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[Ricordia]

Whoops! Almost missed the deadline! I must be getting old.

Here's a full-tank shot I took today. I'm in the middle of a battle against hair algae, but I seem to be winning, if slowly. Everything is doing fine, except a few areas of algae overgrowth. There are a few aiptasia too... lucky me!

[Ricordia]

Well... The battle with algae and aiptasia seems to be over now, but the casualties were pretty grim. The modes of attack I used were long periods of darkness, no food, and moving stuff to my main tank.

No food: The wrasse jumped out of the tank while I was at work, just a few days after the last post, so there's nothing to feed. No worries here, but it tells me that in the future if I need to cut back on the feeding, I should move the feeders to the big tank first.

Darkness: This seemed to be very effective in fighting the hair algae. The zooanthids and GSP didn't enjoy it at all though. That led to...

Moving stuff to the main tank: It's a 150 gallon reef with 250w MH, so the transition was fun both ways. The Klines Butterfly kicked some hiney on any aiptasia it found, and either the butterfly or the blennie took care of the hair algae that hitched along. Unfortunately, I think the butterfly also enjoyed sampling the zooanthids.

Results: Everything moved to the main tank (that survived) is now back in the nano. Everything that was left in the nano has been cleaned up as much as I could. No sign of aiptasia, and very little algae is left. Lights are back up to the normal cycle and the normal 3g water change each week has continued pretty much unaltered throughout. The micro-fauna seemed to be unaffected by the whole thing.

Here's the tank as of Oct 29th:


I'll be posting more images as things progress. The surviving zooanthids are opening up nicely again, and will hopefully spread out to the pre-war stage.

[Ricordia]

UPDATE:

On November 17th I added two new animals to the tank, and everything is doing really well. A little bit of algae has returned but so far it's been easy to keep in check. Here are the images:

Bi-color pseudochromis:


Clam:


Tank as of the 17th of November (shortly after feeding, so the large mushroom is all folder up):

[Ricordia]

Update: I'm really happy with the recovery of the tank. Everything is looking really good, parameters are staying almost perfect.

I added another Crocea, 'cause they look so damn good! And at $29.95 each, it's hard to pass them up. Total cost of the tank (minus food) is still under $500.

Full tank shot from this morning:


And a closeup of the right side:

[Ricordia]

This weekend, instead of taking a massive amount of pictures like I normally do, I decided to see if I could set up a webcam for the tank. Well, this is the result:

http://www.ricosweb.com/NanoReefCam.asp

All tank parameters are excellent as of this morning, zooanthids are spreading again, and the two crocea seem to enjoy their spots in the tank. Looking really good again.

Ricordia

[Ricordia]

Some of you might remember a nudebranch I found in my nano back in April: http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=737117 Well, tonight I found another one! Looks like the same species, but it's quite a bit smaller about 3/4 of an inch. The concensus at that time was Pseudoceros, and not expected to live long due to lack of food for this obligate eater. Well, nothing has been added to the tank (except for water changes) for two weeks now, and I'm positive it didn't come in with the two clams or the pseudochromis, so it's been there for a lot longer than that. I'm stumped.



Oh, and here's an obligatory update shot of the center of the tank:

[Ricordia]

Last day of the contest? I need another year!

This contest has been a lot of fun, and I've learned quite a lot about the differences between a 150g reef and a nano. Maintenance is more important in the nano, but it's easier as long as it's done diligently. The biggest mistake I did with this tank was to allow the algae to get out of control, leading to the drastic measures I took around the middle of the contest. I'm happy to say that most animals survived my mistakes, and they are now growing vigorously. While taking these pictures this morning I noticed some zooanthids that I thought had perished! Yesterday I saw another nudibranch, this one looks like it's a bit smaller than the one above but it has the classic frills along its back. By the time I got the camera out it was in hiding again, but it serves to illustrate that after eight months this tank is still surprising me.

I never got around to building a hood, but the lights have done really well in the "temporary" hood so it just never seemed urgent. The rear partitioin for refugium and filtration worked wonderfully! I'm not sure I've mentioned this, but I actually harvest caulerpa twice a month from this tank and I love how the circulation pump, top-off float switch, and heater are all hidden from view. The single pump with two outlets allows me to generate some nicely turbulent flow. And since they're adjustable, I can vary the turbulence/flow every week or so. It's worked out very well.

I'm still learning things about this tank, so all I can say is: To Be Continued...

Some macro shots:




A group shot:


And the full tank as of this morning:


Ricordia