ѕqυιяяεł'ѕ 10 gαł αgα

[Phixion]

GFO... Granular Ferrite Oxide, that's the better type of phosphate remover to use, same thing that Phos-Ban, ROWAphos and Warner Marine's PHOSar are all made out of. MUCH better and safer than aluminum based ones like SeaChem's Phosguard. Only issue though is that GFO is suppected to increase the risk of PM in clams though I haven't had any instances of that. My maxima that got PM came down with it long after I had pulled GFO out of my tank. =/

 

For the Tom's, I'd say go for it on pulling out the flow meter and see if it helps the unit out any. Worse comes to worse you can always put it back on. I don't like corragated hoses, lol!

[squirrelieygrrrl]

ahhhh gotcha,

 

mental note GFO=the stuff in chemi pure elite that removes phosphates....(im not so good with techie jargon) i think i will give removing the flow meter a shot, ill keep ya posted on the results if you havnt allready tried it. it is pointless, if you cant tell that the flow is reduced then you need to wake up!

[Phixion]

ahhhh gotcha,

 

mental note GFO=the stuff in chemi pure elite that removes phosphates....(im not so good with techie jargon) i think i will give removing the flow meter a shot, ill keep ya posted on the results if you havnt allready tried it. it is pointless, if you cant tell that the flow is reduced then you need to wake up!

 

For sure!

[squirrelieygrrrl]

well people,

 

for those who were following my leather dilemma. apparently i was freaking out for no good reason, it is just going through a shedding cycle, as phixion suggested(thank you!). hopefully it should perk up in a few days to a week. hooray! tinyreef, the leather coral pro (many thanks to you) helped me identify that it is not a sacrophyton but in fact a lobophytum.

 

now onto the 'mystery thingys' (as tinyreef put it wich i will coin) it is still up for debate as to what the heck they are! curious indeed. heres a shot of the 'mystery thingys', as well as a couple of fun shots of my porthole magnifying glass that i use for my macro shots.

 

~squirrel

 

ps: at some point i will get around to using a third party photo site (now that i know what it is! )

[AdriftQuasar]

In the first picture with the port hole, it looks like your glass is cracked. I hope this isn't the case. Good news about the leather though.

[squirrelieygrrrl]

hey adrift,

 

naw the glass isnt cracked. the porthole is this silly plastic magnetic magnifying glass 10x (wow that was redundant) so the magnifying glass part is on the inside and the porthole piece is on the out side

 

any clue what the mystery thingy is?

[Phixion]

Could it be part of the shedding skin?? That or maybe mucus being released... =/ Not quite sure. I'm not up and up on leathers though, I only know what scaros (toadstools) are and the things that leathers in general can tend to do, lol! Sorry to let you down on that one Squirrlie!

[squirrelieygrrrl]

lol, no worries phixion,

 

its kind of a mystery to every one else ive asked as well

 

tinyreef thought it might be a possible breeding.........maybe......lol

 

hence mystery thingy

 

[AdriftQuasar]

Perhaps it's ectoplasm! Your tank may very well be a pit stops for spirits and ghosts passing through.

 

My guess is some mucous or something that came off of your leather.

[squirrelieygrrrl]

lol! now that was funny.

 

let me describe more; its hard like glass what ever it is, , and clearish. shaped rather like a worm (i know this sounds crazy...)and when they fall out it leaves a hole behind (no i did not roll it in broken glass..) and totally odd. there are several on the leather, coming out of where the polyps are. that picture there is of one imbedded, with another hanging from it.and thats about all i can tell you...

 

odd.

 

~squirrel

[Phixion]

That IS very odd! Hopefully it's not a parasite of some sort...

[squirrelieygrrrl]

yea lets hope not,

 

thats the last thing i need is an infestation, on top of my recent tank crash......i did pluck one off of the leather with a pair of tweezers. and it didn't seem alive. it looked to me like it was calcium based. (to be honest i dont really have a clue) *shrugs* i just dunno.......

[Phixion]

Yeah, I've never heard of or seen that before...

[AdriftQuasar]

Every now and again I get something that looks kind of similar in my tank, but it never really turns out to be anything. Filmy substances from corals and stuff like that, I doubt you have anything to worry about.

[squirrelieygrrrl]

im not worried necessarily more curious, im just wondering if that is possibly something that lobos do. lol, but if no one has heard of that, then i guess not. im still waiting on tinyreefs reply. so we will see.

[squirrelieygrrrl]

well everyone,

 

just a quick update! first off, the leather is unfortunately in the exact same state as it was when i purchased it, still no real polyp extension. bummer, but it is still alive. also it is still expelling the small whiteish clear hard thingys. curious. after many hours of research on the odd thingys i still have no answer. so if any one out there has any ideas id love to hear them.

 

the xenia did not make it after the tank crash unfortunately, it simply disintegrated.

 

finally after my ca/alk imbalance things are finally holding stable for two weeks now. 400ppm and 9dkh. so i have decided to order a few corals. hopefully they all survive and thrive. i seem to be very good at killing things . heres what i picked out: 1 hammer branching coral (wysiwyg), 1 xenia (to replace the deceased one), 1 neon pineapple tree, and 1 neon green palau nepethea. i may get flamed for my coral choices, but i have been drooling over these species for some time. so fingers crossed! ill update with pics of the new additions midweek. thanks to all of you who have been following the process of my tank, and have offered your help and support.

 

~squirrel

[Phixion]

Good to hear the tank is recovering nicely.

 

Sorry to hear about the xenia. Xenia is strange, sometimes all you have in the tank of it will suddenly die, then a few weeks later it'll sprout back up somewhere else in the tank or even in the same spot. I've had that happen a couple times before.

 

The leather, I dunno what to tell you there, but it's alive and that's important!

[squirrelieygrrrl]

thanks phixion,

 

you rock! i have read that xenia does that sometimes, possibly in an attempt to spread. i have seen no traces of the bits sprouting up any where. but ya never know!

 

lol it is indeed a good thing that its still alive. maybe some day it will decide to make a true appearance.

 

what do you think of my coral choices? appropriate i hope. i did read into them, but there is so much conficting information out there about husbandry and care of species its hard to say who's right.

[Phixion]

They are good choices I think, well actually the last 2 I've never heard of before, the pineapple I have, but havn't seen what it actually looks like. Hammers don't have particularly needy requirements.

[squirrelieygrrrl]

well thats good to hear about the xenia and the hammer at least. i was doing some research about hammers and their requirements, and i had read that the branching variety can be more temperamental. the drs website said that it was collected in australia. heres a couple of links to the two softies.

 

pineapple tree coral

 

neon green palau nepthea

 

on a side note about the nepthea, i had read some where on here that this particular species is now extinct in the wild. kind of a sad thing, but the one that i ordered is captive grown. so hopefully that makes it a little more hardy.

[Phixion]

Oh, ok they look like SPS pieces, kind of. If so, I'd be concerned about your lighting being able to support them. It's not to say PC can't allow SPS to thrive, but it's definitely not the best light to put them under. In any event those are some really nice looking pieces! Great find.

[squirrelieygrrrl]

there thankfully not sps! they are indeed soft coral species. capnella, and nephtea are both semi predatory soft corals, with moderate lighting requirements. the thing that concerns me is the predatory part.

[tinyreef]

now onto the 'mystery thingys' (as tinyreef put it wich i will coin) it is still up for debate as to what the heck they are! curious indeed. heres a shot of the 'mystery thingys', as well as a couple of fun shots of my porthole magnifying glass that i use for my macro shots.

is the "mystery thing" those rice-looking things in the first pic? i don't see the "hole" you say they come out of though. are there a lot of these or just one or two?

 

have you looked at them under a microscope or magnifying glass?

 

are they always shaped the same?

 

did i read correctly that you said there are many "holes" or many of these rice-looking things?

[squirrelieygrrrl]

is the "mystery thing" those rice-looking things in the first pic? i don't see the "hole" you say they come out of though. are there a lot of these or just one or two?

 

have you looked at them under a microscope or magnifying glass?

 

are they always shaped the same?

 

did i read correctly that you said there are many "holes" or many of these rice-looking things?

 

edit: i forgot to answer some of your questions!

 

thanks for checking it out tiny,

 

i know the picture quality is less than to be desired. yes the mystery "thingy" is the rice looking thing in the first pic. the holes that it comes out of is the hole where the polyp retracts into. they all look exactly the same, to the naked eye at least. i have looked at them under a magnifying glass and they appear to look like "glass shards" for lack of a better way to put it. long, thin, clearish, and hard. there are many, and it has been expelling them since i brought it home. after they come completely through the tissue of the leather then they are blown away with the current, leaving behind i guess what you would call a small pitting.

 

ive been looking into trying to identify the taxonomy of this leather and about the only thing ive come up with is that it is monomorphic, and possibly lobed as you said in its appearance. also after doing some more reading i believe that they are the leathers sclerites, according to what the shedd aquariums website had to say about leathers.

 

heres a few links that brought me to those conclusions. taxonomy in soft corals

shedd aquarium

 

lemme know what ya think!

 

~squirrel

[tinyreef]

i don't think ID'ing it is that critical at this point. that's most of the importance of sclerites with coral biologists. i don't agree with their absolute faith in the "coral bones" being the determining factor in species/genus identification anyways. (just my pers view)

 

i'm more interested in the process of the sclerite expulsion (assuming they are sclerites). i've heard of sclerites being expelled (mostly by lobophytum and various -nephthya types). i think i've read that they can expel it thru their polyps but i'm not sure that's the preferred method or even why it occurs.

 

sinularia and lobos can lose sclerites from their bases as they "move". sometimes sclerites are dropped as a by-product of splitting/fission/reproduction. sometimes they're exposed from predatory attacks.

 

some sclerites are actually waste pellets from coralivores as they consume their target coral (or it could be undigestable sclerites leftover from the coral meal too).

 

i disagree with borneman's body forms generalizations. sure, some species will tend towards some form, e.g. some sarcos always grow up into toadstool forms (imo all sarcos will pass thru a toadstool form at one point or another in their life but not necessarily keep that form forever). body type can be influenced significantly by the coral's environment and age. so imo it may take a long time or a short time before you can be more confident in your ID'ing of that coral.