Chipmunk's 10g Office Tank

[chipmunkofdoom2]

It's been a while since I've updated, so I just wanted to drop by and post a new pic and give a status update on the tank. First things first, FTS:

The biggest news in the tank is I'm battling a pretty serious algae outbreak. I'll get to the details on that in a minute. The good news is there's a lot of goods stuff going on in the tank. I think the algae caught a ride in on the rock rubble I got from the LFS. These pieces are growing coralline algae VERY quickly. I'm hoping that as soon as I get some of the algae taken care of, it'll begin to spread to the other rocks. Also, while I haven't seen many amphipods (1, to be precise), my tank is absolutely TEEMING with copepods, and spirobid worms are popping up everywhere. I'm pleasantly surprised by the amount that made it in from just a measly pound of rock rubble.

In other news, my clowns are getting along just fine. I was worried they'd both be very aggressive toward each other since the two I received were both larger and similar in size. They haven't been figthing at all, however. I've seen both of them doing the "submissive dance" to one another. I'm not sure what that means, or if they've chosen an alpha yet, but they're getting along perfectly and haven't been aggressive toward one another even the tiniest bit, so I'm not complaining.

I changed my aquascape just a bit as well. I was doing some manual removal of the algae and while trying to get the one rock to lean up against the other, I sort of liked the look of the rock just laying flat. I decided to leave it that way. This will give me more room for vertical coral growth (I know, counting my chickens).

Now back to the algae. It looks like GHA. There are probably a few reasons why I'm having such a hard time with it.

First is overfeeding. I had to take a trip for work last week (left Sunday morning, got back late Wednesday night). It was an unplanned trip, or else I wouldn't have ordered the fish. To make a long story short, I was leaving on Sunday, and the fish had only arrived that Tuesday. They had barely started eating, so I made sure to feed them as much as I could (within reason) before leaving so they'd be okay while I was gone. They made it through just fine.

Second is that I had serious detritus buildup. The tank has been up for just about 2 months now, and I have been doing weekly water changes and siphoning junk as I go... but when I returned back from the trip, there were piles and piles of detritus everywhere. Mostly snail poop, but still, just a ton of garbage polluting the water. That's probably where a good bulk of the algae is coming from. To combat this, I got a cheap HOB filter and some Marineland floss from the local Petsmart for some mechanical filtration (don't worry, I'm changing the floss every 3 days at the most). I'm basting the rocks and the few dead spots daily in order to stir up the junk and give the filter some time to catch it. I also have begun doing daily water changes of 1 gallon. I got a large Brute trash can and have decided to mix up about 15 gallons of saltwater at a time and simply do a gallon change a day with that until it's gone. I'll then mix up another 15 gallons and repeat. The daily water changes give me a daily opportunity to siphon off some detritus and to baste the rocks to get as much junk out as I can.

Third is something I'm just sort of considering very recently, and that is the dry rock I'm using. I got the dry rock from an aquantence when he was breaking down his tank. I hadn't asked many questions about his tank or what it was used for, but I think he may have used it for a FOWLR tank, and I think he may have had nutrient problems. Long story short, this rock may have absorbed a significant amount of phosphates and other nutrients from his tank, and those may be leaching out now. This could be why the algae outbreak was so severe in my last tank. It's hard to say.

Regardless, my daily water changes, along with daily siphoning/basting and some mechanical filtration, should bring the outbreak under control. I also ordered a simple airstone skimmer as well, and hope to receive that in the next week or so. I'm hoping that as the tank becomes more established, I can reduce the frequency of the water changes and/or remove the HOB. I'll have to let the tank dictate that.

One thing I will say is that this whole experience with trying to keep the tank clean has made me glad that I've gone with a bare-bottom setup. In my previous tanks with sand, I don't think I ever would have noticed all the junk building up. I never cleaned my sand in previous tanks because I wasn't sure how best to do it. But I'm loving the ease of cleaning that this bare-bottom brings.

There are a few other updates I've made (I modified my LED light and added a motor controller to my top off pump), but those will have to wait for another time. This post is long enough as it is!

 

[StirCrayzy]

I'd hardly say that you have an algae battle, looks like you're on top of it for sure.
Keep the updates coming, especially the tease about Light! and ato motor?

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

I'd hardly say that you have an algae battle, looks like you're on top of it for sure.
Keep the updates coming, especially the tease about Light! and ato motor?

Haha, it's all a ruse, I swear. The back side of the rocks are terrible, and the big rock on the right was awful before I spent a good 10 minutes scrubbing it clean. Even now I can see the algae growing back. I will say though, the daily 1g water changes and basting the rock/tank daily has helped a lot I think. I have a small airstone-driven skimmer on the way as well. If that doesn't improve conditions, I'll consider GFO or organic carbon dosing. I'll have to evaluate how the tank looks after the skimmer is set up and broken in.

So I mentioned in my previous post that I modified my light. One of the things that made the AI Sol a viable early LED fixture was that it had focusing optics. This allowed the fixture to light tanks 24"+ deep. The trouble with having the light over a 10g tank (12" deep) is that light is not spread evenly because of the optics. Another kink is that the optics can't be removed without modifying the fixture. They can be removed, but the housing is not designed to be used without optics. As a result, removing the optics causes a lot of light loss from light hitting the housing. So, I cut out the center of the fixture.

Here's the housing before modification:

And here it is after:

The light appears a bit dimmer, but I think the color is a lot more consistent. I'm happy with the results.

Now to the motor controller. I decided to DIY my own ATO because I don't feel the commercial options are worth the money. Previously, I had used the float switch/extension cord/relay type setup, but for this tank I wanted something a little simpler. So, I got a peristaltic pump off Ebay for about $10 and powered it with an old phone charger. Since it's all DC and it's so low powered, no relay was required. Simply wire the float switch into the circuit. At 5VDC, the ATO runs about 0.5GPH, which is more than enough for my tank, but I wanted a bit more control, so I got a PWM motor controller:

Essentially, you wire this thing between the power source and the pump motor. The knob controls how the power is delivered to the pump, which in turn controls how quickly the pump moves water. I've run into a kink, however... for some reason, this controller shorts out float switches like nobody's business. I came home one night to discover my tank almost overflowing. Thankfully, since the pump is so slow, it didn't overflow, but still concerning. While I let the tank evaporate off the extra water this week, I've just returned to running the pump on the phone charger. What I plan on doing is getting a timer with minute-level resolution. By my calculation, this pump provides about an ounce of water per minute. With a timer that I can program on/off cycles for minutes at a time, I'm sure I can get to the point where the pump delivers exactly the water needed per day. I may wire in a float switch as a failsafe, in case the pump gets stuck on somehow, but the float switch wouldn't necessarily be the only thing controlling the water. I'll need to think about this a little more.

In the mean time I've ordered an even slower peristaltic pump to pair with the motor controller to make a cheap and effective dosing pump. If I'm able to get the pump to go slow enough, I'll have created a dosing pump for $15 in total parts cost. More to come on that though.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Things are progressing well in the tank. The fish are getting along very well and are very healthy. They have gotten very good at convincing me that they are being fed far too infrequently (every other day at present). I got a digital timer and have set up my peristaltic ATO to run on the timer alone. At present, it's running for 12 minutes per day, about 2 cups of water total. I'm still adjusting every morning, but I think I'm getting close to topping off exactly what my tank needs per day.

Also good news, I'm noticing the pieces of live rock that I got from the LFS have started sprouting tiny patches of coralline all over. I attribute this partially to the dosing schedule (Mg/Ca/Alk) that I've been narrowing in on. My goal is to maintain Mg of 1350ppm, 9 dKh, and 450 Ca, and with daily dosing I'm zeroing in on this number.

Now on to the bad news. My refractometer appears to be broken. I noticed this when I tested my water change water daily this past week. The way I've been doing my daily 1g water changes is by mixing up 15 gallons of saltwater at a time and leaving it mixing with a powerhead and heater. I would check the salinity daily before the 1g change and adjust as necessary to match the tank. As I was testing, I would often notice odd things, like the water change salinity would DECREASE (not possible as the container was mixing and open to air), or would increase to crazy SG every other day (46ppt in one case). Every time I would calibrate with 35ppt solution, I would find that the refractometer was way off. And this was happening every other day. I've ordered the BRS standard optical refractometer and got it shipped expedited, but it worries me not having one. If I need to do an emergency water change, I could probably get by with my questionable refractometer and the calibration fluid I have, but I wouldn't feel good about it. I've lost trust in my old (literally and figuratively) refractometer. I also have stopped the 1g daily changes as well, because I don't feel comfortable doing water changes, even small ones, without being 100% certain about the salinity.

Thankfully, the replacement refractometer should be here Thursday, or maybe Friday at the latest. I'm also expecting my air pump and my airstone skimmer this week as well. Just frustrating to finally be making progress on the algae and having to stop :/

Anyway, thanks for reading my rant.. here's a pic of my little fish as a thank you!

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Out of the blue, my one clown has come down with some sort of illness. I can't for the life of me figure out what it is. This morning before the lights came on, it looked like she had two small brown spots behind her pectoral fins. Upon closer inspection, both spots were also raised. As the lights were ramping up, I noticed there were spots on the white stripe on her head that looked darker. I'm not sure if it was this bad when the lights were off or if it got progressively worse, but as the lights go off tonight, most of the white spot on her head is covered in a dull drab grey, as is most of her second stripe. Perhaps her scales are falling off, I don't know.

The most frustrating part is that these clowns have been in my care for a month and a day today. I work in the same room as them for 8 hours a day every day of the week and they have never displayed any odd behavior at all. Never any rapid breathing, never any panicked swimming, never any stress at all. Even today, the affected clown is breathing normally, swimming normally and eating normally (like a pig, in fact).

I'm at a loss as to what caused this. Nothing has changed in the tank except for me stopping my 1g daily water changes on Sunday or so when I learned I couldn't trust my refractometer. Ran basic tests like pH (8.0), salinity (35ppt), temp (78.5), ammonia (0ppm), but nothing is off. Here's the best pic I can get. If anyone has any thoughts on what this might be, I'd be glad to hear them. I pointed out the two bumps with arrows. The part I circled on her head may look like color distortion from the camera, but it's not: the grey part is what I was talking about, and the lighter white parts are what her stripes normally look like.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Hm... well, as suddenly as the discoloration appeared, it's now gone. She still appears to have small bumps on her side, but the bumps aren't discolored, and the coloration on her white stripe is 100% back to normal.

An odd, off-the-wall theory... before the lights came on yesterday morning, I noticed both clowns very actively searching for food. I fed them as much crushed NLS as they would eat (because they won't eat the whole 1mm pellets...). Was I perhaps starving them? Or at the very least, malnourishing them? My feeding schedule was frozen mysis every other day, enough that they could eat in 5 minutes or so. I know everyone says their clowns always eat like pigs, so I didn't think anything of it when these clowns at the same way.

Full list of tank specs:

- Temp: 78*
- Salinity: 35ppt
- pH: 8.0
- Ammonia - 0 ppm
- Nitrates - <5 ppm
- Mg - 1300 ppm
- Ca - 450 ppm
- Alk - 9 dKh

 

[Oxylebius]

Could be just an abrasion or a normal color change. Watch it closely and feed it well.

Brooklynella is very common with clownfish, knowing what this is and what to look for is something I recommend if you have clownfish. Always good to be prepared. Watch the fish closely for lots of mucus production. Brooklynella also affects the gills first and the fish begins to produce a lot of mucus before other signs show up. Treatment is crucial if it is this.

Lastly, this page might put you at ease, offsite here. A list of clownfish diseases and what to look for. The first couple may be what you are looking for.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Thanks for the link Oxy, I read through all the WWM disease pages and threads (they have excellent SEO) when researching, but nothing quite looked like the bumps on my clown. Nothing like Brook, that one (along with ich) I know the symptoms for since it's pretty common among clowns. I'm continuing to monitor very, very closely.. if things get worse I want to take action immediately. Thanks for the input.

She's acting and behaving normally today, still fully colored and still endlessly hungry. She still has raised bumps on her side with a touch of discoloration, but they look much smaller. I'm more inclined to believe they're just an abrasion or bruise since she's not also losing color. I'm feeding until they stop eating twice a day, so they should at least be getting proper nutrition. I recently received my skimmer and have started up my daily water changes again, so the affect of the extra nutrients should be minimal.

 

[Oxylebius]

Thanks for the link Oxy, I read through all the WWM disease pages and threads (they have excellent SEO) when researching, but nothing quite looked like the bumps on my clown. Nothing like Brook, that one (along with ich) I know the symptoms for since it's pretty common among clowns. I'm continuing to monitor very, very closely.. if things get worse I want to take action immediately. Thanks for the input.

You're welcome. Keep us posted.

She's acting and behaving normally today, still fully colored and still endlessly hungry. She still has raised bumps on her side with a touch of discoloration, but they look much smaller. I'm more inclined to believe they're just an abrasion or bruise since she's not also losing color. I'm feeding until they stop eating twice a day, so they should at least be getting proper nutrition. I recently received my skimmer and have started up my daily water changes again, so the affect of the extra nutrients should be minimal.

The fish are getting along very well and are very healthy. They have gotten very good at convincing me that they are being fed far too infrequently (every other day at present).

I'm glad to hear that you bumped up the feedings. IMHO, I would recommend feeding your fish daily. Some species need to be feed several times a day and others need to graze on algae all day long. It all depends on your fish. But, I would advise not skipping a day of feeding for most fish (some like lionfish or eels don't have to eat everyday), as most fish should be eating a little bit everyday. Feeding a little bit so that nothing falls to the bottom of the tank to rot is what your goal should be. Killing the pumps during feedings help to make sure all the food is eaten by the fish and isn't left in the tank to rot. My two cents.

The skimmer will help take dissolved organic compounds out of the water (what excess food and fish waster breaks down into).

I'm noticing the pieces of live rock that I got from the LFS have started sprouting tiny patches of coralline all over. I attribute this partially to the dosing schedule (Mg/Ca/Alk) that I've been narrowing in on. My goal is to maintain Mg of 1350ppm, 9 dKh, and 450 Ca, and with daily dosing I'm zeroing in on this number.

Coralline algae is a calcified algae, therefore this algae takes up Ca and Alk to grow. A lot of the products on the market that are sold to grow coralline algae tend to have both Ca and Alk as well as other chemicals that do similar things as you are in keeping these levels elevated, to boost coralline algae growth.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Thanks again Oxy, good advice.

Regarding the feeding... I was trying the "every other day" to see how they got along with plans to adjust if necessary. After my abysmal failure from nuisance algae last time around, I wanted to take care to keep nutrients in check this time around. Common wisdom seems to be that clowns will always look hungry and that infrequent feedings are fine. My plan was to start out every other day and see where that lead. Perhaps it leads to discoloration and me freaking out?? Needless to say, I'm feeding daily now. I'll always feed them daily from now on. I may need to get the 0.5mm NLS pellets, though. They eat the 1mm pellets, but only if I crush it up first. I tried soaking in RO/DI to see if that made it easier to chew and break apart, but no dice: it's crushed or nothing. A 0.5mm pellet may be more to their liking.

On the plus side, the skimmer is doing a bang up job and should help with my feeding as you mentioned. It has been in the tank for just shy of 5 days and is already pulling some pretty good skimmate. I cleaned the cup yesterday after my water change, and here's what it managed to pull since then (about 18 hours total):

Admittedly, it's not a ton, but considering that the skimmer is so new, that it's air stone driven, that it cost $23 on Ebay, and that I haven't fed since the water change yesterday, I'd say it's doing well so far.

Regarding the coralline, yes, that's one of the reasons I'm trying to keep a close eye on Mg/Alk/Ca, I'm hoping to encourage the coralline to spread to the white dry rock that dominates the tank. I'm paying attention to Mg in particular, not just because it helps to stabilize Ca and Alk, but also because of some info from Randy Holmes-Farley and other anecdotal accounts throughout the hobby. From what I understand, coralline algae has a higher than average amount of Mg in its makeup. So hopefully between keeping an Alk of 9 dKh, Ca of 425-450ppm, and Mg of 1350ppm, I'll get some solid grown in the rest of the tank.

Thanks again for sharing your experience, especially regarding the clown feedings! I'll post a weekly update after the lights come on and I do a bit of clean up.

 

[Oxylebius]

Yes, clowns and other fish can be worse than dogs with the begging for food - lol.

Have you tried soaking the pellets in some liquid vitamins? In my experience, fish tend to go for food soaked in vitamins. My clowns even eat the dried algae sheets if it is soaked in selcon (which is the vitamin of my preference). There are other liquid vitamin brands on the market ( @nanoreefing4fun uses a different brand. Glenn should be around shortly to let you know what he uses).

Or is it the pellet size is too big for the clowns?

As for discoloration? Of water? The skimmer should help with this. If you aren't adding using carbon, carbon can also helps to take discoloration out of the water.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Oh no, not discoloration of the water, I meant discoloration of my female clownfish (or the one that I expect is female). Sorry for the confusion! The water clarity is fine and if possible, I'm going to try to go without GAC. I don't have anything against it, it's just another layer of complexity. And while it hasn't been proven (although one study claims it has), there is a tentative link between GAC usage and HLLE in tangs. Not that I'm keeping tanks in this 10g, mind you... I just want my reefkeeping strategy to remain consistent. If I get to the point where I have a tank that keeps tangs, I won't be running GAC and don't want to be in the habit of doing so. May be silly and a bit eccentric, but that's me

No, I haven't tried soaking the pellets. The clowns appear to be willing to eat the full pellets... they gobble them up and spit them out several times before giving up. I think the pellets are just too big for their liking. Or they may simply not be used to the texture. Not sure what ORA feeds their clowns these days or how hard it is.

 

[Oxylebius]

Okay, got it. Discoloration on the fish, not water.

Yeah, I read up on those articles about GAC and HLLE. I had a coral beauty with HLLE. You can read up on my post from a couple of years ago here: Oxy's RSM250

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

lee birch suggested two... Vitachem & Selcon I use it on nori

here hoping your clown if fine !

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Oxy, that's the exact same research I saw when researching if I should use GAC. How is the coral beauty? Do you still have it? I know it sounds silly, but if GAC has the potential to cause HLLE, even if we don't understand why very well, even if it only is because of the fines, if I can get away without using it, I'm certainly going to. With weekly 25% water changes, I think I should be able to do that.

Glenn, thanks for the well wishes. Everything is looking great ever since that one day she lost coloration. I really think I may have been underfeeding. Time will tell. Her bumps are looking a little better today and she has full color and appetite. I'm cautiously optimistic. I'd hate to lose her.. she's a little blurry in the photo below (she's the top one), but you can still probably see that she has beautiful black coloration. She's a great looking fish.

Okay, so for the weekly update. Here's the most recent FTS:

There have been a few minor changes, none that exciting.

First, I got a skimmer. It's a cheap airstone driven skimmer, but as stated above in a previous post, it's pulling some good skimmate for only being in the tank for a few days. It's called the Dymax IQ I think... made in China, cheap, but gets the job done in a small form factor, and has an outlet for a skimmate waste line. This was a big one for me since I'll be traveling for work from time to time and will need to make sure I have somewhere for the skimmate to go. If I can't empty the cup for a few days, I can hook up some airline and the skimmate will drain to a container under in the stand.

In conjunction with the skimmer, I have also started dosing organic carbon. The algae had a bit of a comeback while I was not able to perform daily water changes due to my refractometer not holding calibration. I'm hoping that like other reefers who have had success with adding organic carbon sources that this will help with the algae. My eventual plan is to stop the daily water changes and return to my 25%/week schedule. I'm hoping I can start phasing out the organic carbon dosing by then, but if I need to keep using it I will. I've dilluted the carbon source (vodka) with RO/DI water, and currently dose 2 ml total solution (concentration around 0.03ml vodka per ml of solution).

I also put my ATO on a timer instead of a float switch. The ATO is based on a peristaltic dosing pump, so the top offs are very consistent. The only problem I may face is that as evaporation changes throughout the year, I may need to adjust the amount of time the pump is on per day. As of now though, it runs 3 minutes, 6 times a day. This equates to about 18oz-20oz of water topped off daily. This is not a perfect solution, but it's a trade off. I don't want to have multiple float switches in the tank to have to worry about.

I've decided I'm not going to add any corals until I have the tank free (or mostly free) of nuisance algae. I'll also want to make sure I have a predictable water change schedule. Hopefully that's next week. Pacific East Aquaculture is actually located in MD (where I live) and they have $20 shipping to my zip code since I live so close, so I'm probably going to be ordering from them. I like the idea of everything in the tank being aquacultured (except the snails and the rubble I bought from the LFS).

Another side project I've been working on, the DIY dosing pump, has hit a roadblock. It turns out that I can't get the DC motor to spin slowly enough with PWM to be a dosing pump. Even with varying the input voltage, the pumps are just too fast to be viable dosers (about 5ml in 25 seconds, by my estimation). The issue is that if I crank the PWM down too far, the cycles are too infrequent to make the motor turn. Hobby motors simply aren't designed to be run that slowly. I'm currently looking at delay circuits and PWM circuits with variable frequency. This will allow me to essentially run the pump for a second and have it off for 10 seconds, as an example. Thankfully, these are cheap. I still should hopefully be able to put together a dosing pump for about $16 if I can get either one of those to work.

 

[StirCrayzy]

You could dilute your dosing mixture based on the minimum motor flow rate.
Physically adding more fluid, but less of the element.
Just a thought.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

You could dilute your dosing mixture based on the minimum motor flow rate.
Physically adding more fluid, but less of the element.
Just a thought.

That is true, especially since I make my own dosing solutions with the bulk dry powder from BRS and can customize the concentration. The only reason I was hesitant to do this is because adjusting the dose with diluted solutions would be challenging. It's just easier to me to increase the run time by a minute or two.

I was going to try to pilot a few of these and market them to fellow reefers if I could get a product out for an end price of $30, but with each additional part that I'm adding to this system is driving up costs. It looks like each one is going to cost $25 in parts alone. That leaves no room for any customer service or defects, or even profit. At $25 each, though, they will at least work for my own personal tank.

Loop delay circuits are pretty cheap on Ebay. I'll probably just end up wiring one of those into the design. That way I can run the pump in as many half second increments as it takes to get to about 1ml/minute of total solution.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Time for a weekly update! Here's the latest FTS:

Not too much has changed overall with the operational aspects of the tank. I've discontinued daily water changes as they were sending my skimmer into overdrive every day. I'm doing 3g weekly changes and completed one today. I'm continuing to dose carbon and am up to 0.5 ml/day total. I've also set my skimmer to skim a little on the wet side. On the dry side, it was pulling some pretty dark skimmate, but it was not pulling much. I may adjust later on, however my skimmer has an airline out let, so I don't need to worry about emptying the cup frequently. Ever since my one clown had that odd discoloration a week or two ago, I have been feeding twice daily. I'm dropping that back to once a day since I've found a food that they eat very readily and I don't think that twice a day is really necessary.

I added the first two corals this week. I felt now was an appropriate time as the algae has plateaued and I feel is beginning to receed. That, and Dr. Mac over at Pacific East Aquaculture was having a 50% off sale on all of his $15 and over frags, and when you combine that with $20 shipping since I live in PAE's backyard, I couldn't refuse getting a few corals to test the waters.

I got a green/blue Ricordea florida and a green birdsnest. Both corals arrived in great health. I'm having trouble getting good pictures of the ricordea because I'm terrible at photography, but it's a pretty run-of-the-mill blue/green ric (not a slight to the specimen at all.. just why I'm not killing myself to get a good pic). Additionally, the ricordea has not one, not two, but three mouths! It looks like it might be reaching out for more light, so I'm going to start moving it up in the tank over the next week to see where it's happy. I'm currently running the AI Sol Blue at 35/35/45 (white/blue/royal blue). The green birdsnest has been doing very well since acclimating to the tank. The polyp extension has been great since adding to the tank, and the only time I ever see polyps retracted is after I annoy it by stirring up detritus in the tank. It's my first SPS ever and I'm not a pro by any means, but it's appears to be a very healthy frag. The birdsnest actually looks MUCH better in person than it did on the site. Here's the picture PAE had on the listing:

And here's what I feel is an accurate representation of the color in my tank:

Very colorful and a great looking specimen. I'm probably going to wait until next month or so to get more corals. I want to make sure these two are doing well before I add some more. Plus I need to work out placement and securing to my live rock. I'm planning on a pink stylo and maybe an orange ricordea next. I think I'm eventually going to get some zoas, but I'm having a hard time deciding which ones and where to get them.

 

[StirCrayzy]

Nice additions, that looks just like my birdsnest, very easy coral to get yer feet wet.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Nice additions, that looks just like my birdsnest, very easy coral to get yer feet wet.

Thanks! Yeah I heard the seriatopora, stylophora and pocillopora are some of the easier SPS to keep, so I figured I'd start with them. A pink stylo will probably balance out the green birdsnest pretty well. I'll see in a few weeks if all goes well with this frag!