Fishybadmike’s NC12dx - new pics 12/6!

[fishybadmike]

They are beautiful! I loooove ricordia. Did you get them from sealifeinc?

 

I did get them from sealifeinc. The reason there are two flourescent green ones is because he gave me one free! I would highly recommend sealifeinc - prices are great, shipping doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and the rics are very colorful.

[fishybadmike]

So the tank has had a new resident for a little while now - a royal gramma. I realize that some people on here will probably disagree with the introduction of a third fish in a 12g but I'm going to give it a go. I purposedly waited till last to add the royal gramma because she (or he) is probably the most aggressive of the fish that I've chosen. I managed to find one that was only about an inch in length. She will be the last fish added to the tank because I realize that I've reached the upper limits of the tanks bio-load, especially as the fish mature and get bigger. She is very camera shy and moves very quickly, so this is the best picture I have been able to get so far:

 

Covering the tank with a towel to leave it in total darkness for 2 days and not feeding anything really helped to get rid of the slime algae. Unfortunately, it bounced back in a few days so I've been siphoning it out when necessary. Feedings have been cut back slightly and I changed food to mysis shrimp to see if that helps any. If I don't see any significant improvement shortly, I'm ready to move to my last resort - chemicals. Any suggestions?

 

I've also picked up a few yellow polyps attached to a tiny rock. They are pretty small so I haven't really tried to get any pictures of them yet.

 

I've managed to get some pretty good pictures of things that sit fairly still (unlike the royal gramma). Considering all I have is a relatively cheap Canon point-and-shoot, I'm very proud of my pictures:

(see higher resolution shots on next post)

[fishybadmike]

I just realized that those pics don't look very good compressed so here are the higher resolution shots:

 

 

[masterbuilder]

Tank looks nice. I like.

 

So........which fish are you going to get rid of soon. All the ones you have (clown,ywg,rg) get to large to keep in a 12G.

[fishybadmike]

So........which fish are you going to get rid of soon. All the ones you have (clown,ywg,rg) get to large to keep in a 12G.

 

I went off of Igreen's Ultimate Nano Fish Guide (http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=74703) when deciding on fish. All of them are listed under the 10g list except for the clown which is listed under 7g. I guess it's all a matter of opinion and you'll get different answers depending on who you ask about what size tank is appropriate for various fish.

[fishybadmike]

Well I got an order of coral in the mail yesterday. The online retailer that I ordered from had a minimum order policy so I got 4 corals and 2 additional astrea snails. I think I'm set for snails now and my hair algae should be completely eliminated soon. The 4 corals are ordered were: a red & green open brain, an anchor/wall-hammer coral, a yellow fiji leather, and an orange montipora digitata.

 

Before somebody jumps on me for getting an SPS with stock lighting, I'd like to let everyone know that I am aware that it is not recommended. I know that the stock lighting (48W PCs) on a 12g NC DX was not designed to support any type of SPS coral but I wanted to give it a try and see what I could do. I chose montipora digitata because I've heard that it is one of the SPS corals that doesn't necessarily require super strong lighting. I also chose the orange variety because I've heard this variant doesn't have as demanding lighting needs as some of the other color variants and will hold its color better than others in weak lighting. So in conclusion, the monti is more of a test to see what the stock lighting can support. I have placed it pretty much as high up as I can get it directly beneath the lights. It may just "survive", showing no growth or losing it's color - I'll find out. Also, I didn't spend a lot on the frag.

 

The anchor coral is beautiful and a bit larger than I was expecting it to be. That's alright though, I found a pretty good spot to feature it. The tips of its tentacles glow spectacularly under the night-lighting.

 

The red and green open brain is also a bit larger than I thought it would be. I'm a little bit concerned about it's health at the moment. I posted info. regarding that in another thread last night (http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=153533).

 

The yellow fiji leather looks great. I also found the perfect spot for it. It's polyps have been extending during late hours so it appears to be happy.

 

I got a semi-decent picture of my yellow polyps.

 

I also did a bit of gluing yesterday. I found spots for all of my ricordia and glued them down. I also moved the red mushroom to another spot behind one of my candy-canes that is a little hidden from the light. It's bigger than I've ever seen it so I'm assuming that means it likes the lower lighting.

[fishybadmike]

I love taking pictures...so here's some more:

 

Candy-Cane

 

Zebra Hermit

 

Zoas

 

Anchor

 

FTS and closer up FTS:

[silverdust]

Beautiful, I love all the LPS corals. From what I understand, brain corals are pretty hardy. It should recover just fine.

[Lalani]

I love pictures.

Beautiful tank!

[fishybadmike]

OMG! - really funny turn of events in the past 24 hours! My xenia was attached to a small shell when I purchased it so I lightly glued it into a hole on the rock I wanted it to grow onto. Over the past week or so it had been attaching a 2nd stalk to the rock. Well it finally finished last night and as a result the shell fell down out of it's hole. After several attempts of trying to get the shell with the xenia attached to it to stay upright in the hole in the rock, I just gave up. So instead I just placed it in the sand with the pointy end of the shell downwards and figured I would just deal with it in the morning...

 

Well this morning it was nowhere to be found. I figured that the polyps extended during the night and caught a current and pulled themselves out of the sand and blew somewhere into the rocks. I searched and searched and couldn't find it anywhere. I concluded that eventually it would get blown somewhere where I could see it, and if it didn't and just died hidden in the rocks I wasn't super worried because I figured the CUC would get it and I already had a stalk attached where I wanted it anyways. My roommates didn't think it would be possible that it could blow that far away in the current because it is kinda heavy so they joked with me that maybe it grew legs and walked away...

 

Well I found it hiding in a crevasse about a half hour ago. I reached in and grabbed it only to find that my scarlet reef hermit crab had moved into the shell! That's right, my scarlet reef hermit decided to take the xenia for a little ride. So far, the xenia doesn't seem to look very happy about this. LOL. So I guess my roommates weren't too far off when they suggested that maybe it grew legs and walked off. lol

 

Here's some pics:

[joesmoe517]

thanks for the comment. Your tank isnt looking too bad yourself. Nice photography and corals, soon the whole thing will be filled and bursting with colors.

[burtbollinger]

this tank is well on its way now....good job, nice thread....

[fishybadmike]

thanks for the comment. Your tank isnt looking too bad yourself. Nice photography and corals, soon the whole thing will be filled and bursting with colors.

 

this tank is well on its way now....good job, nice thread....

 

Thanks for the kinda words! It makes me feel good when experienced reefers on this site give me compliments. It guess I must be doing something right. haha.

 

I've got a whole ton of really good pictures that I'll be putting up soon...

[fishybadmike]

I finally figured out how to take pretty decent pictures with my camera. That means....time for more pictures! Yay! This post will be just zoas, but there will be more to come.

 

I'm pretty sure this one is called a "Green Bay Packer" Zoa.

 

Here's a shot of the whole colony. There's about 35 polyps total.

 

"Fire in the Sky"

[fishybadmike]

Here's a sequence of shots of the green bay packer zoas. These zoas are my favorite...they are just so cool! I just can't get enough pictures of them. haha!

 

Whammin' Watermelons

 

Radioactive Dragon Eyes

[fishybadmike]

Sadly, I think I have to report a loss… I haven’t seen my peppermint shrimp in over a week. Initially I thought she was just hiding in the rockwork, but I recently had to move some rocks around while gluing some stuff down and I didn’t see her anywhere. She would also usually come out in the open to eat whenever she smelt food in the water.

 

Shortly after my cycle completed, my nitrates slowly dropped and held steady at 0 or just slightly above. I’ve been monitoring my water conditions and I saw the nitrates spike to about 10ppm a couple days ago. Unless I’m overfeeding a bit, which I don’t think I am, this information would be consistent with my theory that she probably just died and rotted deep inside the rockwork.

 

All other inhabitants and members of the CUC are accounted for and appear to be doing fine so I’m not too worried. I’ll be reducing the nitrate levels tomorrow with my weekly water-change. I still feel bad that one of my tank’s residents died.

 

In other news, I've got a pretty cool picture sequence of feeding my open brain coral. As soon as I sort through them to find the good ones and resize them all I'll be putting them up for all to see.

[fishybadmike]

As promised...a photo sequence of feeding my open brain some mysis shrimp. It appeared to enjoy it very much! Everything is in chronological order.

 

 

Pretty cool!

 

How often should I feed the brain? I've heard that other people feed theirs about once a week. But, mine has about 4-6 different mouths. Should I feed once a week and just rotate which mouth gets the food? Or feed more frequently because there are so many mouths?

[silverdust]

Awesome pictures, I love the brain! As for how often to feed, I have no idea. I just wanted to comment on your beautiful pictures

[fishybadmike]

3 new frags to report…

 

I picked up this frag of Pink Panther Zoas from a LFS last week.

 

Yesterday I got 2 more frags from my favorite LFS. Well actually it’s not very local… it’s 1.5 hours away, but it’s still my favorite store! They have a really good selection of corals at awesome prices and the staff is really friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful. If anyone is in the Northern Idaho or Eastern Washington region, I’d be happy to share their name and location - they are pretty new so they aren’t listed in many directories.

 

Blastomussa Merletti

 

Blue Zoas

 

The store wasn’t sure if they were actually Tub’s Blues but this tiny frag was cheap so I jumped on it. They also had a rock with about 50 blue zoas and 50 green zoas on it for $84 (also a really good deal but the rock was a little big for my tank). They suggested that I grow out my new frag and bring some small frags of them back to the store. What do you guys think…genuine Tub’s Blues? Or not? They look pretty blue to me.

 

Also my tank was down to 76°F this morning (normally 79-80°F). We had already turned off our heat for the spring, but 3 days (very windy days!) in a row that just barely made it into the 40’s brought our apartment temperature down to 59°F this morning. Everything in the tank seems completely normal so I’m not worried. But, we’ll still be turning the heat on a little until it warms up a bit more here.

[silverdust]

They look like the Tubs to me. Solid blue through the middle with brown skirts. Here's a picture of mine:

 

 

As for the blastos, very nice find! The pink panthers are nice as well. I haven't seen those before.

[fishybadmike]

They look like the Tubs to me. Solid blue through the middle with brown skirts. Here's a picture of mine:

 

 

As for the blastos, very nice find! The pink panthers are nice as well. I haven't seen those before.

 

Very nice picture of your Tub's! It looks like I have the same thing.

 

Ya I got a really good deal on the blastos and the pink panthers were also pretty good considering you don't really see them all that often.

 

I fed my tank some mysis this evening and one of the blasto polyps somehow grabbed a piece that was floating around and started eating it. I thought it was pretty cool...

[fishybadmike]

I love taking pictures! So....here's some cool macro shots of my anchor coral:

 

 

Hope you like! I recently took macro shots like these of everything in my tank so there will be plenty more to come soon...

[bluesky]

I love taking pictures! So....here's some cool macro shots of my anchor coral:

 

 

Hope you like! I recently took macro shots like these of everything in my tank so there will be plenty more to come soon...

 

 

and you take great pictures too ... keep sharing

[bluesky]

They look like the Tubs to me. Solid blue through the middle with brown skirts. Here's a picture of mine:

 

 

As for the blastos, very nice find! The pink panthers are nice as well. I haven't seen those before.

 

They look nice. Tubs usually have a slightly darker tone of the blue and thicker skirts ... but it could be the lighting that this tubs was under or the camera that make it look slightly different. There are lot of different morphs of blue zoanthids out there ... You might want to compare a few more ... nevertheless ... it is a still a great zoanthids that you got there. If the store has that many Tubs for such a cheap price ... you should get it all and frag it and sell the extra ... Tubs are $15/polyp in most LFS in California ... Even if you sell it for $5/polyp ... a lot of reefers will jump on it. My favorite zoanthids is Tubs Blue ... so may be I am biased

[fishybadmike]

They look nice. Tubs usually have a slightly darker tone of the blue and thicker skirts ... but it could be the lighting that this tubs was under or the camera that make it look slightly different. There are lot of different morphs of blue zoanthids out there ... You might want to compare a few more ... nevertheless ... it is a still a great zoanthids that you got there. If the store has that many Tubs for such a cheap price ... you should get it all and frag it and sell the extra ... Tubs are $15/polyp in most LFS in California ... Even if you sell it for $5/polyp ... a lot of reefers will jump on it. My favorite zoanthids is Tubs Blue ... so may be I am biased

 

My blue zoas are still a lot smaller than all my other zoas so I think that they'll still grow and develop a bit more, changing from the way they look now. When they do I'll be sure to put up some new pictures. In the mean time...time for more pictures! Ricordia today...

 

 

These are all top-down shots so unfortunately you can see a camera reflection in a couple of them that pretty much ruins the photo. In order to avoid the reflection, I'm forced to zoom a certain distance or angle the camera a certain way which is sometimes not the kind of shot I want, but oh well. I can't seem to get a decent photo of my blue ric - maybe I can get one later.