Oceanic Angles

[varanus37]

Good to know. I'm happy to hear from someone that they've had a good experience with the 14s. Your pics always look nice so I'm hoping things color up/keep good color when I've got the bulbs in. Did you pick up anything kewl while you were there? That was a good price on the Sman. At those prices I wish I would've gone. Hope you two cleaned house sellin frags.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

So I was able to snap some pics of one of the babies scouring around on the rocks tonight. You can see the striped proboscis and eye stalks fairly well just like the parents. We thought it looked a bit like a baby nassarius but it lacks that trailing foot that our nass snails have and our nass don't have very evident eye stalks or such a thick proboscis. Our adult conchs also have the stubby foot like these babies do. That hook is tucked away kinda next to the foot and is only extended to climb on/whack stuff. So here ya go.

 

 

 

 

Good view of proboscis and eye stalks here.

 

So there's the debut of the baby conchs. There are others this size and a set about half this size as well. I'd say that guy in the pic is the size of my pinkie nail.

 

Bill

[c est ma]

SWEET!!

 

What a wonderful phenomenon to occur, right in your reef! If you get too many, let us know.

 

--Diane

[varanus37]

I don't even know how many I have. I wish they were like that tiny snail you see in the pic with him. They come out all the time, even during the day. These critters are very secretive. The adults are out a good bit of the time but occasionally they do burrow in the sand or hole up in the rocks for a bit. I'm hoping that's when they're making more! These babies only seem to be active and visible at night. Once I started snapping pics though this guy was scooting for cover. That snail never even moved. Now that I've added another trio of adults it should be kewl to see what happens with the breeding efforts.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

The 14k Phoenixs are here! Came to the door today. They'll get put in tonight when the lights go out. Fish can do without the LEDs for a bit while I swap bulbs. Very excited to see how they look. I'll actually miss it tomorrow because I'm going to shorten the burn time on the halides to get everyone accustomed to the new bulbs. I didn't change wattage but I still want to do it slowly. I should get to see things on Sat.

 

Of course, pictures will follow. Have to take some right away and then a week or 2 later when the bulbs have some more burn time on them. Then put some up at the month mark and see the difference.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

So the lights went out and I waited for the MHs to cool. Soon as they did I snatched out those 10k's and put in the 14's. Cleaned off all the light covers, dusted reflectors, and also dusted fans and whatnot. Looks alot cleaner now. So I put it all back together and of course immediately fired them up just to see how it looked. It was pretty blue this first shot but I'm told as they burn in it becomes more crisp. Everything glowed crazy when the actinics were turned on with the 14k's. I'll stick to my usual dusk/dawn effect with the actinics and the MHs will be the daylights. So here's the FTS right off the bat.

 

 

I somewhat regret the blue/green mottled background now but I still like it better than flat black. I'm getting a good amount of coralline coverage on it anyway so no big deal.

 

Thanks for lookin'.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

So I got my wife to put her hand in the tank today and get picked on by the cleaner shrimp. She was freakin' out...it was awesome. . She is not fond of snakes, bugs, or creepy crawlies of any type so this was a major step for her. She's all about the tank but doesn't do much in the way of handling or moving inhabitants. So here are some shots of her and the shrimp in action.

 

 

 

My lawnmower blenny is a big nipper as well. He gets me every time I feed or move something. Just feels like a cat tongue and I think it's kewl. He almost got her and I thought she was going to knock the lights off the tank. Made for a good laugh. I'm proud of her though, she seemed pretty jumpy at first and she held still long enough for some pics. Maybe someday I'll get her to touch a snake. Somehow I doubt it, haha.

 

Bill

[Weetabix7]

Yay Teresa!!!

 

I suspect you won't need any actinic supplementation with the Phoenix 14k, even after it's burned in.

Maybe you should switch those bulbs to 50/50.

[varanus37]

I think I'm going dusk/dawn with the actinics and then just halides during the day. I'll see how I like that for a bit. Should be nice I think. And yes, she was fairly excited when she did it. And she's laughing at me for typing about it and posting those pictures.

 

Bill

[c est ma]

Bill, the new lights look super and I was thinking how nice your background looked before you mentioned not liking it. I think it's very effective.

 

Love the hand/shrimp pics. Kudos to your better half!

 

--Diane

[varanus37]

Oh no, I love the background. It was my idea. I was just worried that it would reflect too much of the blue into the tank and make things look weird. That was a joint project with Teresa. I picked the colors and she picked how to put it on. We ended up sponging it on, it was pretty kewl to see as we covered the glass.

 

Bill

[Weetabix7]

I'm looking forward to seeing some macro pics of your corals under the new light.

I bet the Kiwi Confusa and Undata look especially nice!

If the pics come out looking too blue, try using a flash.

[Nick's Reef]

New lights are much better! great pic of the cleaner shrimp.

[varanus37]

Thanks, I really like how they're making things look. I'm pretty proud of her for doing that plus it was a great pic opportunity. I'm going to email them to her fam, I'm sure they'll get a kick out of it.

 

Bill

[mp216]

I just read your thread and your tank looks great. I like the mix of corals that you have, and the 14k bulbs make a huge improvement. You should get some new shots of your zoos and put em up some side by side with the old pics for color and growth comparison, that would be cool to look at. I was also wondering if you are dosing anything?

 

-Matt

[varanus37]

I used PurpleUp for awhile. When that ran out I went to a different cal buffer. I've got 2 that I'm using now. Alternating them. I've gone back to PurpleUp and the other is Kent Marine Liquid Reactor. I toyed with other supplements for trace elements and whatnot but have mostly stuck by a cal and alk supplement and water changes with good salt. I think a good salt will give you any trace elements you should need and good testing will tell you where your deficiencies are. I really, really want to get a calc reactor but this tank isn't drilled so I think I'm going to wait until I upgrade this one to a 120 RR. I'm keeping the same lights, skimmer, and the Koralias so it shouldn't be too bad to upgrade.

 

Thanks for the interest and comments everyone.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

So some new frags are here! I got them from Weetabix. Good stuff and a good experience as always. One of the kiwi confusa frags and one of the purple undata frags are now on their way to her courtesy of the USPS. There's a nice frag of pink zoas front and center now, next to the sativa micro frag. There's also a mini colony of RPE/GPE polyps right below the orange cap and next to the mystery coral. That's where my other frag of RPE was. That got moved over by the toxic flonk chalice when this mini-colony came into the picture. The camera is on the charger so pics will be up tomorrow after work.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

So we picked up a new mandarin to replace the guy that jumped ship. He looked healthy at the LFS and was active. It's also the place where I got the last one. They have good luck with getting them to eat and usually have one or 2 on hand. And if you're going to flame please do so here. I welcome the discussion. My previous mandarin was healthy as a horse and showed no signs of starvation or anything else. He apparently became overly stressed by the addition of the koralias and the resulting flow increase and hopped out. The same thing almost happened with my YWG but he stopped just short of cruising through the surface for some reason. I'm excited for the new addition and am glad to have a mandarin back in my tank. Beautiful fish and tons of personality. Between the mandarin staring at me and the blenny always biting me, the fish are a show on their own.

 

Bill

[Weetabix7]

PICS, PICS, PICS, must see pics!!!

[varanus37]

It's dark! Tomorrow will be the day of days as far as pics go. First full Saturday/day off work I've had since getting new lights on both tanks and the new frags/fish. The memory card usage will commence. I'll post everything I get of course for you all to see.

 

Thanks for lookin'.

 

Bill

[c est ma]

I'm not entirely sure what gobies fall into that group. I think GBGs do but other than that I'm not sure. If you know of any species please put them here. That would be very kewl.

 

Bill

 

 

Bill,

 

I haven't made much progress, but here are some links and excerpts thereof which deal with hermaphroditism in some gobies. You'll notice that all Gobiodon spp (clown gobies) are supposed to be hermaphroditic.

 

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http://www.springerlink.com/content/m530587011j07882/

Evidence for hermaphroditism was observed in seven genera:Eviota, Trimma, Fusigobius, Lophogobius, Priolepis, Gobiodon, andParagobiodon. Protogyny was experimentally confirmed inE. epiphanes, and the gonad structure in another nine of ten species ofEviota suggested either protogyny or protogynous tendencies. With the exception ofGobiodon andParagobiodon, which exhibited similar gonadal structure, ovarian and testicular structure varied considerably among the hermaphroditic genera examined, both with regard to the configuration and to the degree of development of ovarian and testicular tissues, or testicular tissue precursors. Findings of this study indicate that hermaphroditic gonad structure will prove to be a useful trait in determining evolutionary relationships within the Gobiidae.

 

 

http://www.marinebreeder.org/phpbb/index.p...188a7c0c8705466

( some people to ask?)

 

 

http://etd.gsu.edu/theses/available/etd-12..._200712_phd.pdf

using the bluebanded goby (Lythrypnus dalli) as an experimental model. This species was

found to be equally capable of sexual transitions from female to male (protogyny) as from male to female

(protandry).

 

 

http://www.springerlink.com/content/k2n23j45634265p8/ (gbg, masked goby)

Synopsis The sexual structures of the populations of four Caribbean gobies were examined. Gobiosoma multifasciatum and Coryphopterus personatus are protogynous hermaphrodites, while G. illecebrosum and G. saucrum are gonochoristic. Sex changes were induced in females of the first two species in the laboratory, but not in females of the latter two species. The two hermaphroditic species live in large populations while the two gonochorists live in small groups. The significance of these findings to models of the evolution of protogyny are discussed.

 

 

Sex change sex ratios

http://westgroup.icapb.ed.ac.uk/pdf/Allsop&West_04.pdf

 

Gobiodon article:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-10/hcs3/index.php

excerpt:

Another interesting and uncommon trait has been uncovered and described. Nakashima et al., (1996), have described a two-way sex change, known as bi-directional sex change, within two Gobiodon species, G. micropus and G. oculolineatus. This led to the discovery that other Gobiodon also have this ability, and it is now believed that all Gobiodon species can change sex. In doing so, Gobiodon deviates from the size-advantage model (Ghiselin 1969) that states if an individual could significantly increase its chance of reproduction success after a certain size was reached, it would change to that sex. Instead, bi-directional protogynous hermaphrodites are the ultimate in sex-changing species, as it guarantees a heterosexual pair at any given time. In most cases, the smaller fish of the heterosexual pair is the female. The only time this is not true is when a small male is placed in the same coral head as a large female. It was found that in pairs which started as two females, the larger of the two became male. In pairs that started as two males, the smaller of the two changed to female (Munday et al. 1998).

 

 

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FWIW,

 

--Diane

[varanus37]

Wow. Good info all around. I love panda gobies and those are a type of clown goby so that's kewl. Big fan of just the yellow clown gobies as well. Kewl, now I have some options.

 

Thank you very much.

 

Bill

[varanus37]

PICS!!

Hidden cleaner shrimp

 

 

A shot of the colt coral he's hiding behind.

 

My mystery coral...doing really well.

 

 

A bunch of fish pics

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've got a bunch more still to come. Of the coral, obviously.

 

Bill

[Weetabix7]

Wow, that colt coral is cool.

Awesome pics.

I think your mystery coral might be Galaxea, but I'm not positive since it's not a coral I've ever kept.

Waiting on pins and needles for the next round!

[varanus37]

MORE

Sativa micros

 

Orange Cap

 

Zoa cluster

 

Zoa rock w/shrooms..hammer can be seen as well as Strawberry Lemonade monti

 

Strawberry Lemonade Monti

 

Branching Hammer

 

My very first micro...still going strong

 

RPEs from Mvite

 

Toxic Flonk chalice

 

Duncans

 

Tyree Strawberry Patch

 

Grandis Palys

 

Green cap w/scarlet hermit

 

Other zoa cluster

 

RPE rock from Weetie

 

More are still to come.

 

Bill