Reef Tank: New Livestock

I absolutely love ordering from Live Aquaria. They have the best service, a wide range of livestock, and great shipping. There is one part about ordering from Live Aquaria that can trip me up though: they have two different facilities. One is in Wisconsin, and seems to be primarily for aquacultured coral. The other is in California, which I imagine handles imports from the Pacific. This time I based my order around the fish I wanted, and filled it out with other specimens available from their California facility.

My reef has only had three fish for its first six months: our resident firefish, who was the original inhabitant, and the pair of clownfish I added at the end of summer. While moving slowly on additions is always a virtue with keeping a reef aquarium, I decided it was time to move forward with a group of fish I've always wanted to keep: Chromis viridis, the Blue Chromis. The layout of this tank was originally created to allow for a large open swimming area at the top, specifically for small schooling fish like the Chromis. I purchased five juveniles, which will hopefully adapt well and add a lot of colorful motion to my aquarium. As nice as corals are, you really can't beat the visual appeal of a group of colorful fish. It makes the tank appealing from across the room as well as close up.

Below is a full list of what I ordered from Live Aquria. I also purchased some coral frags from a member on Reef Central. Both orders should be arriving Tuesday.

5x Chromis:



2x Brittlestars:



Haitian anemone:



5" encrusting montipora:



Calcareous algae, Halimeda:



"Hulk" polyps, ~30 heads:



Neon green polyps:



2x red monti frags, 2"x2":

Link: Aquarium Life

This blog used (with permission) a photo I had taken of a Nerite snail some time back. Always fun to find a new blog to read about marine aquariums.

http://www.aquariumslife.com

Turtle Tank: Version 2

As noted earlier, the turtle tank I constructed three years ago was starting to get a little rough around the edges. Organic materials like bark can only last so long when constantly submerged. When it came time to move this summer, we realized that carrying a 40 gallon aquarium filled with a land mass would not be feasible. This, combined with the deterioration, prompted me to gut the tank back to a regular aquarium. Since then, a turtle accustomed to a life of biotope luxury has been forced to put up with a bare aquarium.



If you want some details on the plan and build of the original turtle tank, take a look here: http://www.nattarbox.com/projects/turtlevivarium/

Now that we are settled in, I've begun thinking about how I can enhance his tank. I'm looking to solve a few problems with the original design, specifically the reduction in swimming space that a large land mass caused. I have an idea around a sculpted back wall panel to replace the bark that will hopefully be longer lasting, with a suspended platform attached to this and a sidewall. Once I formalize the sketches into real plans I will be posting them here, along with details of the build.

Links: Design and Reef

I find it interesting how often a career in design seems to intersect with a hobby for reef keeping. Certainly when browsing reef hobbyist related websites and communities, there seems to be a much larger percentage of designers than one would expect to find.

Design and Reef is the blog of what appears to be a very talented industrial designer working in Manila. The aquarium related posts are interesting and unique to this blog, but also be sure to check out the sofa that the author designed and had built. I imagine in Manila it is much easier to find affordable craftsmen capable of brining a designers plans to reality.

Reef Tank: Fall Update

The first day of fall, and my first post in awhile. I have some topics from the summer I'd like to write about at length, including the loss of a few coral specimens, the acquisition of several new ones, and some changes to the equipment in the tank. These are summarized below and will be discussed in future posts, but first some new photos:

As mentioned earlier, this summer we moved to a new apartment in Harvard Square. Moving a reef tank is a challenge, and doing it during July does not help, but things came off without a hitch. I will attribute that to careful planning and a lot of luck. Here is the tank in our new living room:



I also recently switched from my Koralia 3 powerhead to a Vortech MP20, after reading many good things. I can vouch for all the positive reviews about this unit:



And some new corals:





Summer Loses
I had a few coral losses related to one event this summer. We were in LA for a long weekend, and I did not leave the cooling fans running on my tank because of the rapid evaporation they cause. It had been as of late and didn't seem necessary. Apparently it was not so cool that particular weekend, and my corals suffered. I lost all but one polyp of my green zoas, and two of my fastest growing SPS colonies.

As a result of this, I'm currently planning on investing in a controller that will be able to accurately monitor the water temperature and turn the fan and heater on as appropriate, in addition to shutting down the metal halides as an emergency last step. At this point I am looking at the Reef Keeper II as the best option.

Changes in Equipment
As mentioned above, I have moved to a Vortech MP20 to provide water flow. The corals and fish have become much more active with the improved water circulation, and the undertow has kept detritus from accumulating in places on the rock where it previously did.

Additionally, I've decided to stop my experiment with Zeovit. Because my tank is so sparsely stalked and has never had an issue with excess nutrients, it seemed unnecessary and potentially harmful to be running a powerful filtration option. I have switched my power filter back to running two bags of carbon and some live rock rubble.

New Species
I've added several new animals to the tank over the summer. I have become quite interested in the large polyp stony corals and will be looking to get some more in the near future.
• A pair of tank-bred clownfish, Amphiprion ocellaris
• Two peppermint shrimp, Lysmata wurdemanni
• Neon green trumpet coral, Caulastrea curvata
• Brown and green candy cane coral, Caulastrea furcata
• Yellow cup coral, Turbinaria peltata
• Short tentacled plate coral, Fungia repanda

Reef Tank: Zeovit Notes

After a month of running zeovit filtration and supplements in my tank, I can finally remove myself from their exceptional marketing photos and take a look at what benefit it had provided for my tank. Given that my system and corals are still very young, its hard to draw any conclusive evidence. Further complicating the matter is that my tank has been quite healthy and algae-free since inception, and maintains a very low bioload (still only one fish). That said, I've noticed some nice coloration from all SPS species, especially my birdsnest which has taken a very bright pink coloration. Good polyp extension all around.



One thing the good people selling zeovit systems will impress upon you is that a special reactor is useful for running the filtration media. Giving the rocks a shake every day loosens the mulm that collects within the media, letting it drift into the system and feed the corals. I've found that for smaller tanks, running this media within a simple hang on filter, the Hagen Aquaclear, works just as well. This filter has a nice media basket with convenient handles at the top above the water surface. You can easily remove the top and give these a good shake to release a great cloud of organic filth for your corals to feast upon.

I've found the Aquaclear to be a great all-purpose filter. Currently I have a bag of activated carbon and a bag of liverock rubble running, with the rest of the space filled with approximately 1/3 liter of zeovit medium.

Links: Making Waves with Vortech Pumps

I've started reading yet another (RSS is a wonderful technology) online aquarium magazine, www.advancedaquarist.com. Informative and well researched articles from smart people is a great counterpoint to some of the things you read on internet forums.

Being a gadget lover, I'm always drawn to posts about reef keeping technology. The controllable Vortech pump should be a familiar item to anyone involved in keeping coral, but unless you've seen one in person its hard to understand just how powerful the pump is, and how minutely the controller allows you to tinker with water flow. Check out this article about defining waves in general, and making them with the Vortech.

Or better yet, just start up this amazing video:

Links: Moving a Reef Tank

Moving a tank is no different than moving the rest of your household: success requires careful planning, execution, and having the necessary materials on hand before begining. In July we will be facing this challenge when moving to a (fantastic) new apartment. Fortunately we have a month of overlap between leases, so a full day can be devoted directly to moving the tank without distraction.

I found an excellent link today while browsing the Reef Central forums, a write up on moving reef tanks. Take a look: http://www.melevsreef.com/moving_a_tank.html

Some key takeaways from the read:

Have freshly mixed saltwater on hand, both at the packing point and the destination.
You'll want clean water to bag up your livestock in, and clean water to fill the new tank. Moving liverock and disturbing a sand bed will put a lot of detritus in the water, and you don't want things to sit in bags while your RO unit slowly makes new water.

Stock up on supplies.
Trash cans for moving water. Big tubs for your liverock, submerged. Bags for livestock, and coolers for them to be placed in. Towels, filling supplies, and everything else you might imagine you need. Making a trip to the store for extra containers while your reef is half packed will not be helpful, so get more than you'll need at the start.

Reef Tank: Updates

I wanted to provide a quick update on my reef aquarium. For the most part things are doing well, and I feel like the tank has established a good rhythm. Water quality has been great, the firefish has been quite healthy, and a plethora of small invertebrates has been emerging from the live rock.



Coral Growth
Of the ten coral specimens I've introduced to date, eight are doing great and showing good signs of growth. The Acropora millepora and tabling Acropora in particular have shown exceptional encrusting growth lately. The pink birds nest, Stylophora pistillata, has also been growing very fast.

Two species not doing well. The Pavona maldivensis has been pale and showing no sign of growth since within a few weeks of being introduced. I keep hoping it will come back, but it is seeming less likely with each passing week. More concerning is the recent demise of the Pocillopora damicornis. For the first month, this was my healthiest looking coral. Great color and polyp extension, and very obvious growth. One day it just started going down hill for no apparent reason, showing bleaching around the base which has since spread up into the branches. Some of the polyps still look healthy and extend to feed, but I fear there isn't much time left for this colony.

Flow Adjustments
I decided that running two Koralia 3 pumps, 850 gallons per house each, was too much for this tank. Corals demonstrated stressed behavior in the powerful current. I have since cut back to running just one, with a Koralia Nano on the opposite side to keep detritus off the bottom of the aquarium. This seems to be working out well so far.

Zeovit
Possibly suckered in by the great marketing photos on Zeovit USA, I've started to implement their system on my tank. Zeovit is a mineral that has been commonly used for filtration in commercial aquatic systems prior to becoming a trendy brand in the reef hobby. The pore density of zeovit makes it exceptionally good at filtering out ammonia, preempting the nitrogen cycle before it can occur. By removing the ammonia early in the cycle, bacteria never get a chance to convert it into nitrite, which eventually becomes nitrate.

Because of the sheer effectiveness of its ammonia removal, it is suggested that the reef keeper dose colonies of bacteria and bacteria food to keep the tank in a natural state. Conveniently, the provider of zeovit also makes these products. You can read more from the source in this PDF guide to the Zeovit filtration system.

To start, I've begun with ZEOBak bacteria solution, and the ZEOFood7 bacteria and coral food. I will slowly introduce the zeovite filtration material this coming week. There are a number of other supplements and foods in this product line that I have read good things about. Although too early to make any sort of useful evaluation, I've noticed the tank water appearing quite a bit clearer since the dosing start. Algae formation on the glass also appears to have been reduced quite noticeably. I like to pretend that the corals are beginning to color up and appear healthier as well, but that could just as easily be attributed to their finally becoming acclimated to the tank.

Turtle Tank: Three Years Later

I haven't yet posted about my turtle aquarium on this blog, so I owe my non-existent readership some back story on the setup and specs of this habitat. In the meantime, I spent a few minutes this afternoon trimming some of the plants and other general maintenance. This tank was built with a plexiglass divider wall to retain the land area. The facade of this wall is built out of natural cork bark which creates a great natural aesthetic, in addition to being a nice soft material for the turtle to clamber across.



After three years of operation he cork is naturally quite saturated with water. Its been slowly chipping off ever since the tank was setup, but today I noticed that quite a large piece had finally started to break off. I attempted to adhere it back to the plexi, but the soft and waterlogged bark was not letting anything stick. I finally just broke it off and removed it from the tank.

I'll have to decide how to proceed with this tank. It could use a total breakdown and reconstruction, but I don't have any temporary space to house the turtle while I make that happen. Also I need some sort of plan. I've always looked at the revision as a chance to make more swimming area available within the aquarium, but I have yet to figure out how to do so while also keeping the natural aesthetic. It would make sense to do this before we move to a new apartment in July, so I best get sketching.