Redfishsc's 11g Shoebox Reef, LEDs, and a live beer bottle!

OK......

Just added a green/red min-carpet anemone, several species of photosynthetic gorgonians, and a really odd looking branched montipora frag. It looks bleached, but I've seen the mother colony at the Reef Farm where it was grown out, and it always looks "white"--- but supposedly "greens up" under actinics.


We shall see . Pics to come as soon as everything settles in, the carpet eats all my @#$%#$ fish, and I can get a break from grad school classwork.

 

More Pics! I can't get any good pics of the gorgonians yet. I now have 3 different species of photosynthetic gorgs, but they aren't open fully yet.

But here is the mini-carpet I picked up at the Reef Farm yesterday.



Top down pics!

Yellow fiji leather:


Silver xenia


White "pom pom" xenia


Green star polyps


Frogspawn


Reef Salad!

 

Yuummmm.

 

The mini-carpet is being a drama queen, it isn't happy at all.

It moved to a shaded area last night with moderate/high flow, looks kinda shriveled, and has a small white "thingy" poking out of it's mouth. I'm not sure that this is a good sign at all. First one of these I've ever had, so I'm not sure if they normally act this dramatic or if this one is on it's way out. If this were a BTA I'd be worried.

 

OK folks, here are some pics of the photosynthetic gorgonians. Hoping to get them fully ID'ed soon .


Two types in this pic. One has a light blue "stalk" with light brown polyps, the other is all brown and super-fuzzy. Both are very unique.


This one has a very thick stalk, and polyps nearly as big as GSP polyps.



Here are the best I could do with close-up shots.

 

OK, pics of my clowns.

The first two are the newest clown that is from Doni's Reef. It's the offspring of snowcasso clowns but doesn't quite have the snowcasso markings, but I'll be honest with ya, this is one pretty clown. My son named him Lightening McQueen.






This one is also from Doni's Reef and is basically a normal true perc, except the stripe on the back is actually a round ocelli which is cool.

 

The Vitamin C dosing continues to be a positive thing in this tank.


My nitrates are holding at 0-2ppm (went to under 1ppm after a 40% water change).


Phosphates, interestingly, are dropping, I can barely get a reading on it. But soft coral growth is looking good--- all of my zoanthids are open and seem to be growing at a healthy pace. Photosynthetic gorgonians, GSP, xenia, 3 varieties of toadstools, two varieties of finger leather, 4 varieties of anthelia (including two blue varieties) are all doing GREAT.

The only LPS I have right now is a two-head Blasto merletti, and 2 varieties of frogspawn--- all look great, but not growing a ton since I'm not feeding them directly. Which is fine.

SPS are a slightly different though. Several are doing great, several are DEAD.
The ones that are doing great---- Monti spongodes (green and tan), Monti digitata (orange), and Monti "Idaho Grape".

Dead--- Hydnophora exesa, and "encrusting" hydnophora. Which shocked me, this is normally a fast growing coral. Also killed an encrusting green Psammacora. All died slowly though. I may have had them in an area of low light. The PAR meter tells me around 120 micromols for the spots I had them in, which should have been more than enough for the hydnophora, I've grown them in less than that.

 

This tank is still going strong and a handful of my surviving SPS have really started growing-- Monti undata and Montipora "Idaho grape". Not growing as fast as they would in someone's tank that is set up for SPS, but surprisingly nice in a tank with mostly softies and no chemical filtration or skimming.


I am dosing, right now, 1/4tsp per day of the buffered Vitamin C powder. My alk consumption has increased such that the 1/4tsp is holding it fairly balanced, which might explain the SPS growth. Hovers around 10.



I occasionally get a sprig of bryopsis pop up on some of my corals because I got some palys from a friend recently that had some hidden bryopsis on them, but now I'm soaking any bryo-infested frag in a 50/50 mix of tank water and hydrogen peroxide (3% grocery store stuff) for 1-3 minutes, which seems to work quite well. Hasn't killed any soft corals yet even though they look HORRID after the treatment.

 

Everything looks great. Doni has some beautiful fish. The snowcasso looks more like a snowflake to me lol. I bought two of her snow's awhile back as well though. Great job on the tank.

 

OK, slight change in direction on this tank.

My original goal was to stock the tank only with hardier 'weed' corals, and run NO carbon, no GFO, and no skimmer. And, things are going fine as long as I accepted the fact that occasionally, some corals didn't do as well as others because of the limitations of this tank (mostly SPS).


However, this weekend I got news from a good friend that he was moving to another state, and taking down his system, which is loaded with top-notch SPS. He gave me several very, very cool Acropora sp, plus I had just bought some Purple/Green Monti-cap from him.


So, I bought an Aquaclear 20 (for the carbon) and put it on the tank yesterday. I did notice a fairly quick response from the corals in the tank--- slightly more polyp extension, and I haven't lost any of the new corals (SPS, LPS, and softies) that I got from him. All seems well. I think on this tank, $20 a year in carbon is a reasonable expense. I still neither need nor use a skimmer, nor GFO.


Nitrates remain low, algal activity remains surprisingly low (other than the occasional sprig of bryopsis that I cook off with peroxide), and phosphates remain surprisingly low (0.05 or less). I am still dosing 1/4 tsp per day of Vitamin C powder and getting good results from it, and feeding lightly.


Oh. And I use Coralife salt. :