Jaubert bowl / plenum 8.8g

[besskurz]

As i just launched it with live rock that do -unfortunately- contain a bobbit worm, i prefered to run on carbon, for now, to not face a big algae invasion. Maybe it's useless, but at least water is clear.
Actually there's nothing much to see, it's only a scape for now, with some amphipods and asterinas if they don't get eaten by the bobbit

Carbon will definitely help to Clear water but I don't believe it will help with algae management. Carbon is a chemical filter, it will soak up whatever contaminant or medicines is in there.
Algae is normal in the begin.. I had myself some issues too. A good clean up crew once they appear is the best thing in my opinion. You should see first some diatoms.

I'm curious about this Bobbitt worm. If you have fish in future, this may be trouble.

 

[Euphrate]

Carbon will definitely help to Clear water but I don't believe it will help with algae management. Carbon is a chemical filter, it will soak up whatever contaminant or medicines is in there.
Algae is normal in the begin.. I had myself some issues too. A good clean up crew once they appear is the best thing in my opinion. You should see first some diatoms.

I'm curious about this Bobbitt worm. If you have fish in future, this may be trouble.

I don't want to add fish as the tank is super super small, i only want to put a soft and a LPS coral.

Here you can see the main form of intelligence in my aquarium (and in my flat as well)

 

[besskurz]

I don't want to add fish as the tank is super super small, i only want to put a soft and a LPS coral.

Here you can see the main form of intelligence in my aquarium (and in my flat as well)

Cool!
I was reading that this worm does not have predators when adult, by the picture seems that it has a decent size. I guess that in time this will be Bobby king tank lol

 

[Euphrate]

Cool!
I was reading that this worm does not have predators when adult, by the picture seems that it has a decent size. I guess that in time this will be Bobby king tank lol

Do you want to frighten me? Lol. I've already seen his body hanging out of the rock by 3-4 cm, trying to catch anything which is alive i guess.
I don't want this to be the king of the tank, i've also read that they can provoke permanent nerve pain with their sting, which i find less *interesting*. And they can apparently eat some corals too.

 

[besskurz]

Do you want to frighten me? Lol. I've already seen his body hanging out of the rock by 3-4 cm, trying to catch anything which is alive i guess.
I don't want this to be the king of the tank, i've also read that they can provoke permanent nerve pain with their sting, which i find less *interesting*. And they can apparently eat some corals too.

I would create a thread to check if someone knows how to handle this creature from the abyss. lol
My tank has bristle worms which are for some people not welcome.. but I think this bobbit goes a bit beyond. Even for your own safety... if this mf bites you someday it's gonna be ugly.

 

[Subsea]

I would create a thread to check if someone knows how to handle this creature from the abyss. lol
My tank has bristle worms which are for some people not welcome.. but I think this bobbit goes a bit beyond. Even for your own safety... if this mf bites you someday it's gonna be ugly.

I have pulled the small ones < .25” out by hand. They are quite soft and squish easily. The ones shown in the deep abyss were meters long. Mine come in with diver collected seaweeds.

 

[Euphrate]

I would create a thread to check if someone knows how to handle this creature from the abyss. lol
My tank has bristle worms which are for some people not welcome.. but I think this bobbit goes a bit beyond. Even for your own safety... if this mf bites you someday it's gonna be ugly.

Well, after some research on the other part of the forum, it is a Harmothoe imbricata who looks quite cool. He only eats amphipods and don't grow that much, he's super lazy and stay in a corner, waiting for a prey to approach. There's no way he bites me. And anyway i never touche a rock without a super thick glove. But it explains why i saw some amphipods swimming the first day then no one
I coutgh him yesterday, i will make him his own little reef at my office i think.

 

[Euphrate]

Ok so here's the last pic of my bowl. I'm gonna wait one more month to add a soft coral i think.
I'm considering buying another rock to hide all the technicals (as you can see, 1 cannister, 1 pump and 1 big heater).
Sorry for the low quality of the pic!

 

[besskurz]

Hello!

I have been traveling last week. So my webcam was here spying the tank.

I went to vegas for a construction show last week and I found in the desert a new green skin buddy.

He was pointing to me where to find some rare corals but the place was inside the gates of area 51 where he walks all the time, so I decided to pass this time.

Good coral and algae growth, no evaporation, few new spots of coralline, new worms BUT I found this:

A little of cyano,
a little of green algaes (does sand also change colors as rocks over time as it gets mature?)
A Grey spot. I have no clube what is it. Might be the dangerous gas layer?

This is appearing at the side with more direct sun light coming out of the Window.

I will make tests later specially for KH.

 

[Subsea]

Hello!

I have been traveling last week. So my webcam was here spying the tank.

I went to vegas for a construction show last week and I found in the desert a new green skin buddy.

He was pointing to me where to find some rare corals but the place was inside the gates of area 51 where he walks all the time, so I decided to pass this time.

Good coral and algae growth, no evaporation, few new spots of coralline, new worms BUT I found this:

A little of cyano,
a little of green algaes (does sand also change colors as rocks over time as it gets mature?)
A Grey spot. I have no clube what is it. Might be the dangerous gas layer?

This is appearing at the side with more direct sun light coming out of the Window.

I will make tests later specially for KH.

I get thise same colors on front glass on edge of substrate. Gray color may be cryptic sponge.

 

[besskurz]

Greetings,
Busy week, I barely looked at the tank, but it's good to see that it's almost self sustainable.

So saturday is the day to give some attention to the tank.

Starting the tests.
Kh is around 10's.
Once I shut down the air pump it kept climbing until 13 - I thought to be a false reading - but im not dosing Kalk since that time. I still need to keep an eye on this.

Nitrates are very low. Undoubtedly it's working. I'm still throwing every other day 5-10 pellets of crab food.
It's really fun to watch the crab eating them. He looks like an human eating sushi with chopsticks.

Nassarius vibex, decided to have a bit more intimacy today.

Zoas are in their journey to take over all rocks.
But i noticed this white thing growing there. Looks like a sponge.. dunno what it is, but im sure it will remain there.

I glued the bambam zoas in the rock to attempt to populate the right side of the rocks. Until now it's working and new polyps are growing.
Favites are also spreading.

Nothing is perfect.
I found a big aiptasia growing among GSP. I thought about throwing a bit of kalk paste but.. you know what.. let it there. If starts to spread, I will get a shrimp.

Top view.. no big news.

Macros are growing a lot. I'm dosing chaeto grow and iron for a while and I added this spot light in the back.
From time to time i see some small red algaes in the water column which I assume to be the crab mowing the lawn.
He is clearly not only into bubble algaes and is living more in the back side hidden in his little forest.

This is another unknown living thing which is growing. It's growing in the glass comming up from the substrate. It's a static structure which hold detritus and is home for microfauna too. Does not look pretty but again, I won't touch it.

I'm no longer cleaning or scraping the glass from the inside, turbos are doing their job. From 0-10 I give then a 7. It's not pristine but I can have a good visibility and they still have something to snack.

And this is something I'm doing in parallel.
It's a jaubert glass brick.
I'm still awaiting some led lights and I need to think about how to create some water flow. I got an usb pump, but I don't have big enough tubes.
I tried an air stone, but it created a bit of leaking thru the lid and was dripping over the counter.
I started in February 7th. So after more than a month, things are still alive.
I crushed rocks with pliers. the amount of substrste is so small that is not worth to buy a bag.
The fine sand was soaked in the water of my main tank for a couple days and it sems to avoid diatoms so far. I filled as well with water from the other tank around 16oz. It's less water than the beer you are having now.

The the top layer unfortunately slided into the bottom. Maybe this is a future improvement.

This is what is inside of the sand. Just some left over of an UG filter.

I'm not going to put any fish here.
Don't worry tang patrol.
It's just an experiment for macroalgaes.

 

[besskurz]

Couple of news to report:

This new led light I bought its clearly showing benefits and brought back my excitement of watching this frag growing. First I thought it was a little bit of sendiments attached to the frag but after blowing some water I saw it was really new tissue growing.

Aiptasia:

I found another small polyp.
I'm in a crossroad of what should I do.
I dont want to remove the rocks out of the water for any treatment.
-I'm afraid of using the old kalkwasser cream method because of the size of the tank and no filtering.
-putty is possible at least in the smaller polyp. The bigger would not be easy to reach out or even make sure it's completely cover cuz it grows among the gsp.
-peppermint shrimp.. it's possible. But a hit and miss as everybody says. I never had a shrimp at all.
-nudibranches, I don't think they will live long with my crab here.
---Opinions are very welcome.



Glassblock "tank":
I received the led lights, they have a cheap quality look, but it seems it to do the job.
In matter of size its right on the spot.

I still have concerns about the flow.

I might put a thermostat just to make sure I'm not boiling the water with the lights so close to it, but I measured with an IR thermometer gun and rocks are at 24c / 75f

I could not see real growth until now. I'm just throwing the small floating pieces of the bowl into it.

Phytoplankton:
I harvested another batch after some weeks without it. My 20 dolla setup with a bin store air pump is working fine, sitting outside in the rain, cold or sun. lol
Im using plasma lights. Its something very fancy and high-tech, in case you don't know. The brand its called The Sun.

 

[besskurz]

Still hard to believe that after 12 days, I had the very same reading of KH this morning.
Seems that the last point about this method is really happening now. Substrate and rocks are effectively controlling the KH.

No WC's and I'm not even having to top off with fresa water because of the lid.

Sps is growing.
These little round dark spots were not there before!

 

[besskurz]

Hello

Something wierd started to happen with this zoa. All other corals are doing fine.

Some polyps are close because of Mr. Hermit was walking around.

So the thing is that I started to have tissue receding.
Its very localized in This plug. It used to be very well covered.
Not sure if this is kinda normal with zoas.. this is my first time keeping them.

Couple weeks ago, i had some sort of sponge growing in this plug and it was suffocating one polyp. I broke my promise of not touching and I scrapped away the sponge trying to reduce the harm to the polyps...but now this is happening.
Not sure if there is any correlation.

 

[Euphrate]

Hello

Nice to have news from the most awesome bowl of this forum!
Am still struggling if i should add corals, 2,5 months after. I only have a lil CUC for the moment.
And my pictures are still super ugly, idk how you manage to do such good ones.

I saw you added a new pump! Which one is it? I'm hesitating about a SLW-5 as it can go 300L/hour.

Best regards

 

[Clarkjw2002]

Just FYI, doesn't really look like tissue recession on the plug. I think they just moved to more preferable locations around the plug. Might be a hot spot of light or flow difference on the plug they don't like. It's normal.

 

[besskurz]

Nice to have news from the most awesome bowl of this forum!
Am still struggling if i should add corals, 2,5 months after. I only have a lil CUC for the moment.
And my pictures are still super ugly, idk how you manage to do such good ones.

I saw you added a new pump! Which one is it? I'm hesitating about a SLW-5 as it can go 300L/hour.

Best regards

Hey buddy!

The pump I have here is this one below.
Goes up to 120L but I never put in 100%
I always set from 37% to 50% in random mode.
It's almost 2x the total mount of water it holds.
I just bought because it was the smallest I could find. I tried different solutions but they were all fixed pumps.

My bow here is in a place with a lot of natural light and i bought a lens set too.
Don't pay more than 15 bucks. There are several brands around which are all the same.

But it's a lot of work putting then together all the time. So I use my reef glasses as well. lol

Again very cheap. It's a bit difficult to find focus with the glasses but still possible.

For pictures like this below, than you will need a macro lens of that kit I mentioned above.

Good luck and about the corals in your bowl, i would add but just one cheap frag, like a GSP.
Probably you will never know of you don't give the first little step, but If there is no amnonia it shouldn't be bad.
Keep your cuc fed with pellets, put the coral in and let's see how it goes.

 

[besskurz]

Just FYI, doesn't really look like tissue recession on the plug. I think they just moved to more preferable locations around the plug. Might be a hot spot of light or flow difference on the plug they don't like. It's normal.

Hey Clark thanks for your comments.
Lights might be the reason. I changed recently and these are now enough to grow the SPS, so I bet that zoas are still getting used

 

[Euphrate]

Hey buddy!

Always a very complete answer from you, thanks!

I saw the SLW-3 which looks to be the weakest of the pumps on AE, just may buy one, cuz the micro-jet just are ugly and not efficient.

For the pictures, i may also have to change of phone, my iPhone 8 isn't very good at taking precise pictures. For the color a cheap piece of optic gelatin and a piece of scotch may be enough and even free haha.

My CUC is : 1 wundermani, 2 nassarius & 1 astre (the turbo died like 2 days after arriving -_-). What kind of pellet shall i use?

Oh and i also sold back my mazarra maxspect and buyed an AI 16HD : way more efficient!

Have a nice day

 

[besskurz]

Always a very complete answer from you, thanks!

I saw the SLW-3 which looks to be the weakest of the pumps on AE, just may buy one, cuz the micro-jet just are ugly and not efficient.

For the pictures, i may also have to change of phone, my iPhone 8 isn't very good at taking precise pictures. For the color a cheap piece of optic gelatin and a piece of scotch may be enough and even free haha.

My CUC is : 1 wundermani, 2 nassarius & 1 astre (the turbo died like 2 days after arriving -_-). What kind of pellet shall i use?

Oh and i also sold back my mazarra maxspect and buyed an AI 16HD : way more efficient!

Have a nice day

slw3 has a magnetic mount which I like as well. It makes easier to find a good spot and keep it there in place.

Haha yeah the optic gelatin is actually a very good idea. It should work as long is Orange.
Orange filters the blue light.

In the beginning I bought like 10 assorted hermits, they bulldoze all diatoms in 2 days - it was too much inverts - now I just have one ( that guy in the previous picture) he is already 1yr old at least in my tank.

Talking about cuc, I bought from reefcleaners.org something like 20 of these draw ceriths. When young they are small as a pen tip. They make an awesome job cleaning together with turbos.

After one year mime are relatively bigger.

For me, this combo of turbos for large spot cleaning and ceriths for cleaning the spots that turbos left behind, is working very well. They clean all rocks as well.
I dont remember the last time I scrapped the glass. I think this has a lot of influence with the system maturity. In the beginning I used to have that common thick green algae covering all glass, but now it's just sit down and watch.

I feed them with this:

One bag should last virtually forever lol
I throw every other day like 5-10 pellets. Everybody seems to like a lot.
Again, very cheap.