| 06/26/04 Day 52 88 watt power compact mod results After the 88 watts mod, I would have to say the results has been great. My rose anenenome has never been better. The rosy color which did fade some, is now coming back, and now the anenome looks more healthy with tenticles extended with little pink tips. Water quality Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 0 pH 8.3 |
| 06/27/04 Day 53 Anenome & Hermit crab I have caught a hermit crab trying to climb into the anenome from time to time, and now today I have seen a couple of scars that are healing from cuts. I assume that the hermit crabs are doing this. I supppose not all hermiit crabs are harming my rose anenome because only two hermits I have seen has tried to climbed onto the anenome from a rock the anenome"s tenticles are touching. When I saw it the hermit crab trying to climb on the anenome today, I had decided to remove him, and place him in my 5.5 tank. From now on, any hermit crab caught traspassing anenome space is exiled to the 5.5 gallon tank. Yesturday I found that another screw has fallen into the water which should be holding the clear plastic cover tight. A striped screw hole repair kit will not fix the hole that the screw has fallen out of because the screw hole is #4 screw size too small. To remedy this problem, I will post a DIY on how to fix this problem soon in the DIY section, plus some coveinance that will save you some time in the future. |
| 07/07/04 Day 63 Algaes, Snails & Hermit crabs I have noticed that alot of small green/brown hair algae has been forming on the back wall ot my nano cube tank, and brown slime stuff is still forming on my glass. But as time progress I do see less and less accumulation of brown Diatoms on my substrate and rocks. Every few days or so, I stir my sand to release the nitrogen gases from the sand bed, this also helps move the brown Diatoms to the bottom of the sand bed for the bacteria to munch on. Things have been going well, the tank has not had any major cyno break outs or algae blooms that were out of control. One thine I did learn is that my leather coral does not like salinity specific gravity to be any higher than 1.024, so I have my sg at 1.023 and a half. When the water evaporates everyday, the salinity goes up only to 1.024. Now my leather opens up okay, and has been soing very well. I have also added a orange flower tree coral to the tank, which I have read are for expert aquriust only. SO far that coral has been soing well. Other that that, I have noticed that my two hermit crabs and snails have their post in the tank that they always return to. It is very interesting to see that the small hermit I have always returns to his spot between the two xenia and rest's there. My other hermit crab also has his loction he prefers to stay for a rest as well. My snails seem to always go back to their own location in the tank after they had grazed the tank for algae. One of my Margarita snail always comes back into a hole in the fiji rock, and naps there for some time, then moves out to graze elsewhere, but soon returns to that same hole to nap. My other Margarita snail always goes to the right rear of the tank, and digs himself in the substrate and stays there for long periods of time. On other news, my 5.5 gallon has been doing very well, but the odd thing is, the ammonia never did spiked, and neither did the nitrite and nitrate. The reason for this was because I did not check my water quality in two weeks, so I don't know If it took place. Also I have no Diatom phase, or any algae blooms. When my 50/50 flourescent bulb screw in bulb arrives, I will post some pictures of the 5.5g tank up. Currently I have a Pseudochromis skunk swimming in that tank, and he is doing well. |
| 07/08/04 Day 64 How I clean my Nano Cube every week Every Thursday I clean my Nano cube. First I scrub all the walls with the magnet scruber, then I scrub harder to get small areas with a toothbrush. Next I stir up the subtrate, and then every other week I clean the gravel using a gravel syphon. After the gravel gets cleaned or stired, I syphon out about 1 1/2 gallon of water from the Nano cube into a plastic bucket. Every other week I will take out the foam sponges from the back of the sump and wash them out with filtered water over the sink. To clean the sponge, I have to take out all the live rocks I have back there, and there is quite alot. I take out the rocks and place them imediately into the water I had just syphoned out to the bucket. I clean the 3 sponges, and then stuff them back in the slots correctly. I push the sponges all the way down, and finally I place all the rocks back ontop of the sponges. I also clean other parts that have slat creeps on them. |
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| To show you how much rock is really back in the sump, here is a photo. Please click on the thumbnail. |
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| Build a Nano Reef Day 52-64 |