I've been working from home more frequently thank I'd care to admit lately so I've been extra on top of monitoring my parameters and since all this live rock has been curing since May 2021 I decided it was safe to add a small pair of picasso percula clownfish. The temp, salinity, pH, DO, Alk and phosphate levels were all identical so I really wasn't concerned about die off of pods or bacteria causing spikes. I figured from my experience that I'd go through a normal swing in ammonia/nitrate/nitrite that new tanks go through when you add new fish and that would be it, so far my prediction has been correct. Before the clownfish were added (one week post set up) my parameters shifted very slightly and since they've been added, nitrate rose as predicted and I did a good water change. So far so good!
I also added a Red People Eater Zoanthid frag along with a Rasta zoas, Dragon's Breath and
C.prolifera macro algaes from European Aquatics. I picked up three mangrove pods at FFM yesterday and put them there along with a toadstool leather frag from
@Cpage101 .
I won't be adding much more than that other than a few softie frags and maybe a couple of hardy SPS/LPS since this tank ultimately will be moved before the year's end so my impatient butt decided to add enough to give myself a good idea of what the tank will start looking like when mature. I may add a pair of Yasha gobies and a pistol shrimp in a couple of months but we shall see!
One thing I wanted to do with this tank is to monitor as much as I possibly can because I ultimately will tie this tank into a larger mangrove/macro dominated display that will be connected to my much larger, in planning, SPS dominated display I'll be starting later this year. I'm trying to get a personal better understanding of the direct impact of macro algae, flow, mangroves and surface area to water volume ratio and PAR readings has on water parameters and tank health overall.
I'm doing this using flow meters, a PAR meter, a Dissolved Oxygen meter, a microscope with camera and hemocytometer ( for measuring average pod populations), test kits, and also measuring feeding amounts, inches of fish, lbs of live rock and sand, volume in ratios to try and measure the benefits of varying amounts of macros and mangroves. Do I have a control? No so this is not a perfect experiment and the variables can only be compared to the past measurements I've taken in all of my tanks over the past 16 years so it'll do for personal work =D.
I do have some plans for documented comparison experiments I'll be performing once I finally have more room this year. One simple one is having two identical 20H tanks one using RODI and salt mix and another with NSW from here.
Hope you enjoy the pictures, I'll try and update what I'm doing here and on Reef2Reef weekly!
Eddie
