varanus37 Posted December 22, 2008 Author Share Posted December 22, 2008 Took quite a few pictures of both tanks this afternoon. I was giving Teresa a hard time about this tank when we started getting rics and the pocillipora, told her it was her tank now. She's responsible for taking pics and posting on N-R. She somewhat took it to heart and snapped quite a few of the pics that I'm posting tonight. She's also taken to picking out shrooms and rics to keep going in this tank. We'll see how that goes. These are all jumbled. Flash, no flash and pics of just about everything in the tank. So yeah, we got a little snap-happy. Teresa really likes the photography part of the hobby and I think she's doing really well so I'm all for it. Enjoy, Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted January 2, 2009 Author Share Posted January 2, 2009 Moved this tank to my house today. Everything went well and it's now in a shelf beneath the chameleon. Things are in the works to get the 55 moved over to our house sometime in the near future but not just yet. The cold weather really makes it tough even for such a short move. I was confident about moving this little tank so we just went ahead and did it. I'll get pics up when I get the light rigged how I want it. Hope you all had a nice holiday. Bill Link to comment
Lalani Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 Great pics as always, I that frogfish! Link to comment
varanus37 Posted January 2, 2009 Author Share Posted January 2, 2009 I have bad news about the frogfish. We came home from vacation to find him dead. Not sure why just yet. I had family watching the tank and topping off, etc. They told me he was out the day before and then I found him the day after. No idea what the cause was. They told me they saw him eat that last day and then he was hiding, but that's normal. I've only lost a few fish and it really sucks when it happens. Back to the drawing board on this one. None of the coral seemed to be adversely affected so I'm not sure what happened really. CUC critters are fine as well so the problem seems localized to the fish itself. Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted January 3, 2009 Author Share Posted January 3, 2009 Here's a pic of the 1/2 10 in its new home. Set it up nicely on a shelf beneath the chameleon. Sorry the pic is shoddy but I just wanted to get something up. Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted January 4, 2009 Author Share Posted January 4, 2009 Took some pics today after getting everything settled. Some things came over from the 55 today. RPE's, a green mushroom, and a piece of the photosynthetic gorg. I also broke off a piece of the red cap that I got in KS. Teresa wanted to put it on the one flat rock to deflect flow from the return as it came in. It also provides shade for her rics and will continue to do so as it grows. Nice brick red under these lights. Mushroom rock doing well and spreading. The zoas on this rock make me think of that urban camo with the red, black, and white. We may cut some of the mushrooms off to give the zoas a better chance. Required red/orange mushroom shot. These continue to do well here and in the 55. RPE's. Green hairy mushroom. This thing was living beneath the egg crate in the very bottom of the 55 and thriving. Here's hoping it does just as well or better in a nicely lit space in this tank. Teresa wanted it so she got it out herself, LOL. Some ric shots. Teresa and I are actually sitting here going on about her deeper involvement in a hobby that I started her in. I'm really excited about it and she's actually taken over the planning of this tank entirely. Our discussion has now moved on to family and friends who think I impressed this hobby onto her when, in actuality, she's the one who took a keen interest and began to ask me questions. We still have plans for a future tank so she can have her puffers and her sea horse tank gets closer to becoming a reality with each reef club meeting we attend. Maybe one of these days she'll even post on here and talk to you all. Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted January 5, 2009 Author Share Posted January 5, 2009 So we used my Christmas gift today. It was a gift cert. to one of the local LFS's and all but one item went in this tank for Teresa, LOL. A friend from the reef club works at the store and Teresa and her really hit it off so they just walked around and spent my money. This is the same woman who has the huge interest in sea horses so you can see why she and Teresa became fast friends. We ended up getting 4 different mushrooms and a yellow clown goby. Teresa has decided she wants to stick to the mushrooms and rics with maybe some zoas scattered about. The monti will likely be the only non-softie in the tank and it's really just a flow deflector and shade provider. She really liked the clown goby when I listed out the tiny fish normally suited to tanks like this so that's how he came to be. She's also taken an interest in sexy shrimp so they are another possibility for the future. The closed door sale is this weekend and the LFS that is hosting it had them the last time we visited so we may come home with some, who knows. We also happened to be flipping through some old fish mags last night and Teresa took a keen interest in the octopus article that was a central feature, . Not likely for some time but a pretty long leap for someone who had never had fish until 2 years ago and just now has claimed this little tank as her own. Pics will be up later this week as things settle in and spread out. Hope you all had a nice holiday. Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted January 5, 2009 Author Share Posted January 5, 2009 So it turns out that one of the mushrooms isn't on an empty snail shell, it's on a live snail. . Figured that one out when the lights dimmed and the mushie receded, snail just up and crawled away. Well hello. YCG, checking for pods. Superman-type mushroom just starting to expand back out. Bubble shot. Nice hairy mushroom splitting. Loose baby hairy. Polyps out on the purple gorg. And some of Meleon, the chameleon. Milana can only say the meleon part so that is now his name. And lastly an urban camo zoa like I was describing earlier with an awesome dark blue feather worm. So that's the update on Teresas shroom additions. And 13000+ views, you all must've been waiting for her to take over! Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted January 12, 2009 Author Share Posted January 12, 2009 Well we're back in the sexy shrimp game. If you remember we had a group before the move and fiasco and Teresa was very fond of the little guys. Our reef club took part in a closed door sale at Aquatica in Tinley Park, IL yesterday so she picked up a trio while the sale was going on. Nothing else for this tank at that sale as they're not really geared toward nano or pico people IMO. Lots of big fish and big coral for business type displays and stuff there. They're good people, just cater to the local clientele. Things are looking great in the tank. We sliced up the mushie rock and now have 19 visible heads of that urban camo zoa out and doing well. Took off 4 mushrooms of various sizes and all are fine. 3 are in the sandbed and moving about and the fourth is firmly planted in the LR. We'll get pics up of the progress shortly. As a side note, Milana has her tank up and running! LS and LR from the 1/2 10 and 55 were used to set up her My Littlest Pet Shop 2.5 gal tank. It's just a cheapie thing with 3 LEDs and a small HOB filter. It now has a nice bright yellow sun coral with a darker orange patch of heads down the center. Put it in the tank last night and as soon as the lights were out everyone opened up and ate right away. Milana is very excited to have her own tank finally and helps feed and do WC's on all of the tanks regularly. Haven't decided yet if we'll start her own thread or not but we may. She likes to see pictures online and recognizes herself and our tanks when she sees them. So that's that. Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted January 12, 2009 Author Share Posted January 12, 2009 So is that a positive vote for Milanas tank thread or do you just like the name sexy shrimp? The trio. Those urban camo zoas I was describing earlier. That little ring right around the edge is actually a dark blue color but I have no hope of getting it to come through in pictures. They make me think of some Fire'n'Ice I had before the move but darker. I've got some starter pics uploaded into photobucket for Milanas thread. Going to ask Teresa what she thinks and then probably get it up and running. Wouldn't you know it? My wife and now daughter stand a better chance of winning TOTM than I do, since they actually have nanos and technically I don't. Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted January 18, 2009 Author Share Posted January 18, 2009 A few pics. And, in honor of our frog that passed, a freebie Coralife shirt from the LFS. Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted January 27, 2009 Author Share Posted January 27, 2009 Some more rics for this tank will be here Thurs! Likely a zoa frag as well, depends on if Teresa likes the colors. Milana has taken to stirring this tank with the toothbrush in my fish cabinet so the critters in here have had a few wild rides. I'll get pics up when the new stuff gets here. We started using the 2nd HOB again so we moved one or 2 rics to accomodate the increase in flow. The sexies and YCG seem to really enjoy the increase though so it's staying for now. Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted February 2, 2009 Author Share Posted February 2, 2009 I forgot to post but the new rics were delayed until this coming Tues. due to inclement weather conditions. There should be 4 coming. Leaning toward putting the zoas in my tank and possibly moving the RPE's out of here and back to my tank as well. Teresa hasn't decided if she wants to go strictly mushrooms and rics in this tank or not. The cap and the purple gorg would be the only non-mushie type coral in the tank if the RPE's were removed. There is one tiny clump of zoas on a piece of LR but they're hitchers from the 55 in GA so no real way to remove them. So that's the update. Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted February 3, 2009 Author Share Posted February 3, 2009 So the RPE's are out. They're in the 55 as of this afternoon. We shifted a piece of LR in the tank a bit and now have 4 new rics to add to the garden. Some really nice colors on these pieces, the usual for Mr. Coral. I'm very impressed by the rics they send out considering they're freebies to the things I buy for the 55. So far we've only actually picked out 1 or 2 of the rics that are in this tank. The rest have all been freebies. Teresa may be getting some more shortly, this time pieces of her choosing. We'll see how that works out. Pics will be up when things are done being prissy about shipping. Bill Link to comment
clownfish1124 Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 beautiful! i want your red zoas! Link to comment
varanus37 Posted February 4, 2009 Author Share Posted February 4, 2009 You'd have to fight my wife for them and I've trained her a bit so she can hold her own, LOL. They are sweet looking though. Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted February 10, 2009 Author Share Posted February 10, 2009 New rics are here and settling in. We rearranged things a bit to accomodate them. Moved the orange/red shrooms toward the back of the tank alongside the green shrooms and red zoas. 3 of the new rics are now toward the center of the tank where those shrooms were. One of the rics has zoas and cloves both growing on its plug. Pretty excited about that. Depending on how well they do and if they begin to spread, I'll set some tiles to either side of the plug and try to prop them...into my 75, . I'll get pics up later tonight after they've had a bit to calm down. Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted February 13, 2009 Author Share Posted February 13, 2009 Finally an FTS to show the new placements and the pile'o'rics Teresa got recently. This is actually a temporary FTS as this tank will be moving to a different table so we can adjust the HOB filters to flow the length of the tank and take some of the turbulence out of the sandbed. Love these short tanks but the low flow corals can get hammered in them easily. The move to the new table will also allow us to use the feet for the lights instead of hanging them. A bit cleaner look for that but I do like having this tank in the cubby below the chameleon. I'm convinced it helps with his humidity, LOL. And all of the heat from those lights goes right up under him so I doubt he complains much. Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted February 17, 2009 Author Share Posted February 17, 2009 The tank is moved. No pics at the moment as we're leaving it with no lights until the feet get here to help combat a small cyano patch. Turns out we lost a snail behind the red mushroom rock and that was the cause. Little things like that can be catastrophic for tanks this small. Really sucks. We caught it though and scrubbed out what we could. Changed some water and cleaned up the filters during the move. Everything looks no worse for the wear. I chopped the bejesus out of those green mushrooms again in the hopes of uncovering the sweet zoas underneath. Actually took a toothbrush to the spots where they were growing to hopefully remove any leftover foot pieces. My plan is that the lack of light for a few days plus the hack job will deter the mushrooms enough to get the zoas spreading, hopefully to new rocks. That's about it for now. Next pics you all see will have a new bulb and a chameleon for a neighbor instead of the cranky guy that lives upstairs. Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted February 18, 2009 Author Share Posted February 18, 2009 Doesn't fit me but you'd have to fight the wife for it. She's a tough one though...and a huge frogfish fan. It's one of the better LFS freebies I've received. Bill Link to comment
varanus37 Posted February 20, 2009 Author Share Posted February 20, 2009 New little orange ric is in the tank from the monti cap trade. The legs and bulb just now shipped from hellolights, I guess they were having site issues or something. Supposed to be here early next week. I'll try and get Teresa to take some pics while I'm at work of the new rock scape and coral layout. We sliced up those shrooms again to uncover the zoas. Threw the shrooms in my 75 this time. Should do well. Bill Link to comment
Gerber77 Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 Sweet cant wait to see the ric Link to comment
varanus37 Posted February 20, 2009 Author Share Posted February 20, 2009 Teresa is arranging things now. Likely she'll take pics while I'm at work. The way the tank sits now it catches some sunlight through the chameleon tank. Did WONDERS for the color of everything, very kewl to see. Bill Link to comment
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