The "almost-8-week" Update
Still not much to look at on a macro level, but the tank is kicking along on a micro level.
* Had my algae bloom - bit of hair, bit of slime/cyano, bit of diatom. Did two lots of minor vacuuming of the two rocks with the most hair (don't have a fish to attack it at the moment). Otherwise, it is dying off mostly. Another couple of weeks and it should all be gone.
* think we may have had another casualty - haven't seen my small lemon goby for about a week and a half. Checked the plumbing, the sump, and around the outside of the tank and can't see him. Not very hopeful of him making a majical reappearance. No sign of a body either, so maybe it is under a rock or my CBS might have had a late night snack. :(
* Still loving not having to clean the glass! Have cleaned it once with filter wool as per one of Nils' tips, mainly to check whether I had stuff on the glass that I just wasn't seeing. Turns out that there isn't much growing on my glass. Just one 5 x 10cm patch on the side wall that keeps recurring every 5-6 days, but that's it. My daughter just runs the Tunze scraper through it every few days when she notices and voila, done for another few days.
* parameters are: 25.0 degrees, ammonia 0, nitrates 2.5ppm, phosphates 0.03. Ammonia has been undetectable for over 3 weeks so I am going to stop testing for it until the time comes to add more friends. Macro algae in the sump is growing and the algae in the DT is not out of control, so I am thinking that the above Nitrates/Phos readings may be fairly accurate (not low due to the algae in the DT consuming it all first)
* when I got my macro algae a few weeks ago it had a decent amount of pods and, after much time staring at it, I found 3 small snails. Seems like my snails like each other, cause I have found dozens of tiny baby snails floating in my fuge in the last few days. Very, very cool. They are so small that there is enough surface tension on the underside of the top of the water that they can be seen crawling upside down just under the surface of the water. :) Ironic how in the past i would often see my "adult" snails laying eggs, but they were always eaten by someone else in the tank and never made it out of the egg. Now, by complete accident it looks like I might have a nice little snail making factory in my sump where hopefully the lack of predators will result in lots of babies surviving.
* this morning my cushion coral has been up to its CBS moult eating tricks again - love seeing that
* please excuse the poor camera pics. Keep meaning to either take more care with my phone pics or get out my "proper" camera, but never seem to do so.
* one question - my hammer has two heads. One head is happy - opening up, waving around as they do. The other head is sulking - only extending 5mm or so from the skeleton. Have tried different positions in the tank for different lighting and flow, but has been this way for 2-3 weeks. Not sure what is happening, but would strongly prefer not to end up with a one headed hammer. Any advice?
No offense intended, but my daughter saw this at the Chinese grocery shop and I had to take a pic to share. They don't look too happy to me. :p
A pic to show the current placement of corals. Two of the zoa frags have sprouted new polyps, both of which are closer to the edge of the frag plugs. Encrusting, in a few more months, here we come!
My cushion coral's morning meal.
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Jared's 3ft Shallow "Cube" Adventure
* Had my algae bloom - bit of hair, bit of slime/cyano, bit of diatom. Did two lots of minor vacuuming of the two rocks with the most hair (don't have a fish to attack it at the moment). Otherwise, it is dying off mostly. Another couple of weeks and it should all be gone.
* think we may have had another casualty - haven't seen my small lemon goby for about a week and a half. Checked the plumbing, the sump, and around the outside of the tank and can't see him. Not very hopeful of him making a majical reappearance. No sign of a body either, so maybe it is under a rock or my CBS might have had a late night snack. :(
* Still loving not having to clean the glass! Have cleaned it once with filter wool as per one of Nils' tips, mainly to check whether I had stuff on the glass that I just wasn't seeing. Turns out that there isn't much growing on my glass. Just one 5 x 10cm patch on the side wall that keeps recurring every 5-6 days, but that's it. My daughter just runs the Tunze scraper through it every few days when she notices and voila, done for another few days.
* parameters are: 25.0 degrees, ammonia 0, nitrates 2.5ppm, phosphates 0.03. Ammonia has been undetectable for over 3 weeks so I am going to stop testing for it until the time comes to add more friends. Macro algae in the sump is growing and the algae in the DT is not out of control, so I am thinking that the above Nitrates/Phos readings may be fairly accurate (not low due to the algae in the DT consuming it all first)
* when I got my macro algae a few weeks ago it had a decent amount of pods and, after much time staring at it, I found 3 small snails. Seems like my snails like each other, cause I have found dozens of tiny baby snails floating in my fuge in the last few days. Very, very cool. They are so small that there is enough surface tension on the underside of the top of the water that they can be seen crawling upside down just under the surface of the water. :) Ironic how in the past i would often see my "adult" snails laying eggs, but they were always eaten by someone else in the tank and never made it out of the egg. Now, by complete accident it looks like I might have a nice little snail making factory in my sump where hopefully the lack of predators will result in lots of babies surviving.
* this morning my cushion coral has been up to its CBS moult eating tricks again - love seeing that
* please excuse the poor camera pics. Keep meaning to either take more care with my phone pics or get out my "proper" camera, but never seem to do so.
* one question - my hammer has two heads. One head is happy - opening up, waving around as they do. The other head is sulking - only extending 5mm or so from the skeleton. Have tried different positions in the tank for different lighting and flow, but has been this way for 2-3 weeks. Not sure what is happening, but would strongly prefer not to end up with a one headed hammer. Any advice?
No offense intended, but my daughter saw this at the Chinese grocery shop and I had to take a pic to share. They don't look too happy to me. :p
A pic to show the current placement of corals. Two of the zoa frags have sprouted new polyps, both of which are closer to the edge of the frag plugs. Encrusting, in a few more months, here we come!
My cushion coral's morning meal.
___________________________________
Jared's 3ft Shallow "Cube" Adventure
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