Sugar's 30g reef tank

SBlisters · Dec 21, 2016

I came into salt water suddenly with the win of this loveliness. I didn't know diddly about jack, but have been keeping a planted fresh water tank for years. After an initial bad decision of replacing too much missing water with just distilled water, I thought I blew it. Thanks to the good advice of R2R and others, everybody made it through that first bit.

SBlisters · Dec 21, 2016

I bought the light and some additional equipment. I lost a Peppermint shrimp to a molt. 2 crabs, some new snails, Bristle worms and vermitids seemed to materialize out of thin air. It seems like the tank is different every single day. I lost the turbon snail when he fell over in a spot in didn't see until too late. I added in a young, blue legged hermit crab and a yellow, banded coral shrimp.

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SBlisters · Dec 21, 2016

I did some rearranging after great R2R advice about the candy cane coral. My params have been very stable, and the candy cane coral has been growing in very nicely. The Xenia is taking off like crazy, and the mushrooms have grown quite a bit too. This is a more recent picture of how things look.

SBlisters · Dec 21, 2016

Today I was thinking about quickly things change in the tank & saw people tracking progress. Yet another great idea courtesy of R2R

revhtree · Dec 22, 2016

Looking good bro!

Tahoe61 · Dec 22, 2016

Coming along very nicely. I have the same tank brand and size.

SBlisters · Dec 29, 2016

I got a little too excited, and added the following livestock to my tank: Lettuce Nudibranch, Leather Toadstool frag, blue legged hermit crab (that brings me up to 2) and... a crown conch nassarius. So the nassarius is the one I shouldn't have purchased. He/she is very pretty, and I was thinking about the nassarius not the conch bit, and failed to properly research.
Hopefully just having the one won't cause problems. Any advice to help keep him be happy, and not attack my other livestock would be appreciated. Currently, the nassarius is buried in the sand just under the rock my green sea star is encrusted on. On the plus side, the Lettuce Nudibranch is SO GREAT!

SBlisters · Jan 14, 2017

I ended up tweaking my layout a little bit again so it was a tad easier to clean the glass. Note about the beveled corner tanks- beautiful, but NOT easy to clean the edges.

SBlisters · Jan 14, 2017

My CBS has stopped being so shy, and now comes out to see me more. I found 2 more hitchhiker crabs living in the tank. No clue what species, but definitely 2 different ones. I had glued up vermatid holes in my favia, and it is now making a noticeable recovery.

SBlisters · Jan 14, 2017

The tiny leather Toadstool frag I got for $10 from a LFS is now growing at a noticeable rate. My clown fish seems to like it quite a bit.

SBlisters · Jan 14, 2017

Notes about my tank:
Low flow, high light, 29°C, 1.025 salinity, 8.2pH, 400 calcium.
Tank: JPL 30gal glass with stand
Light: AquaRay (this is a blue & white LED that can be used independently and gives a mottled wave of light that makes the tank look like you are seeing it while diving).
I have a heater, but that's it. No controller, ATO, food dispenser or anything like that. Extremely basic set up.

SBlisters · Jan 15, 2017

New addition to my tank: halloween hermit crab

SBlisters · Jan 15, 2017

Typo in previous list. Tank is JBJ. I use Instant Ocean Reef Crystals.

Daniel@R2R · Jan 16, 2017

Looking good! Following!

SBlisters · Jan 16, 2017

mdbannister said:
Looking good! Following!

Thanks for the positive support [emoji1] !

SBlisters · Jan 21, 2017

One of the trochus snails knocked over my branching frogspawn, making it 9 heads now instead of 10. I tried using reef glue to secure the base of it to the rock, but no luck. I didn't try the same with the piece that broke off. I just tucked that (hopefully securely enough) just below the big one on a rock. This poor frogspawn! This is the second time it's been accidentally fragged. Not cool.

SBlisters · Jan 21, 2017

In other sad news, my lettuce sea slug is definitely dead. There is no way I wouldn't have seen it for THIS long. I won't be adding any more sea slugs. They are super cool, but obviously not a good fit.

domination2580 · Jan 21, 2017

SBlisters said:
My CBS has stopped being so shy, and now comes out to see me more. I found 2 more hitchhiker crabs living in the tank. No clue what species, but definitely 2 different ones. I had glued up vermatid holes in my favia, and it is now making a noticeable recovery.

If those green bubbles are bubble algae you might want to get it in check sir. Nice tank though!