Need I say more?

Beautiful shots and subjects. The tank is definitely coming along. I love the merletti.

Really???
Aww shucks!!

I've had the merletti for a little while, I got it from mvite last summer.

Great job Weetie!

The Blasto's, where did you place them? I have some from The Mayor as well, and they have never looked as happy as yours. I tried finding them in your FTS but.......

Looks awesome. I think that will grow out to be a NTOTM.

-Prof

Looking good Weetie!

Looks good, my dad has some blastos just like thoese from Prop. They are in the bottom 1/4 of his 75. Mabye 6" off bottom.

Wow, thanks.
I still think I have a ways to go.
I actually have an aiptasia plague/explosion going on now.
I see Peppermint Shrimp in the near future, probably in a quarantine tank.

Needreefunds, I have them on the bottom right right now.
They like low light, low flow.
BibleSue had problems with hers too, and I'm babysitting what's left of them right now.
FYI, the individual heads also like to eat mysis.

Yup, that's were they are too
They used to gobble up mysis, but not so much lately.
I am working on getting my params in balance in my prop tank. I hope they improve as I develop my dosing regimen.

Thanks L.

Well, I bit the bullet today and got a Berghia Nudibranch to eat all of the aiptasia that I swear are popping up everywhere.
Feels kinda weird to deliberately add a Nudi when I've gone to such lengths to avoid and eradicate them up to this point.
My LFS is actually selling them now. They are a bit steep at $30, so I was forced to trade some frags in, including one of my prized blue polyp purple Monti Cap.
Maybe I'll get lucky and it'll reproduce in there and I'll be able to sell some on here after a bit.
They actually came out of the tank of one of the LFS employees. He added one to a 20g tank, and after 6 months he cleared out what he could find and had 25 of them.
I pretty much either had to do that or get a Peppermint Shrimp, and I've had Peps attack my corals in the past. The last time I had Peppermint Shrimp they ate the aiptasia just fine, but then decided that my Green Torch frag (the one I posted a pic of yesterday) was tasty.
The only thing I don't like about this is that when the aiptasia are gone, I'm gonna have to take apart my LR structure and pull out all the Nudi's so they don't die, but I really had to do something since the aiptasia are now getting so numerous that it wasn't practical to try to individually kill them with Joe's Juice or lemon juice, etc.

your tank is almost full!
cool!

The scary thing is, I still have LOTS of corals I was planning on adding to it from my prop tank!!!
Did you see the list on the first page?!
I'm still kinda feeling my way with that.

I love berghias. I hope you have good luck with it. I've been wanting to order one forever but I got a pep and it ate all but the one aip right next to the front glass. Too scared to get that one. My frogspawn has been angry lately so I'm going to watch for the pep messing with it. Good tip.

Bill

I'd love to hear what your experience with Berghias has been, I'm still a little nervous about this.

My personal experience with berghias is nil. My experience is much more in the realm of lettuce nudis. Never any problems with them. All of the research I've done on berghias has been positive. Only eat aips, don't mess with other stuff, breed readily. The lack of food and starvation are number one problems with these critters. As far as I can see it's a safe bet. The peps were just local to me and I was worried about shipping the berghias in bad weather like this. So that's what I got. Can't wait to hear your experiences and maybe get some babies from ya!

Bill

Wow, Weetie, you're a hard woman to keep up with! So many new posts & pics!!

I love that brain and the blasto. Next to rics, my favorite corals are certain lps.

Your pics are beautiful. I'm sorry you're dealing with Aiptasia, but look forward to following your experiences with the Berghia. Sounds like potentially a win-win situation to me.

Your fts's are gorgeous. This tank has really gone together well! A tribute to your planning and experience.

--Diane

As always, you're too kind Diane.
Truthfully, I just used stuff I already had to put this display together, it's been in the works for a while.
And I was lucky enough to get a pleasing LR configuration on pretty much the first try, something that's never happened to me before.
You're right, I've gone a little crazy with the pics recently, but that's cause I only had the camera for the day so I had to take advantage of it while I could.

I had something really crazy happen to me last night.
A pod made off with this prized new polyp from the Frag Swap:



It was doing great for the first couple of days, looking just like the pic.
Then I noticed this one pod hanging out at the base of it for a whole day. Didn't think anything of it til it looked closed up and very unhappy that night, so I took a closer look. The base of the polyp had been almost completely severed from the frag plug. The next day it stayed closed up and unhappy looking, so I did an iodine dip on it that night. Then last night I was looking at it closely again cause I thought I saw a pod on the frag plug, but when I got up close, the polyp wasn't even on the frag plug at all!
I already had my hand in the tank from putting the Berghia in, so I was looking around for the polyp. I found it detached and just a short ways away, all closed up, but right at the moment I went to grab it a pod (probably the same one) scurried right up and made off with it under the rock!
I know this sounds nuts, but I promise I'm not making it up!
Before anyone asks, I am absolutely 100% certain that it was a pod. It was definitely one of the larger ones I've seen, but it was a normal, garden-variety pod. It was not one of the more insidious parisitic type pods either, just one of the type that looks kinda like a curled up roly-polyp and scurry around sideways.
I'm SO mad, these zoas are NOT easy to get ahold of!!!
Luckily for me, BibleSue got a 2 polyp frag of this same zoa, so maybe when hers grows out some I can beg one polyp off of her.
Has anyone ever had anything like this happen to them before?

That is definitely something that the larger amphipods like to do. They especially seem to prefer Zoanthus gigantus(People Eaters). Here are two threads on the topic from RC. There are many others throughout the Zoanthid Forum if you look around.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...hreadid=1110038

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...hreadid=1258557

Nooooooooo!!!!!
So now I have to get a wrasse or something to eat all my pods???
That stupid Granddaddy pod has probably developed an appetite for Zoanthids now, and there's plenty for him to choose from in there.
Guess I'm gonna have to either get a wrasse or have no zoas in this tank.

oh damn that sucks...

I recently added a Diadema Pseudochromis to my frag tank and he eats anything that moves in there. If I move a frag and an amphipod falls of it's over. He was only $10 too and I think he looks great.

They're pretty aggressive though, aren't they?
I wouldn't want it harassing my clown and the couple other small fish I wanted to add.
I had considered adding a Possum Wrasse before this happened, wouldn't he eat pods?

Wow, sorry to hear this Weetie. That was a sweet looking zoo.

I have the same problem in my 12g Nano cube. Something was picking off polyps at night. I had seen larger pods around while looking at night, but really thought nothing of it. By the time I realized it may be the pods I had lost half a Watermelon colony, half my RPE and they had really upset a single PPE polyp. This all started to happen about a month after I reset this tank and had relocated my Sixline to my 46 gal. I removed the remains of the eaten frags and put them in my prop tank to recover.

I picked up a new little Sixline Friday. I doubt I will ever have a tank running without one again. I have three now. An inexpensive, beautiful fish that just love to show off for you while you are checking out the tank. And I have been lucky in that they have always cleaned my tanks of flatworms as well as keeping the pod population in check.

Yeah the Pseudo is pretty aggressive. He's the only fish in my tank so it's ok. I would try a cryptic sixline if I were you. I had one in my last reef and he was great.

How is a Cryptic Sixline different from a regular Sixline?
Anyone else have any Wrasse recommendations for cool fish and pod removal?
Remember, it's a 16g.

crap! I want my sixline back!!!!! He was so cute but I had too many fish at the time and he started harrasing my clown cause he had no hiding spaces. I hope this doesn't happen to me, mabye that's what killed my rpe from prop.

sorry to hear about the killer pod, least he didnt eat your hand!!!! i had a small sixline at one point and was my favorite fish. He never bothered my clowns but he was also pretty small. Even though he was small he would go after some pretty big hitchhikers like bristle worms< was'nt fun to watch hahaha.

I have a sixline in my tank, yellow assesor maybe. Most other wrasse's get to big.

I'm getting another sixline soon! My original one was about 2 1/2".

The cryptic is more docile than the regular sixline. The most popular fish for amphipod removal is the Yellow Coris Wrasse.

Yellow coris would be nice, or cleaner wrasse or even mystery wrasse.

Doh! mystery wrasse??

Great looking fish, but we just added a zero to the price tag.

Yeah, I'd love a Mystery Wrasse, but it's out of my budget.
I just saw a Yellow Coris Wrasse at the LFS yesterday when I was picking up the Berghia Nudi and remember thinking it looked cool.
I also like the looks of the Cryptic Sixline.
I think Fairy and Flasher Wrasses look pretty cool, but I'm pretty sure they'd need a bigger tank than a 16g, wouldn't they?
Thanks for the suggestions guys, this is helping.
It has literally been 12 yrs. since I've had a fish, so I know a lot less about SW fish than I do about corals at this point.

yea, sorry forgot about the $100 price tag. Oops. Yellow coris would be great, max size 3" and peaceful fish that would eat pods and worms.

umm... a yellow coris wrasse gets alot bigger than 3" my lfs has a pair in their display tank that are about 5" long. they're in a 37gal. custom cube filled with sps and rare zoos/palys there is also a blue assesor in there.

Wow, fascinating story about the amphipod, Weetie! Sorry it's eating your zoas, though. nUgZ, thanks for posting the RC links--they were most interesting. Going to have to remember this before blithely terming all pods harmless anymore in the ID forum...

--Diane

No problem Diane. The more people we can inform about things like this the better.

I appreciate it as well nUgZ, I've been around reefing for quite a while and this is actually the first time I've ever heard about it!
I haven't seen any new losses in the zoa/paly dept, but I'm watching closely.
From what I've been seeing, I suspect that the pods like the taste of palys more than zoas and I really have only one other frag in there that might possibly be palys.
It's a pretty nice one too, but so far it looks okay.
At least this happened before I added my prized Nuclear Green Palys to the the tank, I would have been VERY unhappy to lose those!
I'm leaning towards adding a Yellow Coris Wrasse right now.

It always seems to be the nicest ones they go after too. I think the wrasse would be a good choice if you can find a smaller one.

Hi, Sorry about your zoa! I'm glad you haven't seen any more damage though! This is so interesting, was it the size of a lobster? Every once in a while I see some GIANT pod wiggling around when I move something and it always gives me a start, now I know why!

Well, not quite that big, but pretty big for a pod, definitely a "Grandaddy"!
I haven't seen any other zoas be affected yet, and believe me, I'm watching!
I'll probably get a Yellow Coris Wrasse once I raise the $$.

I had a few days where this tank was a little annoyed due to uneaten food from the clownfish breaking down and creating waste, but I've done some WC's and the tank is looking good today.
The clown has finally decided he knows how to eat too, which helps of course!
I'm actually enjoying this lower tech tank much more than my fancier prop system right now!

Isopod maybe?

Looks just like the gammaridean amphipods here, pretty sure that's what it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphipoda

^^ I can imagine that! 'Course, I've never had high tech...

Those yellow coris are beautiful fish.

--Diane

Cookies!

What???
WHERE???!!!

Well great! now i want cookies!!

LOL.
I think BibleSue and I need to have our very own Baked Goods and Frag Swap at her Reef Chicks Resort.

I wanted to do a quick update on the Berghia Nudi.
At first I wasn't sure if it had croaked or was doing fine.
They stay hidden away in the rocks, they're quite secretive, so you never see them. When I got it from the LFS, they had to turn all the rocks over to find it.
For a little while I couldn't really tell for sure if any aiptasia had been eaten either, but today I definitely notice that there's an aiptasia missing from a particular spot, and it seems like there's a few less in the area around it as well, so I'm excited!
I don't need all of the aiptasia to disappear overnight, as long as I know that they will all eventually be consumed.