BustytheSnowMaam Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 buzzkill! Sorry about that- you do get some very nice, large colonies through F & S Divers Den- probably the nicest, largest colonies of zoas I've seen at any fish store (and with a medley of different colors on one rock)- I would just advise you to examine any zoas from them very closely and FW dip them. Mine recovered nicely after the nudis were gone. Link to comment
MrAnderson Posted October 10, 2007 Author Share Posted October 10, 2007 According to whelks, your spumosa forms thick bushes like a M. confusa. I only suggested the digitata/samarensis because of the abundance of colors. after a bit of research, i've noticed that what DFS was calling samarensis looked more like a bushy confusa. The pics of samarensis on other sources looked just like digitata... anyhow, i really like the look of the confusa/spumosa "bushes", just my personal preference right now. also, i've kept digitata and am looking for something new. there are 5 confusa colonies on the diver's den, two are REALLY nice, the others are "fraggy" looking... very close to pulling the trigger! Link to comment
Greenstar Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 i think i'm going to take that rock out, and stick a big 3-4" coral right where the bare rock is at the upper left quadrant of the tank: May I suggest you go with a Montipora verrucosa at the top center with either a colony of montipora squamosa or pocillapora verruscosa down to the the left where you specified you would like a colony. Either of the those corals texture/morphology would go very nicely with the look of the M. Verruscosa. That other encrusting monti, the name is escaping me, could be placed down on the lowest rock on the left, or perhaps higher up. I think a blastomussa merletti would also look very nice either oriented at the base of the pocket or running up the middle. I throughly enjoy your approach to this reef, it is coming along great. I also think i tis an excellent idea to plan out what you want and where instead of buying the flavor of the month. I hope it all goes smoothly. Danny Link to comment
MrAnderson Posted October 10, 2007 Author Share Posted October 10, 2007 May I suggest you go with a Montipora verrucosa at the top center with either a colony of montipora squamosa or pocillapora verruscosa down to the the left where you specified you would like a colony. Either of the those corals texture/morphology would go very nicely with the look of the M. Verruscosa. thanks danny - i agree quite a bit about the Pocillopora - this is one of the exact specimens i'm considering: i think the coloring and morphology go well with the rock too. it's also fairly cheap, the monti confusas and spumosas are a little pricey... but i think that's what i want! M. spumosa: M. confusa: the other M. confusa i like: stay tuned. Link to comment
Greenstar Posted October 11, 2007 Share Posted October 11, 2007 The confusa's green tips may be a little out of place with the color scheme, but again it is all personal perefernce. I really like the looks of the squmosa/P. verrucosa too, especially since it's not something you see every day. The squmies colors also fit the colors already in the tank quite well, as well as complement the colros of the other corals you are considering. The growth habits of the pocillopora would slo add a nice touch too. Grrr.. too many good choices. Do you have a timeframe for ordering corals or are you going to wait for the "perfect" specimens? Link to comment
MrAnderson Posted October 11, 2007 Author Share Posted October 11, 2007 lol... well it's hard to say. i think the tank is ready, so i figure why wait? i've found a couple of really nice specimens that i would be really happy with, with no sense of "settling for less" if i get them, so i think i've crossed some marketing terminology threshold... i'm ready to buy - but if i go for my credit card and the spumosa's gone... i might wait a day or two before getting the Pocillopora Link to comment
Greenstar Posted October 11, 2007 Share Posted October 11, 2007 Sounds awesome can't wait to see the corals in your tank. Will you order any encrusting montis? Link to comment
Needreefunds Posted October 11, 2007 Share Posted October 11, 2007 What will Mr. A choose as his center piece coral?? Really enjoying watching this tank develop Mr. A. Always feel the need to check in and see what has popped up from that amazingly colorful live rock. Link to comment
MrAnderson Posted October 11, 2007 Author Share Posted October 11, 2007 oooh... they just added a new M. spumosa specimen within the last hour... Link to comment
MrAnderson Posted October 11, 2007 Author Share Posted October 11, 2007 THANK YOU FOR YOUR ORDER! I got that M. spumosa. It's a 4" coral: and to answer Greenstar's question... YES! I got this encrusting Montipora peltiformis as well, although a general order, not this exact specimen like above: Link to comment
MrAnderson Posted October 11, 2007 Author Share Posted October 11, 2007 So they arrive friday, and i've begun preparations for their arrival. I'm currently mixing 3 gallons of saltwater, which i will use for a 50% water change tomorrow, as per my usual schedule. I'm going to mix up another 3 gal tomorrow (x2, for a total of six gallons), one of which i will use as a temporary "holding tank in a bucket" while i get the coral in and arranged. for this holding bucket, i will mix in half of my aquarium water when the corals arrive, so considering my previous day's 50% water change, should be very close to what i have in the tank. I need this because i will be removing that one upper left rock as well, and don't want to ruin it, and may re-arrange/fix certain things while i have the capacity. why all the water changes? well, although all n-cycle components and phosphates are at zero, and my skimmate is fairly pale, i suppose i'm more concerned about providing chemically "baseline" water to get the corals started off. this baseline is fairly close to what is typically in my tank, however because i don't plan to do 50% water changes forever, and the current chemistry may be influenced by chemical signals/warfare/weird stuff from my Sinularia, "the thing", etc. i'd like to start off as close to zero for all those factors in the beginning. I will slowly wean the inhabitants to a weekly 10% change eventually, but i'd like to know that the baseline is a consistent and easily reproducible state if things seem to go wrong. WOOHOO!! i'm psyched!! Link to comment
spanko Posted October 11, 2007 Share Posted October 11, 2007 Let's get this party started!!!!!! Can't wait to see them installed. Great move nice looking coral....... Link to comment
Caesar777 Posted October 11, 2007 Share Posted October 11, 2007 FUN! Yay for MrA! That particular colony is just gorgeous. I love those crazy Montis. Just remember that those purple Monti digitata (from post #174, http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...t&p=1314006 ) tend to brown out completely unless under pretty potent light and, although it's no issue for you, excellent water quality. Particularly phosphates; it's a wonder so many people don't even bother testing for it, yet they test pH regularly, heh. But under the proper conditions--and their range is slim--they're just gorgeous. KUDOS on the cool corals! And the cute macro! And on Nips being called a girl! Link to comment
MrAnderson Posted October 12, 2007 Author Share Posted October 12, 2007 the bags are floating right now!! (boy did fedex come early today) double-bagging is for lightweights - LiveAquaria puts the corals in SIX bags, with black half-bag inserts - hardcore. also, the SG of the water in the bags is 1.028. after floating for about 15min in 80degF tank water, the temp in the bag is 77.4. because of the SIX bagging tecchnique, i don't think it warmed up too much since i put them in. i removed the outer bags and am going to float them some more. Link to comment
Weetabix7 Posted October 12, 2007 Share Posted October 12, 2007 jeez braskey, thank you so much for the kind words! allowing the ammonia to spike just didn't make sense to me either, especially if one takes a few considerations into mind. first, if the goal is to achieve a steady state level of nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria, then it would make sense to try to get as close to the equilibrated state as soon as possible, even if it's artificially induced in the beginning. so assuming the bacteria for both is already present on/in the natural rock then one actually does not want them to grow in numbers to have to deal with the artificially high ammonia and nitrite levels seen during an old-fashioned cure. why? because once the die-off is done, you have exponentially high levels of bacteria with no nutrient source, leading to more die off - it's a self-fueling cycle, spiking and dropping over weeks until it finally equilibrates. second, what exactly is the goal? if it's strictly an equilibrated water column, then it doesn't matter what course you take. the nitrogen cycle is ubiquitous and unstoppable. it occurs in the soil in your yard, in the lakes out in the sticks, in the ocean, anywhere ammonia is found, and this nitrogenous waste is found everywhere. so no matter what you do to your tank, it will eventually equilibrate. read "eventually" with a grain of salt, because if you have rotting crap in the tank it will take longer, but eventually it will get there. a tank simply can't not cycle. third, keeping in mind exactly what the goal is, live rock is home to a lot of life. is the goal to keep it all alive? for me it is, so i gave it a happy, nice clean home from the start. that means trying to keep the ammonia low from the start. because the nitrogen cycle bacteria is ubiquitous and found everywhere, including the live rock coming through the mail, you simply do not need to expand this population. It's already there! third, one should look at the bacteria themselves as living inhabitants of the tank. what does this mean? not stressing them, not allowing them to outgrow their habitat and food source, even acclimating them. letting ammonia build up may make nitrifying bacteria happy, but everything else suffers in that environment, meaning denitrifying bacteria too. allowing ammonia to spike throws everything off-balance. once off balance, it stays off balance for a while. most importantly in this context was that i was able to get very good quality live rock. thanks to premium aquatics for all the special care they take to obtain their rock - they take a lot of steps to insure as little die-off as possible, and without that as a starting medium, i couldn't try this approach at all. anyhow, these are my thoughts while setting up this tank. i'm really glad that people are "getting it"! First off, let me say that I really love the approach you're taking here. I've only read the first 3 pages of this thread so far, but it looks like you're doing something that I've wanted to try for a while. In my case, the idea was to get some REALLY nice, high-quality live rock and have the focus of the tank be what grows out of the rock. Your method of "soft-cycling" the rock is something that I've seen endorsed by tampabaysaltwater.com. See here: http://www.tampabaysaltwater.com/thepackage/setup.html They are a unique LR farming facility that focuses on growing super-nice LR, complete with encrusting corals, etc. and then getting the LR to the customer with most of it still alive. They are the only company I've ever heard of that actually ships their LR completely immersed in water! It's more expensive to do of course, but after looking around on their site it looks like it would actually be worth it. At any rate, I'm really enjoying your "experiment" here, Mr.A. I think I saw a mention on here somewhere that you're looking more for full-size colonies of things for this tank rather than frags. I don't know if this is the kind of thing you're looking for (like I said, I'm only on pg. 3!), but I have a colony of RPE/GPE that I was thinking of getting rid of. LMK if you're interested. If not, I may offer it up for trade soon. Link to comment
MrAnderson Posted October 12, 2007 Author Share Posted October 12, 2007 First off, let me say that I really love the approach you're taking here. I've only read the first 3 pages of this thread so far, but it looks like you're doing something that I've wanted to try for a while. In my case, the idea was to get some REALLY nice, high-quality live rock and have the focus of the tank be what grows out of the rock. Your method of "soft-cycling" the rock is something that I've seen endorsed by tampabaysaltwater.com. See here: http://www.tampabaysaltwater.com/thepackage/setup.html They are a unique LR farming facility that focuses on growing super-nice LR, complete with encrusting corals, etc. and then getting the LR to the customer with most of it still alive. They are the only company I've ever heard of that actually ships their LR completely immersed in water! It's more expensive to do of course, but after looking around on their site it looks like it would actually be worth it. At any rate, I'm really enjoying your "experiment" here, Mr.A. I think I saw a mention on here somewhere that you're looking more for full-size colonies of things for this tank rather than frags. I don't know if this is the kind of thing you're looking for (like I said, I'm only on pg. 3!), but I have a colony of RPE/GPE that I was thinking of getting rid of. LMK if you're interested. If not, I may offer it up for trade soon. thanks for the kind words weetabix - as for slogging through this thread, there might be a little uh... tangential conversation somewhere in the middle pages, so i'm sorry if things are a little cluttered in my thread, but THAT'S OUR CAESAR!!! not complaining though, just making fun and placing the blame on the most easily teased lol. (for you c: ) it's been about 6 weeks, and i think the rock has grown out as much as it can. i've picked off a few leaves of brown kelp-looking stuff, but other than that, what you see is what i've got. oh wait, there's a little tubeworm in one of the rocks, the opening of the tube is actually at the surface of the rock, so when it's open all you see is the radiole sitting on the rock. i haven't seen it in a while though, so i don't know if it's still alive. as for your colony, i'd love to see it - is there a link here somewhere? OH! and the corals are in the tank - the M. peltiformis already has it's gorgeous purple polyps out!!! Link to comment
MrAnderson Posted October 12, 2007 Author Share Posted October 12, 2007 coming! i'm waiting a bit to put them under full light... Link to comment
Weetabix7 Posted October 12, 2007 Share Posted October 12, 2007 thanks for the kind words weetabix - as for slogging through this thread, there might be a little uh... tangential conversation somewhere in the middle pages, so i'm sorry if things are a little cluttered in my thread, but THAT'S OUR CAESAR!!! not complaining though, just making fun and placing the blame on the most easily teased lol. (for you c: ) it's been about 6 weeks, and i think the rock has grown out as much as it can. i've picked off a few leaves of brown kelp-looking stuff, but other than that, what you see is what i've got. oh wait, there's a little tubeworm in one of the rocks, the opening of the tube is actually at the surface of the rock, so when it's open all you see is the radiole sitting on the rock. i haven't seen it in a while though, so i don't know if it's still alive. as for your colony, i'd love to see it - is there a link here somewhere? OH! and the corals are in the tank - the M. peltiformis already has it's gorgeous purple polyps out!!! Actually, I found the "tangential conversation" amusing, and got a couple of chuckles out of it. When it's C7, I usually do! Heck, I can be guilty of it myself sometimes. Anyway, here's a couple of older pics I already had: I'll have to see if I can get some better ones today. (Darn, now I have to clean the glass!! ) The above pics were taken under PC lighting. Okay, I showed you mine, now you have to show me yours! I can't wait to see pics of the m. peltiformis! Link to comment
MrAnderson Posted October 13, 2007 Author Share Posted October 13, 2007 awright! i can play that game! pretty palys btw! i apologize for the god-awful pics - they're almost embarrassing. i think my camera is getting worse - the contrast is way too high, and certain parts keep coming out saturated regardless of what i do. anyhow... the M. peltiformis, colors in real life are awesome, pics do it slight justice. it's just like it was pictured. one question for anyone who can answer: i want it off that plug and onto some rock - will it be hard to get it off intact? i don't want to break it into a million pieces prying off the plug: the M. spumosa was slightly disappointing because it was advertised as green with purple edges... it's actually brown. to be fair, they claim that's the coloration under 20K lighting, but in their pic it looks pink. here it's brown, but under the lights the white tips glow purple from the actinics, not from it's own coloration: this is why i'm not really disappointed - the tips of the polyp tentacles are bright white!: the arrangement for now. the plug the M. spumosa is on actually blends very very well. the M. peltiformis has to have something done about it though!! Link to comment
RayWhisperer Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 If there is anywhere on that plug where the monti hasn't encrusted, you should be able to pop it off prying with a sturdy, sharp knife. Most of it should stay intact. The one place I doubt would come with it, would be where it has encrusted over the edge of the plug. If it's encrusted all the way around, I'd opt for a dremel or some other tool to grind most of the plug away. Edit; BTW MrA., thems some really nice montis you gots there. Save me some of the peltiformis. Mine was recently killed by a nudi infestation picked up by a frag from a LFS. Link to comment
MrAnderson Posted October 13, 2007 Author Share Posted October 13, 2007 thanks ray, maybe i'll give that a try tomorrow. i don't mind if there's a little peripheral breakage, because i'll just try to spread it around the rocks a bit. i just don't want it to break like an eggshell, little bits as it gets pried off. i'd love to spread this kind of love around - i think they're really nice specimens. i just hope the lighting/flow doesn't change them into something completely different. did you have a peltiformis specifically? was it this color morph? Link to comment
Weetabix7 Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 BibleSue and I discovered just this last weekend that you can cut through frag plugs with a dremel with a diamond cut-off wheel. You should be able to use that to kind of slice through the frag plug just under where the corals are attached, thereby avoiding damage to the corals. HTH. Link to comment
RayWhisperer Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 Can't tell specifically by your pics, but it was similar, if not the same. Mine had really bright new growth, almost a flourescent apple color to it. The older areas of the colony looked the same as yours. It may have been the lighting that gave the new growth that color, IDK. Link to comment
RayWhisperer Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 Here's the only pic I have of it. This was when it was brand new in the tank, so no new growth is evident in the pic. Edit; Color is(as near as I can tell) the same as yours, I didn't know what white balance was when I snapped that pic. Link to comment
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