CherylMcKay's 2012 Nano Contest Entry

[CherylMcKay]

I would like to start by saying I had lots of fun doing this. I realize that I either need to get much more verbose or start getting a little more high tech with my builds.

All contestants have beautiful tanks and your pictures amazing me. You all set a high bar for me (and everyother noob) to strive for. Now on with the entry:

So the coral for my tank arrived a few weeks ago and I have been waiting to take pictures for a couple of reasons. It showed up really cold, and I wasn't sure if it was going to make it. I acclimatized it for most of a day and so far so good. The other issue I found last week was that my refractometer was off by about 10 points. So my salinity was quite low.

The coral is hanging on and I am hoping with some stability and time they will do okay. Of course the mushrooms are fine... they are so resilient.


Zoa's & Hammer:

The Zoa's were open in the first week, but 2 of them now have closed up over the week I brought the salinity back up to 1.026 from about 1.016. I am waiting to see if they start opening again. If not, I will take them home and put them in the 75 gallon to see if that is a better fit for them. The hammer started out really retracted, and seems much better now. I have more hope for it then I did the first week.
I think the other coral is still holding it's own but I am not sure as I have never seen any live coral of these types to verify it's health. Pictures of healthy coral on line are great but .... judging the inbetween is hard.
Sulawesi Living Lava-20130315.
It is really hard to get a picture of the color right. It is a dark dusky rose color with some yellow threaded through. I can see where a little bit of the flesh has pulled back from one corner, so I am assuming it is still alive.

The Blue Ridge-Heliopora Coerulea - 20130315
It is a nice brown color, the picture is really yellow, but I don't see the little polyps that I see in pictures on the website. Hopefully it will purple up a bit and I will start seeing polyps.

I have a black clown and a misbar orange clown. They are both rescues that couldn't go in the tank at home. I will eventually like to re-home these two and change out the live stock I have in this tank to some small gobies or look at having this as a shrimp tank in the future.


I think I have progressed pass the beginner stages of having just a filter on my tanks and my plumbing prowress has increased but I still haven't jumped into alot of equipment on this tank. It has the skimmer, an ato and Cheato in the back... that is it, no reactors or other dosing automation. I will continure to do water changes every 8 days or so. Dosing will be my next step but I will make that decision if I find I need to but I really need to keep this simple so if I am away, my co-workers can maintain it.

I had fun with this contest, I will definately do one again. Good luck everyone.