Misbar Pipe Dream

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Hey there!

I'm relatively new to the community, and have been putting off this build thread for a bit. Things are going swimmingly, and I find myself spending countless sleepless hours scouring the forum for the best sources of calcium chloride dihydrate soooo, probably time to get a build thread up!

So like I said I'm a noob, but I'm the type to really deep dive (obsess) over my hobbies and I've been all up in my sandbed this whole month (just kidding, I try not to disturb it), but between my hermit crab moving my frags , and or trying to find that perfect location and flow for each one, my hands have been a little more wet than I would like to admit.

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(The face of pure evil)

Okay so, the build?

When I first started researching reef tanks, I was thinking of starting with a 10-20 gal nano and started piecing together a build, I'm all about being frugal with these obsessions, but seeing as brand new equipment would cost a pretty penny, and only be marginally less expensive than larger setups (with more expense in incriminates, later) I decided to investigate the local market for used setups.

In my opinion I lucked out, I'd found an older model of the fluval Venezia 180 (approx 40 gal), with a fluval 206 canister, t5 fluorescent lights (x2 KZ superblue (basically brand new bulbs)), a stand (diy desk convert), with all the basics included (heater, powerhead, salinity refractometer, a brute trash bin full of cured live rock (Coraline is bleached but it's remained submerged, more than I need for sure), and an array of other accessories (pond water pump for mixing, enough salt to get me started, a few various reef supliments/buffers, etc.

Notably, what I didn't know I was getting, aside from most of the above, was a sand bed that was very mature, full of spaghetti worms, Copepods, small bristles, some Coraline algae, a conch, several snails, and a few small feather dusters - among others maybe I haven't discovered yet. For example today I've spotted what looks to be a nemertea worm.

I wasnt exactly aware I was getting a very much living sandbed, so when I got home and spotted living snails it was a bit of a crash course in cleaning what I could without contaminating the sandbed, and then getting it filled with water and cycling asap. Luckily, it all went really well and the conch, snails, and multitude of worms and other lifeforms are all living, active, and thriving.


(Survivor - Destiny's Child)

Once the water was cycling through, from setup I definitely had an ammonia spike almost immediately, as when adding water and putting in live rock - digging it down to the bottom glass, I stirred up a lot of waste. At max it stayed 1ppm and below, and while seemed to be correcting itself, I mistakenly attempted to siphon the sandbed a bit and released more, causing another spike, but with water changes and a dose of fritz turbo start it quickly returned down and then hit 0ppm about a day later.

Throughout this time began slowly adding CUC members, as the sandbed was quite dirty, the conch and narcissus snail (small) were still active and doing well despite parameters (which were probably better than the stagnant water they survived). I'd added 2 small hermits (about a week apart), and a trochus snail which quickly went to work on the glass, rocks, and other areas.

Once they were alive and well, for about a week, and parameters had remained level and undetectable, I (somewhat impulsively) grabbed some corals as the LFS weekend sale. They were small frags that weren't looking very well, and the LFS didn't seem too confident in them. But being the nut that I am, and a sucker for the disadvantaged, I decided to attempt to take them under my wing, and *hopefully* not cause their demise.

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(Candy Cane)

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(Green Nepthea)

Im happy to say that they're still doing well! The Nepthea is in the same spot and is reaching more and more everyday (Nepthea frags when? (No rush xD)). The Candy Cane is also doing well, but it's gotten a bit more tough love - had a bit of an algae problem that progressed after I got it, and a bit of dead skeleton, when I got it - currently, it's recovering from a peroxide dip, no more algae!, and the dead skeleton was clipped off, after cleaning it off a few times to no avail - I waited til it was doing really well and polyp expanding nicely before I did the surgery. Generally they're both doing well though - despite my periodic torture.

Sooo after the coral were showing signs of success, such as the candy cane opening and feeding, and the Nepthea expanding and getting the flow just right, I was hooked. Obviously I was/am all about my parameters and after a week or so of them staying nice and stable I felt it was safe to get my first fish. (Shout-out to the big narcissus, trochus, and the 2 hermits who helped clean everything up).

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(Not dead!)

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(Also not dead!)

So I went to the LFS and stared at fish for hours, literally. I settled on two cute little juvie misbar carmel clowns (A. ocellaris). They're likely siblings, but stick to each other like glue. After getting them home I had a mild freakout about potential incest in the future... But seemingly they'd be approx L2-3 so there shouldn't be too much to worry about. With the possibility of eventually producing Black Ocellaris, Carmel, or even standard colored - honestly I'm kind of stoked, and have been nerding out on Pickles various threads, guides, and breeder setups [insert my partners face when I talk about 3+ small 10 gal setups].

Hehe.

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Yeah, I'm a proud clown parent.

With the clowns I'd also became a member of my local LFS, *discounts*, so naturally I also had to get a new coral frag, Anthellia. It hasn't taken over my tank just yet, but definitely seems a little bigger.

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(This is it in the present, getting a lot of flow, might adjust it's position soon so it's not as side swept, but it doesn't seem to mind)

So after a week or so of my new ammonia producers exploring their new Haven, which I assume is the biggest tank they've been in, I was feeling pretty good and excited to expand. So I plugged in to all my local reef clubs and found an awesome local who has lots of corals, anemone, and giant blue legged hermit (free to good home, only slightly evil).

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(Leave the dang feather dusters alone)

I was hard at researching anemone, and at this point was a little under a month in, with weekly water changes, and everything has been going quite well.

Obviously slightly less than a month isn't the 6 month mature tank reccommendation for anemone, but I did a lot of research, have a very mature sandbed, ample lighting, and found a really good deal for a small anemone along with a free evil hermit, and several other frags (green toadstool, green sinularia, and a big branching Xenia - all for just $30 - and they threw in a giant trochus!).

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(Toadstool, present)

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(Branching Xenia, present)

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(Sinularia, present - it's looked better, but similar to the Anthellia I just added a new powerhead and need to move it's position a bit for variable flow (but it doesn't seem to mind too much).)

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(Sherman Rose BTA, a few days after introduction)

The anemone has been in for a little over 2 weeks now. When I got it, it has a slight tear on it's foot, but after 2 days it moved down to this position and looked quite nice. When I took this picture, I'd also swapped one of my super blue KZ bulbs for an ATI coral plus.

While the BTA seemed to enjoy the added spectrum, I think the new bulb was overwhelming, and it moved into the dark for a few days, almost a week - it would shy its way into some light, but generally would stay in the dark. That said it would still exchange water during the day and expell waste, but it hasn't looked as good as the picture above since it receded into the dark.

Luckily earlier this week or end of last it came back out, it's retained it's florescence, but paired with moving into the new white light, and being in the dark for about a week, it looks a bit more pale, tentacles are a bit smaller.

That said, it's continue to open everyday, and atleast for a few ours a day it inflates, generally it expels waste in the morning, and would move around little by little. I think it was having a hard time finding an ideal location, as it moved down after healing it's foot, into the cave, and then came out on a side with less flow.

Yesterday I noticed it wasn't fully attached - so I gloved up and wanted to example the bottom of it (not necessarily planning move it, but to visually check on the underside to ensure there was no necrosis from the original tear). Upon gentely nudging it actually came right off the rock. The underside was/had been completely healed, and no signs of damaged tissue!

I gentely relocated it to a spot with more light and more flow - and almost immediately it looked so much better than it had in over a week. Shortly after my new powerhead had came in, which I'd gotten suspecting the anemone simply needed more flow overall to promote more water exchange, and once it was securely attached I plugged them both back in and wow what a difference it maked. Now the anemone is remaining inflated even at night, and expelling waste is not taking nearly as much time as it had been in low flow spots.

At it's worst, it's simply kept small stubby tentacles, but has continue to eat and expell waste, and direct itself to light, atleast for a few hou s, at it's best it's closer to the picture above.

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(Yesterday, this is after it came out of the cave for a few days and when I blew it off with a dropper noticed it was loose and then decided to try and relocate it)

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(Just 1-2 minutes after moving it to new spot it was already looking so much better! - it is more pale, but I do attribute a lot of it to the coral plus light, being directly under the bulb almost everything looks much more washed out. Compared to the first picture of the anemone - it was under almost only the superblue paired with my phone's auto white balance, making the non-red areas appear much more dark. For example, when I installed the bulb I tried to both ways, front and back, front (with anemone in front) it looked much more similar in color to the above compared to the first picture).

Okay so obviously the anemone has driven me a little crazy, but I'm pretty confident it's on the mend from it's grand adventure around the tank, and if my hermit crabs would leave it alone I could get a picture of it looking better today.

A big plus/good omen, this morning the anemone was looking awesome (comparetively) when the light came on and for the first time the clowns found it, hosted/cleaned it up a bit (tried to eat it's waste/moved the waste off of it) and then they swam away, but hopefully they'll give it more TLC now, but not too much).


(Anemone/clown vid, present)

Okay so now that I've given TMI about my anemone undertaking! I'll briefly go over other additions and our first death (rip).

Over the past two weeks I've introduced a small green star frag, a glove polyp frag, and a button polyp!

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(Green star, Present)

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(Glove polyp, present, hermit z.z)

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(Button polyp, present)

As for death, the original scarlet hermit I'd added started to molt one evening, in the open, and both the other hermits were really close to him. In the morning, we found a dead hermit body out of its shell. They'd all 3 been super active, and eating lots, but my assumption is that he was attacked while vulnerable. Either that or there were complications while molting and he died - but since then the other scarlet hermit has successfully molted (she disappeared for a since bout a day, and I found the molt yesterday being eaten by worms).

-update- the other small hermit while sold as a scarlet, is actually blue legged like the big one - I feel dumb for not noticing, my excuse is the superblue lights, they all looked black.

Was sad to see his demise, but I assume foul play, probably by the large blue leg. As we speak/as I type he's knocked over my baby feather dusters, terrorized the anemone, walked over my toadstool, and poked the candy cane with his antenna (it doesn't like that)...

Anyone want a big blue leg? Haha. Oh look he's trying to tip my glove polyp....

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A few tank progression pics:
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(2 corals and snails/1 hermit)


(Day 1 of the very blue clown world)

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(Full tank super blue)

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(Yay, lighting update! Clowns really loved this.)
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(Another angle)

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(Present)

And that's about it! Will update more as time progresses!
 
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Because I didn't give them enough love above, the snail/conch congregation are important to me too!

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(New conch introduced with button)

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(OG conch)

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(Cerith snail triplet has been putting in work)

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(Been slacking on pictures but big narcissus is mvp)

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(The house favorite, don't tell the other trochus (who sleeps all the time))

Also have a margarita snail but it disappears a lot and does it's own thing.
 
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Moved things around a bit, the hermit seems to have claimed the cave, and the little one seems to like to stick around him - they were wreaking havoc on any frags near them.

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Moved the glove polyp up a bit and secured it's base with a rubber band as it was a bit loose.

Cute off part of the toadstools plug because the cylinder was driving me mad and couldn't secure it.

Moved the candy cane off to the side in hopes the hermits will leave it alone, gonna target feed it a lot more while it's recovering from the dip, hermits, and me moving it - feeding response is nice and fast.

Moved the Anthellia up the rock next to the Xenia, they're both peaceful and it should like the flow there, hasn't opened back up yet.

Moved the sinularia a bit inward so it's not pushed over as much. Still a bit one sided but there is a nice upward current from it's right side so should prevent it from leaning all the way over.

Vowing not to get any more hermit crabs for now - unless they're super tiny... But even then... They're driving me insane.
 
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A little update:

So in researching the best methods of moving my aquarium, mid next month - I wound up on a deep dive of the official sand rinse thread.

I figured it was better to clean sooner than later cause I'll have limited time when were actually moving the whole apartment vs just cleaning a tank, so yesterday bit the bullet and did a complete teardown, deep clean, rinse, and reassembly.

You can follow my complete sand rinse journey, including a little "guide" I typed up prior to here. (Follow discussion onwards for before/during/after photos in depth).

I'll attach some highlights below.

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In short, cleaning now will make it much easier to tear down, transport, and immediately reassemble without the risk of a spike which to me is well worth the worms I killed :(

I did collect and spare as ma h spaghetti worms as I could and plenty lived on the rocks too!
 
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Another little update:

I got my first few SPS frags!

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Ponape Birds Nest (ORA)

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Purple Stylo (ORA)

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Chameleon Acro (Altantic Aquariums)

Thankfully they survived being acclimated to my brute can and today have been looking pretty good, especially the Stylo.

The Acropora has been a bit slower to show polyps but little by little they're poking out more and more! (If my hermit crab would leave it alone!)

Also had a hitchhiker... An asterina star made it into my tank, presumable with the SPS frags...

I was super excited until I learned they're considered a pest - so I removed and froze it

Was excited when I first saw the cute little thing.

That said I might look into a brittle or serpent star soon. Rip little asterina

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Oh.. also I had another death today, not the starfish.

When I'd purchased cerith snails from a LFS, they accidently added a margarita snail to my bag. As I'm sure many of us know they don't typically do so well. Mine started good, but the past few days it kept falling off the glass and rocks no matter where I'd put it, and today my narcissus snail and hermit fought over it's body, safe to say it died.

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(Little funeral feast.)

It was pretty cool seeing the narcissus hold it down and wack the hermit with its shell til the hermit ran off. Narcissus are badasses.

Anndddd the anemone! It's been doing well in the new spot since I manually moved it, when it detached from the rock (see op).

Yesterday throughout the transfer to brute, clean, and introduction it remained open. Once out back into the tank it bubbled up more than I'd seen in weeks!

Today it was a bit light sensitive, clearer water, and also it got too much light yesterday, plus my sand is sooooo much more reflective now that it's clean, even about a half inch down the sand has bright light before it tapers into shadow.

That said, this morning when the lights first came on the anemone was *so* bubbly, I didn't manage to get a picture, but when I turned the lights off this evening, a little early cause the anemone had closed up a bit, seemingly it was wanting less light - because once I turned the light off within a minute it was open and bubbly again!

Hoping over the next day or two with shorten lighting schedule (which is reccommended after a sand rinse) it'll adjust and look better than ever!

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Excuse the darkness, hard to focus on a dim lit anemone. Haha.
 
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A few updates.

Everything's been going pretty good since the rinse.

The Acropora has gotten over most of its dead flesh from when I got it and seems like it might be growing new flesh now. More and more polyps coming out.

The anemone has been recovering well. I started feeding it daily and I think that was the main issue before, not enough food. It was expelling daily, so I slowed feeding, but I'm assuming it wasn't getting enough nutrients and kept getting lighter. Once I started feeding daily it began to retain color and instead of being semi closed during the day it finally started opening and closing like it should.

I did get a new light fixture yesterday. It's an older ocean revive model (s026), but all the diodes are in really good shape and the unit runs well. I'm about to run to home depot to get my mounting hook, but I'm running it at lowest settings now, propped on top of tank, sitting on a glass panel, just to try and acclimate everything a bit. The difference so far is pretty telling - the anemome poofed up a lot once the light hit, and the Acropora is showing more and more polyps.

The spread isn't so great right now, but once I mount it 12 inches higher - should be a nice cover. I do plan to upgrade lights in the near future still, but this was a great deal for better than what I had so I jumped on it.

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I'm also getting a protein skimmer tonight (finally)! Found a used tunze 9004 locally and I'm stoked to put it to work. The only parameter that is out of reccommended is my phos, sitting about .25ppm, so hopefully once I'm skimming it'll prevent buildup and my pod/algae,etc, can eat up the excess phos. The tunze is also nice because it skims directly from the surface so it'll suck up oil film too!

Also gonna do my water change today so hopefully that'll offset my phos and get parameters nice and level. I'm going to run tests on the LFS water today too - my alk has been kind of high (12) and I'm assuming it's like that when I get it, but will have to contrast. Definitely not the end of the world but I'd like to figure out how mine got so high if not the water itself.

Anywayssssss... I found some microjellys on my glass today. They're so cute! The pod population is exploding.
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I have found a source, 3 hours away, for dragonfaced Pipefish and am really looking forward to adding a pair to the reef. A long term goal is learning how to grow up the babies, as there really aren't a source of captive bred dragonfaced Pipefish in the US, so I think it'd be pretty bomb to lesson the pressure on wild populations, atleast locally. Also I just can't wait to observe them and care for them. My LFS told me to check back this Thursday as they might get some in! No road trip haha.

I'm planning my phytoplankton and zooplankton culturing setup now too! Excited to culture different varieties and definitely wanting to learn more about the pods already present in my tank, most of them seem to be pelagic which is ideal for pipefish, so I'm very interested to learn more about them, guess I'ma need a microscope too.

I think that's about it, will add pictures once light is mounted and skimmer updates later this week!
 
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A few new additions.

- added some Red Gracilaria to give my copepods (who are probably in the thousands).
-found some microjellies growing in my tank!
-added a mini brittle star that my LFS gave me for free.
- added a small zoa colony (yellow dragon eye?)

Upgrades:
-added a tunze 9004 (which has gone to work!) Still priming a bit but most micro bubbles are gone and it's pulling brown skimmate.
-replaced my 2 t5 flourscent bulbs with an ocean revive s026. It's a bit old but I got a great deal and the diodes are in good shape. My corals and anemone are responding very positively. Currently running it at blue 40%-50% and white 1%-10%.

Oh and my narcissus laid eggs!

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Did a little rearranging, and been adjusting flow.

Just fed so the Nepthea is a little out of whack but should straighten up soon.

Skimmer is still producing some microbubbles but hopefully they stop soon.

-update- added a bit of the fluval bio foam max to the bottom of the skimmer between the pump and the output (tunze sells a course media cutout for this spot) supposed to help reduce the free flow of microbubbles from the bottom. Definitely noticably less coming out now, though I had to take it apart again to do so, so it'll have to prime a little longer. Generally there's a good slime coat forming inside.

I also shortened the air hose lines inside and made sure they were all tight fitting - a few were longer than they needed to be, hoping with less area to travel it'll reduce the likelihood of excess bubbles.

I'd also added a layer of old sponge to the magnets to buffer because it was pressing directly into the back of my top rim, causing the cup to come loose at times if it was touching the air hose and the power cord - there's a little extra space now so it sits level easier.

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Hoping I didn't kill my ponape birdsnest...

Went to move it today, because it didn't seem too healthy, and realized it was infested with Aiptasia :( (which I'd like to not spread to the rest of my tank, had this frag for a little over a week).

I had a very small piece that broke off when I first got it that's still doing well and growing. I didn't have a method to treat the Aiptasia - which seemingly was causing a lot of recession of the colony as a whole, so I went ahead and broke off all the healthy pieces that weren't infected by Aiptasia doing my best not to damage any Aiptasia and completely removed the pieces infected. Some of the darker bits had algae on them, so I did a peroxide dip, hopefully it all lightens up and keeps growing.

That said, I feel like this isn't the end to the Aiptasia so I'll likely invest in some peppermint shrimp tomorrow just to help contain it. And find anything I missed.

Plus side, I glued the pieces together into a "tree", and if it keeps growing I should have way more birdsnest soon. Personally I feel it looks bigger now. Hopefully my hermit doesn't wreck it.
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I few new updates/additions. We moved apartments 2 weekends ago, everything went super smooth and no lossess, however a day before moving the bigger/older trochus snail died. Presumably old age - other trochus and inverts are doing fine!

3 molly's - accidently wound up with 2 males but things are mostly civil for the time.
-flagtail shrimp goby and randall's pistol shrimp - they haven't quite paired but both do their thing.
A small pincushion urchin.

Corals -
Fireworks clove
Bicolored frogspawn
Golden spawn/hammer
Small yellow hammer.

Other updates:
-birdsnest is pulling through in parts, just gonna be a slow recovery.
-male clownfish and male Pipefish like to hang out together, male clown seems to "act" like a pipefish and lay down on the ground, completely still, next to the pipe (and eat pods).
-should have some molly babies over the next month or so , have yet to see any mating behavior from the pipefish or clownfish.
-copepod and phyto cultures are doing really well with daily baby brine shrimp hatching too!
-anemone has been doing better and better. I moved it to a higher flow and lower light spot and it's really flourishing. (Clowns still haven't bonded with it).

Some images!
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Okay, I'd typed this up the morning reef2reef went down for maintenance and had pasted it in my notes, it's quite the ... Rollercoaster, but spoiler things are now looking up and lots has been learned!

---

Welp it's been awhile since I've updated and a lots been going on. Honestly this is probably my saddest update. Things have generally gone really well since I started, and while I do my best to keep everyone happy and healthy, sadly a few losses have incurred.

*Note to self, I should come standardize the format of my posts here at some point* xD bare with me.

It's been a bit of a whirlwind, for me. It started on Halloween, or at least that's when I got slapped in the faced. My male clownfish was dead when I got up in the morning. I've been unable to quantify his exact cause of death, though I'm still investigating. Though, most major ailments have been ruled out, it still stings. And seeing my female clown alone makes me sad.

While other fish in the tank showed no signs of any illness, or behavioral anomalies, thankfully - 2 days later I noticed that my Pipefish, who had some tail damage when I got him but had generally been seeming to regrow, took a turn for the worse and his tail started to rapidly degrade. That day I started pulling him for medicated baths for 30min (Kanaplex and Furan 2 at a x2 dose). After 2 dips it was still getting worse, but I got all the supplies for my hospital setup and pulled him for a full treatment on the 4th.

He finished the full series of doses over that week, and was doing quite well - swimming, eating, etc. But I held him in the tank after treatment to continue observing. On the 14th I observed that his lower half seemed to have an internal infection, and the flesh on his back end was degrading rapidly, and he passed away later that day.

In hindsight, and through observing other healthy specimens since his passing, I believe that his body was struggling with a more serious internal bacterial infection on his lower half, and especially his tail. While I thought his tail fin was the only issue, and I thought it was under control, I think the tail fin may have started with some sort of fungal infection (it never had the whiteness associated with bacterial infections) but I think that issue led to his entire tail being a battleground for secondary infections. Tldr; contrasting him to other healthy Pipefish, I think his tail may have been somewhat swollen and possible more stiff - especially towards the end.

Both of these were crushing experiences, especially the Pipefish after trying my best to get the situation under control. I really wish I'd have known or been capable of medicating him much sooner. After seeing first hand how susceptible they are to secondary infections - In the future I'll be isolating and medicating Pipefish at the first sign of /any/ fin damage.

Between these two happenings, I removed one of the mollies after the clown passed away - I didn't know much about sexing mollies at the time and the LFS hooked me up with 2 females and 1 male, but 1 female wasn't a female and I think the male on male stress may have contributed to the demise of my clownfish (stress). Once the extra male was gone, the male and female molly were doing so well and the dynamic was very nice, but unfortunately, 2 weeks after my clownfish, the male molly passed away (randomly). Even just a few hours before he was swimming, eating, and doing his thing, but then suddenly he was lifeless. There were no obvious symptoms or evidence of external infections, no flukes or other parasites evident after freshwater dipping the body, nothing.

And the kicker? I had pairs of all of these specimens - all of my females are doing A-Okay. I'm rather certain the female molly is going to bust in a week or two (babies!). The female clown is doing well, eating, acting normal, though I think she's a bit angry/sus at me for he partners disappears and the deaths that ensued (she also wasn't happy when I tried to catch her for a FW dip to rule out flukes). And the female Pipefish is still desemating pods at a very high rate, and she's in very good health with nice healthy fins.

As the pipe just passed a few days ago, I'm still quite sad about it.

That said, there are a few good things that have happened. I'm really happy this wasn't a case of Brook or velvet. When the clown died and I really started to read and reread about meds and causes of death, illnesses, etc - it's made me realize how lucky I've been so far, and I plan to use their deaths as a lesson to ensure I've got the proper structure to prevent more fatal pathogens from entering my system as well as to have the means on had to handle those situations appropriately if I had to after the fact.

So... I've gotten 3 new 10 gallons, heaters, and am getting the final few accessories needed to have 3 separate sets that can be utilized for hybrid TTM quarantining, hospitalization, and observation. I'm also pursuing a no-copper and less invasive means of QT and hospital, primarily for the sake of reusability and versatility of all of the hardware, but also for the sake of less toxicity overall, which I suppose go hand in hand.

I also had a new stand build which I'm super stoked about, had it commissioned as a raw frame and then I got to sand it down sealed, primed, and painted it myself. It's about 6 inches taller which is going to make a pretty big difference once the tank is on it. The big perk, to me, is that I had it build with a shelf under the display tank, which can hold 10 gals (3-4) or 20 gal longs (1-2). And a bonus under the mid level shelf there is another space underneath where I could fit 10gals (1-2 longways) or a single 20 gal long (which I think is the ideal size for a refugium/sump for my setup). Ideally the mid level will be like a 10 gal breeder/grow-up/observation tank area, and or it simple adds a lot of versatility while taking up the same floorspace as my old stand.

I'm sure I'm missing a few interesting details, but will come back and clean this up and add more pics of the stand in a bit!
 
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Update, things are looking up! Well minus the algae, but I'm increasing my CUC and husbandry ;)

After leaving my tank largely untouched minus WC and cleanup for the past month I'm rather confident that whatever the cause of the loss of my previous clown was an isolated occurrence.

I've still have yet to move the tank to my new stand, as I didn't want to uproot and stress everyone out if there was an imminent breakout of some unknown pathogen. However bad things have ceased to happen, and things are going well for the most part!

My female molly is looking like she's about to burst literally any day now, I've done my best to baby-proof the DT, and have a breeder net on hand to catch the fry into, which is also acting as a nem box currently, as my nem is acting strange after upgrading my light (I think it wants less light).

Before I get too jumbled up, Christmas came a little early and my mom gifted me a new viparspectra 165w, refractometer (wow hygrometers suck, getting my salinity on lock), an aquascaping toolkit (so handy), and reef lense kit for phones! (YAY).

I've been doing a lot of research on QT methods and approaches, etc - especially as per the previous post, which I take very seriously. That said, infrastructure wise, my apartment is 750 sqft and reefing is definitely taking over. I suppose that's not the best prequal... while I plan to have the infrastructure and all the supplies for treatment, I'm leaning away from prophylactic treatment and more towards Paul B's method, that said - I plan to be capable of treating when necessary and as necessary and making additions with care and precautions which include management of pathogens.

I suppose a better prequel would be that my personal preference and values tend to lean upon biological methods vs chemical in my profession, beekeeping. While obviously reefing is not the same as breeding bees capable of surviving in a man, contaminated, environment - in a sense, this aligns quite well with Paul B's method in that he believes that we can condition the immune systems of our fish to keep them strong against any potential incoming pathogens.

That said, upon signs of decline, or upon receiving an injured specimen which I'm all too aware sometimes do not show or happen so quickly, I do plan to treat, QT, and or do whatever it takes. For me it'll be quite situational and I plan to tap into all the resources I have available. I'm obviously not an expert, but somewhere in all of this, it makes sense to me.

So flash forward to the past 3 days, after an extended period of nothing negative happening, I went back to my LFS and found a very healthy (huge) dragonfaced pipefish that had been in the LFS expensive frag tank, for over a week, with quite a few long-term LFS residence. [meme of me sitting and watching each of the 2 dragonface pipes at the LFS for like 30 minutes each trying to sex them and access their health]. Anyways, after careful consideration, I got a really beasty looking male who was eating and looking great.

Since introduction, he's become quick friends with my female, he was quite observant of everything the first night, but the past 2 days he's really livened up, obviously a pro at snipping the pods mid-water, and also seems to have learned all the hot spots from my female. It's so cute, she'll hover around him, they hang out all day, and sleep together at night even the first night. I've even see them circle each other while swimming (so hopefully soonish they'll get it on LOL). I'll add a few pictures so far, but I didn't have the nice lenses on yet (please excuse the algae lol, been putting off good glass cleans a bit while waiting to move the tank).

Then yesterday, recently been networking with a local reefer who breeds b/w ocellaris - he's had this clutch for 6+ months and they look amazing, big, fat, ***** cute, so I finally bit the bullet and decided the time has come. Also been projecting a ton of loneliness and sadness on my misbar carmel clown. Which may have been correct, she/it has livened up so much! Their introduction went quite swimmingly. They've bickered a bit, which is probably a bit my fault - I intended to get a smaller clown to introduce, but my eyes deceived me - new clown is a few mm larger and fatter, but my existing clown wins all their squabbles and the newcomer seems to be submitting, that said I'm deducing now that they're both probably still juv so not so worried. They're generally getting along really well and my OG clown is so much more active, eating more, swimming around and exploring more, etc. Ironically their patterns are super similar except they're misbar is on opposite sides. With all blue's its hard to tell them apart.

I also just finished, today, acclimating a male black molly, which nice a very "sailfin", my female molly darted to him immediately and they've been almost inseparable. His acclimation was over the course of 24 hours and he seems super healthy and very confident.

In other news, my noobiness is catching up with me via the ugly phase and getting a bit more algae. Definitely some hair algae, but I might have a few dinos. I've got a UV sterilizer on the way, and am increasing my husbandry to keep my coraline exposed and have been dosing a bit of microbe-lift, which should help generally with cleanup.

I expanded the CUC a bit, adding 4 new small narc snails (6 total), and they've been nice and busy!

I also got 2 more trochus snails, but they're not quite as active yet - they got a very slow acclimation. The trochus going slow makes me lean towards thinking I might have some dinos, from what I've read. But they also just seem more nocturnal so will keep an eye on this. My cerith snails tend to come out a lot more at night too.

Either way, I'll be running UV for a bit, and see if that helps, and keeping my rocks scrubbed more. Sandbed is getting regular siphons, but it doesn't get nearly as dirty since I ripped it.

Other than that, corals are doing pretty well. Algae issues have some of them ***** (another reason I think it's dinos). But increasing cleaning seems to be helping them. I also am starting to dose amino acids daily and even minutes after the first dose I started noticing results.

Side notes: I've got limpets breeding like crazy, I cleaned out my canister really well and found like 20-40 of them, put them in DT. Replaced all my old sponges and medias, added a lot more biomedia for the time being. Removed carbon for the time being, my phos is running a little high, but generally I my corals - namely the acropora, is still doing really good and growing, so I'm just increasing WC a bit to knock it down some and rolling with it. Main focus is balancing my algae and enabling coralline to keep spreading.

Alright well I'll conclude here, typing on my PC but will add pictures soon and tomorrow I'll scrub my glass and get HD new lense pictures of everything and all the cute pairs <3
 
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A few jumbled pics of the new pipe, some of my corals with the new lenses kit (auto white balance threw some background colors off), first phyto culture in new vessels (will get some pictures of the pods tomorrow (sooooooooo many pods), more pipefish pics, corals, tank, etc.

Will caption these more later or replace this post with a less jumbled lol. Excuse the bad pics, mostly just quick captures - past few days have been busy. Tomorrow I'll get good ones ;)

MVIMG_20201125_123855.jpg MVIMG_20201122_175534.jpg MVIMG_20201126_220741.jpg MVIMG_20201126_121018.jpg MVIMG_20201122_175549.jpg MVIMG_20201126_190944.jpg MVIMG_20201122_175329.jpg MVIMG_20201122_175013.jpg MVIMG_20201126_230349.jpg MVIMG_20201125_125546.jpg MVIMG_20201126_115334.jpg MVIMG_20201125_121044.jpg MVIMG_20201122_132314.jpg IMG_20201126_195312.jpg MVIMG_20201126_195018.jpg
 
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