Shrimpchips' SPS nano

[shrimpchips]

Originally Posted by mseepman

Okay, I have a 16G custom nano but it looks nothing like that. Wow, you have a ton of corals in there. What is your mix of bulbs?

Yeah, it's packed a bit full

The bulbs are only available from Current USA - I use 3 daylight (10k) and 3 actinic bulbs. Not a great selection, but the colour is pretty decent (crisp white) and the PAR numbers aren't half bad.
I heard rumors about new bulbs in development, so we'll see if that actually pans out for this fixture.

Originally Posted by lorenz0

love the pearly jaw fish. one of my favorite fish's

Me too. So much personality, look great and they're funny buggers too. I love seeing them rearrange their rocks around their holes, and covering up for the night is always a fun thing to see too.

[lastlight]

That vortech must be super gentle and broad... it looks menacing in there!

Love the blue ricordia.

[Snaz]

Fantastic nano. Great job.

Hey Canreef mods! I think its time a nano made TOTM and I vote for this one!

[mseepman]

Originally Posted by shrimpchips

Yeah, it's packed a bit full

The bulbs are only available from Current USA - I use 3 daylight (10k) and 3 actinic bulbs. Not a great selection, but the colour is pretty decent (crisp white) and the PAR numbers aren't half bad.
I heard rumors about new bulbs in development, so we'll see if that actually pans out for this fixture.

I actually use a combo of 70w MH and the 2 bulb version of Currents 18" T5HO light, so I know what you mean by lack of bulb options. It would be great to see some other bulbs come out for this as Nano's are big business these days.

[shrimpchips]

Originally Posted by lastlight

That vortech must be super gentle and broad... it looks menacing in there!

Love the blue ricordia.

Yeah, it looks like a fish muncher for sure! But all my fish when first put into the tank almost got sucked in by it, but since then they've leaned about the giant chop chop in the tank The flow is really broad - I have it on 100% reef crest, and the SPS love it. And everything else likes the flow too, even the fish.

I love the ricordea too - I have another one that's a purplish with green rim in the frag tank that I'd eventaully like to move into the DT - just have to juggle the ric mountain a bit. This one started off less power-blue, looking more dull. I passed up a big pink rim/purple with green mouth colony Saturday at BA - kinda regret it now so I'm going to go back and see if it's still there. Fingers crossed it is

Originally Posted by Snaz

Fantastic nano. Great job.

Hey Canreef mods! I think its time a nano made TOTM and I vote for this one!

Haha, I don't think it's anywhere near TOTM quality yet - it's not even a year old. I hope one day to get growth and colours like some of the TOTMs featured around the web though

Originally Posted by mseepman

I actually use a combo of 70w MH and the 2 bulb version of Currents 18" T5HO light, so I know what you mean by lack of bulb options. It would be great to see some other bulbs come out for this as Nano's are big business these days.

Yeah, it would be nice to see some more bulbs. I think it would be a worthwhile market seeing how popular a platform it's becoming, and the money people are spending. Hopefully the European makers start cluing into the nano market - then this size I think will really take off.

I'll try to borrow my folk's DSLR camera this week for sure - hopefully I can take some better shots for you guys

[shrimpchips]

More showing off the new baby:

Crappy actinic shot (you can see how bright it fluoresces):


With all me lights on (white balance is turned all the way down):


Tanks is progressing. I had an acro (not sure of ID) RTN partially today - it was unhappy since flow was reduced to it following the placement of a colony two weeks ago - it had withdrawn all it's polyps and today it's lost some flesh, but it stopped after I came home from the lab. Hopefully it makes it.

Besides that, growth has slowed down a bit, but colours seem to be nice. I'll have to check Ca and Alk levels again, as I haven't checked for a while, and I switched to a new batch of Alk buffer last week. Hopefully everything is fine

Have to start pruning soon - and clearing off my frag racks. No more vacancies anywhere on the rock, and the glass is covered too. Oh well.

[shrimpchips]

Pichurs!!

So, apparently my clownfish (in a separate 15g tank) need more rock in their diet.




They've been cleaning the rocks around the nem all day today. Guess later in the evening they'll spawn again.

It's been a while since they last spawned - almost 3 weeks, but from what I gather I should have expected anywhere from 9 - 20 days, so I guess it's right in between.

The last few days I was thinking that the female is getting rather, um, plump. The second pic you can clearly see how big her belly has become. maybe it's going to be a big nest.





EDIT: so while I was typing this up, I noticed they were swimming around differently. Sure enough, they had started to spawn.







I have some stuff to raise the fry - so I just need to start up a phyto culture and hatch out some rots for them.

I also took some pictures of the main tank. I bought a Potter's angel and QT'd it for 7 weeks (the last week was since I was busy). I was worried it might not get along with the sixline and that it would nip at corals/clam. The Potter's and Sixline are getting along nicely, and no corals are being nipped. I really like the colouration of the Potters - the orange, blue and grey broken stripes are purdy.





Nice orange and purple and blue on the sixline too:


Blue cespitularia has been growing nicely - in the last few weeks, it's spread out a bit, and looking great

Top half of the tank's SPS:


SPS is looking a lot better now that the dosing is back in line - it got out of whack for a bit since I thought I adjusted my vodka dose down to 1 ml a day, but I had instead accidentally reduced my dosing of Ca buffer by 1 ml per dose (8 ml/day total) or to half the original dose. Things are starting to grow again - the setosa is starting to grow too!

Obligatory FTS:

[JDigital]

Wow! Tank is looking great.

Hope you can something happen with the fry!

[Nebthet]

Congratulations with the clownfish laying.. Hopefully a couple of the fry will survive in the tank if they hatch by eating some of the natural phyto life in your tank. That would be a nice suprise.

And glad everything else is back in line for your SPS and the dosing regiment.

[shrimpchips]

Happy new year folks.

Had some time over the holidays so I took some shots of the reef with the folks' DSLR - the shots are a little better than the normal grainy ones I put up

Let's start with some coral shots. Ever since I go the doser on track, SPS are looking hawt and showing good growth again!

Acropora panniculata:


Blue/green Milliepora:


Really sweet "tort" from Mike (Not sure of the species, cause I haven't bothered looking):


Montipora setosa is growing too - there's even more growth since this shot:


Purple Montipora capricornis growing well too - it's about 6 or 7 times the size of what it was when I got it as a frag in April:


Another nice purple staghorn I bought as a frag from Sea U Marine:


One of my fav corals in the tank. This was grown from an even smaller frag from Sea U Marine's display tank. Not sure if they still have this colony, but it's starting to form a very nice table with very good polyp extension.


A fine branched acro from Reef Raft - the purple side is really nice:


A jacquelinae, always one of my favs. My first acropora coral (third SPS though):


Sweet blue A tenius - one of my few corals to come from and survive from Fragalot. It's starting to develop some hot pink on a few of the corallites too in the last few months:


And you can't forget the softies. The blue cespitularia frag I got back in the summer is starting to really take off - it's popping out daughter colonies every week or so, so it's really starting to fill out. The top down is really nice and really shows the colour, and also shows off the pink polyps. Through the glass, the blue is just as sparkly (unlike purple cespitularia, which looks more pinkish through the glass).



And the ricordea garden. Hopefully some nice ones turn up this year so I can add more to the garden: