tlhood's first tank - 34g RSM 130D

[tlhood]

The "Lepto" – Has darkened consciderably. Since I don’t know what it is, it’s tough to tell what colour it is actually supposed to be… Is it supposed to be this dark tan ish colour, or does it need more light? The flesh has started growing down the sides, and under the edge.
January 20ish

March 10

Monti 1 – When I got it is was a sad little brown decaying thing. Trimmed it up and band-aided the receded base. Growing well.
January 20ish

March 10

The “Fungia” – Has grown, now has a neon green hue to it, and eats like a pig.
Jan. 20ish

March 10

The favia
Jan 20

March 10

[tlhood]

Here is a current FTS of my RSM 130D. The GHA, diatom, and cyano blooms from February and March are over, and everything is nice and clean. I also trimmed my garden of banana algae on the back of my base rock. I have started running GFO (given to me by riceboy) to try to help resolve my phosphate problems.

Currently the only coral that I am having a lot of trouble with re: colour is the pink birdsnest, and the bird of paradise could be more vibrant too.

I received the two toadstools and the blue mushroom (center rock at the front) from tobysmurf on Tuesday. The toadstools are currently shedding a bit, but are getting used to the tank nicely.

I decided I wanted more versatility with colour ratios and brightness in the tank, so I pulled out the stock t5's and installed the Rapid LED DIY retrofit kit, and the Storm controller. All was well for about a month, but unfortunately, the controller I received was a dud, and I am currently waiting on Coralux to send me a new one.

Because of the controller issues, my LEDs are at max, and I can't control the ratios .



Current Stock:

2 Black and white clowns
1 purple firefish
1 yellow watchman goby
1 sapphire damsel

1 RBTA
5 narites
3 astrea
1 cerith
1 fighting conch
1 nassarius
5 red hermits
2 porcelain crabs

red maze
green and purple favia
green monti cap
red monti caps
blue mushroom
two toadstools
GSP
purple/tan and green torch
spacemonster zoas
purple and green zoas
green button polyps
bird of paradise sps
pink birdsnest sps
small plate-like coral thing
leptoseris type frag

and next week I am getting
aussie green and red blasto
aussie multi coloured maze
dragon soul favia
needle in a haystack sps
blue and green sympodium

The large red monti and the two frags on the sand behind it are pending pickup from Steve...

[Bugger]

How are you liking that 2 gal fluval tank. Im thinking of getting one for brine shrimp. Is there a pump that connects the back to the front

[tlhood]

The 2 gal is ok. I more or less just used it for short and cheap QT for my fish, but since I'm not getting any more its been sitting there empty.

There is a small pump that comes with the system that sits in a tiny separated compartment behind the black overflow which pushes the water from the back to the front through a slightly flexible direction outlet on the right side. There isn't much room for a thermometer though (unless you want to put it in the display part of the tank), and the two I have managed to find to fit in the back crapped out on me within a week.

The lights are nice and bright, but the lid has a huge hole in it for the light to shine through, so with fish in there/ having cats, in order to stop jumping or paws going where they shouldn't be, I had to cover it with mesh.

[tlhood]

For the first time ever, I managed to catch a decent photo of one of the two hitch hiker crabs I got on a piece of rock from Wai's back in January. They somehow managed to survive my ammonia cycle. I'm pretty sure they are porcelain crabs, and they have moved their home from one end of the tank to the other. I usually can see them hanging under small arches filtering the water.

While both have the same blueish spotted colour, this one has pink under his claws, while the other has white.







Also, here is a photo of Frank, my conch, because he is a rockstar.

[tlhood]

I think my fish is a bit anti-Semitic.... PS. Man do iPhone cameras love soaking up the blue LEDs. Yikes

[tlhood]

We just had some reno's done in our bathrooms, which is where I get my water to run through the RODI, so I had about 3 weeks of no water change. Out of desperation, I grabbed a few gallons from Walmart. Now that the bathrooms are pretty much complete, I was finally able to hook up my RODI and decided to take the opportunity to do some major tank maintenance and overhaul.

What I have planned for the afternoon/evening:

1) Splitting my GINORMOUS anemone, which has taken to shading all the other coral in my tank
2) a few of my corals have gone downhill since the renos, so I will be doing some trimming/dipping/moving of them
3) changing the rockscape a bit to better suit the corals I have, to try to avoid having a setup where the nem can umbrella over the corals, and to create some more surface space for the zoas I will be picking up tomorrow
4) Rinsing some of the detritus off the rocks while I move them
5) a large H2O change

Fingers crossed nothing dies.