Snow_Phoenix Posted August 17, 2015 Author Share Posted August 17, 2015 SWEET videos! I've heard about the crash noises before but never heard them myself. That's awesome Thank you. Link to comment
FlowerMama Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 Yep! That shrimp looked nervous for very good reason! I don't know where to get anything like that here- live shrimp. Link to comment
Snow_Phoenix Posted August 18, 2015 Author Share Posted August 18, 2015 Yep! That shrimp looked nervous for very good reason! I don't know where to get anything like that here- live shrimp. Lol, I thought he looked pretty disorientated after the first punch. He certainly kept spinning round 'n round for a little while before being eaten. This is actually a freshwater ghost shrimp. The trick is to keep a small tank of freshwater shrimp in freshwater separately, and fish out a shrimp when you see your mantis is actively roaming the tank (presuming the mantis is hungry). Then just drop the shrimp as close as possible as to where the mantis is in her tank, and let her eat it. That's what I do. I keep a stock of ghost shrimp in my snakehead tank as feeders. Every evening I routinely feed the tank bloodworms/quality pellets/flakes so the shrimp will be gut-loaded and nutritious enough for my snakehead to eat. As the shrimp swim up to eat their food, I'll catch one or two and drop them in Freya's tank. Hope this helps. Link to comment
Snow_Phoenix Posted August 23, 2015 Author Share Posted August 23, 2015 I've been at war with nudis for over a week now. I honestly have no idea where they come from, considering that I haven't introduced any foreign zoas to the tank recently. Either way, I've been giving 2 min FW dips to my zoa colonies, but some of the polyps have receded pretty badly. However, my mushroom has split into half and now I have three Hairy shrooms (including the baby): And Freya's been playing with her dice again - last night, her lucky color was baby blue: And something terrible happened last night - the HOB filter feeding Freya's tank failed overnight. Mercifully I woke up early this morning and checked on all of the tanks - so I quickly replaced the filter with a smaller HOB backup. It should be alright for the time being. But that's still okay - my RW-4 which is only 3.5-months-old failed overnight as well. The adaptor appears to have overheated. I'm hoping and praying it's something small that needs to be replaced and I don't need to get a whole new unit because getting a new RW-4 will cost around RM250++ - money that I don't have atm. Thankfully nothing in my 30G is dead either. I guess there's nothing much to do except to wait and hope. Link to comment
FlowerMama Posted August 23, 2015 Share Posted August 23, 2015 It water quality is good, nothing should die overnight if the HOB goes out. Do you test regularly? Oh, I tired colored marbles once but Gertie was too small to care. Link to comment
Snow_Phoenix Posted August 24, 2015 Author Share Posted August 24, 2015 It water quality is good, nothing should die overnight if the HOB goes out. Do you test regularly? Oh, I tired colored marbles once but Gertie was too small to care. Yep, water quality is good so no issues there. I admit I haven't tested anything this past week - I've been preoccupied with a lot of other things so all 3 of my tanks had to take a backseat once again. Maybe try mini-dice with Gertie? I know Freya plays with hers whenever I'm not looking - now I find dice stacked in heaps or buried under rocks/sand or even wedged in her cave entrance. Link to comment
Snow_Phoenix Posted August 24, 2015 Author Share Posted August 24, 2015 Quick update - I'm tearing down my 16G snakehead tank since the fish has began to outgrow the tank. There's a good buyer/hobbyist who'll be taking in 80% of my FW fish stock, and the 16G will be left empty. So I was thinking - should I do another SW macro tank (for the 16G) and keep basic, soft corals such as Softies (Kenya trees, leathers) and maybe a small nem or two? Also, I loved Kat's tree concept (if you don't know what I'm talking about, please check out Kat's Picnic Under the Tree thread - it's amazing ), and I was wondering if I could wrap my C. peltata around my driftwood and stick it in the tank. Will the wood be able to withstand the salt? Or am I better off using a branched acro skeleton rock thingy instead? I'm planning on using Galaxaura and GSP as 'weeds' and 'grass' in the tank. If I collect other types of Macro from Singapore in the future, I'll include them as well. And in time, perhaps after several months, I may consider moving Freya into this tank. Can I keep her with 3 fish (2 occys, 1 damsel)? Or is she better off with just two fish (2 Occys)? Link to comment
Snow_Phoenix Posted August 28, 2015 Author Share Posted August 28, 2015 Hey everyone, My health dipped down again. I spent a whole day in the hospital and thankfully came out alive, but with a lot - and I mean a lot of extra pills. Way too many. So much so that my father predicts I will have a renal failure by the time I hit 60 unless something improves. I've been dieting and exercising a lot so hopefully I'll be able to regulate my body's fluctuating ion/sugar/hormone etc. levels soon. I spent three evenings slowly shutting down my snakehead tank. I will miss him, but cramming a 7" snakehead in a 16G tank - no matter how much cover and vegetation there is - is still not right. Someone has given me a good offer to take him off my hands, and the guy is good (not a noob) so I hope my boy will be happy in his new home. I temporarily stored the snakehead in an old IO bucket with an airstone, and I began to set up my 16G as a future mantis paradise. I've seen how Freya loves to walk all over the 5G, and I'm sure she'll appreciate something with a larger footprint now that she's bigger. So here's the 16G - I called it the cactus garden because I randomly stuck some pieces of Acro skeletons into the sand in an upright position. I'm planning on either sticking zoas or GSP to the smaller 'Cactus' pieces, whilst the large SPS skeleton will bear a nice crown of Caulerpa peltata and Caulerpa serrulata. Day #1 of setup/cycling used cycled/fully cured SPS skeletons versus uncycled live sand: Closer look on the giant Acro skeleton which just died recently at my LFS about a week ago. The base of the skeleton however, has an encrusting red SPS which I can't identify. The skeleton also has a small hitchiker discosoma mushroom and several Paly polys as well as sponges. This is the other side of the cactus garden. Freya's den will be positioned somewhere here. Also, I managed to procure these goodies from the LFS before I fell sick and wound up in the hospital again: #1. Caulerpa serrulata and Halimeda incrassata. #2. Several dozen hermits and snails for Freya to eat. Largest hermit in that pic is 0.5". She ate the gorilla crab first though. And remember that giant SPS skeleton we were talking about just earlier? When I first placed it in my main tank (the 30G mixed reef), it came with this monster : And this is my Occy pair that's going to go into the Cactus garden (King Tut @ 2" and Queen Cleopatra @ 3"+) (You have my 0.75" baby saddleback clown pair as reference and before you ask, everyone gets along as long although the male Occy does occasionally chase away the smaller of the two saddlebacks during feeding time): Plans for the Cactus Garden: Livestock: Giant Trochus Snails G. smithii mantis shrimp 2x Occy clownfish 1 Lawnmower blenny or 1 Starry blenny 1 Azure damselfish (might be moved to 30G instead) Macroalgae: Galaxaura Chaeto C. peltata C. serrulata Halimeda incrassata Sargassum* Gracilaria* Shaving Brush* Ulva* Corals: Zoas Palys Mushrooms Kenya Tree* GSP morphs (x2 or x3) Scoly Anemone: Actinia prasina (green beadlet anemone) Unidentified pink hitchiker nem RBTA Link to comment
FlowerMama Posted August 29, 2015 Share Posted August 29, 2015 oh yes, gsp will look wonderful taking over the skeleton of any dead acro, if that's what you're thinking. I love the gsp rock I have in Gertie's tank. What's great is that it doesn't move off the one rock, once it is there it has nowhere to go and sits there happily. Link to comment
amphipod Posted August 29, 2015 Share Posted August 29, 2015 Sorry you were very sick, hope you feel better soon. Sounds like a good plan for the tank Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 29, 2015 Share Posted August 29, 2015 Get better! Tank looks great, love the giant acropora skeleton Link to comment
FlowerMama Posted August 29, 2015 Share Posted August 29, 2015 Hope your health turns around quickly! Link to comment
Snow_Phoenix Posted August 30, 2015 Author Share Posted August 30, 2015 Sorry you were very sick, hope you feel better soon. Sounds like a good plan for the tank Get better! Tank looks great, love the giant acropora skeleton Hope your health turns around quickly! Thank you everyone. I'm mostly on sedatives now every night, so I spend 13 to 14 hours asleep per day. I told my dad to wean me off the sedatives a bit earlier because I feel very sluggish and disorientated whenever I'm awake (I even needed assistance from my mom to get into bed last night) and it's not helping me much. He agreed to remove 2 out of the 3 sedatives today, so hopefully I'll sleep less and be more active. In the meantime, I managed to spot a few interesting things in the tank: 2 tiny filter feeding Acropora crabs. A lot of micro brittle stars. Some of them were very beautiful. And I also spotted something peeking out of a burrow in the giant SPS skeleton. It had pink eyes, a green body, minute pincer-like appendages and was too quick for me to snap a pic. My guess was that it is some sort of rock-boring shrimp, but I'm hoping and praying it's not another mantis. Because then I'd have to give the rock away since I tried luring this mystery critter out last night with zero success. Scary thing was that I heard minor clicks coming from that rock. Is there a specific way I can 100% tell if it is a mantis or not? The pincer-like appendages threw me off because Freya doesn't have those. So do spearer mantises have tiny bifurcated pincers that can stretch and forage out of a burrow? Think of a horizontal 'Y' shape and that's what I saw as a 'pincer'. Also, the water has finally cleared up, and a small ammonia spike of 0.25ppm is underway. The sandbed is slowly being cycled - yes! I know it doesn't look too great now, but the Caulerpas need to grow out a bit and it'll be better. I've also booked a GSP near my LFS so I'll bring the colony back home in 3 to 4 weeks time. And my mother drove me to two LFS yesterday - they both called in to tell me my corals and blenny had arrived. So I've temporarily placed my giant teacup paly colony and Kenya tree in my 30G, my lawnmower blenny in an isolated basket in my 30G and another huge clump of big zoas in Freya's tank. Green teacup Palys (unopened). Kenya tree (flaccid for some reason - will be attached to different rock today/tomorrow). Lawnmower blenny. Link to comment
amphipod Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 Maybe it's a pistol shrimp in the rock? Link to comment
Snow_Phoenix Posted August 31, 2015 Author Share Posted August 31, 2015 Maybe it's a pistol shrimp in the rock? Too large to be a pistol. Got a good look at one of its legs last night - it was reddish and very hairy. I suspect it's some sort of lobster or shrimp. Link to comment
FlowerMama Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 hm, and yeah, mantis are not hairy so you've got something else for sure. But what a fun discovery! I can't help it. I love critters. Link to comment
amphipod Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 Too large to be a pistol. Got a good look at one of its legs last night - it was reddish and very hairy. I suspect it's some sort of lobster or shrimp. maybe, try baiting him out. Link to comment
Snow_Phoenix Posted August 31, 2015 Author Share Posted August 31, 2015 maybe, try baiting him out. Tried with no success. Link to comment
amphipod Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 Tried with no success. patience my friend Think like a lobster Link to comment
Snow_Phoenix Posted August 31, 2015 Author Share Posted August 31, 2015 patience my friend Think like a lobster Lol, Pod. hm, and yeah, mantis are not hairy so you've got something else for sure. But what a fun discovery! I can't help it. I love critters. Yes, so it ruled out the mantis option. Still, judging by the size of the leg, it is quite big. Hopefully if it ever meets Freya, she'll make a quick snack out of him or ignore him. I don't want to see her getting hurt. Link to comment
Snow_Phoenix Posted August 31, 2015 Author Share Posted August 31, 2015 Quick update - finally found out what was haunting my Acro skeleton in the Cactus Garden. Had a drooped back, shrimp-like beak, separated pink eyes, green body, very long antennae and large club-like claws. Poked around the net until I found this which is what I strongly suspect I have in that tank: Machine Gun Coral Shrimp (Coralliocaris graminea): http://www.wildsingapore.com/wildfacts/crustacea/othercrust/shrimp/coralliocaris.htm Oh! And if my hunch is correct, there's at least two of them in there. I'm trying to devise a method to get them out safely and hopefully transfer them in my 30G. They're quite peaceful apparently, and it'd be a shame if they harmed Freya or she kicked the pistols outta 'em. To be continued. Link to comment
FlowerMama Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 Odd looking. Good job on your research. I woudln't even know how to begin looking up something like that. I've just never seen a head/mouth like that. Link to comment
Snow_Phoenix Posted September 1, 2015 Author Share Posted September 1, 2015 Odd looking. Good job on your research. I woudln't even know how to begin looking up something like that. I've just never seen a head/mouth like that. Honestly, it was pure luck that I stumbled across the ID. I was busy scouring the web for different types of double clawed pistols when this one pic of a green shrimp and pink eyes leapt out to me. I dug deeper and found a good match - of course, I've only seen the shrimp partially - it's very reclusive and is stubbornly staying in the rock. Link to comment
FlowerMama Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 probably due to safety reasons!!! Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 I would stay hiding under a rock if Freya was hunting me as well! Link to comment
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