10g Mixed coral/macroalgae(planned)
Well, I've had this tank running since February, and I'm rather pleased with it, though progress is rather slow. All of the rock is from the Caribbean, except for the SPS skeletons, I don't know where they're from.The rock came with a bunch of neat little hitchhikers, including many serpulid and sabellid worms, including a large colony of what may be bispira sp.or maybe something related to them.
Inhabitants- One Three-spot damsel fish. I know they probably get too big for the tank(that's what you get for not doing your own research on them) but I'm rather attached to the little guy. As you can see from the pictures, he follows the camera wherever it goes. Kind of interesting, he'll take food out of my fingers, but he bites anyone else who tries it. Make of that what you will.
Crabs. A few blue leg hermits and some of those yellow faced red ones. The blue leg ones I consider freeloaders. They murder each other for shells, and have a taste for Astrea snail. I've come to call the larges one "Capo". When she comes around, the others know their place and scatter. Oddly enough, she is also the only crab of the bunch I've seen carrying eggs, though nothing has come of it. The yellow faced reds are another matter; they actually pull their weight. I always see them munching on algae, and they've never bothered a snail.
Feather Dusters. All over the tank. The big colony of sabellids that came on one of the rocks abandoned their original tubes and set themselves up all over the tank. As well, the split crown serpulids seem to be multiplying, as I'm noticing several new small ones popping up.
Mollusks. A turbo snail, an Astrea or two, and an absolutely gorgeous golden limpet that only wants to come out at night. I'm planning on adding a few ceriths and nerites to the mix.
Corals- As far as corals go, I haven't stocked many yet. There's a small colony of brown palythoa, a little piece of a Capnella leather coral, a frag of xenia from my 1.88g that I expect to take off, given it's current growth, and a brown chalice coral. I plan on eventually getting some ricordea, candy cane coral, zoanthids, maybe an encrusting montipora, and maybe one of those fancy colored mini rock anemones. Of course, it all depends on the budget...
Macroalgae- (WIP) I'm planning to add a few colorful macroalgaes as well. Codium, Halymenia, Ulva, Botrycladia, and perhaps Caulerpa cupressoides, or another slower growing species. But, so far besides some hitchhiking Halimeda all I've got is chaetomorpha, whick might be considered the polar opposite of a display species.
Tech- A prizm skimmer and a 100gph HOB filter with carbon for filtration. Water movement provided by a Korallia 1 and a powersweep powerhead. Light is provided by two 65w compact fluorescent bulbs(Hangs over the edges a bit; rather unsightly, but functional). All nitrate/nitrite tests read zero. PH 8.1, SG 1.026.
Pretty bad pictures. Window glare, bad angles, etc etc. I'll fix them when it gets dark outside...
Note- The chaetomorpha takes up about 1/5 of the tank, but I'm hesitant to trim it down any further. It is swarming with amphipods, bristleworms, and all other sorts of little goodies, and on top of that it keeps my readings at zero. I went a week without feeding the damsel as an experiment, and the amphipod population was still 3/4 at the end of the week...
Note- feathery thing in the pic is some sort of rock dwelling sea cucumber, I believe.
Note- One of the sabellids that broke away from the original colony,
1.88g Pods,worms,and pseudocorynactis
I'll update this one in a bit. Long story short, definitely not to be considered a display tank. Rather, I use it for raising amphipods, bristleworms, and an occasional soft coral to add to my 10g. My end objective though is to raise a large colony of pseudocorynactis corallimorphs. So far, from an original six I have about twelve...
It's also my oldest(current) saltwater tank. Running good for one and a half years now.
Here's a picture of one just after feeding it a food pellet-
carbon-mantis's Nano and nano-nano
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