So i picked up a blueberry gorgonian about a month ago. My lfs happened to have one that was just in beautiful shape. So i decided to take the plunge. Ive wanted one for years but was always intimidated by their requirements. Not to mention they dont tend to live too long in captivity. But with all that said i decided to give it a shot and just give it 150%. I feed him about 5 days out of the week or more. His diet varies daily. Im literally feeding this guy everything you could think of to keep him happy. So far so good. Being thats its a deepwater species his polyps are open mostly at night or the late evening. But hes feeding constantly and ive noticed a bit of growth over the last 2 weeks. Overall im very happy with his present health and hopefully i can keep him happy.


Heres a pic i snagged when all of the polyps were open. Since hes most active at night its a little difficult to photograph him. But this shot was at ISO 2000! Im very happy with the results.

Very cool, they definitely have a reputation as being hard to keep. At least you don't really have to target feed it

Looks like a very nice one! I may give another one a try if I can find a fresh, healthy specimen. Marcus Nitzsche has had long term success (growth and reproduction) with this gorg. You can read about his feeding/maintenance regimen here if you haven't already:

http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthr...8582&page=2

wow -- incredibly noise-free picture for ISO 2000. Very, i mean VERY nice.

True they pull food right out of the water column.

Thanks for the link uhuru!Very helpful info. The only reason i even gave this a shot was because it looked so healthy and happy.



Thanks Tim. I was surprised as well when i checked the EXIF. It still managed to pull out a decent amount of detail without being overly noisy.

Very nice Gorg indeed!
I wish you luck with it.

A big plus one here buddy-Very best of luck with this E!

What a beautiful piece it is!

Thanks weetie




Thanks Buddy im keeping my fingers crossed.

That looks amazing. So is your setup.

awesome gorg. always something cool going on in your thread.

Thanks alot guys

Just wanted to share one more pic of the gorg to show its true color.. this was shot during the day. The light temp was around 11-12k. Not all of the polyps are opened since i just finished feeding it.

holy mackerel! that is definitely the neatest-looking gorg i've ever seen (not that i've seen a lot of them -- but still!).

how are the flow requirements of this relative to the rest of your planned stocking list? i also notice you've got the ricordea in there. you think you can keep everything pretty happy?

Thanks tim I couldnt resist after seeing the condition it was in. Most of the gorgs ive come across didnt look anywhere near as healthy.

They require alot of water movement but i have (2) Tunze 6055's so they definitely are getting more than enough flow. Ive found ive had to move some other frags to areas in the tank where the flow is a bit more indirect. But other than that everything is thriving.

So i shot a quick vid of my torch corals Ive had them for about a month or so and they eat everything i feed my fish. Be sure to hit the HD button

Sweet, those look awesome. Wish I had some.

Thanks bowden they were a bit more expensive than i thought they would be.

Maybe if you turned off the pumps we could see the movement with more clarity.

Wait, wut? nvrmnd.




Great stuff Eugene. That cam takes awesome vids!

Sweeet torch tooooo!

Thanks buddy

What program do you use to edit your video?
That 7D produces some amazing results!

edit: and do you have a Flickr account? I'd love to see more pictures

I love torch corals -- my wife has nixed them from inclusion in our tank due to a bad experience with another euphyllia (a hammer in this case) in combination with a sarcophyton (fiji yellow leather). amazing the damage they did to each other over the course of a few days in an 8g biocube. anyway, great video. any indications that your clown might host it?


by the way, speaking of appeasing my wife, how does your tailspot get along with BJ...?

Thanks alot spencers I use imovie for the small vids. You can check my flickr photostream(theres not too many photos on there) by searching for rehype on Flickr




Thanks alot Tim. I have the Euphyllia isolated to one side of my tank for that very reason But i love the life and movement they bring to the tank. So far jigsaw shows absolutely no interest whatsoever in hosting anything other than sand


Tailspot and BJ totally ignore one another....

I saw on RC you are looking for Ozone. Are you trying it too?

Join the club

-Dave

P.S - I just ordered my Sanders unit today

Yep i figured id give it a try. Someone in the town next to me is selling one on craiglist for its the red sea aquazone ozonizer (50mg) with the controller built in,drier, and an orp probe. Im going to go pick it up in the morning

Thats cool we can all share our results

Thanks! I haven't used iMovie since it originally came out back in 1999. I fired it up today, and wow, its much more powerful!

Its great the only big drawback is it doesnt support 1080p yet but thats what i use final cut pro for.

I added a medium aquafuge to my tank about a month ago. I love fuges almost as much my display tank. Theres about 7 or 8 species of macroalgae in there. I also threw in my two largest hermits that were being a bit of a pain in there. I had to remove the tail spot and the sunburst because the mckoskers was harassing them non stop. I think i may have to remove him soon hes a bit more aggressive than i was expecting. Anyhow heres a pic of the refugium.. I added it to the monthly contest i doubt it will win though

sorry to hear about that. benny was a nice-looking fish.

why remove the sunburst/blenny when it's the wrasse that is instigating?






that is some awesome stuff going on in there. question for you on your diverse macroalgae -- it's very visually interesting, but do different species provide different benefits in your experience? and, how do they deal with the ULNS setup you're running? seems like that's not ideal for macro growth. great picture, in any event.

I know it doesnt make sense but i really like the wrasse and the other two were alot easier to catch. Although hes really skating on thin ice at this point if he begins harassing anyone else then im taking him out.


As far as the macroalgae i find only a few species are really good at quickly exporting nutrients and reducing nitrates and phosphates(such as caulerpa and cheatomorpha) The rest are there to just add diversity. At the moment they seem to be doing fine since my nitrates are still higher than they should be. I know once my nitrates reach 0 i will have to remove most species of macroalgae. But upon doing research it seems that calcerous macrolagae(such as neomersis,halimeda, etc) Tend to do just fine in ULNS systems.. so the plan is to replace my current macros with only calcerous macroalgae when i detect they are no longer thriving.

When you do remove the macros, you know where to send them, right?

If not, I'll send my address.

Fuge looks sweet too!

Thanks buddy If you want when im trimming back the fuge you can have some. Just let me know...

Your tank is amazing

Another ozone club member! haha, nice! Your blueberry gorg will thank you

I think its pretty mediocre but thanks for the complement.




I was on the fence about doing it but after reading your thread i decided to go through with it. Not to mention the price was too good not to buy it. I havent actually set it up yet but i will in a week or 2.

if you think your tank is "Mediocre" then idk what to call many other nice reefs on N-R.com
;p

Thanks buy my tank has a long way to go before it gets out of it's mediocre stage

Awesome tank

Thanks alot socal

Question: So, you have the medium aquafuge hanging off the back of the Cadlights 39? So, what do you have in the fuge area?

I am wondering what you think of the 39 signature in general as I think it may be a good upgrade. Any insight?

In the fuge area i have some cheato,mangroves and caulerpa prolifera(I really like refugiums)

Overall its a great tank but i will say if your looking for a upgrade check out the new 50 gallon cadlight artisan series.

+1 based only on looks/price.

+2

+3 and props to CADlights

i read that users DeMartini and Scottyreef were both getting the 50g artisan -- anyone have a thread going for it? i'm very interested to see how they look.

Demartini already has a thread up check through the first few pages

found it! so, how soon are you moving again so we can see this 50g in action??

probably in march

At what % (approximately) do you run your mp20?

The reason I ask is, I hooked up my new mp10 last night, and I'm running reef crest at 100% (so, 1575+ gph). I'm trying to figure if, given the amount of rockwork I've got in the tank, it might be worth it to go mp20 instead for the extra 425gph. Strictly speaking in terms of GPH, I'd have to be running the mp20 at at least ~80% to equal the mp10's GPH running at 100% (obviously, flexibility for future upgrades is a consideration with the mp20, but that's not a goal for me at this time).