Saying "Hi" to MR - new arrival

[Deanos]

One thing that occurred to me re: the corals on that huge rock; how much can I derive from their spacing on that rock? In other words, are the spaces between those corals on the rock indicative of how far apart I should be placing corals in my tank, so that they don't sting each other?

Coral Placement

 

[griMReefer]

Hi there.

It's great place here. It's not just about reefing. You actual make friends here too. I re-union couple old friends here too. We never knew that we love fish until we met in this forum. Just an hour ago, I found out another friend of mine has been in this forum as well.

so cool, is there like a 'what hs did ya go to' forum somewhere?

welcome tech!

 

[carpediem212]

Great setup and definitely good to plan ahead. TBS is going to be my supplier for lr

 

[techreef]

aquascaped tank pics

Here are some more pics. I've gotten everything arranged the way I wanted now. Need to mount the purple sea fan and the Whatever Coral on the Right Front. The cheapie ballast that came w/ my Sunlight Tek retro kit is giving me problems by tripping my GFCI repeatedly. The wires are somehow pulling out of the tension clip holes, which I guess is letting current arc across the three wires, as they are so close together and the wire is braided copper instead of solid copper. I'll be splicing a solid wire extension onto that power cord this weekend, hopefully curing that problem. Right now I'm running w/o my 2 actinics, but as the rock is still cycling, i'm not stressing about the lowered light dosage. On to the pics...

The sea fan (left side of tank) is in a couple of streams of water from my CL, and doesn't seem to like it. It is losing the purple flesh on the tips that are in the heavy streams, so I'll move it a little down and turn those nozzles a little away from it.

This is one of the corals that I don't have an ID for. Anyone? Beuller??

 

[reefman]

i c u got lots of carribean stuff

 

[techreef]

yeah, the rock came from the Gulf Coast of Florida, off of Tampa.

 

[techreef]

Hi everybody. Just thought that I'd update my thread w/ some pics finally.

my 2 skunk cleaner shrimp:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m26/techreef/115-1597_IMG.jpg

any ideas what this hitchhiking orange stuff is on the rock?

Cyano bacteria starting up in my sump's fuge. I managed to get rid of it by installing an MJ400 in the fuge to move the water around more, but now I don't see as many copepods milling about, so I'm still working that out...

here are my green striped shrooms, looking positively brown under the daylights. in the background are a skunk shrimp and my carpenter's flasher wrasse, which i suspect is actually a filimented flasher wrasse, and was mistakenly shipped instead of the carpenters. I didn't know enough when I bought him (from Liveaquaria.com), and honestly, he's still a good looking fish, he just won't change to gold color as an adult if it's a filimented flasher.

Baxter the midas blenny. Yes, all the major animals in the tank have names. I'll spare you the others...

candycane coral that is doing well.

a red/green lobo brain coral. I wish its coloring were bolder. i moved it to the sandbed from up near the lights, thinking it was getting too much light. It looks healthy otherwise, fully inflated and all.

can anyone ID the coral "tower" in this pic? it's at the 7 o'clock position in this pic, below Baxter the blenny. When the polyps are all fully extended, it resembles that hairy monster who wore sneakers in the Looney Toons Marvin the Martian episodes.

the mystery coral, fully extended.

you can see my "pod pile" in this pic. I built a little container out of gutter guard and zip ties. it holds several pieces of rock rubble, and protects the pods from predation in the display tank, to help out their population. (i have a green mandarin in the display)

said mandarin

a blurry rainford's goby pic

this is a recent pic showing the cyano coming on. I've been capping some of my closed loop's 9 nozzles, in order to force the water out harder through the remaining open nozzles. I'm hoping to clear up the cyano that way. I don't feed heavy, and I don't see any dead spots re: water flow in the tank. Guess it's trial and error. My next step is to put phosban or a similar product in my sump.

 

[meschaefer]

hi

 

[ellebelle]

1) It looks like your hitchhiker could be some sort of sponge or tunicate

2) Are you spot feeding your lobo? If you feed it a little mysis or cyclo every other day, it should color up really nicely. They like to eat! It's easier to feed them with the lights are off, but if it's "hungry" enough, the tentacles will come out during the day.

 

[Quang]

hey tech, i noticed you have a few paintbrush algae (the correct name?)
how are they doing in your tank? have you noticed it sending out runners and sprouting new one elsewhere? fast grower?

i was going to get some in the past, but afraid they might get out of control.

 

[techreef]

ellebelle,

Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, I do spot feed it, every night except for when a hermit or shrimp manages to steal the food out of the brain before it can envelope the bits of food w/ it's tentacles. Very cool to watch. It hasn't really colored up at all from that. Would gradually moving it up higher in the tank be my next step in trying to brighten the colors? I thought they liked medium flow and medium light.

Froggie,

I bought them under the name Shaving Brush Plant. I love their look, but something in my tank over the first 3 months liked the way they tasted even better. They have all been eaten for at least 2 months now. I did notice one of them sending out "roots" under the sand, but I have a pretty active sandbed critter population, so I guess it's possibe that once everything above the sand was eaten and the roots started to die, the worms, et al. under the sand ate the decaying roots. They didn't last long enough for me to tell you if they spread rapidly.