A Series of Unfortunate Events...

Where to begin?

So Friday I went down to Fin N Feather and purchased a Percula Clownfish and a Bubble Tip Anemone. For the record, this isn't the "correct" anemone for Percs but behind the Redwood Curtain options are limited and I would rather not mail order.

I should also mention that the Sunday before last I added a Coralife Mini T5 light fixture. I have never been a big fan of Coralife products because in my humble opinion, quality is always mediocre at best. That said, it was a relatively cheap and easy option. As of Saturday evening, things were looking really good; the anemone had attached and seemed to be acclimating well.

Quick n Dirty Droid photo.

As I was entering the kitchen Sunday morning to start the coffee before heading out to work, I noticed the aquarium looked milky, which is usually not a good sign. Upon closer inspection I was horrified to see the anemone sucked up against the filter intake strainer. Not having much time before I had to get to work, I attempted to free the anemone as gently as possible, but to no avail. I ended up sacrificing the strainer whilst trying to keep the damage to the anemone as minimal as possible, but still ended up needing to use scissors....OUCH!

Another Quick N Dirty Droid shot

Although it looked bad, I was confident the anemone would recover. In the meantime the clown fish was inching closer and closer to the anemone but still hadn't made contact, as far as I knew.

Fast forward to Monday morning, when my Mini T5  fixture flickered quite a bit after being switched on. I quickly turned it back off and then back on again, which seemed to alleviate the issue. However,when I arrived home from work it was dead as a doorknob. Against all odds, I unplugged my filter to test the light fixture in a different socket and of course it still didn't work. Can you guess what I'm about to say?  That's right, I never plugged my filter back in. ARRRGGAAAHHH@#$%^&*!

Of course I didn't realize I hadn't plugged the filter back in until this morning, when I wasn't able to easily see the clown fish. The poor little guy was at the top of the tank where it's warmer and there's more oxygen. That's when it hit me, <homerSimpson>Doh!< />

Needless to say, I immediately plugged in the filter and then noticed how bad the anemone looked. Fortunately  by the time I left for work the tank had come back up to temperature (roughly 2 degrees F), and both fish and anemone were perking up. As of this evening everything seems fine and the fish shows no sign of ich.

Talk about dodging a bullet! I'll try and get some photos of the fish up as soon as my daughters can decide on a name, I'm partial to Poseidon but when the heck do I get a say in anything?

New Additions...

So after the algae bloom subsided it became clear that I needed some snails. I've always favored Astraea snails and was lucky to find some at my local livestock purveyor, Fin and Feather in Eureka, CA. I also picked up a mini-clump of zooanthids and a mini-mushroom rock. It took the two Astraeas about a week to polish up the glass, filter tube, and heater.

My choice of base-rock added some proverbial cheese; the decision was based on convenience more than anything. CarribSea Glow Rock was used, which is calcareous and reef-safe......and glows.  I don't know if my camera can capture a good shot of the rock glowing. I may need to enlist a friend's DLSR to do it justice; look for it in an upcoming post. It actually looks cool, in a nuclear sort of way.

Water parameters remain stable: no measurable nitrate, nitrite, or phosphate. ph 8.1, calcium 300ppm+. I have yet to do a water change.  The tank still has the original 15-inch fluorescent tube and getting roughly 17 hours of light a day. Sooner or later I will need to decide if I'm going to go the LED route or stick with an off the shelf min-T5 unit, when I upgrade the lighting.  A Hagen rep. I spoke with a couple days ago said he was hoping they would be coming out with an LED kit soon. In any case I'm in no hurry.

I've started adding PurpleUp everyday and the coralline algae is starting to grow rapidly (for coralline algae, which is slower than grass IMHO).

Current status and future plans...

So the tank has had a mini-algae bloom and it has stabilized and subsided to a manageable level. I was behaving a bit over-zealously and adding Purple-Up every three or four days. I don't know if this is a coincidence or not but I've backed off because I probably don't need to add it this early in the tank's journey. The coralline is starting to take off though.

I almost added 3 more hermit crabs during the bloom but I waited and it appears that while the crabs I do have cannot keep all the rock algae free at all times, a balance has been struck and the red turf algae (for lack of a better term) is being kept in check. Upon closer inspection it is kind of cool looking in its own right and I wouldn't mind a small perpetual patch.

The next phase of the aquarium is to add several more corals/anemones. Most likely mushrooms and/or zooanthids (yellow polyps are one of my all-time favorites), probably mushrooms.  I say this because I don't plan on upgrading the lights just yet.

I want to see how the tank reacts to a water change with water made from tap.  More specifically, I want to see if I will need to run more phosphate sponge or if the tanks inhabitants are taking up nutrients at a sufficient pace to weather a little nutrient-rich tap-water. Anyway, during these "trials" it will be beneficial to keep the lighting consistent (and low); mushrooms are typically, depending on the particular type, more tolerant of low light and will thrive in water that is a bit more nutrient-rich than what some of the more finicky corals may prefer.

Finally, I"m wondering if I can resist the urge to add a Sponge Bob Aquarium Ornament. Ain't no shame in my game, I LOVE Sponge Bob. What else can you watch with your toddler whilst being sober and be thoroughly entertained?

Up and running...

Ok, so my second deadly-reef-keeping sin was to set up the aquarium with tap-water. Fortunately I happen to live in an area that has excellent tap-water.

The long and short of it is that in a reef-aquarium we need nutrient-poor water. Tap-water is often laden with phosphate, silica, iron and other things that will promote explosive algae growth under the strong lighting typical of a reef tank. My tap-water measures ~ .25 ppm phosphate - very low. I ran Kent phosphate sponge for a day and that was that!

I added roughly 7-Lbs. of live rock, 6 blue-legged hermit crabs and a female coral-banded shrimp. I really lucked out on the rock. It was from a hobbyist's  tank, and while it was covered with dying aptasias, it was also covered with nice coralline algae and a few other hitch-hikers.

Thus far I've only ended up with one aptasia, and I'm going to bury it in the sand soon.  

The tanks parameters several weeks after adding minimal livestock are good. Nitrite and Nitrate = 0, phosphate = 0, pH (mid-day) 8.3, KH ~ 180-300ppm, specific gravity ~ 1.021 and temperate is roughly 76.4 F. The tank is lit for about 14-hours a day (we're making up for intensity with duration, to a certain extent).

So the tank is starting to grow some algae and my hitch hikers are flourishing.

Capnella sp. aka Kenya Tree Coral

There are two zooanthids, one next to the soft-coral and another that has migrated from the aptasia's backyard to it's present location next to what I assume is a sponge, let me know if this isn't a sponge por favor:

Sponge? and mobile zooanthid.

Here are a couple of views of the rock formation, more will be added in the coming weeks but I'm not in a hurry. Nothing good happens fast in a reef tank.

Front view.

And now the side view:

Side view.

Well that's all for now, I'll post again when I have something to report...

Set-up

So the decision was made to do a very low-tech reef-aquarium. The aquarium was set up using the Jaubert plenum method, which is essentially an empty void below a deep sand bed (DSB), that consumes a saltwater aquarium's nitrate.

If you wish to have a more detailed understanding of the Jaubert method, DSBs, or the nitrogen-cycle in general, please feel free to ask or do some googleing, it's well worth learning if you're thinking of getting into any aspect of keeping aquariums.

Fish can tolerate relatively moderate levels of nitrate in aquarium water, corals however, require as low a nitrate level as possible to thrive. Ergo our Jaubert plenum. The plenum was constructed using an under-gravel filter plate that was zip-tied to 1-inch pvc elbows (drilled every which way to facilitate diffusion) and wrapped in fiberglass window screen.

This assembly was placed in the bottom of the tank and covered with 3.5-inches of crushed coral gravel (thank you Jar Jar). A layer of fiberglass screen was laid down and 2-inches of fine aragonite sand (thank you Rick) topped of the sand bed. This sand bed will be the heart of the system. I've used the Jaubert method several times before, and while apparently it's a source of controversy within the reef-keeping community and has fallen out of favor lately, I have used this approach with great success and intend to continue doing so.

For equipment we have an Aqueon 30 power filter, Ebo-Jager 75-watt heater, and ESU remote digital thermometer. The current lighting is a 15-inch 8000k daylight bulb, eventually this will be upgraded but it will do fine for the first few months. That's it! Yes, that's right, no protein skimmer - we don't need one! If you consider that a reef-keeping sin, just wait I'm going to commit an even worse one...

Visiting an old friend...

I've had the itch for awhile now. I've kept it at bay for practical and pragmatic reasons, for as long as I could stand, but in the end I wasn't strong enough. Over a decade ago I was heavily involved in the Aquarium hobby; however for the last 10 years (maybe longer), I have not maintained any sort of aquarium.

In late October, I had the opportunity to purchase a 22 gallon cube aquarium and stand for a good price and I jumped at the chance without a second thought. After several weeks of deliberating and accumulating equipment and supplies, the aquarium was filled with synthetic saltwater on approximately Dec. 1st; the exact date is lost to certainty.

And thus our journey begins...