ModemMan8 Posted August 10, 2003 Share Posted August 10, 2003 My 12 gal Eclipse has been up and running with 20lbs BioActive sand and 14.5 lbs of excellent live rock thickly encrusted with red, orange, green, yellow, burgandy coralline, many red twigs and lots of thick green plant life that look like mini cactus trees. The rock is primo... got it from my LFS. Added about 1/2 pound of very colorful rubble from 2 other tanks for biodiversity. I have seen bristle worms, white worms and I know I have some aptasia which I am hope shrimp will later dine on. I plan to add clean up crew in about a week. The tank is about 60 hours old with mix of real sea water and IO... about 50/50. pH is 8.2 and amonia is .50. Nitrite and nitrate at zero. Temp is 80 with light on.... 78 at night.... I am using the Eclipse 12 13 watt bulb for now... waiting to see if CSL updates the SuperNova 32 with a moonlight... which is a rumor I have heard at my LFS. My question is... I have a lot.... like hundreds of tiny little white bugs... on the acrylic sides and on some rock. They are very alive and appear busy...they frankly look like tiny fleas.... they crawl and hop. I dont have a magnifying glass but they are very tiny and i can only seem them when i look really hard in the light. These guys are friend? foe? Should i get clean up crew now? Wait as planned? I am thinking somebody should be eating these guys? What you think? Thanx. Link to comment
ModemMan8 Posted August 10, 2003 Author Share Posted August 10, 2003 i have tried to post pics but i keep getting an error message that says the images are too big? i have a Sony Mavica... not sure why i cant post pics??? Link to comment
killrblue Posted August 10, 2003 Share Posted August 10, 2003 Pic attachments are only allowed under 1mb. Try to resize the image at 600*400pixels and keep it under 100kb. If you have Photoshop 5+ there is a macro that can do it for you, save for web under File. Link to comment
Angel Posted August 10, 2003 Share Posted August 10, 2003 Tiny white fleas? That term is usually used to describe copepods. They are very good for the tank and quite a few things will be feeding on them but they do reproduce quickly, so don't worry. Link to comment
MrKrispy Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 I got them the second week of my cycle, I was thrilled. Finally had something to look at in the tank! Link to comment
Mnesarchus Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 I think ESPI described pods best "Like a thousand screaming soccer fans when you turn the lights on" Link to comment
SeaMountain Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 My Sony Mavica does fine. If yours is similar to mine you'll see an 'Email' function in your menu. Use this. It gives nice images which are quick to load. When you open the files on your 3.5" disk you should see all your pics file names. And also a FileFolder named 'Email'. Copies of your larger pics are filed in there. These are the ones you should be able to upload through the forum here. Hope this helps you out reeferdude. Link to comment
ModemMan8 Posted August 11, 2003 Author Share Posted August 11, 2003 SeaMountain, thanx man. It works.... here's some pics of my rocks... amazing what entertains me these days: Link to comment
ModemMan8 Posted August 11, 2003 Author Share Posted August 11, 2003 more live rock...and critters....and pods... know that i know what they r. Link to comment
ModemMan8 Posted August 11, 2003 Author Share Posted August 11, 2003 if my research is correct...the green plant projections are called halimeda... aka calcareous green algae... money plant i think is the common term. Link to comment
ModemMan8 Posted August 11, 2003 Author Share Posted August 11, 2003 i think i got carried away.... Link to comment
ModemMan8 Posted August 11, 2003 Author Share Posted August 11, 2003 ok. last one. this live rock is amazing. keeps changing like hour to hour...day to day... and today is only day 4... pH seems low to me today... is it common to drop pH during beginning of cycle? Link to comment
Chronicles Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 So you know it's a 15watt bulb on the Eclipse hood....the 18" one. Not that it matters.... oh and you can always do what I did...throw a 50/50 18" in the hood...move it to the side, and put either 2 or 4 13watt PCs in there. Even just 2 of them will give you 41watts of light for $20, being they are $9.99 each. Link to comment
Crakeur Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 Shot #3 looks like the "leaves" are too large to be halimeda and the growth pattern appears to be plating rather than branching. Might be halimeda monile but not the usual "moneyplant" halimeda that most people get. http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&...halimeda+monile Link to comment
ModemMan8 Posted August 11, 2003 Author Share Posted August 11, 2003 crakeur, yes. i agree. thanx for the reference. looks like halimeda monile... commonly called halimeda tuna apparently. its very hardy. dozens of new growth areas sprouting out all over it... and i dont even have the csl supernova 32 retrofit in yet. thanx for that clarification. Link to comment
ModemMan8 Posted August 11, 2003 Author Share Posted August 11, 2003 OK. so today is Day 4... and there is a large kind of deep maroon ping pong ball size hump that opens and closes... there is a black tongue inside... the tongue moves but does not seem to come out of the crust. it is extremely well camoflaged and unless u pay real close attention.. u cant see it move. but it does... move and its alive. is there some hidden meaning here... is live rock suppose to move? is is a clam? i feel like my live rock has jumped into the advanced nano category? do i need to feed this entity? if it died.... it would be a big deal in my little tank...cause its kind of big. thank you 4 patience with these questions. Link to comment
ModemMan8 Posted August 11, 2003 Author Share Posted August 11, 2003 id please? second view. sorry my underwater photo skills are as new as my reefing. Link to comment
Crakeur Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 could be another corralline or an encrusting stony coral of some sort. if you plan on keeping hard corals you might want to prune back some of the halimeda. it sucks calcium up big time Link to comment
ModemMan8 Posted August 12, 2003 Author Share Posted August 12, 2003 crakeur. thanks for the heads up about hard corals, halimeda and calcium. the plan at this point is to do do weekly water changes and to feed a few drops of marine plant and coral food i saw at my LFS.... not a Kent product.... as i read it and it was recommended to me...kind of like a "miracle grow" plant fertilizer for reefs. sorry in the moment i cant remember the name of the product... anyway... i will watch calcium levels. frankly i didnt plan on hard corals but I think a whole lot of it is already growing on my live rock. i have so much already happening on the rock its hard to imagine adding frags right now... but i know i will when its time. i am thinking the first thing i need to get when the tank is cycled is a peppermint shrimp and strongly encourage it to devour every last morsel of the aptasia that is sprouting out all over.... 14 and counting... Link to comment
MrKrispy Posted August 12, 2003 Share Posted August 12, 2003 did you spray paint the rock before you put it in??? Link to comment
NanoBound Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 ModemMan8 What are the red branches growing out of your rock? I have some as well, but have yet been able to identify. Link to comment
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