Coral advice

[BlindZide]

Clown, that coral post should be a sticky. My lord that was a ton of info. Good read.

 

Love the rock work. Looks very nice!

[MrsPeet15]

Clown, that coral post should be a sticky. My lord that was a ton of info. Good read.

 

Love the rock work. Looks very nice!

Thanks! I was a bit sad at first that our scaping options were limited since the tank is so tiny but I'm actually happy with it! Will probably spend a lot of time in the scaping when we upgrade to make up for it

So our big trip is next weekend, will post some pics of our hoard! X

[MrsPeet15]

Hi guys haven't been on in a while, work has been chaos so I've been coming home every night and passing out not long after ?

So we went on our field trip to wharfe aquatics and I came away with....... Absolutely nothing the corals there were stunning but all of the pieces were absolutely HUGE like literally I could have replaced my live rock with some of them! It wasn't a totally wasted journey though, I saw some metallic green polyps which I absolutely loved so I'm currently on the hunt for some smaller frags and saw loads of species which have inspired me. My bestie left with a stunning medusa coral - I've never seen one before but wow does it look beautiful in her 1000l reef tank!

So I think she felt a bit sorry for my lack of corals blues and she turned up with these beautiful pulsing Xenia for me which she knew I love. She went to buy some frags off a guy in York and these were just the right size for my tank so she fetched them back. They began to pulse as soon as they went in and everything came to say hello!

 

 

After a couple of days I think they were sick of all of the attention and they started to look really sad. I spent a couple of days certain we would lose them:

 

 

But once all of the critters had left them alone for a few days, they soon returned to glory though they are no longer pulsing for now:

 

 

They are in a separate rock to avoid them spreading like wildfire, though I think I might move them to the back of the tank to see if they grow up the back wall? My husband loves them and says he'd be quite happy if the whole tank was full of them!!

We are due a water change next week and I read they like iodine for pulsing. I don't know how correct my source is and I can't find where I read it now but apparently there is enough iodine in reef salt to encourage pulsing without dosing so I guess we will see what happens but I think they are so beautiful either way I wouldn't mind if they never pulsed again!

We nearly had disaster last week, we have had some abnormally hot weather here the last week or so and I came downstairs last Wednesday morning to find the tank had gone up SEVEN degrees! How everything didn't suffer I do not know but it took three days of having the heater unplugged and refrigerating our RO to bring it all back down again..... Something I will have to monitor during our next heatwave. Fancy the north of England getting hot enough to heat a tank up that much!

 

Anyways we have frag plugs in their way to pinch polyps and mushrooms off the bestie so I'll post them once they are in. As always, critiques, advice, comments and general chit chat always welcome

[Pjanssen]

Good luck keeping the xenia isolated. Your rock is way to close to the other rocks for that right now. They are very pretty and fascinating, but they can be very invasive as well. And that is the greenest emerald crab I have ever seen. Very nice. I like to keep small bottles of water in the freezer for just such occasions as your heat wave.

[MrsPeet15]

Here's the pic you wanted!I only bought two heads but I'm directly feeding them,hopefully will get some quick growth!

Hey how are they getting along btw?

Good luck keeping the xenia isolated. Your rock is way to close to the other rocks for that right now. They are very pretty and fascinating, but they can be very invasive as well. And that is the greenest emerald crab I have ever seen. Very nice. I like to keep small bottles of water in the freezer for just such occasions as your heat wave.

Hmm maybe I will try it on the back wall then. I would have moved it sooner but as it was so sad last week I thought I'd leave it to recover first. The back corner of the tank where I would like to move it to is furthest from the main rock so I'll just have to see what happens I guess! Thanks! I feed him seaweed once a week and I think he picks away at the goldpods that's settle which seem to give great colour to everything. Not sure if I'm imagining it but the goby's markings seem a bit brighter since I started feeding him them? I'd love to try the freezer method but we only have a main fridge and a beer fridge! We live in an old house which has a tiny kitchen - our old husky currently inhabits the pantry, I think he'd be upset if I moved a freezer in there ?

[MrsPeet15]

Ok so the Xenia are now in the back corner of the tank:

They've looked much happier so I bit the bullet and moved them and they actually seem to be doing better in this corner. Our frag plugs arrived today so hopefully I'll have some new and exciting things to share pics of in the near distant future! Thanks for the advice pjanssen, I was holding back on moving them incase I upset them but your post made me decide to bite the bullet and go ahead. I'm glad I did because now I have room for stuff at the front again, I'm really hoping the Xenia grow up the back wall....

[MrsPeet15]

Thought I'd post, my mushroom came home last night

I put him at the front of the tank as seen in the first picture, then this morning when I got up hed moved around the side (second pic) clearly he didn't like it there! Tonight when I got home from work he was opened up in full glory and the shrimps had moved in for a nosey - they're so inquisitive they have to check everything new out!

Here he is under blues

Sorry for the crappy pic quality, I take everything on an iPhone 6.

People may think I'm mad but these have to be without a doubt one of my favourite corals, the colour is stunning and they look like velvet. So glad I've got one. Still to come are palys-beautiful black and green ones, pipe organs, green clove polyps and Zoas. I want to put everything in slowly and carefully to avoid overload and so I can monitor everything as it stabilises. I'll keep posting pics.

 

As always this newbie welcomes comments, advice and critiques.

 

Happy Friday

[fishfreak0114]

I love mushrooms too! They come in so many textures and colors. Maybe your sexies will decide to hang out in it often. The photo quality seemed good to me

[MrsPeet15]

I love mushrooms too! They come in so many textures and colors. Maybe your sexies will decide to hang out in it often. The photo quality seemed good to me

Thanks! I really do love them they just look fantastic, do you have any in your tank? I'd love to see a pic! I'd sooner be taking them on a proper camera, the iPhone 6 is pretty good but they just don't do corals justice!

[fishfreak0114]

This is one of the types I have . I also have green fuzzy kind of like yours, purplely and smooth and a couple random ones. I wish I could find some bright red!

[MrsPeet15]

This is one of the types I have . I also have green fuzzy kind of like yours, purplely and smooth and a couple random ones. I wish I could find some bright red!

They look fabulous I love the texture on them! Yes I'm saving reds for my tank upgrade next year but to be honest I haven't seen any yet in the shops I have visited here in the uk :/ hope they're easy to get over here they are stunning!! Yours look lovely though, glad someone agrees they look great. Good corals for a newbie too!

[fishfreak0114]

Thanks hope you can find some. I've seen some at shops here, but it was a big rock and they wanted $60

[MrsPeet15]

Thanks hope you can find some. I've seen some at shops here, but it was a big rock and they wanted $60

Yeah the size of them is a big problem for me too, our tank is tiny at the moment and we won't be upgrading untill Autumn next year. The frags at the last Shop I went to we're all stunning but enormous, some were almost as big as my live rock! Someone needs to open a pico and nano shop!