DaJMasta's 45G AIO Cube Mixed Reef

[DaJMasta]

Current FTS:

 

Equipment:

Red Sea Max E170 AIO tank and stand

Red Sea DIY mesh lid

Ecotech Marine Radion XR30 Pro light

Ice Cap K1-50 Skimmer w/ custom mount and SR Aquaristatik DC300GPH skimmer pump

Santa Monica Systems Drop 1.2X turf algae scrubber w/ tapped off airline from my culturing air pump

Hydor Seltz D 750 return pump (only fits the chamber with a custom low profile intake screen)

Eheim Jager TruTemp 100W and 50W heaters

2x ReefBreeders Reef Power RP-M powerhead

Cyber Power CP1500AVR battery backup (50W heater, return pump)

Livestock:

Two Banggai cardinals, orange spot goby, two firefish gobies,  two mandarin dragonets, two sharknose gobies, Hector's goby, yellow banded possum wrasse, manyline basslet

rock flower anemones, two skunk cleaner shrimp, two fire cleaner shrimp, two pistol shrimp, two derasa clams, emerald crabs, hermit crabs, porcelain crabs, tiger tail cucumber, three flame scallops, various snails, hitchhiker inverts

Acans, montis, gorgonians, acros, zoas, rhodactis and ricordea mushrooms, porites, goniopora, leptoseris, stylophora, platygyra, phyllangia, tubastrea, anacropora, lithophyllon, psammocora

 

30lbs of maricultured live rock from the Gulf, ~18lbs dry reef saver rock, 3lbs Real Reef live rock

10 lbs live sand, 40 pounds dry sand, all Fiji Pink, a little more Caribsea Aragonite Sand

 

Dosing:

Vodka: 2.2mL daily (automated)

KZ Flatworm Stop or AcroPower: 6mL daily (when I remember)

Kalkwasser: 500mL daily

Live phytoplankton (tetraselmis, isochrysis, chaetoceros): 300mL daily

 

Feeding (daily):

One frozen food cube on rotation (Mysis, marine cuisine, fish eggs, bloodworms) in addition LRS reef frenzy nano every other day or so

~1mL of each: benereef, reef roids

A couple shakes of Omega One marine pellets and Coral Frenzy pellets

 

Parameters:
Salinity: 35ppt

Temperature 27C

pH: 7.8 overnight

Ammonia: 0ppm

Nitrate: 5ppm

Nitrite: 0ppm

Phosphate: 0.4ppm

Alkalinity: 9.1dKh

Calcium: 425ppm

Potassium: 400ppm

Magnesium: 1375ppm

 

Updated: April 14, 2022

 

 

 

Edited April 15, 2022 by DaJMasta

[DaJMasta]

Where it all begins:

 

8 years ago I closed down my last tank in Kansas City, and after some planning and excitement I've come back to reefing with my largest tank yet, a 45 gallon Red Sea E170.  I've got all sorts of ideas, but have finally gotten enough equipment together to get it wet.  Rather than spill my guts about potential, undecided future plans, I'll just talk about the immediate plans: live rock and a powerhead.  I wanted to get a ReefBreeders RP-M powerhead and mount it on the back wall, but stock has been difficult to find anywhere.  In my searching I've found that the H2Pro Cyclone and like the Coral Box RN-1 are actually the same product, just under different rebrands (I assume ReefBreeders is doing the same from some unknown OEM), but I hope to have one in it by the end of the week.

As for rock, I bought a bit of live sand to help things go and that's all that's alive in the tank at the moment.  Tomorrow I hope to get a couple of small chunks of rock with some coralline and some pods to get actual life in this box, but I have wanted since well before I started the tank to use uncured rock as fresh as I can get as my starting point.  Years ago I had great luck with getting interesting hitchikers from maricultured Florida rock, getting sponges, worms, tunicates, corals, wing oysters, and much more on the few pounds I could fit into a nano, so I hope to do so again, but like the powerhead, it's been difficult to find a place that is advertising any stock.  I hope to get in touch with a few to get some rock on the way, but part of the idea of getting a bit of cured rock locally is to get something growing in there in the event that it takes a while.  The more grown-in the tank will be, the faster I'll be able to make the soft cycle needed to save as much as possible on the new rock when it eventually arrives.

Beyond a powerhead, I'll need an ATO at least as a starting point, but with the commercial options being fairly expensive for what they are and being sort of DIY and electronics inclined, I'm slowly moving towards making my own controller.  Something like a Neptune Apex would be great if I had far more money, and apparently ReefKeeper has gone under since I last had a tank... while I like the idea of open source software/hardware for it, it sounds like there are stability issues with reef-pi, and I don't really have development experience with a raspberry pi.  I've made a successful arduino mega based controller before and my understanding of electronics has come leaps and bounds since then, so while it's a far bit of extra work, I may very well DIY one.  It just comes down to featureset - switchable outlets is great and adds a lot of flexibility, but it's also a lot of extra hardware, size, and care that has to be taken working with mains voltage, but a DC-only ATO driver and temperature monitor would be cheap, simple, and safe.... but lacks any true controller ability down the line, which I'll likely want.

Hopefully in the next few days I can start to develop the microbiome of this largely barren cube, and then by the time I get a powerhead really moving the water around I can locate some live rock loaded with hitchikers and let the journey really start.

Edited April 5, 2021 by DaJMasta

[tpallas]

Nice setup. I recently purchased Florida live sand from liverocknreef.com and premium live rock from KP Aquatics. They were both great companies to order from and the quality was exceptional. It's made a huge difference in my tank IMO. Pretty new tank (2 months) and it's doing very well.

[howaboutme]

Welcome back and nice start!

 

Yes, the reefbreeders rpm pumps are rebranded coralbox. They provide US support and warranty is the major bonus from paying a bit more for theirs.

 

For the controller, I still use the arduino based Reef Angel. It just works but definitely geared towards DIY's. If you already know arduino, you may find old RA's for cheap but they don't come up too often. Depending on how big the back compartment is, you can always go w/ float switches for your ATO. An alternative stand alone is the "standard outlet" version ATO from Avast here. I use one connected to my RA but it can just operate separately with your preferred pump. It uses a pressure sensor, which works better than other formats. Good luck!

[DaJMasta]

 

Overnight more of the sand dust settled and I made my way to Tropical Lagoon in Wheaton for some rubble to seed the tank with proper live rock in preparation for the good stuff and in the event I couldn't find it for a bit.  The skimmer is still pulling cups of water on its lowest setting, but they are less frequent and are starting to be translucent, so it's on its way.  Tweaked the settings on the heaters a couple of times, the internal thermostat on the 50W seems to be a couple degrees higher than the 100W, and I want it to be the backup at a lower setting, but there's plenty of time to dial things in.

Played around a bit to get a better photo - the white card on the sump screen is a white balance card, and to lessen the overexposure from the intense blue, I used a 455nm long pass filter I had in an optical filter set to get a better pic than last time... but I think I'm going to order a proper warming filter - the color is still not really right and I think just cutting off short wavelengths is never going to really produce ideal results.  The light is very blue to me, bluer than I would have gotten if purchased separately, but it's supposed to grow well and I'm sure the colors will pop.  I'm used to more of a 15000k look, but this light has 3W of moonlight LEDs (more violet than blue), 10W of cool white, and 80W of blue.... so while I'm staggering the channels a bit to get some whiter light early on, it will never be the predominant color for the primary growth period.

 

I even spotted my very first livestock on putting in the third or so chunk of live rock, a tiny shrimp that looked a little like a brine shrimp but is way better a swimmer.  Glad it's not barren any longer!

 

6 hours ago, tpallas said:

Nice setup. I recently purchased Florida live sand from liverocknreef.com and premium live rock from KP Aquatics. They were both great companies to order from and the quality was exceptional. It's made a huge difference in my tank IMO. Pretty new tank (2 months) and it's doing very well.

Yes, my previous tank, years ago (and the one before that) used maricultured rock from KP Aquatics (then SeaLife Inc) that I was very happy with - my first order included a three inch long red condominium tunicate that I managed to keep alive by feeding freeze dried phyto and not using a filter sock (both planned for this tank as well).  I had checked for stock over the weekend and neither had it (Gulf Live Rock said they did, but I emailed to try and figure out what airport freight would work like and haven't heard), but it seems like liverocknreef got some back in stock, so my order is in!

Also have tracking information for the ReefBreeders RP-M, looking forward to proper levels of flow.

 

50 minutes ago, howaboutme said:

For the controller, I still use the arduino based Reef Angel. It just works but definitely geared towards DIY's. If you already know arduino, you may find old RA's for cheap but they don't come up too often. Depending on how big the back compartment is, you can always go w/ float switches for your ATO. An alternative stand alone is the "standard outlet" version ATO from Avast here. I use one connected to my RA but it can just operate separately with your preferred pump. It uses a pressure sensor, which works better than other formats. Good luck!

I remember hearing about Reef Angels back then, and while it appears the old version is no longer for sale on their site (and the new one maybe has stability issues?), it's good to know that it's still functioning well enough.  I'm a fan of the simple hardware, though the advanced features are nice.... it's hard to find the balance at a nice pricepoint.  I was planning on float switches just because I have some on hand and because since I've got a 3d printer, I can make mounts with guards that should be able to keep them fairly debris free, plus I can add an additional sensor for over and underlevel to the stick I put them on.

Still pondering the DIY controller route, and trying to map out how it would work in my head - probably a low level controller for the basics (temperature, ATO, sensors), a higher level controller for the display, buttons, management aspect and misc. outlet control, then a watchdog micro running a very simple program that just generates and verifies a heartbeat from the other controllers as well as monitoring input voltage, current consumption, and a sort of emergency alert buzzer.  Then there could be another controller to manage a sort of webserver, which would allow for email alerts, but that would be the lowest priority.  Being sort of modular means I can focus on developing specific parts in order of importance and I can physically partition the code (so updates to one part aren't as likely to brick important functions if there's an error), and having a dedicated watchdog means if something does hang or there is some hardware issue, the other micros can at least alert that the system isn't working properly and can do their own thing (or default to a failsafe mode) as appropriate.

We'll see, it's certainly a substantial undertaking of time and I have plenty of projects.... but it would be enjoyable work and a lot of it would be pretty straight forward to implement.

[DaJMasta]

Heard from Live Rock N Reef today confirming the order, giving a rundown of the procedure, and getting sort of a description of how to start a tank from them - though I don't really expect to use the "old method" for cycling nor the method they recommended - bottled bacteria boosters and food for a quick cycle.  My plan, instead, is to slowly promote bacterial and microfauna growth using the small amount of live rock I got as seed until I can get the full blown live rock from them and get the biodiversity I'm hoping for.  The more I can build the bacterial population of the tank before it shows up, the shorter the mini-cycle of adding even very fresh shipped rock to the tank, since something will surely die in transit, and the closer to an ecologically functional tank I'll have after the new rock is introduced.  The call today told me that while it was sold as in stock, it will likely be two weeks before it can actually ship (then ships overnight), so while I'm a little disappointed with the timeline, it should work pretty well for the overall plan and will likely be more stable than if I could get the rock this week in the same condition.

 

Did my first water testing today and while the pH is a hair under where I'd like to try and keep it, the parameters look good and as expected so far.  8.1pH, 0ppm ammonia, 2.5ppm nitrates, 0ppm nitrites.  Since I've now confirmed that the tank is pretty barren/nutrient poor and my goal is to build bacterial biomass in preparation for the live rock, I also fed the tank for the first time today, about 8 tiny pellets of freshwater food I had lying around, less than 0.1g in total according to my scale.

 

A tiny amount, but basically I want whatever bacteria that I have in the tank that break down ammonia into nitrate to still be fed and multiply, and I want to make sure any copepods or other microfauna that came in on the rock will be able to eat something, since there is so little available in the tank, so they can keep multiplying too.  If I can't detect ammonia in the tank, I can probably still safely feed it to increase the bacterial population further, the only issue being the buildup of nitrates and other things like phosphates, but the skimmer (which is now operating normally but not pulling skimmate) will help for that and a small amount of algae being present, especially before the proper live rock is added, is probably a good thing, since a lot of the microfauna will need it to keep growing in.  In any case, I'll have a couple weeks to monitor and feed as appropriate to try and get some real quantity of bacteria deposited on the rock and in the sand in preparation of what's to come.

I saw something drifting around the tank last night and caught it, confirming that I've got my first bristleworm.  Looks like a reef-harmless variety, and I don't generally consider them pests, so I'm glad to have two confirmed organisms in the tank.  I've got a lowish magnification microscope (max of about 200x) setup for other work, so I put it in a tupperware and took a look - it had just balled itself up and was drifting in the flow of the tank when I caught it.

Because of other interests and work, I've got access to a number of unusual scientific and measurement tools, so I hope to use at least some of the next couple weeks familiarizing myself with some unusual parameters, and when I finally have proper livestock, I hope to be able to show some photography from outside of the visible band.  Even with almost nothing moving in the tank, usually just the occasional grain of sand, I still find myself staring into the tank whenever I pass by.

[DaJMasta]

 

Things are going smoothly and uneventfully.  Thanks to the very low nutrient start, I haven't seen a bloom of anything (yet), and things are starting to get dialed in.  I ran a full set of tests (though I didn't have a phosphate test kit) yesterday and have been doing the nitrogen cycle stuff daily to keep an eye on things.  Nutrient levels are still very low to undetectable, so I'm ramping up feeding from the 8 tiny pellets three days ago, all the way to twice that today, so still a very small amount, but hopefully scaling at a rate the bacterial population can match without issue.  I expect that if I can see an ammonia "spike" of about 0.25ppm I'll either not feed for a day or feed the previous day's smaller amount, because I don't really want high enough levels to spike things and encourage a bloom, I just want a slow increase across the board.

 

The skimmer has stopped pulling water (and is a bit quieter since I cleaned out the magnet for the impeller that was making some noise) and the foam looks pretty thick, which I think is  perfect for the eventual arrival of live rock.  I want it to be broken in to be able to pull out nutrients with the sudden spike that will accompany the rock, but I really don't think pulling stuff out of the system at this point makes sense for growth of the bacterial population.  I may have a lead on getting rock next week instead of the following one, but we'll see if it works out.

 

The pH was a tad low, at 8.1, and the alkalinity was lower than the salt mix claims at 8.9 dkH, and while neither is really cause for alarm, I figured I'd take the opportunity to see what kind of reaction I get from dosing and gave it some kalkwasser with the top off water.  Something like half a teaspoon in total and I'm up to 8.2 pH and 10.5 alk, which is plenty until things start growing, but I suppose not a bad thing to test out before there is more sensitive livestock in there.  Hopefully the higher pH and alkalinity will help get the coralline started - the sooner the better with the bright white dry rock.

 

In my evenings examining the tank I think I've spotted a snail or something, very small and seeming to move around on a piece of rock, but not there during the day and haven't really seen movement, just in different places at different times.  Aside from that, I found a neat little feature (?) of the tank - the black rear wall isn't opaque, it's just sort of smoked glass.  That means if you shine a flashlight back there, you can actually inspect the rear chamber pretty well even when up against a wall, and the light from the heater shines through a little bit so you can tell if it's running.  On the topic of heaters... my 100W heater is set to 82F and my 50W heater is set to 71F... which seems to keep the tank at about 79F and the 50W heater as off most of the time.  They both seem to be pretty far off target, but at even 72-73F as a setting for the 50W, it will be on even when the tank's already at 79F....

 

Should be getting the powerhead tomorrow, and though it's in early planning stages, I do think I'm going to make my own controller (and document/open source it).

[howaboutme]

Great progress! I cycled my tank with only ghost feeding as well. Love the old school method.

[DaJMasta]

I'm glad to see signs of it coming along, but I don't know if this qualifies as ghost feeding.  Since I had some live rock from an established system put in after the dry rock, my goal is to feed the stuff that came in on that, rather than just feeding the empty system.  Maybe with the maricultured rock the new bacteria will dwarf anything I've got in the tank at the time and it will work out similarly, but I suppose we'll have to see.

I do now see some small brown patches on the dry rock, presumably diatoms, and definitely photosynthetic as they had some small bubbles when the lights were going.  More of this color on the imported live rock, but a little bit sporadically on everything.  Will keep an eye on parameters and maybe reduce feeding as I'm trying not to let things spike too hard (as to outcompete some of the biodiversity already present), but I am glad to see some signs of life - even 'nuisance' algae blooms in small quantities are just food for higher order life forms, so seeing some early on probably means good things for the nearer term pod population.

[DaJMasta]

A few more days of progress:

I've been testing some things every day (nitrogen cycle, salinity), then alkalinity occasionally to keep a handle on things.  On Thursday I saw some patches of diatoms and on Friday they looked like a full on pox on the tank - just darkening the bright white rock and making tiny bubbles with the lights on.   I tested before adding any food to make sure I wasn't pushing things too far, but have ramped up the food everyday.  On Friday I also used the turkey baster on the rocks and spread the diatoms around a bit - also finding more particulate than I expected with such a small bioload, though I've been slowly seeing things sticking off the bits of live rock.  The powerhead arrived Saturday and it started blowing the sand around - but I expect the pattern and amount will change with the extra rock, so I'm not so concerned.  There was more diatom growth, and on Saturday, maybe thanks to the basting, it was a much more even layer of color rather than pox-y splotches, even on the underside of the rock.  Saturday night I even think I found my tank's first aiptasia!  I'll be hitting it with kalk paste tomorrow during the day when I pull the rock to confirm...

 

 

Today, Sunday, I ran the normal tests and found the Nitrates drop to zero overnight from about 3ppm - a quick enough change that I thought I maybe had missed a reagent in the test or something... but I suspect it's the little mini diatom bloom I'm seeing, though it had little impact on the numbers earlier.  Since they're photosynthetic and appear to be the fastest growing stuff in the tank, it occurred to me that maybe I should be feeding at night rather than during the day so that the nonphotosynthetic bacteria get the first crack at the nutrients before the diatoms soak it up, but I'm approaching the end of this early stage, so I'm not sure if changing it now will be helpful.  I say I'm approaching the end as I should have some Florida live rock in this thing by this time tomorrow, I should have a waybill tomorrow morning.

 

In preparation for the inevitable troublesome hitchhikers that come on maricultured live rock, I designed and printed a little isolation bracket that hangs on the side of the tank, then I uploaded it for whoever to use here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4825252  There always seems to be some xanthid crabs or something which hang on and which I don't want to just kill, so I'll drop anything obvious in the basket for observation and then maybe giving away to someone interested.  I have a second basket printing for the opposite corner (about a 22h print), but I've gotta get on designing a trap too, I know for sure that if there are xanthid crabs, there will be some that don't jump off and are a pain to try to catch in the tank, so having a trap I can drop in early on should make it a lot simpler.

 

 

Looking forward to driving to the airport to pick up my new rock tomorrow!

[lynn.reef.nerd]

Wow!! that's a neat basket. Would also be great for nems! 

 

@telegraham check this thing out!

[DaJMasta]

A sort of intermediate update for a big day... I got 30 pounds of maricultured rock into the tank!

 

 

No aquascaping yet, the priority was to get everything underwater and try to find some of the hitchhikers, so it will be a day or two until I can figure out how to build up the shape I want, but these rocks were really packed with life.  The water parameters earlier in the day were also quite low nutrient, so I will see how the rock makes things spike in the coming days!

35ppt Salinity

79.5 F

8.15 pH

0.05ppm Ammonia

0.2ppm Nitrate

0ppm Nitrite

0.01ppm Phosphate

9.1 dKh Alkalinity

450ppm Calcium

1395ppm Magnesium

0.03ppm Sillicate

I ended up getting my rock through Salty Bottom Reef Co because they had stock that they could ship quickly and were a good bit cheaper per pound than the other option I was chasing (About $30 cheaper for 5 more pounds).  They were in contact to setup the air freight, and while the shipping company bumped the connection back to arrive past the cargo office's hours... at the connection it was bumped back up, so I managed to pick it up at Dulles at around 6:30pm after it being entered into the system at around 8:30am the same day.  12 hours from the shipping time I was unloading it into the tank, and this meant I saw no dead critters just falling off of things, and it really didn't smell off either.

 

I was quite pleased with the hitchhikers found so far, and while there are some mystery crabs that could be problematic and some macro algae that probably won't stay, I don't think I've found anything particularly alarming.  I've found:

A 2" striped serpent star

A micro brittle star

Two mystery crabs that I put in the isolation box
Two mystery crabs that I missed and are in the display somewhere...
Two pistol shrimps (one Alpheus formosus striped snapping shrimp which looks beautiful and has been snapping away, and one half inch long clear juvenile of some type)

Two 'nerf ball' rocks entirely encrusted in orange sponge

Wing oysters

Tunicates and other sponges

Feather dusters

Several star coral (montastraea) colonies

Half a dozen greenish with white stripes warty sea anemones (best guess ID)

Limpets
Worms, tons of pods, the usual microfauna

Lots still yet to find, and some tentative IDs still needing more confirmation.  I was amazed that the water and sediment collected in the bottom of the bag, when you shine a light on it, was vibrant and alive with hundreds of pods, a bunch of worms, and that half inch long juvenile pistol shrimp.... so while I threw away most of the water, I dumped the grunge right in!

With such an increase of biomass, I didn't feed today despite even lower nutrient levels than the day before (and a slowly increasing feeding schedule), and I've got 10G of saltwater brewing anticipating a water change tomorrow and a measurable ammonia spike, but honestly this may be the softest cycle a tank of mine has ever had - while I had used similar rock before, it was always newspaper packed and shipped priority mail, whereas the total transit on this stuff was maybe 12 hours and it was submerged in water (30 pounds of rock in a 60 pound package).

I look forward to finding all sorts of creatures and getting some of them under the microscope!

 

[howaboutme]

Wow so cool to explore what you get in a real live rock.

 

How are you going to aquascape w/ the wet rocks? Are you going to glue any of the rocks together or just stack?

[DaJMasta]

It'll be a combination of gluing and stacking - the dry rocks were glued together to be a stable base, and while I'd like a fairly vertical aquascape and know I want to glue/epoxy putty to get that stable and solid, I want to be able to take it apart into a few pieces as needed as well, so probably half or so of the joints between parts will be glued in some form, but we'll see.  Today I did some test stacking for a new scape, but nothing's glued yet.

 

It kinda looks like a pile from the front, but it's basically a vertical wall in the back and a little pillar on the right side, something like this is what I was going for, but it still has a pretty distinct pule-of-rocks look, so we'll see how it gets adjusted.

 

 

Found some more stuff on the rock - last night I spotted a tube anemone (maybe half an inch around, red tentacles, green oral disk) that came out at night (which is now facing the rear wall in the current scape...), and I spotted a red mithrax crab eating some brownish algae looking stuff on the rock... but this afternoon was the real surprise - I've got a mantis shrimp.

It was both exciting and sort of scary, but it pushed up my "design and print a trap" schedule, so I should have traps in the water tomorrow to catch it.  In the mean time, I've been trying to get a picture of it but have only managed blurry shots of the face, but in my aquascaping I heard the buzzing of a shrimp flapping around in the bucket I moved some of the rock to, and on adding one piece back to the tank, I saw a two inch long or so sand colored mantis swim off and to the bottom.  It's been sort of inquisitive, after spotting it in a hole a couple times and shining a light in, it actually came out to have a look around a bit, but a proper picture has been elusive.  Very tentative ID would be a Neogonodactylus curacaoensis, but that's only based on coloration and basic shape, I haven't gotten a proper look.

 

Also spotted a red bristle star leg in a hole in a piece of rock, so I think there's at least one of those around too.

 

On the water quality side of things, I basically haven't seen much of an ammonia spike (measured 0.1ppm, then after the water change 0.05ppm), which is great, but I definitely saw big increases in nitrate (100x to 20ppm) and phosphate (now 0.5ppm), and there was just a bit of that scent to the tank, so I went ahead with the 10G water change and have tomorrow's water brewing anticipating high nutrients that are better out than in since there's still plenty of room for blooms of things.  There are some visibly damaged sponges and things, so there will probably be some decay over time, but the water is looking clear again and the particulate in the water column is definitely more settled.


So hopefully I can catch that mantis in short order, maybe get a video of it striking something (I've got a camera I can get to 830fps or so), and then find a good home for it.  Just dumping it in the back compartment would be such a waste, and it really does seem like a creature with some personality, but I want inverts and small fish.... so this is not the tank it shall stay in.

[DaJMasta]

Well, every day that goes by I find something new.  This time, I managed to make it into the afternoon before realizing I don't have a mantis shrimp........... I have two.  The one imaged above with the orange antennae and light blue face has a dark blue/black body and is about an inch and a half long, whereas the two inch tan one actually has a reddish face/antennae/claws and has been busy digging holes around the rock on the left side.

 

Luckily, by the time I realized there was two, two traps were already about halfway printed, and while I haven't caught one yet, I added a third trap with a bit of dry food as bait.  Will probably stop by a store to get some mysis or something as a meatier food to bait traps with... and even if the traps don't work and they get out, at least they will have had a good meal and have a smaller chance of killing the other hitchhiker inverts before I can get them caught.

 

 

Not sure if they're spearer or smasher type mantises, but the previous ID need not apply as that was a combination of features of both.  I think the one with the much darker body may have a juvenile coloration variant, as I haven't yet seen a mantis that looks like it to me yet.

 

Earlier in the day I found the main powerhead stopped.... because a chunk of sponge had gotten stuck in it.  Not sure how long it was stuck, but probably a few hours.  No obvious signs of distress from the pump, but to its credit it stopped and didn't damage itself when jammed up,  Cleared the chunk and it started up fine.  Also shows me that the rear of the rockwork along the back wall is the lowest flow area - lower flow areas are where the diatoms collect, and they're mostly just back there when the powerhead is on.

 

In more mundane news, the water testing continues.  10G water change today as well, Nitrate at 20ppm and Phosphate at 0.5ppm as yesterday, though still no detectable Nitrite and low ammonia (there seems to be slight color to the cloudy water, so I'm estimating between the lowest measurement and zero).  The skimmer is turned to skim a bit wetter, a little bit of kalkwasser was added to try and keep the pH above the 8.1 it seems to settle near, and redoing the aquascape is on hiatus until I can ensure the safety of my fingers!

[DaJMasta]

A after-the-lights-go-out surprise: a little black worm looking thing on the front glass... turns out I've got some unknown nudi as well!

 

All black, top and bottom, with a bright orange line on the frill.  Decently fast on a surface, swims like a worm but can't really manage the flow well.  I put it in the basket and gave it a PVC fitting to hide in (will probably not be happy when the lights come on), but I don't even know if the 2mm holes will keep it contained - it could certainly fit through.

Any idea which it is?  Would be neat if I could keep it, but I know their diets tend to be VERY specific.

[DaJMasta]

A tentative ID on the flatworm (not a nudi) is Pseudobiceros periculosus, but the species range I see around is Indo-Pacific, so I'm not 100% on it.  Seems to look the part and swims the same way, and while it has the little curls near the face (as many flatworms seem to do), it doesn't have the characteristic appendages on its back like a nudi.  It wasn't in the basket the following morning, but I saw it on the rockwork as the lights started to dim the next night, hope it has a food source because it sure looks neat!

 

Yesterday seemed straightforward enough, similar water parameters, similar 10G water change, bought some mysis shrimp for the traps and ended up spot feeding a few corals and nems and things.  Then at like 1am after the lights went out, I took a look with a flashlight and..... what a surprise.

Then I caught a few in a tiny beaker and took a look under the microscope...
 

My head tells me that the mantis shrimp lifecycle hatches nauplii out of the eggs, which don't look anything like adult shrimp... but my eyes tell me that these look like small mantis shrimp.  The fact that I've got two, and two at about the right size to be a pair only points more towards my suspicion... which is both very cool and somewhat scary.

 

This morning came and I didn't see many signs of the tiny shrimplets (if they were shrimp), but the adult mantises have been getting more comfortable (both good and bad) and both came out into the sand at the front of the tank briefly in the afternoon.  The smaller, presumably male, blue one has a dark blue/black body with slight variation between the segments, and the larger, presumably female, mantis is basically a single reddish sandy tone.  I've seen the blue one in the burrows the reddish one made now more than a few times and haven't seen violence, only pointing more towards potential pairing - I don't really expect mantises would be in social groups rather than solitary vs. paired.

Still haven't caught either, but they are bolder so more likely to check the traps, I suppose.  Will try baiting them again tomorrow if I can't get them caught tonight, their activity seems to be mostly in the afternoon to early evening, and I haven't seen them out much at night, at all.  I really want to get them caught so I can finally fix my aquascape, haha, don't want to stick my hands all over the rocks with mantises on the loose.

 

Three traps submerged and jank white balance because I forgot to use the filter... oopsie.

[DaJMasta]

Today the tank's had water for two weeks... and what a two weeks it has been.  Yesterday I managed to catch a mantis shrimp!  The downside being that I caught it in a net after it was chased up the rear glass fleeing.... a third mantis shrimp.  All three are smasher type, and two of the three are in holding baskets (I've printed a third) as I managed to pull the rock with one today and then remove the rock from the basket when it was walking off of it.

 

Their behavior in the boxes couldn't have been different, the reddish one caught first just hid for half a day before looking around, occasionally moving the locline and other fitting I put in the box for something to hide in (no suitably small PVC elbows on hand), though it's been looking out of the tubes a bit more today and moved around a little.  The second one has been running around the box continuously, over, under, and through the various bits in there, pushing them and squeezing through things as it pleases.  Both have come up to the waterline when exploring and stopped... but I noticed that the second one (the smaller blue one with orange legs and antennae that I first spotted in the tank) would actually start trying to walk even above the water.  It always stopped before the rim, but a top is printing now and I'll be designing one for the corner boxes as well.  Don't want to have them get back into the display after it took this long to catch them.

 

The traps have so far been ineffective, seemingly mostly because they're not interested in the bait.  Maybe mysis are not their favorites, maybe they just have plenty to eat, but one of the shrimp spent some time hitting the side of the trap, hitting the fishing line on it, and hitting the rocks next to it while squeezing by, but never bothered to actually go in for food.

 

As for the rest of the tank, the aquascape is still on hold until the last (and largest/most aggressive) mantis is caught, the ammonia and nitrite is basically zero, and the nitrate and phosphate is elevated.  Was doing 10G daily water changes until yesterday, if I do more than 5G it drops below the bottom of the basket, so rather than dry out the shrimp I'm moving to 5G nightly water changes as ammonia doesn't seem to be an issue.  Starting to see some of the algae on the rocks grow a bit and looking forward to some manual removal once the last mantis is accounted for.

If you're interested in having a mantis, I plan on throwing them up in the sale/trade forum once the last one is caught, it would be a shame to dump one in the sump (and dumping more than one would probably kill the other), and they are really interesting creatures with very visible curiosity, but since I want to have a variety of small inverts and fish, they are not for this tank.

[howaboutme]

Wow, what a journey for your tank so far! I find it super crazy you got 3 mantis hitchhikers. They are interesting to watch for sure.

 

I hear @YHSublime was looking for a mantis.

[YHSublime]

6 hours ago, howaboutme said:

I hear @YHSublime was looking for a mantis.

 

Yup, you heard right, was actually looking for a Peacock Mantis in particular, hard to tell from the photos. 

 

15 hours ago, DaJMasta said:

If you're interested in having a mantis, I plan on throwing them up in the sale/trade forum once the last one is caught, it would be a shame to dump one in the sump (and dumping more than one would probably kill the other), and they are really interesting creatures with very visible curiosity, but since I want to have a variety of small inverts and fish, they are not for this tank.

 

Can you tell what kind they are? 

[DaJMasta]

Managed to catch number 3!

 

Not a lot of info on species, I've been looking around at species lists for the Gulf and haven't found a match for any of them, though in all probability there's just a good bit of color variation and they're all similar species or closely related.  I'll try to get some pictures tonight in the baskets with proper white balance.  I wonder if I could even get a microscope shot of each.

All three are smasher type, all three have a similar body type, and all came from the same location.  The smallest one is dark blue with orange legs (about half way up, like socks) and orange antennae - very spiffy looking - and is about an inch and a quarter long.  This one was the most relaxed of them, sticking to its hole in a rock most of the time and investigating things that came by, but since putting it in a box on the side of the tank, it's been making the most noise (hitting the fittings in there for cover and the side of the box) and moving around the most - prompting me to design print a cover for the boxes.  The first one I caught is maybe just under two inches long, is reddish tan all over, and is the most timid seeming of the bunch - it was chased up the back glass and caught in a net while hiding on a powerhead.  I managed to get the third one this afternoon, and it's very slightly bigger than the red/tan one, it has a more mid tone body with blues/greens but not intense ones, but in the bucket it looked darker than expected - will have to get a good picture.  It was the aggressor in the tank and moved around the rockwork the most, but has been pretty relaxed in its box so far.

I'm slowly leaning towards that hatching event last Thursday being the young of one of the mantises in the tank - I've looked around at some other nauplii images for stomatopods and it seems like some do have those big arms visible, so it they certainly could have been mantis babies - and if I were to guess, they were probably the kids of the largest mantis.  I found that one last and they are somewhat known for brooding behavior - since that one and the reddish one have fought, they probably aren't a pair, but while I didn't see the smallest one with either of the others for any real amount of time, there is some chance there is a pair among them.  Could be hard to tell which short of introducing them to each other, and while the male is the smaller of the adults, I have no gauge whether the smaller one I have is a male or is just younger.

All in all, I don't really see the variation in color on the plates with any of them that would suggest a peacock mantis to me, but body type and smasher look about right.  I think at least one is adult sized, so I wouldn't expect it just to be juvenile coloration.

Edited April 19, 2021 by DaJMasta

[WheresTheReef]

Thanks for sharing this with us. It's pretty interesting seeing all these critters.

[DaJMasta]

Still haven't figured out white balance, but took some pictures that sort of show the color differences between the three:
The reddish (orange, maybe?) one:

Has some of those darker areas along the plates, but I feel like it's less obvious in person and it's a little lighter looking than the picture shows.

The blue one with orange legs:

Definitely my favorite looking of the mantises, and the one that seems to hammer on the holding box more than the rest, but also the most curious when I open the top and start looking (I had to take out the fittings in the other boxes to get the others to come out, this guy just started looking up).  There are some whiteish/light blue dots or bloches on that forward carapace, but the segments behind are all fairly uniform and dark blue overall.

And the green one:

Looks lighter and slightly greener in person, but it's a darkish not especially saturated, so it's harder to just pick an overall color for it.  There is a little color variation near the face that doesn't come through on the picture, but it's not especially defined or intense.

Apologizes for the grime, I think the fine texture of these printed boxes plus the recent diatom presence has made them look pretty grimy.

Last night/this morning I see just a little patch of green algae on some of the originally dry rock, but the diatom bloom is all but gone.  Got a first redo of the scape but nothing glued, I think the direction is good, but I want to redo some bits and glue some things down.  Trying to aim for a couple more slight overhangs to make it look more interesting while not just shading the whole bottom of the tank.

[YHSublime]

If I had to take a stab at it:

Picture 1 -  Pseudosquilla ciliata (this is a spearer, not a hammer, have you seen extended arms or just cocked and loaded?)

Picture 2 - Odontodactylus scyllarus OR Gonodactylus smithii (I'm leaning towards Scyllarus bc of the orange legs)

Picture 3 - Gonodactylus chiragra

[DaJMasta]

Interesting, got the three under the microscope and had a look - much better representation of color, and honestly, they all look like about the same species - at least, I have difficulty telling them apart aside from coloration.

 

 

Since they were out of the display, I redid the rockwork today and actually glued a few bits (though they don't seem that secure since half the gluing was underwater and the epoxy has never felt super secure before curing), and while it still does look fairly generic from the front, there's a good bit of depth from the camera, and at least this version has a good number of overhangs and little nooks for things.  Also managed to get the rock with the tube anemone and my favorite of the hitchhiker LPS on it right in the front.  Also spotted a baby pistol shrimp today (maybe half an inch long) and removed just a bit of green algae on the top of a rock.  Hopefully over the next few days the more stable rockwork and placement will mean some settling in for the creatures in there.  I still am seeing the black flatworm sometimes, and I've seen both starfish legs sticking out of holes most days.  Lots of copepods on the back glass spotted in the moonlighting, and I think I even spotted a tiny nassarius on the glass after lights out (maybe 3mm long, tops).

 

Took an FTS after the water cleared, under just the moonlights.  Aside from the reflection of a clock and a couple of hot pixels, I think it's a pretty good representation.