feeding them this way. Also there are different black sun corals. One being Tubastrea micracantha, which is more a branching and I understand more difficult to keep. What I have are I believe Tubastrea diaphana. All the sun corals except the one yellow colony on the left are the babies from the original adult colonies. When I set up my 40 I set up a display refugium for the sun corals but was having alk issues and started losing the adults and some babies, so I moved everybody to this tank. The yellow ones have very long tentacles so I have to push them out of the way to get to the black ones for feeding. Oh another thing you might try is cut the top from a soda or water bottle enough to place over the sun coral and squirt the food over them through the open top of the bottle. It keeps fish and shrimp away while the corals take in the food. That's what I do for my plate corals, too. It's easier to walk away and take the bottle top off later.

 

[dpdp225]

Beautiful little tank! I can imagine you really have to keep on top of the water changes due to all the feeding.

Thank you. Yes, water changes... I have it set up now where I shut off the flow to the auto top off float valve and open the valve coming from the SW holding tank. Flip on the pump and then open the valve to drain the tank very slowly. The float valve regulates how much water comes in and I just control the outflow. Then I can go do whatever I have to do. I also use a filter sock which captures all the food and keep it from settling in the refugium. So it gets changed frequently, too.

 

[tom499]

I've tried everything you suggested.I didn't know there was two types.My luck i've got the harder one.Think i'll stick to orange.

 

[dpdp225]

I've tried everything you suggested.I didn't know there was two types.My luck i've got the harder one.Think i'll stick to orange.

I'm so sorry. Sometimes if a coral has been starved for too long it may be too far gone to bring back. Next time you pick up a suncoral look for a healthy one. They should have a 'poofy' appearance when they're closed up.

 

[flying_dutchman]

 

[dpdp225]

Thank you!:rollface: