Well, a lot has been happening with the tank over the past few days! Here's an updated picture:
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The diatom bloom is long gone, but I noticed after my water change that the rocks were starting to look a bit more tan-colored. After another day, I noticed a bunch of bubbles forming on the rockwork. It looks like my tank has finally started getting some brown algae growth! Anyway, I decided to beef up my cleanup crew a bit by adding in 5 banded trochus snails. Boy, was that a good idea! These little guys blow my hermit crabs away in terms of cleaning power! Within a few hours, I was noticing big white patches on my rockwork where the snails had eaten all the algae and revealed the true color of the rock again. It is incredible how much these snails eat in such a short period of time! So far, they seem to be getting along quite well with my hermits. I chose trochus snails for their ability to right themselves if they ever find themselves on their backs. Their shells are absolutely beautiful, with a nice coating of coralline algae. One of them even had an asterina starfish on it!
The hermits are doing well. The other day I witnessed two of them actually trade shells with each other (after a bit of a fight). I've got a number of spare shells scattered around the tank, but I went ahead and picked up a few more just to give them a wider variety. They seem to only want the shells on each other's backs! Oh well. They are very entertaining to watch, though! A few days ago, I found that the smaller scarlet had molted, and he was looking quite bright and pretty! I removed the molt from the tank to keep things tidy.
While I was at the LFS, I picked up a fairly small cleaner shrimp, as my wife has been wanting one in the tank since I set it up. Right now he's in "shy mode," basically hanging upside down under the rock arch, but the clownfish are somewhat interested in him and I see them swimming up to him every now and again, though I haven't actually witnessed him cleaning either of them yet. I was surprised today to see that he had molted overnight! I almost didn't see the molt, as it was behind a large piece of rock, but I spotted the antennae and was able to pull it out.
Here's a shot of my new shrimp cleaning one of the snails:
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My clownfish are doing well. I have noticed more "dominant" behavior from the larger one, and I have witnessed the smaller one doing the "shimmy" for her, sometimes 3 or 4 times in a row! They are both eating well and seem quite active and curious. I've started noticing that the larger one's coloring is getting a little darker, especially along the edges of her back. It seems that she's coming of age a bit!
My corals are all doing well. The encrusting montipora has gained a bit more pink coloration in its skin, and I'm sure that it will improve with time. All the others look great! I'm going to start feeding them once I can get my hands on some Reef Chili.
I went ahead and picked up the second blue Reefbrite XHO yesterday. I also purchased a bracket that attaches to all 3 lights and keeps them aligned. The lights look pretty slick now, and I love the way the tank is looking, both inside and out! The extra blue light brings out the color of the corals, and should provide some more nourishment for the zooxanthellae.
Here's a shot of the new light setup:
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And here are a few shots of a couple of corals under the new lighting (I can't take any good pictures of the corals under just the actinics with my phone because they get too washed out, so I can't post any shots of these guys looking really dazzling yet. Either way, these things look WAY better in person):
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My tank is still very young, and like most of us in this hobby, I'm constantly fighting the urge to do too much too soon. I make new additions to the tank fairly regularly, but I try to only choose things that I know will not add too much to the bioload just yet. The addition of corals and invertebrates, like hermits and snails, adds color and excitement to the tank, while placing very little stress on the system. I'm holding off on getting another fish for now, but when I finally do, I think it will be a Helfrich's firefish. They are just too beautiful to pass up. So far, my inhabitants are:
(2) Ocellaris clownfish
(2) Scarlet reef hermit crabs
(3) Red-legged hermit crabs
(1) Electric orange hermit crab
(5) Banded trochus snails
(1) Scarlet cleaner shrimp
(1) Green wall hammer coral
(1) ~15-polyp Armor of God zoa frag
(1) 5-head Kryptonite trumpet coral frag
(1) Orange plate coral
(1) Montipora setosa frag
(1) Encrusting montipora frag ("sunset," although it has pink skin instead of orange)
....and a small amount of tiny featherdusters and asterina starfish that I noticed on a coral or two and did not remove
I've had my eye on a brilliant red and green blasto that I think I might add soon. I'd also like to get a nice torch or a frogspawn in there. Once I can find some blue or rainbow ricordea, that will definitely be going in, too!
So far, my water parameters are looking good! I check the ammonia now and then to make sure I'm not causing any sort of mini-cycle, but it's always 0 ppm. pH is around 8.3, and salinity is at 1.026. My temperature is usually a steady 79 degrees, but I came home today to find that the room was quite warm with the windows open and the tank temp had risen to 81! I closed the windows and kept the fan and A/C running, and it eventually came back down to normal over the course of the evening. I had been keeping the windows open to raise pH, but I'm going to close them for a day to see if I can maintain a decent pH with all the new photosynthesis going on in the tank now. If I can get by with the windows closed, that will definitely help me keep things at a steady temperature. Anyway, calcium is sitting around 400, while alkalinity is 7-7.5. Magnesium is at 1450. I really need to get my hands on a phosphate test kit, but I haven't gotten to it quite yet. I've been considering dosing with B-Ionic, mainly to bring the alkalinity up a bit, but right now it seems that the water parameters are fairly well maintained with my water changes every 2 weeks. I'll continue to monitor and start dosing if my corals' usage starts to increase.
Anyway, that's it for now! Happy reefing, guys!
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