4lti7ude's Zoa Nano Tank Journal (From the Start)

[4lti7ude]

Lol the one 10 with the white sand is a Cichlid tank, and my first one was a Barb Tank.

Ill be uploading my salt water tank pictures tomrrow afternoon

[bauder1986]

cool. yah i have a couple of 10 gallon FW tanks kicking around too. I keep them around because they are amazingly cheap! Cant wait to see what you do with your first SW tank.

[4lti7ude]

Originally Posted by bauder1986

cool. yah i have a couple of 10 gallon FW tanks kicking around too. I keep them around because they are amazingly cheap! Cant wait to see what you do with your first SW tank.

Well as promised I have updated the thread
Sadly its not fully updated yet... But here's my salt water tank in its past building up stages.

[4lti7ude]

The old 10Gallon was then switched to a salt water tank.
I came into this with only a bit of knowledge so forgive my mistakes.
Random information but as you can see I never really ever waited for a tank to cycle before. I'm just to excited to get fish and always seem to find ways around making my tank have to start fresh... Maybe I'm just lucky.

10 Gallon Tank
50 Gallon Aqua Clear Filter
Life Glow T8
Marine Glow T8
Hydor 100W Heater
10 Gallon Air Pump w/ Read Sea Wood Air Stone (I wanted it cause it was Red Sea )
Full Ice Cream Bucket of Live Crushed Coral Substrate from a friends tank.
12.77 Pounds of Live Rock from Pisces Pet Emporium


!!PROBLEM!!
Rock is LITTERD with Aiptasia Anemone (aiptasia pallida)
I was so excited when I thought I had a bunch of free anemones...
I never read the thread on where to get rock before I did... Seems like many people warned of this.


New Rock from a friend!
Live Sand from his set up tank
Hydor Koralia 1 from Golds
Dwarf Blue Leg Hermit Crab (clibanarius tricolor), Gorilla Crab (gorilla gorilla cancer), Spotted Mushroom (actinodiscus sp.), Super Man Mushroom (actinodiscus sp.), TONS of colorful Brittle Sea Star, and some other random Hitch Hikers... So far all good ones tho.







Could this be Sponge...? Black and Yellow stuff


!!DONT BOY THIS!!
At this point I was using a $22.00 Oceanic BioCube Mini Hydrometer which I also picked up from Pisces Pet Emporium

I borrowed a Refractometer and when the Oceanic Hydrometer read OFF the charts was the salt really at 1.025.
Bought a Refractometer off a friend now and threw that piece of garbage out.

Found a Bristle Worm in my Rock!! Thanks to the CanReef members for helping me figure out what it was.
Follow up on thread http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=63622
This is my Drawing of it because my camera sucks...

[4lti7ude]

About 1.5 Weeks later from setting up the tank I got my first fish!!
Clown Fish (amphiprion ocellaris) from Golds.
I wish I bought him with a buddy, but I think it might be to late now to add another guy?


I have a Tail Spot Blenny (ecsenius stigmatura) with neon green around his eyes =D
He came from Ocean City, he was the only one in the mixed tank to.
Haven't been able to get a picture of him yet... He camouflages way to well with the purple in the rock for my camera to capture...

Juvenile Bluelined Trigger (pseudobalistes fuscus) from Ocean City.
I had to sell him in about 1 week because I noticed he was killing all the brittle star fish. He was smaller then the clown fish too.Way, way to aggressive.
A nice lady from CanReef in Edmonton took him to her huge tank



Sand Sifting Sea Star (astropecten polycanthus) from Golds to clean up my sand algae that was coming a bit. The Bluelined nipped him real good on the one arm before he left the tank...



Three Head Frog Spawn (euphyllia paradivisa) Frag from friends tank



Random picture of my clown fish. I named him Marlin after Nemo's dad.


With Night LEDS !!


As referred from the CanReef thread on Nano Skimmers I got the Rio Nano Skimmer from Ocean City
Thanks to Seamazter from Ocean City for helping me set it up and get it running amazing. Its skimming out the darkest foam and aerating my tank really great.

The Mushrooms are doing Great!


Let me introduce you to Jacques.
Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp (lysmata amboinensis) from Golds.


10 Gallon tank cracked at the bottom Sunday April 25th

[4lti7ude]

Since the little ten gallon cracked, I picked up a 20Gallon tall from Big Als.
All my old stuff fits, its just a taller tank.
I also added a background, which I used Sea View on.
I used Sea View on all my backgrounds since my first 20 Gallon.




Picked up new rock from marineman.
All SUPER clean and live too
Coraline is growing like crazy on my rocks already.
I still need a new heater tho. The little 50W Theo is on almost 24/7 trying to keep that thing the right temp.


The Frogspawn is very happy with the new rock.


Blenny hiding in his chosen home.


Pink Coraline?!


The Shrooms curled up real funny with the new amount of current, but there all regular again.


Look at that weird tube underneath the Spotted Mushroom.

[4lti7ude]

Some bad news.
I think I might have crushed Jacques when I was putting the new rock together.
I seen a piece of exo floating around with some nice red to it
Haven't seen him in the past few days, im pretty sure hes dead...

But after the bad news, I also have some good news.
Finally bought a new heater from Golds.
EHEIM Jager 100Watt


Special thanks to marineman for the rock, and all the gorgeous corals.


Evergreen Starburst Polyp (briareum sp.)



Finally got a picture of my Blenny and his Neon eyes!
Zoas (zoanthus sp.)
Anyone know what kind this is?



Its so hard to capture the Neon Candy Cane Coral (caulastrea furcata) glowing color.



My Super small Birds Nest Coral (seriatopora hystrix).


Zoas I love, love, love Zoas. (zoanthus sp.)
If anyone knows the names of these Zoas they should identify them!







As planned this is going to be a mainly Zoa tank.
I just find them to attractive to the eye

Totally impulse bought again (With a bit of pressure from a friend, and the employees) I picked up a small Purple Reef Lobster (enoplometopus sp.)
Fully Regret it. I had a STRICT fish plan and I went off it and this is what I get for it...
Help me catch this little guy on this thread.
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=64308

I have decided what I want for my tank.

1 Female Clown Fish (Gotta find a bigger clown for Marlin)
1 Small Two Spot Goby
1 Small Banggai Cardinal
1 Small Cleaner Shrimp (Jacques Successor)
1 Pom Pom Crab

I just need to wait for Golds to stock up again, then I can focus on Zoas!

Looking for Cheato in NE Calgary.
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=64266