Natalia’s reefbowl: 8 years old!

[natalia_la_loca]

Nat I know I've said it before but man this is gorgeous.

 

On another not I just went with the lamp and bulb combo you've got for my 2.5. Have you noticed any heat issues? I know it said not to put it in this type of lamp.

 

Thank you zoohed I haven't noticed any heat issues with my 12 watt par38. That said, if your lamp has a reflector (my architect lamp did), it's important to remove it. If you leave the reflector on, it will concentrate heat in the light and may shorten its life.

[zoohed]

 

Thank you zoohed I haven't noticed any heat issues with my 12 watt par38. That said, if your lamp has a reflector (my architect lamp did), it's important to remove it. If you leave the reflector on, it will concentrate heat in the light and may shorten its life.

By reflector do you mean the shade? Mine just had the aluminum shade that is painted white inside.

[natalia_la_loca]

By reflector do you mean the shade? Mine just had the aluminum shade that is painted white inside.

 

Yes--I meant the shade.

[zoohed]

 

Yes--I meant the shade.

Perfect! Shade is gone. Not the biggest fan of it I'm struggling to get it where I want it but I'll get it figured out.

[teenyreef]

I love petroglyphs, they were out when I did my Legendary Corals order long ago

[natalia_la_loca]

They seem to have them back in stock now. At any rate, LC has them in their stock frag section. It's just hard to justify shelling out $100 (when you factor in shipping) for one polyp.

[HammerLover]

So the zoa ive been calling sunflowe for ages is actually an ultra eagle eye zoa hahahaha. I miss those, but sadly they have been wiped out by my sundials. As soon as frags were available I'll get them

 

And that goniopora is really stunning! I thought its a zoa frag at first

[Lula_Mae]

I was too busy this weekend to get out the DSLR, but here are some quick cellphone snaps of a new acquisition from Cherry Corals. The colors of this goniopora remind me a lot of an "ultra" eagle eye zoa colony I used to have in the Nuvo 8 zoa garden. Hopefully it will do as well as the pink gonio has done over the last couple of months.

 

 

 

Wow! That goni is a looker! I don't know much about goni's except they're pretty lol. I do remember when I first started they were considered almost impossible to keep, and now people are keeping them in reefbowls! Just phenomenal.

 

I picked up some live rock rubble today for some coralline seeding and there are some zoa polyps on a few of the pieces. Pretty excited to see them open up and find out what they look like!

Forgot to add, I had to look up those petroglyph zoas and wow! I understand why you loved them, they are gorgeous! Maybe you can splurge sometime...

[natalia_la_loca]

So the zoa ive been calling sunflowe for ages is actually an ultra eagle eye zoa hahahaha. I miss those, but sadly they have been wiped out by my sundials. As soon as frags were available I'll get them

 

And that goniopora is really stunning! I thought its a zoa frag at first

Actually I just made that name up maybe they're sunflowers, I dunno.

Wow! That goni is a looker! I don't know much about goni's except they're pretty lol. I do remember when I first started they were considered almost impossible to keep, and now people are keeping them in reefbowls! Just phenomenal.

 

I picked up some live rock rubble today for some coralline seeding and there are some zoa polyps on a few of the pieces. Pretty excited to see them open up and find out what they look like!

 

Forgot to add, I had to look up those petroglyph zoas and wow! I understand why you loved them, they are gorgeous! Maybe you can splurge sometime...

Yeah, I was nervous about getting a Goni because of their reputation. But they really seem to love the reefbowl. I look forward to seeing the new zoas, hope they're good ones!

 

I'm sure I'll come up with an excuse to splurge on some petroglyphs I wish LC would have a sale (other than live sales which are fun but kind of a PITA). Cherry Corals has sales pretty often where they take like 20% off everything on the site.

[Lula_Mae]

Actually I just made that name up maybe they're sunflowers, I dunno.

Yeah, I was nervous about getting a Goni because of their reputation. But they really seem to love the reefbowl. I look forward to seeing the new zoas, hope they're good ones!

 

I'm sure I'll come up with an excuse to splurge on some petroglyphs I wish LC would have a sale (other than live sales which are fun but kind of a PITA). Cherry Corals has sales pretty often where they take like 20% off everything on the site.

 

Me too! They're just single polyps, but still! Rad little hitchhikers. I'll have to check Cherry Corals out too, don't think I've ever heard of them (my gorgeous rics and St. Thomas mushie back in the day came from Coral Morphologic, now known as Aquascapers...wish they would reopen their shop , and some stuff I got from Reef Gardener last year, those are all the online coral experiences I've had lol).

[teenyreef]

We all miss Aquascapers

[natalia_la_loca]

We definitely miss Aquascapers. I wonder what Colin and Jared are up to these days.

 

EDIT: Looks like they're doing a collaborative performance with Animal Collective. While I can't compliment them on their musical accompaniment (pretty sure there's a level of hell where you have to listen to Animal Collective 24/7), I'm glad they're still doing stuff.

 

I just wish they'd sell me some vice zoas.

[teenyreef]

This is one of the bests posts I've ever seen on N-R

[natalia_la_loca]

[natalia_la_loca]

Fluconazole update: I'm still not sure if it's working. There's a new (I think), big-ish patch of bryopsis or hair algae or whatever it is, and it is grayish-green, not white. That said, I also had a different strain of hair algae with short thick strands, almost as wide as chaetomorpha. That appears to be completely gone now. This Friday I'll probably treat again with a full dose of fluconazole after the usual water change and peroxide treatment.

 

Yesterday I finally had a couple of minutes to take some pics with the DSLR. I got this beautiful acan at Cherry Corals. They call it "Witches' Wheel." I thought my other acans were pretty cool. This one makes them look like turds.

 

It wasn't until after gluing the acan to the rockscape that I realized I'd f**ked up big time. A drop of superglue fell right into the center of the Red Planet acro It's also quickly losing its red coloration, which I'm not at all happy about as it was so beautiful before. It's encrusting quickly, so I imagine it will recover from this insult, but I'm still kicking myself over it. My consolation: that Blondie frag

 

New zoas from Cherry Corals. The ones at upper right are Raspberry Limes. At left is a single polyp of solar flares. They are somewhat petroglyph-y and will suffice until I decide to cough up the cash for some real petroglyphs. I still have the other vamps in drag, but they have been closed for a while because I was having trouble keeping the blastomussa away from them. After gluing these guys to the blasto rock, I turned the rock around so the vamps have a little more breathing room. Hopefully they'll open again.

 

The Mr. Freeze leptoseris is definitely growing. Sorry about the bad pic, it's hard to photograph.

 

And finally, another pic of the new goniopora. So far it's doing extremely well.

[holy carp]

Yesterday I finally had a couple of minutes to take some pics with the DSLR. I got this beautiful acan at Cherry Corals. They call it "Witches' Wheel." I thought my other acans were pretty cool. This one makes them look like turds.

 

 

 

Holy Eff! If you need a 'secure remote backup' of a head of this in order to reduce the risk of that chalice aggression, I can offer some of my tank real estate free of charge.

 

Edit: BTW, you should be photographing for their website: Cherry Corals Witches Wheel

[Mariaface]

 

 

Holy Eff Carp!

[natalia_la_loca]

Holy Eff! If you need a 'secure remote backup' of a head of this in order to reduce the risk of that chalice aggression, I can offer some of my tank real estate free of charge.

 

Edit: BTW, you should be photographing for their website: Cherry Corals Witches Wheel

 

Haha, I'll keep that in mind I actually traded the chalice in at a LFS over the weekend, along with the cyphastrea. There's no way I would put such a sexy acan next to a chalice.

 

Re: pics, it's interesting--it was the pic of the Witches Wheel acan on their website that got my attention before visiting, but it's even lovelier in person. I did bump up the warmth of my photo to balance the washed-out blue, but I didn't touch the saturation.

[holy carp]

I did bump up the warmth of my photo to balance the washed-out blue, but I didn't touch the saturation.

 

Umm... teach me this, please. photoshop?

[natalia_la_loca]

Umm... teach me this, please. photoshop?

 

I upload the pics into my phone and then edit them in the free Snapseed app. It's much simpler (and cheaper) than Photoshop. Fewer features of course, but enough for the vast majority of photos. I crop it, increase the warmth, increase the brightness a little if necessary, sharpen it if it's blurry, and maybe do a little lens blur to emphasize whatever I want to focus on in the image.

 

I know nothing about DSLR photography (which I'm sure is obvious to any DSLR enthusiast who sees my pics.) The seller of my used DSLR had already preset the white balance for photographing under actinics, so I just went with that setting. I pretty much treat my DSLR as a point-and-shoot because the instruction manual is a brick.

[natalia_la_loca]

Trying out the new website Here are some FBS I took yesterday. As noted above, I've traded in the chalice and cyphastrea to make room for corals that are less aggressive, and more sexy

 

[natalia_la_loca]

Well poop, one of my fruit loop frags has vanished  I thought it was glued down pretty well. Hopefully it will turn up when I do the water change today.

[Lula_Mae]

On 2/17/2017 at 8:54 AM, natalia_la_loca said:

Well poop, one of my fruit loop frags has vanished  I thought it was glued down pretty well. Hopefully it will turn up when I do the water change today.

  Hope it's turned up!  Just wondering how it's possible to lose something in a bowl that small lol

[Pinner Reef]

The Fruit Loops show up right about the time you go to tear down the tank.

[gena]

Wow, natalia!!!  Your reefbowl is looking phenomenal.  So many vibrant colors.  I've always wanted one of the red goniopora.  Maybe one day .