The Arch Solana Experiment

[revaltion131]

speaking of crabs, I looked in my tank this morning around 6am and I saw 3 crabs. I thought I only had 1 emerald crab. I did see him and what looks like another emerald crab. The 3rd one looked different. I tried identifying it, but couldn't find anything that looked like it online yet

 

No pic at the moment, but it looks like the crabs that you order at restaurants, but grey and about the size of a nickel.

 

Also, the several corals I have attached to rock by epoxy stick have become detached over the past few weeks and I always had to re-glue them. I just thought it was the emerald crab hard at work walking through the cracks and crevices, but now that I know there's at least 3 causing havok

 

should I get rid of a couple of them especially since they uproot some of the corals? they're all hitchhikers probaby from my rock

 

You probably should get rid of the grey one. I'll bet it's not a reef-safe critter. As far as the emeralds, I'll stay mum since it does sound like I've been lucky with mine so far.

[archx]

I didn't catch the crab yet although I was really close last friday night. bought some ridged airline tubing, attached some fishing line and made it into a lasso. I didn't close the lasso in time on his legs to catch him. and haven't had time since to continue 'fishing'.

 

I did stop by the fish store and bought some more corals. sorry the pics suck

 

 

 

 

 

FTS

 

oh yeah, unfortunately the hammer's dead, dead, dead

[archx]

so last saturday, I get home around 9pm and there's this thing just sitting on one of the rocks. I break out the light and it's one of the crabs. I get my grabber and just like that, I grabbed it and took it out of the tank. score!

 

 

Also, last week I ordered some more rics from sealifeinc. I received the package on thursday. I bought 2 rics and Ken included a red mushroom and some cerith snails since I screwed up my first order from him. cool guy. everything looks real good so far

 

 

 

 

fts

[justbob]

yeah, that looks like a bad bad crab. Nice grab. I saw the web site for sealifeinc. Holy sh%! I saw that piece of premium cultured live rock. Wow.

[archx]

I bought a Crocea clam today. it's about 2 inches. placed it on the rock I reserved especially for a clam. It opened right up a couple of minutes after I put it in the tank.

 

 

I also took out a couple of rocks so my aquascape is now more of a U shape and easier to view the whole tank

 

[archx]

it's been awhile since I had an update. so far the tank is still looking great. all corals and fish are healthy. I have a mild cyano outbreak but I'm slowly getting it under control. I combined a few different frozen foods together like, mysis, brine, cyclop-eze,etc into one container and whenever I fed, too much of the food the fish didn't like remained uneaten and settled at the bottom.

 

I switched to feeding the fish primarily mysis and brine shrimp while adding some marine snow or phytofeast on alternating evenings for the inverts. I also added some additional temporary flow.

 

anyway, I bought quite a few specimens over the last month. A few sps are bleached right now so pics for them, but here are some others.

 

replacement hammers for the ones my shrimp ate a couple of months ago

 

candy cane I believe

 

christmas tree

 

some zoos

 

a duncan with some rics, and monti

 

fts

[archx]

I just remembered I wanted to share a UPS story I went through a few weeks ago. I bought several coral from an east coast online store for overnight delivery to california. the store ships the item on a monday and I get an automated email that the info has been entered into the ups system.

 

fast forward to tuesday around lunch and I get another email that it arrived...cool! I come back from lunch and check with my mailroom guy. He tells me he has nothing that arrived addressed to me. I call ups and it turns out they shipped my box to the wrong address. They say they'll contact the local facility and have it corrected.

 

I get a message from that facility saying that it will deliver on wednesday. of course they don't leave a number to call them directly so I call customer service (CS) again. I tell them it's a live shipment and needs to be delivered that same day. they say they'll forward it to the local facility and won't give me their number.

 

so it's the end of the day tuesday and no package. I wait the following wednesday until around 3:00pm and call CS again. They look it up and say all they can do is contact the local office again...no package arrives on wednesday.

 

I check again on thursday and CS said that the package got shipped to the same incorrect address the previous day! the package got sent to the wrong address twice! so they transfer me to a supervisor and he takes down all my information and asks what the contents of the box were. he says they'll get this corrected.

 

I get a call from the local facility saying the package will arrive friday. by then I'm thinking the corals are dead so who the #### cares. and I can't submit a claim until I get the box! friday comes around and nothing. call one more time and the CS operator was basically rude and told me I had to stickaround until 7pm since that was the window for the package to arrive. I said I wanted to talk to a supervisor and she wouldn't transfer me to one. I finally cussed at her and hung up. as I predicted, and contrary to what the operator said, the package did not come on friday. #####!!

 

ok, it's monday and I calmed down. All I wanted to do that day was call to file a complaint on friday's operator. unfortunately I didn't get her name and she didn't update my tracking number so there was no record of the conversation or who she was. ######! oh and the package finally arrived that afternoon stinking like a greyhound terminal restroom.

 

#### you UPS!!!

[archx]

ok, I bought a vortech MP20 last week and received it on Monday. The group buy by stan was great! got it in just a few days.

 

First impression of the device is that it's not that much better than my Tunze 6025. However, I was only able to play with it for an evening before I had to go back to my other place for a few days during the work week. I guess I'll play around with it some more this weekend and see if it's worth the money I paid for it.

 

here's a quick video if anyone wants to see. It was set to reef-crest random mode. There is a bit of noise coming from it, but the sound in the vid is mostly from the MH's and addtional fan in the back. And if you touch the glass, you don't feel any vibrations. The lights are MH 150 phoenix and 4 T5s, but I set the white balance so it looks more on the yellow rather than blue side.

 

[archx]

It's been a couple of weeks since I had the vortech. I initially didn't find any difference compared to my tunze 9025, but since then it's really made a difference as far as healthy looking corals, clean sand, and active fish.

 

Other than that, I captured two more crabs in the tank and a 5 inch bristle worm. Also bought some more corals

 

galaxy. just bought it the other say so the feelers haven't come out yet

 

hammer

 

green bubble

 

fts

 

I some sps corals, but they're still bleached. probably take some pics of them in a few weeks

[FishHeaded]

Tank looks sick! Do you dose calc/alk?

[archx]

Tank looks sick! Do you dose calc/alk?

 

Thanks. I have unopened 2part bottles of the b-ionic, but haven't used them yet. I'm trying to finish up my bottle of purple up before I go to the 2 part. that and my water changes seem to be keeping the tank healthy right now.

[archx]

I guess it's time for an update. The tank is still doing well although I'm having a slight cyano problem right now. I do 10% water changes usually weekly, sometimes every two weeks. I test about once a month. Aside from that, it's pretty maintenance free aside from scraping the glass..

 

Here's some pics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[archx]

I bought a maxima clam this past weekend. awesome looking clams.

 

FTS

[spanko]

That is a beautiful FTS. Thank you for sharing!!!

[brshriver]

+1

[res]

Sweet tank! Any updates?