alfiefive Posted April 12, 2011 Author Share Posted April 12, 2011 alaskan, do you think i could take one of the led strips and mount it on a HOB fuge mod? Do you think this would kill the tank lighting too much? Link to comment
alaskan84 Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 alaskan, do you think i could take one of the led strips and mount it on a HOB fuge mod? Do you think this would kill the tank lighting too much? i dont really know alfie....have to just try it and see. We dont really have anything in the tank that "requires" light yet so its hard to judge. I would probably opt for another light source....maybe a single led light if you can find one available. I have the jbj nano glo light on my 28 gallon and it has 4 led's. The chaeto flourishes, but does have 4 white spots each time I harvest because the light is that intense. I believe in a tank this size you could manage with much less light. Link to comment
alfiefive Posted April 13, 2011 Author Share Posted April 13, 2011 Got a small shipment of zoas and rics from Coral Morphologic yesterday. They are beautiful and appear quite healthy. Pics to come. Link to comment
alfiefive Posted April 14, 2011 Author Share Posted April 14, 2011 pics! i will post acclimation pics tomorrow! some of the ricordea came unattached to any live rock, so i have them loosely attached with a piece of string to some live rock rubble. pics to come to show that. the zoas opened immediately upon introducing them into my tank, but have been closed since. i've tested my parameters and i think it's just moving / environment / lighting change-related stress. pics tomorrow, i'm on my android! \ once they are acclimated to their rock fragments, etc., i need advice on scaping my tank, big picture. i LOVE these ricordea and think i will make that ricordea florida a focus of my tank. i'd appreciate any advice on placement (when introducing i'm starting at the bottom and moving up with light acclimation) appreciated, considering the steep slope of the large rock in my tank. Link to comment
alfiefive Posted April 14, 2011 Author Share Posted April 14, 2011 pics! using macro setting on a point and shoot. don't have a digital slr, sadly. in this next picture you can see that the orange ric, which has two mouths, has started to curl up between the two mouths. the second is on the backside of this photo. i am going to use the "loosely tie down" method to get it to attach properly. the head in the front is attached to the rock but the head in the back is not. i can't tell if it is curling up because it is not inclined to have both heads attached to the rock. if anyone has other suggestions please advise, i'm hesitant to put my hands in my tank more than absolutely necessary. this is what the orange ric looked like initially. imperial vice zoas opened today! there are ten polyps on the frag and they are beautiful. they were closed for some time. to the right, you can see that i was using a loose piece of string to hold down one of the two large green ricordea heads, but it looks like it came out over the night. i will lower the flow a bit and reattach that. Link to comment
alaskan84 Posted April 14, 2011 Share Posted April 14, 2011 Damn, already got some frag action in there! looking good alfie, the guys at CM are truly fantastic. Ive got a few chunks of vice zoas and a few nice rics from Colin in my 28 gallon and couldnt be more impressed with them. The pink and blue zoas like you have do seem to grow slower than the green/blue ones, but they all look wonderful. Prolly be a week or so more before I'm able to introduce any frags as I just blew a bunch more on my 125 gallon. Link to comment
alfiefive Posted April 14, 2011 Author Share Posted April 14, 2011 Damn, already got some frag action in there! looking good alfie, the guys at CM are truly fantastic. Ive got a few chunks of vice zoas and a few nice rics from Colin in my 28 gallon and couldnt be more impressed with them. The pink and blue zoas like you have do seem to grow slower than the green/blue ones, but they all look wonderful. Prolly be a week or so more before I'm able to introduce any frags as I just blew a bunch more on my 125 gallon. they were fantastic to work with. agreed. and the product is beautiful. Link to comment
Drift Monkey Posted April 14, 2011 Share Posted April 14, 2011 Really nice lookin' frags...those zoas look amazing! I need rics in my life... Link to comment
alfiefive Posted April 21, 2011 Author Share Posted April 21, 2011 After a week or so of light acclimating at the bottom I'm slowly moving the rics to mid-level where I would like to create a "ricordea garden" sort of in the "lap" of the stone structure. Will post pics soon Link to comment
alaskan84 Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 After a week or so of light acclimating at the bottom I'm slowly moving the rics to mid-level where I would like to create a "ricordea garden" sort of in the "lap" of the stone structure. Will post pics soon Looking forward to updated pics of your zoas and rics! Today was payday so I will probably be getting in touch with Colin real soon Link to comment
malibukay Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 nice! all i got so far is a gorgonian, i did a 1/3 water change last night, i think im ready to get some frags too! Link to comment
alaskan84 Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 nice! all i got so far is a gorgonian, i did a 1/3 water change last night, i think im ready to get some frags too! cool!, coral morpholigic doesent have anything too outstanding out their site right now...really want either some ac'd sunny D zoas, or one of their OG orange crush ricordia's...sooo bright. I settled for a $130.00 purchase on mr.coral. picked out some pretty unique zoas and shrooms. Link to comment
malibukay Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 cool!, coral morpholigic doesent have anything too outstanding out their site right now...really want either some ac'd sunny D zoas, or one of their OG orange crush ricordia's...sooo bright. I settled for a $130.00 purchase on mr.coral. picked out some pretty unique zoas and shrooms. im planning on mr.coral pretty soon =) i have my hopes on finding a pink flamingo zoas! Link to comment
alaskan84 Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 im planning on mr.coral pretty soon =) i have my hopes on finding a pink flamingo zoas! between the 13 frags I picked out, about 4 were nice and pink so we will see how they look. I like how alot of the frags on Mr. Coral dont necessarily have a name on them yet....more exciting Link to comment
malibukay Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 between the 13 frags I picked out, about 4 were nice and pink so we will see how they look. I like how alot of the frags on Mr. Coral dont necessarily have a name on them yet....more exciting let me know how the order turns out! Link to comment
Zo0k365 Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 Good looking setup so far. I like how cheap these tanks are to get running. Link to comment
alfiefive Posted April 22, 2011 Author Share Posted April 22, 2011 between the 13 frags I picked out, about 4 were nice and pink so we will see how they look. I like how alot of the frags on Mr. Coral dont necessarily have a name on them yet....more exciting pics pics pics! Link to comment
alaskan84 Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 pics pics pics! well mine wont be here until probably monday next week....so how about some updates pics of yours! pics pics pics! BTW, are you still using your lid? happy with it? I havent even tried mine yet, I'm curious how much if any it helps with evap. Link to comment
alfiefive Posted April 22, 2011 Author Share Posted April 22, 2011 well mine wont be here until probably monday next week....so how about some updates pics of yours! BTW, are you still using your lid? happy with it? I havent even tried mine yet, I'm curious how much if any it helps with evap. Not using it atm, and evap is so much I'm borrowing an autotopoff to use for the summer. edit - i bet in an office setting with controlled ac it would be less ridiculous. mine is my a non-central ac apartment in the city and heat swings a lot more at night. +steam heat only >< Link to comment
malibukay Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 Not using it atm, and evap is so much I'm borrowing an autotopoff to use for the summer. im using my lid, i tried without it but the evap is nuts! the lid does help greatly Link to comment
alaskan84 Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 im using my lid, i tried without it but the evap is nuts! the lid does help greatly Interesting. I'm sure i am not topping off nearly as much as I should. Currently I probably top off every other day, but I'm sure it would benefit from daily top offs. Yeah this tank is in an office....we dont have AC up here in alaska well because its not really needed Room temp is probably constant mid 60's Link to comment
alfiefive Posted April 22, 2011 Author Share Posted April 22, 2011 Interesting. I'm sure i am not topping off nearly as much as I should. Currently I probably top off every other day, but I'm sure it would benefit from daily top offs. Yeah this tank is in an office....we dont have AC up here in alaska well because its not really needed Room temp is probably constant mid 60's Nice. In the winter I get swings because the steam heat in my building is not controlled in the unit but just "always on if it's cold" -- usually have windows open in the winter. In the summer, I have my bedroom AC'd, but in-window units don't really keep a stable temp. Mine, at least, has a tendency to freeze the hell out of my room. Temp is always slingshotting over here Link to comment
alaskan84 Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Ok, so we need new zoa pics from your tank this week My shipment from Mr. Coral goes out tomorrow for a wednesday delivery. Link to comment
alfiefive Posted April 25, 2011 Author Share Posted April 25, 2011 Ok, so we need new zoa pics from your tank this week My shipment from Mr. Coral goes out tomorrow for a wednesday delivery. So here's the long story made short! I had my first "OMG something went wrong moment." I had to catch a train to CT for Easter weekend with the family, and right before I was going to go, I decided to put the lid on to prevent unnecessary evaporation. I probably shouldn't have done that, because in the process, I knocked the rim into my tank (the top side of which I'm sure had some crappy residue from windex or something similar on it), dislodging the rock structure (which I had epoxied into place) and spilling almost an inch of water out of the tank. I was horrified as to what would happen when I returned, but I had to jet immediately because I would otherwise have missed my train. I ran out of water the day before my vacation, and didn't get any until I drove back up from CT to MA to days later. When I came back, the tank was a mess. Salinity was high because of evaporation, ALL my ricordeas had mysteriously moved to the sandbed and curled up, the zoas were closed, and my stomatella (which I thought had died) was on my desk. The stomatella must have just crawled out because it is still alive. I QT'd all the rics/zoas which recovered nicely. I tossed the piece of rock that was causing my rocks to be unstable in the first place. Did 2x 50% water changes over two days, scrubbed the crap out of my rocks, and we're back to everything in the tank with clear water and good parameters. The zoas are the only thing that are still adjusting (they haven't opened all the way, yet) but they are clearly on their way to recovery. I had always noticed a slight wiggle in my rock structure, so I'm glad that this "mistake" happened because I have a newer, low-profile, sturdier scape, and I managed to pull through. Will be keeping up with 20% water changes every other day in case there was die-off from the disturbance to my sand bed. Everything lived! Pictures of new scape and my recovering corals are coming this week. Working on pushing resumes out the door and my camera is somewhere in my luggage. Separately, I haven't seen a molt but my emerald crab is huge when compared to the date I purchased it. I'll try to snap a picture of him. She's been extremely friendly towards everything I have added into the tank, fortunately Link to comment
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