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Mr. Microscope's JBJ Picotope


Mr. Microscope

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Mr. Microscope
Nice colony! Stems are long, but they should shorten up pretty quickly. I have a 16 head colony (grown out from 3 heads) and they are my favorite coral in the tank. They are doing wonderful under stock NC24 lighting, I can only imagine what they will do under LED's.

 

Cool. How long did it take to go from 3 to 16? Good growth!

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Cool. How long did it take to go from 3 to 16? Good growth!

 

I've had it about 7 months, the first signs of growth didn't start until about a month after I got it. I fragged it not too long ago to add a couple in my pico, it was 2 polyps and grew 3 more within a month. The only issue I seem to have with it is if I move it far from its original location and the light changes it tends to start to melt, but it recovers in a few weeks.

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Mr. Microscope
I've had it about 7 months, the first signs of growth didn't start until about a month after I got it. I fragged it not too long ago to add a couple in my pico, it was 2 polyps and grew 3 more within a month. The only issue I seem to have with it is if I move it far from its original location and the light changes it tends to start to melt, but it recovers in a few weeks.

Nice! I hope mine grow that fast. Thanks.

 

Love the red people eaters! NICE!

Thanks rockhead01!

 

Update: The stems are starting to shrink a little and the red is becoming deeper. :)

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Mr. Microscope

I just ordered this today. The Pico Evo Circulation Pump from Hydor, the same folks that make the Koralia Nano. My KN is the 240. This is rated at only 180gph and looks a little more versatile for a pico. Hopefully, it will provide adequate flow, but also allow me to keep corals in more areas of the tank. Right now, I'm somewhat limited on where I can put stuff due to the strength of the KN. If it ends up being a bust, I'll have an extra pump for whatever.

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Mr. Microscope

D'oh! I came back to work today to discover a pool of death. I noticed that my anthelia wasn't looking so hot on friday. Today, it's almost entirely discintegrated, my scarlet hermit crab is dead, one of my ceriths is dead and the other MIA, and lots of the corals look like crap. My palys are looking okay though. I'm going to do a big water change today and continue with my daily water changes the rest of the week. I also might replace my Chemi-Pure Elite if I get a chance. Hopefully, stuff will recover. I'm kinda sad about my crab though.

 

I also found some electrical tape. So, I cut some 9mm circles out of it and put them in the center of my CW LED lenses on the PAR38. It should allow me to move my light more towards the center of the tank with the lower PAR. It should also increase the pop from the blues a little.

 

ElectricaltapeoverCWs.jpg

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man that sucks to hear about your tank. hopefully everything will recover nicely. i hate those bad surprises you get. it's always nice to be surprised with new growth or a new HH spotted for the first time, but it really blows to see everything take a turn for the worse and all you can do it water changes and hope. do you have any idea what caused the decline?

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Mr. Microscope

Thanks everl0ng and parishilton,

 

Yes, I just figured it out. I started blowing off the rocks with a pipette. When I got to my new Red People Eater colony, I was literally blowing away chunks of tissue and several polyps went flying off the rock. I quickly turned off my pumps, pulled the colony out, placed into a separate container with some tank water, and continued blowing. I ended up with a stinking cup of cloudy water. After that, I went in and carefully removed all signs of decay. It turns out there was a rather larger sponge in there that was rotting away. Also, lots of the polyps were also in a state of decay. It smelled awful! I saved what I could and discarded the gross water of death. I'm pretty sure this was the culprit.

 

I also noticed that my colinista snails are all gone. Buggers! Those guys were the best! It looks like my feather duster is okay, but I still haven't found my other cerith. I'll have to take another look when the lights go back on.

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wow, that really sucks. it's good that you found what was causing it though! now to just minimize the collateral damage. that's one good aspect of having such a small tank is that when something goes wrong it is easier to find/guess what the cause is, but it's only good if you get to it in time due to the small water volume being susceptible to drastic changes. do you have any pictures of how the tank is looking atm?

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Mr. Microscope
wow, that really sucks. it's good that you found what was causing it though! now to just minimize the collateral damage. that's one good aspect of having such a small tank is that when something goes wrong it is easier to find/guess what the cause is, but it's only good if you get to it in time due to the small water volume being susceptible to drastic changes. do you have any pictures of how the tank is looking atm?

 

Yeah, I imagine that if I hadn't caught all that decay, and let it continue to rot away that everything would be toast in a few days. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. The colony was made up of several smaller branchlike rocks that were being held together by the colony itself. So, after surgery, I now have four rocks with RPEs on them and two frag plugs with polyps that pulled away. I suppose I could glue the rocks back together to reunite the colony however, I may decide to spread out the rocks and see how that looks.

 

I'm pretty sure some corals will pull through, but my toadstool is really looking like crap; way worse than a normal slough. I really hope that one perks up again. I'll try to get a new FTS today after the lights go back on.

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Mr. Microscope

By request, here is a picture of the carnage:

 

FTS2010.11.29:

FTS20101129.jpg

I did a 4 liter water change today and plan to continue doing smaller water changes every day.

 

Here's a closeup of three of the four pieces of the colony. You can see what the original colony looked like in the corner. In the background is the sad looking toadstool. On the plus side, you can see the pop I'm getting out of my LED's now that I have partially blanked out the whites. I also decided to partially blank out one of the blues. No sacrifice in color there, just less PAR so I could point the light more directly into the tank.

RPEBreakup.jpg

The other cerith is still MIA, but on the plus side, as soon as I did my water change I saw a few colinista snails! That made me super excited. Hopefully the population will recover.

 

Sucks...but it sounds like you have it under control. Am sure you will get most everything back, and then you can restock your CUC.
sucks to hear that this is an awsome tank good luck with the rebuilding

Thanks guys!

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animalmaster6

Oh man sorry to hear Mr.M.

Stinks about your hermit crab :(

 

Do you know what happened?

 

I have a feeling the corals will come back and you will find your missing Cerith though :)

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Mr. Microscope
Oh man sorry to hear Mr.M.

Stinks about your hermit crab :(

 

Do you know what happened?

 

I have a feeling the corals will come back and you will find your missing Cerith though :)

 

Thanks for the words of encouragement am. 'Love the new avatar. LOL! The culprit was a rotting sponge and some decaying red people eaters. I'll probably get a new crab, but I'm going to wait until the tank recovers and I get my new pump.

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sorry to hear all this, I hope it gets better from here. collonistas are nocturnal look for them at night. they should be littering your glass and rocks when they lights have been off for a few hours.

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Mr. Microscope

Because of my lighting schedule, I pretty much see them all the time which was why I thought they were goners. But, lo and behold, they popped up again yesterday. :)

 

Good news! Cerith #2 has been sighted, alive and well!

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animalmaster6
Thanks for the words of encouragement am. 'Love the new avatar. LOL! The culprit was a rotting sponge and some decaying red people eaters. I'll probably get a new crab, but I'm going to wait until the tank recovers and I get my new pump.

Thanks! Seabass made it for me a year ago.

 

YAY you found Cerith #2 omgomgomg:happy::):happydance:

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