Julian and Sarah's Reef Aquarium
Last Updated Monday, January 05, 2004
Tank
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Fish
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Lighting HoodJBJ Compact Fluorescent retrofit kit, equipped with one 65W actinic, one 65W cool white, one 55W actinic and one 55W cool white (various manufacturers). |
Other Animals
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Images from January 2004
Lionfish
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Blue veined mushrooms |
Brown polyps |
Candy Cane Coral |
Fungia Coral |
Hammerhead Coral |
Long tentacled Anemone |
Red Mushrooms |
Squamosa Clam |
Unknown ??? |
Unknown ??? (porites?) |
Unknown ??? |
Images from January 2003
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Timeline (from December 2001)
| Date | Activity | Comments | Picture | ||||||||||||||
| December, 2001 | Tank cleaned, and backing applied.
Tank 3/4 filled with salt water. Heater installed Twin Powerheads installed. SeaClone Protein Skimmer installed |
The backing is thick plastic sheeting that is coloured from almost black at the bottom to blue at the top. It was purchased at PetCo. It was applied by first smearing a very thin layer of Vaseline all over the rear glass of the aquarium, and then carefully placing the plastic (cut to exactly the right size) against the glass, smoothing out any air bubbles with a damp cloth. |
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| December, 2001 | 30lbs of Aragonite sand added
50lbs of Live sand added 40lbs of Fiji rock added |
The Aragonite sand is "dead", and was spread to a
layer of about 1/2" on the bottom of the aquarium
The Live sand was then spread over the dead, producing a total sand bed layer of between 2" and 4". It took about two days for the water to lose its cloudiness after adding the sand. The Fiji rock was then added. This used to be "live" rock, but was kept out of water for several months after we moved house. Before adding to the aquarium, it was thoroughly cleaned using an old toothbrush and copious amounts of water. |
This picture shows the aquarium at the tail end of its cycling: there is still quite a bit of brown algae, especially visible on the Fiji rock. A small canister of activated charcoal is visible at the centre of the tank. |
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| December 20, 2001 | Added:
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These damsels are to help cycle the water | |||||||||||||||
| January, 2002 | SeaClone Skimmer modified | Two very worthwhile modifications were made:
After making these changes, the gunk collected in the collection cup was much darker (and more foul smelling!) than before, and was more copious. |
Skimmer before modification
After modification
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| January 12, 2002 | Added:
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Scooter Blenny hopefully will mess around in the sand bed and help to turn it over, as will the urchin and starfish. |
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| January 14, 2002 | 22 lbs of Fiji and 22 lbs of Tonga Ridge Live Rock ordered | Order placed with Flying Fish Express |
Shows the curing tank ready for the Live Rock, with bubbler and heater. |
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| January 15, 2002 | Live Rock arrives from Flying Fish Express | Incredible service!
The bubbler in the curing tank produces copious amounts of bubbles which carry off impurities and sit on the surface (see picture). They are then skimmed off using a bucket, and discarded. This is a primitive form of high-capacity protein skimming: no expensive equipment required! |
The curing tank full of Live Rock. |
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| January 23, 2002 | Starfish Replication? | The Chocolate Chip Starfish stops moving around the tank,
and then appears to be splitting in half.
In the end it simply died :-( |
Showing the starfish, with two legs fully detached from the body. Both legs and the body are independently mobile!
Another view. |
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| January 25, 2002 | Live Rock curing | Ten days after arrival, the Live Rock appears to be curing well: the number of bubbles sticking to the surface of the curing tank water is now negligible, and there are tufts of new macroalgae growth on the rock. This is in a variety of colours including pink, purple, light green and light brown. | |||||||||||||||
| March, 2002 | Live Rock added | All Live Rock cured, added to tank. Outbreak of brown algae. Added hang-on filter with activated charcoal. Resorted to scrubbing rock with soft toothbrush to remove brown algae almost daily. Algae much reduced and no longer a problem after a couple of weeks. | |||||||||||||||
| March 22, 2002 | Current stock |   
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| April 12 2002 | Added Royal Gramma | A bit pissy to begin with, but soon settled down. |  |
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| April 19 2002 | Added Zooanthus sp. soft coral | Apparently easy to keep. We shall see! |  |
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| April 23 2002 | Lighting System Replaced | Removed all current light fixtures and replaced with a JBJ
Retrofit Deluxe consisting of four 65W compact fluorescents (2x6500K
daylight, 2x7100K blue), remote ballasts and ripple reflector. Model
PL-RDX-41. Difference in intensity is striking. All colours in the tank appear much more vibrant. |
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| August 2002 | Various Additions |
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| September 2002 | Strange trails on the aquarium glass | What could these be? | |
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The following describes the original aquarium, which was set up in June 1999 and dismantled in March 2001 because we moved house ....
Tank
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Fish
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Lighting Hood
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Other Animals (identified and unidentified)
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Equipment
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Timeline
| Date | Activity | Comments | Picture |
| June 6, 1999 | Tank purchased. Substrate washed and added to tank. Tank filled with salt water. Conditioned with Seachem Prime. Hagen Cycle added. Heater installed, Powerhead 402 installed. Single F40T12 light installed | Why do these bags of substrate always say "pre-washed" and yet they need about 1/2 hour of continuous washing in running water before the cloudiness disappears?! |
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| June 7, 1999 | SeaClone Skimmer installed | This is a venturi counter-current device. Seems more efficient than the VisiJet I installed on my reef aquarium in France |
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| June 13, 1999 | Uncured Fiji Live Rock arrives from Flying Fish Express. Dipped in saltwater and added to tank. | The Live Rock is very different from some Indonesian I bought in Switzerland years ago ... the Fiji rock has no snails or crabs or other critters like that, but it does have much more attractive coralline algae on it ... | |
| June 15, 1999 | Hood equipped with electronic ballast and tubes. | Electronic ballast and end caps purchased at Home Depot. Very simple installation. Still requires a reflective layer of some sort to be attached on the underside of the hood, above the tubes .... |
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| June 19, 1999 | Four damsels added. | The fish seem to enjoy the tank. A peanut worm is spotted hanging half out of a piece of live rock. |
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| June 23, 1999 | Status | Much hassling in the tank between the two yellow-tailed damsels. There are many clumps of purple coralline algae growing on the lice rock. Lighting is currently two F32T8 cool white and one F40T12 blue actinic. |
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| June 24, 1999 | One yellow-tailed damsel added, plus one large Hermit crab and two smaller Hermit crabs. | The extra damsel was added in an attempt to calm down the existing two. However, the fracas continues. |
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| June 27, 1999 | Large piece of coralline live rock added | ||
| July 5, 1999 | One Boxfish and one Sebae Anemone added | Damsel fracas seems to have ended. Anemone very difficult to place, even with powerheads turned off: it tends to "swim" around the aquarium randomly! SG 1.0215, NH4 <0.25 ppm, T 82F | |
| July 7, 1999 | DISASTER | Boxfish found with snout up the the powerhead intake: dead. Only remaining
fish alive in tank is one of the striped damsels: the rest have been killed, probably by
the toxin which is reportedly produced by the Boxfish. There has clearly been a "spurt" of activity in the protein skimmer... enough to blow the top off the collection cup! Dead fish removed. Start filtering with activated charcoal granules. |
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| July 23, 1999 | One chocolate chip starfish, one red starfish and three domino damsels added. | These are the first living things added to the tank after the disaster on
July 7. Lighting is currently three F32T8 cool white, and one F40T12 blue actinic. |
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| July 27, 1999 | CleanUp Crew (from Flying Fish Express) added, plus one False Gramma and one finger leather coral. |
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| July 31, 1999 | One Yellow Tang added | Water slightly cloudy so adding activated charcoal in a cannister to the tank, attached to powerhead intake. | |
| August 14, 1999 | One cleaner shrimp added | Some very small black dots have appeared on the Tang. |
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| September 12, 1999 | Two Percula Clowns added | Most of the turbo snails have died and been eaten by the chocolate chip starfish. There are four left. | |
| October 20, 1999 | Sebae Anemone shrank, hid, then disappeared: probably eaten | ||
| October 31, 1999 | Finger leather coral dead | Probably insufficient light | |
| November 1, 1999 | Installed 150W compact fluorescent | Light from this is "warm", and predominantly yellow: probably not ideal | |
| November 7, 1999 | One Hawaiin Feather Duster added One Bubble Anemone added |
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| March, 2001 | Tank broken down | Moving House. See above for Sarah & Julian's new Reef setup |
Several people have suggested what the mysterious disks might be:
 | From: "Martin Miller" <mmiller@mcmail.com> Could be disk worm. If they are, the only problem with them is they can choke coral to death. The best way I konw to get rid of disk worm is a Mandarin, they love them. Martin |
| From: ahartplus4@aol.com (Ahartplus4) I have these in my tank also. My tassled filefish eats them sometimes but my friend has a China Wrasse that made short work of the many in his tank. Just a thought... Alice |
| From: Edith Hedges <cferh@eiu.edu> I have something like that in my system and it seems to be giving the hard corals some problems. If you chase it off the glass and it swims in a unulating fashion I would guess that it may be a nudibranch. If they are like my little critters they reproduce.......rapidly. Solution:???Maybe a small Wrasse. Frank |
| From: nanoreef1@aol.com (Nanoreef1) This ones new to me. They could be sand dollars. Which if you have a thin sand layer in your tank will be quite beneficial. But to be sure ask a Klingon. |
| From: nullman@hotmail.com (Nullman) Hey, I have a few of those in my reef too! I seem to remember having quite a few when I first set up my tank, then didn't see any more for months. This weekend I saw two of those! freaky.... No, I have no idea what they are. I didn't even think they were alive until the next day they were both in different places. Mike |
| From: "KaboomMn" <kaboommn@gateway.net> Julian; I had Charles Delbeek look at your photo to see if he had any thoughts as to what it may be. He thought it could be a rather pale_ Acetularian sp._, which is a type of algae. I blew up your photo in PhotoShop5 for a better look and then viewed a number of pics. of various Actel. and I don't think that's what it is. I also thought it was some type of algae and maybe it still is. Chuck also thought that it may be a Foraminfera, which is an amebic animal, with a calcium carbonate test (shell ). I remember these things from Invert. Paleontology and I know some get quite large. I check all of my books and found one that deals with the Meio-Fauna and to my surprise there was a diagram of a species that very closely resembles yours and gets even a little larger. I'm not saying that is it, just some thoughts. -- Boomer |
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From: Alan Monroe [monroe@cpinternet.com]
Looks like a chiton (Kiton)...I'm unsure of the spelling ... but there sort of snail like but they never move ...sort of like barnacles
Mark
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