Reef nutrition

I'll just put this here...

It's been a few years since I've had a tank and I just moved and got a new job and figured it was a good time to get back into it! I'm going to try and keep things pretty small and budget friendly for now.

I apologize in advance for my crappy iphone pictures. I do own a big girl camera and will eventually figure out how to use it...

First I cobbled together a little 9.5 gallon nano with spare bits I had. and then I started gathering bits for a 24 gallon nano. I'll be inn an apartment for a couple of years so wanted to keep things under 30 gallons.


First Tank

9.5 Gallon national geographic bow front:

Currently just using the LED from the AJ-60 and an old 32 watt LED on this tank because I haven't decided what to use. May just go with a par38 bulb or chinese box LED

Finnex hob fuge with cheato, phosban, carbon, filter floss

Hydor Koralia 425 powerhead

Hydor 50 watt heater

12 pounds like rock

10 pounds live sand



Livestock:

1 small tiger conch

10 Tiny Tapestry Nerite

1 Vibex

small Purple whip gorg
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2 heads of some orange zoa

3 heads of stubborn orange dendro

random mushroom

2 neon gobies (Jot and Tittle)
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These guys are very sweet and hang out on my hand as I'm target feeding the dendros

Ultimate goal for this tank is a little sexy shrimp garden with a group of 5 or 7 sexies, soft coral, and some nano sized gorgonians.

I'm also going to see if the LFS can order an aquacultured Rainfordi's goby for me to add as the final fish for this nano. That way if it runs out of algae and pods it should eat prepared foods.

Excuse the algae on the glass. Here is my currently janky but in progress little nano.
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Tank 2

Equipment:

AJ-60 24 Gallon all in one

25 (ish) pounds live rock

20 (ish) pounds live sand

(The sand and rock came from an unlucky craigslister who had a tank leak)

Wellpar 165 watt dimmable timer control led reef light

Rio 180 return

Jebao RW4 wavemaker

Eheim 100 watt heater

phosban, carbon, filter sponge, filter floss

Ammonia alert badge

digital thermometer

Test kits

Refractometer

Food: Hikari Mysis, Ocean Nutrition Formula 1, SA hatchery pellets, new life spectrum pellets, Can o Cyclops (frozen now), Brightwell Restore er...

Revive coral dip

net

turkey baster

bone cutters

considering adding Brightwell aquatic media plate instead of or in addition to cheato



Livestock:
Tiger conch (his name is Babar)
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2 big vibex snails

Pair of sustainable aquatics sunkist skunk clowns (Clementine and Sherbert aka Bert)
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I bought my Sustainable Aquatics clowns and pair of neon gobies from The Coral Reef. They were awesome! I let them know that I was going to try and pair the 4 fish I ordered and asked them to keep that in mind when they selected my fish.

They responded to my email right away.

One of the clowns was a bit larger and one of the gobies was a bit fatter and both have paired up nicely!

Shipping was smooth, things were very well packaged. All fish are eating well and active and happy as of now (2 weeks).

Cycling shot
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New light! Good god it's like looking at the face of the sun!
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I need to raise the light up as high as possible as space is limited.

Tonight candid slimy algae glass shot!
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Ick, time to add some algae snails.

I cycled for 6 weeks or so before adding CUC and added several doses of bottled bacteria. Dosed with ace hardware janitorial ammonia every few days until it started processing it in 24 hours.

I only have a few frags in there right now. A nice orange fanta acan, some orange crush zoas, a frag of yellow scroll coral, and a frag of Green Pocillipora.

I have an order of frags coming later this week.

Pink and blue, rainbow, and purple cream acans. Plan is to space them out on the rock on the right and grow them together. Ultimate goal is to have that whole rock encrusted with them.

A head of red candy cane, a head of yellow tip torch coral, some pink zoas, pink yuma ricordia, and purple yuma ricordia.

I'll put the torch in the lower left, a bit shaded and a spot the clown like to sleep.

The zoas and shrooms will go on the shaded/lower portions of the rock. Mainly orange, blue, pink, and purple, ricordia, mushrooms, and zoas.

On the top surfaces I'd like an array of colorful stylophora and pocillipora. I love the fluffy look!

I'd like a yellow fiji leather, right up on the top right of the arc, directly in front of the powerhead.

I'd also like a fox coral, pink hammer, and a toadstool leather.

I'll add one more fish, a golden sailfin blenny (if I ever find a nice one). Some acropora crabs would be cute.

So that's a start!

Oh, and I use real saltwater, $1 a gallon at the pet store I drive by every day 2 blocks from my work. Top off with RODI. I'm in the north bay, Marin and there are no decent LFS, the one close to work is handy for water but their tanks are full of aptasia and I've seen quite a bit of ich. They do order from Quality Marine so I might order from them and have them just keep my stuff bagged.

On the weekends I don't mind driving to the east and even south bay to visit some of the very cool stores!
 
Got up to get a drink in the middle of the night last night and couldn't resist. This is how the clowns sleep and where I'm going to put the yellow torch if it's healthy. Sometimes they are stacked on on top of the other. So cute!

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Jot and Tittle; fitting names for such small fish. There's only one place that I've heard that phrase used. Where did you hear it from?
 
Hmmm, honestly I'm not sure when I first saw the word in use. I read extremely quickly and have since I was a kid. I've read a lot of British authors in particular. I would guess I picked it up in books.
 
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