Cindy's Red Sea Max

[noobofreefs]

because you never come around anymore

Hey, I'm on my fair share I just don't have as much time anymore. But in 2 or 3 weeks finals, school in general, and everything else will basically be over so I'll have way more free time.

 

Quick update - we definitely have a diatom bloom and we're starting to get pods. Not enough yet for a Mandarin. Yet. 5 days after setup.

 

Time to add some CUC. At the moment all we have is one Astrea snail and one lame Cerith snail.

 

-hank

Psh you got enough pods to last a mandarin forever by now. Actually what are your fish plans? (Or did I miss it since I'm never on )

[HankB]

But in 2 or 3 weeks finals, school in general, and everything else will basically be over so I'll have way more free time.

 

 

Psh you got enough pods to last a mandarin forever by now. Actually what are your fish plans? (Or did I miss it since I'm never on )

 

1) Congrats either on finishing the semester or graduating.

2) Do you homework! Did you finish your homework yet? (Mine have both graduated so I'm looking for other students I can... help. )

 

IIRC, these are the fish we're considering:

 

- clown(s)

- green chromis

- firefish

- royal gramma

- vague plans for a shrimp as in Cindy has asked about them

- no present plans for a crab (hermits excepted.)

 

maybes include

- six line wrasse

- coral beauty or other dwarf angel

- cardinal (because I think they look cool. I don't know if Cindy wants one. )

 

First we need to bolster the CUC and probably add some corals. Xenia can be had for free in the area so we might get some of that. I hear it will use some of the Nitrates in the water. I think the mushroom we have looks happy.

 

Questions about mushrooms - Is there a way to differentiate true growth from just opening more because it is happy? If it is truly happy, how soon should I expect to wait for it to split?

 

thanks,

hank

[HankB]

Time for some more pics! This tank is starting to get that lived in sort of look due to the algae and pods.

 

Rockscape 2.1:

 

 

A tiny feather duster that Cindy spotted:

 

 

Something we need to ID:

 

 

And the FTS

 

 

 

And maybe sneak in a picture of my tank 'cause I know that some of you have FW too

 

 

(Inappropriate content. )

 

Thanks for looking.

 

-hank

[Reefmack]

Tough call on the ID. At first I thought maybe a Euphyllia type (torch, frogspawn type), but it almost looks more like a small bubble coral. Just guesses.

[hazmat]

Looks good Hank and Cindy. It's quite a ride isn't it?? Just wait for the pods! You will have tons of them and then as soon as you get your fish they will be gone. I remember thinking when I started mine that there would be plenty of pods for a mandarin but then after a month of fish in there they are gone.

 

So how many pounds of rock do you have?? I thought you said 37 but it sure doesn't look like that much. Could be just the set up though!

 

I was thinking that might be a majano anenome (the pest one) that is starting on that one pic. I think they have rounded protrusions like that. Get rid of it now!

 

So my advice to you (from someone who has had their RSM up since Feb.) is get your aquascape as perfect as you can now. I just redid mine this past weekend and once you get corals and fish in there it is really hard and I'm sure hard on the livestock. so get it perfect and take care of all your pests now! Don't be surprised if you get all the yucks like GHA, bubble algae (saw one next to the majano), cyanobacteria etc...the tank will go thru all kinds of cycles.

 

Not trying to act like a know it all but just some of the things I've been going thru since I started my tank! So did you do all the mods yet? Like the Tunze, ATO system and StevieT's media rack??

[Reefmack]

Might be a majano, but I've had them, and still have a few after over a year of having my RSM up, and I've never seen bubble tips that large on any of mine. The stalks below the bubbles also look a bit too thick for a majano. JMO based on the brown & green ones I've had. I hate to see people kill something before giving it time to grow out a bit - it could well be a nice hitchhiker coral worth keeping. But, if it is a majano this would be a good time to get rid of it. And, if there's one there are most likely more. Tank owners choice on this one! Better safe than sorry?

 

BTW - looks like a pink barnacle next to that pretty featherduster. Do you ever see a fan come out of that shell? It may be dead, but I've had a few that showed up on my rock that were alive.

[hazmat]

I have no idea what it is. I thought it kind of looked like one from pics that Ive seen. I have never had one although I seem to have a blue light special on aiptasia's!

 

I agree to let it grow and see what it is. You can always get rid of it if it turns out to be a pest. Just do it before you get a tank full of inhabitants!!

 

You sure got some nice hitchhikers!! All I got was a snail!

[Reefmack]

hazmat - have you tried one or two peppermint shrimp in the tank to eat the Aiptasia? I know a few people that have had their Aiptasia disappear after adding one or two peppermints. I've always had at least one peppermint in my RSM and have never seen an Aiptasia in my tank. I wish they ate majanos, but I'm not aware of anything that will eat those.

 

Looking at some older pics I have of a different tank, here's a nice crop of majanos:

 

 

Based on my own pictures, it is possible that what HankB has is a majano, but sure hard to tell for sure.

[airangel]

Hank...more info on your FW set up. What are you keeping & what size tank?

 

Reefmack...my peppermint wont touch my aiptasia

 

Hazmat is right on the redo. Get it all set now cuz its a messy disaster to redo the scaping once you've got everything in the tank.

 

Hitchhikers....like Hazmat all I got was a critter, bristleworms and a bunch of them.

[Reefmack]

airangel good point that not all peppermints seem to eat aiptasia. No guarantees on any animal behaving like the books say they do. I guess they haven't read the literature

[airangel]

Reef...yeah, perhaps my pepp is too small and my aiptasia too big. I heard they supposedly eat small ones. I can barely find my tiny pepp shrimp since I added him to the tank.

 

I've been using I think its called Aiptasia Control, seems to be working but I hate going deep sea diving to squirt them all.

[HankB]

Big night! We've started stocking. We got the rest of our CUC and some corals. For snails we got two Mexican turbos, two trochus (sp?) and some more astreas and ceriths. We also got 6 hermits - 2 red, 2 blue and to blue striped (? maybe electric blue.)

 

And some corals! A nice frogspawn and a leather (colt leather?) We also got blue and pink palys and a green trumpet.

 

Got some bristle worms in the extra shells for the hermits. One of the snails has something on it that looks like a tiny abalone except I cannot see the holes.

 

Pics when they get settled in.

 

To answer some other questions - my 55g FW tank now has -

1 aged bleeding heart

4 glo-lites

1 kuhli so old he is solid black

2 yoyo loaches

5 Otos

4 Siamese Algae Eaters

3 Clown plecs

2 skunk loaches

and a partridge in a pear tree.

 

I recently pitched all of my plastic plants and added live plants, better lighting and CO2 and I'm really happy with the results. Things have been a bit rough on the algae front but I think that's under control. (More pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/hbarta/PlantedTank)

 

The thing I'm trying to ID is really small - smaller than a pencil eraser.

 

Yes, I weighed the rock and it was 37 lb. It seems porous. I think I have enough. I want space for stuff to grow.

 

I run the RSM skimmer several hours daily and I've gotten some skimmate - looks like strong tea. But since Sunday is our two week anniversary, that seems OK.

 

And we have pods. There's probably 20-30/sq-in in some spots on the back wall. There's a six line possible in our future so those won't last long.

 

The pink barnacle is about 1mm across - I haven't seen any sign of life from it, but it is hard to see.

 

thanks,

hank

[greeneyes]

I love the look of real plants in FW. We do that with our 150.

 

Can't wait to see new pics

[noobofreefs]

Good job hank, looks like your tank is progressing fast! (Or uh...Cindy's tank ) Be sure to feed your trumpet! When I feed mine it puffs up all around the food & is really cool! I just picked up a frogspawn today as well. How many heads does your have?

 

Are you planning of getting a new skimmer or leaving the stock one? Oh and you should try to run the skimmer 24/7 for better skimmate.

 

Thanks for the congrats! My hw nowadays is only to study for finals.

 

Don't take as long as I did and be sure to post some pics!

 

NOR

[HankB]

Good job hank, looks like your tank is progressing fast! (Or uh...Cindy's tank ) Be sure to feed your trumpet! When I feed mine it puffs up all around the food & is really cool! I just picked up a frogspawn today as well. How many heads does your have? Frogspawn has 4 heads

 

Are you planning of getting a new skimmer or leaving the stock one? Oh and you should try to run the skimmer 24/7 for better skimmate. For now we're going to have a go at using the factory skimmer.

 

Don't take as long as I did and be sure to post some pics! OK, here they are!

 

NOR

 

Here's a pink paly:

 

And a blue paly:

 

The color difference is subtle, but if you look closely you can see it.

 

Here's the frogspawn:

 

I totally did not capture the flourescent tips. I need to look into that and figure out why.

 

finger leather:

 

We get a lot of movement out of both the frogspawn and finger leather with the pumps on.

 

Red legged hermits? Scarlet hermits?

 

We also got two blue legged and two (?) electric blue hermits.

 

Green trumpet (I think that's what this is called.):

 

 

FTS:

 

 

We still need to do some arranging when we glue these things down. The only ones that are really stable are the palys since they're on those T shaped plugs.

 

Thanks for looking,

hank

[bluesky]

hazmat - have you tried one or two peppermint shrimp in the tank to eat the Aiptasia? I know a few people that have had their Aiptasia disappear after adding one or two peppermints. I've always had at least one peppermint in my RSM and have never seen an Aiptasia in my tank. I wish they ate majanos, but I'm not aware of anything that will eat those.

 

Looking at some older pics I have of a different tank, here's a nice crop of majanos:

 

 

Based on my own pictures, it is possible that what HankB has is a majano, but sure hard to tell for sure.

 

+1 on hank's majano ... actually its cindy's majano

 

Majano do not really look that ugly other than it is brown. and peppermint shrimp does eat aiptasia in all of my past experiences ... but I always get 2-3 at a time.

 

and I love the finger leather ...

[daddyr1013]

Looking great hank! You Frog spawn is open a lot more than mine. Maybe I should move it up in the tank. Mine is all the way at the bottom.

[HankB]

I love the look of real plants in FW. We do that with our 150.

 

Can't wait to see new pics

 

Thanks, the instant saw the result with live plants I knew it was the right thing to do.

 

-hank

[HankB]

Looking great hank! You Frog spawn is open a lot more than mine. Maybe I should move it up in the tank. Mine is all the way at the bottom.

 

I think the lighting may be a more long term effect. Our dealer told us that the leather would like more flow - he has some thriving by the outlet from his filter - and that the frogspawn would like enough flow to make it move but not too much more. When I took that picture the pumps were off, but they're on now and it seems to be just as happy. I also fed it a couple of brine shrimp early this morning.

 

thanks,

hank

[HankB]

Here's another FTS - this time cropped down a bit and from another angle.

 

 

And our two biggest corals:

 

 

Yes, they really are that close to each other, almost like they're reaching out to sting one another. I thought I had them placed far enough apart, but when the pumps are off, they spread out. And they're glued down now. Oh well... Once the pumps are on, they have a couple inches of clearance. One benefit of frogspawn (as near as I can tell) is that it doesn't have the long sweepers like a torch or to a lesser extent a hammer. At night both of these withdraw.

 

thanks for looking,

hank

[HankB]

We have bioload!

 

We went to our LFS this morning and picked out:

 

- a yellow Fiji leather

- a plate coral

- a zoa frag that has about 3 different colors on it.

- an acan frag with 3 polyps.

 

- purple firefish

- green chromis

 

So far the only questionable one is the plate. After looking at the entry in the coral database, it seemed like a reasonable choice, but now I'm not so sure. The information seems to indicate that some are relatively easy to keep while others car difficult. Some can tolerate moderate flow and others prefer low flow. Lighting requirements seem to be all over the map. They have a large mouth and are reputed to be able to eat a dwarf sea horse. I guess I'll feed it mysis like I do with some others and perhaps get some silversides. At first it puffed up quite a bit but mow it has deflated and I can see the outline of the skeleton again. It has tentacles (polyps?) about 1/2" long and while those are still out, some look a bit deflated. I fiddled with flow a bit and managed to make a quiet section in one front corner. Hopefully it will find that to its liking.

 

The yellow Fiji has already opened up as much as it was in our dealer's tank, so it must like local conditions. The acans and zoas are opening but not yet to their full potential.

 

The fish are taking to our tank like... a fish to water. I noticed the firefish looking at particles that went by in the flow so I dropped a few flakes in there. He was eating flake food within minutes of his entry to the tank! I didn't see the chromis eating then, but I did see him going after stuff in the water column later. One of the firefish' favorite spots so far is front and center, so we may get to see a lot of him if that continues.

 

Once everyone gets settled in a bit more, I'll be able to get some pictures.

 

 

And here are some:

 

 

 

 

 

thanks,

hank

[Lizzie1324]

Your tank looks great. Can't wait for an updated FTS

I love that leather coral it is so bright!

[Reefmack]

Hank B - nice corals! My Yellow Fiji was always one of my favorite long-lived corals and they grow fast. Unfortunately I lost mine recently - the only reason I could think of was that it lost a toxicity battle with a large group of long stalked, large sized paly zoas that grew to touching it on one side, and a big Ricordea florida group that grew up to its base on the other side. Your plate seems to have good extension so hopefully that's a good sign it'll do well for you. I love the acans - they look like aussie lord types? Really colorful! I agree with Lizzie - we need a new FTS soon!

[HankB]

Well, I was starting to wonder if anyone was looking at this thread anymore.

 

Oh, yeah... Not my tank. It belongs to SWMBO - Cindy - and she makes all decisions on inhabitants. I'm technical adviser and get to bring buckets of water up from the basement. I also get to make suggestions on where corals go on the rocks subject to her approval. (I did suggest the yellow Fiji because I know that Yellow is her favorite color. )

 

So thanks for asking and here's a new FTS!

 

 

I think I need to look at HDR compositing of images. The contrast range is exceeding the range of the camera, particularly with the frogspawn right under the lights.

 

I know the Acan is an Aussie, but I have no idea if it is a lord. Are all Aussie Acans lords? It's not listed as such at the web site.

 

I hope the plate does well. I just IDed at RC as a Heliofungia and those are neither a beginner coral or a sure bet for the experienced reef keeper. I'll watch carefully for problems and at the first sign, I'll start looking for a better home.

 

You can also see that we're dealing with a cyano (or dinoflagellate?) outbreak. I suspect that this may be a result of our tank feeding experiment. We've accelerated water changes (5 gallons at a time) to twice or thrice/week. We'll have to be more careful with feeding too. And hopefully as the tank matures, this will dissipate. It is interesting that it still nearly disappears overnight and then seems to grow back nearly the instant the lights go on in the morning.

 

thanks,

hank

[StevieT]

I read your thread