Ben's 28g redux

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Happy birthday!! Great looking tank!!

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Happy Birthday bro!

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Tank is looking great BTW!

 

[benny z]

thanks guys!!!

some more good news for the day - just noticed the 2-polyp blue agave frag i glued down is already sprouting buds.

(tank lights off - just camera flash)

 

[benny z]

fish arrived safely yesterday! woohoo!

i haven't been able to get good photos yet of the basslets or possom wrasse, but here are the helfrichi firefish and geometric pygmy perchlet:

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

They look great!!

 

[benny z]

thanks! the swissguards are pretty hard to photograph at this point. they are out free-swimming in the morning so far, but mostly keep well hidden in the shade of the rocks once the lights come on.

best i've been able to do so far...

 

[benny z]

Anyone have experience with pairs of these basslets? Seems the larger one is showing some territorial aggression to the smaller one as of yesterday. The first two days they were spending time together, but now the smaller one hides and when it comes out, gets chased back into hiding. Just curious if this is normal behavior, given the new establishment into a new tank, or if I should be worried at this point. I've seen no actual nipping - just chasing into hiding at this point. Both are eating.

 

[FLipp]

looks good. do you have a skimmer?

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Love it man!

 

[benny z]

looks good. do you have a skimmer?

i do, and i don't. lol

i bought a tunze nano skimmer, modified it to fit the tank, and had been running it most of the week, but pulling it out a day or two before water changes (mondays). the reason for this is because that skimmer fits in the same rear chamber where the media basket should reside. so, in order to run the media basket, i have to pull the skimmer out. i like to run some filter floss when i blow the rocks off prior to a water change, and let the floss catch non-dissolved particulate/detritis/algae/whatever. i do put a couple tablespoons of gfo in a media bag inside the media basket when it is in use also. recently, though (as in last week), the skimmer pump has decided to act up and i've not been running the skimmer at all. i'm kind of in a trial/error process with trying to find a balance of mechanical filtration, with the limitation that i can't run everything at once the way i would prefer.

Love it man!

thanks man! i've placed orders for a total of 16 new frags from a couple of different vendors, all arriving this week. delayed shipping due to the terrible weather last week (how's that grass, btw?!). can't wait. should be a good coral update coming soon.

 

[FLipp]

nice! good luck w the skimmer problem you've been having.

 

[benny z]

Thanks. I'm honestly not so sure I'm even going to fiddle with the skimmer at this point, and may just run skimmerless for a while to see if I notice any adverse affects. I see so many people running nanos successfully with just the basic water change mentality. We shall see.

 

[FLipp]

i dont have a skimmer in my 12gal, i just do weekly or bi weekly water changes.
i've just had a hard time keeping fish alive, but if i could i would have a sump and skimmer. does the job!

 

[benny z]

shipment 1 of 2 for the week. no, i'm not going to keep a frag rack in this tank - just put them here for a quick photo and to rest until i have time to place them in the tank.

micro/favia pack from "who dah?" of exotic frags.

 

[kandymann]

nice tank! I like the lighting

 

[iadubber]

Wow I love that swissgaurd basslet!

 

[benny z]

me too!

few of the pieces that came the other day.

 

[MrDJeep123]

You stole those paleys! Super so jealous! You have some very nice looking corals. I was looking at the tank side by side difference of lighting... wow.

 

[MrDJeep123]

I meant to add, the wrasse. Did you get him? Possum wrasse is on my "to be considered" list.