Jump to content
Coral Vue Hydros

Mr. Microscope's Cube 2.1


Mr. Microscope

Recommended Posts

Mr. Microscope
Wish I had it ... :-( plus the learning curve is a bit steep I believe ... wonder if I can use GIMP on the Mac to achieve the same ... Thanks for the info ...

I just googled, "animated gif GIMP." Yup. Looks like you can.

 

Love the shots of the blenny. Awesome!

Thanks jball!

 

Yes but learning curve too ... but it is Free ! I and I guess there has to be a GIMP for Dummies :)

pfft! Photoshop is free too. ;)

Link to comment
I just googled, "animated gif GIMP." Yup. Looks like you can.

pfft! Photoshop is free too. ;)

Thanks for googling it, I guess I could have done that myself ... but PS free :-) not to my knowledge :-(

Link to comment
Mr. Microscope
I saw this tank in person yesterday and I must say, picture do not do it justice. It looked fantastic!

Thanks Yuri! It was great having you visit!

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...
pfft! Cheating is how we keep our coral and tanks alive. What's a skimmer after all (or lighting, or supplements, or frozen food, or even an aquarium! (the list goes on)) ? Haha!

 

 

Thanks NanoTopia!

Here's a new update for you!

 

NEW FISHY!!!

 

I finally got that Tailspot Blenny I've been wanting. It's a little bigger than I intended, but he seems to have acclimated well. I got him eating Hikari Seaweed Extreme pellets (after they dissolve). The territory he chose is on top of the pillar. I'm really excited about that as no other fish really hang out up there. He found a little hole and stays there most of the time with his little head poking out like a finger puppet. He's also apparently not camera shy. :)

 

Awesome little guy for sure Mr M. :)

Link to comment
Mr. Microscope
Dude you really do have skills with that p&s of yours. Beautiful acans btw.

Thanks jball!

 

Awesome little guy for sure Mr M. :)

Thanks NanoTopia! He's really starting to settle in now; "Spot", as my wife has named him is freely swimming about the tank rather than just staying in his rock. He picks at algae and always seems to have a full stomach.

Link to comment
Mr. Microscope
I think you're due for an updated FTS!!! ;)

Sigh..you are very correct. I try to do a monthly FTS to track progress, but time gets away from me. There have been some considerable changes lately and I've been thinking it's time for a more comprehensive update. Thanks for the kick in the pants. Coming soon... ;)

 

Wow, I missed this one, beautiful tank. Thanks for posting in my thread so I could discover it. :)

 

... now even more reading to do.

Thanks markalot! More to come!

Link to comment
Sigh..you are very correct. I try to do a monthly FTS to track progress, but time gets away from me. There have been some considerable changes lately and I've been thinking it's time for a more comprehensive update. Thanks for the kick in the pants. Coming soon... ;)

Looking forward to seeing it .. new scaping maybe or did you add a lot of new corals or other life forms ?

Link to comment
Mr. Microscope
Looking forward to seeing it .. new scaping maybe or did you add a lot of new corals or other life forms ?

Without revealing too much, I'm making room for more corals as some were outgrowing their spots.

Link to comment
Without revealing too much, I'm making room for more corals as some were outgrowing their spots.

 

I guess reading between the lines that may mean a larger tank or maybe removing a lot of rock :-)

Link to comment
Mr. Microscope
What skimmer do you use?

Geeze, I just realized I don't have that listed in my first post. Done. It's a Bubble Magus NAC3 courtesy of member floppybass. :D :D :D

I also updated the list with my Finnex Max300 heater controller.

Link to comment
Mr. Microscope

Hello All,

 

It’s been far too long since my last comprehensive update. So, I’ve got a pic heavy whopper for you today. To start out, here’s the obligatory FTS:

 

FTS 2012.11.12

FTS0120121112.jpg

 

I took about fifteen pics to try to get this FTS, but it just wasn’t in the cards for me that night. I think it looks overexposed and the colors are all wrong. On the plus side, as I was taking the pictures for the FTS, I accidentally got a cool blurred shot of my bangaii as is swam across the frame. It reminds me of an X-Wing. :lol: What d’ya think?

X-WingBangaii.jpg

 

Here’s a FTS from today 2012.11.14. I took this with a flash. It sort of illustrates colors of the corals a little better. The rock pillar certainly isn’t green though.

FTSwithFlash20121114.jpg

 

 

Out with the old..

I’m in a bit of a transitional period with my tank right now. Some corals have outgrown the tank and I’m finding myself pairing down on SPS. The ORA Green Birdsnest that I had on top and front became way too big and were starting to grow into other SPS. So, I got rid of these two colonies. Here’s the last pics I took of them a week or two before selling them to some locals.

 

LargeGBN0120121016.jpg

 

SmallGBN0120121016.jpg

 

Also, my GARF Bonsai refused branch out and up and continued to encrust along the rocks like a monti. It was starting to eat my Red Planets and encroaching on other corals. I never noticed it from across the room. So, sadly I had to let it go. There is still a little bit left that I couldn’t pry off the rocks. That stuff is also becoming a pest as it grows so fast. I might have to kalk paste it.

 

Here’s…..

GARFBonsai0220120725.jpg

 

what used to be….here:

BonsaiCavity20121112.jpg

 

That first shot was from late July and this thing spread at least twice as far in the last few months.

 

On a related note, that zebra hermit seems to have taken up residence there along with my tailspot blenny. The zebra hermit never seems to leave this area. If he does, he quickly returns. It’s funny as I didn’t think hermits established territory.

 

Here he is up close:

ZebraHermit20121112.jpg

 

On a sad note, both of my Turbo snails recently died. The big one went first, and the small one a few days later. It was odd, while the CUC was eating the big one that died, the small one was hanging around it like morning it. I have no idea why they died as there was plenty of algae for them to eat. All other snails seem fine.

 

In with the new..

There have been a few new additions lately. As part of a trade for my Bonsai, I got some old school Mowhawks. I added them to the base of the pillar next to the yellow torch and some remnants of ORA Green Birdsnest.

Topdownmowhawks20121112.jpg

 

Mowhawks01C20121107.jpg

 

mowhawks20121027.jpg

 

I also added a small frag of Hawkins Echinata which seems to be doing okay.

HawkinsandDingDangs20121112.jpg

 

There have also been a couple additions to my acan garden. It’s been growing like wildfire since I’ve been target feeding the acans at least twice a week. My orange rainbow acans that I got just three months ago have grown from two heads to eleven! Others have added at least two or three heads or babies in the last month or two. I can’t wait to see how everything fills in the in the next few months.

AcanGardenside20121112.jpg

 

Here’s a close-up of one of my favorites.

SEAcans20121112.jpg

 

 

A Cryptic Creature

Previously, I posted pics of a sea urchin that’s been in my tank a while. It only comes out at nights, but I was able to get those shots because it was in the middle of a hollow rock. Though, the view was mostly obstructed. Recently, I’ve been seeing it out in the morning. So, I grabbed my camera and got some unobstructed shots with the flash. I hope I haven’t blinded it since it is my understanding that they have photosensitive cells all over their body, essentially making them one big eye. It seems fine though. Check it out. These are my best shots yet. It’s growing so fast!

Urchin0120121105.jpg

I never noticed this cool star pattern before.

Urchin0220121107.jpg

 

Speaking of taking pictures early in the morning with a flash, here’s the first non-blurry shots I’ve taken of the clownfish. They sleep VERTICALLY in the nook of the pillar. Sometimes they’re outright shoved up in the corner of it snuggled up next to each other.

 

SleepyClowns0120121109.jpg

 

I entered this one in this month’s photo contest. Give me a vote!

SleepyClowns0220121109.jpg

 

 

The battle continues…

I’m still having issues with algae. I’ve also been picking at small patches of cyano. It got really bad during the last couple weeks. In addition to isolated patches of algae on the display rock, I was competing with GSTGOE (Green $hit That Gets On Everything). I literally had to clean the glass everyday of a thick film of it. The snails were having a field day, leaving trails all over the place. That was kinda fun to see though.

SnailTrails20121109.jpg

 

Two days ago, I changed the filter floss (I try to change it weekly, but it had been in there at least three). I also exchanged bags of Chemi-Pure Elite. I was trying to push it to three months on the last bag, but I think it was used up. I always write the date that I put a new bag of CPE in the tank on the container. The last time I changed the bag was the end of August. So I made it about 2.5 months. I guess I’ll change this one after two months.

 

As a final measure, I put this unsightly thing in the display behind the rock pillar (notice a three other Birdsnest frags recently mounted above the RDE zoas).

DTFugeBottle20121112.jpg

 

In addition to starving out the algae with chaetomorpha in the display, I’m hoping to increase the pod population. There’s a large hole cut out of the bottom of the bottle, and I poked a few holes along the sides. In a recent thread I posted in the General Discussion Forum titled, “Poll: How much (volume/frequency) do you feed your fish?” I was immensely inspired by kgoldy and his giant DIY fuge. So, my next build will definitely include something similar. I understand the benefits of having a fuge in the sump. I have one as well, but I think a fuge flowing directly into the tank would be vastly better for a pod population that pods getting sucked up into a return pump. I want a mandarin or two in my next tank!

 

Finally, I’ve altered my feeding schedule to mostly frozen every other day, and about every other feeding I use more and target feed the acans and my fungia. My old schedule was frozen one day, pellets the next. Also, I was probably feeding too heavily too frequently.

 

 

But I think I've scored a victory

In the last two days I've noticed a dramatic, night-and-day difference in the cleanliness of my tank. Algae is already starting to disappear and I haven't seen ANY film on the glass. I'm hoping this trend continues as I keep up with water changes.

 

There’s one acspect of cleaning my glass that I don’t mind, and that’s little fingerprints on the outside.

Theoprints20121112.jpg

 

Here’s the culprit:

Theoatthetank.jpg

 

He loves the tank too!

 

 

Growth!!!

I’ve been seeing particularly good growth in the last few months. The tiny frags of high-end SPS I purchased in the beginning have fully encrusted the plugs and are starting to branch out. Here are some progress pics:

 

Vivid Rainbow Delight getting blues and purples.

VividRainbowDelightProgress20121113.jpg

 

ORA Red Planet is getting a nice pink and branching out. I have two frags of Red Planet next to each other coming out of the side of the pillar. So, they should join together soon. When they start to table they will do so appropriately off the side.

RedPlanetProgress20121113.jpg

 

Here’s a milli I got that’s turning a rose color. The funny thing is that the original branch that came on the frag plug hasn’t put out any additional branches. It just encrusted the plug and all of these branches came out of the encrustation in the last five months.

RoseMilliProgress20121113.jpg

 

Here’s a better pic of it up close:

RoseMilli0220121112.jpg

 

Some unknown acro I got at a LFS is now looking almost teal and has awesome polyp extension.

TealAcroProgress20121113.jpg

 

I got a Tierra Del Fuego frag a while back and mounted it to the pillar. It hasn’t started branching out yet, but is certainly encrusting well.

This pic is from 2012.07.25

delfuego20120725.jpg

And here it is today. I made a little animated .gif to kinda get a 3D effect. I hope no one has a seizure looking at it.

Tierra-Del-Fuego-3D-20121107.gif

 

My Calitort is making nice progress. The branches are getting longer and getting deeper colors.

CalitortProgress20121113.jpg

 

At one point I tried to sell this frag of Hawaiian Ding Dang People eaters for $15. No one took it, so I mounted it to the back wall. Six months later it’s become a respectable mini-colony.

DingDangNukeProgress20121113.jpg

 

Here the colors are a more accurate:

DingDangwallcolony0220121112.jpg

 

 

That's all for now. Thanks for checking out my tank!

Sorry about the huge delay. As you can imagine I've been a little preoccupied with the new baby human. He's been crawling around for a while now and is almost walking. Yikes! Hopefully, I'll have time for a regular monthly update in December.

Link to comment

Wow, great update! Can you pist a pic of your sump though because it looks like I will need the same tank under my Solana 34! I would love to get ideas on how you did the sump!

Link to comment
Hello All,

 

It’s been far too long since my last comprehensive update. So, I’ve got a pic heavy whopper for you today. To start out, here’s the obligatory FTS:

 

That's all for now. Thanks for checking out my tank!

Sorry about the huge delay. As you can imagine I've been a little preoccupied with the new baby human. He's been crawling around for a while now and is almost walking. Yikes! Hopefully, I'll have time for a regular monthly update in December.

 

All I can say is Wow ... looking super ...

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recommended Discussions

×
×
  • Create New...