Have been flat out with work but I'm on holidays now so will provide an update. The new clown I purchased went carpet surfing after a few weeks, so it's the original B&W by himself now, have him hand feeding which is cool.
Will get a pic up when I can, other inhabitants include 2 massive spiny urchins and a collector urchin (original hitchikers) - which will explain the slow growth of corraline algae, 2 pep shrimp, and 2 crabs which are getting big but still not hassling coral. Corals I'm adding slowly but seeing awesome growth. The Xenia frag I got of adz has gone wild - split up and growing in 5 places. Will take to it with a razor soon. The 3 LPS (hammer,torch and elegance) have shown great growth, dosing with Nano Code A&B because the weekly wc isn't replenishing enough. Will need advice soon on fragging my massive hammer, it has doubled in size since its arrival and takes up a lot of space. The zoas are the only ones not entirely happy. The peps just won't stay off them and they have trouble opening fully as a result.
The only other issue is this summer heat. I'm not running a chiller but the open top and a fan pointing along the water has kept it under 28c. Occasionally I'll have to cut the lights and add an ice pack to keep it from spiking. Went away for the weekend and when I got home it was 29.7 :( and the previous day was hotter so it probably hit low 30's with the house closed up. Everything looks okay, opened up to the max, but I shut of the lights and everything receded really quickly (way quicker than usual). I got the temp back down to the high 27's overnight and all looks ok. Hopefully the spike didn't do too much harm. Tomorrow is scheduled to hit 43c though and I'm moving our portable air-con to the bedroom so it actually works so I'll just go without lights and keep adding ice I think, hopefully it stays down.
Looking to add another fish soon (suggestions welcome - open top suitable or I'll have to add some eggcrate or something I guess), also looking to add an anemone very soon as well as a clam maybe. Have to sort out the dosing rates first though, cal and Alk seem to drop quickly over a day but day 2/3 levels out. I'm guessing they can only suck it out when it's at certain levels so I have to work out the right rate to keep the levels up where the corals can use them.
Will add a pic when I dig up the camera. Would love some advice re temps though - will a one off spike do massive harm? Will start looking for a 2nd hand or cheap chiller I guess...
