reefernanoman Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 Oh wow, thanks for the heads up. I didn't realize that peppermint even liked corals, I will definitely keep an eye out for any suspicious activity, even more so beings I have 3!! Also thanks again for the light! I wasn't kidding when I said I'm in love. I knew that light looked familiar . I'm glad that you liked it and it got to you in one piece. BTW, that's GSP right? Just try to keep it isolated from your main LR because it grows very fast like weeds and will spread everywhere. 2 Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted January 7, 2016 Author Share Posted January 7, 2016 I knew that light looked familiar . I'm glad that you liked it and it got to you in one piece. BTW, that's GSP right? Just try to keep it isolated from your main LR because it grows very fast like weeds and will spread everywhere. Yup, the lights been great. As for the GSP I'm hoping to cover the whole rock it's on, then start a pseudo lawn up in front. 1 Quote Link to comment
reefernanoman Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 Yup, the lights been great. As for the GSP I'm hoping to cover the whole rock it's on, then start a pseudo lawn up in front. Cool, that's sort of what I'm doing in my 28g, but on my barebottom 1 Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted January 9, 2016 Author Share Posted January 9, 2016 A couple things.. 1st My hermit crabs all seem to be molting, I have found 3 molts in the last 2 days. Also for some unknown reason I've lost my emerald crab as well as one of my peppermint shrimp. I came to the office to find them curled up on the bottom. As for the other 2 shrimp, I can only find 1 the biggest, I am hoping the other one is simply too scared to come out. This, along with the death of my Emerald Crab, has me concerned. I've checked all of my parameters, and with the exception of my Calc being a little low, everything is on point. In the Good New catagory, I got some more Coral! @pewpewkittah was nice enough to send me one of her awesome frogspawns all the way from Florida. These guys made it across the US in 3 days and arrived looking great. This picture was taken a day after I got them. She was also nice enough to throw in some Pom Pom Xenias! As for those unknown polyps, they are MULTIPLYING! I still can't find anything on them online, I hope they aren't too bad. Also I've noticed some small Macro algae growing next to my GSP, it looks like some form of Caulerpa. Not sure which form, but from what I have gathered so far, certain strains can be big pests. Whats interesting is that the ferns have a sort of blueish hue to them, and to be honest I kind of like them. Lastly here's a video of the fish getting fed, you can see what I mean about my shrimp being pretty courageous. Sorry for the poor quality, I only had my phone on hand. 2 Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted January 14, 2016 Author Share Posted January 14, 2016 Well bad news... all of my shrimp have died. Monday I came to work to find my brand new ATO had failed... the pump died. Salinity went up to 1.027... shrimp don't like it that salty. To make matters even worse, I came into work today to find my goby being munched on by my hermits! I'm at a loss, I loved that guy. I checked everything today and all my parameters are well within spec. Ammonia:0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 5 PH: 8.0 Phosphates: 0 (I have algae growth so I know this may be a lie) DKH: 9 Calcium: 360 I'm still having trouble with calc, but that shouldn't bring about the demise of my goby. Yesterday I went and bought some kalkwasser to hopefully help with the calcium issue. I also picked up 4 new corals, I'll post pictures of everything later. Right now I'm just bummed. Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 I am sorry for your losses. After watching the video I feel like I knew them a little. 1 Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted January 16, 2016 Author Share Posted January 16, 2016 Well I finally got some time to get things updated. A lot has happened this week, the worst of which was my little goby. I think I may now know what happened to the little guy. I recently rearranged my rockscape. I did this for 2 reasons, 1: I was over trying to clean the large piece with all its crevices. 2: I wanted to lighten the tank up, the large rock up top just took up too much space. This change seemed to really stress my goby, that coupled with my aggressive clowns and I think he might have passed due to stress/being picked on. On the brighter side of things I did pick up some more corals. I got 2 new Zoas, some Eagle Eyes, and some of what the LFS owner thought where radioactive dragon eyes, but I'm not too sure. They're more blue and have some white speckles in them as well. I also picked up a pretty white monti with blue polyps (Unknown Name) and lastly I grabbed a two head duncan for $10! The poor thing was covered in green hair algae, so I got a good deal on it. I took it and scrubbed it down with a toothbrush and dipped it for a minute to try to get most of the algae off. After being in the tank for an hour or so it started to open up. First thing I noticed was that this was a really pretty Duncan (without all the algae) and the second thing I noticed was that there where 4 heads! Not the best picture, but you can see that it was opening up. There's 3 good sized ones and a little baby Besides last weeks mishaps, everything in this tank is taking off. I've noticed a ton of little polyps popping up everywhere. Here's a side shot of one of them. That frogspawn and xenia that I just got have really opened up. I had to move the froogspawn to the back corner because it was so big it was too close to others. Here's a better view of the whole right side. My Frogspawn up front has really greened up too. And that Caulerpa has really turned out to be quite pretty. While checking it out i noticed something, I have a few new friends. A neat little feather duster, and some little mollusk. He fell out of one of the live rocks during the rearrangement. Here's where he fell out, and a day later he'd attached himself right next to the feather duster. I also noticed that in that same rock there seems to be a little brittle star, I haven't been able to coax it out, but I have seen a few of his arms reaching around for food. And here's the latest full tank shot. I like it sooo much more now. The fish have more space to swim and there's a lot more room to add coral. I'll leave tonight with a funny picture I took a couple days ago. I noticed one of my Hermit crabs was riding one of my snails on the glass. Well the snail thought it would be a good idea to drop him off at the RW-4. so I look over and here's the poor hermit hanging on for dear life with nowhere to go. So what do I do? I take a picture and laugh. 3 Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 Ha ha, thats a funny story and pic! I bet the hermit never rides the snail again...or maybe. I don't think they have very big brains. 1 Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted January 16, 2016 Author Share Posted January 16, 2016 Ha ha, thats a funny story and pic! I bet the hermit never rides the snail again...or maybe. I don't think they have very big brains. I know right! I saw that and literally started laughing. He seems to stay away from the snails now. 2 Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted January 21, 2016 Author Share Posted January 21, 2016 Well, another large update for everyone. Aquasd had their usual weekend sale and I maayyyy have went a little crazy. Here's a list of the guilt, I mean, corals. lol Toxic Dead Pool Nem Teal Wave Acan Lord Barbies Pink Stick Acro Yellow Orbitz Zoas XL Orange Ric Zombie Flesh Palys Purple Ring Acan Lord Hot Ring Orange Ric Superman mushroom Agave Ultra Zoas Deep Purple Digi Premium Raptors Favia Blue Lase Acro Premium Raptor Favia Ocean Surf Stag The packaging was awesome, and the heat pack was even still warm! Aaaaannnnndddddd MY FISH HATE ME............ After dipping everything, I filled almost every inch of my sand bed with frags. I didn't have but a couple minutes to snap a few pictures, hope these will suffice for the time being. Here's my Toxic Dead Pool Nem My Toxic Grinch Lord, Teal Acan Lord, and Purple Ring Lord. 3 of the 4 mystery frags that I received. Let me know if you guys can ID them. Also my duncans are happy and extending well. I will give everything a while to acclimate and then start to arrange them around the tank. Hopefully I can get better pictures up for you guys then too. 2 Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted January 25, 2016 Author Share Posted January 25, 2016 Well I had to stop by my office today to drop off some new inhabitants. No spoilers yet, but a very cute couple however I noticed that I was missing a hermit crab, and I feared the worse. I then found him roaming around in a snail shell, my guess is the snail was feeling bad for the hermit and wanted to share. the hermit definitely DIDN'T murder him in cold blood. As for everything else I'll let my crappy cell pictures speak themselves. Raptor Favites happy and I noticed its feeders where out and about. Agaves I've narrowed these guys down to "Still Unknown" but they seem happy and the guy on the right is coloring up very nicely. Green People Eaters W/ baby people eater And my Acans are happy in their new location, I had actually underestimated how big they would get, so I had to space them apart a little more after this pic. Rock new doing rock nemy things. And last thing, if anyone wants some Caulerpa I have plenty and am going to be pulling some of this out. 1 Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Exciting times with so much new stuff! It will be fun watching it grow! 1 Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted January 25, 2016 Author Share Posted January 25, 2016 Exciting times with so much new stuff! It will be fun watching it grow! Thanks, it is exciting! I feel I may have gone a bit off the deep end though. Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted January 26, 2016 Author Share Posted January 26, 2016 Well, this weekend went without a single hiccup....almost. I went to a LFS with my son and he fell in love with a yellow watchman goby. I was looking for an excuse to get one after my orange spotted goby died, and who am I to say no to him right?! The only problem was my little randalls pistol was killed, so I decided to pick up what the owner called a "Pacific" pistol shrimp at the store too. I didn't really get to look at it as my son picked it out. After getting them back to the office I now noticed that this shrimp looked a little different than my last one, he was also a bit bigger though, so I attributed it to that. Well he and my yellow watchman goby INSTANTLY paired up. They went straight into a small cave under the right side of my tank. I figured everything looked fine, so my work was done right?.....WRONG. I came back to work to find this today. Turns out that the Innocent little shrimp was actually a "Tiger" pistol shrimp, which I later found out, is the most "Industrious" of the Pistol shrimp. This little turd has destroyed my entire sand bed. I had to dig to find my acans, one being under the front rock, he buried all my favites as well. oh and my tanks so darn cloudy now, that all of my sps have turned brown. GRRRRRRR On the bright side, they are kinda cute, and fun to watch. I've since used this as an excuse to order new sand. I'm sick of this sugar fine stuff getting everywhere. So I ordered some Caribsea dry aragonite special grade reef sand. This should hopefully stay settled much better, as well as tire the little shrimp out more. Here's to hoping 1 Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted January 28, 2016 Author Share Posted January 28, 2016 Well this just happened.... 1 Quote Link to comment
pewpewkittah Posted January 28, 2016 Share Posted January 28, 2016 Well this just happened.... What happened!? Rescape? Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted January 28, 2016 Author Share Posted January 28, 2016 What happened!? Rescape? Yup, tore everything apart. My hardcape wasn't entirely epoxied together so my evil pistol shrimp literally destroyed it, I also put in new sand. Quote Link to comment
ajmckay Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 Gotta love the re-scape... Pretty quick tho! I recently switched from the sugar fine stuff to special grade and I love it... Actually I loved the looks of the sugar fine better but it got blown around too much and ultimately I decided to switch - but the new stuff is pretty awesome. Liking the tank though! You've definitely put a lot of effort into it and it really looks great. You have quite a bio-load for a small tank so keep up with the maintenance. Since it's at your office hopefully that gives you some time during the day to do water changes and stuff. I need to find some birdsnest like that. I need to find some skiing like that too... 1 Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted January 29, 2016 Author Share Posted January 29, 2016 Gotta love the re-scape... Pretty quick tho! I recently switched from the sugar fine stuff to special grade and I love it... Actually I loved the looks of the sugar fine better but it got blown around too much and ultimately I decided to switch - but the new stuff is pretty awesome. Liking the tank though! You've definitely put a lot of effort into it and it really looks great. You have quite a bio-load for a small tank so keep up with the maintenance. Since it's at your office hopefully that gives you some time during the day to do water changes and stuff. I need to find some birdsnest like that. I need to find some skiing like that too... Haha ya the skiing has been excellent this year. As for the birds nest, once this one grows out properly hit me up . But the funny part is the bio-load has never really presented intself. My nitrates hover around 5-10 ppm. My biggest hurdle this far has simply been getting this new sand in. It's been an absolute nightmare. Most of my sps have completely browned out after having torn everything down, and I,ve found some damage to my favites . Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 Sorry about all the trouble that little shrimp and goby have brought on but they are cute! 1 Quote Link to comment
ajmckay Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 Haha ya the skiing has been excellent this year. As for the birds nest, once this one grows out properly hit me up . Will do But the funny part is the bio-load has never really presented intself. My nitrates hover around 5-10 ppm. My biggest hurdle this far has simply been getting this new sand in. It's been an absolute nightmare. Most of my sps have completely browned out after having torn everything down, and I,ve found some damage to my favites . That's good the nitrates seem to be under control - I suppose just keep an eye right? Replacing the sand isn't always a happy thing - though I can't imagine it causing too much of an issue after a month. I replaced my sand after a year or so and well, some if my inhabitants didn't like it very much. But I also set up a refugium at the same time and I think that's causing more of an issue as the tank is extremely low nutrient at the moment. Honestly I had my best growth when the tank had a lot of nutrients... Seriously my corals grew like weeds. But at the same time I'm really liking the refugium at the moment so until I figure out the balance it looks like my corals are going to hate me. I'm slowly adding fish to increase my bio load until I can find a happy medium. Ultimately I may even end up dosing nitrates 1 Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted January 29, 2016 Author Share Posted January 29, 2016 Ya, I'm going to be running my system a tad on the dirty side, I know that the coral will appreciate it, but I also have a lot of other critters like coco worms and feather dusters that thrive in that type of water. Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted January 31, 2016 Author Share Posted January 31, 2016 Well I went to work yesterday and my tank has settled down and cleared up. Then unfortunately I found my firefish lying on the bottom completely beaten up. My clowns shredded every fin the poor guy had, and he could barely stay upright swaying to his side and floating around. I did the only thing I could think of and put the poor guy out of his misery. There was just no coming back from there. I did get a video uploaded of my Pistol, Goby pair. Try to keep the sad vibe to a minimum on this thread... 3 Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 Amazing video sir. Sorry to hear about the fish! 1 Quote Link to comment
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