Phischy's Project PtIII: Actually have corals!

[djconn]

Great pics. Must be my lucky day getting all those frags! :buttrock:

 

[Phischy]

I told ya I'd send 'em to ya. Just let the temps across the nation come up a bit more and let things in my tank grow more so they are hopefully heartier. Then we'll swap! I'm also going to find that other guy and hopefully get some dark purple shrooms. Fragging is the only way to go!

 

[incysor]

Everything looks really good. The first one is probably alveopora. It looks nice and healthy. I can't believe that brain was ever unhappy, it looks fantastic.

B

 

[Phischy]

The brain was receeding, the rics were almost dead and the frogspawn already had 2 heads that died. Everything else was ok but is still doing much better than when it was in my tank.

The brain came back, the rics are on their way and in the pic the purple shrooms I had distrubed while cleaning the acrlyic and they pulled back, but are much bigger when fully happy.

Here's a question, when is the best time to feed all this stuff?

I'm also seriously debating on wether or not I should get a glass tank b/c the acrlyic is hard to clean the algea off and is starting to show very fine scratches. I figure if I do it I should do it soon before I get my other tank fully stocked. I think in the long run it's a good decision but again, it'll have to be a custom job due to the stand dimensions.

 

[incysor]

The brain was receeding, the rics were almost dead and the frogspawn already had 2 heads that died. Everything else was ok but is still doing much better than when it was in my tank.

The brain came back, the rics are on their way and in the pic the purple shrooms I had distrubed while cleaning the acrlyic and they pulled back, but are much bigger when fully happy.

Here's a question, when is the best time to feed all this stuff?

I'm also seriously debating on wether or not I should get a glass tank b/c the acrlyic is hard to clean the algea off and is starting to show very fine scratches. I figure if I do it I should do it soon before I get my other tank fully stocked. I think in the long run it's a good decision but again, it'll have to be a custom job due to the stand dimensions.

For the most part if you feed about the same time each day, it won't matter much. If you notice that several pieces seem to extend their polyps after the lights are off, and they start to look bad you can certainly try to target feed them after the lights are off. Nearly everything I've had didn't really care whether the lights were on or off as long as it was around the same time each day.

I like glas more because of the scratch resistance, but you can certainly still scratch it. With acrylic at least you can buff them back out. With glass you're pretty much hosed. My tanks are all glass, and they all have scratches.

B

 

[Phischy]

Well I'll have to think about it then. My hookup for wholesale prices is now gone so I'd have to pay retail :x

On the plus side I was at happy hour last night with Nate and a few of his coworkers that are major reef addicts and we were talking about crap in general when Matt told me he was going to go through his tank and thin it out and then do a major purchase to stock it again before he quit working at AW as well. So he told me he'd set me up with a ton of frags!!!!

Of course, his system is way advanced than mine so we'd have to make sure my tanks life support system can keep what he's goign to give me alive. Either way, I'm just stoked. So, I won't be making any new purchases for awhile while I wait for him to come through.

I think my orange zoa's are reproducing as well, I'm keeing a close eye on them, grow baby grow!

Conn, I also used the sryenge last night to inject B-Ionic into the aipastia to kill it, I hit it 3 or 4x and today it is gone, I'll keep an eye out to make sure it doesn't come back. And while I was doing this I saw my orange brittle star is still alive so it was a good night in general!

 

[Phischy]

Good news and bad news.

Bad news is I think I've got at least 3 more aipastia in my tank, and they're in really tough places to treat. Dammit! Two are on one piece of rock, and I really don't like that piece anyway so I'm contemplating just removing it entirely, the other one is near the back wall of my tank. Doh.

Good news is that I when I was moving around looking for aipastia I noticed my 2 rics are actually 3 rics! Plus a bunch of new filter feeders are popping up. Good little dusters, not evil aipastia and my evil bugs are still around as well. Man...

I'm thinking of getting a citron goby anyway and just running the risk with the evil pods. I don't think I'll be able to completely rid my tank of them and maybe this way I might be able to draw them out. Sucks though, using live bait.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Wow, it looks really great phischy! Incysor was correct about that one coral being alveopora. Sadly, they tend to not do so well in captivity. It may look great for a year or so then just up and die on you.

 

[Phischy]

Does anyone know why? It seems to be doing very well in my tank and it's actually growing. I wonder what it's lifespan is? This one I got out of Nate's tank so it's been in captivity for ballpark 4 months now. Sad if it will die, just means I won't get another one.

Is it true that peppermint shrimp will eat zoa's? I saw more aips in my tank and I read that peppermint shrimp will eat it and they also may eat 'good' corals as well. This I don't want, but I don't think I can manage my aips outbreak due to the location of some of the instances. Which is of course very frustrating.

 

[Narkon'n'more]

Mine never touched my zoas. nor any other coral. Now they did get them beauty pest anemones. Of course now I only have one, and he is extremely shy.

 

[incysor]

Some peps will eat aipasia, but not all of them will, it seems to be a somewhat hit-or-miss thing. I've heard of a few people having them go after yellow polyps, or star polyps, but I've never heard of them going after zoos.

B

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

I had one that I caught ripping a yellow polyp of a rock and munching on it. Bastard! From my experience, they haven't touched any of my other corals, but the one I have now likes to do cavity searches on my rics to see if there's anything tasty in the rics mouth. THe rics don't care for it as you can well imagine, but it doesn't seem to harm them in any way. They fluff back up within a few minutes of the assault.

 

[Phischy]

Well, today I got a yellow goby, a peppermint shrimp some more snails and I think I found a mantis shrimp in my tank.

I also am talking to a guy to buy a baseball sized piece with blue/purple zoas on it for $15!!! Hopefully that'll go through.

 

[Phischy]

Well, I'm attempting to trap out the mantis shrimp using a plastic bottle with an inverted neck. So far a narcarrius snails has gone in but the mantis is stayng close to home. The bastard.

Moved some rock around to open up more space in my tank for future corals. I went and got the purple/blue zoa's, not exactly baseball sized, but well worth the cash. I'll have a pic up of that soon, plus a whole tank shot. The guy I bought the zoas off of plans to frag out a bunch of stuff, most of it I can't remember names. But he has a bunch of orange shrooms I'm going to try to get ahold of and a few other odds and ends.

Everything else seems to be happy at the moment. And whatmore co uld you ask for?

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Hey phischy, try removing the rock from the tank and squirting some club soda or mineral water into the hole the mantis is in. It'll bail out pretty quick, and it will limit the die off of benefiscial critters that run the risk of dying if you dunk the entire rock in freshwater.

 

[Phischy]

The problem is to get to the rock I'd have to remove 25lbs of it, he chose the piece that's buried to the floor of the tank, so moving it would be a big PITA. Although, I may fill up a blaster full of club soda and just blast his hole with it...

A little club soda...a little gin...and there's a party in my tank! woo hoo! I wonder if I can cram a disco ball in my canopy? Lit with moonlights....shoobedoobedoo....

 

[incysor]

If you can really target the hole a syringe with rubbing alcohol will do the trick as well. I wouldn't want to do too much, cause it's not good for anything else in the tank either, but it certainly isn't as crazy as this.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthrea ... acker+crab

 

[djconn]

HAHAHAAHAHAHAA...everyone needs to check out that 15 sec. video clip. That guy is crazy. Lucky his tank didn't crack.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Heehee...that's so cool! Stupid as hell, but cool.

 

[Phischy]

that sure beats the vid I have of three crabs fighting over a shell.

I think I'm just going to wall him in. It's the easiest way to get rid of him, plus he backs so far up you won't even see the epoxy plug. I just need a sign that says "Entombed be Jimmy Hoffa".