Reef Tank DIY - For Dummies

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by Dash

Justin, don’t feel bad. The meds weren’t an issue. I really feel the only chance I had would have been to get Snape a new shrimp which sadly was not possible. (Not sure what the life span of this type of shrimp is.) Snape’s symptoms were all borne out of his stress, even the clouded eye (which the Furan easily took care of). He didn’t want to eat. He was young when I got him so basically he had the shrimp most of his life.
Btw how’s your puffer? Hope he’s well.

Oh, that is really sad.

The puffer is good, she ended up being named Moana haha, and I say 'she' because right after Moana recovered from internal parasites, she laid eggs! Thousands of tiny eggs.

Thank you again, without the meds she wouldn't have survived.

[Dash]

Originally Posted by GreenSpottedPuffer

Oh, that is really sad.

The puffer is good, she ended up being named Moana haha, and I say 'she' because right after Moana recovered from internal parasites, she laid eggs! Thousands of tiny eggs.

Thank you again, without the meds she wouldn't have survived.

What. That’s fantastic. Never heard of them laying eggs before. I think my puffer pair are male/female as they don’t fight, but unfortunately GSPs go into freshwater streams to lay eggs.

[Dash]

It's been a bit quiet around here...
Well, 2020 has been lousy all around so far. Aside from all the troubling stuff going on in the world, my tank has not been at its best. The first two years breezed by seemingly without a care in the world. This year, I had algae issues for the first time, and lost fish. However, after endless days of blowing the rocks & vacuuming the sand, the tank looks presentable again. There are spots of green cyano that still pop up, and a couple of my SPS lost some branches, but all in all I'm feeling optimistic. Here are a few shots of the fellows that keep this hobby fun...

My anemones do weird things to confuse the clowns. During dinner, when powerheads are off, the main disk swells up to a crazy size and the tentacles shrink to skinny little things. Clowns hate it and feel exposed.


At night, sometimes they do this, which drives the clowns to distraction


I got bored or something, so decided to do this. Hope it will cover the statue completely one day


Petey looks pretty sharp, I think. He is a model citizen.

Gary checking out the new gorgonian. He always photobombs


Gotta love this guy. Walt is the best looking fish ever (in his own mind)

[Dash]

I'm really smitten with my new coral, a Sunset fungia from Canada Corals. He opened up right away and has such beautiful colour. This might kick off an LPS obsession. I hope he continues to be pretty low maintenance.

[Dash]

So as we're (hopefully) at the tail end of Year of the Covid, I thought I'd do an update. It was not a great year, and it culminated with the loss of Dash, my 16 yr-old dachshund just a couple of weeks ago. Very humbling dealing with loss, algae, etc but things are looking better, and overall, the tank is not doing too bad. Added a couple of new frags last week and fingers crossed. Still a ways to go.

New lights! Reef Breeder Photons. Haven't cleaned up wires yet, but I like the lights so far.


I lost a few SPS including 3 large colonies, but others are ok. This Rainbow Loom needs to regain colour but I'm happy it hung around

Fish are happy. I am learning though, that as they are a fair bit larger and more established, they're not as nice to newcomers. I do need to add some fish though, as I think the bioload is low. Need more fish poop!


Canada Corals has brought in some of the nicest gorgs recently, and I was lucky to nab a few for the little softy tank. Here are a few favourites.



Canada Coral also had a spiral coral, which I had never seen before. It's a black coral so its skeleton is jet black, which you can see at the very bottom. So cool looking


Still really enjoy my little softy tank as it lets me see moments like this. Tiny urchin and tiny fish meet up



Wishing myself and everyone a better reefing year!


"My heart has joined The Thousand, for my friend stopped running today"
Good night Dash...miss you

[H2o2]

Best friend loss is hard. Remember the things that made u smile and your water buddies love u2