Some pics from last night.

[incysor]

Just thought I'd post some of the other pics I took last night.

Brian

Small BTA The hermit give it a bit of perspective.

New sun polyps.

Sessile worm in the new sun polyps.

Four Ricordia shots.

One of two purple firefish that don't like to sit still worth a damn. :lol:

Fan worm.

New Hammer frag.

 

[djconn]

Great shots. Did you get that hammer frag from Kenny? It look familar.

Man, where did you get those green/purple ricordias? I'd love to get a frag from you.

 

[incysor]

Great shots. Did you get that hammer frag from Kenny? It look familar.

Man, where did you get those green/purple ricordias? I'd love to get a frag from you.

Yep the hammer frag is from AC. I got the rics from a guy that was tearing down his tank and moving to Seattle. I was looking for some extra live rock and he posted to RC that he was selling 300+ pounds of it in 100lb lots and that he was in Houston. I emailed him and told him that I was only looking for about 25-50lbs, and that if he had some left over I'd be interested. He ended up bringing me about 75lbs of LR some tonga branch, some fiji, that I got for about $1.75lb. He also had a few mushroom colonies, that I bought for $30, he even threw in a very healthy brown meat coral for free, cause he needed to get rid of it. I ended up giving the meat coral to a friend cause when the thing got happy it took up a ton of space in my little 55. The thing must have been about 8in across. It fit in my buddies 180 much better. The rock had some bubble algae on it, so I scrubbed it all off with a stiff brush, and put it in a tank with no lights, sand, etc.. for about 6 weeks and threw 3 emerald crabs in with it. I also inherited my flatworms from his mushrooms. I've got the rock through all my tanks now, and I I haven't seen any bubble algae at all. the 3 crabs were distributed between the tanks, and I just finished killing off the flatworms with flatworm exit after trying first a six line wrasse, and then a blue velvet damsel.

I can't wait to see how all the shrooms do once I get the new lights on the tanks. I'm hoping to see some increased growth in all my corals.

As for getting you a frag of them, that's probably doable, it shouldn't be too difficult since we're both local.

B

 

[Karita]

wow, i love those sun polyps. I heard those are hard to keep alive. Is that true? How long have you had them?

 

[mikeguerrero]

Is it true sun corals have to be placed in a dark area, cave or ledge where not too much light hits them. Do they also require that you spot feed them supplecments. Thats what my old LFS told me. Just wanted to follow up.

Mike

 

[incysor]

wow, i love those sun polyps. I heard those are hard to keep alive. Is that true? How long have you had them?

Is it true sun corals have to be placed in a dark area, cave or ledge where not too much light hits them. Do they also require that you spot feed them supplecments. Thats what my old LFS told me. Just wanted to follow up.

Mike

Actually all of this is true, and none of it is true to some extent.

Sun polyps tend to be nocturnal. They don't require any light at all. I've had my tiny little colony pretty much the whole time I've had the tanks up and running. I do have it in a shadier area of the tank, but it's not by any means in a really dark area. When I first got it I tried the whole spot-feeding thing where you cut a 1-2 liter bottle of soda in half and use the top part which has the lid portion to put over the corals, to block flow, and then squirt food in the bottle top etc... That does work, but it's kind of a PITA. Since moving and doing a lot of feeding with cyclopeze I just moved the sun polyps into an area of the tank that is a bit shaded, and that's kind of a low flow part. I squirt a small amount of cyclopeze into the tank, then wait 10-15mins to give the polyps time to extend, then I hit them again with more. After I've squirted them directly with their polyps extended the rest of the food goes in the other tanks. Another thing that will help is if you turn off the pumps totally to give them more time to grab food. The little colony has gotten to the point that it extends about the same time each day, and it doesn't care at all about the light. The newer large colony isn't completely extending yet, but I've only had it about a week.

There were some folks on another board having a discussion about their sun polyps, and some never target feed them, some always target feed, them, some do it periodically. I generally feed cyclopeze 2-3 times a week. Everything seems to really like it, but a little goes a long way and it's really easy to overfeed with it.

So I don't think they're particularly difficult to keep, but they do require a bit more thought when it comes to feeding than just throwing some mysis or flake in the tank.

 

[djconn]

I think I'm finally gonna give sun polyps a try. It will be my next purchase. I've waited long enough and they are just too pretty looking.

 

[mikeguerrero]

Brian,

Your pics again are awesome; :wink: But I need to ask you, what type of digital camera do you have, becuase your macro pics are so damn sharp, I'd think you stole it from National Geographic; :wink:

Camera type please, and how you do macro so awesome? Lend us some tips.

Dragon has a killer camera, but I've never seen him take close ups like you,,,,

Mike

 

[incysor]

Brian,

Your pics again are awesome; :wink: But I need to ask you, what type of digital camera do you have, becuase your macro pics are so damn sharp, I'd think you stole it from National Geographic; :wink:

Camera type please, and how you do macro so awesome? Lend us some tips.

Dragon has a killer camera, but I've never seen him take close ups like you,,,,

Mike

Thanks for the compliments Mike.

I've got an olympus c-5050.
About 4 months ago I decided to stop taking pics with everything on auto. I poked around on the web for hints and tips. While I found a few sites that helped, by far the site that's been the best resource is one that was put up by one of the guys on RC. I go back to it again and again each time I think I kinda have a grasp on one area or another.

http://www.ximinasphotography.com/lessons/index.html

As for my camera's settings. Most of the sun polyp shots were done in manual mode, I adjusted my white balance against the sandbed, put it in macro mode and started taking shots and adjusting things as I went.

What kinda camera does Dragon have?

 

[dragon79]

The answer is...

Brian,

Your pics again are awesome; :wink: But I need to ask you, what type of digital camera do you have, becuase your macro pics are so damn sharp, I'd think you stole it from National Geographic; :wink:

Camera type please, and how you do macro so awesome? Lend us some tips.

Dragon has a killer camera, but I've never seen him take close ups like you,,,,

Mike

Thanks for the compliments Mike.

I've got an olympus c-5050.
About 4 months ago I decided to stop taking pics with everything on auto. I poked around on the web for hints and tips. While I found a few sites that helped, by far the site that's been the best resource is one that was put up by one of the guys on RC. I go back to it again and again each time I think I kinda have a grasp on one area or another.

http://www.ximinasphotography.com/lessons/index.html

As for my camera's settings. Most of the sun polyp shots were done in manual mode, I adjusted my white balance against the sandbed, put it in macro mode and started taking shots and adjusting things as I went.

What kinda camera does Dragon have?

http://www.nanotank.com/viewtopic.php?t=444

 

[incysor]

Oh yeah...You're the one I'm jealous of. :lol: