Dosing

Dosing:

• 1/2 cap each: Kent Tech*CB (A) and Kent Tech*CB (B)
• 1 drop: Lugol's Solution (Iodine)

Maintenance

Peformed a ~4 gal water change. Removed about 1 cup of algea.

Applied Epoxy a number of places to hold Live Rock frags in place for the Xenia to attach to - I have way too much as I haven't been harvesting it lately.

Feeding

Feeding:

• 2 drops of LiquidLife's MarinePlankton (made with Cyclop-eeze)
• NO DT'S LIVE Marine Phytoplankton (because the tank has enough algea in the water
• ~1/10th tsp DT's Natural Reef Diet (Oyster Eggs)
• 1 "feeder fish" by California All Natural Pet Foods

Updated May 06's postings with pictures, and enhanced comments.

Feeding

Feeding:

• 2 drops of LiquidLife's MarinePlankton (made with Cyclop-eeze)
• NO DT'S LIVE Marine Phytoplankton (because the tank has enough algea in the water
• ~1/10th tsp DT's Natural Reef Diet (Oyster Eggs)
• 1 "feeder fish" by California All Natural Pet Foods

Maintenance

Pulled out the old one and put in the first half of a new 4x8 Poly-Bio-Marine's Poly Filter.

Weekly dosing

• Kent Tech*CB (A) - 1 capful
• Kent Tech*CB (B) - 1 capful
• Kent Marine Concentrated Iodine Supplement - 1/2 capful

Feeding

Feeding:

• 2 drops of LiquidLife's MarinePlankton (made with Cyclop-eeze)
• NO DT'S LIVE Marine Phytoplankton (because the tank has enough algea in the water)
• ~1/10th tsp DT's Natural Reef Diet (Oyster Eggs)
• 1 "feeder fish" by California All Natural Pet Foods

Maintenance, Cleaning, and water change

Cleaned the glass - which needed it bad!

Righted the yellow and orange Sun Corals (Tubastrea sp., or Epitonium sp.) which had fallen over.

Peformed a 4.5gal water change, which was really needed! Removed about 1 cup of algea.

Weekly dosing, and Feeding

Dosed:

• Kent Tech*CB (A) - 1 capful
• Kent Tech*CB (B) - 1 capful
• Kent Marine Concentrated Iodine Supplement - 1/2 capful

Feeding:

• 2 drops of LiquidLife's MarinePlankton (made with Cyclop-eeze)
• 1/2 cap of DT'S LIVE Marine Phytoplankton
• ~1/10th tsp DT's Natural Reef Diet (Oyster Eggs)
• 1 "feeder fish" by California All Natural Pet Foods

Weekly dosing

Dosed:

• Kent Tech*CB (A) - 1 capful
• Kent Tech*CB (B) - 1 capfulK
• ent Marine Concentrated Iodine Supplement - 1/2 capful

Feeding, water change, observations, maintenance

Feeding:

• 2 drops of LiquidLife's MarinePlankton (made with Cyclop-eeze)
• 1/2 cap of DT'S LIVE Marine Phytoplankton
• ~1/10th tsp DT's Natural Reef Diet (Oyster Eggs)
• 1 "feeder fish" by California All Natural Pet Foods
• 1 cube of Mysis shrimp

The yellow and orange Sun Corals (Tubastrea sp., or Epitonium sp.) look very good after the feeding.

Both Peppermint shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni) showed for food, although not sure if one ate.

Still no sign of the Firefish (Nemateleotris magnifica).

Performed 2.5gal water change. Pulled out the old one and put in the first half of a new 4x8 Poly-Bio-Marine's Poly Filter.

Moved the rock with the Orange Ball Corallimorph (Pseudocorynactis Spp., probably P. Carribbaeorum) into the cave under the main rocks, after two tries I couldn't quite get it to stay where I wanted it so I'm not sure where the polyps are; it'll get re-arranged in about a week when I move the tank anyway.

Traded-in remainders, purchased FW tank

Traded in the remaining liverock, plus my existing credit, for:

• Eclipse 3 Gallon Acrylic Aquarium System (for a Freshwater tank)
• 3 fake plants
• "background" paper
• "art" rock (sand)
• Decrative rock

I'll use this a replacement tank for my son when I move my Nano cube.

Identification of unknown Anemone/Corallimorph

A couple days ago a White/translucent/clear Polyps/Anemones, notably with "balls" on the end of some of the tentacles was noticed. The helpful people at http://www.nano-reef.com/ have identified it as a:

• Orange Ball Corallimorph (Pseudocorynactis Spp., probably P. Carribbaeorum)- sometimes incorrectly credited as an Anemone, should be fed, mostly reef safe, but can get big enough (6") to eat fish or mobile inverts (neither likely in most aquariums) or even attack nearby sessile inverts, may spread rapidy, fluoress under blue light. P. Carribbaeorum opens at night, and the Indo-Pacific species opens anytime. See http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/oct2002/invert.htm

Of note, some have suggested it is a pest anemone (like Aiptasia) called the Majano anemone.

Additional inhabitant found, plus feeding, and turned the midday lights back on

Found the following in the "travel" tank after work and rescued it:

• 1/3" Tan Starfish (Class Asteroidea) - this makes 3.

Feeding:

• 2 drops of LiquidLife's MarinePlankton (made with Cyclop-eeze)
• 1/2 cap of DT'S LIVE Marine Phytoplankton
• ~1/10th tsp DT's Natural Reef Diet (Oyster Eggs)
• 1 "feeder fish" by California All Natural Pet Foods

Lighting: Changed the Actinic "mid-day" lights down to just 3 hrs. New schedule:

• 0600-2100: "Daytime" 2 x 36w 10K/7.1K Combo PCs (72w total)
• 1200-1500: "Mid-day" 36w Blue Actinic PC, and T-5 (10W) Actinic Blue (46w total)
• 100-0600: "Nighttime/Refugium" 9w Blue Actinic PC, and 9w Daylight PC (18w total)

This also has the effect of turning on the the ICA Chiller circuit. I'll increase the midday lights again every week.

Updated April 06's postings with pictures, and enhanced comments.

Updated March 06's postings with pictures, and enhanced comments.

More on the new Inhabitants - all acounted for!

There was some shifting so I'll need to re-apply some Aquarium Systems/Marineland HoldFast when I buy more.

Amazing, one of the Peppermint shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni) molted successfully.

Found the following in the "travel" tank this morning and rescued it:

• 1/3" Tan Starfish (Class Asteroidea) - he tells me there were 4-5 total, this makes 2.

Noticed the following "new" inhabitants:

• 5-6x White/translucent/clear Polyps/Anemones, notably with "balls" on the end of some of the tentacles. Hmmm, could be Aiptasia... He thinks they're not and the Peppermint Shrimp always ignored them.
  
  

Also, it turns out he forgot to mention the Powerhead was not part of the deal. Once I get the left-overs to the LFS I'll get it back to him.

Close-up of a couple tiny banded Brittle Stars (possibly Asterina spp):


Close-up of Toadstool leather (Sarcophyton sp.):

New Inhabitants from a friends tank

A guy from my job and his new wife are moving across country, and they weren't able to bring the tank contents of her 12gal Nano cube. For a fair price, here's what I acquired:

• 1x Toadstool leather (Sarcophyton sp.) about 3" tall
  
• 1x Yellow Stripe Maroon Clown (Premnas biaculeatus)
  
• 2x Peppermint shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni) - will eat Aiptasia spp., but have been known to nip "clams, corals, and other cnidarians", keep well in pairs or groups and will reproduce.
• 2x Scarlet Hermits (Paguristes cadenati)
• He thought there might be some "real" snails, possibly a Bumble Bee Snail, but all I saw were a couple 1/4" mystery snails
• 4x Yellow and 1x Orange Sun Corals - not looking so good - apparently needs direct feeding (Tubastrea sp., or Epitonium sp.)
  
• 3x Smooth red Mushrooms (Zoanthids)
• 3x Smooth green Mushrooms (Zoanthids)

• 2x colonies of Brown Button Polyps w/ white centers (Zoanthids), one 3" across, one 1" across
  
• 1x Large (10") Green Brittle Star (Class Ophiuroidea) - I suspect when I find this in my tank next I'll snag it and trade it in at the LFS as it may chow on my smaller fish.
  
• Botryocladia spp. red algea - mostly juvenile
• 1/2" Tan Starfish (Class Asteroidea) - this wasn't mentioned and I only happened on him.
  

As a bonus I get the powerhead and another 5gal bucket.

The process:

They were removed from the tank and placed into a 5gal "travel" bucket with approximately 3gal of water in San Diego about 11pm Sunday night, and and transfered by car to our job site in El Segundo starting 3:30AM Monday morning. He placed them in my office and setup the powerhead. I took possesion of them around 8am, and placed an arm desk lamp over them - the lights not appropriate really but the Button Polyps seemed to respond.

I left work with them about 2:30am, and once home re-started the powerhead.

I performed a 2.5 gal water change - removed about 1/2 cup of algea (and "saved" 4 tiny stars, but lost at least one). I added 2.5gal of NSW to the water I removed from the tank and then dripped this into the "travel" bucket:

• 3:40pm - at 5gal mark
• 4:35pm - at 4gal mark - took 1/2gal out of the "travel" bucket
• 5:30pm - at 3gal mark - took 3/4gal out
• 6:30pm - at 2gal mark - took 1gal out
• 8:00pm - at 1/2gal mark - took 2gal out, added last 1/2gal

At 8:30pm started reviewing, selecting, and placing new inhabitants. Used a rock hammer to bust up a number of rocks to keep the selections small, as I don't need more Live Rock. I pulled out a bunch of the brown Kelp algea (including a 2" Bristle worm) to make room. Used the last half of my Aquarium Systems/Marineland HoldFast for the new inhabitants, plus 3x LR frags for the Xenia.

Finished 10pm. I was delighted to find I had no fatalities. So they were out of a real tank for almost 24 hrs.

Full Tank view with new additions:


Close-up of various new organisms:

The leftovers include:

• Quite a bit of Live Rock
• A couple small frags of Button and other Polyps
• 1 1/2cup of brown Kelp algea
• 2 large rock anemones (Aiptasia)

All this will go back to the LFS and see what credit I can get for it.

I turned off the "mid day" lights and will re-introduce them slowly as the the 12g Nano had only 48W of light (4W/gal, 40W/Sq.Ft.), and mine has 118W (4.9W/gal, 60W/Sq. Ft.).

Hair worm (Spionids Polychaete Worm):


SPS (possibly Porites?) with growing polyp colony (Order Zoanthidea/Zoanthids):