2(+) Year Retrospective of a 12g Nano

[goldenmean]

couple more pics from when clowns were added

[goldenmean]

A month after I added the 2 Ocerallis I wanted to add another fish.
Now I know this is only a 12g tank but I do have a very good skimmer and I am very diligent with weekly water changes. I was able to get a small fish that has a pretty small bio-load. A Barnacle Blenny that I named Bimbo.
Bimbo is the name of a character from the old Betty Boop cartoons. Bimbo played the character named Barnacle Bill.
In these pics Bimbo is hiding in some zoas but He did find a nice tighthole in the rocks that he peers out of all the time. Then at feeding time He darts out faster than lightening to grab some food and back to his hole. He does tour the tank but only in the pitch black of night. Then if I catch him with a flash light he just freezes. In the morning he is back in his hole, watching and watching.

The last pic is a recent one from last month showing Bimbo watching me from his home.

btw I have had all 3 fish in this tank for 15 months now with no ammonia or nitrite problems at all.

[framerguy]

What a cool looking fish...looks a little CRAZY with those eyes buggin' out!

[goldenmean]

He is a cool lil fish.
Rather ugly/creepy with a look that only a parent could love.
I really loce him a lot.

[tbittner]

That is a very cool fish! Yet another fish that I've never seen before.

Your tank is awesome!

[goldenmean]

Thanks Terry.

For the next additions I drove out to the grand opening weekend of the store front for Sharkysreef.com. I came home with a pagoda cup, a small xenia colony, and some ricordia florida.

[goldenmean]

This brings my humble lil nano to its 1 year birthday!



The xenia never did real well in my tank. It split in two right after i got it. One part attached to the back wall while the other part dissolved. The part on the back wall would look great for a while then pout a lot then look good again. It slowly moved up to higher on the back wall. It survived for a few months then it to dissolved. I have read that xenia can be like that.

A close up of the pagoda cup with the polyps open

[goldenmean]

One of my LFS always has a Super Bowl Sunday Sale.
My next selections were some ricordia and a colony of Green Zoanthids.
Tragedy is about to strike.

I am quoting myself from other threads to tell this story.
From october-coral-month-zoanthids-palythoa.html

I always do a fresh water dip on a new zoa colony before it is added to my tank which will kill any nudibranch ( if not the eggs). BTW zoa munching nudibranches will become the color of the zoas they are eating so they can be hard to see..
IN Feb. of 2007 I added a new colony on zoas. All was fine for 2 weeks then I notice the new colony was not opening and polyps were disapearing. I mean they were just wasting away. It rapidly spread to the my other zoas.
I did a lot of research - read the threads that Techno-Vicki just posted a link to above. Long story made short. I lost the new colony, all of the orange colony and all of the teal ones too. I probably lost about half of the polyps of the other 3 colonies but I was able to save them. and they are doing much better and slowly growing again. They still do not look as good as they do in that pic above tho. It was really heartbreaking.

The teal colony started as an original HH on my LR when it was first added to the tank. About two months of the LR being in the tank One little teal polyp suddenly showed up. A few months later there were 5 polyps and a few months later they really started to grow. There were over 125 polyps in that colony when they caught the wasting disease. I could not pull that rock out of the tank to do a FW dip as it was the main stuctural piece of LR in the tank. It was very painfull (still is) I have not talked about this wasting disease very much but this seemed to be the place to do it to possibly help other zoa keepers.

From zoos-die

I am going through a similar problem with my zoanthids. I have lost 2 colonies and 2 other colonies have been affected but I am hoping they may survive. I found some great information on unexplained zoanthid wasting disease on RC's Zoanthid forum. It started with a new colony that I had added about two weeks before. (I always give new Zoas a fresh water dip). I threw that rock out right away but then a colony on my base rock started deteriorating There was nothing I could do but watch. A week later the colony of well over 100 polyps was completly gone. My other colonies did not show any signs of it until the 2nd colony was nearly all gone.


Fresh water dips seem to have slowed the progression of this wasting disease on a couple of my colonies along with small water changes every day.
I think I have saved these but have probably lost about 2/3 of those colonies. I have another colony that is clearly a different species and they have been unaffected.

[goldenmean]

Here is a full tank shot taken 5 or 6 weeks after last years Super Bowl.

The few orange zoanthis on the left did not survive.
In total I lost all of 3 colonies
I did save about 1/3 of 2 other colonies.
The colony in the center of the pic did not seem to be affected.

Right now I am noticing that the GSP are not looking too good.
In the next few months I lost them too.

My beautiful tank took a hard hit.
I was devastated!
it still is painful.

[tippMANn98]

THIS IS GREAT!! I love this....im still waiting for my year anniversary...

[goldenmean]

Thanks Daniel for stopping by and for your enthusiasm.
I am looking forward to seeing your tank at the 1 year mark.

After loosing all the zoanthids to Wasting disease I was very leary about adding more zoas. During the crises I did small daily WC and I started running carbon for the first time. I did add a new rock of cool mushrooms about 6 weeks after I got the death to stop. Then Several months later I added a toadsttol leather. Those were the only new additions for the first 6 months of the 2nd year.
For a while The red Brain was hosting Enom but this did not last very long.
You can also see that I put together a little frag corner. The red zoanthids are survivors of The Wasting.

[goldenmean]

Here are a couple of shots of the tank at about 18 months.

[Royalscott]

Looks great. Your open brain looks huge!

[goldenmean]

Thanks!
He has always been the star of the nano.

[goldenmean]

At the 19 month mark I set up my second tank - a 55g with a 15g tall sump.
So for the next couple of months the baby got most of the attention and camera time. Here are a couple more pics of the Red Open Brain.
You can also see the Red Spaghetti worm that lives in the substrate. He is behind the red zoas