hookedonreef-er Posted August 15, 2007 Share Posted August 15, 2007 This is one of my favorite tanks that i have seen on this forum, amazing job. I'm setting up a 10g at my moms house and i hope it turns out half as good as yours. Keep it up. And the pics are awesome! Link to comment
el_vulture619 Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 Well I finally looked at your ank and it is great! Mine looks so empty.... But I am more of a fish guy! Breeding gobies are sweet!! I wish I could breed something! I am wanting to get another clown goby. Nice job! Maybe I will drive to Lansing a weekend to see the LFS your talking about. Link to comment
c est ma Posted October 11, 2007 Author Share Posted October 11, 2007 Thank you, everyone! El Vulture, today (well, Wednesday) was another baby goby day...still getting them like clockwork... Boy, I really need to get back to posting here, though what I really want to do--dig up the old pics over the past 3 years--is something I just can't seem to get around to... Some more recent shots, though not much changes... Except that the little candy cane frag died while I was on vacation in late September...it's been replaced by a yellowish ric: In the middle of that pic you can see this guy: Meanwhile, my latest bit of excitement was having my brittle stars spawn! Here are a couple of pics of one of them rising up and releasing a white fluid from its ventral opening: And here's a link to a thread about the incidence, with lots more pictures: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...c=131093&hl Thanks again for all the comments! --Diane Link to comment
Pickle010 Posted October 11, 2007 Share Posted October 11, 2007 Amazing Diane... Thank you for sharing those pics! Link to comment
TammyLiz Posted October 11, 2007 Share Posted October 11, 2007 Love your tank! I feel I've gained a little bit of experience just reading this. I love to see these "low tech" slow-going sort of setups outlined like this with long term results because that is the route I seem to be taking. When did you get your pom pom crab? I saw some of them in the LFS here yesterday for the first time and fell in love. I don't like to buy on impulse so I didn't bring him home but it has crossed my mind a few times since. Would you say he has been a good addition and does he seem to be thriving? Link to comment
c est ma Posted October 11, 2007 Author Share Posted October 11, 2007 Thank you! And to answer your question, I couldn't recommend any creature more highly than my pom pom! She is an absolute delight to watch and has been most hardy and inoffensive. I'm a bit embarrassed to let on that I found a record of her purchase (I can be so anal!). Anyway, I got her (her, judging by the shape of her ventral plates) on January 13, 2006, so I've had her for about 1 & 3/4 years. In that time she's been through several molts and as you can see is still doing well. Interestingly, just last month I was gone for 10 days and during that time my tank was not topped off as I'd instructed. I found the SG pretty high on return, lost a few snails, and the pom pom was looking poorly--jerking her limbs quite spastically...But happily she seems to be completely back to normal now... I decided to try to post a pic in every reply I make in this thread, so here's another shot of the pom pom (with the emerald crab to the left): And here's a crazy video of the pom pom, emerald, and one of the green banded gobies (with a brittle star arm reaching in from the upper right). I just wish my 40-second window of "movie time" hadn't stopped when it did! Silly goby. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4890143694051262139 You also probably want to have a look at this thread: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...ic=67217&hl HTH, --Diane Link to comment
MrAnderson Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 diane, this tank is nuts. you're a very humble person indeed. the ladies here on NR show how it's done imo. maybe it's motherly love, maybe it's patience, maybe it's a little of each, but your tank and tashayar's are distinguished by their mature, grown-in look that one can get only by not fussing with the tank constantly. i think marine life like corals are used to sitting in one spot for a LONG time, and look best when they are simply left in one spot for YEARS. you just don't get a natural looking tank by constantly rearranging and fragging everything. i'm trying very hard to leave my tank alone, not rearrange the rock, and let things like coralline grow and plate naturally. i hope i have the self-control to leave it alone long enough to get that grown in look that you have going here. kudos, job well done - the proof (as you MUST know, all humility aside) is in those gobies breeding -in a 5.5 no less!!!! that's just incredible!!! this is the type of tank that truly vindicates the idea of a nano-reef in light of the somewhat fading notion that reefing can't be done in less than 55 gallons. you are truly a pioneer. you deserve a prize or something. lacking that, here: Link to comment
c est ma Posted October 16, 2007 Author Share Posted October 16, 2007 Aww, thank you so much! But you are way too kind...really. I've done some things, right, some wrong--and sometimes I've just been lucky. (And sometimes, not...) I don't find it especially great looking, compared to lots of other tanks...nonetheless, I do love it--it's my baby! (There's that female thing... ) And y'know what?--turns out some of the conventional wisdom was right after all. Judging by the diatoms I scrape off the glass, 2 fish probably is too high a bioload for a 5.5...(at least one w/ no fuge, no skimmer, no effort made to add phosphate removers, etc...). So, I do a little more maintenance than some...but it's easy with a small tank. And the behavior of the 2 fish is so phenomenal to observe. I never get tired of it! I actually had the male for a year before adding the female, and the change in his behavior when "she" arrived (their sexes may not have been determined till they were put together) was so gratifying to behold...The babies are just the icing on the cake... I'm wondering how long it can last, though...they've been producing babies nearly every week since 11/11/06! Between them, & the spawning brittle stars, and the little plate-coral generating site, and many other phenomena/creatures I've been privileged to observe over the years, I think I can say I've gotten about as much out of a 5.5g as it is possible to get! (Though there're so many other ways to do nanos that I know that can't really be true.) Anyway, thanks. Pics du jour (this little girl's so hard to get good pics of, camoflaged as she is with the algae on her carapace, the hairy legs, the algal-looking "antennae"...): ...and the fact that her eyes have absolutely no shine to them! --Diane Link to comment
Daemonfly Posted October 17, 2007 Share Posted October 17, 2007 Everyone will make mistakes with their tanks, but I can easily say this is one of the better 5.5gs I've seen on here in a while. Puts my old 5.5g to shame. Link to comment
MrAnderson Posted October 17, 2007 Share Posted October 17, 2007 just the idea of constantly spawning fish in a 5.5, no matter how small they are, just blows my mind. to keep a tank that small so stable and happy that the fish are constantly shagging speaks volume about the quality of "stability" in there. if we do a totm, this is one of my nominees. Link to comment
Duncan Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 Amazing pico tank! Makes me want to setup a pico too! This is truly one of better tanks around here. I love all your macro pictures, especially the crabs! Link to comment
c est ma Posted October 18, 2007 Author Share Posted October 18, 2007 Thank you, thank you! Coincidentally, today was baby goby day... Fish are probably easier than corals or inverts...still, I was as amazed as anyone when they started to breed. Of course I've since learned of others with similar luck. It's been interesting how the male has moved his "nest" around the tank...he stays in one location for several broods, then up and relocates... Mexican red-legged hc--this little guy's been in there since at least May 2004 (earliest record): Soapdish brittle stars making short work of a ladybug: --D Link to comment
supreme_spork Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 this tank is SO COOL! i want to see a video of the brittles devouring the unlucky ladybug. Link to comment
Ben314z Posted October 23, 2007 Share Posted October 23, 2007 Lol I always forget hw pretty your tank is until I see pics of it again when I visit your post. I gots a question though. Where do you find those wonderful Rics? Online? I can't seem to find many here and none look even close to that healthy when I do find em. Its kind of frustrating cause Salt Lake isn't half bad when It comes to selection usually. Do you get them online? Trading frags with local friends? Link to comment
c est ma Posted October 23, 2007 Author Share Posted October 23, 2007 Thanks, Ben. Actually, I got them all at a couple of lfs's over a long period of time. When you have frequented your lfs's for a while you may notice that certain items go in and out of "style." I don't know if it's a matter of what's available from the wholesalers or what the lfs orders--but as with any retail operation, having a changing inventory tends to keep people coming back... I also chose to pay what to me was a lot for some of them. The orange one was a single polyp when I got it and I paid $50 for it...but I also got some brittle stars and chitons as hitchers...and it's now at least 5 separate polyps. The pink was about the same price for 2 polyps, and there are now 9 of them. I found the greens & blues in small frag tanks for much less, tho--$10 to $15 per polyp. My tank is so small it hardly pays to mailorder or swap through the mail...but from what I hear, those are very good ways to amass a collection. You could also try asking various lfs's if they can order specific items for you... Oh, and something that once appeared on a "what I'd do differently" thread--it pays to wait for what you want, rather than buy something drab just because you really want a coral RIGHT NOW. Easier said than done! Good luck! --Diane Link to comment
varanus37 Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 I'd like to do that with my 1/2 10 as well. I love the way your rics cover like that. I'm hoping to do mostly shrooms and rics in this tank. I've really only got 2 shrooms in my 55 so it'll be something new for me. Great tank, gives me lots of ideas and I'm sure does the same for many others. Bill Link to comment
shaz1971 Posted October 30, 2007 Share Posted October 30, 2007 Hi Diane, Thanks for the encouragment on my little project. Thought Id check out your tank and man Im glad I did. Very Very cool tank, love everything about it. Now I know that I got britle stars thanks to one of your pics. I must have a whole colony of them on one rock I counted atleast 8 different legs sticking out from various little caves on that rock. Continued success. Link to comment
Lalani Posted November 6, 2007 Share Posted November 6, 2007 Wow, those pics are incredible and your tank is so beautiful! I wish my ricordea would split.. going on 5 mouths now and still refuses to let go of even one. Link to comment
c est ma Posted November 6, 2007 Author Share Posted November 6, 2007 Wow, those pics are incredible and your tank is so beautiful! I wish my ricordea would split.. going on 5 mouths now and still refuses to let go of even one. Thanks! Y'know, all my rics are different--the orange went to 5 mouths before splitting, the pink splits at the drop of a hat, and the biggest green just gets huge--it started with one mouth, briefly had two right next to each other, then the one seemed to eat the other, and now it has one huge mouth. ??? I've also had them start to split and then appear to change their "minds..." Shaz, thanks for the kind words! Did you see my pics of my brittle stars spawning?: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...135793&st=0 Bill, thanks as well! About time for an update on the 1/2 10, isn't it? Some recent pics: Trying to catch the mouth bristles on a peanut worm is worse than trying to catch a chameleon with its tongue extended. The bristles show just a bit in this pic, but I do like the way the "hairiness" of the worm shows up: The lighting's off in this one because it's actually a shot of an area in shadow and I had to shine a flashlight on it. The big ric to the left is the large green one. Once in a while when it lifts up like this I can see that my little hitchhiking bivalve (curvy gray/brown line in center of pic) is still hanging in there!: This guy's a ham. He falls now and then, but when you look at this shot and see just how little he hangs on with (esp. compared to the weight of that relatively big cerith shell he's chosen) it's amazing that he hangs on as well as he does!: --Diane Link to comment
dan15daman Posted November 6, 2007 Share Posted November 6, 2007 To the OP, If you consider that to be humble and embarressing to show then I think I'll go and just shoot myself now. Link to comment
Lalani Posted November 7, 2007 Share Posted November 7, 2007 Diane, what camera are you using? Link to comment
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