40g Peacock Mantis tank build

chicago · Apr 9, 2019

nice set up.. great pics.. wow.... are the males more colorful..

Jaysin13 · Apr 9, 2019

chicago said:
nice set up.. great pics.. wow.... are the males more colorful..

Thank you! Yes males tend to have this nice green color. Females are more reddish brown. This is my female that passed.

ScottR · Apr 10, 2019

How are the crabs and snails doing? Peacocks can devour crabs like nothing else can. I’m sure he’d be happy to come across a crab or two!

Jaysin13 · Apr 23, 2019

ScottR said:
How are the crabs and snails doing? Peacocks can devour crabs like nothing else can. I’m sure he’d be happy to come across a crab or two!

Oh man. He rounded up all the crabs and snails within a week and then quit eating for a few days. Hunkered down and molted. I held my breath through the first molt as I've read that is the most dangerous one.... He's back out now and seeming quite comfortable.

I did have nitrates spike but I am now trying a more regimented feeding schedule and added more bio media in the hob.

saintsreturn · Apr 23, 2019

This is incredible. Great work and i look forward to seeing more updates.

Jaysin13 · Apr 23, 2019

saintsreturn said:
This is incredible. Great work and i look forward to seeing more updates.

Thank you! I'll have to do an update soon.

ScottR · Apr 24, 2019

Jaysin13 said:
Oh man. He rounded up all the crabs and snails within a week and then quit eating for a few days. Hunkered down and molted. I held my breath through the first molt as I've read that is the most dangerous one.... He's back out now and seeming quite comfortable.

I did have nitrates spike but I am now trying a more regimented feeding schedule and added more bio media in the hob.

I just found a hitchhiker crab that I think took out some polyps from one of my corals. Wish I could donate him.

Jaysin13 · Apr 24, 2019

ScottR said:
I just found a hitchhiker crab that I think took out some polyps from one of my corals. Wish I could donate him.

If take him. Lol.

Jaysin13 · Apr 29, 2019

My guy seems to be doing well. Molted and has been very active as of late. Nitrates still wanna climb but I have a new plan.

Jaysin13 · Apr 30, 2019

Hi!

Lowell Lemon · Apr 30, 2019

Apex predator saying Hi....isn't that cute?

Watch your fingers!

Jaysin13 · May 1, 2019

Water changes have been killing me just to get nitrates down. I don't mind doing them but I have done a lot to keep nitrates in check. Just set up a biopellet reactor. Try this out for a while. It's overkill I'm sure but I like my tanks to run like clockwork and this ones not there yet. My big nem tank runs itself basically.

Goal is to dial this in then set up a doser with b-ionic to keep my parameters super stable. Dose b-ionic on the nem tank and love it.

Scotty Buttons · May 1, 2019

Nice thread, I really like it. Thanks for sharing. What kind of lights did you switch to? Looks like you got some nice coralline growth.

Jaysin13 · May 1, 2019

Scotty Buttons said:
Nice thread, I really like it. Thanks for sharing. What kind of lights did you switch to? Looks like you got some nice coraline growth.

Thank you! It's a pair of current orbit ic led bars. I upgraded my nem tank to t5's and prime HD's. There is some coralline growth but I run em at 20 blue and 10 white to try to avoid shell rot.

Scotty Buttons · May 1, 2019

Did the damsels survive? Sorry if I missed that...

Jaysin13 · May 1, 2019

Scotty Buttons said:
Did the damsels survive? Sorry if I missed that...

Np. Yeah. So far. I tried to get rid of em so I didn't have to feed em anymore but I could only catch one. Still a bully and a bullied in there.

Jaysin13 · May 9, 2019

Ditched the shelf and hung the reactor on the side. Wall side of the tank now houses Tidal 110 with mechanical filtration and seachem matrix, heater, ato, biopellet reactor run by a sicce syncra 1.5 and icecap gyre 1k wavemaker... Reef octopus classic 90 hob skimmer on back wall in same corner. Somehow managed to fit all equipment snuggly in the back corner.