Cindy's Red Sea Max

[HankB]

it would be very cool if you could give it some kind of a coral hair dew! like some gsp's or some zoas on top of its head.

 

Chia Pet!

 

Well... That's up to the creative director of this endeavor.

 

We haven't been doing a lot lately. We're in a holding pattern until we get back from vacation later this summer. In preparation for that, we put in a Tunze Osmolator. I installed the sensors in the first chamber because I wanted something that would most closely reflect actual tank level. I saw another install that put one it right in the tank. That would be cool since so little of the fill sensor protrudes below the surface.

 

In other news, Our chaeto has been growing a whole lot better than the cyano. I have ordered a 10 watt submersible halogen bulb to put in the middle rear chamber (where the chiller hoses would go.) That may not be a full blown fuge, but the chaeto will help. Hopefully 10 watts of extra heat won't add too much to the tank.

 

In more other news, our QT tank is covered wall to wall with about 1/2" of GHA. I've been putting snails in there to see how they do with it. An astrea does about 2 square inches daily. A turbo does about 10. (Nom nom nom...) Today we added a pulsing xenia to our QT tank in anticipation of putting it in our DT tank some time alter. That means I have to keep the QT going over vacation too, but there's nothing to feed in there so I'll just seal it to reduce evaporation and hope for the best.

 

thanks for looking,

hank

[reefone]

No. I'm watching it and it has just gotten a little bit bigger. It is now about the size of a pencil eraser:

 

IMO the tentacles seem to be looking less like the pictures I've seen of a majano.

 

-hank

 

looks like a frogspawn to me.

[HankB]

looks like a frogspawn to me.

 

Several people have suggested that it is something from that family. It's getting bigger but I've moved the rock it's on to another location in the tank where I can't get pictures of it. The color seems to be more grey than any frogspawn that I've seen, but maybe I haven't seen them all.

 

I forgot to mention some progress with our corals. Even though we're in a holding pattern, they are not.

 

The polyps on our green trumpet are now touching when it's happy. One polyp looks like it has two mouths so I expect it to split.

 

Our first corals were a couple mushrooms that hitched in on our LR are doing well (at least the one that's not shaded by the yellow Fiji) and now has a baby about 1/4" across. Sp our orals are multiplying.

 

On the down side, there seems to be some sort of problem with our blue palys. Several heads have closed up and shrunk. I'm wondering if it is getting stung by the frogspawn. The other palys seem to be doing fine.

 

-hank

[Reefmack]

Hank - are the blue palys withing 3-4 inches of the frogspawn? My frog uswed to put out sweepers about 3-4" long and would sting anything it could reach. On the other hand, palys at times seem to close up for a while, so it may be nothing to worry about. The heads on my green trumpets also each have 2 mouths, and I'm also hoping that mine split soon.

[HankB]

Hank - are the blue palys withing 3-4 inches of the frogspawn? My frog uswed to put out sweepers about 3-4" long and would sting anything it could reach...

Yes, it is that close.

 

By sweepers, I believe you mean thin tentacles that are not like the tentacles we normally see. When would be the best time to look for these? Our frogspawn usually withdraws at night, sometimes to within about 1/2" of the skeleton and at times, almost within the skeleton. I've never seen sweepers. Would it put these out when it is otherwise withdrawn?

 

thanks,

hank

[lakshwadeep]

I think it's during the night when most corals release their sweeper tentacles. Here's a picture of frogspawn sweepers:

[HankB]

I think it's during the night when most corals release their sweeper tentacles. Here's a picture of frogspawn sweepers:

 

Thanks for the image. I'll have to watch for those after lights out.

 

-hank

[Reefmack]

Good pictures of the sweepers lakshwadeep. I've always meant to take a picture of them but never have. I've only ever seen my Euphyllia (frogspawn. torch, hammer) sweepers during the day. I still have one torch type left and it had a couple of sweepers out this weekend. Mine also shrink down to nothing during the night, so if they also put out sweepers at night, I've never seen it. I think I've already mentioned it, but I used to be stung myself, on the back of my hand, by a big 10 headed frogspawn I used to have - stung by the normal tips on it, not just sweepers. Good idea to at least put on a disposable vinyl glove if you'll be working in the tank close to one of these. I never realized these things could sting a person too, but I had it confirmed by several others on the RC forum. Some people are more sensitive than others, and a person can get sensitized after repeated stings, resulting in a worse reaction later on than they originally received.

 

Here's a good link:

 

Frogspawn Stings

[HankB]

Vacation's over, we're home. We were out over two weeks and everything seems to have done well. Our vacation care consisted of an ATO (Tunze Osmolator) and a neighbor to feed pre-measured food 2/week. The food was really sparse since I didn't want him to mess with turning pumps off and on. I removed floss from the filter since it fills within a day or two and left the protein skimmer off.

 

On return I noted:

 

- lots of green algae on the glass. This looks like green stippling. It was on the back glass so it is no surprise to see it elsewhere. It seems nearly as hard as coralline (which we also have more of) so it is no surprise the snails leave it behind.

- chaeto filling and growing out of our soap dish fuge.

- no more cyano visible (see above - I think that helps.)

- an additional mushroom baby and the mother seems to be moving to allow them to get more light. Another mushroom is moving out from the shade of our Fiji yellow.

- both softies - the Fiji yellow and the spaghetti leathers - look bigger.

- the baby acans are bigger and there may be more new polyps.

- the green trumpet polyp that looked like it was splitting now looks more like it is splitting.

- pink palys look like they are recovering - a couple polyps shriveled up. The blue palys did not. We only have one or two blue paly polyps in QT at the moment.

- I see more stomatellas in the tank, perhaps because the algae on the glass attracts them where they are easier to spot.

- there are a couple astrea shells where I do not recall them before. Looks like we might be losing some. Perhaps I need to augment their food with some nori.

- the two fish acted like we never feed them, hitting the surface wen I turned pumps off even before I introduced any food!

 

Pictures will follow once we get things cleaned up again, but first I have vacation pictures to deal with.

 

Everything in the QT tank looks great. That's a 10g with 55w PC light and foam filter. It is partitioned to isolate chaeto/caulerpa and has a nano-koralia for flow. Just before we left, we acquired a pink pulsing Xenia and it went into QT. I covered the tank with cellophane wrap and it didn't require any make up.

 

Looks like my FW tank took the biggest hit. hornwort grew so much at the surface it shaded out some other plants and someone (5" yoyo?) dug up just about all of the dwarf hairgrass.

 

Now with vacation behind us, we can continue stocking. We still have two medium corals coming from our dealer with plans to add a skunk cleaner and maybe a couple more fish. Now we just have to decide what to get for the next two corals. We were thinking about a plate montipora, but I'm concerned that it might not do too well with the leathers that are starting to dominate our tank. Maybe some more mushrooms or acans since they seem to do well.

 

thanks,

hank

[Gerber77]

Thats good news. Lets see some pics

[Reefmack]

Welcome back! It sounds like just about all of your tanks fared pretty well over the last 2 weeks.

[HankB]

Thats good news. Lets see some pics

 

Sure!

 

 

That's our bikes with the Tetons in Wyoming in the background.

 

 

And I still gotta unpack.

 

-hank

[Reefmack]

Wow - one of my favorite areas of the country. I always wanted to live in Jackson Hole, WY, but I'm not sure I could take the winters there in my old age! Love the Grand Tetons! I think I have old photos that almost look like yours (minus the cycles).

[HankB]

OK, I scraped off the front glass and got a halfway decent FTS:

 

 

I took this with pumps on to demonstrate what the leathers and frogspawn look like normally, not when they're stretching in still water. I also tried to capture the firefish, but that left the chromis camouflaged by the hydor flo.

 

I keep thinking that Fiji yellow looks bigger, but somehow that just doesn't translate to the image.

 

thanks for looking,

hank

[Reefmack]

Looks great Hank & Cindy!

[HankB]

We have babies! I suppose that more experienced reefers expect this and take it as a matter of course, but it is pretty exciting for us. The progeny include:

 

Purple mushrooms. Two came in with our LR. One is in fill light at mid-depth and the other in the shade of the Fiji Yellow. The one in full light has two babies and seems to be moving to the side to allow them more light. The one in the shade is moving toward the light and has left two babies behind.

 

We've been watching the green trumpets eloingate, grow a new mouth and it is now clear a couple polyps are splitting.

 

The Aussie Acan Lord came with three polyps and two babies. The babies are getting bigger and we can now see about 4 more polyps starting out, about the size of a pencil eraser.

 

The frogspawn is multiplying two ways. One head has a sort of mini-me growing near the junction of the tissue and the skeleton. There appear to be more starting on other heads as well. In addition to that, two of the heads seem to be dividing into four. Check that. I looked after dark when the tentacles are withdrawn and one of the heads is splitting three ways, so that's two heads into five.

 

I haven't been counting paly or zoa polyps, but it looks like they're multiplying too. The only setback there is the blue plays which declined in the DT. However a blue paly polyp in the QT now has babies.

 

We've even had some multiplication amongst the CUC. At first we only occasionally saw a stomatella, but now there are at least a half dozen easily found at any given time.

 

We have another new addition. The Pulsing Xenia is out of QT and in the main tank. We've placed it toward the rear on the left. That's part of our plan to populate the tank to look good from the sides as well as the rear.

 

Next? Who knows? Cindy is thinking of more green chromis to make a small school and we still have two medium corals coming from our vendor. Could a robust and easy to care for SPS be in our future? Or should we stick with softies and LPS?

 

thanks for looking,

hank

[Reefmack]

Congrats on the new babies - at least they don't require any diaper changes! Mushrooms are pretty cool the way that they can very slowly move themselves. My green trumpets with 2 mouths also look closer to splitting every day, but they're sure taking their time actually making the division into separate individuals. On the other hand if you don't check out the frogspawn every night it can be surprising when you all of a sudden see more heads. My zoas seem to take a while to multiply, then all of a sudden they seem to take off and really multiply fast.

 

I'll have to admit that I'm happy I have no more Xenia - that stuff will grow like a weed and unless you've put it on top or up high, it will grow up, leaving colonies as it goes up. Mine had killed a nice pink SPS stylophora frag by constantly flapping against it in the current, and smothered out a few zoa colonies. If you ever have to trim it do it carefully - if you drop little pieces each piece can grow a new colony. Sorry for being negative on Xenia, but I didn't heed all the warnings I read about it growing like a weed, and taking over a tank, and paid the price by having to constantly trim the stuff till it no longer came back. Hopefully you can keep it under control.

 

By the way - if you do try SPS the Montipora types (branching, encrusting and plate forming, are the easiest SPS to try.

 

 

Sounds like you're doing things right the way things are multiplying - good job!

[AdriftQuasar]

Congratulations on having your corals multiply. My hammer coral is in the process of dividing from 4 heads to 8 and I have a little one that is growing off of the back. I feel your joy.

[EnjoiFish]

Wow everything is spawning in your tank! What do you put in your water?? Is it the Spanish fly? Viagra?

[HankB]

Wow everything is spawning in your tank! What do you put in your water?? Is it the Spanish fly? Viagra?

 

Spanish Mysis.

 

We do feed our LPS and they seem to like that. Once they get too big, we'l probably back off on that and let them rely on photosynthesis alone. But in the mean time we want to turn small colonies into big colonies.

 

I'll have to admit that I'm happy I have no more Xenia - that stuff will grow like a weed and unless you've put it on top or up high, it will grow up, leaving colonies as it goes up...

Thanks for the warning on Xenia. We may eventually regret it, but in the mean time I'll be watching carefully to keep it in check.

 

thanks,

hank

[Reefmack]

Hank - did you get that 10W submersible halogen light and try it yet? I was wondering how much heat it adds to the tank. I read one post where a guy said that out of the water it was hot enough to burn fingers. I guess if you have a chiller it would be no big deal, but I don't run a chiller and manage to keep my tank at 81 max. I have a feeling if I added one or two of those little halogens it would really heat up my tank.

[HankB]

Hank - did you get that 10W submersible halogen light and try it yet? I was wondering how much heat it adds to the tank. I read one post where a guy said that out of the water it was hot enough to burn fingers. I guess if you have a chiller it would be no big deal, but I don't run a chiller and manage to keep my tank at 81 max. I have a feeling if I added one or two of those little halogens it would really heat up my tank.

 

Hi Reefmack,

There was some kind of difficulty with shipping (They shipped wiile I was on vacation and I did not find it on my return.) They aren't the most communicative bunch, but did reship via USPS and did provide a tracking number. I'm supposed to get it today.

 

Heat output is a concern because it must be run submerged. We do not have a chiller and I find that I must leave the house A/C on. I work from home and am comfortable up to about 80, but the tank will run about 4 deg over ambient with stock lighting.

 

I'll post updates when I have it running. In the mean time, the chaeto is doing well in the soap dish. I've had to harvest a couple of times so far.

 

-hank

[Reefmack]

Hi Hank. Let us know how it goes with the light. Do it on a weekend so you can be home to track the temperature. I'm not sure if there are similar wattage lights based on submersible LEDs - I wasn't very successful finding any in a quick search. In the meantime the soap dish chaeto holders do work very well.

[HankB]

I'm not sure if there are similar wattage lights based on submersible LEDs.

You don't need the same wattage with LEDs to produce the equivalent light energy because more of the energy goes into light vs. heat. I cold not find specific figures, but I suspect that as much as 75% or so of the energy in the halogen bulb is wasted as heat.

 

The problem with LEDs is that they tend to be monochromatic, emitting all of their light at the same wavelength. Of course white light is a mix of different wavelengths and I'm not sure how white LEDs accomplish that. I think some are actually UV LEDs that are coated with a phosphor that produces white light when struck by the UV. That would make them more like a fluorescent light and perhaps the spectrum is similar. It still might produce various colors at discrete wavelengths. Halogen, by it's nature, produces light over a broader spectrum.

 

Chlorophyll (IIRC) absorbs light at a specific wavelengths. If the source does not cover those wavelengths, it will not support growth. I've yet to hear solid confirmation of anyone growing chaeto under LEDs. One person who claimed that had chaeto thriving under an LED had a light that looked a lot like the two bulb version of what I bought. The page it came from made no claims about it being either LED or halogen so I question the veracity of that claim.

 

When the light arrives, I'll monitor tank temperature like you suggested and see what happens.

 

thanks,

hank

[JerseyChick]

Very nice, I love the leather