Change It Up

The purple acro rtn overnight so I have change the frag with the birdnest that was already in my tank.



I am still looking for other frags for the rest of the categories.

RTAW Frag Comp 2010

Well it’s here again... RTAW frag competition and with this little tank slow going I thought I might as well join the competition.

There are 5 categories which are SPS, LPS, Softies, Zoos and Other. I hope to join all 5 but first of all I start with 2 frags that I picked up from the MASWA meeting.

First one is a small purple acropora that had been broken off during transport I guessing.



The soft coral frag is from another frag I got from David (stormtropper from MASWA) that had encrusted itself onto another rock so I just cut it away from the main frag to make a mini size one.



I will be posting on the blog so you can keep track of my frags even if you aren’t RTAW forum user.

Here is a timeline of the event.

Thursday 15 April 2010 - Opening Date
* Opening Posts may be started from now

Sunday 16 May 2010 - Shutoff Date
* All Opening Posts must be in by now. Entrants need to be a MASx member at this date to be eligible for prizes.

Between Shutoff Date (16 May) and Final Post Date (15 Nov) - additional updates
* At least 3 updates per frag to be posted. Updates must be at least 2 weeks apart from other updates.

Monday 15 Nov: Final Post Date
* Final Post must be made some time between now and Closing Date (29 Nov).

Sunday 29 November 2010 - Closing Date
* All threads locked and poll created for each category.

Monday 6 December 2010 - Voting closes & winners declared.

Dam Gatorade !

Hello All,

Been awhile since I update my blog but I finally got some time to update but please excuse the picture of the Gatorade bottle in it AS I waiting pick up their shrimp.

The newest mod I have conducted on this aquarium is the long window cell tank which will become a Refugium for pod and mysid and hopefully in the future a small cuttlefish or a pair of them :)

The long aquarium is naturally light by the window and a siphon from main tank keeps the water slowly moving but I will add a small power head once I add some algae.



My first residents of this tank are my colony of 9 sexy shrimp which have been going quite well and the colony of mysid shrimp have breed quite over this few weeks.



First Corals to test my Par 38 Blub.



COMING SOON - Par 38 Led Blub PAR readings

Time to hire the clean up crew

Finally the aquarium has started to go into its cycle of algae which usually happens for all new aquariums.

First algae usually are brown (Diatoms) then green algae to coralline algae.



As I was seeding my aquarium with a pod population from a fellow reefer, I got some extra bonus of snails which has slowly removing the brown algae from the rocks.



Another starting package I added was mysid shrimp, about colony of 10 of them which was very hard to take a photo of.




Hopefully by tomorrow I be added the first real livestock into my aquarium so keep in tune.....

Looking for these guys to move in

Livestock planning is very important as certain things cannot go with each other but also as a long term goal of how you want your aquarium to be stocked.

Coral wise I have decided to mix it around with some hard and easy corals to cover the tank.
Here is a picture of how I’m planning to place my corals with their needs in mind.



Livestock is big thing for me as I love the idea of fish or inverts to breed in a home aquarium, so most livestock will be paired up. Some of the creatures I be listing might not go in as it depends on if I can even find them or if they have enough space with the other livestock.

Fish
Pair of Mandarin Dragonets
Pair of Blue Lined Pipefish or Pair of Orange spotted File fish
Pair of Royal Grammas or Pair of Orchid Dotty backs
Possible school of Gold Lined Cardinals

Inverts
Pair of Harlequin Shrimp or Pair of Emperor Shrimp
Pair of Blood shrimp or Pair of Red Line Cleaner Shrimps
Harem of Sexy Shrimp
One or Two Clams

The Substrate Experiment

A few days ago I decided to start a small experiment with my substrate. I always found that plain sand never looked natural so I decided to try something different, this time I added a clay mixture called bentonite which is used in koi keeping for its minerals. It gave me 2 days of hell with the water being quiet murky but a filter sock soon took care of that. The result looked great but you aren’t really able to play with the substrate due to clouds of fine clay when you disturbed it. Time will tell if this was a good experiment or not. I’m hoping that it won’t give me hassles in the long term but instead a buffing ability with its minerals and calcium.

Today the finishing touches were added with small pieces of coral rubble and rock were added around the main structure to get that wear down feel.

I hope you like to change



Before



After

The start of a long journey

Welcome to my blog on my bedroom aquarium.

I was in aquarium for at least 5 years now and out of that 3 year with salt water aquariums though last year I did put a stop into aquariums as I need to sort other things in my life first. After 1 year of taking a break and some bugging from a friend I start up again but I hoped to have this nano survive and growth out compared to the rest of my tanks. I love nano tank as they always fun to find things and the detail is well need as everything can be seen.

Now about my little aquarium

Display System

Strike up Date: 01/03/2010
Display Tank: 40cm x 40cm x 40cm
Display Lighting: Evilc66's Par 38 - 21w Cree Lamp (to do a review)
Stand: Metal Stand made by a friend
Hood: No hood (I hate hoods)
Sump: 10L Food container temporary
Refugium: None

Support systems

System Water: Natural salt water
Display Water circulation: None ATM (Future plans - Vortech mp10)
Return Pump: 1000lph Power head
Skimmer: No Skimmer
Evaporation Top Up: Auto top up to be setup

Here some pictures of the system.