Finally put my tank together...

[TimSchmidt]

I get the same info on any crab. I have seen plenty of people with green mithrax crabs, honestly I don't see a whole lot of black ones. But another reefer I know of is quite experienced and I don't think that crab is a mithrax, rather a xanthid crab and not reef safe.

Photo by Marc Levenson
This is a Black Fingered Mud crab - Xanthid crab. He arrived on a coral when small, but has grown quickly. This guy is black in real life; this picture is misleading. His pinchers remind me of a Mithrax crab, but it has 'teeth' within the claws. Because he can't be trusted, he's been transferred into my refugium where I hope he'll be happy and trouble-free. Xanthids are Not Reef-safe.

 

[KoNP]

Yeah well when I had a look on this site:

http://www.chucksaddiction.com/hitchcrabs.html

Under "The Mithrax Crabs", second along on the top row is the spitting image of the crab I found.

But as it stands, he died after I took him out of the tank. He was fine and then he just seized up, froze in position and stayed like that.

Guess Rigor Mortis sets in real quick if you're a crab :lol: :roll:

 

[davenia7]

konp-
have you given "the kid" cyclopeeze yet?

It's great fun... my fish and inverts flip the heck out over the stuff.

Just get a smidge sliced off the block and use a dropper to add tank water to it.

Then feed the kids from the dropper.

It's funny... they go pretty nuts.

 

[KoNP]

konp-
have you given "the kid" cyclopeeze yet?

It's great fun... my fish and inverts flip the heck out over the stuff.

Just get a smidge sliced off the block and use a dropper to add tank water to it.

Then feed the kids from the dropper.

It's funny... they go pretty nuts.

Cyclopeeze? Don't know what that is but it sounds like I'll have to try some.

 

[TimSchmidt]

Moot point on the crab, but yep that is the spitting image of the crab. My corals tend to go nuts or cyclopeeze too. A little bit goes a long way so when she said smidge, she meant it! :cool1:

 

[KoNP]

Moot point on the crab, but yep that is the spitting image of the crab. My corals tend to go nuts or cyclopeeze too. A little bit goes a long way so when she said smidge, she meant it! :cool1:

Well if I can source some here in Australia I'll definitely give it a go.

Onto other matters. I believe I have pods, and a fair few of them. Having a close look at my glass I noticed a few tiny white things moving on the glass. Stepped back a bit - there's more of them, on the sides and back as well. They don't look like flatworms (even it 1mm I could make out feelers and what looked like the body shape of a copepod - good vision is great lol) but without a magnifying glass I can't tell for sure.

Is there an easier way of knowing if they're pods for definite? I DID just feed the tank with some phytoplankton/brine shrimp/copepod stuff in a red bottle that cost me 22 dollars, and I didn't notice these guys in these kind of numbers beforehand, so...

I really hope I do have them because that means the water quality is great, doesn't it?

 

[TimSchmidt]

Sounds like the good kind of pods for sure. Not a definite sign of great water quality, but a good sign that the tank is coming along nicely!

 

[KoNP]

Minor update with photo - things are running well. Broke up the original piece of rock today so I could resculpt the reef and I'm more than pleased with the results. Also took a toothbrush and brillo pad to the rocks to get rid of the hair algae. And we have 2 new inhabitants.

Enjoy.

 

[TimSchmidt]

Nice. Keep up with water changes and try not to over feed your fishes to keep the algae gone.

 

[KoNP]

25% every 3 days, is that too much or not enough?

 

[TimSchmidt]

I would do a little bit less, but that is just me. I am of the thought process of slow changes, good or bad. I normally do 10-20% water changes once a week. For more water changes I would simply do one more water change, no additional volume just another change of water.

 

[KoNP]

Ah fair enough. Just the way you said about keeping on top of the water changes. I mean obviously I want to keep the nutrients in the water at reasonable levels, because I don't want that algae to explode out of control like it did before. I changed out close to 50% of the water after the rock scrub session which should help.

Here's a shot of the tank at night with the lights off. I shone a torch into the center to simulate a moonbeam - I actually think it looks quite fetching. Just one question - should I invest in some blue "night lights" for the tank? Or does it not matter either way?

 

[TimSchmidt]

I like the blue night lights as most of my corals have a nice glow when blue light hits them (actinics anyone :cool1: ) But I don't think it makes much difference either way. Just as long as there is *some* light in the area (and most of the time there is).

I love that photo by the way :shock:

 

[KoNP]

I love that photo by the way :shock:

You should love this one even more then

See the patch of orange in the lower-middle? That started out white. Then a drop of the phytoplankton reef food I put in there every few days dropped on it. As we speak it's an electric-orange colour and it's spreading. The tank looks fantastic and even though there's been hitches (frogspawn coral frag with brown jelly killed several of the other corals before we got it out, plus that anemone going septic) I'm happy with the way it's going. Every success is worth a celebration and every setback is an opportunity to learn.

We got another small BTA with one of the coral frags - he's about the size of a quarter and appears very happy and healthy so far, we've had him a week and a half. The other night I witnessed one of the clowns dipping and brushing his tentacles. I hope he takes, and the fish take to him.

-EDIT-

Here's a vid of it, btw.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw45hlFH_s4

 

[TimSchmidt]

Good luck with the anemone! Check your levels very often!

 

[KoNP]

Funny you said that. I checked my levels tonight. Ammonia was ok, not 0 but close. Nitrite was somewhere between 0.5 and 1ppm, and nitrate was a little high too. Added a dose of Seachem Prime to detoxify all three, and a dose of StressZyme to help re-establish the biological filter. Everyone still seemed happy though.

 

[TimSchmidt]

Just keep checking and keep on top of the water changes.

 

[KoNP]

Just keep checking and keep on top of the water changes.

No dramas.

So, things changed a little bit tonight. Thanks to an odd phenomenon where the water in the tank repeatedly decided it wanted to be outside the tank instead, I decided to invest in a new tank - 2'x18"x18". The two possibilities of why the water was leaving the tank was either a dribbling hang-on filter, or a hairline crack either in the bottom of the tank or along the silicone. Seeing as it only wanted to do it when I wasn't looking, I figured the safest option was to just get a new tank and transplant.

So here we are. The new tank is 70 liters/18ish gallons. Along with it I bought a hang-on filter with a big square cavity designed to put socks full of various things in it (cost me $50) and a bottle of Calcium+3 supplement (calcium + molybdenum, strontium and iodine). Everybody took the move very well, the clowns are enjoying their new home even more than the old one. The bubbletip was doing somethiung very odd - he looked like the underside of a mushroom, displaying prominent "gills" - either he was having trouble due to the murk or he was filter-feeding.

I stuffed 2 lots of filter wool in the internal filter to polish the water to get the murk out, it's working extremely well. Enjoy.

Jardinei enjoying his new spot.

Bubbletip. This little guy is doing fantastically well and to say I'm pleased with his survival would be an understatement. He's already a little bigger than when we got him and he's taken to the tank fabulously. He seems a little more willing to come out into the open lately also.

 

[TimSchmidt]

I love the good news! Keep up on the husbandry skills. My anemone doest that same thing plus it will deflate every once in a while (expelling wastes is the best answer I could find).

 

[KoNP]

"Husbandry skills" lol. It's probably to do with my quintessentially dirty mind, but I had to laugh at that term. New tank is doing nicely, the Torch we got is loving it - my girlfriend sent me snaps when I was at work of him letting his tentacles fly.

Here are some... god I really do have a lot of shots of my tank, don't I. Can anybody give me pointers on how to get a really fantastically awesome shot? I'm using a Canon IXUS-40 (going to upgrade very shortly though) and I'm constantly struggling to get a shot that isn't grainy and has great depth of field. Most of mine come out good, but a little "flat" if that makes sense.

Torch coral.