Tank Journal Archive

Ziggy

Member
Jul 6, 2015
154
61
Adelaide
4 Months Old And Improving
Well, the tank is now 4 months old and after much gnashing of teeth and under breath swearing, I think I’m over the worst of the “uglies”. The green hair algae that has been the bane of my life for two months seems finally to be going away. Its not gone yet totally but the improvement is astonishing.

I’ve added several tiny yellow tip hermit crabs who are munching away on the last remaining algae. I’ve added a black sea cucumber this week and he’s already got to work on the sand bed.

I’ve tweaked the scape a bit more so that now I feel it’s more balanced. Instead of three connected bommies and a single one, I’ve now got two pairs of bommies. I’ve tried to keep variety in terms of height so I still have short and tall bommies and I also still have bridges and ledges and caves. I quite like… for now.
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I’ve made two frag racks from egg crate. Mark 1 was with suction caps but I realized it was too small and a pain in the a*#e to move as required.
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Mark 2 is much bigger, has a little rail around it to stop frags falling off and is glued to my spare magnetic glass cleaner. Massive improvement.
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Have been manually dosing with Randy’s recipe for alkalinity (my calcium and Mg are always spot on) twice daily and that has stablised the calcium exceptionally well. It took me a couple of weeks to work out exactly what I needed to do and how best to do it but I’m on top of that now too.

Coral growth has been wonderful. My little pink birdsnest sps is growing really quickly and all the other corals except one seem to be blossoming. My lovely big white/brown goni (Bullet to it’s friends) is delightful, fully extended and happy no matter what I do to the tank. The other green goni, like his brown brother is also a happy chappy.

Fish are all happy, healthy and growing. The blue green chromis have even been engaging in mating behaviour!

My little zoa frags are growing beautifully. I glued one to it’s permanent home this morning and I will glue the other frags in a month or two when I’m sure they’re stable, growing and happy.

On the down side, my little goni (short polyp) seems to be croaking its last so I have moved it to the sump. I’m utterly unsure why it decided to gradually decline but I can only assume that it’s my fault somehow. RIP little fella.:(

I tried to catch all the blue green chromis so they could be rehomed elsewhere. Um… it would be fair to say that they had other ideas! No matter what we tried to catch them, they were utterly determined to stay put so it seems I will permanently have 11 blue green chromis! :)
 
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daveH

Team Leader
Nov 24, 2011
2,958
1,475
Brisbane Northside
I tried to catch all the blue green chromis so they could be rehomed elsewhere. Um… it would be fair to say that they had other ideas! No matter what we tried to catch them, they were utterly determined to stay put so it seems I will permanently have 11 blue green chromis! :)
I had to laugh at this because the other week I tried unsuccessfully to catch a pair of clown fish I'm selling and the stupid chromis kept swimming into the net.
I only had to hold the net in the water and he would swim straight in. Ha.
 

Rob

Member
Apr 26, 2012
743
424
Nice job with the frag rack....I've never been able to keep a Goni

It's great you have the Paramus under control and I like your new scape

The left hand bomey ( tallest structure) looks like it's a person with his fist on his chin
The right bomey has a face looking at the person. This time looks like a garaffe face

Is it just me that sees lots of faces and bears in your scape ?

Edit again..... I now see three bears on the left bomey !
 
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Lesley

Member
Apr 2, 2013
2,086
1,079
Hi. I also prefer your scape. Seems to some how make the tank look more spacious. Bad luck with catching - it's always the ones you don't want to catch that hit the net. Very clever frag rack , would love to have one but hubby doesn't like the look of them :(. Job well done ! The uglies end is near - congrats. Tank is looking really good for 4 months. Well done
 

RobbieMVFC

Member
Feb 25, 2013
1,232
610
Looks great Ziggy , I going to have to steal that idea for the rail around the frag rack. DAMMMM Snails!! lol
 
Hi Ziggy. The rail around the frag rack is a great idea. My trochus snails are always knocking frags. I might make the same with some of the black eggcrate I have.
 

Ziggy

Member
Jul 6, 2015
154
61
Adelaide
I don't care if they do @Lesley. In fact that would be good as it will keep the rack clean but the frags are protected from being pushed off now as they have a "balcony" to keep them on. That was the problem with the Mark 1 rack. They kept falling off. Not any more :)