teamschreiba

Had the macro out and snapped one of my only torch. Thinking about clearing space to add some more...

Thank you! Thanks! Have to keep it to the island otherwise it would take over haha. It did start growing on the glass before I moved too but I think I like it better confined just to the island.

Finally some new pictures! Almost everything is growing great at this point. Zoas are definitely slow but I think that's because I've really optimized the tank for SPS. Let me know what you think!

Well the tank survived the move! Made quite a few new frags but so far no losses. Also took the opportunity to rescape the right hand side of the tank so I’ll try and take some pictures once I have the frag rack out of the tank.

Sorry about all the losses! Sometimes it definitely feels like a few things always happen to go wrong at once too…

Looks great! Sorry about your losses, on my last tank I had something like that happen and took me out of the hobby for awhile. Glad to see you’re sticking with it!

Things are growing out nicely! Not really too many updates which is a good thing at this point. Had the macro out to take pictures of some frags I listed today so also took a top down of the pocillopora colony which is getting huge (respectively for my tank...).

Thank you, that is much appreciated!!

Thanks!! Yeah no room for more frags at this point, just growing it all out!

Tank is doing well!! Had a temperature issue in the house and lost one small SPS frag and most of the red dragon but managed to save two small frags that are now doing well on the floating shelf in the back on the left. Also remounted the pocillopora on top of the small main rock on the right since it outgrew its previous location and will also provide some shade for the zoas which I think they prefer. Let me know what you think!

New FTS! Not too much has changed, just upping the dosage of all-for-reef per day. Also moved the torch and some zoas to a lower light location because I think they're getting blasted with too much light even on the sand.

So I think I figured out why the zoas haven’t been really taking off. I think they’re getting blasted with too much light even at the bottom on the tank. I noticed the zoas that are more vertical or shaded seem to be doing better. I also think the torch is also likely getting too much light even in the sand at the bottom of the tank. Thinking about trying to move a lot of that over to the left side of the tank near the bottom where it’s shaded. If it doesn’t like the strong light it shouldn’t grow all the way up to the SPS anyway. Then I’ll also have space for more SPS on the rock on the right!

Thank you! And yeah in some of my older builds I’d find them on the floor…

Thanks!!! Thanks! And yeah one day I’d love to have like a 5-6 foot peninsula tank as a room divider that you look through. One can dream… And the snails seriously do. I run a top normally that I just take off for the pictures so at least they can’t escape.

New FTS! You can really see the growth on nearly all of the SPS compared to the last FTS in November. Also I think it looks better without the big overflow box that really wasn't doing anything. Zoas are growing some but not nearly as fast as the SPS. I know they're not the most difficult of SPS, but it is still exciting to see this much growth in a 17 gallon tank with no sump/skimmer. At this point, all I'm doing is feeding some pellets once per day, changing out the floss in the surface skimmer & UV filter about once a week, and doing a 5 gallon WC every 1-2 weeks. Also, the GSP is moved down lower in order to allow the hermits to eat all the GHA off it. When it is up high they can't get to it and the snails don't do much. Once it's nearly overgrown, I'll move it back up. Let me know what you think!

Going very well! Small equipment failures but luckily I’ve caught them all quickly. The wet side of the MP10 started getting really loud and I found the ceramic sleeve had broken. Luckily I had a backup pump I use for water change mixing that I could throw in until the replacement wet side came. I noticed the corals seemed to like the higher flow so I even turned up MP10 a bit. Then the ATO would keep filling up to the top sensor instead of the bottom. So I ended up replacing that with a new unit that seems to be working now. I’ll try and take some pictures soon as I think there’s definitely some noticeable growth on most of the SPS now!

It’s the black box in the pictures. It had a small pump in the bottom that would draw water in through the teeth just like an overflow box. It just never really worked very well. Instead of a HOB skimmer, I have a small in tank surface skimmer since generally I think the skimmers for nano tanks don’t work very well.

Thank you! Things are continuing to grow! Also I ended up ditching the sumpless overflow. It really wasn’t skimming at all and then the internal pump failed causing the entire ATO not to work. Luckily I caught it and replaced it with a standalone surface skimmer with some floss and carbon inside. That is working very well so far and it all takes up less space cutting down on the amount of equipment in the tank.

Thanks! And yeah agree… that corner has just become the equipment corner. In hindsight I probably should have just gone with a peninsula AIO. Also completely agree on the UV. I never considered it a must have in prior tanks but it seemed to solve a lottttt of problems for me in this tank.

Thanks appreciate the feedback! And yeah it was the cleaning and looking ugly that really killed it for me. Luckily the sand is much easier to clean just as part of a water change.

New FTS's! Crazy I haven't posted one with sand yet. Also, I know the UV sterilizer really takes away from the minimalist look (especially with the cord in the tank...) but the water clarity and sand cleanliness benefits have just been so great that I'm not willing to take it out. Let me know what you guys think!

Great looking tank and pictures! Those colonies are amazing!

Thanks!! And the only issue is it sags a tiny bit. So if you’re a perfectionist it doesn’t look totally level. I’m sure you could shim it from the mounting point to stop this if it bothered you though. Appreciate it! Thanks!! Also, I ended up adding sand... I was tired of having to try and clean the bottom because it always looked terrible. All has been well since adding the sand so fingers crossed!

New FTS! I pushed the two islands together for a little different look. Upper left floating island is lower than normal because the anacropora lost its color so I was trying to lower it for awhile to color back up again. Let me know what you think!

Update on the two leathers. The tyree toadstool is doing great! Also recently picked up a long polyp toadstool. It’s small now but the polyps are already extending even further than when I took the picture.