debbeach13 Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 The coral looks great. This tank is an inspiration! Simple and stunning. 1 Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted February 26, 2020 Author Share Posted February 26, 2020 7 hours ago, Felicia said: Absolutely beautiful! I can never get over how clean your tank looks given how old it is at this point. The balance you have in there is quite the achievement. Man, barnacle blennies are characters! I’m glad yours is ok! I ended up picking up a trio of the little guys from Aquatic Collection for my new 20 gallon and they crack me up. They make me want to feed the tank more often than I should so I can watch them dart about after food. Hi Felicia! Thanks for dropping in and the kind words. Looks like you have the little Panamic Barnacle Blennies. Crazy little things, aren't they? The much larger 'Eyebrow Barnacle Blenny' is a bit more sedate, but that's a relative term with Barnacle Blennies 😉 I see you've entered the 365 Day Challenge with the 20g. Good luck! Ralph. 2 hours ago, debbeach13 said: The coral looks great. This tank is an inspiration! Simple and stunning. Thank you! 1 Quote Link to comment
Felicia Posted February 28, 2020 Share Posted February 28, 2020 On 2/26/2020 at 7:05 AM, Nano sapiens said: Hi Felicia! Thanks for dropping in and the kind words. Looks like you have the little Panamic Barnacle Blennies. Crazy little things, aren't they? The much larger 'Eyebrow Barnacle Blenny' is a bit more sedate, but that's a relative term with Barnacle Blennies 😉 I see you've entered the 365 Day Challenge with the 20g. Good luck! Ralph. You're very welcome! They are well deserved! Yep, my three are the tiny little Panamic barnacle blennies and they are so manic! I put my hand in the tank earlier and they kept trying to bite me with their tiny mouths. Crazy fish! How big do the Eyebrow barnacle blennies get? Sounds like he's still a pretty spunky fellow! Yep, the timing just worked out too perfectly not to enter the competition. I'm definitely not out to win, just more using it as motivation to actually update on here with my progress! 1 Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted February 28, 2020 Author Share Posted February 28, 2020 4 minutes ago, Felicia said: You're very welcome! They are well deserved! Yep, my three are the tiny little Panamic barnacle blennies and they are so manic! I put my hand in the tank earlier and they kept trying to bite me with their tiny mouths. Crazy fish! How big do the Eyebrow barnacle blennies get? Sounds like he's still a pretty spunky fellow! Yep, the timing just worked out too perfectly not to enter the competition. I'm definitely not out to win, just more using it as motivation to actually update on here with my progress! True Eyebrows (Ekemblemaria myersi) get to be a bit shy of 3", but the one I have is maybe 2-1/2. There are other quite similar species, but none are readily available (if at all). I find these to be a lot longer lived than the little uber-hyper Panamics. Watch out for the occasion 'swan-dive out of the tank' (they can get too speedy and overshoot, occasionally). Best of luck with the contest! :) 1 Quote Link to comment
Felicia Posted February 28, 2020 Share Posted February 28, 2020 6 minutes ago, Nano sapiens said: True Eyebrows (Ekemblemaria myersi) get to be a bit shy of 3", but the one I have is maybe 2-1/2. There are other quite similar species, but none are readily available (if at all). I find these to be a lot longer lived than the little uber-hyper Panamics. Watch out for the occasion 'swan-dive out of the tank' (they can get too speedy and overshoot, occasionally). Best of luck with the contest! 🙂 Oh ok, so they're a more standard sized blenny then. I guess the Panamics can get up to 2" long, which is decent sized, but the ones I got are SUPER tiny right now. I am a bit concerned about the swan diving. I have a lid, but its the screen lid that came with the Innovative Marine tank and they use a larger mesh size then I would prefer on their lids. Fingers crossed I don't end up with any escape artists! 1 Quote Link to comment
Tamberav Posted February 28, 2020 Share Posted February 28, 2020 LFS had a hasslets goby. Anything special I should know? How long did yours live? Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted February 28, 2020 Author Share Posted February 28, 2020 2 hours ago, Tamberav said: LFS had a hasslets goby. Anything special I should know? How long did yours live? Great and unusual fish for a reef tank. A few caveats though: They will find or make a burrow and tend to stay hidden during the day (will come out for food, eat for a few minutes, then back to the cave). They will come out and forage at night, so turning lights on all of a sudden will make them real skittish and likely jump. Eat everything, so a small tank will soon be devoid of pods, worms, collunista snails. Etc. (including Bristleworms). They have a whole lot of extra vertebrae for extreme lateral manueverability, so they can literally make a 180 degree turn on a dime (so cool). I didn't see any aggressive behavior towards any of my smaller nano fish, but I suppose something like a real small Eviota might be on the menu. I had mine for over a year. Due to larger size than most nano gobies and slower lifestyle, I would take a guess at maybe a 5 year or more lifespan. Those huge pectoral fins are likely used to corral swarms of benthic organisms like copepods and such. And lastly, they have a huge range from Australia up to Taiwan (salt & brackish), so they are very adaptable. 2 Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted March 8, 2020 Author Share Posted March 8, 2020 Growth shots: Blastos (1/20/20 - today with 6 heads): Pulsing Xenia (1/25/20 - today...it's a weed!) 10 2 Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted April 4, 2020 Author Share Posted April 4, 2020 Seriatopora Fragging: After two years or so, the time had come to 'reset' the Ponape Birdsnest. This species is notable in that it creates an ever increasing 'dead zone' column base of dense under branches upon which the new growth builds on top. Considering the crystal-like brittle nature of the fine branches, I can imagine that when a major storm hits the reef the colony would break off at the base and be tossed, shattering fragments in the process. Great way to self-propagate! I also took the opportunity to switch the relative positions of both the Ponape and the Bird of Paradise (small frags in front of the Ponape frags below). This will give the BOP a bit more flow which I believe will help it do better. And just for fun, I attached a small Ponape frag spike between the ever expanding P. madivensis and the Fire-and-Ice Zoas (on the left) to see how well it can compete. Now that the big Ponape colony has been removed, I can properly see and identify the bright red encrusting coral on the middle right side (above the orange Rhodactis). Years ago I had bought a 'Strawberry Stylocoeniella', but it had faded out into obscurity. Looks like a remnant survived in the shadow of the BN all this time waiting for it's 'day in the sun' :) Speaking of Stylocoeniella, this is another morph known as 'Pink Stylocoeniella' that I very nearly lost, too. I've brought it back from just a few polyps to a nice little mini-colony. What I have found works best for these is lower-medium/medium light, intermittent but not overpowering flow and, especially, weekly direct feedings of small particle food (I use Reef-Roids). Without supplemental feeding when in a lower nutrient aquarium like this, Stylocoeniella just doesn't do well IME. 7 Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted April 5, 2020 Share Posted April 5, 2020 Nice update the corals look very healthy. Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted April 5, 2020 Author Share Posted April 5, 2020 44 minutes ago, debbeach13 said: Nice update the corals look very healthy. Thank you. Yes, I'd say almost everything is doing quite well. Now it's just a watch-and-wait game as the corals expand territory and battle it out for the new space that I've just created. One thing I run into over time with such an old system is just the sheer growth of coral biomass and the issues that can come with that. Sometimes it's a matter of moving something out completely, sometimes I can just reset a portion of the system (like I've done here). As long as I don't run into anything majorly negative, I can expect that it'll fill up again relatively quickly. 2 Quote Link to comment
Gramophone Posted May 23, 2020 Share Posted May 23, 2020 I'm sure someone has said this before but it's crazy that this tank is over 11 years old! Corals are looking fantastic. Feel free to send me a frag of that ponape Has your xenia taken over the tank yet? 1 Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted May 23, 2020 Author Share Posted May 23, 2020 2 hours ago, Gramophone said: I'm sure someone has said this before but it's crazy that this tank is over 11 years old! Corals are looking fantastic. Feel free to send me a frag of that ponape Has your xenia taken over the tank yet? Will be 12 years in August 😊 You just missed the major Ponape 'smash it and restart with a few small pieces' event. That's what I literally did since it had grown bigger than a softball in a tank that's only 15 x 13 inches. In a few short months it should be fragable again 😉 Looks like you started something new! Will keep an eye on this one to see how it develops! Ahhh, the Xenia. Love the 'bushy-bushy-waving-in the-air (ehem 'flow') -like-it-just-don't care-grows-like-a-weed coral'. Luckily, no spread yet. The only reason it's behaving is because it's afraid I might give it a real honest-to-goodness crew-cut, rather than just the monthly regular trimming I give it. 3 Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted June 1, 2020 Author Share Posted June 1, 2020 When ordering from an online vendor, it's always interesting to see how close any of the corals come to their online pics... The little pastel pink mushroom in the center was supposed to be an 'Orange Yuma' (the vendor's pic, which I can't attach, was a beautiful fluorescent orange with some bright green lower tentacle tips): Ah well, my hope is that the lack of color may be due to shipping stress and that it may yet color up (long shot, I know...) This was supposed to be a true deep red 'Red Blasto' as seen in the vendor's photo, but it's just a common orange blasto: Interestingly, there is no connecting tissue between any of the four polyps, yet they all appear fine and are taking food. On the plus side, this little stub of 'Neon Green Capnella' is a bit closer and has some nice fluorescent green: And these 'Ultimate Zoas' are pretty close to the vendor pic: My take on Forest Gump's famous saying, "On-line coral shopping is like a box of chocolates, you never quite know what you're going to get" 😉 3 4 Quote Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted June 1, 2020 Share Posted June 1, 2020 its even harder to tell now with everyone using orange filters in their photochop pics 2 Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted June 1, 2020 Author Share Posted June 1, 2020 3 hours ago, ninjamyst said: its even harder to tell now with everyone using orange filters in their photochop pics Yeah, that can certain make things look different! I haven't ordered online in quite a while, but that Memorial Day sale thing got me going 😊 I still prefer to patronize my local LFS where I can actually see what I'm buying first hand and so far their corals have been much cleaner. I found around 30 crustaceans from these four online frags running the gamut from the usual pods to a few species I've never even seen before. All of them were separated from their plugs and got a good FW dip with Iodine before admission, so hopefully I got all the little hitchhiking bugs 👍 3 Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted June 2, 2020 Author Share Posted June 2, 2020 A quick pic of most of the new additions in among the residents: The Duncan is trying hard to out-do the Rics in size 😃 5 Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted June 3, 2020 Author Share Posted June 3, 2020 Mushies are expanding again! (6" diameter green/yellow R. yuma.: 6 1 Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted June 6, 2020 Author Share Posted June 6, 2020 And now for something really small: I typically find worm tracks in the gravel up against the side of the glass, but usually don't see that anyone is home. This little guy, however, was busy going up and down in it's burrow, presumably clearing it of detritus, so the prefect opportunity to try and get a photo. After about 30 odd pics using full phone magnification plus a 10x eyelupe, I managed to get one that was fairly clear. The worm is less than the thickness of a small paper clip's wire diameter and iridescent/reflective. The mouth area appears bristly and there are two bright orange stripes running down the cheeks. Possibly in the Eunice worm family, just a really tiny 'mini-me' version 😉 5 2 Quote Link to comment
Gramophone Posted June 6, 2020 Share Posted June 6, 2020 38 minutes ago, Nano sapiens said: And now for something really small: I typically find worm tracks in the gravel up against the side of the glass, but usually don't see that anyone is home. This little guy, however, was busy going up and down in it's burrow, presumably clearing it of detritus, so the prefect opportunity to try and get a photo. After about 30 odd pics using full phone magnification plus a 10x eyelupe, I managed to get one that was fairly clear. The worm is less than the thickness of a small paper clip's wire diameter and iridescent/reflective. The mouth area appears bristly and there are two bright orange stripes running down the cheeks. Possibly in the Eunice worm family, just a really tiny 'mini-me' version 😉 I'm curious to how in the world you actually spotted that haha Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted June 8, 2020 Author Share Posted June 8, 2020 On 6/5/2020 at 5:44 PM, Gramophone said: I'm curious to how in the world you actually spotted that haha Small tank...and I'm still near-sighted 😉 Allows me to build itty-bitty things like this (miniature railroad hobby): After 12 years, with this nano, I think I know just about all the cast of characters. But every once in a while somebody 'new' pops up. 5 2 Quote Link to comment
mitten_reef Posted June 8, 2020 Share Posted June 8, 2020 On 6/2/2020 at 8:52 PM, Nano sapiens said: Mushies are expanding again! (6" diameter green/yellow R. yuma.: That's a very nice yuma. my tank hates r. yuma, there's one in the general vicinity of the r. florida (not touching or anything), in most other tanks I've seen thye seem to do well in the same areas. Not so in mine, the current one is slowly melting away. I melted/shrunk/lost a few in the past as well. sigh. 1 Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted June 8, 2020 Author Share Posted June 8, 2020 4 hours ago, mitten_reef said: That's a very nice yuma. my tank hates r. yuma, there's one in the general vicinity of the r. florida (not touching or anything), in most other tanks I've seen thye seem to do well in the same areas. Not so in mine, the current one is slowly melting away. I melted/shrunk/lost a few in the past as well. sigh. Yumas are finicky, sometimes, and they don't all seem to like exactly the same conditions. How much light and flow are the Rics currently getting? Also, the Yumas with the similar sized round tentacles that look more like Floridas have done well. I now avoid the Yumas with the line(s) of larger, different colored bubbles that radiate from the center outward. The few I've tried have all detached and slowly shrank over many months time. 2 Quote Link to comment
Gramophone Posted June 8, 2020 Share Posted June 8, 2020 7 hours ago, Nano sapiens said: Small tank...and I'm still near-sighted 😉 Allows me to build itty-bitty things like this (miniature railroad hobby): After 12 years, with this nano, I think I know just about all the cast of characters. But every once in a while somebody 'new' pops up. THIS is incredible! About how long did that take to make? 1 Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted June 8, 2020 Author Share Posted June 8, 2020 Ummm, about 1/2 day. At this scale (1:220), small twigs from the backyard serve as logs 2 1 Quote Link to comment
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