Ackshee's 2.5 gallon / 10 litre Pico Reef

[ackshee]

I stopped by the LFS today and got two more small chunks of live rock to fill in my hardscape, as well as two more varieties of zoanthids. One is a red and blue "Fire & Ice" zoanthid, and the other is some sort of green and orange-ish Protopalythoa.

I did a bit of a rescape with the two new pieces of live rock I got today. One of the rocks has a big white chunk of dead coral on it that looks sort of like an antler, which I think looks really gorgeous in the blue light. It was a bit annoying to rescape today, because a couple chunks of my macroalgae detached while I was rescaping. But I took it as an opportunity to glue them in better places. I like how it turned out. Once everything has settled in for a few days I'll try to post a new picture.

I also fragged my GSP and glued a small piece of it back down to fill in the gaps a bit. My Acid Rain macroalgae has definitely grown a lot, so I had to cut a few chunks of that out. My "Fiji Bam Bam" zoanthids are doing really well, they've definitely put out several new polyps since I bought them.

Today I had my LFS test my water for phosphates while I was there. My phosphates are about 0.16, which isn't extremely high, but my nitrates basically stay at zero. So after some discussion, I think part of my dinoflagellate issue is driven by an imbalance in the nitratehosphate ratio. I spoke to my friend at the LFS a bit and he said I could feed more to increase my nitrates, but then my phosphates will increase too. So I think it's actually a more reasonable solution to add some livestock, because their waste will increase the nitrates a bit. I would love to get one or two more masked gobies, but they seem uncommon in fish stores.

 

[ackshee]

 

[ackshee]

I bought a clip-on set of filters for my smartphone camera. It helps a lot, I'm finally able to take decent quality photos. I'm very excited about that.

On Tuesday, I bought some more livestock off of Craigslist

The same gentleman that sold me my frammer coral is selling all of his reef gear because him and his wife are retiring and traveling. So, I went over there and checked out what he had. Most of his stuff is way too big for my tiny tank. But I picked out one baseball-sized rock covered in two types of zoanthids. Five small rainbow bubble tip anemones were hiding amongst the zoas, so I have some anemones now too!

I had to rescape everything to fit in the new rock, and I will probably have to rearrange things again. My orange zoas on the bottom need some more light, I think.

Three days later and everything is looking really happy and healthy. Two of the anemones moved around but have settled into their new homes.

 

[Narideth]

I bought a clip-on set of filters for my smartphone camera. It helps a lot, I'm finally able to take decent quality photos. I'm very excited about that.

On Tuesday, I bought some more livestock off of Craigslist

The same gentleman that sold me my frammer coral is selling all of his reef gear because him and his wife are retiring and traveling. So, I went over there and checked out what he had. Most of his stuff is way too big for my tiny tank. But I picked out one baseball-sized rock covered in two types of zoanthids. Five small rainbow bubble tip anemones were hiding amongst the zoas, so I have some anemones now too!

I had to rescape everything to fit in the new rock, and I will probably have to rearrange things again. My orange zoas on the bottom need some more light, I think.

Three days later and everything is looking really happy and healthy. Two of the anemones moved around but have settled into their new homes.

I'm so jealous of the anemones!

The much larger polyped softies definitely look like some kind of palythoa. Just be a little careful with palys, I don't know if you've done any research on paly toxin or heard of it, but it's good to be safe when handling them with some preventative PPE. (I only use goggles myself).

Keep it up, it looks so nice!

 

[ackshee]

I'm so jealous of the anemones!

The much larger polyped softies definitely look like some kind of palythoa. Just be a little careful with palys, I don't know if you've done any research on paly toxin or heard of it, but it's good to be safe when handling them with some preventative PPE. (I only use goggles myself).

Keep it up, it looks so nice!

Yes, luckily I have been warned about palytoxin. Crazy stuff.

Thank you.

 

[ackshee]

It has been a lot of fun watching my masked goby's personality change over time as the tank has changed around him. As long as I have had him, he spends 99% of his time hiding in his shell, poking his head out. Sometimes he'll be "laying down" on the top of the shell, and darts back inside as soon as something spooks him. Rarely, like once a week, I will catch him swimming around on the other side of the tank, but he quickly makes his way back to the safety of his home after a bit of exploration.

Today, I spotted him swimming around, casually enjoying the tunnels and caves throughout the hardscape. He was cruising between zoa polyps and checking out the anemones, and rather than immediately darting back to his shell to hide, he slowly and leisurely made his way back and continued to chill outside of his shell.

I'm assuming that since I've added more rocks and there are more places to hide now, he feels less vulnerable and more confident exploring. It's always a funny paradox with skittish pets. The more opportunities you give them to hide, the more you see them.

 

[ackshee]

6 days later, I got my phosphates down. All I did was feed my fish a little bit more, and dose lots of phytoplankton every day. That was what my LFS recommended and it worked great. Corals look good. Unfortunately there are still some dinoflagellates, but they seem to be slowly getting better, so I'm going to stick with it and wait another week. If the dinos are still there next weekend, I'm going to do a blackout for a few days.

 

[ackshee]

Today was my first foray into fragging corals, specifically my zoanthids. That chunk of rock I got off Craigslist is completely overgrown with zoas, so I figured I would thin them out a bit. I successfully took three small frags just by clipping chunks off of the rock. I chose polyps that were positioned where I could cut off a corner of the rock without disturbing many surrounding polyps.

There was a fourth frag that didn't go so well. I tried cutting an edge off of an old ceramic frag plug, where it is glued into the rock. The ceramic is definitely stronger than the rock, and when I tried to cut it, the blades scraped across the surface rather than cut through it, and I scraped a few polyps off of the plug. Collateral damage, unfortunately. But there were still a few polyps remaining that should be viable.

After my fragging session, I drove over to my LFS and traded in the frags for store credit. I also traded in two of my five small rainbow bubble tip anemones, as well as my GSP. The GSP has been spreading like crazy and has already conquered the rock I glued it to. It takes up a lot of space, and I would rather use that space for something else.

My friend at the LFS is keeping an eye out for masked gobies when he's placing orders, so if I'm lucky, I might be able to add another one or two of those to this tank.

 

[ackshee]

My newer red macroalgae is starting to put out new growth, which makes me happy. Not sure about the other two new macros, they haven't noticeably grown yet.

Yesterday I came home from work and my Euphyllia looked really weird, sort of swollen and deflated at the same time? I started by testing my salinity, and I'm glad I did, because my salinity was WAY too high. Like almost 40 ppt. Amazingly, all of my livestock except for my Euphyllia appeared to be totally healthy. Over the course of a few hours, I removed some water and replaced it with RO/DI to bring the salinity down gradually. Got it back in the normal range, and this morning everything seems happy again.

I was thinking about it and I think I know how my salinity got so high. I've been dosing a lot of phytoplankton, and that small amount of liquid has been replacing the evaporation from the tank. So I haven't been topping off with RO/DI very much, and the salinity has been gradually rising for a few weeks. I'm glad I didn't lose any livestock, but lesson learned.

 

[ackshee]

I'm still dealing with three problems: red planaria, algae, and dinoflagellates.

The red planaria are an ongoing struggle and they're bothering a few of my zoas. I decided to try biological control. I went to my LFS today and bought a Springeri damsel, because they're supposed to eat flatworms and a few other pests. The damsel is settling into my tank right now, he seems very chill.

For the dinoflagellates and algae, I'm starting by cutting back my photoperiod by a few hours. After a week of that I think I'll do a full blackout.

 

[ackshee]

The springer damsel has been munching away at the flatworms. I've watched him swim up to the glass and suck flatworms into his mouth, which is pretty funny to watch. I think he's too small to completely eliminate the flatworm population, but he's helping to control it, which makes my life easier.

 

[ackshee]

Here's a new FTS from today. The tank is doing well overall. I got a new razor-blade scraper for cleaning the glass, so the front glass is currently cleaner than it has ever been. That magnetic scrubber was NOT ideal for such a small tank.

My "Acid Rain" macroalgae has been growing like crazy, so I've had to trim it. I've pulled out probably two or three handfuls worth. Most of my other macroalgae have died, except for that other red one in the right corner.

One of my bubble-tip anemones split, so now I've got four of them. They move occasionally but seem to enjoy sitting on the water heater, in the high-flow zone.

My Euphyllia is doing very well. There are a handful of tiny heads sprouting from the base, and one of the larger heads seems to have divided into two.

My springer damsel is cool, but he's a much more aggressive feeder than my masked goby, and seems to be territorial when I feed them. Most of the time, he ignores the goby, but I worry that the goby isn't getting enough food because the damsel bullies him out of the way. Part of the issue is that the goby's favorite shell is in the same area where the damsel likes to cruise around. So I've considered moving around some of my aquascape, and putting the goby's favorite shell in the opposite corner where the damsel rarely goes.

I have one zoa frag that isn't very happy. The polyps are almost always closed. My other zoas and palys are doing well. The sad frag has a bunch of hair algae growing on it, as well as a few weird tube worms. Is it possible the algae or the tube worms are irritating the zoas?

 

[jabberwock]

Tank looks really nice.

 

[ackshee]

I spotted a bristle worm in my tank this evening! I tried to grab him with my tongs but he darted back under the live rock right at the last second. I'm gonna try to bait him out and get rid of him.

 

[Osprey223]

I spotted a bristle worm in my tank this evening! I tried to grab him with my tongs but he darted back under the live rock right at the last second. I'm gonna try to bait him out and get rid of him.

Though freaky and disgusting bristleworms are a necessary part of the clean up crew. If it's not a fire worm there is really no reason to fret over it.

 

[ackshee]

Though freaky and disgusting bristleworms are a necessary part of the clean up crew. If it's not a fire worm there is really no reason to fret over it.

Okay, well that's good to know. I don't know the difference between a fire worm and a regular bristleworm. I just did some googling and it looks like fire worms are more red and have some white spines on them? If that's the case, I think the one in my tank is luckily a regular ol' bristleworm.