holy carp Posted August 23, 2017 Author Share Posted August 23, 2017 Sump Update: Built a new frag shelf from some black acrylic and suspended it with some suction cup holders over the marinepure block Cut the acrylic lid to allow space for skimmer cup to come through Made new through-lid ports for topooff and dosing lines Added an under-counter LED light to see what I'm doing Added probe holder 5 2 Quote Link to comment
holy carp Posted August 24, 2017 Author Share Posted August 24, 2017 In other news, I got a Randall Goby last weekend. It took me a long time to get him to replace the last one that jumped through my eggcrate lid (prior to the addition of netting). This guy is great. I drip acclimated him slowly to minimize stress, and within a half hour of adding him to the tank, he found the Randall Pistol Shrimp. The shrimp immediately started rearranging the furniture to accommodate. The shrimp without a goby was always hidden and I'd just hear him at night or see a claw come out to snatch some food. Now he's running around bulldozing all the time. I have to uncover my red war coral daily. Definitely a delight to watch. Introducing for the first time, the Randalls: 4 Quote Link to comment
holy carp Posted August 30, 2017 Author Share Posted August 30, 2017 Baby RFA update: The first baby I found is growing and finally starting to show some color... Not sure if it will end up red or purple, but it's looking good. The second baby is still tiny, but also starting to show a hint of color: And also, I spotted a 3rd baby this morning: 6 2 Quote Link to comment
SeaFurn Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 6 minutes ago, holy carp said: Baby RFA update: They are so tiny!! So cool! Have you changed what you are feeding the tank because of them? Thanks for the update! Quote Link to comment
holy carp Posted August 30, 2017 Author Share Posted August 30, 2017 1 hour ago, SeaFurn said: They are so tiny!! So cool! Have you changed what you are feeding the tank because of them? Thanks for the update! I haven't really changed what I'm feeding the tank, but I'm definitely feeding some things more and more often to make sure those little guys get enough nutrition. You can see the effect of the increased feeding by the gha taking hold - I will be starting Fluconazole with my water change on Friday to mitigate that. Basically, I'm adding extra particulate food (mainly continuum micro blast and reefroids) and adding aminos (aquavitro fuel) 2-3 times per week. I also try to target feed them some of the 'juice' from the frozen fish food I serve up - mysis, LRS, Rod's, cyclops, etc. The second one chose a relatively shady spot, which I assume is why he's growing more slowly. The first and third are pretty high up and getting a good amount of direct light. 1 Quote Link to comment
mitten_reef Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 Do you have any concerns regarding the neighboring encrusting corals? Will they close in on the space near those little RFA fairly quickly? One is JOL and the other looks like Monti? Those two spread pretty fast for me. I'm sure you've been keeping an eye out for that... Quote Link to comment
JcSH2o Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 Man oh man I just looooove this tank. It's inspirational! And a big reason I chose the 12 for my first! Little baby RFAs!? Wowza that must be so exciting! 1 Quote Link to comment
holy carp Posted August 30, 2017 Author Share Posted August 30, 2017 45 minutes ago, micoastreefing said: Do you have any concerns regarding the neighboring encrusting corals? Will they close in on the space near those little RFA fairly quickly? One is JOL and the other looks like Monti? Those two spread pretty fast for me. I'm sure you've been keeping an eye out for that... This has been a concern of mine. The JOL is in a pretty shady spot and grows very slowly - to give you an idea, it's been there for over 2 years. The straight diagonal edge along the top was its front line when I put it in the tank, so I'm not too worried about that one. For the other (RFA1), it's a Sunset Montipora. That one grows quickly and has a relatively potent sting for a monti. I have already scraped it back before and will have to do so again soon. Sorry, Monti... 44 minutes ago, JcSH2o said: Man oh man I just looooove this tank. It's inspirational! And a big reason I chose the 12 for my first! Little baby RFAs!? Wowza that must be so exciting! Thank you. These little guys are pretty exciting. Considering I only had 2 RFA's I didn't expect this. They seem to grow more slowly at first than I expected, but they have been stable for a number of weeks, so I am pretty optimistic they'll do OK. 1 Quote Link to comment
Jonboy21 Posted September 25, 2017 Share Posted September 25, 2017 Lovely looking tank, like the videos very good ? 1 Quote Link to comment
holy carp Posted September 28, 2017 Author Share Posted September 28, 2017 Unfortunately, after I added Fluconazole to get rid of the GHA a few weeks ago - I was afraid it would choke out the little RFA's - some asterinas came out to eat the dying GHA. I assume they also ate or dislodged the little RFA's because they are gone. The asterinas in turn fed the dendrophyllia in accordance with the horseshoe of aquarium life. I've been holding off on water changes far longer than usual due to the fluconazole addition. All the corals seem to be doing well, but I have been slacking in scraping the glass clean; it's getting hard to reach with so many corals getting so big. I noticed the coralline algae spores have left a trail on the back glass along the current. I'll clean it up this weekend, but thought it looked pretty cool for the time being. 3 Quote Link to comment
SeaFurn Posted September 28, 2017 Share Posted September 28, 2017 5 hours ago, holy carp said: Unfortunately, after I added Fluconazole to get rid of the GHA a few weeks ago - I was afraid it would choke out the little RFA's - some asterinas came out to eat the dying GHA. I assume they also ate or dislodged the little RFA's because they are gone. The asterinas in turn fed the dendrophyllia in accordance with the horseshoe of aquarium life. I've been holding off on water changes far longer than usual due to the fluconazole addition. All the corals seem to be doing well, but I have been slacking in scraping the glass clean; it's getting hard to reach with so many corals getting so big. I noticed the coralline algae spores have left a trail on the back glass along the current. I'll clean it up this weekend, but thought it looked pretty cool for the time being. Oh, sorry to hear about the baby RFAs. I'll keep my fingers crossed that they are actually still in the tank somewhere. I kinda like corraline spots...until they become overwhelming. Quote Link to comment
holy carp Posted October 10, 2017 Author Share Posted October 10, 2017 Last FTS with the Elegance: It was re-homed last night and appears to be acclimating well. 4 Quote Link to comment
Cannedfish Posted October 11, 2017 Share Posted October 11, 2017 This is one of my all time favorite tank threads. Both the tank and especially the commentary are delightfully inspirational. Furthermore, I love the tank map and resident chronology. In true internet spirit, I may have to steal both of those ideas, and conveniently forget to give credit (I'm might even follow that up by coming out with my own brand of Rose... maybe call it Off-White Girl Rose)). Keep on, keepin' on! 1 Quote Link to comment
holy carp Posted October 12, 2017 Author Share Posted October 12, 2017 The Elegance coral's new home: Under the PrimeHD it seems to be content. 3 Quote Link to comment
sprite Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 Just read while thread.. Replying to keep up to date... Very nice tank! Quote Link to comment
Jonboy21 Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 What you guna put in its place? Quote Link to comment
holy carp Posted January 3, 2018 Author Share Posted January 3, 2018 The torch coral has grown so much it has already taken over most of the space where the elegance was. With the extra light coming through after moving the torch to the left, the acro I had in the back is starting to fill in pretty quickly also. But I'll try to make enough room for some @metrokat Katropora... Quote Link to comment
holy carp Posted January 26, 2018 Author Share Posted January 26, 2018 Coral Rock Paper Scissors: The sunset montipora (bottom left) out-stings the garf bonsai The garf bonsai out-stings the rainbow montipora (top center) The rainbow montipora overgrows the sunset montipora (sorry for the neutral white flashlight subduing the colors) 4 1 Quote Link to comment
teenyreef Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 Great example of survival of the fittest. I'm starting to see some of that in my 40g. It's fascinating to see the different ways a small group of corals will use to compete. Quote Link to comment
greentams Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 Interesting project, nice videos as well. Quote Link to comment
holy carp Posted February 5, 2018 Author Share Posted February 5, 2018 11 hours ago, teenyreef said: Great example of survival of the fittest. I'm starting to see some of that in my 40g. It's fascinating to see the different ways a small group of corals will use to compete. Yeah, this has been pretty amazing to watch. I used to naively imagine that the competition between 2 encrusting corals would simply be the speed, quantity, and strength of their sting. It would have been a linear hierarchy. In that contest, the sunset montipora clearly won, which was evident when the two encrusting corals first met. It extended a mass of mesenterial filaments that devoured the front line of the rainbow over night. That fight went on for a couple months, with the rainbow trying to fight back but consistently losing ground. I had never imagined a Plan B change in strategy like I saw when the rainbow monti started tabling over the sunset. 11 hours ago, greentams said: Interesting project, nice videos as well. Thank you. I've fallen a little bit behind on the updates recently but hope to do some catching up soon. The tank has really gotten into a nice stable healthy condition. **knock wood** 2 Quote Link to comment
YHSublime Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 Really neat. Love these little tanks, following along! Quote Link to comment
holy carp Posted April 25, 2018 Author Share Posted April 25, 2018 At long last... A new FTS: 3 3 Quote Link to comment
JBM Posted April 26, 2018 Share Posted April 26, 2018 Cool to see another NY reefer on here aside from metrokat 1 Quote Link to comment
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