BAYMAC
Supporting Member
They're awesome additions. They eat algae, and breed in your tank (so they are a tool, and a feed)
7.5 Gallon Bookshelf Nano
- Thread starter SeanMc
- Start date
October 13, 2023
I picked up a Cali Tort at Hide Tide Aquatics. They had a really nice Walt Disney acro that I nearly got. Although it looked nice in the blue lights, it wasn’t quite as striking in the white light. My partner prefers the white light so I have a long stretch in the middle of the day with white lights. Also, I wanted something extra hardy. The Cali Tort looked good in both lights and - like most classics - my assumption is that it’s pretty tough. Now that it’s in my tank, it may not be the final choice for this spot. It’s not bright like everything else and it’s a little harder to see against the black background of the skimmer and ATO sensor. Bright is a theme of this tank, and I wonder if @Darkxerox was right to suggest a yellow anacropora. I’m still pretty committed to trying an acro in this tank and I already have an anacropora (which I love and highly recommend btw), but I could see myself ultimately getting a goldenrod. Even if I don’t keep the cali long term, imo, it’s definitely an upgrade from the pink Cadillac. The blue color is the touch of class I was looking for.
For a couple weeks, I started my water changes by using a turkey baster. I was surprised how much detritus it kicked up and it was, in some ways, satisfying to pursue a “clean” tank. In hindsight, I think this was a mistake. I’m curious to hear from other people, but I felt like I got a nutrient spike and algae bloom. I think using the turkey baster may have upset some bacteria or other critters. I was doing more frequent and larger water changes and the algae just kept coming – getting worse even. I think I let “clean” overpower “stability” in my thinking. I’m going to prioritize stability for a little bit. Having stopped the baster for about a week, it already seems to be making a difference but it’s hard to say. There’s a lot of lag with these things sometimes.
The watermelon chalice has two new eyes. The digitata is growing into a star occupant. The skin has grown in some spots that had died back (before my time) and reclaimed it from some algae. It’s getting thicker and growing in multiple places, not just the two main tips.
A piece of a torch tentacle came off. It’s happened a couple other times. I think there’s some sort of bivalve shell or something on its stem where the tentacles get trapped and cut off. Anyways, a little piece of the torch was floating around the tank – which you notice because it’s neon green – but then I later saw the piece sitting on the ricordia. At first, it seemed as if the ricordia was trying to eat it, but I then realized it was being stung. It was there overnight and although the ricordia is probably just fine, it was definitely not happy about it. I worry that these torches are way too tough for a crammed tank. I would love to get recommendations on what can withstand them. Zoas maybe?
I picked up a Cali Tort at Hide Tide Aquatics. They had a really nice Walt Disney acro that I nearly got. Although it looked nice in the blue lights, it wasn’t quite as striking in the white light. My partner prefers the white light so I have a long stretch in the middle of the day with white lights. Also, I wanted something extra hardy. The Cali Tort looked good in both lights and - like most classics - my assumption is that it’s pretty tough. Now that it’s in my tank, it may not be the final choice for this spot. It’s not bright like everything else and it’s a little harder to see against the black background of the skimmer and ATO sensor. Bright is a theme of this tank, and I wonder if @Darkxerox was right to suggest a yellow anacropora. I’m still pretty committed to trying an acro in this tank and I already have an anacropora (which I love and highly recommend btw), but I could see myself ultimately getting a goldenrod. Even if I don’t keep the cali long term, imo, it’s definitely an upgrade from the pink Cadillac. The blue color is the touch of class I was looking for.
For a couple weeks, I started my water changes by using a turkey baster. I was surprised how much detritus it kicked up and it was, in some ways, satisfying to pursue a “clean” tank. In hindsight, I think this was a mistake. I’m curious to hear from other people, but I felt like I got a nutrient spike and algae bloom. I think using the turkey baster may have upset some bacteria or other critters. I was doing more frequent and larger water changes and the algae just kept coming – getting worse even. I think I let “clean” overpower “stability” in my thinking. I’m going to prioritize stability for a little bit. Having stopped the baster for about a week, it already seems to be making a difference but it’s hard to say. There’s a lot of lag with these things sometimes.
The watermelon chalice has two new eyes. The digitata is growing into a star occupant. The skin has grown in some spots that had died back (before my time) and reclaimed it from some algae. It’s getting thicker and growing in multiple places, not just the two main tips.
A piece of a torch tentacle came off. It’s happened a couple other times. I think there’s some sort of bivalve shell or something on its stem where the tentacles get trapped and cut off. Anyways, a little piece of the torch was floating around the tank – which you notice because it’s neon green – but then I later saw the piece sitting on the ricordia. At first, it seemed as if the ricordia was trying to eat it, but I then realized it was being stung. It was there overnight and although the ricordia is probably just fine, it was definitely not happy about it. I worry that these torches are way too tough for a crammed tank. I would love to get recommendations on what can withstand them. Zoas maybe?
Torches can lose a tentacle here than there from getting bumped or tangled in strong water flow. And yes your want to remove them ASAP if you see them cause it can sting lots of other animals as it floats around. I've pretty much kept them out of range of other corals but haven't seen many other corals that can take sustained stings from them @thephoreefer would know best about things torches can touch.
I would keep using the baster but just be sure you're not blasting corals, just live rock. You can also run a piece of filter floss on your pump intake after doing then then pulling that after the water clears and you finish your water change.
What sort of inputs are going into the tank? Given that you don't have fish, there really shouldn't be much adding nutrients right?
I would keep using the baster but just be sure you're not blasting corals, just live rock. You can also run a piece of filter floss on your pump intake after doing then then pulling that after the water clears and you finish your water change.
What sort of inputs are going into the tank? Given that you don't have fish, there really shouldn't be much adding nutrients right?
Inputs at this point are only for the blood shrimp. About 10 "small" pellets about every other day. I try not to feed it more than it can eat in a sitting. I'm not doing AB+ or phyto right now. There's usually a lag between my posts and the present (e.g. this post was written a few weeks ago) and it's possible I was still doing a drop of phyto twice a week at that time.
I was careful not to blast the corals. If I'm understanding you correctly about the filter floss, I'd have to fit it in front of the powerhead intake grill. I'm not sure how gracefully that will stay in place.
What do you see as the advantage of the blasting the rockwork? It could have been a total coincidence, but it struck me as weird to have a sudden, moderate algae bloom when the only changes were more frequent and larger water changes and the turkey baster technique. I'm doing fewer, smaller changes now and the algae hasn't come back yet. The baster also more work for me. It was fun for a while, but I don't want to be obligated to do it.
I'd love to hear @thephoreefer chime in on who can handle a torch sting. It's possible the only solution is isolation. But the reason I suggested a zoa is their defense mechanism usually is to close up and hold its ground, whereas some fleshier LPS corals get their skeletons exposed and don't recover well.
I was careful not to blast the corals. If I'm understanding you correctly about the filter floss, I'd have to fit it in front of the powerhead intake grill. I'm not sure how gracefully that will stay in place.
What do you see as the advantage of the blasting the rockwork? It could have been a total coincidence, but it struck me as weird to have a sudden, moderate algae bloom when the only changes were more frequent and larger water changes and the turkey baster technique. I'm doing fewer, smaller changes now and the algae hasn't come back yet. The baster also more work for me. It was fun for a while, but I don't want to be obligated to do it.
I'd love to hear @thephoreefer chime in on who can handle a torch sting. It's possible the only solution is isolation. But the reason I suggested a zoa is their defense mechanism usually is to close up and hold its ground, whereas some fleshier LPS corals get their skeletons exposed and don't recover well.
October 20, 2023
I borrowed the club’s PAR meter.
Obviously, I do not have the light mounted in the way the manufacturer prescribes. The gooseneck wants to pull away from the aquarium. I can’t pull it any closer. Nearly all tanks have the lights perpendicular, but the bookshelf here prevents me from doing that.
My schedule peeks at 80% for two hours on a 12 hour cycle.
I thought that my acro spot would be the brightest because it’s closest to the surface. Even though it’s not in the center of the light, it is not filtered by the glass. I thought of it as a high-light, high-flow spot – hence the acro. It turns out that spot is not especially high light, or at least there are many other spots that are brighter. The digi is getting blasted. Over 500 PAR. Many corals are getting way more light than most online sources recommend. 300 sounds very high for a chalice, trumpet, and acan, for example.
With one exception, everyone seems happy so I’m reluctant to change anything. In orchid world, many people say to give them as much light as the plant can stand - which makes a lot of sense to me. Since most everyone is growing, it seems like they can stand it. But, that principle may not apply to corals.
That said, the measurements did make me wonder if the problem with the orange zoas is too much light and that they’re trying to run away from it. It would explain why it isn’t just dying and is instead shrinking in the front and growing towards the back – most happy corals reach for the lights, like plants.
Here are some readings at 100% on the Kessil a360 wide angle, fyi.
I don’t want to turn the light up because it already seems very high and the small bump to the acro spot doesn’t seem worth the risk to the rest of the tank. It’s also too early to tell if the light is inadequate for that spot, so a bump up may not even help.
One thing I noticed is that penetrating the glass causes a large decrease in PAR. No surprise there in principle, but places that looked to me like they were getting blasted just aren’t. The energy roll off in the bottom front half of the tank is steep.
The acans are starting to grow down the old skeleton. It has about four new, very small mouths. That’s the first visible growth I’ve seen on those. Everyone else seems good. No growth on the yellow brick road zoas (near the orange ones) but they are almost always open and otherwise healthy seeming. There are early signs of the GSP growing off the plug and onto the epoxy.
I borrowed the club’s PAR meter.
Obviously, I do not have the light mounted in the way the manufacturer prescribes. The gooseneck wants to pull away from the aquarium. I can’t pull it any closer. Nearly all tanks have the lights perpendicular, but the bookshelf here prevents me from doing that.
My schedule peeks at 80% for two hours on a 12 hour cycle.
I thought that my acro spot would be the brightest because it’s closest to the surface. Even though it’s not in the center of the light, it is not filtered by the glass. I thought of it as a high-light, high-flow spot – hence the acro. It turns out that spot is not especially high light, or at least there are many other spots that are brighter. The digi is getting blasted. Over 500 PAR. Many corals are getting way more light than most online sources recommend. 300 sounds very high for a chalice, trumpet, and acan, for example.
With one exception, everyone seems happy so I’m reluctant to change anything. In orchid world, many people say to give them as much light as the plant can stand - which makes a lot of sense to me. Since most everyone is growing, it seems like they can stand it. But, that principle may not apply to corals.
That said, the measurements did make me wonder if the problem with the orange zoas is too much light and that they’re trying to run away from it. It would explain why it isn’t just dying and is instead shrinking in the front and growing towards the back – most happy corals reach for the lights, like plants.
Here are some readings at 100% on the Kessil a360 wide angle, fyi.
I don’t want to turn the light up because it already seems very high and the small bump to the acro spot doesn’t seem worth the risk to the rest of the tank. It’s also too early to tell if the light is inadequate for that spot, so a bump up may not even help.
One thing I noticed is that penetrating the glass causes a large decrease in PAR. No surprise there in principle, but places that looked to me like they were getting blasted just aren’t. The energy roll off in the bottom front half of the tank is steep.
The acans are starting to grow down the old skeleton. It has about four new, very small mouths. That’s the first visible growth I’ve seen on those. Everyone else seems good. No growth on the yellow brick road zoas (near the orange ones) but they are almost always open and otherwise healthy seeming. There are early signs of the GSP growing off the plug and onto the epoxy.
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May 30, 2024, pt.1
TLDR; Tank is almost one year old. The torch is dying. Giving up on the plating montipora for now. Fewer, bigger corals in year 2.
The tank is approaching one year.
I went out of town twice and had total novices take care of the tank.
The first time was for about six or seven weeks around the winter holidays. The second time was more recently for about two months (8 weeks). Both times were pet sitters from trustedhousesitters.com. One came over beforehand and I gave a hands-on demo of how to do water changes. For the second person, I just made a video and did a few phone calls.
The house sitters both did a very good job. Nobody died.
When I came back in January, the tank had algae blooms but everyone was definitely alive. Only the torch was visibly worse for wear. Overall, the house sitters were real rule followers and they did not have the same temptations to tinker with the tank. I said 1-2 gallons for water changes, but both of them consistently did exactly 1 gallon. The cali tort certainly liked whatever they were doing. I was impressed by its growth and color while I was gone.
Pics of when I returned in mid-January:
When I got back in January, I went on a water changing campaign, upping the frequency to twice a week. Unlike the house sitters, I occasionally pulled out a couple gallons. I was home for a couple months from January through February and then left again in mid-March.
Some pics before I left in mid-March:
A few takeaways from the house sitter experience: One is that it is possible to have a total novice take care of a tank, even one this small. Two months is a long time. There was some damage, which I accepted as inevitable, but it was minimal. Second is one of my goals was to make this tank very simple and easy to maintain. The fact that totally notices were able to keep it going feels like it says something about the ease of maintenance. The house sitters were an interesting experiment. On the one hand, they were real consistency queens, which I think the tank really liked. But on the other hand, they wouldn’t really react to anything, which could be bad. I honestly respect their mechanical consistency, especially since I’ve been making some changes to the tank lately and keep putting my hands in it.
Since getting back, I again implemented a more aggressive water changing schedule and started feeding the tank AB+ again. I did not ask the house sitters to do any dosing because the whole thing was already annoying enough.
I think the torch is doomed.
The torch hadn’t been fully opening for a few weeks when I left in December. It opened a little in the morning, but then spent the rest of the afternoon looking a little shriveled. I thought this was part of the process of splitting the live fleshy part from the new branches. Something about moving from one big organism to two smaller ones, IDK. I had hoped that the situation would get better when the heads were fully detached and could be safely put through a bandsaw. When I got back in January, however, it was clear that didn’t happen. There was visible tissue loss and just a few days later, the flesh rapidly washed out of the skeleton over the course of a couple days. The separated original head, however, survived. Fast forward to May now and it doesn’t look good. It’s quite the reversal from October when it was dividing quickly and beating on its neighbors because it was getting so big. I don’t have a good theory of what happened. Water quality or nutrients or just one of those things? IDK. I’m definitely not ready to give up on torches, so I’ll be getting another one. I’ll try to rehab this one but, honestly, it’s probably doomed. The tissue loss has already started.
Going to get rid of the orange monti cap.
The plating monti has been fighting with the chalice and losing. The dead rim of the monti is black and dead looking. I also noticed what looked like some nudibranchs right before I left in the spring for two months. They seem to have picked at parts of it, but given that they had two months to munch unmolested, they didn’t actually do that much damage. When I got back in May, I picked off about four or five. I worry that I can’t in good conscience give away a coral that I suspect had nudibranchs. Orange monti caps also seem to be a nuisance in some tanks, so I don’t feel too bad about just tossing it. Would still love to give it away if possible. It also never really cupped like I wanted it to. It mostly continued to table out on a flat plane. Getting rid of the monti, will also make the GSP more visible, and that one is finally growing the way that I want.
Anacropora going through a rough patch.
The anacropora also showed some signs of trouble before I left in the spring. The polyps weren’t as extended and bushy, and they’d turned a lighter brown color. This happened once or twice before but it always eventually snapped back with water changes. When I got back in May, some parts were bleaching and some were even dead. I might end up cutting off the front branch or fragging and starting over. I don’t know if it’s going to grow back over the part that died. Some corals and plants only grow out of the tip, so any dead pieces remain dead. Not being able to fix past mistakes can result in some stringy and unattractive corals/plants. I’m also getting the impression that this coral doesn’t want to grow into the high-flow powerhead stream, so I don’t know how it’s supposed to mature into the position it’s in. Will try to rehab and see how it goes.
Other updates.
The orange zoas in the back have continued moving and shrinking. I’m not optimistic, but hopefully they’ll find a spot they like and take over that area.
The trumpet seems to be splitting, but it doesn’t seem very happy. It doesn’t have as much flesh as I think it should. It's less trumpet and more nub now. It has a faint white hue that feels like an LPS getting blasted by too much light. If I get around to it, I’ll move it further back and see how it does.
Everyone else looks good and has clear signs of growth.
The salinity dropped to 1.021. I buy salt water, so I can’t really make a really salty batch. It’ll probably take a few days to bring the salinity back up. It’s possible the anacropora and torch don’t like that.
Year two goals.
In year two, I’d like to dial down the number of corals and keep the ones that seem to be working best in the spaces they’re in. I’m going to get rid of a piece of live rock that is small, but is probably a significant percentage of live rock surface area in a tank this small. I’m hoping it’ll free up some space and make it feel less crowded.
The new tank arrangement would have a little more negative space and the monti digi would replace the plating monti. A little triangle of sticks. I’m going out of town for a couple weeks in July and I might be moving soon, but I still dreaming of something like an OG bounce in the lower left corner once I’m not traveling anymore and my living situation is firmer.
TLDR; Tank is almost one year old. The torch is dying. Giving up on the plating montipora for now. Fewer, bigger corals in year 2.
The tank is approaching one year.
I went out of town twice and had total novices take care of the tank.
The first time was for about six or seven weeks around the winter holidays. The second time was more recently for about two months (8 weeks). Both times were pet sitters from trustedhousesitters.com. One came over beforehand and I gave a hands-on demo of how to do water changes. For the second person, I just made a video and did a few phone calls.
The house sitters both did a very good job. Nobody died.
When I came back in January, the tank had algae blooms but everyone was definitely alive. Only the torch was visibly worse for wear. Overall, the house sitters were real rule followers and they did not have the same temptations to tinker with the tank. I said 1-2 gallons for water changes, but both of them consistently did exactly 1 gallon. The cali tort certainly liked whatever they were doing. I was impressed by its growth and color while I was gone.
Pics of when I returned in mid-January:
When I got back in January, I went on a water changing campaign, upping the frequency to twice a week. Unlike the house sitters, I occasionally pulled out a couple gallons. I was home for a couple months from January through February and then left again in mid-March.
Some pics before I left in mid-March:
A few takeaways from the house sitter experience: One is that it is possible to have a total novice take care of a tank, even one this small. Two months is a long time. There was some damage, which I accepted as inevitable, but it was minimal. Second is one of my goals was to make this tank very simple and easy to maintain. The fact that totally notices were able to keep it going feels like it says something about the ease of maintenance. The house sitters were an interesting experiment. On the one hand, they were real consistency queens, which I think the tank really liked. But on the other hand, they wouldn’t really react to anything, which could be bad. I honestly respect their mechanical consistency, especially since I’ve been making some changes to the tank lately and keep putting my hands in it.
Since getting back, I again implemented a more aggressive water changing schedule and started feeding the tank AB+ again. I did not ask the house sitters to do any dosing because the whole thing was already annoying enough.
I think the torch is doomed.
The torch hadn’t been fully opening for a few weeks when I left in December. It opened a little in the morning, but then spent the rest of the afternoon looking a little shriveled. I thought this was part of the process of splitting the live fleshy part from the new branches. Something about moving from one big organism to two smaller ones, IDK. I had hoped that the situation would get better when the heads were fully detached and could be safely put through a bandsaw. When I got back in January, however, it was clear that didn’t happen. There was visible tissue loss and just a few days later, the flesh rapidly washed out of the skeleton over the course of a couple days. The separated original head, however, survived. Fast forward to May now and it doesn’t look good. It’s quite the reversal from October when it was dividing quickly and beating on its neighbors because it was getting so big. I don’t have a good theory of what happened. Water quality or nutrients or just one of those things? IDK. I’m definitely not ready to give up on torches, so I’ll be getting another one. I’ll try to rehab this one but, honestly, it’s probably doomed. The tissue loss has already started.
Going to get rid of the orange monti cap.
The plating monti has been fighting with the chalice and losing. The dead rim of the monti is black and dead looking. I also noticed what looked like some nudibranchs right before I left in the spring for two months. They seem to have picked at parts of it, but given that they had two months to munch unmolested, they didn’t actually do that much damage. When I got back in May, I picked off about four or five. I worry that I can’t in good conscience give away a coral that I suspect had nudibranchs. Orange monti caps also seem to be a nuisance in some tanks, so I don’t feel too bad about just tossing it. Would still love to give it away if possible. It also never really cupped like I wanted it to. It mostly continued to table out on a flat plane. Getting rid of the monti, will also make the GSP more visible, and that one is finally growing the way that I want.
Anacropora going through a rough patch.
The anacropora also showed some signs of trouble before I left in the spring. The polyps weren’t as extended and bushy, and they’d turned a lighter brown color. This happened once or twice before but it always eventually snapped back with water changes. When I got back in May, some parts were bleaching and some were even dead. I might end up cutting off the front branch or fragging and starting over. I don’t know if it’s going to grow back over the part that died. Some corals and plants only grow out of the tip, so any dead pieces remain dead. Not being able to fix past mistakes can result in some stringy and unattractive corals/plants. I’m also getting the impression that this coral doesn’t want to grow into the high-flow powerhead stream, so I don’t know how it’s supposed to mature into the position it’s in. Will try to rehab and see how it goes.
Other updates.
The orange zoas in the back have continued moving and shrinking. I’m not optimistic, but hopefully they’ll find a spot they like and take over that area.
The trumpet seems to be splitting, but it doesn’t seem very happy. It doesn’t have as much flesh as I think it should. It's less trumpet and more nub now. It has a faint white hue that feels like an LPS getting blasted by too much light. If I get around to it, I’ll move it further back and see how it does.
Everyone else looks good and has clear signs of growth.
The salinity dropped to 1.021. I buy salt water, so I can’t really make a really salty batch. It’ll probably take a few days to bring the salinity back up. It’s possible the anacropora and torch don’t like that.
Year two goals.
In year two, I’d like to dial down the number of corals and keep the ones that seem to be working best in the spaces they’re in. I’m going to get rid of a piece of live rock that is small, but is probably a significant percentage of live rock surface area in a tank this small. I’m hoping it’ll free up some space and make it feel less crowded.
The new tank arrangement would have a little more negative space and the monti digi would replace the plating monti. A little triangle of sticks. I’m going out of town for a couple weeks in July and I might be moving soon, but I still dreaming of something like an OG bounce in the lower left corner once I’m not traveling anymore and my living situation is firmer.
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June 4, 2024
Anacoropora and Nudibranchs
After my last post, I realized that monti eating nudibranchs also attack the anacropora. I had even seen one on the anacropora before. I didn't think anything of it. I’d seen them in other places before, like on the glass. Once I made the connection, I started seeing them more, especially at night. There were also some on the plating monti. I retired the plating monti at night, which ended up working out, because there were maybe 5-8 nudibranchs munching on it, including one that was at least twice as big as the others.
I don’t know how people deal with these in big or even normal sized tanks. The nudibranchs are so incredibly small. Very hard to see. It took at least two diligent weeks with the tweezers – real tweezers not the long aquarium kind – to remove them all. They weren’t at all interested in my digi monti. That made the removal a little easier, since I really just had to keep a close one colony of anacropora. I haven’t seen any in the last ten days, so I’m cautiously optimistic that they’re gone.
I saw online that you are supposed to scrape the eggs, but the nudis themselves are already so incredibly small that it seems truly impossible to ID the eggs and remove them. They are very fragile, however. For the ones I couldn’t reach well, I was able to scrape at them with a sharpened chop stick and they kind of broke up. They have no instinct for self-preservation. They wouldn’t flee. It often took multiple tries with the tweezers, but they didn’t run. Not saying the tweezers are the weapon of choice, but it seems to have worked for me. It’s true they mostly come out at night, but I saw some during the day. I’d estimate I probably removed over a dozen, maybe two dozen at most, including the ones that got carried out on the plating monti when I retired it.
I have no idea where they came from. I first noticed one in mid-September 2023. I think I killed it out of an abundance of caution, even though I didn’t know what it was. I have a vague memory of seeing one some months later and thinking “I should kill that.” But I got distracted and it got away. I didn’t really notice them again until I left for two months in March. By then it was too late to really do anything. I certainly wasn’t going to instruct the house sitter to kill these nearly microscopic creatures with a pair of tweezers every night.
The last thing I introduced to my tank was the blasto, which was probably in late November, but the nudis were already there in mid-September. Kind of strange that they didn’t metastasize into a problem until months later.
It's hard to say if they munched on my anacropora because it was weak or if it was weak because it was being munched on. A tough enemy to be sure.
The anacropora polyps are coming again. They’re bigger. Some of them have recovered their brown color. The real question is whether it will recolonize its old skeleton. If it’s going to retain a big scar, maybe anacroporas are not the coral for me.
Other Updates
The favia seems to sloughing off a piece of itself. My guess is it’s reproducing. I could be wrong.
I removed the smallest piece of live rock that the ricordia and torch were attached to. No ill affect on the tank, even though it’s a significant percentage of the live rock in the system.
The GSP is spreading a little too well. I won’t be able to put off the maintenance question much longer. I’m not thrilled at the idea of it growing over my ATO sensor. It’s also quite close to the side wall. I’m going to let it grow wild a little longer and see how I feel, but a decision about its maintenance is coming.
Replaced the plating monti with the digitata. Retired the monti cap.
Moved the acan to a shadier spot down low. It seemed happy up high, I just thought it was too crowded visually. It was also stinging the anacro, which was already stressed.
I also moved the kryptonite trumpet to the back. It was too crowded in the center and I didn’t think it liked the high-light location.
We moved – Dreaming of a New Tank
We moved to bigger unit in the building. Obviously, every move has the potential to be leveraged into a new tank. I’ve negotiated a nice spot in the living room next to my work desk (I work from home). I’ll probably make a separate thread for my musings but in short, I’m trying to chose between a 50 gal lagoon square or a smaller peninsula tank. The main requirement is the cabinet has to be nice wood, which I think puts me in custom territory. My partner hates the white or black Ikea style cabinets. Her brother and dad are carpenters. If anyone has recommendations for really nice custom cabinets and tanks, I’d love to hear them. I’m in Oakland. Willing to spend painful amounts of money.
The new spot for the current tank is a lot like the last one. The main functional difference is the light sits further out. The result is that nearly all light is filtered by the glass now. I’m in line for the PAR meter, but I strongly suspect the tank is getting less light overall. The spread must be different too.
Anacoropora and Nudibranchs
After my last post, I realized that monti eating nudibranchs also attack the anacropora. I had even seen one on the anacropora before. I didn't think anything of it. I’d seen them in other places before, like on the glass. Once I made the connection, I started seeing them more, especially at night. There were also some on the plating monti. I retired the plating monti at night, which ended up working out, because there were maybe 5-8 nudibranchs munching on it, including one that was at least twice as big as the others.
I don’t know how people deal with these in big or even normal sized tanks. The nudibranchs are so incredibly small. Very hard to see. It took at least two diligent weeks with the tweezers – real tweezers not the long aquarium kind – to remove them all. They weren’t at all interested in my digi monti. That made the removal a little easier, since I really just had to keep a close one colony of anacropora. I haven’t seen any in the last ten days, so I’m cautiously optimistic that they’re gone.
I saw online that you are supposed to scrape the eggs, but the nudis themselves are already so incredibly small that it seems truly impossible to ID the eggs and remove them. They are very fragile, however. For the ones I couldn’t reach well, I was able to scrape at them with a sharpened chop stick and they kind of broke up. They have no instinct for self-preservation. They wouldn’t flee. It often took multiple tries with the tweezers, but they didn’t run. Not saying the tweezers are the weapon of choice, but it seems to have worked for me. It’s true they mostly come out at night, but I saw some during the day. I’d estimate I probably removed over a dozen, maybe two dozen at most, including the ones that got carried out on the plating monti when I retired it.
I have no idea where they came from. I first noticed one in mid-September 2023. I think I killed it out of an abundance of caution, even though I didn’t know what it was. I have a vague memory of seeing one some months later and thinking “I should kill that.” But I got distracted and it got away. I didn’t really notice them again until I left for two months in March. By then it was too late to really do anything. I certainly wasn’t going to instruct the house sitter to kill these nearly microscopic creatures with a pair of tweezers every night.
The last thing I introduced to my tank was the blasto, which was probably in late November, but the nudis were already there in mid-September. Kind of strange that they didn’t metastasize into a problem until months later.
It's hard to say if they munched on my anacropora because it was weak or if it was weak because it was being munched on. A tough enemy to be sure.
The anacropora polyps are coming again. They’re bigger. Some of them have recovered their brown color. The real question is whether it will recolonize its old skeleton. If it’s going to retain a big scar, maybe anacroporas are not the coral for me.
Other Updates
The favia seems to sloughing off a piece of itself. My guess is it’s reproducing. I could be wrong.
I removed the smallest piece of live rock that the ricordia and torch were attached to. No ill affect on the tank, even though it’s a significant percentage of the live rock in the system.
The GSP is spreading a little too well. I won’t be able to put off the maintenance question much longer. I’m not thrilled at the idea of it growing over my ATO sensor. It’s also quite close to the side wall. I’m going to let it grow wild a little longer and see how I feel, but a decision about its maintenance is coming.
Replaced the plating monti with the digitata. Retired the monti cap.
Moved the acan to a shadier spot down low. It seemed happy up high, I just thought it was too crowded visually. It was also stinging the anacro, which was already stressed.
I also moved the kryptonite trumpet to the back. It was too crowded in the center and I didn’t think it liked the high-light location.
We moved – Dreaming of a New Tank
We moved to bigger unit in the building. Obviously, every move has the potential to be leveraged into a new tank. I’ve negotiated a nice spot in the living room next to my work desk (I work from home). I’ll probably make a separate thread for my musings but in short, I’m trying to chose between a 50 gal lagoon square or a smaller peninsula tank. The main requirement is the cabinet has to be nice wood, which I think puts me in custom territory. My partner hates the white or black Ikea style cabinets. Her brother and dad are carpenters. If anyone has recommendations for really nice custom cabinets and tanks, I’d love to hear them. I’m in Oakland. Willing to spend painful amounts of money.
The new spot for the current tank is a lot like the last one. The main functional difference is the light sits further out. The result is that nearly all light is filtered by the glass now. I’m in line for the PAR meter, but I strongly suspect the tank is getting less light overall. The spread must be different too.
September 18, 2024
Nudibranchs
Obviously, it was wrong of me to declare victory over the nudis so quickly. I checked diligently at night for two weeks and didn’t see anything, so I stopped. Maybe a month after that, I noticed a few at night again. The coral was visibly fine. Maybe the nudis need time or a critical mass or maybe the corals just react slowly, IDK. I seriously don’t know what you would do about these if you had a normal sized tank. They are so incredibly small. I could imagine some nightmarish scenarios. It did reinforce an old lesson in dealing with pests, which is that half measures are useless. You really have to keep up the pressure way longer than seems reasonable to really snuff them out. I’m still checking about five times a week and it’s been clear for the last month. Feeling hopeful I got em this time.
Orange Digitatas
I went into High Tide for some water and ended up with a Jason Fox favia and a forest fire digi. I’ve been feeling I made the wrong choice a year ago when I picked the bubblegum over the forest fire. I was talking to Kenny about it and he gave me this tiny frag for a song. It’s a little banged up but I think it’ll bounce back. I wasn’t planning on adding anything in that spot again, but it’s really small, and it does technically fit. Having it in my tank has only reinforced that I prefer the FF. Ideally, I’d trade someone the bubblegum for a roughly equal sized forest fire. Basically, replacing one type of orange digi for another.
Favia
That piece of the favia eventually sloughed off. I glued it on a plug and it grew pretty quick. Was about nickel-sized after a few weeks. I gave it to Kenny at High Tide. We were talking about how we’re into both in favias lately. I’ve really come around on them. Nice spreading coral. The patterns are interesting. I also like how they heal well. I’m Interested in some of the expensive yellow favias (favia of the gods, yellow submarine, wolverine, etc.), but haven’t seen any IRL. Anyways, Kenny ended up giving me a favia he got straight from Jason Fox! Looks like a “glow stick” favia from his online shop. Not sure. The green is intense, even in the white light. The dark spots are really dark, which I wouldn’t have expected to like, but IRL the contrast is nice. Still trying to decide where this should ultimately live. Probably on the tiny patch to the left of the hammer. Very nice of Kenny. He didn't need to do that. Another plus for High Tide Aquatics.
Trumpet, Torch, and Hammer
The torch finally gave up and died sometime in July. I picked up a splatter hammer from High Tide in August. I was really missing that euphyllia movement, but I'm not ready yet for another torch. It was also just too big and aggressive for a tank this small and full.
I nearly killed the trumpet. I feel like I deserve an award for this. Turns out you can kill them if you scorch them long enough. The skeleton is exposed and it's down to a nub. I'd be very very surprised if it pulls out of this even though it's in a spot I suspect it would otherwise like.
Pump Behind the Rock Work
I placed a really small pump behind the rock work. The theory was it would stir up some detritus into the water column and the skimmer would pull it out. It didn’t really work. The natural detritus eddy just moved somewhere else. It created another, worse detritus trap. Bubble algae that I’d poked free, but didn’t remove, would get stuck on the intake grill. I let it run for a while – maybe a month and a half – grew tired of the experiment and pulled it out. It seems really hard to get flow to stir up everything, even in a bare bottom tank.
Fire Shrimp is Out More
When I was fumbling with the rear pump I messed up the rockwork. When I finally got the rocks back in the approximate original positions, one of the front corners had actually been was raised about and inch. Reluctant, to put my hands back in the tank and make another, even more annoying mess, I let it sit for a few days while I thought about it. I’m glad I did. It turns out the shrimp, whom I basically never saw except to feed – liked to hang out under that newly created ledge. I put a frag plug there because the glass is slick and it seemed to want something to grab on to.
It's really increased my enjoyment of the tank. I was seriously considering swapping it for another inhabitant with a little more life to it. Now the shrimp regularly spends several hours during the day hanging out right at the front. I’ve been feeding it more as a result. Very unexpectedly nice development.
Water Testing and Potential Dosing
I got Hanna checkers for alk and calcium but I’ve only done two tests so far. The calcium test in particular has a lot of steps.
June 24, 2024:
Alk: 4.8
Calcium: 388
September 17, 2024:
Phosphate: 0.04
Alk: 5.2
Calcium: 406
FWIW the September test is a couple days after I changed 4 of 5 gallons (80%) in the tank.
Hard to draw firm conclusions from that, but calcium and alk are low. There’s also not a scrap of coraline in the tank, which strikes me as odd. Possibly it's a sign that calcium is chronically low?
It does make me a little curious about dosing. I don’t want to go chasing numbers and I obviously hate testing, but maybe some light dosing would be beneficial? I’ve never done any dosing and I’m very afraid of poisoning the tank. The upside seems minor, but the consequences of a disaster seem severe. My problems don’t seem to have been water quality related. I’m also reluctant to tinker with the water chemistry when what I’m doing is technically working.
Another House Sitter
I left the tank with yet a third house sitter for two weeks in late July. I didn’t ask her to do anything except feed the shrimp. No water changes. No skimmer cup cleaning. She did a good job. The corals looked great when I got back. There were a pair of alternating an algae outbreaks afterwards – first bubble, then some type of stringy algae. I conducted a few short-lived water change campaigns and I attacked the bubble algae with a sharpened chop stick – my weapon of choice for a lot of tank pokings and proddings. After about six weeks, it’s at a level that feels manageable and not distracting.
Still dreaming of a new tank. Need to make separate thread. I’m leaning towards a very nice, over-built nano peninsula.
Nudibranchs
Obviously, it was wrong of me to declare victory over the nudis so quickly. I checked diligently at night for two weeks and didn’t see anything, so I stopped. Maybe a month after that, I noticed a few at night again. The coral was visibly fine. Maybe the nudis need time or a critical mass or maybe the corals just react slowly, IDK. I seriously don’t know what you would do about these if you had a normal sized tank. They are so incredibly small. I could imagine some nightmarish scenarios. It did reinforce an old lesson in dealing with pests, which is that half measures are useless. You really have to keep up the pressure way longer than seems reasonable to really snuff them out. I’m still checking about five times a week and it’s been clear for the last month. Feeling hopeful I got em this time.
Orange Digitatas
I went into High Tide for some water and ended up with a Jason Fox favia and a forest fire digi. I’ve been feeling I made the wrong choice a year ago when I picked the bubblegum over the forest fire. I was talking to Kenny about it and he gave me this tiny frag for a song. It’s a little banged up but I think it’ll bounce back. I wasn’t planning on adding anything in that spot again, but it’s really small, and it does technically fit. Having it in my tank has only reinforced that I prefer the FF. Ideally, I’d trade someone the bubblegum for a roughly equal sized forest fire. Basically, replacing one type of orange digi for another.
Favia
That piece of the favia eventually sloughed off. I glued it on a plug and it grew pretty quick. Was about nickel-sized after a few weeks. I gave it to Kenny at High Tide. We were talking about how we’re into both in favias lately. I’ve really come around on them. Nice spreading coral. The patterns are interesting. I also like how they heal well. I’m Interested in some of the expensive yellow favias (favia of the gods, yellow submarine, wolverine, etc.), but haven’t seen any IRL. Anyways, Kenny ended up giving me a favia he got straight from Jason Fox! Looks like a “glow stick” favia from his online shop. Not sure. The green is intense, even in the white light. The dark spots are really dark, which I wouldn’t have expected to like, but IRL the contrast is nice. Still trying to decide where this should ultimately live. Probably on the tiny patch to the left of the hammer. Very nice of Kenny. He didn't need to do that. Another plus for High Tide Aquatics.
Trumpet, Torch, and Hammer
The torch finally gave up and died sometime in July. I picked up a splatter hammer from High Tide in August. I was really missing that euphyllia movement, but I'm not ready yet for another torch. It was also just too big and aggressive for a tank this small and full.
I nearly killed the trumpet. I feel like I deserve an award for this. Turns out you can kill them if you scorch them long enough. The skeleton is exposed and it's down to a nub. I'd be very very surprised if it pulls out of this even though it's in a spot I suspect it would otherwise like.
Pump Behind the Rock Work
I placed a really small pump behind the rock work. The theory was it would stir up some detritus into the water column and the skimmer would pull it out. It didn’t really work. The natural detritus eddy just moved somewhere else. It created another, worse detritus trap. Bubble algae that I’d poked free, but didn’t remove, would get stuck on the intake grill. I let it run for a while – maybe a month and a half – grew tired of the experiment and pulled it out. It seems really hard to get flow to stir up everything, even in a bare bottom tank.
Fire Shrimp is Out More
When I was fumbling with the rear pump I messed up the rockwork. When I finally got the rocks back in the approximate original positions, one of the front corners had actually been was raised about and inch. Reluctant, to put my hands back in the tank and make another, even more annoying mess, I let it sit for a few days while I thought about it. I’m glad I did. It turns out the shrimp, whom I basically never saw except to feed – liked to hang out under that newly created ledge. I put a frag plug there because the glass is slick and it seemed to want something to grab on to.
It's really increased my enjoyment of the tank. I was seriously considering swapping it for another inhabitant with a little more life to it. Now the shrimp regularly spends several hours during the day hanging out right at the front. I’ve been feeding it more as a result. Very unexpectedly nice development.
Water Testing and Potential Dosing
I got Hanna checkers for alk and calcium but I’ve only done two tests so far. The calcium test in particular has a lot of steps.
June 24, 2024:
Alk: 4.8
Calcium: 388
September 17, 2024:
Phosphate: 0.04
Alk: 5.2
Calcium: 406
FWIW the September test is a couple days after I changed 4 of 5 gallons (80%) in the tank.
Hard to draw firm conclusions from that, but calcium and alk are low. There’s also not a scrap of coraline in the tank, which strikes me as odd. Possibly it's a sign that calcium is chronically low?
It does make me a little curious about dosing. I don’t want to go chasing numbers and I obviously hate testing, but maybe some light dosing would be beneficial? I’ve never done any dosing and I’m very afraid of poisoning the tank. The upside seems minor, but the consequences of a disaster seem severe. My problems don’t seem to have been water quality related. I’m also reluctant to tinker with the water chemistry when what I’m doing is technically working.
Another House Sitter
I left the tank with yet a third house sitter for two weeks in late July. I didn’t ask her to do anything except feed the shrimp. No water changes. No skimmer cup cleaning. She did a good job. The corals looked great when I got back. There were a pair of alternating an algae outbreaks afterwards – first bubble, then some type of stringy algae. I conducted a few short-lived water change campaigns and I attacked the bubble algae with a sharpened chop stick – my weapon of choice for a lot of tank pokings and proddings. After about six weeks, it’s at a level that feels manageable and not distracting.
Still dreaming of a new tank. Need to make separate thread. I’m leaning towards a very nice, over-built nano peninsula.
Last edited:
November 11, 2024
Alkalinity
Alkalinity has been at levels that would give most reefers serious heartburn. It’s probably been low for a long time. Low meaning like as high as 5 down to 3.8 or so.
I got some ESV 2-part and am slowly trying to raise it. 2.5ml is the smallest mark on the cup, but that raised it instantly by 1.4. That seemed too quick, so I put some in a eye dropper bottle, which lets me add it more slowly – nice because it goes in the display tank. My dream is get to a daily regime with a squirt or two of the dropper and testing once a week.
Brought the alk from 3.8 up to 8 over the course of a week. It keep dipping into the 7s. Still trying to dial in a steadier dosage. We’ll see. Doing more testing lately. Phosphate and Nitrates are 0. Mag is 1200. Standard stuff.
I’m very curious to see how it reacts, since alkalinity seems to be one of, if not the, most important parameters. The trade off is it’s more water chemistry testing, which sucks. Judging the success may be difficult, because I really want to replace my bubblegum with some type of red tabling acro (like a confetti or red planet) and may not keep it long enough to observe the changes. The cali tort also looks like it’s about to go on a hot streak. The only growing branch is splitting at the tip into four parts.
Tank Design Flaws
Some design flaws are becoming more apparent over time. There is too much rockwork for this space. I can’t consistently get to the bottom of the tank with a razor and the hard mean green stuff is becoming more entrenched. The corals getting bigger also makes this more difficult. The tolerances in the original design were too tight. I still don’t know what the ideal rockwork would have been. It would have to be a really small rock. Considering it has to share space with the skimmer, it’s not obvious what I should have done. There are 17 pieces right now. Making the maintenance easier would mean going down to maybe 6 and it would make the skimmer more prominent. Right now, it’s partially hidden by the rock work.
A very small thing that would make this tank way easier is if I could pull the rockwork out to scrape the bottom and corners with a razor. Because it's wedged into the built-in, it's quite an undertaking to pull anything out of the top. I have to drain the tank, pivot it, one person holds it, while the other pulls out of the top. Or, drain everything, unplug literally everything, and move it to a table I can work on. The only benefit is it has dissuaded me from even trying to clean the skimmer body, which feels right imho.
Tunze 9004 Clicking
The tunze 9004 skimmer makes a clicking sound sometimes when it’s not getting enough air. I usually maintain that by injecting ro water into the airline. The theory is there is salt in the airline, restricting its flow. If that doesn’t work, step up to vinegar, but I’ve only had to do that once in the almost year and half I’ve had it. I’ve noticed also that if the water level is low it will make that clicking sound. Turning the powerhead off usually triggers the ATO and that seems to be helping lately. Just and FYI for other people that have this skimmer.
PAR Meter
Cali tort getting very little light. I'm very surprised. I think it's because of the way the light has to penetrate the rim of the tank and then the water. That shadow actually makes the top of the tank relatively low light.
Blasto wellsi is in high light. It seems a little recessed during the day, but it’s also growing some very small new heads. It’s been in a higher light spot for five months now that the monti cap doesn’t shade it. In my heart, it’s hurting. But, I also don’t want to mess with a trend that seems positive. I think I’m going to move it to a lower light spot in the front. I may not keep it too much longer.
To me, it seems insane how much the Cherry Garcia style chalice is getting. 425. But, unlike the Tyree red watermelon, which I’ve long suspected of getting too much light, that one seems to be thriving.
I’m very torn with the tyree red watermelon chalice. I think it's getting too much light. The trend is positive but painfully slow. I want to make an adjustment. It’s not quite there but the color potential is really promising. The par meter seemed to say that it was about 125 on the back of the rockwork. I’m probably going to move it there when I get the time. I could also try spot feeding it something. I don’t do any coral feeding. I'm glad it's growing, but wow, so slow. It sucks.
Growth
Everyone else looks good. Some red zoas were closed for a stretch, but it seems resolved now.
Some hair algae will occasionally go on a hot streak, but usually in areas I can reach. I may need another snail or two. Nothing wants to eat my bubble algae so I may get an emerald crab. Open to other ideas. The bubble algae is annoying but, IMO mostly manageable.
I’m over the green anacropora. The color and growth pattern are amazing, but the scar from the nudis is killing me. The base is just an algae host now. I know it’s not going to get better so it’s time to rip the band aid off. The question is whether to replace it with another green stick. People seem to like Bali slimers. I notice them in other tanks a lot but the long staghorn style growth may not work in a really small tank. It seems like there are a lot of nice high-light, high-flow sticks out there. I also might just put a high-light, high-flow encruster there. Not sure what that would be. Maybe encrusting montis? I might just remove it and let that space sit empty for a bit.
Really into the idea of replacing the bubblegum with some sort of tabling acro. I run white and blue lights, so I want something that looks good under both. Vivid confetti is at the top of my list but I’ve never seen one IRL. Interested to hear what others would recommend.
I’m very surprised that the cali tort acro is growing with the low alk/calcium and lighting. That seems very heterodox but it also seems to be working here, at least for now. 100 par at best and I’ve only been running 2 peak hours. A very good beginner acro.
Still dreaming of a small peninsula tank. Custom stand is probably going to be the most difficult step.
Alkalinity
Alkalinity has been at levels that would give most reefers serious heartburn. It’s probably been low for a long time. Low meaning like as high as 5 down to 3.8 or so.
I got some ESV 2-part and am slowly trying to raise it. 2.5ml is the smallest mark on the cup, but that raised it instantly by 1.4. That seemed too quick, so I put some in a eye dropper bottle, which lets me add it more slowly – nice because it goes in the display tank. My dream is get to a daily regime with a squirt or two of the dropper and testing once a week.
Brought the alk from 3.8 up to 8 over the course of a week. It keep dipping into the 7s. Still trying to dial in a steadier dosage. We’ll see. Doing more testing lately. Phosphate and Nitrates are 0. Mag is 1200. Standard stuff.
I’m very curious to see how it reacts, since alkalinity seems to be one of, if not the, most important parameters. The trade off is it’s more water chemistry testing, which sucks. Judging the success may be difficult, because I really want to replace my bubblegum with some type of red tabling acro (like a confetti or red planet) and may not keep it long enough to observe the changes. The cali tort also looks like it’s about to go on a hot streak. The only growing branch is splitting at the tip into four parts.
Tank Design Flaws
Some design flaws are becoming more apparent over time. There is too much rockwork for this space. I can’t consistently get to the bottom of the tank with a razor and the hard mean green stuff is becoming more entrenched. The corals getting bigger also makes this more difficult. The tolerances in the original design were too tight. I still don’t know what the ideal rockwork would have been. It would have to be a really small rock. Considering it has to share space with the skimmer, it’s not obvious what I should have done. There are 17 pieces right now. Making the maintenance easier would mean going down to maybe 6 and it would make the skimmer more prominent. Right now, it’s partially hidden by the rock work.
A very small thing that would make this tank way easier is if I could pull the rockwork out to scrape the bottom and corners with a razor. Because it's wedged into the built-in, it's quite an undertaking to pull anything out of the top. I have to drain the tank, pivot it, one person holds it, while the other pulls out of the top. Or, drain everything, unplug literally everything, and move it to a table I can work on. The only benefit is it has dissuaded me from even trying to clean the skimmer body, which feels right imho.
Tunze 9004 Clicking
The tunze 9004 skimmer makes a clicking sound sometimes when it’s not getting enough air. I usually maintain that by injecting ro water into the airline. The theory is there is salt in the airline, restricting its flow. If that doesn’t work, step up to vinegar, but I’ve only had to do that once in the almost year and half I’ve had it. I’ve noticed also that if the water level is low it will make that clicking sound. Turning the powerhead off usually triggers the ATO and that seems to be helping lately. Just and FYI for other people that have this skimmer.
PAR Meter
Cali tort getting very little light. I'm very surprised. I think it's because of the way the light has to penetrate the rim of the tank and then the water. That shadow actually makes the top of the tank relatively low light.
Blasto wellsi is in high light. It seems a little recessed during the day, but it’s also growing some very small new heads. It’s been in a higher light spot for five months now that the monti cap doesn’t shade it. In my heart, it’s hurting. But, I also don’t want to mess with a trend that seems positive. I think I’m going to move it to a lower light spot in the front. I may not keep it too much longer.
To me, it seems insane how much the Cherry Garcia style chalice is getting. 425. But, unlike the Tyree red watermelon, which I’ve long suspected of getting too much light, that one seems to be thriving.
I’m very torn with the tyree red watermelon chalice. I think it's getting too much light. The trend is positive but painfully slow. I want to make an adjustment. It’s not quite there but the color potential is really promising. The par meter seemed to say that it was about 125 on the back of the rockwork. I’m probably going to move it there when I get the time. I could also try spot feeding it something. I don’t do any coral feeding. I'm glad it's growing, but wow, so slow. It sucks.
Growth
Everyone else looks good. Some red zoas were closed for a stretch, but it seems resolved now.
Some hair algae will occasionally go on a hot streak, but usually in areas I can reach. I may need another snail or two. Nothing wants to eat my bubble algae so I may get an emerald crab. Open to other ideas. The bubble algae is annoying but, IMO mostly manageable.
I’m over the green anacropora. The color and growth pattern are amazing, but the scar from the nudis is killing me. The base is just an algae host now. I know it’s not going to get better so it’s time to rip the band aid off. The question is whether to replace it with another green stick. People seem to like Bali slimers. I notice them in other tanks a lot but the long staghorn style growth may not work in a really small tank. It seems like there are a lot of nice high-light, high-flow sticks out there. I also might just put a high-light, high-flow encruster there. Not sure what that would be. Maybe encrusting montis? I might just remove it and let that space sit empty for a bit.
Really into the idea of replacing the bubblegum with some sort of tabling acro. I run white and blue lights, so I want something that looks good under both. Vivid confetti is at the top of my list but I’ve never seen one IRL. Interested to hear what others would recommend.
I’m very surprised that the cali tort acro is growing with the low alk/calcium and lighting. That seems very heterodox but it also seems to be working here, at least for now. 100 par at best and I’ve only been running 2 peak hours. A very good beginner acro.
Still dreaming of a small peninsula tank. Custom stand is probably going to be the most difficult step.
November 20, 2025
Vivid Confetti Acro and Starburst Monti Cap
I cracked and bought a couple pieces online. Vivid had wysiwyg pieces of the starburst/sunburst montipora cap and vivid confetti acro, and I had already made up my mind that I was going to get those at some point. The cap color is better than I expected. It’s also significantly bigger than the 1” Vivid advertised. The confetti is much smaller. Its color is kind of gray whatever color right now, but I figure it takes a couple years to get a nice colony, so let’s just get started now. I don’t expect it to shine for a while. My cali tort did not look great for the first several months I had it.
I thought the blasto was getting too much light because it was not as puffy as it was. It seemed retracted more at the peak of the day. I could be wrong. 350 par seemed really high for a blasto wellsi. Even still, it’s forming two or three new heads. I’m violating my own don’t mess with success rule, but I went with my gut here. I might move it again to embed it in with the armor of god palys. Not sure if they’ll fight. I assume the blasto is essentially defenseless.
Bubble Algae – Eternal Enemy and the Emerald Crab
I got a really small emerald crab from High Tide. It seems like the downside is they pick at corals either constitutionally or because they’ve eaten up all the algae food. I wonder if a small tank needs what seems like an oversized clean up crew. A much higher percentage of the tank is rockwork, so maybe the usual calculations based on volume don’t work. There are 2 astrea snails, at least 2 but possibly many more stomatellas, (now) 1 emerald crab, and a lot of bristleworms that hitchhiked in and multiplied (I leave them be). If the theory is that algae must be eaten – and that it cannot be starved of nutrients – which felt like was the old theory way back. The nice thing about a really small tank is that attacking pests manually is not that hard. However, there are several spots where the bubble algae in particular grows that I’ll just never be able to reach. One day, I’ll pull the rockwork out and give everything a good working over – glass bottom and corners with a razor and pick off all the bubble that can’t usually be reached. Until then, I’m hoping stepping up the CUC will slow things down. I’m mostly at peace with the detainte with the algae. There’s always some, but it really only gets out of control when I go out of town. It feels impossible to win against bubble, but it’s not too difficult to keep it in check so far.
The emerald crab attacked and ate a bristle worm. I didn’t see anything on the forums like that, but maybe that’s normal??
Clean Up Crew Theory
I wonder if smaller tanks need a proportionally much larger clean up crew. If current nuisance algae theory is that it must be eaten. My nutrients are consistently low. Nitrates around zero whenever I test (which is exceedingly rare, admittedly). P04 is also low (under 0.05 for many months now). There are two trochus, two stromatellas, and now an emerald crab. If they are supposed to be eating it as it comes in, they are getting overwhelmed.
Reoganizing Orange Digis
I need to move on from the bubblegum digi. It’s too bad because I like the size and shape. But, the future is the forest fire digi. The forest fire digi is about to knock into the cherry garcia style chalice and we all know who’s going to win that fight. My concern is once the chalice detects the nearby digi, it will go wild with sweepers trying to beat it back and will find my small and delicate confetti acro.
Moving LPS to Lower Light
I moved the watermelon chalice to a much lower light spot. I was never comfortable with the par it was getting and the slow growth was killing me. It’s in a spot that’s close to 90-100 par versus the 350 it was getting before. It has some very dark, almost black areas where the light didn’t reach. Because of the unconventional angle of the light, the chalice’s structure itself created peaks and valleys that the light couldn’t get into. This picture is not a shadowing trick, it really is that color. My hope is the color will return with the light a little more even. I’ve also started dropping some pellets onto it. My hope is to get it to grow a little faster. Again, it is growing and the trend is positive, but so so slow.
Once I get the digis figured out, the plan is to leave things alone for a while and maybe start focusing on the new dream nano tank.
Still getting the alkalinity dialed in. One added complication is the NSW I use has a really low alk, so when I do a water change it brings it down suddenly (e.g. from 8.2 to 7.4 for a 40% water change [2 gal]). I elevated the calcium and now just add a couple droppers per day. I think each dropper is 0.5 ml. So now when I do a water change, I immediately dose alk to counteract the drop.
I probably won’t do anything until after the tank survives the holidays, but I’m officially looking for recommendations on green sticks. I love the anacropora color, but the scar is not a good look in a really small tank. Leaning towards bali slimer, but really anything bright that can heal itself.
Struggling to keep my hands out of the tank.
I’ll be gone for a couple weeks over the holidays, so I’m trying to get everything stable before then.
Vivid Confetti Acro and Starburst Monti Cap
I cracked and bought a couple pieces online. Vivid had wysiwyg pieces of the starburst/sunburst montipora cap and vivid confetti acro, and I had already made up my mind that I was going to get those at some point. The cap color is better than I expected. It’s also significantly bigger than the 1” Vivid advertised. The confetti is much smaller. Its color is kind of gray whatever color right now, but I figure it takes a couple years to get a nice colony, so let’s just get started now. I don’t expect it to shine for a while. My cali tort did not look great for the first several months I had it.
I thought the blasto was getting too much light because it was not as puffy as it was. It seemed retracted more at the peak of the day. I could be wrong. 350 par seemed really high for a blasto wellsi. Even still, it’s forming two or three new heads. I’m violating my own don’t mess with success rule, but I went with my gut here. I might move it again to embed it in with the armor of god palys. Not sure if they’ll fight. I assume the blasto is essentially defenseless.
Bubble Algae – Eternal Enemy and the Emerald Crab
I got a really small emerald crab from High Tide. It seems like the downside is they pick at corals either constitutionally or because they’ve eaten up all the algae food. I wonder if a small tank needs what seems like an oversized clean up crew. A much higher percentage of the tank is rockwork, so maybe the usual calculations based on volume don’t work. There are 2 astrea snails, at least 2 but possibly many more stomatellas, (now) 1 emerald crab, and a lot of bristleworms that hitchhiked in and multiplied (I leave them be). If the theory is that algae must be eaten – and that it cannot be starved of nutrients – which felt like was the old theory way back. The nice thing about a really small tank is that attacking pests manually is not that hard. However, there are several spots where the bubble algae in particular grows that I’ll just never be able to reach. One day, I’ll pull the rockwork out and give everything a good working over – glass bottom and corners with a razor and pick off all the bubble that can’t usually be reached. Until then, I’m hoping stepping up the CUC will slow things down. I’m mostly at peace with the detainte with the algae. There’s always some, but it really only gets out of control when I go out of town. It feels impossible to win against bubble, but it’s not too difficult to keep it in check so far.
The emerald crab attacked and ate a bristle worm. I didn’t see anything on the forums like that, but maybe that’s normal??
Clean Up Crew Theory
I wonder if smaller tanks need a proportionally much larger clean up crew. If current nuisance algae theory is that it must be eaten. My nutrients are consistently low. Nitrates around zero whenever I test (which is exceedingly rare, admittedly). P04 is also low (under 0.05 for many months now). There are two trochus, two stromatellas, and now an emerald crab. If they are supposed to be eating it as it comes in, they are getting overwhelmed.
Reoganizing Orange Digis
I need to move on from the bubblegum digi. It’s too bad because I like the size and shape. But, the future is the forest fire digi. The forest fire digi is about to knock into the cherry garcia style chalice and we all know who’s going to win that fight. My concern is once the chalice detects the nearby digi, it will go wild with sweepers trying to beat it back and will find my small and delicate confetti acro.
Moving LPS to Lower Light
I moved the watermelon chalice to a much lower light spot. I was never comfortable with the par it was getting and the slow growth was killing me. It’s in a spot that’s close to 90-100 par versus the 350 it was getting before. It has some very dark, almost black areas where the light didn’t reach. Because of the unconventional angle of the light, the chalice’s structure itself created peaks and valleys that the light couldn’t get into. This picture is not a shadowing trick, it really is that color. My hope is the color will return with the light a little more even. I’ve also started dropping some pellets onto it. My hope is to get it to grow a little faster. Again, it is growing and the trend is positive, but so so slow.
Once I get the digis figured out, the plan is to leave things alone for a while and maybe start focusing on the new dream nano tank.
Still getting the alkalinity dialed in. One added complication is the NSW I use has a really low alk, so when I do a water change it brings it down suddenly (e.g. from 8.2 to 7.4 for a 40% water change [2 gal]). I elevated the calcium and now just add a couple droppers per day. I think each dropper is 0.5 ml. So now when I do a water change, I immediately dose alk to counteract the drop.
I probably won’t do anything until after the tank survives the holidays, but I’m officially looking for recommendations on green sticks. I love the anacropora color, but the scar is not a good look in a really small tank. Leaning towards bali slimer, but really anything bright that can heal itself.
Struggling to keep my hands out of the tank.
I’ll be gone for a couple weeks over the holidays, so I’m trying to get everything stable before then.
Last edited:
December 12, 2024
Lots of Montipora Changes
If anyone has the opportunity to do a frag trade with Newfly, you should do it. I gave him the Hanna calcium checker, which I wasn’t laboratory-minded enough to work consistently. I also gave him the yellow brick road zoas. I liked them, they had grown from two to ten, but they weren’t my favorite and everything in this tank should have been my favorite at some point.
In return, Newfly gave me some very generous monti frags. I was looking to replace the anacropora with something that would encrust and heal over past wounds. I really liked the bright green color and basically wanted to replace it, if possible, with the same color but a more robust structure. Spongedes seemed to fit the bill. IRL, the color seems even better, at least as grown in Newfly’s tank.
Replaced the bubblegum with a large piece of forest fire. I noticed that mine had taken on a lighter pink-ish color compared to the deep orange that Kenny and Newfly had. Not sure when that started or why. Lots of theories on the forums. Might make a separate post for that one.
Also got a very large chunk of montipora setosa, which is a coral that wasn’t on my immediate buy list, but was one that I’ve been very curious about for a while. The color is amazing. Very excited to have a reason to get one.
The only issue is the chunk is so large that there’s not an obvious place to put it. I was thinking about attaching a magnet and mounting it on the back wall underneath the GSP floating rock. Avast Marine makes a wet side magnet. Right now it’s just sitting on some rock. If this idea doesn’t pan out, I may have to part with it.
If anything, there might be too much orange now. It’s also a massive step up in SPS corals, so it’ll be interesting to see the effect on water parameters, especially alkalinity.
I’m going to be gone for a couple weeks over the holidays, so hopefully everything survives OK. Making changes before leaving is not great, but at least it’s the composition of the tank inhabitants and not the equipment.
Once I get this setosa its final home, I’d like to get back into a growing/maintenance phase. But, obviously, it’s hard to keep your hands out of the tank and tinkering with it can be fun.
A patch of AoG zoas are closed more often than not. They seem to open most after water changes. Not sure what’s going on there. They aren’t dying yet, but being closed for so long can’t be good.
Moved the basto wellsi again. This time into the AoG zoa patch.
I also mounted a little frag of anacropora that had broken off. Probably won’t keep it long.
Lots of Montipora Changes
If anyone has the opportunity to do a frag trade with Newfly, you should do it. I gave him the Hanna calcium checker, which I wasn’t laboratory-minded enough to work consistently. I also gave him the yellow brick road zoas. I liked them, they had grown from two to ten, but they weren’t my favorite and everything in this tank should have been my favorite at some point.
In return, Newfly gave me some very generous monti frags. I was looking to replace the anacropora with something that would encrust and heal over past wounds. I really liked the bright green color and basically wanted to replace it, if possible, with the same color but a more robust structure. Spongedes seemed to fit the bill. IRL, the color seems even better, at least as grown in Newfly’s tank.
Replaced the bubblegum with a large piece of forest fire. I noticed that mine had taken on a lighter pink-ish color compared to the deep orange that Kenny and Newfly had. Not sure when that started or why. Lots of theories on the forums. Might make a separate post for that one.
Also got a very large chunk of montipora setosa, which is a coral that wasn’t on my immediate buy list, but was one that I’ve been very curious about for a while. The color is amazing. Very excited to have a reason to get one.
The only issue is the chunk is so large that there’s not an obvious place to put it. I was thinking about attaching a magnet and mounting it on the back wall underneath the GSP floating rock. Avast Marine makes a wet side magnet. Right now it’s just sitting on some rock. If this idea doesn’t pan out, I may have to part with it.
If anything, there might be too much orange now. It’s also a massive step up in SPS corals, so it’ll be interesting to see the effect on water parameters, especially alkalinity.
I’m going to be gone for a couple weeks over the holidays, so hopefully everything survives OK. Making changes before leaving is not great, but at least it’s the composition of the tank inhabitants and not the equipment.
Once I get this setosa its final home, I’d like to get back into a growing/maintenance phase. But, obviously, it’s hard to keep your hands out of the tank and tinkering with it can be fun.
A patch of AoG zoas are closed more often than not. They seem to open most after water changes. Not sure what’s going on there. They aren’t dying yet, but being closed for so long can’t be good.
Moved the basto wellsi again. This time into the AoG zoa patch.
I also mounted a little frag of anacropora that had broken off. Probably won’t keep it long.
Last edited:
January 29, 2025
Lots of changes since the last update. Finally had a house sitter who didn’t do a great job taking care of it. Lost very little. Still pushing to see what kind of SPS can survive. Changed the flow. Added a light.
House Sitter Kinda Blew It, But Everything Is Still Fine
Had another housesitter care for the tank for a couple weeks. The skimmer started running wet before I left. The cup looks empty when its full like that and for whatever reason it looks like the skimmer wasn’t working right or getting emptied regularly while I was gone.
Something was also messed up with the ATO water too. It was too salty. Probably the sitter put some saltwater in the ATO. The emergency RO I did have wasn’t great quality either - 40 TDS (the tap is 30 fwiw). The tank salinity was low at 1.021.
Some hair algae looked like it was about to go on a hot streak before I left, but it really took off in the two weeks I was gone. The blasto was also just a skeleton. Never had a theory for what happened to that one. It didn’t have any enemies nearby.
The little vivid confetti was clearly hurting. It wasn’t polyps out like before. Then it started to get splotchy, then tissue loss over a weeklong period. Those two casualties notwithdstanding, everything survived pretty well.
I started another water change campaign – my standard solution for this tank – and attacked the hair algae with some little garden trimming scissors. I already had a beat up pair, but the very fine point and spring make them really easy to work with. I have another pair of scissors that do not automatically open and they suck in comparison. The scissors can also be opened by removing a screw to wash and dry them. After about 5 months, they honestly look the same. I basically just tried to make the hair algae’s life miserable, by hacking at it when I could and siphoning it out.
Emerald Crabs Suck, Get a Urchin
I tried out a few emerald crabs around this time, but they didn’t last more than a few weeks. I don’t know why. Hadn’t had trouble with the shrimp and snails. They also didn’t really eat bubble or hair algae either. Tried a small one and a big one. The big one at least occasionally pulled at the bubble. Disappointed in the emeralds overall.
@The_Lazy_Reefer convinced me to get a little tuxedo urchin, describing it as the heavy artillery of algae removal. It was a great addition. A much better cleaner than the snails or the emerald crabs. It adds some life to the tank and I think they look nice with the symmetry and blue color. I have seen it climb up on a clump of bubble or other algae and just gnaw on it for a few hours. The only thing I don’t like is it nibbles a stripe on the base of my fox flame about once a week. The fox flame is already probably my grouchiest coral, so I’m not thrilled about the unnecessary stress.
I also increased the cleanup to 4 astreas and two ceriths (so adding 2 astrea and 2 ceriths). Not sure if it made a difference but I like the additional life in the tank. The ceriths in particular are neat looking and like to climb up out of the water and in tight places.
As with many battles against pests, right around the time I was feeling hopeless about the hair algae, the clouds suddenly parted and the algae just melted away. It’s hard to say what it was. I think getting the skimmer working properly again combined with the water changing campaign and regular trimming got the water chemistry right again and the algae pretty much just gave up.
All the extra SPS from @newfly made a big difference in the alkalinity consumption. No surprise in theory, but it was interesting to see it in action. Overnight, the it went from about 0.7 dkh per day to about 1.8.
Dosing Nitrate – ESV Nitrate
I started dosing ESV Nitrate which I think is calcium nitrate. I knew my nitrates were always low, but I bought a Hanna checker and quickly realized they were pretty consistently stuck at 0 ppm. I felt like corals were not as colorful in my tank as when they came in. That could be that they need to be actively growing to get their best color and they often take a pause in the new tank while they adjust. I’d also heard montis in particular color up better with higher nitrate. The starburst monti cap grew in tank, but it’s color was kind of faded. Throwing extra formula one pellets seemed imprecise and wasteful, so I went the dosing route. I tried to keep them around 10-15, but they occasionally dipped down to 5. After 4 months of dosing, I haven’t noticed a real difference, tbh.
ARC Reef Coralline Bottles
Also in late January, I tried the pink and purple coraline bottles – the ARC Reef Pink & Purple Live Coralline Algae Kit. I’d never had any coraline in my tank. I don’t know why. I thought it was my consistently low calcium, but even after I raised that into the normal range for 6 months, it still hasn’t started. Mystery. I saw some tanks at Amazing Aquariums in Orange County that didn’t have hardly any nuisance algae because they were crusty with coraline. That seemed like a better solution than trying to razor the bottom of the tank every month – a task that’s nearly impossible with the cramped conditions and my inability to easily pull the rockwork out. Anyways, the bottles didn’t work for me.
Around this time, the kryptonite trumpet that I cooked with like 400 par finally died.
Lots of changes since the last update. Finally had a house sitter who didn’t do a great job taking care of it. Lost very little. Still pushing to see what kind of SPS can survive. Changed the flow. Added a light.
House Sitter Kinda Blew It, But Everything Is Still Fine
Had another housesitter care for the tank for a couple weeks. The skimmer started running wet before I left. The cup looks empty when its full like that and for whatever reason it looks like the skimmer wasn’t working right or getting emptied regularly while I was gone.
Something was also messed up with the ATO water too. It was too salty. Probably the sitter put some saltwater in the ATO. The emergency RO I did have wasn’t great quality either - 40 TDS (the tap is 30 fwiw). The tank salinity was low at 1.021.
Some hair algae looked like it was about to go on a hot streak before I left, but it really took off in the two weeks I was gone. The blasto was also just a skeleton. Never had a theory for what happened to that one. It didn’t have any enemies nearby.
The little vivid confetti was clearly hurting. It wasn’t polyps out like before. Then it started to get splotchy, then tissue loss over a weeklong period. Those two casualties notwithdstanding, everything survived pretty well.
I started another water change campaign – my standard solution for this tank – and attacked the hair algae with some little garden trimming scissors. I already had a beat up pair, but the very fine point and spring make them really easy to work with. I have another pair of scissors that do not automatically open and they suck in comparison. The scissors can also be opened by removing a screw to wash and dry them. After about 5 months, they honestly look the same. I basically just tried to make the hair algae’s life miserable, by hacking at it when I could and siphoning it out.
Emerald Crabs Suck, Get a Urchin
I tried out a few emerald crabs around this time, but they didn’t last more than a few weeks. I don’t know why. Hadn’t had trouble with the shrimp and snails. They also didn’t really eat bubble or hair algae either. Tried a small one and a big one. The big one at least occasionally pulled at the bubble. Disappointed in the emeralds overall.
@The_Lazy_Reefer convinced me to get a little tuxedo urchin, describing it as the heavy artillery of algae removal. It was a great addition. A much better cleaner than the snails or the emerald crabs. It adds some life to the tank and I think they look nice with the symmetry and blue color. I have seen it climb up on a clump of bubble or other algae and just gnaw on it for a few hours. The only thing I don’t like is it nibbles a stripe on the base of my fox flame about once a week. The fox flame is already probably my grouchiest coral, so I’m not thrilled about the unnecessary stress.
I also increased the cleanup to 4 astreas and two ceriths (so adding 2 astrea and 2 ceriths). Not sure if it made a difference but I like the additional life in the tank. The ceriths in particular are neat looking and like to climb up out of the water and in tight places.
As with many battles against pests, right around the time I was feeling hopeless about the hair algae, the clouds suddenly parted and the algae just melted away. It’s hard to say what it was. I think getting the skimmer working properly again combined with the water changing campaign and regular trimming got the water chemistry right again and the algae pretty much just gave up.
All the extra SPS from @newfly made a big difference in the alkalinity consumption. No surprise in theory, but it was interesting to see it in action. Overnight, the it went from about 0.7 dkh per day to about 1.8.
Dosing Nitrate – ESV Nitrate
I started dosing ESV Nitrate which I think is calcium nitrate. I knew my nitrates were always low, but I bought a Hanna checker and quickly realized they were pretty consistently stuck at 0 ppm. I felt like corals were not as colorful in my tank as when they came in. That could be that they need to be actively growing to get their best color and they often take a pause in the new tank while they adjust. I’d also heard montis in particular color up better with higher nitrate. The starburst monti cap grew in tank, but it’s color was kind of faded. Throwing extra formula one pellets seemed imprecise and wasteful, so I went the dosing route. I tried to keep them around 10-15, but they occasionally dipped down to 5. After 4 months of dosing, I haven’t noticed a real difference, tbh.
ARC Reef Coralline Bottles
Also in late January, I tried the pink and purple coraline bottles – the ARC Reef Pink & Purple Live Coralline Algae Kit. I’d never had any coraline in my tank. I don’t know why. I thought it was my consistently low calcium, but even after I raised that into the normal range for 6 months, it still hasn’t started. Mystery. I saw some tanks at Amazing Aquariums in Orange County that didn’t have hardly any nuisance algae because they were crusty with coraline. That seemed like a better solution than trying to razor the bottom of the tank every month – a task that’s nearly impossible with the cramped conditions and my inability to easily pull the rockwork out. Anyways, the bottles didn’t work for me.
Around this time, the kryptonite trumpet that I cooked with like 400 par finally died.
Attachments
Last edited:
May 15, 2025
Changed the Direction Flow and Overall Turnover
I changed the flow in a big way. I removed the diverter on the top of the powerhead so that instead of coming out at an angle, it shoots straight up. I did this trying to increase the overall flow in the tank, since I was moving more and more towards SPS. This lets me run the powerhead much faster. I was running it at about 40% power, just laminar flow. The old arrangement was blasting the back of the cali tort. On the one hand, I think it liked the insane flow, but it also blew the flesh off the back. You can see how it likes the flow from its weird shape as it grew into the flow. That branch stopped growing when I changed the direction of the flow. The new flow was much faster because I didn’t have to worry about it directly blasting the rockwork and any corals on it. I ended up running it alternating 100% and 50%. Overall, I like this change. I think there’s more flow overall and it’s increased the number of spots where I think an SPS coral might be happy. The only downside besides reducing the flow to the cali tort is that it blasts a segment of GSP. Some of the polyps have died and its starting to get blown off the glass.
Went Wild on SPS at CFM
Went to the Coral Farmers’ Market in February. I mainly wanted to meet @diveswithsharks for some very generous offers of a PC Rainbow, birdsnest, green slimer, and acid trip milli. Since I was already there, I foolishly decided to walk around, knowing I didn’t really have any more spots in the tank. There was a vendor with a fox flame, SCOP, jawbreaker, and yellow submarine favia for $40 each. The dam broke loose after that and I ended getting a big clump of dragon eye zoas, pink diamond zoas, a vivid confetti, and cb maleficent. The good thing about SPS sticks is they grow slowly and up into the water column, so at this stage, I can really cram them in there.
Everything looked amazing for a while. In hindsight, this was probably the best the tank ever looked. But, after about three weeks, it seemed like they lost whatever momentum they had from growing happily in their former tanks. The birdsnest frag was much bigger than I expected. I ended it putting it behind the rockwork, where the flow is high and the light is low. It died very suddenly over a few days around the 3 week mark. It seemed happy, polyps out until it just started shedding flesh and died. I always liked birdsnest and it was a nice one, so that was a bummer. I think it’s the fastest I’ve killed anything in this tank. I can’t say I was surprised with the light that low it was officially a bad spot.
Around the same time as the birdnest started going south, I added another emerald crab – my third. I accepted that most algae removal had to be manual, but wanted someone on the inside to help with the bubble in spots I couldn’t reach. It was a total disaster.
The Emerald Crab From Hell
This emerald crab, unlike its two predecessors was a nipper. It started off slow enough, but after a week I caught it in the act. I should have acted aggressively to pull it out, but I gave it a chance to see if kept doing it. The problem was I had a really hard time catching it even once I’d decided enough was enough. By then it was breaking off pieces of my vivid confetti, which has some really small delicate branches and breaking off the tips of my fox flame. What’s the point of a fox flame with no tips?? This was a truly an exquisite torture. Every day I’d wake up to new damage to my expensive corals and I was powerless to stop the crab from doing it. The confetti was especially unhappy about that and pulled all its polyps in and lost its color. It even looked like it was about to shed flesh on the back for a minute.
I eventually unplugged the entire tank, emptied it except for a couple inches of water, and moved it onto a stool so I could pull the rockwork out. I’d never removed the rockwork like that before and I also took the opportunity to really scrub the back of rocks where some bubble was flourishing but where I couldn’t reach inside the tank. I ended up working on that rock over 40 minutes and it’s inhabitants didn’t seem very happy about being out the water for so long. The confetti especially struggled from the double whammy. It’s hard to restrain yourself from messing with corals that don’t seem happy, but I stuck to the fundamentals of the twice weekly 20% water changes and about a month later the color started to return.
Return of the Nudis
About a month after the CFM, I had nudis come back in a big way. My notes say there was a possible nudi sighting the day before the CFM, but in my heart, I think I reintroduced nudis from one of the four people I bought things from. They multiplied steadily in March and April, at first eating the already faint montipora. I still wonder if nudis need an already weak victim to really take off. By April, they were attacking my much larger and healthier forest fire digitata. By this point, I escalated the response trying to look late at night with a flashlight and picking them off with some long precision electronics tweezers (I also like that these don’t really rust much). The nudis are incredibly small, but I did see two during this time that were huge. Like the alien queen in Aliens. I was shocked. They were at least a ¼”. Many times larger than their nearly microscopic brethren. It’s been a month since the last nudi sighting.
The forest fire recovered nicely. I tossed the starburst monti cap. It was mangled too badly and it was already faded and not thriving before the nudis. The nudis never went for the spongedes or the setosa, just the cap and digi.
Fish #1 - Rainford Goby
In mid-March, I got a rainford goby kind of on a whim. I was at High Tide buying water and I’d been wanting a way to raise nutrients. Kenny had a rainford goby that he was excited about. It was actually pretty handsome so I went for it. I had Kenny feed it some pellets but it didn’t eat them. I should have heeded the red flag right there, but I know that Kenny has a very good reputation, especially with fish, and I knew it had been in quarantine for some weeks, so it had to be eating something. I got some frozen spirulina brine shrimp but, back home, it didn’t really eat it. I tried mysis shrimp and it wouldn’t eat that either. It also didn’t like the high flow, but it did eventually get stronger over a few weeks and could dart into places or hover close to the rocks. It still didn’t really swim in the water column unless I turned off the flow. But whenever I turned off the flow, it came out immediately and started pecking for pods. I kept feeding it mysis and brine regardless, but my corals eventually became quite grouchy.
The cherry garcia style chalice that I’d had for a year and half started to lose flesh. The watermelon chalice - which never really thrived - was badly injured by the house sitter, lost flesh, became a host for bristle worms, and I eventually called it in late April. I really like watermelon chalices, so I’ll probably give that another try some day. The yellow submarine favia started to lose some flesh, which I took as a bad sign because that one had just been on a real hot streak.
The rainford died after about a month. I didn’t notice any warning. It seemed perfectly normal. It was just dead in the powerhead one morning. By this point, the tank just seemed very grouchy so I turned back to what I think I know it likes, no fish and twice weekly water changes.
Battlecorals Buy
I rearranged some things, like cutting back the spongedes and moving the jawbreaker mushroom to the lower left corner, a spot I’d long dreamed of putting an OG bounce mushroom.
It eventually stabilized enough that I felt comfortable going for a battlecorals buy that I’d been thinking about for a while. The arbor day sale came at a perfect time, so I went for it.
I ended up getting a hyperberry shortcake, shockwave valida, and a bill murray. I wanted nice version of some classics and a table that was hardy. It was very hard to choose among the many nice tables out there, but I felt the bill murray was the right balanced of proven hardiness and nice colors.
The shockwave did not have the classic bright green polyps I was expecting, only at the base. It’s a nice sized frag and the blue/purple color is really really nice. Having seen the garf bonsai in Rich’s tank in Alameda, if there can only be one valida, I’d probably rather have the garf bonsai. So far though, I’m not in any rush and if anything it’s growing on me.
The bill murray has turned more orange than red over the past couple weeks, but still looking very nice and healthy.
Adam included a little bonus coral – a HoneyBee. It’s kind of a blue light special. It’s just brown in the white light, but it does have a nice shaggy table type growth pattern. It’s a hyacinthus apparently, if that means anything to you. I don’t really see myself keeping it long term, but I’m tempted to keep it for a few months, just to judge what SPS are doing well and where. I’ll probably replace it with some type of pink or red table.
Evened Out the Light with a Kessil A80
Around this time, I got a Kessil A80 from @Kenzo. I mounted it with a pair of command strips on the bookshelf. It was a little nerve wracking to mount something so stupidly, but I’ve had really good success with command hooks in other contexts and the light itself is really light, under a pound I think. The hooks were rated for 2 lbs each, but I don’t think they are made to carry a vertical load like this. I just used a couple zip ties for mounts on the light itself. Nylon zipties can handle real heat, so I wasn’t worried about that, but it turns out the A80 doesn’t get very hot anyways.
I’m pretty happy with the setup. I’ve come to trust the command hooks. If I need to remove it, the pivoting hooks are really easy to insert and you can tell they’re hooked in all the way before you let go of the light. It also brings light to a part of my tank that was previously unusable and gets rid of some shadows. I’m hopeful some SPS sticks will do well on this high flow, high light area on the back of the rocks. I put the PC rainbow and green slimer back there. Both of them were already hurting from whatever was going after I added the fish, so I’m not sure how they’ll do. The green slimer already had STN on a couple of its tips and the rainbow had stopped growing and was losing some of its base.
The maleficent is basing slowly but steadily, so I moved it to a more permanent place it can grow. However, I didn’t do a great technical job on the install and will probably need to redo it soon. There’s a gap between the grown edge and the epoxy on one side and I ideally want to move it a little farther from the shortcake. I’m a little worried the spongedes is going to need regular pruning and will be hard to remove.
Really trying hard to just make small tweaks until I can get a bigger tank, which will probably be months away at best. I know I need to cut back the GSP where it’s died near the new powerhead flow. I’d like a more elegant solution to the setosa on a magnet than the thick black ziptie I have now. I could see replacing pieces that die but that’s it. If I really get bored I might try keeping small clownfish and giving them away when they get too big. Hopefully, now I’ll start to make more tangible progress towards a more long term tank. This one is starting to feel like a glorified frag tank. I’m coming up on the two year mark and I’m honestly pretty happy with how everything has gone so far. It’s treated me very well and it can do a lot. I think someone could replicate this tank and have an even easier time of it if they could get into the top of it more easily. I’d love to do a super clean version of this tank with an overflow and sump one day.
I got another kryptonite trumpet but I’m worried I’m gonna cook this one too. It’s getting about 150 par (better than the 400-500 the last one got lol), but that’s still high and it’s in a high flow area. I’ll never stop trying on these guys.
I tried to give away the hammer, but then I got nudis and no one wanted my STD ridden corals. It recovered somewhat before succumbing to another battle with the favia’s sweepers. Euphylia is a must have IMO, so I’ll be back before too long.
I think I’m going to move on from the montipora spongedes too. I like it a lot, but I’m much more into branching corals than spreaders. It just grows too aggressively and that’s bad in such a small space.
Changed the Direction Flow and Overall Turnover
I changed the flow in a big way. I removed the diverter on the top of the powerhead so that instead of coming out at an angle, it shoots straight up. I did this trying to increase the overall flow in the tank, since I was moving more and more towards SPS. This lets me run the powerhead much faster. I was running it at about 40% power, just laminar flow. The old arrangement was blasting the back of the cali tort. On the one hand, I think it liked the insane flow, but it also blew the flesh off the back. You can see how it likes the flow from its weird shape as it grew into the flow. That branch stopped growing when I changed the direction of the flow. The new flow was much faster because I didn’t have to worry about it directly blasting the rockwork and any corals on it. I ended up running it alternating 100% and 50%. Overall, I like this change. I think there’s more flow overall and it’s increased the number of spots where I think an SPS coral might be happy. The only downside besides reducing the flow to the cali tort is that it blasts a segment of GSP. Some of the polyps have died and its starting to get blown off the glass.
Went Wild on SPS at CFM
Went to the Coral Farmers’ Market in February. I mainly wanted to meet @diveswithsharks for some very generous offers of a PC Rainbow, birdsnest, green slimer, and acid trip milli. Since I was already there, I foolishly decided to walk around, knowing I didn’t really have any more spots in the tank. There was a vendor with a fox flame, SCOP, jawbreaker, and yellow submarine favia for $40 each. The dam broke loose after that and I ended getting a big clump of dragon eye zoas, pink diamond zoas, a vivid confetti, and cb maleficent. The good thing about SPS sticks is they grow slowly and up into the water column, so at this stage, I can really cram them in there.
Everything looked amazing for a while. In hindsight, this was probably the best the tank ever looked. But, after about three weeks, it seemed like they lost whatever momentum they had from growing happily in their former tanks. The birdsnest frag was much bigger than I expected. I ended it putting it behind the rockwork, where the flow is high and the light is low. It died very suddenly over a few days around the 3 week mark. It seemed happy, polyps out until it just started shedding flesh and died. I always liked birdsnest and it was a nice one, so that was a bummer. I think it’s the fastest I’ve killed anything in this tank. I can’t say I was surprised with the light that low it was officially a bad spot.
Around the same time as the birdnest started going south, I added another emerald crab – my third. I accepted that most algae removal had to be manual, but wanted someone on the inside to help with the bubble in spots I couldn’t reach. It was a total disaster.
The Emerald Crab From Hell
This emerald crab, unlike its two predecessors was a nipper. It started off slow enough, but after a week I caught it in the act. I should have acted aggressively to pull it out, but I gave it a chance to see if kept doing it. The problem was I had a really hard time catching it even once I’d decided enough was enough. By then it was breaking off pieces of my vivid confetti, which has some really small delicate branches and breaking off the tips of my fox flame. What’s the point of a fox flame with no tips?? This was a truly an exquisite torture. Every day I’d wake up to new damage to my expensive corals and I was powerless to stop the crab from doing it. The confetti was especially unhappy about that and pulled all its polyps in and lost its color. It even looked like it was about to shed flesh on the back for a minute.
I eventually unplugged the entire tank, emptied it except for a couple inches of water, and moved it onto a stool so I could pull the rockwork out. I’d never removed the rockwork like that before and I also took the opportunity to really scrub the back of rocks where some bubble was flourishing but where I couldn’t reach inside the tank. I ended up working on that rock over 40 minutes and it’s inhabitants didn’t seem very happy about being out the water for so long. The confetti especially struggled from the double whammy. It’s hard to restrain yourself from messing with corals that don’t seem happy, but I stuck to the fundamentals of the twice weekly 20% water changes and about a month later the color started to return.
Return of the Nudis
About a month after the CFM, I had nudis come back in a big way. My notes say there was a possible nudi sighting the day before the CFM, but in my heart, I think I reintroduced nudis from one of the four people I bought things from. They multiplied steadily in March and April, at first eating the already faint montipora. I still wonder if nudis need an already weak victim to really take off. By April, they were attacking my much larger and healthier forest fire digitata. By this point, I escalated the response trying to look late at night with a flashlight and picking them off with some long precision electronics tweezers (I also like that these don’t really rust much). The nudis are incredibly small, but I did see two during this time that were huge. Like the alien queen in Aliens. I was shocked. They were at least a ¼”. Many times larger than their nearly microscopic brethren. It’s been a month since the last nudi sighting.
The forest fire recovered nicely. I tossed the starburst monti cap. It was mangled too badly and it was already faded and not thriving before the nudis. The nudis never went for the spongedes or the setosa, just the cap and digi.
Fish #1 - Rainford Goby
In mid-March, I got a rainford goby kind of on a whim. I was at High Tide buying water and I’d been wanting a way to raise nutrients. Kenny had a rainford goby that he was excited about. It was actually pretty handsome so I went for it. I had Kenny feed it some pellets but it didn’t eat them. I should have heeded the red flag right there, but I know that Kenny has a very good reputation, especially with fish, and I knew it had been in quarantine for some weeks, so it had to be eating something. I got some frozen spirulina brine shrimp but, back home, it didn’t really eat it. I tried mysis shrimp and it wouldn’t eat that either. It also didn’t like the high flow, but it did eventually get stronger over a few weeks and could dart into places or hover close to the rocks. It still didn’t really swim in the water column unless I turned off the flow. But whenever I turned off the flow, it came out immediately and started pecking for pods. I kept feeding it mysis and brine regardless, but my corals eventually became quite grouchy.
The cherry garcia style chalice that I’d had for a year and half started to lose flesh. The watermelon chalice - which never really thrived - was badly injured by the house sitter, lost flesh, became a host for bristle worms, and I eventually called it in late April. I really like watermelon chalices, so I’ll probably give that another try some day. The yellow submarine favia started to lose some flesh, which I took as a bad sign because that one had just been on a real hot streak.
The rainford died after about a month. I didn’t notice any warning. It seemed perfectly normal. It was just dead in the powerhead one morning. By this point, the tank just seemed very grouchy so I turned back to what I think I know it likes, no fish and twice weekly water changes.
Battlecorals Buy
I rearranged some things, like cutting back the spongedes and moving the jawbreaker mushroom to the lower left corner, a spot I’d long dreamed of putting an OG bounce mushroom.
It eventually stabilized enough that I felt comfortable going for a battlecorals buy that I’d been thinking about for a while. The arbor day sale came at a perfect time, so I went for it.
I ended up getting a hyperberry shortcake, shockwave valida, and a bill murray. I wanted nice version of some classics and a table that was hardy. It was very hard to choose among the many nice tables out there, but I felt the bill murray was the right balanced of proven hardiness and nice colors.
The shockwave did not have the classic bright green polyps I was expecting, only at the base. It’s a nice sized frag and the blue/purple color is really really nice. Having seen the garf bonsai in Rich’s tank in Alameda, if there can only be one valida, I’d probably rather have the garf bonsai. So far though, I’m not in any rush and if anything it’s growing on me.
The bill murray has turned more orange than red over the past couple weeks, but still looking very nice and healthy.
Adam included a little bonus coral – a HoneyBee. It’s kind of a blue light special. It’s just brown in the white light, but it does have a nice shaggy table type growth pattern. It’s a hyacinthus apparently, if that means anything to you. I don’t really see myself keeping it long term, but I’m tempted to keep it for a few months, just to judge what SPS are doing well and where. I’ll probably replace it with some type of pink or red table.
Evened Out the Light with a Kessil A80
Around this time, I got a Kessil A80 from @Kenzo. I mounted it with a pair of command strips on the bookshelf. It was a little nerve wracking to mount something so stupidly, but I’ve had really good success with command hooks in other contexts and the light itself is really light, under a pound I think. The hooks were rated for 2 lbs each, but I don’t think they are made to carry a vertical load like this. I just used a couple zip ties for mounts on the light itself. Nylon zipties can handle real heat, so I wasn’t worried about that, but it turns out the A80 doesn’t get very hot anyways.
I’m pretty happy with the setup. I’ve come to trust the command hooks. If I need to remove it, the pivoting hooks are really easy to insert and you can tell they’re hooked in all the way before you let go of the light. It also brings light to a part of my tank that was previously unusable and gets rid of some shadows. I’m hopeful some SPS sticks will do well on this high flow, high light area on the back of the rocks. I put the PC rainbow and green slimer back there. Both of them were already hurting from whatever was going after I added the fish, so I’m not sure how they’ll do. The green slimer already had STN on a couple of its tips and the rainbow had stopped growing and was losing some of its base.
The maleficent is basing slowly but steadily, so I moved it to a more permanent place it can grow. However, I didn’t do a great technical job on the install and will probably need to redo it soon. There’s a gap between the grown edge and the epoxy on one side and I ideally want to move it a little farther from the shortcake. I’m a little worried the spongedes is going to need regular pruning and will be hard to remove.
Really trying hard to just make small tweaks until I can get a bigger tank, which will probably be months away at best. I know I need to cut back the GSP where it’s died near the new powerhead flow. I’d like a more elegant solution to the setosa on a magnet than the thick black ziptie I have now. I could see replacing pieces that die but that’s it. If I really get bored I might try keeping small clownfish and giving them away when they get too big. Hopefully, now I’ll start to make more tangible progress towards a more long term tank. This one is starting to feel like a glorified frag tank. I’m coming up on the two year mark and I’m honestly pretty happy with how everything has gone so far. It’s treated me very well and it can do a lot. I think someone could replicate this tank and have an even easier time of it if they could get into the top of it more easily. I’d love to do a super clean version of this tank with an overflow and sump one day.
I got another kryptonite trumpet but I’m worried I’m gonna cook this one too. It’s getting about 150 par (better than the 400-500 the last one got lol), but that’s still high and it’s in a high flow area. I’ll never stop trying on these guys.
I tried to give away the hammer, but then I got nudis and no one wanted my STD ridden corals. It recovered somewhat before succumbing to another battle with the favia’s sweepers. Euphylia is a must have IMO, so I’ll be back before too long.
I think I’m going to move on from the montipora spongedes too. I like it a lot, but I’m much more into branching corals than spreaders. It just grows too aggressively and that’s bad in such a small space.
Last edited:
September 17, 2025
Battlecorals Buy #2
In early June, I bought again from Battlecorals. This time I got a Backdraft and Muthaship. Expensive red tables. Adam threw in small BC Aquatic Man and a Mariachi Static frags. Pretty happy about all of them.
Backdraft is perhaps overpriced, but, IMO, it’s a really good red. The tips have a faint orange glow or turn blue when growing fast. The base was blue, then brown, then mostly blue, but still not as nice as when Adam sent it. Again, maybe it's overpriced, but it is really nice. A tough one too. I’ve had mixed success during this period, but this one has consistently based and branched, often with very nice coloration. Recommend if you can stomach the price.
Muthaship did not look at all like it’s online pic. I still like it a lot, but it’s very sugary with lots of bushy polyps. More pink and purple with some green, especially at the edge of the base. My frag was quite large, about 3” long with a base already spilling off the plug. Like the backdraft, even during a period with a lot of turbulence, this one has grown quite happily. It isn’t branching or growing up yet. A very nice one.
BC Aquatic Man was growing well for me in a spot that’s not especially bright and is somewhat turgid. Light blues and mostly green. Lost all its orange and red, but it did grow. I would expect that to come back in better conditions. I eventually trimmed a barnacle off and moved to a higher flow area after it looked like the base stopped expanding and started retreating. It’s in transition now. Little worried about it.
Hyperberry had lost some color at its rim before bouncing back. It never had a hot streak. It just kind of muddled along. Then I dropped a frogspawn on it and moved it to a frag rack. Doesn’t look like it’s going to survive the euphylia sting. Another unforced error.
SCOP basing very slowly. Seems to like it when the glass is dirty. Waxing and waning but mostly growing. Currently back on a hot streak with the extra light it’s getting on a side that was previously shaded. Color is still insane. I totally get why people like this one. A must have, imho.
Bill Murray is doing good. It based a little bit, then started growing up. A nice change from the acro that bases out forever. I get why people like this one. Mine now has a more uniform “dirty diaper” color – as opposed to the bright reds and oranges – it’s still a very neat translucent color. The only problem I’ve had with this is the laminar flow at the back seems to be irritating the base on that side. I’m going to have to intervene by changing the flow somehow. Otherwise, it has grown nicely for me.
The back of the rock is kind of an experiment now with several small frags in high light/high flow area. Miyagi, bc mariachi static, and pc rainbow.
The vivid confetti is doing well. That pink color is amazing. It’s really glowing. To me, this is a must-have acro. It’s basing and growing up slowly but surely. No new branches yet. It went through a long period of slowly bleaching at the base, but then stopped and slowly colored up again. Its overall color changed too – from a uniform highlighter pink to the more classic pinks and purples with yellow polyps. I take it as a good sign when a coral bounces back. It makes me think it can do it again. To me, this one is up there with the SCOP in terms of must have acros. That said, I’ve seen other SCOPs and confetti’s IRL that did not look nearly as bright as mine.
Another Weeklong Vacation
We were gone for a week in June and I had my mom take care of the tank. No water changes. Just skimmer cup and dosing. I was surprised by how angry many things were when we got back. I could see before we left that the hair algae was about to go on a hot streak, but, unchecked, it grew faster than I expected.
Forest Fire Digi Mysteriously Died
My forest fire digi closed up and died in weird patches. I thought it was the nudis again, but I never found any and the pattern seemed different. It suddenly went from having to trim it back several times to dead in several patches. I don’t know why. PE was retracted off and on before I left for a week, but it really turned a corner while I was gone. Mysterious. I hoped that it would grow over the skeleton, but it never stopped slowly dying and once the hair algae took hold on the skeleton, I had to call it. I fragged it, but that didn’t seem to help either. Then I dunked the frags in peroxide – something I’d done several times before – and that was it. Flesh came off even though the polyps were out. This one stings since it was one of my favorites in terms of color and growth and I have no theory for why it suddenly went from boom to bust. Not done trying on montis but I am feeling cursed. I love them, but they do not love me back.
Killed a Setosa Like a Dummy
My montipora setosa had some slow STN. I’d had really good success with montipora digis and hydrogen peroxide, so I tried that. Unfortunately, big mistake. Wow. It hated it. STN became RTN. A lot of flesh sloughed off within a few hours. Feeling a bit dumb about that one, especially since it’s a nice sized piece. I’ve avoided turning little problems into big problems until now. I knew it was a risk, but it was truly a total failure.
Coral Changes
It looks like the Jason fox favia/favites was attacked while we were gone. It was basically dead when we got back, even though it was only slowly losing flesh around the edges when we left. The flow mainly goes in one direction there, so anything in that spot is pretty defenseless against the favia’s sweepers.
I passed on the spongedes. It was just too big and unruly. I didn’t like the grip it was getting on the rock. I was worried it would be impossible to remove. There are some remnants left that are slowly staging a comeback. May kill them with putty later, but it’s neat to watch it claw its way back. I kept a little frag on a plug too.
I got another kryptonite trumpet and promptly killed it with flow this time. It’s still not dead, but it’s crossed the point of no return several weeks ago. Maybe I’ll put it in a good spot next time. : ) Because there are so few spots in a small tank, I’ve ended up putting a lot of things I like in bad spots and waiting to see if they can hack it.
I cracked and got another euphylia. A frogspawn that’s probably too big. I wanted something more compact and the green color is on par with other nice torches I’ve seen. I was a little worried 300 par was going to cook it, but then I cranked up the flow and it got real mad, so I moved it. It seems happier in its new, lower par, lower flow spot, even after I turned the powerhead back up.
Fish #2 – Tiny Clownfish
I finally added a small clownfish a few days ago. My hope is the tank will benefit from the secret sauce of more ammonia/fish waste. It’s a major change and the tank was pretty grumpy last time I added a fish, but my hope is I’ll have more control over the inputs with a fish that eats pellets. I was dumping food last time trying find something the rainford would eat. I found it really hard to make the frozen foods in consistent amounts that were small enough for one fish. Plus clownfish are the best and the tiny ones are ridiculously cute. My two year olds love it. A major upgrade over the shrimp.
Water Testing Not Telling Me Much
All major water parameters were almost exactly the same during this period (Q3 2025). Alk is something with an 8 in front of it. Calcium is about 400. Nitrates are steady at 0.22 to 0.17. Phosphates move around a little, but are still 0 more often than not. Occasionally, they’re up to 0.06. I don’t test for that very often. I occasionally test for calcium and magnesium, but I’ve never seen anything usual there. I personally haven’t found these numbers very helpful in understanding what’s happening in my tank. When something is visibly wrong, I have yet to see it reflected in those tests.
I moved my alk up from 5.5 (admittedly before I had many sps) and my nitrates from 0 to 20 and haven’t noticed a difference after 9 months. I still have the same two steps forward, one step back rhythm. Slow growth overall too. I’m dosing nitrate in small amounts daily and the math seems to be keeping it pretty steady, but I haven’t noticed any significant improvements in colors. It’s possible it moved my forest fire monti from a lighter peach to a brighter orange. Hard to say. I’m ramping down dosing and plan to stop entirely in a couple weeks.
I still test weekly and I see the value in theoretically being able to detect a catastrophic problem metastasizing while you can still react to it, but, for my maintenance purposes, it’s hard to see a visual correlation. My numbers are pretty steady but I still have tank wide ups and downs. Usually it’s some sort of nuisance (hair, bubble, cyano, etc.) going on a hot streak and then my LPS, especially encrusters like chalices and favias, start to pull up their skirts and maybe some SPS have retracted polyps or start to bleach slowly. Then, when the problem feels really impossible, the fever will break and the tank will be good for several weeks. There are more good times than bad, so I feel like I’m winning, but maybe when you run a really small tank like this, you need to have corals that can live with the swings because that’s part of life with a really small tank.
Cyano Outbreak
Now I’m dealing with a cyano outbreak. I’d never had cyano until I started dosing nitrates and for many months, until now, it just stayed in a little square inch area. I don’t know what set it off, but cyano is really one of the most annoying tank nuisances. Destructive and ugly as hell. It could be the setosa slowly dying combined with letting up my water change campaign for a couple weeks (still weekly changes). Water parameters (at least the nitrates, alk, and phosphates I regularly test for) are still stable.
I’ve turned back to my usual solution of increased water change campaign. I’m also going to reduce the photoperiod from 14 hours to 8 hours for a few days.
Overall Thoughts
Honestly, even though I have kept things steadier than ever, I’ve made very few changes, and kept my hands out of the tank – the trend on the tank the last month has been pretty mixed. I don’t know why. Parameters are the same. It’s more stable than ever, but something is still wrong. I had the couple acros bleaching at the base very slowly, the mysterious dying digitata, and some LPS losing some flesh. Some corals just don’t like what I’m selling and they never grow. That’s fine. They just kind of hold on, waiting for me to go on vacation so they can die (e.g. green slimer, fox flame, watermelon chalice). But I have several right now that have grown well for me and are on this seesaw of retracting a little bit, and then growing again (e.g. confetti, shockwave, cali tort, bill murray, yellow submarine, 24k leptoseris).
Hopefully, things stabilize soon and I can finally take some concrete steps to this peninsula nano I’ve been dreaming about. Certain types of maintenance on this tank are difficult if not impossible and that’s sapping my enthusiasm for it. It’s clearly not the future and that’s bad for morale. I need to move on to this new tank that’s a little bigger and easier to maintain.
Battlecorals Buy #2
In early June, I bought again from Battlecorals. This time I got a Backdraft and Muthaship. Expensive red tables. Adam threw in small BC Aquatic Man and a Mariachi Static frags. Pretty happy about all of them.
Backdraft is perhaps overpriced, but, IMO, it’s a really good red. The tips have a faint orange glow or turn blue when growing fast. The base was blue, then brown, then mostly blue, but still not as nice as when Adam sent it. Again, maybe it's overpriced, but it is really nice. A tough one too. I’ve had mixed success during this period, but this one has consistently based and branched, often with very nice coloration. Recommend if you can stomach the price.
Muthaship did not look at all like it’s online pic. I still like it a lot, but it’s very sugary with lots of bushy polyps. More pink and purple with some green, especially at the edge of the base. My frag was quite large, about 3” long with a base already spilling off the plug. Like the backdraft, even during a period with a lot of turbulence, this one has grown quite happily. It isn’t branching or growing up yet. A very nice one.
BC Aquatic Man was growing well for me in a spot that’s not especially bright and is somewhat turgid. Light blues and mostly green. Lost all its orange and red, but it did grow. I would expect that to come back in better conditions. I eventually trimmed a barnacle off and moved to a higher flow area after it looked like the base stopped expanding and started retreating. It’s in transition now. Little worried about it.
Hyperberry had lost some color at its rim before bouncing back. It never had a hot streak. It just kind of muddled along. Then I dropped a frogspawn on it and moved it to a frag rack. Doesn’t look like it’s going to survive the euphylia sting. Another unforced error.
SCOP basing very slowly. Seems to like it when the glass is dirty. Waxing and waning but mostly growing. Currently back on a hot streak with the extra light it’s getting on a side that was previously shaded. Color is still insane. I totally get why people like this one. A must have, imho.
Bill Murray is doing good. It based a little bit, then started growing up. A nice change from the acro that bases out forever. I get why people like this one. Mine now has a more uniform “dirty diaper” color – as opposed to the bright reds and oranges – it’s still a very neat translucent color. The only problem I’ve had with this is the laminar flow at the back seems to be irritating the base on that side. I’m going to have to intervene by changing the flow somehow. Otherwise, it has grown nicely for me.
The back of the rock is kind of an experiment now with several small frags in high light/high flow area. Miyagi, bc mariachi static, and pc rainbow.
The vivid confetti is doing well. That pink color is amazing. It’s really glowing. To me, this is a must-have acro. It’s basing and growing up slowly but surely. No new branches yet. It went through a long period of slowly bleaching at the base, but then stopped and slowly colored up again. Its overall color changed too – from a uniform highlighter pink to the more classic pinks and purples with yellow polyps. I take it as a good sign when a coral bounces back. It makes me think it can do it again. To me, this one is up there with the SCOP in terms of must have acros. That said, I’ve seen other SCOPs and confetti’s IRL that did not look nearly as bright as mine.
Another Weeklong Vacation
We were gone for a week in June and I had my mom take care of the tank. No water changes. Just skimmer cup and dosing. I was surprised by how angry many things were when we got back. I could see before we left that the hair algae was about to go on a hot streak, but, unchecked, it grew faster than I expected.
Forest Fire Digi Mysteriously Died
My forest fire digi closed up and died in weird patches. I thought it was the nudis again, but I never found any and the pattern seemed different. It suddenly went from having to trim it back several times to dead in several patches. I don’t know why. PE was retracted off and on before I left for a week, but it really turned a corner while I was gone. Mysterious. I hoped that it would grow over the skeleton, but it never stopped slowly dying and once the hair algae took hold on the skeleton, I had to call it. I fragged it, but that didn’t seem to help either. Then I dunked the frags in peroxide – something I’d done several times before – and that was it. Flesh came off even though the polyps were out. This one stings since it was one of my favorites in terms of color and growth and I have no theory for why it suddenly went from boom to bust. Not done trying on montis but I am feeling cursed. I love them, but they do not love me back.
Killed a Setosa Like a Dummy
My montipora setosa had some slow STN. I’d had really good success with montipora digis and hydrogen peroxide, so I tried that. Unfortunately, big mistake. Wow. It hated it. STN became RTN. A lot of flesh sloughed off within a few hours. Feeling a bit dumb about that one, especially since it’s a nice sized piece. I’ve avoided turning little problems into big problems until now. I knew it was a risk, but it was truly a total failure.
Coral Changes
It looks like the Jason fox favia/favites was attacked while we were gone. It was basically dead when we got back, even though it was only slowly losing flesh around the edges when we left. The flow mainly goes in one direction there, so anything in that spot is pretty defenseless against the favia’s sweepers.
I passed on the spongedes. It was just too big and unruly. I didn’t like the grip it was getting on the rock. I was worried it would be impossible to remove. There are some remnants left that are slowly staging a comeback. May kill them with putty later, but it’s neat to watch it claw its way back. I kept a little frag on a plug too.
I got another kryptonite trumpet and promptly killed it with flow this time. It’s still not dead, but it’s crossed the point of no return several weeks ago. Maybe I’ll put it in a good spot next time. : ) Because there are so few spots in a small tank, I’ve ended up putting a lot of things I like in bad spots and waiting to see if they can hack it.
I cracked and got another euphylia. A frogspawn that’s probably too big. I wanted something more compact and the green color is on par with other nice torches I’ve seen. I was a little worried 300 par was going to cook it, but then I cranked up the flow and it got real mad, so I moved it. It seems happier in its new, lower par, lower flow spot, even after I turned the powerhead back up.
Fish #2 – Tiny Clownfish
I finally added a small clownfish a few days ago. My hope is the tank will benefit from the secret sauce of more ammonia/fish waste. It’s a major change and the tank was pretty grumpy last time I added a fish, but my hope is I’ll have more control over the inputs with a fish that eats pellets. I was dumping food last time trying find something the rainford would eat. I found it really hard to make the frozen foods in consistent amounts that were small enough for one fish. Plus clownfish are the best and the tiny ones are ridiculously cute. My two year olds love it. A major upgrade over the shrimp.
Water Testing Not Telling Me Much
All major water parameters were almost exactly the same during this period (Q3 2025). Alk is something with an 8 in front of it. Calcium is about 400. Nitrates are steady at 0.22 to 0.17. Phosphates move around a little, but are still 0 more often than not. Occasionally, they’re up to 0.06. I don’t test for that very often. I occasionally test for calcium and magnesium, but I’ve never seen anything usual there. I personally haven’t found these numbers very helpful in understanding what’s happening in my tank. When something is visibly wrong, I have yet to see it reflected in those tests.
I moved my alk up from 5.5 (admittedly before I had many sps) and my nitrates from 0 to 20 and haven’t noticed a difference after 9 months. I still have the same two steps forward, one step back rhythm. Slow growth overall too. I’m dosing nitrate in small amounts daily and the math seems to be keeping it pretty steady, but I haven’t noticed any significant improvements in colors. It’s possible it moved my forest fire monti from a lighter peach to a brighter orange. Hard to say. I’m ramping down dosing and plan to stop entirely in a couple weeks.
I still test weekly and I see the value in theoretically being able to detect a catastrophic problem metastasizing while you can still react to it, but, for my maintenance purposes, it’s hard to see a visual correlation. My numbers are pretty steady but I still have tank wide ups and downs. Usually it’s some sort of nuisance (hair, bubble, cyano, etc.) going on a hot streak and then my LPS, especially encrusters like chalices and favias, start to pull up their skirts and maybe some SPS have retracted polyps or start to bleach slowly. Then, when the problem feels really impossible, the fever will break and the tank will be good for several weeks. There are more good times than bad, so I feel like I’m winning, but maybe when you run a really small tank like this, you need to have corals that can live with the swings because that’s part of life with a really small tank.
Cyano Outbreak
Now I’m dealing with a cyano outbreak. I’d never had cyano until I started dosing nitrates and for many months, until now, it just stayed in a little square inch area. I don’t know what set it off, but cyano is really one of the most annoying tank nuisances. Destructive and ugly as hell. It could be the setosa slowly dying combined with letting up my water change campaign for a couple weeks (still weekly changes). Water parameters (at least the nitrates, alk, and phosphates I regularly test for) are still stable.
I’ve turned back to my usual solution of increased water change campaign. I’m also going to reduce the photoperiod from 14 hours to 8 hours for a few days.
Overall Thoughts
Honestly, even though I have kept things steadier than ever, I’ve made very few changes, and kept my hands out of the tank – the trend on the tank the last month has been pretty mixed. I don’t know why. Parameters are the same. It’s more stable than ever, but something is still wrong. I had the couple acros bleaching at the base very slowly, the mysterious dying digitata, and some LPS losing some flesh. Some corals just don’t like what I’m selling and they never grow. That’s fine. They just kind of hold on, waiting for me to go on vacation so they can die (e.g. green slimer, fox flame, watermelon chalice). But I have several right now that have grown well for me and are on this seesaw of retracting a little bit, and then growing again (e.g. confetti, shockwave, cali tort, bill murray, yellow submarine, 24k leptoseris).
Hopefully, things stabilize soon and I can finally take some concrete steps to this peninsula nano I’ve been dreaming about. Certain types of maintenance on this tank are difficult if not impossible and that’s sapping my enthusiasm for it. It’s clearly not the future and that’s bad for morale. I need to move on to this new tank that’s a little bigger and easier to maintain.
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@tribbitt 's tank is an inspiration. I love it. I'm looking to do something similar to what he has, but peninsula style and a little fatter with all the bells and whistles.
I buy seawater from High Tide. I don't test it. The alk is low, so I throw in an extra dose of ESV when I do a water change to keep it elevated where I want it. IDK, it seems consistent. My confusion is the testing results (nitrate, alk, phosphate, calcium, magnesium, salinity) are always the same but visually, the tank is not.