I’ve got 4 shrimp in the tank and I’m now waiting for the tank to cycle. I’ve got some new gear on the way though; fresh test kits, a wavemaker, lights and more (couldn’t help myself!).

Parameters:
Alk: 13 dKH
Nitrate: 5 ppm
pH: 8

AquaClear 20 impeller on the left, and the new larger blades on the AquaClear 50 impeller in the middle.

I’ve owned a few of these AquaClear hang on back filters over the years and they’re really easy to modify. Just by changing the impeller to one from a more powerful unit increases the flow from 350 litres/hour to 550 litres/hour

After a bit of research I ordered an AquaClear 50 impeller (number 634), and a spare shaft in case (I didn’t end up needing it at all). It popped right into the pump and as soon as I switched the power back on it was clearly evident that flow was up 2 fold!

Shot a little video of this octopus.

He was actually pretty big!

And super aggressive attacking my net more than a few times.

I saw this shrimp move like a roach, it looks a lot like a pistol shrimp (but with 2 long claws).

Hands down the nicest star fish I’ve ever seen in a rock pool.

There were heaps of these big slugs too.

Collected some more natural sea water today and couldn’t help but do a spot of rockpooling, (which was one of my fave things to do as a kid!). It’s amazing what you’ll find in rock pools if you’re patient enough to wait for creates to present themselves.

Today I played with an octopus, who kept attacking my net as I was trying to catch shrimp!!! He was damn strong and almost took the net off me at one stage!

Aquascape #1.

All my probes have gone bad. Temp reading with a glass thermometer in the tank reads 26 but the digital cheapie is out of whack, the Ph meter probe is out of whack too and reads way low (new probe on order).

OK, my bad. Everything is dead due to my impatience, and lack of experience with such a small tank.

It started mid last week when the fishies killed the shrimps and ate them all. Water was crystal clear though, and fish were doing great. One of the pieces of live rock had a lot of aiptasia on it (I assume as the water quality has been improving they’ve all started to show). I made the call to try and rid the rock of them with Joe’s Juice. There were a few of them, 5-6 of them and by the time I was done squirting the juice with a syringe I think the tank started to crash.

I made a decision to remove the piece of live rock with all the aiptasia on it anyways. I removed the 3 fish and I started aquascaping with leftover base rock I have from my old setup. Stirring up the sandbed doing so (adding to the crash for sure).

I re-introduced the fish to a holding tank within the display tank and instantly realised they were at the surface gasping for air. I used marine buffer to up the Ph and did a 50% water change. 2 fishes died a few hours later and the goby died the day after.

So now I’m back to square one, pretty much. I’m disappointed in my impatience (the fish and shrimp didn’t need to die!) and I’m also quite surprised at how sensitive such a small amount of water is. For example, I put a Koralia 1 I had lying around in the tank and the temperature went up by 2 degrees within an hour.

In some ways I’m glad this has all happened now. I’m tempted to start work on an overflow box and sump for more water volume and gear to hide in the sump (skimmer, carbon/phosban reactors etc), but I’ve decided to try and stick with the concept of a simple nano with weekly 20% water changes for now.