Lula Mae's full circle 5.5--the end.

[Type-H20]

On 6/14/2017 at 6:10 PM, Lula_Mae said:

Aww thanks!   Such a huge compliment!

 

 

clean coral/macro mix low tech 5.5 gal =  every time.

[Lula_Mae]

On 6/14/2017 at 10:26 PM, samnaz said:

It's kinda hard to tell from your pics, but the nudibranch looks a lot like some pics of the Elysia ("Caulerpa slug") species on this page:

https://www.lionfishlair.com/hitchhikers-guide/elysia/

Thanks for that link, it got me googling and the little guy looks a LOT like Elysia obtusa!  Trying to figure out what exactly it eats, read one report that said it had been found on bryopsis lol.  If it'll eat my hair algae I'll keep it! 

 

15 hours ago, SemperReef said:

Is it a baby arrow crab?

Pretty sure it was a sea spider, looked very like some pics of them.  And it was tiny, literally maybe 3mm leg-span.

 

11 hours ago, gena said:

Now I need Punk Princesses too

Oh, they would be PERFECT in your tank!!!  Didn't get to enjoy them much tonight but they are SO pretty!

 

11 hours ago, Kellie in CA said:

Looks great!  I was really happy with my Legendary Corals purchase too.  Beautiful stuff.

It really is, wish I had more room and funds for more stuff!  Really happy with these pieces.

 

28 minutes ago, Type-H20 said:

 

clean coral/macro mix low tech 5.5 gal =  every time.

Haha thanks!  You should see the detritus under the rocks lol.

[Nano sapiens]

Nice to see the new corals are doing well!  

[vlangel]

Wow, your new coral order is terrific and I am loving your tank!  I hope that little slug thingy is safe because its a cutey!

[lkoechle]

love it.  I need to di a better job on keeping up ob everyone else's tanks.  Especially when so many of you mean so much to me   I would not put the spider thingy in.  i hope you didnt.  I had to pull out every single zoa of the 85 and dip and redip (in coralrx and reefdip) when I found one of those eating them.  They are hard bastards to kill. 

 

Oh and what is your profile picture of? We had to take our daughter to a specialist at the children's hospital and there was a vinyl cut out of her on the wall of the labs waiting room.  

 

@skoechle was like "I found @Lula_Mae!  Do I get a prize?" lol

[Lula_Mae]

9 hours ago, Nano sapiens said:

Nice to see the new corals are doing well!  

Thanks!  I'm loving them!

 

2 hours ago, vlangel said:

Wow, your new coral order is terrific and I am loving your tank!  I hope that little slug thingy is safe because its a cutey!

I hope so too but best I can tell it seems they eat algae of some kind, and maybe even use the chlorophyll or something for photosynthesis!  If it eats the hair algae, fine but please don't eat the macros!  Ughhh what to do!

 

1 hour ago, lkoechle said:

love it.  I need to di a better job on keeping up ob everyone else's tanks.  Especially when so many of you mean so much to me   I would not put the spider thingy in.  i hope you didnt.  I had to pull out every single zoa of the 85 and dip and redip (in coralrx and reefdip) when I found one of those eating them.  They are hard bastards to kill. 

 

Oh and what is your profile picture of? We had to take our daughter to a specialist at the children's hospital and there was a vinyl cut out of her on the wall of the labs waiting room.  

 

@skoechle was like "I found @Lula_Mae!  Do I get a prize?" lol

No worries!  Life gets busy sometimes.  Nah, spider and sea slug are still sitting in the bowl where I stuck them lol.  Might take a chance and put the nudi in but haven't decided yet...  That would really stink to dip that much, it would be a ton of work in my little tank, and I can only imagine a big tank!

 

The profile pic is from Breakfast at Tiffany's, when Audrey Hepburn (whose real name in the movie is Lula Mae, not Holly Golightly) is sitting in her window playing and singing "Moon River."  One of my favorite scenes and movies!  That's hilarious that he spotted it! Hope girly is ok, and that the staff there treated you well!

[Lula_Mae]

Well, I had an interesting experience today.  I was looking on Craigslist last night for a place to live that's closer to my new job and found a brand new posting for a lovely little house so I emailed the guy.  The listing had one picture and the description sounded very nice.  Well, I waited all day for a call and then checked my email to find a reply...with grammar errors that were not present in the listing and the writer did not seem to be a native English speaker.  As I read, my Spidey-senses started tingling, big time!  He gave the address after rambling about how important it was to care for this property that he'd poured so much money into and claimed he and his wife were out of state and about to go out of country with an organization and wanted me to fill out an immediate "application" so that he could have my information to give me my payment receipt and arrange to ship the keys to me via a delivery service.   Some of the questions were awkward (do I work late?  What is my pet's personality?) but I was especially suspicious of the ones wanting to know if I'd make payment before move-in (uh, duh?), was I ready to pay immediately and how soon could I make a deposit?

 

So Dad and I did detective work, found the guy's name did not match property records for the address, called the police department and the officer named the address before Dad could! Poor owners are still living in the place!  So I flagged all the postings for removal on Craigslist.  Shame on you, sketchy dude!  I feel like I've solved a murder-mystery today lol.

 

Tank is alright, but I was out of town for a couple days and my sinularia (which I'd moved to the left rock) got sucked into the filter intake and is now an inch tall nub!   And my soap dish fell down.  I need to pick it up.  Argh.

 

 

 

[Weetabix7]

9 minutes ago, Lula_Mae said:

Well, I had an interesting experience today.  I was looking on Craigslist last night for a place to live that's closer to my new job and found a brand new posting for a lovely little house so I emailed the guy.  The listing had one picture and the description sounded very nice.  Well, I waited all day for a call and then checked my email to find a reply...with grammar errors that were not present in the listing and the writer did not seem to be a native English speaker.  As I read, my Spidey-senses started tingling, big time!  He gave the address after rambling about how important it was to care for this property that he'd poured so much money into and claimed he and his wife were out of state and about to go out of country with an organization and wanted me to fill out an immediate "application" so that he could have my information to give me my payment receipt and arrange to ship the keys to me via a delivery service.   Some of the questions were awkward (do I work late?  What is my pet's personality?) but I was especially suspicious of the ones wanting to know if I'd make payment before move-in (uh, duh?), was I ready to pay immediately and how soon could I make a deposit?

 

So Dad and I did detective work, found the guy's name did not match property records for the address, called the police department and the officer named the address before Dad could! Poor owners are still living in the place!  So I flagged all the postings for removal on Craigslist.  Shame on you, sketchy dude!  I feel like I've solved a murder-mystery today lol.

 

Tank is alright, but I was out of town for a couple days and my sinularia (which I'd moved to the left rock) got sucked into the filter intake and is now an inch tall nub!   And my soap dish fell down.  I need to pick it up.  Argh.

 

 

 

 

Holy Wow!!! 

Clearly you need to be promoted to Detective. 

 

Sorry bout the Sinularia, but I do know they're pretty tough and it will likely recover. 

At least it didn't happen to something more fragile!!

[JoeR]

On 5/26/2017 at 4:51 PM, Lula_Mae said:

Yesterday I got a 4 pack of macros that I'd bought on ebay.  It contained cheato, Caulerpa prolifera, codium, and fine-branching coralline.  They included a red macro that seems similar to Weetie's red titan but a bit darker.  The package seemed tiny (forgot to take a pic) but the portions were quite generous for the price!

Not bad for $9.99 shipped!

 

I also stopped by an LFS and was so excited to see a porcelain anemone crab and baby misbar clownfish that I came home with both!  I didn't notice until I got home that the crab is missing one of its claws...I honestly can't remember if it was like that in the store because I was mesmerized by the fan action lol.

 

Meet Valerie (Miracle Max's wife's name lol)

 

And Tallulah!

 

She's missing her middle bar entirely on the left side, and only has half on the right side.  I love the misbar patterns!

 

More pics from yesterday:

Gorg showing great polyp extension:

 

Paly looking so pretty and green!

Fine branching coralline wedged between rubble bits on the right, and the C. prolifera:

Codium tucked back behind Buttercup:

Tallulah looking so cute!

Here you can see the red macro with the gracilaria:

Porcelain crab went on the blue scroll that I'd tucked in there below the pipe organ the other day and hung out there at the back of it.

This morning Valerie had moved over to the pipe organ and was hanging out there.  You can see Tallulah over on the right.

Tallulah

Valerie

And bonus pic!  They had a baby starry blenny at the LFS yesterday.  He was barely two inches long!  (The clown and arrow crab you see were in the next tank over).

 

Unfortunately when the lights came on today, I noticed a few little white spots on Tally's sides that weren't there yesterday.  About five on her left side near her head, and a couple near the tail on her right side.  Uggggghhhh.  I also haven't really seen her eat--I saw her eat one little speck but despite the LFS guy saying they were feeding mysis, she did not seem interested and maybe even scared of the larger bits.  Anyone have any suggestions for flake or small pellet foods I could try?  My selection is pretty limited here in town unfortunately.  Going to head out soon to pick up stuff to try hyposalinity treatment...gotta figure out where I can stick one of my little tanks!  Guess I should have known better than to get a fish from this place with the way some of their tanks looked, but Tally and the other baby clown with her looked ok.  I let my excitement overrule my good sense!  Any tips on hypo treatment or other treatments to try would be greatly appreciated.  Hopefully it's just ich and nothing more.

 

(And I know 5.5 is too small for a clown long-term, but was figuring she would reside here until I get my larger tank I'm planning set up in a few months, since who knows when I might be able to get ahold of a GBG like I want!)

 

Those macros for $10 shipped?? They got more where that came from?

[Lula_Mae]

4 hours ago, Weetabix7 said:

 

Holy Wow!!! 

Clearly you need to be promoted to Detective. 

 

Sorry bout the Sinularia, but I do know they're pretty tough and it will likely recover. 

At least it didn't happen to something more fragile!!

I know right?   I sure hope so, I'm not sure how all those branches got sucked in!  I didn't even think about that possibility when I placed it there.  It looks pretty pathetic right now lol.

 

2 hours ago, JoeR said:

Those macros for $10 shipped?? They got more where that came from?

The four-pack for $10 came from ebay user saltwater technologies, this is the same basic pack I got as no one had bid on it! They have several different packs and also larger portions available individually.

 

More expensive but still reasonable is the stuff from 333aquatics, including the gorg (which I think is shedding!).

[kimberbee]

I've come across many listings like those when looking for a place to live. They all usually follow the same pattern: they are out of state/country, they really want someone who will love and take care of the house, if you want to go look at it you can drive around outside but they can't let you see inside cause it's currently rented or cause they are out of town, you send payment and they will send the keys. Scammers!! 

 

Hope you find a REAL place to move to soon!! 

[Lula_Mae]

2 hours ago, kimberbee said:

I've come across many listings like those when looking for a place to live. They all usually follow the same pattern: they are out of state/country, they really want someone who will love and take care of the house, if you want to go look at it you can drive around outside but they can't let you see inside cause it's currently rented or cause they are out of town, you send payment and they will send the keys. Scammers!! 

 

Hope you find a REAL place to move to soon!! 

It's crazy!  And this house was in a teeny town, not a relatively anonymous big city.  Oh, well.  Karma will get him someday!

 

Thanks, me too.  There's a house outside town I want to look at soon, it's a bit more than I want to pay but I also won't have to pay storage because it's big enough lol.  If it works out, could be a place to live for several years.  SO tired of moving!

[samnaz]

Annnnd that's why I never go on craigslist for anything ever!

[Lula_Mae]

On 6/21/2017 at 6:44 PM, samnaz said:

Annnnd that's why I never go on craigslist for anything ever!

Well, I did find Violet the hedgie on CL sooo...

[Lula_Mae]

Spent a long time working on the tank today, doing some stuff I've been meaning to for a while.  The soap dish kept falling down (always happens once a good biofilm gets on the suction cups lol) and it was time to glue stuff down.  I found where I had stashed my bone cutters so I could snap a zillion frag plug stems off.  I also spent time the other day making a fuge out of the AC70 I found in storage which I had bought a couple years ago, intending to use for a fuge on a 5.5 that never got off the ground. I placed it on the back of the tank and began filling it with water, then heard splashing and realized I had forgotten to reinstall the motor!   I couldn't remember where I put it either, so I swiped the AC20 motor and put that on instead lol.  Little motor struggled a bit getting the water up the huge tube but it finally succeeded and I now have a nice fuge with a nice level of flow going through it! 

 

I stashed a bunch of the loose bits of macro in the fuge like all the gracilaria bits.  I also threw in the random rubble bits scattered about the bottom of the tank to free up space in there.  I've left the lights on a bit long tonight so I can make sure everything's ok with the new flow.  Oh!  And I found a small piece of my sinularia in the back corner of the tank!  I'm so happy!  I've stuck it between some rock in hopes it might attach.  Might look for a rubber band to put it on some rubble though.  I also pulled the pineapple sponges off the acan and dropped into the fuge as they were kinda taking over its plug!  I thinned out the cactus caulerpa and placed the C. prolifera in the back middle.  My palm algae has attached to a rock, as has the portieria (attached on the side, and came loose from the rubble I'd glued it on lol).  I glued the frogspawn by itself left of the pipe organ to make room for potential feeder tentacles.  I tucked the kenya tree behind the gorg but it's hard to see right now.  May adjust it, not sure yet.

 

I moved Weetie's Sexy Peach Galaxy palys to the top to see if they color up better with more light.  I put the toadstool beside it.  You can see the poor toadie was being stung by the frogspawn in the soap dish.  Also shifted the brown grandis paly so it wouldn't shade the purple sponge I glued on the rock below.

 

The green blasto had been irritated on one side and I looked and saw a ginormous vermetid snail, so tonight Mr. Snail got a mouthful of superglue.  Now the blasto is mad about the glue (I was careful not to get any on the flesh though).  I also moved the purple center blasto up there finally (I'd left it off in case of needing to dip when it did so poorly after the move).

 

Zoa garden!  I glued the LC corals down on the right hand rock, and placed Zepo.'s pink zoas on the left rock but didn't glue down in case I want to treat again for algae.  I didn't place the people eaters or radioactive dragon eyes yet.  Moved the other grandis paly over here as it was stretching where it'd been pushed a bit under the rocks.  The loose sinularia piece is behind the left zoa rock!  The purple sponge you can see to the right of the mad punk princess zoas lol.  And the blondies little third baby polyp was open before I moved them!  It's on the top of the plug now.

 

Pearlberry blastos!  And the other surviving sinularia piece, and some of the rics.

 

FTS

 

Some stuff has changed color a bit since going in my tank, which makes me a little sad, but most things otherwise seem happy.  I've still got some work left to do on the tank, like final placement for the remaining scattered frags on the bottom, (and fixing my paper background lol) but I feel like I made huge progress tonight!  I'm very proud and happy with how it looks right now.
 

[Weetabix7]

8 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Spent a long time working on the tank today, doing some stuff I've been meaning to for a while.  The soap dish kept falling down (always happens once a good biofilm gets on the suction cups lol) and it was time to glue stuff down.  I found where I had stashed my bone cutters so I could snap a zillion frag plug stems off.  I also spent time the other day making a fuge out of the AC70 I found in storage which I had bought a couple years ago, intending to use for a fuge on a 5.5 that never got off the ground. I placed it on the back of the tank and began filling it with water, then heard splashing and realized I had forgotten to reinstall the motor!   I couldn't remember where I put it either, so I swiped the AC20 motor and put that on instead lol.  Little motor struggled a bit getting the water up the huge tube but it finally succeeded and I now have a nice fuge with a nice level of flow going through it! 

 

I stashed a bunch of the loose bits of macro in the fuge like all the gracilaria bits.  I also threw in the random rubble bits scattered about the bottom of the tank to free up space in there.  I've left the lights on a bit long tonight so I can make sure everything's ok with the new flow.  Oh!  And I found a small piece of my sinularia in the back corner of the tank!  I'm so happy!  I've stuck it between some rock in hopes it might attach.  Might look for a rubber band to put it on some rubble though.  I also pulled the pineapple sponges off the acan and dropped into the fuge as they were kinda taking over its plug!  I thinned out the cactus caulerpa and placed the C. prolifera in the back middle.  My palm algae has attached to a rock, as has the portieria (attached on the side, and came loose from the rubble I'd glued it on lol).  I glued the frogspawn by itself left of the pipe organ to make room for potential feeder tentacles.  I tucked the kenya tree behind the gorg but it's hard to see right now.  May adjust it, not sure yet.

 

I moved Weetie's Sexy Peach Galaxy palys to the top to see if they color up better with more light.  I put the toadstool beside it.  You can see the poor toadie was being stung by the frogspawn in the soap dish.  Also shifted the brown grandis paly so it wouldn't shade the purple sponge I glued on the rock below.

 

The green blasto had been irritated on one side and I looked and saw a ginormous vermetid snail, so tonight Mr. Snail got a mouthful of superglue.  Now the blasto is mad about the glue (I was careful not to get any on the flesh though).  I also moved the purple center blasto up there finally (I'd left it off in case of needing to dip when it did so poorly after the move).

 

Zoa garden!  I glued the LC corals down on the right hand rock, and placed Zepo.'s pink zoas on the left rock but didn't glue down in case I want to treat again for algae.  I didn't place the people eaters or radioactive dragon eyes yet.  Moved the other grandis paly over here as it was stretching where it'd been pushed a bit under the rocks.  The loose sinularia piece is behind the left zoa rock!  The purple sponge you can see to the right of the mad punk princess zoas lol.  And the blondies little third baby polyp was open before I moved them!  It's on the top of the plug now.

 

Pearlberry blastos!  And the other surviving sinularia piece, and some of the rics.

 

FTS

 

Some stuff has changed color a bit since going in my tank, which makes me a little sad, but most things otherwise seem happy.  I've still got some work left to do on the tank, like final placement for the remaining scattered frags on the bottom, (and fixing my paper background lol) but I feel like I made huge progress tonight!  I'm very proud and happy with how it looks right now.
 

 

You got so much work done!!!

I bet having the HOB on there will really help with stability.

Now that you have stuff glued down, I bet you'll see stuff really start to settle in and grow. 

I'm excited to see how that looks!!

[Lula_Mae]

4 hours ago, Weetabix7 said:

 

You got so much work done!!!

I bet having the HOB on there will really help with stability.

Now that you have stuff glued down, I bet you'll see stuff really start to settle in and grow. 

I'm excited to see how that looks!!

Thanks, me too!  I also got a small LED submersible light to put in the filter and just stuck that in there so the macros have their own source of light.  Need to get a timer for it, too.  Hopefully that will help, like you said, with stability.  Plus, an extra half gallon of water doesn't hurt!  I've been gradually lowering the level of the PAR bulb so everything will get adequate light in the tank.  Hoping things really open up today and decide they like their new spots lol.  I got in some Reef Plus so I added a bit of that last night, I need to make a schedule for things so I remember when I need to dose and whatnot.  With an irregular work schedule, that's something I will easily forget!

 

I'm looking forward to seeing the tank start to mature!

Oh, PS, any updates on your end?

[Weetabix7]

8 minutes ago, Lula_Mae said:

Thanks, me too!  I also got a small LED submersible light to put in the filter and just stuck that in there so the macros have their own source of light.  Need to get a timer for it, too.  Hopefully that will help, like you said, with stability.  Plus, an extra half gallon of water doesn't hurt!  I've been gradually lowering the level of the PAR bulb so everything will get adequate light in the tank.  Hoping things really open up today and decide they like their new spots lol.  I got in some Reef Plus so I added a bit of that last night, I need to make a schedule for things so I remember when I need to dose and whatnot.  With an irregular work schedule, that's something I will easily forget!

 

I'm looking forward to seeing the tank start to mature!

Oh, PS, any updates on your end?

 

Updates....

Well, in some ways figuring out some of the smaller details is causing holdups. 

Have been considering starting a tank thread with what I do have and my plans and going from there. Still undecided though.

But I have new Macros coming in next week, including a Portiera, like you!! Also, I just discovered that Portiera does better in lower light, FYI.

[thespinningsadhu]

OMG! I watercolor and that would be so cool to paint something to stick on the back. 

[Weetabix7]

46 minutes ago, thespinningsadhu said:

OMG! I watercolor and that would be so cool to paint something to stick on the back. 

 

That would be cool!!

[Lula_Mae]

8 hours ago, Weetabix7 said:

 

Updates....

Well, in some ways figuring out some of the smaller details is causing holdups. 

Have been considering starting a tank thread with what I do have and my plans and going from there. Still undecided though.

But I have new Macros coming in next week, including a Portiera, like you!! Also, I just discovered that Portiera does better in lower light, FYI.

I vote start a thread. Maybe bouncing ideas off people could help find a solution!  I have the portieria in mid-level tucked beside a rock for a bit of shading so hopefully it will like that spot.  Looking forward to your new macros!

 

4 hours ago, thespinningsadhu said:

OMG! I watercolor and that would be so cool to paint something to stick on the back. 

It would be pretty cool!  I think someone on here did something like that, or talked about it.  trueisb or something like that, with his little ADA tank that was TOTM a couple years ago.  Ricordea, grandis palys, gorgonians, and dragon's breath macro.  It was gorgeous!  And Dawn's seahorse garden has a painted image in the background of her seahorse who passed a while back.  I'm really liking the effect of the white though, I will probably get another 5.5 and spray-paint the back when it comes time to move, then just transfer everything into it.  I've never painted a tank before so it will be a new experience!

[Lula_Mae]

So, uhhh...coming soon to a quarantine tank near...ME!!!

 

 

Fingers crossed this goes better than last time...

 

[Weetabix7]

2 minutes ago, Lula_Mae said:

So, uhhh...coming soon to a quarantine tank near...ME!!!

 

 

 

 

Fingers crossed this goes better than last time...

 

Bonus features:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wooooooo!!!!

 

Extra Wooo, huh? This could be interesting.....

[Lula_Mae]

Just now, Weetabix7 said:

 

Extra Wooo, huh? This could be interesting.....

Lol I had to edit because pics didn't show.  Refresh the page.

[Weetabix7]

4 minutes ago, Lula_Mae said:

So, uhhh...coming soon to a quarantine tank near...ME!!!

 

 

Fingers crossed this goes better than last time...

 

 

Holy Wow!!!!

Uhhhhh...... what size quarantine tank?