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RESONANCE

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Ok! Here we go!

 

*all images are copyright - me*

**If you want to use any of my pictures, please ask for my permission first.**

***Asking is not a guarantee of any right of use***

 

First off, is the same fts, but bigger so you can hopefully see better. The image was supposed to be 2x the original (what I uploaded), but my image host would only let me link an 800px file. :P. Edit: And gosh darnit it's the same size as the other! Uhg! :huh:

 

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Now the closeups:

 

Sargassum platycarpum. Got this a while back from John at Reefcleaners. A tip to anyone buying (or selling for that matter) Sargassum. Always make sure you're buying a plant with a base/ holdfast. Don't bother buying clippings cuz like many other macros, it's difficult to get sargassum clippings to develop holdfasts on anything. The clippings will survive and even grow longer, floating around on the water surface, but what will eventually happen is they will age and start to lose leaves at a certain point, then die. On a plant with a holdfast, you can just clip off the parts of the plant that's getting too long to the length you like and the base/ holdfast will sprout a new stem.

 

Enjoy these pictures cuz, I've already given my sargassum a 'haircut' to make room for the changes to take place :).

 

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Notice the holdfast/ base in this next picture:

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Grew some on frags of rock so I can hopefully sell to others :).

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Codium edule (or is it Codum intricatum?):

 

This 'pillow' of codium started off as a golfball sized portion which I wedged on to the top of the 'boomie' I created sometime during the fall last year. Now it's a good 7 inches in diameter!

 

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Razor caulpera

 

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My photosynthetic gorgonians (all caribbean): B)

 

This one was hidden in the back under the canopy of sargassum in the last fts I posted. I had to move it to the front to take a picture of it:

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A frag of the large purple gorgonian (from my fts) I made for someone...funny thing is the polyps opened up literally minutes after it was fragged and a base began to develop just a week after I mounted it (on a conical piece of epoxy). Here you can clearly see the base well developed and fat.

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My yellow photosynthetic gorgonian. Most people probably missed this on in the fts.

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This gorg is pretty neat too, instead of beige or tan colored polyps this one has pure white polyps! Another neat thing is on the thin side of the gorgonian, are purple ovals, where the polyps emerge from. You can only see this when they're closed up - and in person or with a good macro lens which unfortunately I don't have.

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Hitchhiker snail. Not sure where this one came in, probably with my vanuatu rock. It was a small little guy in the begining. I thought it was just a small turbo or astraea snail, but it took on this growth spurt where it started developing these neat spikes! LOL! Neat transformation.

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Forgot the name of this sponge. It's from the Caribbean.

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I've always wondered how the more 'solid' appearing sponges fed. Take a close look at where I've drawn ovals. There's apparently a living 'film' transparent on the surface of this sponge and when it feeds, it forms these 'veins' of tubes which, I assume, directs water and food through it.

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Top down view of sponge, showing 'tubes'.

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My blue and green symbodium. Really pissed off right now cuz it was moved from the back - it likes low/ indirect lighting. And abused by my large ruby emerald crab. Actually I'm pissed off at the crab as well. This entire rock used to be covered in the blue green symbodium but as the rock has been hidden from view by the sargassum, the crab's managed to eat friggen eat 2/3s of it. And barely any bubble algae. ARrrrrg. :rant:

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continued...

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Moar pichars!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

My bulls eye mushrooms - see if you can find them! LOL. Yeah this was the best pic I could get of them:

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"True Blue shrooms"! I find that most mushrooms like low light. These guys are huge and have a nice velvety blue look to them at the bottom of the tank.

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But at the top of the tank, they're kind of bleached looking and light blue. Here's the very same type of mushroom with a hitchhiker sps.

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Same hitchhiker sps suffering from low magnesium (bubbling 'skin'), oh yeah and some hidden aiptasia...gonna have to get some peppermints for this:

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My mini colony of purple death palys:

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My newly acquired nuclear green paly colony (got an awesome deal on this!):

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And my aussie acan colony. Abit peeved off since I kept turning the mp40 off and on and moving things around, etc...

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My bubble algae problem. They seem to grow most right in front of and underneath the mp40. I think I'm going to have to buy a small army of emerald crabs at some point to take care of this. That means moving my coral and what ever macro algae I can. Uhg.

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MYSTERY ITEM! Not sure what this is. At first I thought it was one massive bubble algae until I tried to pull it off. It's solid! And can't be easily pulled off either. It wasn't there before and as far as I can tell, it's never moved. Any one have any ideas?

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Halodule uninervis ( I think ). Been trying to grow these 2 plants for a few months now. They seem to get taller and put out new leaves but neither plant has sent out any runners yet. So it's a bit of a mystery. Also, I've just discovered the width of each blade on uninervis is about 5 to 6x wider than that of halodule wrightii/ beaudettei.

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Now for some random tank shots:

 

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...And that's all for now! :)

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ThePhilosopher

What a beauty of a tank.

Nice growth on the mangroves, too. Of all the things, though, I'm jealous of your sponges. I can't seem to find sponges with interesting shapes for sale.

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Awesome !!!!! congrats on your achievement!!

 

Thank you!

 

 

What a beauty of a tank.

Nice growth on the mangroves, too. Of all the things, though, I'm jealous of your sponges. I can't seem to find sponges with interesting shapes for sale.

 

Thanks! Yeah, I've been keeping an eye out for sponges for a while now... the 3 I have are the result of 8 months of constant searching and inquiries at lfs. Yeah so some work went into hunting them down.

 

Looking very nice! Love all the sponges.

 

Thanks man! :)

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Now for something unexpected....

 

 

The very latest/ up-to-date FTS!

 

Tadah!:

 

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Yeah, I know what you're thinking...

 

W.T.F...? :huh:

 

Cuz I'm thinking it too! LOL! So the change has begun! Hopefully when the dust has settles, everything will be fine. I keep thinking.... FUBAR. :P LOL. :lol:

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*drool* Its so beautiful and lush. Hey I e-mailed you about the gorgs :)

Your tank makes me so jealous. Ive got a bubble algae issue as well but I dont want to get emerald crabs because of my corals. Basically same issue you were talking about.

Im also very jealous you have blue sympodium. I was gonna buy some but decided to wait until I found more info on it. And your yellow gorg is stunning as well.

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Heh, nothing to be jealous about. I barely did anything, just let nature take its course LOL. Also, the blue green sympodium is really easy to keep. Treat it like a mushroom, low to medium light and it'll glow for ya.

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Heh, nothing to be jealous about. I barely did anything, just let nature take its course LOL. Also, the blue green sympodium is really easy to keep. Treat it like a mushroom, low to medium light and it'll glow for ya.

 

Try to pm you but your inbox was full and I'm looking for a couple of sargassum plant. Thanks!

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Ahhhh! Yeah mailbox cleared! You can PM me now. :)

 

Try to pm you but your inbox was full and I'm looking for a couple of sargassum plant. Thanks!
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Coolest macro style tank ever!

 

Thanks dude!

 

 

Why was it so cloudy so recently?

 

Haha...kind of a mystery eh? ;). Yeah I was re-arranging the softscape of the tank, added some new plants and gave the sargassum a trim!

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On your observations of Sargassum. My observations at the jetties in Panama City Florida have been that Sargassum only uses holdfasts in the early spring while it grows. Seems to me that sometime before the summer it breaks free. Not sure how or why. Nearly all the algaes at that time get eaten by urchins and sea hares.

A few weeks ago I was delivering a sailboat from Tampa to Panama City, skirting the edge of the area known as the "Middle Ground" and we went through an area similar to the Sargasso Sea, where there were these huge mats of Sargassum weed. Fortunately I had my trusty net and we mad a grab at the edge of one and they were full of juvenile fishes and shrimps. Very cool but impossible to keep as we were at least 100 miles from land and the depths were >1000 feet. Also the Sargassum seemed very healthy and growing. I'm curious now about it's life cycle.

Thanks for the observations.

 

 

Edit1: Man, I love search engines! Look here all you goofs! "Must reading" as it mentions "sex organs" and "mucilaginous" in the same paragraph! After careful purusing, aided by multiple Rum and coke drinks during a boat party, I'm glad I got a degree in nuclear chemistry instead of biology because I'm still confused on it's life cycle, but think that the sessile and motile forms are parallel instead of different stages. Someone else (preferably someone not involved in ethanol before the reading) please chime in with the right answer!

 

Edit2: Okay, Wikipedia to the rescue. Turns out there are like 250 species of Sargassum, and only two are totally holopelagic, while the others are sometimes benthic, sometimes pelagic. Too cool.

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Yardboy! Great to hear you chime in man! LOL! :lol: - dRinK uP man! CHEERS! Where've you been btw? Any new underwater pictures of the Caribbean to inspire us? :)

 

Yeah, the species of Sargassum I'm currently growing is Sargassum platycarpum - positively I.D.'d by John at Reefcleaners.org - where I got it from in the first place.

 

I think your observations make sense too, but in my tank I don't keep any creatures that eat any macro algae. I had 2 mexican turbos that started eating different macros but as soon as I noticed it, they were exiled then sold! Also, my tank is fairly shallow and honestly if I let the stems grow, they'll just keep on getting longer and longer. In the wild, I can easily imagine how a long stem of sargassum could be pulled and broken off a small base/ holdfast by current and wave action.

 

I've seen a documentary (BBC - I think) of Northwest Pacific kelp forest, where sea urchins and similar creatures would en-mass attack the bases of these huge kelp, and end up ripping the stem from the base. I don't remember if they mentioned weather it was a cyclical thing or something that happens every now and then. It's really interesting that you've observed the same behavior in the Caribbean except with sargassum.

 

As previously mentioned, I noticed the cut stems of Sargassum platycarpum grow longer even after they're cut. Sometimes, these cut stems would even reach sexual maturity and release gammates or what ever they're called. So I think the stems still play a vital role in Sargassum reproduction even after they've been detached from their base. At least some of them do (not too many stems display sexual activity). More often than not, they start dropping leaves and eventually all that's left is a floating stem.

 

What's interesting though is that the holdfast/ base of the sargassum will eventually sprout a new stem - even if all it's stems were cut off! I did notice that holdfasts with at least 1 remaining stem with leaves sprouted new stems more quickly than a holdfast that's lost all it's stems - which btw may take many months.

 

Also, the holdfast of Sargassum platycarpum seems capable of living through many seasons. I still have the original holdfasts I purchased from reefcleaners over a year ago. They've gotten a lot bigger too! They're each about 1 inch in diameter.

 

Yeah, that's too bad you couldn't bring all that shrimp and fish back to shore. Did you at least take pictures? Feel like sharing them? :D

 

250 SPECIES eh? Dang that's alot LOL. Yeah, skabooya on this forum just purchased 1 type that seems to have the bulbous air sacks attached to it. It'll be neat to see how that develops.

 

Anyhow, I've blathered on enough LOL. Time to take a break and get a drink. CHEERS! Oh yeah, YOU NEED TO POST MOAR PICHARS MAN! :lol:

 

Have a good one!

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While my interests will always revolve closely with the sea, I've found that I can only juggle about 4 balls at the time so pictures of my tanks have taken a backseat to other interests. I travelled to the Keys this summer and collected, but didn't take a single picture of what we were doing!

Driving to work and back home, I'd pass what some might take as a cheezy "inspirational message" on a roadside sign which said, "It's never too late to be the person you could have been". I instantly knew what that was for me, but it took quite awhile to act upon the message. Finally after months of searching, my wife Genie and I finally found it, a boat we could explore the sea with, an Allied Princess 36, "Serenity".

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As a result, the number of tanks I maintain has dropped from 11 down to five, and soon will be two, documenting every aspect of them has definitely taken a back seat to "messing about in boats".

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Sweet looking boat you got there! It looks big enough to house at least 1 nano tank! ;) LOL. Just curious, do you bring your dog along when you're at sea for weeks or do you leave him back at land with a friend?

 

It's too bad (for the rest of us - especially those of us in Canada LOL) you didn't take any pics, but I can easily see how photography would take a back seat to everything else in the Keys!

 

Would still love to see how your current tanks are doing - especially since you collect stuff!

 

Thanks for posting these pics, though I have to admit it just makes me more envious that I'm not in Florida :P. Thanks again yardboy, and safe sailing!

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Thanks Resonance,

We do not take Jack, our Aussie on long trips yet, but weekends and day sails are for getting him used to it, and when he begins to consistently go to the "head" on the bow where we can wash it off he'll be along with us for the long haul!

Also, we're more into going where the fish are, instead of bringing them with us!

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  • 1 month later...

Hi Guys,

 

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately I don't have an airpump lying around. The first night, I left the lights on hoping the macros continue to produce o2, at the least, preventing them from emitting co2, just to slightly ease what the fish and inverts have to go through.

 

The next morning, I cannibalized a maxijet 400 (gph) pump from one of my freshwater tanks and placed it in the 40B. So now from having a flow rate of 1500 to 2000 gph, it's a tank with 400 gph. :P.

 

Gonna have to find the cash somehow to get an mp10 or replace the broken wetside (hopefully that's all that's broken) of the mp40.

 

On to other news...some quick updates (no pics).

 

Well before all this happened... the critters were gettin biiisaaay in my tank! Oh, yes they were! LOL. :lol:

 

1) Saw my black foot trochus snails cloud up the tank a few weeks ago (I didn't document it). Didn't think much of it till about 2 weeks ago when I started seeing teeny tiny spots all over the glass of the tank. Had to take a magnifying glass, but they look like baby trochus snails! They're now bigger and a few of them can bee seen with the naked eye.

 

2) Caught 2 emerald crabs doin 'it' about a week ago! LOL. They were in mid action when I found them. I ran up to go get my camera, ran back down and by the time the camera was ready to take the first shot... they were done. Ha! :lol:

 

3) Got some sea grass and macros from a friend of mine in another province. Just planted them. Hoping they take this time around after I transferred most of the cerith snails to my 16 gal.

 

And that's about it. Anyone have a spare mp10, mp40 or even just the mp40 wetside they want to donate? :D.

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