My humble 5.5g

[stoney waters]

I LOVE THIS TANK!!

[knoxvegas]

Unfortunately, I lost that one while trying to save the candy cane from a vermetid infestation (ended up losing the candy cane as well!). I'll have to ask Bill how his clump is doing...

 

--Diane

 

Diane, I love your tank. BTW, I have quite a vermetid infestation in my pico reef too. I am curious, what have you done to 'manage' the vermetid snails. I searched the forums and discovered that tinyreef mentioned digging at them with a paperclip. I have done this on one rock and I think I have had some success, but I have not tried this tactic on a more grand scale.

[dubsmcfly]

Diane!!!! so i think i will be moving back in with my mom and i was hoping you would show her the way to make a tank look great after i set it up...thank you and please tell me if she has a hope

[Gerber77]

This tank is very very cool.

[c est ma]

Diane

There is a request in the pico forum thread show us your 5.5 for your tank. So if you have a moment sneak a picture over there for every one. Thanks

 

Aaack! If it's the one about superlative picos, I can't compete. But I'll try to get around to it. (It's nice to be asked.)

 

 

I think your pics are influencing me.....lol I was at my favorite LFS today and they got in a few rics. I found a nice small rock that had 2 greens and one blue ric on it. Now I have 4 added since last week. Its all your fault.

 

Your rics look beautiful! I owe you many responses on your latest flurry of posts.

 

 

Just dropped in to say hello and look at pictures, but alas, no new pictures...

 

Okay, pics below. (Thanks for asking!)

 

 

I can't get over the Pom-pom crab. He looks so cute.

 

 

She is delightful! (She once had a mass of eggs beneath her plastron.) I, too, love the way pom pom markings give them such a cute "expression."

 

 

Diane, I love your tank. BTW, I have quite a vermetid infestation in my pico reef too. I am curious, what have you done to 'manage' the vermetid snails. I searched the forums and discovered that tinyreef mentioned digging at them with a paperclip. I have done this on one rock and I think I have had some success, but I have not tried this tactic on a more grand scale.

 

Ah, knox, I'm not the one to ask. I ended up losing the whole tiny frag. It was basically a single stalk of candy cane with a nice polyp that was splitting on top, but the vermetids were multiplying rapidly (how do they do that?! They're sessile snails!). I would take it out, set it in a little tupperware tub in SW, put it under a magnifying lamp, and pull off the vermetids with forceps. Then I'd scrape their attachment sites with the forceps tip, or a dissecting needle. And I scoured the stalk with a toothbrush. I killed my sps hitchhiker in the process. Meanwhile, there was one (or more) vermetid in a crevice just under the cc polyp. I could not be too rough with this one for fear of stabbing the polyp, but I did feel like I routed it out more than once...but it always regenerated. This was the one whose mucous net really inhibited the cc polyp. I had to leave for a couple of weeks to visit my aging parents, and when I got back the cc polyp was dead.

 

I have read more than one poster mention dismantling their tanks due to vermetid infestation.

 

Ironically, I never believed they could be a problem until it happened to me. I have had other vermetids that were non-prolific and never bothered anything. In fact I still have one of those on the other side of my tank. So I'd always thought they were harmless and an interesting addition to the biodiversity. This is yet another case in which I've concluded that there must be many species or strains of a given organism, some of which are problematic and some of which aren't. Brown hydroids have been another such example.

 

Good luck with yours. With many pests I've found that persistent destruction, even if they regrow several times, eventually discourages them...

 

 

Diane!!!! so i think i will be moving back in with my mom and i was hoping you would show her the way to make a tank look great after i set it up...thank you and please tell me if she has a hope

 

You mean you're going to leave it with your Mom? Then it depends on her... LOL. In my case, I taught my son everything he knows about biology...well, until he got to college, at least. He was the child who shared my fascination with all things biological--and my excuse for taking on many projects. But he never got as far in reefing as I have since I "inherited" his tank!

 

Thanks to everyone else who posted such nice comments!!

 

Well, this will be a test of how long a single post can be on N-R. Because I do like to add pics with each reply...

 

Since my tank is full and not much changes, there's not much reason to add more fts's. So here's a potpourri, as they say on Jeopardy, of various things.

 

First, a few items from other recent posts of mine, since I'd like this thread to be something of a reference to my others...

 

A pic of my latest batch of goby larvae:

 

 

( More at this thread: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...=139072&hl= )

 

 

A couple of pics and a video of a brittle star doing something weird--inflating its central disc:

 

Normal:

 

Inflated:

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5...81363&hl=en

( action in 1st 5 seconds)

 

(More pics and info here: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...=137616&hl= )

 

And some pics I posted to the "official pom pom crab thread" of an exoskeleton (molt) that I found in very intact condition and saved in alcohol:

 

 

 

New:

 

Close up of a Trochus radula:

 

 

Ric eating brittle star--I didn't get very good pics of this, but it was a first:

 

 

And finally, in the time-honored tradition of posters hijacking their own threads, some shots of my daughter taking hay to the barn under current conditions:

 

 

 

 

 

--Diane

[Weetabix7]

It looks so beautiful there!

In some ways it reminds me of a winter version of BibleSue's place.

[H20]

Diane,

I know in the past you have said that you shoot through various magnifying lenses. What power are they? I think the one that I tried in the past is 2x if I remember correctly. What are you getting the best results out of for your closeups?

[c est ma]

Lisa,

 

I'm sure Sue would have her barn painted!

 

 

H20,

 

For the super close-ups I use a 12X loupe, but the picture subject has to be very close to the glass...For the others I get the best results using the eyepiece of an old set of binoculars that I dismantled...I'm sorry, I don't know what power it is; not too strong, I'd say. Someone mentioned discovering that they were successful shooting backwards through an old SLR camera lens!

 

Bad pic of my lenses (cam still set for tank conditions!). Binoc eyepiece on right:

 

 

--Diane

[H20]

Ahhhh, thanks. I had wondered why your extreme closeups were so much more magnified and clear than the ones I have attempted, and I guess 2x vs. 12x makes a difference....lol I will try a few other magnifiers to see what I can try..... Thanks.

 

P.S. Cool winter photos. I wish that we got snow around here.

[klarion]

Diane, I love your tank. BTW, I have quite a vermetid infestation in my pico reef too. I am curious, what have you done to 'manage' the vermetid snails. I searched the forums and discovered that tinyreef mentioned digging at them with a paperclip. I have done this on one rock and I think I have had some success, but I have not tried this tactic on a more grand scale.

 

Too bad about the snails. Have you ever considered a six line wrasse or other type biological warfare on it?

I found lot's of people posting that the six line will pick at various small snail types:

Six Line Wrasse info and comments

 

Hope that helps.

[monkeytrumpets]

Great pics as usual Diane! (Thanks for adding them for us to drool over ).

 

I always enjoy pics of your GBGs and their offspring. You've inspired me to try a pair of GBGs in my BC8 if/when I move Burg to a larger tank.

 

I'm especially impressed with the ric eating the brittle star. You always seem to be in the right place at the right time with your camera. It makes me wonder how much I miss in my own tank.

 

Happy Holidays!

 

-Adam

[H20]

I forgot to mention the ric eating the brittle star. That was amazing to see in your pic. I had no idea that a ric would/could do such a thing. Crazy......

[c est ma]

Ah, then you've got to see Argent's pic in this thread!:

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...126528&st=0

 

Thank you, Adam! And very Happy Holidays to you, too!! And to everyone else!

 

--Diane

[clifford513]

Awesome pics and descriptions Diane. Your daughter looks very happy Beautiful place you live there. Your posts are always so wonderful to read. Hope you and yours have a blessed Christmas!

[klarion]

I'm subscribing to this thread as well. That's some shocking imagery.

 

Edit: oh, I meant to post this in the Ric "eating contest" thread.

 

I've been a subscriber to this one of yours for a while now

I had no idea those Rics were so aggresive.

[c est ma]

Awesome pics and descriptions Diane. Your daughter looks very happy Beautiful place you live there. Your posts are always so wonderful to read. Hope you and yours have a blessed Christmas!

 

Thanks very much, Clifford! And a very merry Christmas to you & yours as well!

 

Thanks, Klarion!

 

A few random new shots:

 

Amazingly, the male goby held still long enough for me to get a couple of shots of him through the loupe, one of which was in focus. Of course he's a bit deep for my limited depth of field, but I thought it was kind of interesting looking, anyway. First time I've noticed those things that look like some kind of sensory bristles on his "nose:"

 

 

And a couple of sequences of a brittle star stealing sinking pellets from the Porites. (This happens all the time.) Here an arm is snaking up from below (and closing Porites polyps as it goes):

 

 

In this pic the arm has retreated with most of the pellet, but you can see some successfully engulfed in the Porites' polyp's mouth:

 

 

Another time. Here the arms are coming over the top, wrapping around a couple of pellets the Porites caught near it's top edge:

 

 

Victory! The blurred arm was moving fast--could have been from a second star trying to steal from the first. Meanwhile, it looks like there's a worm coming up through a hole in the Porites, going after the same pellets. (That hole is where the Porites is surrounding a tuft of algae and apparently successfully overgrowing it):

 

 

In the next 2 pics you can see the pellets being conveyed down the star arms...

 

 

 

And another OT shot. I was walking past the TV room last night when I noticed the dogs, apparently exhausted after a hard day of, well, lying around:

 

 

(The room was actually pretty dark--so the flash lit it up like a strobe. Also, I guess that's not my most enchantingly decorated room...)

 

--Diane

[Krayon]

those pics are amazing IMO, what kind of goby is it?

[c est ma]

Thank you, Krayon!

 

He is a greenbanded goby. Here're a couple of shots from when I first got him, about 2 years ago:

 

 

With his reflection(s):

 

 

Experiment: someone let me know if they can click on these and get a full-screen size pic. They just lose so much detail with the NR mod...:

 

 

 

--Diane

[varanus37]

The first pic pops up more or less the same as on NR but the second pic is much larger. Lots of little details are very visible in that second pic. Very kewl shot. Things are looking really good. Clutch pic of the dogs as well. Mine is the same way. Every night he's on his love seat and laying there like he just trekked over Everest, LOL.

 

Bill

[adinsxq]

WHAT EATS THE HAY?!

[c est ma]

The first pic pops up more or less the same as on NR but the second pic is much larger. Lots of little details are very visible in that second pic. Very kewl shot. Things are looking really good. Clutch pic of the dogs as well. Mine is the same way. Every night he's on his love seat and laying there like he just trekked over Everest, LOL.

 

Bill

 

Well, that's not exactly helpful! The results, that is, not your report--thanks for that! Would you mind going back to the goby pic & trying to click on it once or twice once you get to image shack? (I know I'm not the only one who hates the loss of detail after personally resizing pics, then having them go thru the N-R mod.)

 

 

WHAT EATS THE HAY?!

 

 

 

--Diane

[clifford513]

Nubians? You're gonna make me dig out real photos

[c est ma]

Oh, goody! They were pretty young in that pic. The big wether to the left is a Nubian/Saanen cross.

 

--Diane

[SPS20]

The goats are cute, and the photographs are wonderful. I think you should remove the word "humble" from the thread title. This tank is anything but humble. You have done so much with so little water, it is stunning.

 

Oh, and your camera makes me jealous!

[adinsxq]

whoa.

 

cool goats.