holy explosive pods, wow!

awesome fungia too, tiny yet satisfying.

Not much to update here as I haven't added anything new to the tank recently, however I hoping to have a bumper update by the next weekend.

In the meantime I thought that I'd leave you with a few shots taken today of some the smaller hitchhiking residents in my Pico tank.

First is a Calanoida copepod....



....and second is a hydroid jellyfish. I've seen at least 2 of these swimming about the tank in the last week or so. I don't know if they are the same ones I see every time or if they are new ones that have budded off. They are pretty neat looking critters, measuring just a millimeter or so in diameter.



Till the next time.

Best regards

Ann

awesome closeups!

Whoa! What camera?!

Ann, awesome pics! That jellyfish is so cool! A millimeter...that's some macro you got there!!

I saw one of those jelly fish things in my pico the other day also!

No kidding! Very nice.

that's probably the best pic of a hydroid (jellyfish) i've ever seen.

nice tank too. coming along well.

C

Thanks!

My camera is an old Fuji FinePix so it's nothing special really. The close-up shots above were taken using a neat trick involving an additional 50mm lens attached to the front of the camera in the reversed position. The resulting pictures have an extremely small depth of field and the subject matter has to be very close to the front on the tank so it's really only suitable for very small stuff that's crawling on the glass itself.

Whilst I'm here I may as well do a quick coral/tank update as I took a few new pictures today.

The bubble coral is looking a bit happier now but I've come to the conclusion that it's got to be moved. Every time it inflates its bubbles it ends up sagging over the side of the rock and looks like this:



If I leave it like this I'm afraid it'll part company with it's skeleton and end up hidden underneath a rock somewhere at the back of the tank. It still has no mouth nor any feeder tentacles.

The Fungia is undergoing a bit of a colour change which could be either good or bad.



It seems to have developed quite a pronounced striping, still, it seems happy enough and likes to eat small bits of Mysis.

The mushroom is growing rapidly and must be a good 0.5nm more expanded now. No extending up towards the light for this baby though, it's more catching the glare off the white sand I think.



Here's a shot of another valued member of the clean-up crew, Stomatella snails are the best.



How about this for a spot of tank climbing! I found this hermit almost to the top of the glass. He'd scaled the height of the tank by wedging his legs underneath the edge of the silcone sealant. How's that for a spot of ingenuity.



And finally a FTS, cause no update is complete without one, looks pretty similar to the last one right?!



Best regards

Ann

Looking good Ann, I love the picture of the hermit!

Yeah the hermit pic is awesome. Thats interesting you have sargassum seaweed in there. On the gulf coast you can go collect floating masses of the stuff. Theres actually a really cool tiny angler that is a common find called the sargassum angler. You can also find tons of pods and sometimes peppermint shrimp.

I seam to have a lot of those little Jelly's in my tank and pods. I dont know anything about them although. Do you ?

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?

Tony,

That link doesn't take me anywhere I'm afraid.

I've had these before in my other tanks, though I've yet to locate the polyps that these guys actually bud off from. I've not found them to cause any trouble at all 'cept maybe lose the odd copepod or two to them. There's a small amount of info to be found about them here. You'll have to scroll down the page for the jellyfish bit.

Best regards

Ann

Your tank is looking fantastic. Like the rockwork.

Hey Ann where did you purchase your Stomatella snails?

nevermind, Ann. you probably picked them up from a LFS.

BTW, I love your tank.

Actually no, they were freebie hitchhikers on the LR in my big tank. They have reproduced like crazy since then so I just picked out a few and popped them into this pico.

Best regards

Ann

I have some of that sargassum in my tank. it drives me crazy. that and some caulerpa that came on my rock and grow like wildfrire! anyone for salad?

any luck in removing the sargassum?

To be honest I've never found Sargassum algae to cause any problems in my tanks. IME it sprouts out of newly imported live rock, grows really well for a while and then just fades away. When it's gets too large I just take a pair of scissors to the shoots and cut them out at the base. I must confess that I quite like the look of it growing in an aquarium, at least when the sprouts are small and manageable. I think that it makes a tank look more natural, I'm kinda wierd that way.

Now I'm not a great fan of Caulerpa sp., it's far too invasive and is best kept for refugiums (if kept at all.....). I have a foxface in my big tank to keep that and other algae at bay.

Best regards

Ann

i like the sargum too. it adds "realism" imho. fast growers = fast export/biolocking of nutrients

looks nice, altho the last fts did look a lot like the other fts.

how about another pic of the red dot-shroom?

You want to see another pic of my teeny tiny 'shroom? It shall be done, though it will have to wait till tomorrow now though cause the lights have just gone out on my tank, pah!

I do have some new corals though which I've been itching to show off but I wanted to wait till they were all settled in first. Still, I can show you a pic of this one as it seems to have made itself right at home already.



Best regards

Ann

I finally have some new corals in my pico now. Some nice zoanthids and a couple of Ricordea 'shrooms.

I like to watch corals grow in so the colonies are small, just a few polyps really. Maybe they are a bit too small for this competition, having seen the corals in other peoples tanks. This tank will probably (hopefully, if it doesn't crash) be at its best only after a year or so.

Since this is only a pico I decided to frag the zoas as I didn't really want to accomodate all the rocks that they came on. I've never really kept zoanthids before so I read round lots and decided to go for two fragging approaches. One, to break the rocks into small bits with polyps on and stick them down and two, to peel off some polyps and stick them down directly. I wasn't sure about the latter approach so keeping some on the rocks gave me a fail safe in case of the other being a disaster. As it has turned out the sticking down approach was entirely unsuccessful. All of the polyps that I did this to died, I don't know how others get this to work but for me it was doom for my zoas.

Anyway here are a few pics (of what's left), some are still settling in and not fully opened up. They are so pretty, I have no idea if they will keep their lovely colours under this lighting/tank set-up so it's going to be interesting how things progress.









The colony below just doesn't want to stay put, I have stuck it down twice now and it keeps falling off. Finally I have resorted to tying it down, but even so each day it drops a little lower. I know that this can't make the colony happy and I do so want it to encrust.



Here are my pair of Ricordea florida.



And finally, no update would be the same without a shot of the dwarf red 'shroom, taken with flash so the colours look kinda off. I was kinda worried about this little fella for a while as the shell to which it had attached to seems to have disintegated. I fully expected to find the mushroom gone one morning never to be seen again but it's still hanging on in there.



As for my poor Bubble coral baby, it's been moved around sooo much. I did place it on the sand in the 'gorge' area and it seemed to love it there, but then I realised that the flow seemed to be dropping off in the tank. So I pulled out the pump from the refugium and had a look at it. I discovered that there was a little bit of foam padding protecting the pump impellor and it had become all gunged up. I decided to remove it entirely as it was always going to be blocking up. On starting it all up again the Bubble nearly got blown away!! I can't believe how much difference that little bit of foam made to the flow. The Fungia loves the extra current. Anyway I moved the bubble several times around the bottom of the tank but in each place it got so battered, eventually I placed it up on the flattish bit of rock right in the middle of the tank. The area of prime real estate that I had been saving for a Blastomussa frag, oh well.

Here's how the tank is looking as of yesterday.....



I'd like to add a few more corals if I can lay my hands on some small stuff. I'm tempted to experiment with a frag of one of my SPS corals just to see it this tank can support such a coral (and what the colouration would be like).

Best regards

Ann

Hey Ann, looking great!

If you want to try some SPS, I'd go with Some type of Montipora, Cap or Digi would do best.

try super glue-gel for the zoanthids. let the glue dry for no more than a minute and then plop the frag back in. nice shots!

i just finished a half dozen zoo-surgeries myself.

i also made a mermaid zoo-bikini, which my daughter thought was hilarious.

the little red shroom looks like it's settling in. the sargum is going nuts it seems.

Thanks! It do have some Montipora that I could try. I'm still undecided about it though, it may turn out to be a bad idea. Still this tank is, in part, about experimentation.

Tiny, Superglue gel was the stuff I used. The polyps sure didn't like it though, their reaction was very quick.

Also, I spoke too soon about the tiny red 'shroom. I have just checked the tank and it's gone from it's spot on the rock. Grrrr, I bet the hermits had a part to play in it's coming loose! I've located it now (on the sand) but I have to work out how to reattach it again. I think that I may just have to toss it into the refugium, wait till it attaches itself to a small rock and then move it back to the display tank. It seems I'm just all round hopless at fixing corals down.

Best regards

Ann

Coming along really nicely Ann. Can I ask where on earth you got those amazing corals from in the UK?!!!

I wondered when a UK reefer would ask that question. The sad fact is that it's impossible to get corals like this from the UK (at least in my experience it is). The zoas and Ricordea were mail ordered from a US company. PM me if you want any further details.

I made an exciting discovery in the Pico a couple of days ago. Whilst peering into the rear of the tank I discovered a small pair of pink tunicates that must have hitchhiked in on the LR. I can't believe that I haven't noticed them before now. It would be really great if they survived but I doubt that I'll manage to keep them long term especially since I'm not particularly feeding this tank (with the possible exceptions of target feeding the Fungia and the hermit crabs every now and again 'cause it's great fun to do so).

I think that squirts are fascinating creatures, simple on the outside but quite complex on the inside. Fingers crossed that they don't fade away.



Best regards

Ann

lookin good!

Wow Ann, the tank is looking great!

I love the zoanthinds! Very beautiful!!

Ann your tank is really looking great. Also that hood and base came out terrific the lights look like a pro installed them. If you are a newbie to DIY then pretty soon you can open up a shop and sell some. Or trade for corals:^)

maybe you can check with the people over at seahorse.org. a lot of them are from UK and some of them are reefers and nano-reefers.

how are the tunicates doing? i've been getting a mini-explosion of tuni-growth. some are normal but i'm getting them out in the open now. are you feeding them/tank?

Great aquascaping and corals!

Thanks for the wonderful words of encouragement, my Pico and I really appreciate it.


Tiny,

The tunicates are doing OK... I think. It's kinda difficult to know for sure though, they haven't died but they haven't increased their numbers either. They are just there. They are quite responsive however, opening an closing their inhalent (or is it exhalent? ) siphon at external stimuli (such as hermits barging past or large bits of detritus floating by etc), I like to think that this is a positive sign at least.

What type of squirts do you have? It's great that yours are increasing in numbers. Got any pics of them??

One filter feeder that does seem to be doing extremely well in my Pico are Sycon sp. sponges, I think that you refer to them as Q-tip sponges in the US. They are popping up all over the place and are particularly thriving underneath the Chaetomorpha algae in the 'refugium'. I had been running the tank without any carbon/polyfilters (because the filter that I had them in generated so many bubbles it drove me crazy so I removed it), I think that has helped the sponges along a bit.

Here's one from the 'refugium':



Today however, I decided to put some carbon and a chunk of polyfiter back into the tank (this time placed in a net bag and hung in the 'refugium') because I noted the zoanthids were starting to look a bit sorry for themselves. The reason for this I have put down to a spot of long range (or should that be short range since this is a Pico tank) coral warefare. All was fine till I introduced a 6 headed frag of Blastomussa wellsi, a single headed frag of B. merleti and a small branch of a SPS coral two days ago. I find it surprising that the zoanthids reacted to the new additions so quickly, so much goes on in a reef tank that we can't see.

The huge numbers of pelagic copepods have (sadly) faded away now but they have been replaced by an enormous number tanaidaceans (a type of isopod). They are just about everywhere crawling over the rocks/corals, sides of the tank and on the sand too. I expect their numbers will dwindle too as the tank matures.

Here's one of the little beasties:



I don't have a new FTS and shots of my new corals yet but will rectify that in a couple of days time.

Best regards

Ann

amazing shots (as usual)!

i'm gonna add some more desktop background pic with those, hope you don't mind.

i like the aquascaping and placement. the sycon is a very nice shot too. like carinya mentioned before i think your shots are probably the best sample shots of these animals i've seen yet on the net.

i'll be posting some pics later today (some fts, macros, buggie closeups like yours, etc) and i have a couple of the tunicates (new & old growth). a bit difficult shot to get because they're the clear tiny variety. i.e. weed tunicates. i'd post right now but i'm on my son's desktop. i had to completely replace my laptop's hard drive this morning. it's still in recovery/install. good thing i had backed everything up tho. fun times.

so you're not running the fuge in the back anymore? the sargum looks like bean pods. are you trimming them back constantly? i gotta figure their growth has to be mad. good for export though.

Yep the fuge is still running, the Chaetomorpha looks healthy enough it's just not growing as quickly as I would have expected it to. Oh well I can't complain really as long as the hair algae/cyano stay away.

Here's a quick pic of the 'fuge from today with the new bag of carbon/polyfilter in residence:



I haven't intentionally harvested the Sargassum yet, tho I have knocked a few clumps off when sticking frags down. I don't feel that it's grown large enough to cause problems yet (well not obvious ones anyway).

In addition to the Sargassum I do also have another Macro growing in the Pico which I have tentatively identified as Avrainvillea sp.. The fronds are very thin and paddle shaped. Quite attractive IMO. I wonder how long it will keep growing for? Or perhaps more importantly I should be asking if it will become large and invasive??



Can't wait to see your new pics.

Best regards

Ann

Hey Ann! The tank looks absolutely stunning! I think I know which US based company you are getting those zoos, etc from and if so they are terrific! I order quite a lot from them and have seen that they are very popular with UK reefers. They will also do requests for small frags if you have not asked specifically. Anyway, looking terrific and I love your photos! I have to agree that the close-ups that you get are some of the best I have ever seen!
Cheers,
Karen

WOW....very nice....i love how clean it is!!! keep it up

Hey Ann, your tank is looking great. I really like your aquascaping.

I'm also going to have to try your lens trick sometime!

Time for one more update before Christmas decends upon us all.

To the Pico I have added a frag of Blastomussa wellsi, chopped off the colony I have in my large tank:



A tiny frag of Blastomussa merleti snapped off the colony I have in my large tank:



I tried to take more of this but, jeez, this thing is welded to the rocks really well. Plus I fragged several branches of SPS colonies accidentally during the whole process, so I had to make do with just the one head. This leads me on to my last addition, a branch of (presently) pink Seriatopora hystrix also taken from my big tank:



I'm curious to see if: 1. It survives in this Pico tank, 2. If it survives how well it grows and 3. What colour it ends up. The lighting in my large tank is 400W MHs so it's under a whole lot less light now. I decided to go with this one because the branches seem better proportioned for a smaller tanks.

Just a couple of other pics of my zoas now. Here's one lot that I haven't shown yet, they were in the left hand corner of the tank but have been forced to move by the arrival of the B. wellsi. They have been split up and spread around the tank now:



Urgggh and what's happening to these guys? It seems like they want to reject that nasty bit of rock and superglue gel that is attached to them. It was underneath the colony but somehow it's got turned over and is now on display right in the middle of the colony.



I think that the bottom half of those zoas have actually attached themselves to the rockwork but I'm not prepared to mess with them just yet. I'll give it a while longer before I pluck up the courage to cut off the plastic tie and hopefully the top half will have attached too and let go of that ugly blob of glue.

Last but not least, I'll leave you with the latest FTS:



Happy Christmas everybody!

Best regards

Ann

very nice shots! i love that 1st blasto. don't worry, glue melts away eventually.

Yeah, that blasto is cool. It makes me think of grape jelly..... mmmmmmmmmm

looking very very nice.

Hey Ann! Looking terrific! You UK reefers DO have a time advantage to me! I tried to buy the first zoo colony you showed and it was sold - now I know to who Enjoy

awesome ann! seriously, teach me oh great one!

OMG your pictures are crazy! awsome tank.

I think the second macro algea is Halimeda. I have quite a bit of it in my 75G, and had it in my NC6, but took it out. It takes up calcium to grow, it will get large, but is easily trimmed(and you can easly root the trimmings). I am going to guess that it is Halimeda Opuntia, but I dont think you can really tell until you see how it grows. Here is an arcticle on it. http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-04/nftt/index.php

Thanks Max.

I don't think that this is Halimeda sp., it's not got the characteristic segmented growth pattern as seen in this genus, though perhaps that may develop with time.

Avrainvillea sp. is the closest match I have found up till now but I'm not positive about it really. There are some good pictures of this genus in the book 'Marine Plants of the Caribbean' (Littler et al.) but sadly few are present on the net. Avrainvillea longicaulis is said to have broad to oblong, paddle shaped blades that are composed of many branched densely packed filiments. I think this describes the algae in my tank, but my algae has it's holdfast attached to a rock and not embedded in the sand as is described for this species. I'm probably be way off with my ID then.

Here's another shot showing, I hope, the blade composition a bit better. They are quite thin and flexible.



Best regards

Ann

Very nice Ann!!! I realy like that new SPS Looks like that Fungia isn't so happy though

Actually the Fungia is doing great (.... I think). It has developed an odd colouration though and only fully expands when the lights have gone out which is a bit of a shame. Here's a pic that I took of it 3 days ago:



When it first started to change colour I was quite worried that it was bleaching out but it's been like this for a while now and seems to be happy. There's no sign of recession and it eats well once per week. I love watching it take food into its mouth and always place the Mysis at the edge of the disc so that I can watch it be magically moved into the middle.

Best regards

Ann

i cant keep plate coral either...mine dont open up during the day...I have one that is orange and another that is...well was green...te green one bleached REALLY bad so i think im going to take it out of water and give the skeleton to my aunt b.c. she collects them from the beach...so i might as well give it to her... (i know that after a mom dies, if you leave it in soon there will be baby plates but i dont want plates everywhere and plate coral is miserable in my tank...)

Hmm, you all have me worried now. Having looked back at my pictures I can see why you think it's doing badly.

Travis, what is your experience with Fungia? Have you had one that has changed colour like this? Is mine on a downward sprial?? I'd just assumed that it was adjusting itself to the new lighting conditions.

Fishfreak, when you say that your green one bleached, was it an all over loss of colour? I've just had a good look at mine and the lighter areas seem to have taken on a slight green flourescence now but the brown bits are still brown (perhaps a lighter shade of brown than when it was first introduced). I really hope that it's adapting to a different set of conditions. I know that if these corals start showing some skeleton they rarely recover completely and they can also produce babies from a tiny bit of flesh. I'll be more than happy if the latter happens.

Best regards

Ann