Oceanic Angles

[varanus37]

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Aquablue Special

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KZ Figi

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Aquablue Special

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KZ Figi

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That's the bulb combo I'm hoping to go with. We'll see how it goes.

 

Set up a new tank for the crested gecko and thought I'd post some pics for the reptile nerds among us.

 

 

 

 

 

Not much to update with the 75 right now. Kinda biding my time until I get my bulbs. We're still looking into an RO/DI unit as well. A friend in the reef club has offered their fish trap so I'm going to set about removing the six-line. I made the same mistake everyone else does in thinking "they won't become super aggressive in my tank". My sump/fuge is a 20L so I may rehome him down there. Could possibly trade him in or swap him somewhere in the reef club but we'll see. We did luck into a 15H with a lime green stand. That would sound weird except my daughters' room has purple walls with green accent rugs and blankets. They've also got pink and orange bunks so the lime green fish tank stand fits perfectly. I'll try and get pics up later.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

2 new frags in this tank as of this morning. Participated in a swap and got 2 pieces that will go well in this tank. One is a nice little acro frag with crazy green polyps and the other is a 2-head candy cane. Haven't had a piece of this coral since the 55 in GA so glad to have some now. Always liked these and had good luck with my last bunch until the move.

 

Bill

[Deleted User 6]

Love my stuff, Bill! Thanks!

[varanus37]

No problem. Glad you like it. The blue really came out in that acro under your lights. It was teasing me under my lights but apparently you got the good show.

 

 

So interesting happening in this tank last night. Teresa watched the Filefish cruise up by the overflow several times and "squirt a white cloud". Not sure what that's all about but it might be time to start looking for a girlfriend for the Filefish, LoL. Moved some frags out and moved the 2 new in so this weekend will likely see some movement of corals. My big favia is annoyed for some reason where it's at now so it may get swapped out with one of the large chalice pieces. I think the mushrooms are irritating it for some reason but the chalices are known shroom melters so it should be no problem for them.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

Finally was able to borrow a fish trap from a friend. No luck tonight but I'll keep trying. Had most of the fish in and out of the trap except the six-line. I have an obnoxious type of macro in the tank that's growing extremely quickly so I went through tonight and cleaned out as much as I could. Transplanted it all to the sump and finally got around to setting up a light down there. We'll see if I can convince it to grow down there and not in my display, LoL. I've cut back on the feeding and the skimmer is running full-crank but I'm still growing this macro like mad. Hopefully this will help. Need to test the params tomorrow. Usually do it on Sundays anyway. Probably a WC as well for good measure. That's about it for updates. Everything is still growing well. Some frags and discs are getting batted around by the urchins so I may be moving a few around, we'll see.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

31000+ views! Thank you all for tagging along. Tax season is upon us so hopefully I'll have pic up soon with the new bulb combo. The blue-side wrasse was out quite a bit today and the six-line wasn't completely obnoxious to him so it was pretty kewl. Everyone else is doing really well as usual.

 

Bill

[Weetabix7]

Finally was able to borrow a fish trap from a friend. No luck tonight but I'll keep trying. Had most of the fish in and out of the trap except the six-line. I have an obnoxious type of macro in the tank that's growing extremely quickly so I went through tonight and cleaned out as much as I could. Transplanted it all to the sump and finally got around to setting up a light down there. We'll see if I can convince it to grow down there and not in my display, LoL. I've cut back on the feeding and the skimmer is running full-crank but I'm still growing this macro like mad. Hopefully this will help. Need to test the params tomorrow. Usually do it on Sundays anyway. Probably a WC as well for good measure. That's about it for updates. Everything is still growing well. Some frags and discs are getting batted around by the urchins so I may be moving a few around, we'll see.

 

Bill

 

I'm curious to see pics of that Macro, wondering about an ID.

You get the new bulbs yet?

Pics of the new frags yet?

[varanus37]

I'll see what I can do on the pics. I can't get a good one of the monti for some reason. The purple just doesn't come out in the pics. The candy cane heads are puffing out like mad so should be able to get some nice shots there. Same with the nepthea. Only the candy canes are in this tank. The new bulbs are waiting until the tax return. Not too happy with the news that if we file our new homebuyer tax credit we'll have to file on paper. Turns the wait into 12-16 wks so we may hold off and file that with our 2010 return.

 

I pulled out a good deal of the macro but I'll take some pics of what's left. I've got 2 other macros growing in some spots right now that I'm curious about as well. One is red and really neat looking. The other is a normal green but has a really odd shape to it. I'll get pics up soon.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

A few pics that I ran and snapped. Couldn't get a good shot of the red macro. I mangled it when I was pulling the other stuff out. Ended up being a pain on the blue-tipped macro as well. The smaller strands that are left don't have the blue ends and aren't in the nice bunches.

So imagine this but a few inches long and much more dense. The tips turn a deep blue/black color.

 

This macro is the odd one I was talking about. Very thick structure and looks rubbery.

 

 

The candy cane heads. As puffed out as can be.

 

This pic does no justice to the lime green color of these polyps. Really nice.

 

I'll see what I can do about getting a decent pic of the red macro and as the blue tip grows in the sump I'll try to get better pics of that as well. It's really yellow light down there but at least the growth structure should help narrow things down.

 

Bill

[icsd71]

Man took me a while to view the progress. Awesome tank man! Hope to have something that good in the near future.

[varanus37]

Thanks for the compliment. Don't feel like I'm progressing much, LoL. Things are growing though and that's a plus.

 

Bill

[Militant Jurist]

Things are growing though and that's a plus.

 

Sometimes we just have to take the victories when and where we can get them. My tank seems to be the same way, until I look at some of the photos from when some of the corals were introduced. Then I feel a bit better about the amount of progress.

[varanus37]

With my acans, my watermelon chalice and my acros I can really tell. My zoas have been off lately though. I don't know what it is. Doing the half open/half not for a day, then all open, then annoyed. Blue cloves are spreading and fully extended constantly though. I dunno. Get the bulbs replaced and get my own RO/DI going and we'll see how things turn out. Really interested to see how the macro does in the sump as well. I'm not religious with my WC's and it really irritates me that I'm not. I'm hoping the RO/DI will put that habit back into me. Working 2nd shift just makes for a weird schedule in general.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

Any of you Chicagoland folks going to the CMAS swap on Saturday? If so, I'll be there with a good chunk of the JARC crew coming and going throughout the day as I understand it. Not sure what time we're showing up but probably right around noon. Hope to see you all out there.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

A friend gave me several heads of black sun coral. Set them up in the sump/fuge along with the regular suns. They're really interesting to see next to each other. I put them in the sump for easier access at feeding time. I really like the 75 but that depth makes it hard to feed like I used to.

 

Bill

[latteslave]

This macro is the odd one I was talking about. Very thick structure and looks rubbery.

 

 

Tank looks very nice! Thinking the macro is maybe Codium? how quickly does it grow?

[varanus37]

It hasn't grown very quickly at all. The hair algae grows rapidly of course but this thicker stuff doens't. The oddball red macro that I wrote about earlier is the same way. I'd describe it at about the rate that you see sponge growth on LR. One of those things where you notice a bit more each week but nothing substantial until you look at a picture months apart. Hopefully that makes sense.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

Tried to get a better pic of the weird macro.

 

Went to the CMAS swap and wanted to buy a dendro piece. A friend told me not to. He had pieces in his frag tank and would give me the friend discount, LoL. Nice two head frag.

 

Midwest Coral Farm had a table at the swap and good prices on their rics so that's where a few of Teresa's came from. I'm not supposed to be buying anything for this tank but I like them and this acan was a good deal.

 

Not a new piece but moved it closer to the front recently so pics are better.

 

Fed most of the LPS today and let the fish do their thing. The blue side wrasse and the filefish both ate right from the tongs so that was awesome. Got to watch the filefish pick the eyes out of all the krill pieces. A little weird but makes sense. Bright orange krill and the only dark spot is the eyes. Went for those first. Found a good way to feed my WM chalice too, pellets. I could never dice krill small enough to feed him but not have them blow around from the fish or get carried off by hermits. Now I use my eye dropper and drop a pellet on each mouth and it's good to go.

 

So that's the update. Tax refund is looking like the 16th or so and then new bulbs as long as it takes to ship them to me from that day, LoL.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

Got a free micro from a member of the reef club and the piece went in here. He had a rock slide that mashed a colony and decided to frag it up and pass pieces around. Really kewl gesture from a new person in the club. I'll get pics up shortly. Crazy work schedule and whatnot so the bulbs haven't been ordered yet. They are still in the plan though so hopefully soon.

 

For those reptile nerds among us I got a sweet V-day present. 4.5-5' male RTB. Teresa is trying really hard to get over her fear of snakes and she wanted something bigger than the corns that she'd be able to hold. She doesn't like that small snakes are constantly on the move, freaks her out. Red-tails are big enough to be fun handling but not big enough to be dangerous so it's a nice middle ground for her. I'm anxious to get back to doing educational shows for kids again too so this snake will help in that aspect. They're really common and are actually good pets so they work well in demonstrations. I'll get pics of him up when I can. I can't see it but Teresa says he has nice pink along his mouth.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

JARC had a membership event at Aquatica in Tinley Park last night and I came home with something, of course. I won a fairly large green stylo frag in the raffle and that was actually my only coral of the night. A friend and I traded some reptile gear for some reef gear and out of it I scored another black urchin so that's always neat. I really like urchins and cukes. Just odd like that I guess.

 

And my actual purchase of the night.....cuttlefish eggs! Yes, I know they're silly hard to care for and have heart-breakingly short life spans but I'm ok with that. A friend is really big into seahorses and other difficult critters and she asked that some eggs be brought in for the sale. I've expressed interest before and she's offered to help as needed. Well when the sale happened the store actually brought in alot of eggs. Turns out only Diane was going to take any home and the other people backed out. She offered her advice and encouragement so I took the remainder and we'll see what happens.

 

It is a bit of an impulse buy and I admit that but our support group in JARC is first-class so I'm still optimistic about my chances. And of course several people offered encouragement and future trades if I could keep them alive for a few months, LoL. I have 19 total eggs so if I somehow manage to work with even half of them I'm glad to have eager outlets in the club. Many have experience with seahorses, pipes, and other difficult species so I know they'll go to good homes.

 

So that's my update.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

We've got our first hatchling! Looks like a pencil eraser with tentacles. Really neat to see. Quite a few of the eggs look close to hatching. At night you can see the babies plain as day with a flashlight.

 

The plan is to do a good sized WC this weekend. I've really cut back on feeding. I think I overfed by quite a bit and it was contributing to the algae growth. Keep the algae growth in the fuge progressing, keep the skimmer cranked and cut back on my feedings and hopefully positive things will come. Still some oddball angry corals here and there. My larger favia piece was zapped fairly badly by my maze brain and has been moved. A chalice caught the same shot and was moved as well. Not sure what I'm going to do with the left rear corner now as the flow seems to push those tentacles right into that spot. I've got orange mushrooms spreading really well so the thought right now is to let the shrooms spread that way and fill as they will. My acros are doing awesome for the first time. Lots of encrusting, good color and a bit of vertical growth. I'm fairly proud of that. Never had luck with acros before, just the montis. All of my LPS are doing great aside from the pieces that were stung. I'm starting to think it was due to the overfeeding, LoL. All of that food kept the growth going strong. We'll see how they react with less feeding, hopefully not negatively. I can deal with slower growth if it means a cleaner look to the tank. If I want to keep up the crazy growth then I'll just go back to spot feeding like I did in GA.

 

So that's my novel.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

Some quick pics I took today before work. Going to work on getting this one fed and hope for a few more hatchlings this weekend.

 

 

Bill

[Carlton'sTank]

Saaawwweeeeeeet! #### luck, sounds like an awesome little endeavor and just another exciting thing to explore in this hobby.

[varanus37]

That's pretty well my opinion. I'm going to work with them and do the best I can. I have homes for several if I end up extremely successful and I have room for several myself if I end up not so successful. It's something different from the norm for me so we'll see how it goes. Really glad to have the friends in JARC supporting the project as well. There are 3 of us now with eggs and 2 of us with active hatchlings so I think we've got a shot. So long as we can work through the feeding issues of this baby stage we should be good to go. From all of the information I've gone through, larger cuttles are actually fairly easy to work with. The short lifespan is the major downside and shoddy transportation of adults sucks for individuals bought at the LFS. It takes some extra work to raise from the egg but hopefully this will insure healthy adults.

 

Bill

[Carlton'sTank]

I think it gives a better appreciation to breeding in general as well. Good luck with this endeavor, I am always fascinated by any kind of animal husbandry. I would like to try breeding/raising down the road, but for now I am loving aquaculture. I hope this works out as this would be quite an accomplishment.