carbon-mantis Posted April 25, 2011 Author Share Posted April 25, 2011 New pics for this month! Everything is doing well, all in all. Ulva is getting "Leggy" now that the snails have developed a taste for it. Botryocladia is growing good and the smaller half of the red spot macro frag is starting to show signs of growth. lawnmowerblenny's frags are looking good. Full tank shot. Right half. Left half. Yellow polyps are looking good. New buds are already forming now, should be opening up soon. Bunch of different macros with the surviving half of the red spot frag. Seeing what looks like new growth on it at the tips. The blue clove polyps. Unfortunately the pretty gracilaria plant was bulldozed by the astreas just as it was developing red tips. More algae. The red grape frag from AdrianBryce has grown nicely. Big red tunicate that recently appeared on the live rock. Rock anemone looking for mysis. As far as things I'm hunting for right now, here's my list- Xenia, Encrusting Gorgonian, Sifting Sea Cucumber, Micro-Brittle Stars, Fleshy Limpets, and maybe some of those mini-carpet 'nems everyone's raving about. If I can find some extra-attractive majano anemones I'd be happy. So far my tank is still fishless, but if I come across anything especially interesting I might consider it. One of the local shops got in a beautiful scooter dragonet a few weeks ago that was eating frozen mysis, but I'm pretty sure those get too big for a 10g(not to mention that they're really old fashioned when it comes to nano tanks, it took 10 minutes to convince them to sell me just the rock anemone). Link to comment
Amphiprion1 Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Looks great! Since you seem to enjoy your Ulva, might I suggest some Enteromorpha? Same family and basic requirements, but Enteromorpha is stringier, for lack of a better way to describe it. Link to comment
yoshii Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Nice! I really like the look of the Ulva I had some, but most of it died out Link to comment
Magiksurfman Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Wow, that ulva really found its groove and took off, Thats sweet. Link to comment
carbon-mantis Posted April 25, 2011 Author Share Posted April 25, 2011 Aha, the LFS seems to have a silver-dollar sized clump of Nemastoma!!! attached to one of their powerheads. Apparently hitchhiked it's way into their tank, but they don't want to sell it . There's a tiny piece of it attached to a rock for sale, but the rock is $60. @Amphiprion1, I've looked into Enteromorpha/Ulva intestinalis, but it seems to be available only sporadically. I'd love to get a good colony of that going over my current Ulva species if I could, due to it's "grassy" appearance. Another difficulty is getting some with it's holdfast intact, rather than cuttings, which according to John Maloney don't have very good survival prospects. Link to comment
yoshii Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Aha, the LFS seems to have a silver-dollar sized clump of Nemastoma!!! attached to one of their powerheads. Apparently hitchhiked it's way into their tank, but they don't want to sell it . There's a tiny piece of it attached to a rock for sale, but the rock is $60. I don't understand why LFS's do that, it's not hard to pull it off the ph and sell it to you :/ Link to comment
Builder Anthony Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 Ya that sea squirt must have been a nice suprise. Link to comment
carbon-mantis Posted April 28, 2011 Author Share Posted April 28, 2011 The ulva is actually dying back slowly now, it would seem. I think it's due to a combination of warmer water, due to the ambient room temperature, and snails eating it. I've offered them some nori, but they seem to prefer the live stuff. John Maloney mentioned that it's seasonal in the wild, so worst case scenario, the ulva farm becomes a something else farm until the temperatures cool later in the year. Halymenia would bee a great substitute if I could hunt some down; in my first ever SW tank it grew like a weed... Link to comment
Magiksurfman Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 Halymenia would bee a great substitute if I could hunt some down; in my first ever SW tank it grew like a weed... Do you need some i've got some extra pieces from to move i can send your way. lmk Link to comment
carbon-mantis Posted April 30, 2011 Author Share Posted April 30, 2011 Ordered some calcified algae from reefcleaners to spruce things up; halimeda, udotea, and penicillus. As well, grabbed a few pieces of brown dictyota to play around with. Link to comment
carbon-mantis Posted May 7, 2011 Author Share Posted May 7, 2011 I'll have new pics up maybe tomorrow. Got a lot of new things, and I'll be getting rid of some Caulerpa prolifera. Got new zoas and a yuma from Lalani Also, seems reefcleaners sent me the wrong algae. Got two BIG stalks of sargassum instead of dictyota. No complaints here; the sargassum is much nicer than the latter. Link to comment
yoshii Posted May 11, 2011 Share Posted May 11, 2011 Cool yuma, looks like it has a pink rim? Any pics of the new macros? Link to comment
carbon-mantis Posted May 11, 2011 Author Share Posted May 11, 2011 Not yet, but I can have shots up tomorrow. Damn ceriths keep uprooting my shaving brush algae. They'll be up later tomorrow; I have to be out of here by 6:00 am to help pick up new chicks for my grandmother. Link to comment
carbon-mantis Posted May 11, 2011 Author Share Posted May 11, 2011 Just came across another neat little hitchhiker. Lately my tabling coralline has been disappearing, and I think I've found out why. Scanned through the tank with a flashlight last night and found a thumbnail-sized chiton that was the exact same color as the red coralline. The patch he was grazing on was gone this morning, and the little mollusk was nowhere to be seen. Link to comment
lawnmowerblenny Posted May 11, 2011 Share Posted May 11, 2011 How are those blue cloves and green buttons doing? Link to comment
carbon-mantis Posted May 11, 2011 Author Share Posted May 11, 2011 Doing well. Button polyps haven't sprouted any new buds, but they attached themselves to the rock. I expect the cloves to start spreading soon; I'm seeing individual clove polyps pop up here and there on the rocks. You wouldn't happen to want any caulerpa by any chance? The C. prolifera needs some pruning and no one in my area wants the stuff. Link to comment
lawnmowerblenny Posted May 11, 2011 Share Posted May 11, 2011 sure, i may have something to trade, let me get back to you later on tonight. Link to comment
carbon-mantis Posted May 12, 2011 Author Share Posted May 12, 2011 May 11th shot, Ill have better pics up tomorrow. The caulerpa is starting to force the condylactis anemone to stretch out to reach the light a bit. That entire runner you see on the left will be sliced and offered up for trade if there are any takers The snails have decimated the ulva, and refuse to touch nori I may banish more of them to the pestarium tomorrow. It'll be GHA and cyano for them. Link to comment
carbon-mantis Posted May 27, 2011 Author Share Posted May 27, 2011 Some pics. I need to get another FTS, but I'm rearranging a few things and detritus is blowing everywhere. There is some evil little species of cyano or dinoflagellate that popped up last week, and it spreads like wildfire. May have come in on the Sargassum, possibly. I've been lax on the water changes so I can get some good growth, but the nutrients combined with the ulva die-off aren't helping things, so it'll be a big waterchange for the tank tomorrow or the day after. Very blurry, but I finally managed to spot the chiton out in the open. He's just about cleaned the red coralline off of the rock he's on. Also, here's a crazy one; a few years ago I placed my first order with reefcleaners. As an extra freebie I got a tiny branch of THIS and planted it in the tank. After about a week it was pretty much dead, but before it died it managed to attach itself to the rock. Though the main body died the rhizoids were always there so I left it in the tank for a few months. Never sprouted or anything so I eventually tossed the rock into my live rock "dump" tank about 18 months ago. A few weeks ago I mounted some palys on the rock and added it to the tank, and lo and behold today, I have three new red fronds emerging from the rock. Link to comment
yoshii Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 Cool chiton! I found one (not in my macro tank) the other day that was probably only about 3mm long! Link to comment
carbon-mantis Posted June 18, 2011 Author Share Posted June 18, 2011 Nothing much to update, tank looks almost the same, save for new polyps budding off on the Parazoanthus and Palythoa corals. The Ricordea yuma lalani sent me has grown by about a half inch since I received it. Rock flower anemone has grown by about an inch. Something destroyed my pretty red tunicates overnight. They had divided into several different specimens, but something absolutely ripped them apart a few nights ago. I'm thinking that perhaps a rogue crab is hiding somewhere. Found a new limpet yesterday, about the size of a small fingernail. Bright pink with a transparent mantle. Pretty sure it's a coralline grazer. I may have narrowed down the beautiful "red spot" macro to the genus Kallymenia, but I'd need some input from some with more expertise to be sure. Link to comment
yoshii Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 Sorry about the tunicates Your Sargassum looks like it's doing well, I just bought some a little while ago, but it seems it's slowly dying off, did you have any problems with your sargassum at first? Link to comment
carbon-mantis Posted June 18, 2011 Author Share Posted June 18, 2011 It did well at first, but now it's dying back. Out of maybe four stalks, only one attached to the rock. The one that attached is growing new fronds, but the ones that still haven't attached are slowly dying back. I had to remove one stalk, as it was suddenly overtaken by pest algae, but the pests have disappeared after I pruned back the caulerpa and gave it more space to expand into. Link to comment
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