My custom integrated fuge/nano display

[PB_Smith]

A while back I decided to try for an over-the-tank refugium and fashioned one from Tupperware containers. It worked pretty darn well so after a couple months I found a guy on Amazon, Steve at WindRiderCreations, who does acrylic sump kits and other things and contacted him and he made me my little fuge/display. It is 30" L x 6"W x 9" H and holds about 5.5 gallons.
I now have it all setup and running;

it sits on a shelf that is tied to the main stand and the height is flush with the LED canopy for the display.
Here is how it is plumbed from the main tank. I have a Cobalt aquatics in-line pump in the display pumping ~230 gph through the fuge. I used a plastic tube as an overflow and filled it with rubble and I have the flow rate so it pulls just enough air down to act like a mini wet/dry setup.

I have about 12 lbs of oolite sand and 4 lbs of Fiji Mud & around 10lbs or aragonite rubble in there and seeded it with about 6000 pods of various types. The pods are thriving in there. Trying to see if I get any type of DSB benefit from sand bed. Supposedly with oolite 3" is enough.

for lighting I am using a 30" Finnex Stingray light and so far so good. I added some after market heat sinks to it and have a fan exhausting the air out of the canopy.

This is how the whole kit & caboodle looks
(excuse the glare and cruddy scaping, have another 20lbs of rock and rubble coming this week, so the scape is temporary.)

I have two fish in there as well, a very shy clown goby who hides in the folds of the sea lettuce algae and just got this little guy two days ago;

He is absolutely lovin' the pods in there, thinking about going back and gettin' him a girlfriend.

Noticed a cool thing with this guy, but have yet to capture it on camera,
he blows smoke rings.
When he is looking for pods in the silt and he expels it out his gills, it makes little rings, it looks totally awesome.

 

[coralbandit]

I've seen the "smoke rings" with my mandarins over the years!
Nice looking set up.
Get him a girl!

 

[PassengerTN]

What kind of goby is that!? I know very minimal about marine fish, but that thing is COOL!

Jesse

 

[PB_Smith]

It's a red ruby dragonet.
He is a relative of mandarins.

 

[PassengerTN]

So its NOT a goby? Really pretty either way

Jesse

 

[PB_Smith]

So its NOT a goby? Really pretty either way

Jesse

Some folks call them gobies and they are in the general family.

Managed to get a pic of my clown goby hiding in the algae;

if it wasn't for the red stripes I don't think he could be seen. his body coloration matches the algae perfectly.

 

[PB_Smith]

Been an eventful 4 days, rescaped both the nano and the main display this weekend.

I like it as there are different levels side to side and front to back. Even though it looks cluttered, the back wall is clear along the bottom so junk doesn't get trapped and the fish can easily swim from one end of the tank to the other along the back.


Thursday I saw a royal gramma about the same size as the one I think my brittle star ate, but within an hour the damsel, flame angel and six line wrasse ripped him up pretty bad. by the time I could get him 95% of his tail was gone, and the wrasse was beginning to take running attacks at him and knocking scales off his side.

So he is now in the nano on top and has settled into a barnacle and is already growing back his fins rather well. I'm sure he will be fine.

some dusters in the nano;

So Saturday I start to do my routine water change, but decide to do a large one, 20+ gallons, as I'm messing with everything today.


while at the store getting water I also picked up these;


a bluegreen mushroom;

A toadstool;

he's still not happy, but looks great when all it's polyps are out.


and this little hammer;

So far they are all doing fine.

So I'm doing my stuff, tank 3/4 of the way refilled, scaping done, just cleaning up the sump and whenever I go to turn the pump back on it goes for a second then nothing.

I had knocked the strainer off and it sucked something into it and snapped the impeller shaft. so a quick phone call and I'm back out to the store for a new shaft and I take off leaving everything sitting as is.
Get back make my repairs. Set everything up, button up the top/canopy and go eat dinner and then some TV and bed.

Next morning I get up, everything looks great in the tank so I go about my day.
A few hours go by and I think "I haven't seen my mandarin yet today?"
So I poke and search and he is gone, vanished, not a trace?????
My first thought is he somehow got trapped under some rock work or something, so I painstakingly dismantle all my work and move/pick up literally every piece and still nothing. I doubt it could have jumped, mandarins just aren't jumpers.

Perplexed I put it all back together and sit and ponder and then it hits me,
I haven't seen my longnose hawk either!!!
I know he's not in the tank so I grab my phone as a flashlight, move stuff around and sure enough, there is my hawkfish just behind the tank, dead and shriveled.
He must have jumped out when I was at the store and in all the fuss I simply didn't notice..
I feel totally gutted to have lost two of my favorite in one day, and due to my hast and carelessness.

 

[cgthebeast]

Man, I hate to hear that about your fish, always sucks to lose a favorite. I absolutely adore this tank though, very sharp and vibrant.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[coralbandit]

Yea sorry to hear about your hawk.
Did you look in overflow or filter for mandarin?
They're not jumpers at all.

 

[PB_Smith]

Man, I hate to hear that about your fish, always sucks to lose a favorite. I absolutely adore this tank though, very sharp and vibrant.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

Thanks for the compliment.

Yea sorry to hear about your hawk.
Did you look in overflow or filter for mandarin?
They're not jumpers at all.

Yeah my tank is acrylic with the top so the overflow is up against the top with maybe a 1/16" space, so not possible, but yes, I checked it anyway, LOL.

I am really puzzled by this.....

 

[coralbandit]

Did you have both a mandarin and the ruby red in the same tank?
I was under the impression that mandarins may have a toxic "slime" on their skin that keeps other fish from eating them so I would not think the body would just disappear?
Or at least not so quickly?
Hope it turns up!
They are one of my all time marine favorites(have 3 now) along with the marine betta(also have 3).
Loving the Gramma also!
They are the eternal "barking dog" IMO.
They go around with their mouth open but wouldn't bite anything even when being beat by them!
Have always had 1, but never managed to get a pair to work even in a 120.

 

[PB_Smith]

In the same system but separate tanks. The ruby red is in the nano/fuge on top with the gramma and a clown goby.
I decided I'm not going to replace the hawkfish even though I really like them because since I began adding coral to the tank, he developed the annoying habit of going from coral to coral and sitting on them whenever they would start to open up.
Almost got a green spot mandarin this morning, but they were all far too emaciated to even hope to have them survive, too bad.
did get a couple more mushrooms and another one, I forget the name right now.
Will post pics later and my new blue/green shroom has really opened up and is now almost 2" across!

 

[coralbandit]

I have always kept the psychedelic/striped ones myself.
My LFS had "red" mandarins a year ago or so.
I just didn't see the "value" with my "common "doing so well!
I have kept mandarins since the 80's!
Mine always seem fat!
I have a flame hawk in my 120.
He had a long nose for company who>>>>jumped out even with 1/2 glass cover over back/overflows,and a 3 sided canopy around the rest(not first time for me with this).
Looking forward to pics!

 

[PB_Smith]

some random pics;

 

[PB_Smith]

a few more;

got another frag and glued it to the little shelf and glued that to my overflow box, hoping they will grow the shelf bigger;

 

[PB_Smith]

I've been ill the last few days and slept most of today. got up a couple of hours ago, figured may as well feed the critters.


Found my flame angel dead in the back of the tank.
must have happened overnight because he was fine last night, but pretty well ravaged by the little critters by the time I noticed.


What the heck??!!! that is like 3rd mystery death in 2 weeks
all water parameters are good, only obvious issue is it has been hot and the tank has crept up to 85 degrees (been shopping for a chiller the last few days)

I am puzzled, perfectly fine one day, dead the next.

 

[mr_X]

The picture with the Bi color pseudo....That algae is NASTY! Don't let it get to your display. If it's the caulerpa I'm thinking of (prolifera), it anchors itself to everything and can not be manually removed, nor is it eaten by anything. It will choke everything out. It's almost as bad as taxifolia IMO.

 

[PB_Smith]

You mean the royal gramma,
but yeah I have a small patch growing on the top rock in the display, but I am not allowing it to grow anywhere else.
It has filled the mini fuge and I am beginning to see some benefits. Between that and a new lawnmower blenny, my hair algae and cyano in the display are almost nil.


I have now also solved a mystery of the mini fuge overflowing. It would function perfectly all day for hours on end and then it started to overflow at night once in a while. Now it is happening every night.

figured it out,....pods.
I guess the pod population has grown to the point that when the lights go out the become very active and have been clogging the valve I have on the return drain.

I figured it out when it overflowed a few nights ago and when I turned the lights on pods were everywhere swimming around and when I closed and reopened the valve a big pile of them went into the display.


Now I have to redo the drain valve.

 

[PB_Smith]

and I have a dead cleaner shrimp!




what the heck is going on???


that is like the third critter to be lost overnight in a week!!!!????


I doubt it oxygen or ph fluctuations, maybe some killer worm?
all parameters are good, calcium a little higher than normal at ~ 430, but not out of range.

my first suspect is the heat, tank was up around 84-85 for a few days, and is now is about 80.


this is getting discouraging

 

[coralbandit]

Something else is going on!
The heat is not good ,but I have had spikes like that without loss of cleaners.
It's not the CA either IMO.
Shut stuff of at night if possible and listen for your pest if there is one.
It really was the sounds that qued me to the mantis that hitch hiked in my LR years ago.
I got 3 out of aprox 100lbs.
I would hear them,then see them and then have to remove the rock to get it out.