My very first reef tank!

Hermorah · Jan 2, 2020

Sorry it's been such a long time since I've updated. College started and I lost a portion of my time adapting to the schedule and environment. I have to admit that all of that only took a month, I've just been too lazy to post from then to now.
The tank hasn't changed much during this time. Corals started to grow, and I added a new piece of live rock that use to be in my quarantine container. I've had a population explosion in critters and all of them haven't been good. An explosion in hydroids happened out of thin air (I suspect a source). The adult form which I thought were feather dusters have done quite some damage to one of my zoas. But only one coral has been effected and everything else is fine. I've also had to deal with the annoying problem of putting corals back in place due my hermit crabs.

Hermorah · Jan 5, 2020

I added my first fish to my tank, two four stripe damsels. Found a guy who sold his fish 1/3 the price plus he had them in his tank for two years without adding new fish. His tank wasn't in good condition as he had broken down his larger well equipped one, and sold off its equipment and most of his fish. But the most important thing was his fish were healthy and I didn't need to quarantine.
The problem was that his salinity was 1.010 and mine was 1.025. At first I bought a yellow tailed damsel and one four stripe one, but I started acclimating too fast. In a matter of 5 hours they reached 1.020; that caused great stress on the yellow tail, he turned white and upside down. Googling started immediately and after 15 min I found an answer; RODI water was added and salinity was lowered to 1.016.
Sadly the yellow tail didn't make it; the four strip on the other hand is alive and happy in my tank now. After the yellow tailed passed away I bought the other four stipe and acclimated the pair to my tank water in the course of 3 days, they have been happily swimming in my tank for a few days now.

In those few days I also spotted an one inch aptiasa literally, out of nowhere. Therefore started the journey of lowering the water level and super glueing the aptisa with liquid glue. I also thought why not glue the corals to the rocks as well; getting rid of the adult hydroids killing off my prettiest zoa should get done too, Oh and I almost forgot lets do an overdue water change as well. With the power of liquid super glue, 3 containers filled with salt water, overflowed saltwater on my MDF table and a dozen of other stuff, the adventure was completed. I will never repeat that experience ever again.

Hermorah · Jan 6, 2020

I was taking pictures of my tank and decided to play with the setting a bit; I changed the ISO to 100 and magic happened, suddenly what my phone showed and my tank looked exactly the same. No Matter how many times I've tried to get exact coloring using different apps, true coloring was never revealed in my pictures, but now things are different.

Also, the nassarius snail I added a few months back with the corals has appeared. I seriously thought it was dead, because that snail disappeared; never to be seen until now.