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Madcat's Fluval Evo 13.5 - new shrimpy


Madcat

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12 minutes ago, Madcat said:

:lol: They are cute! I love when all I can see is the snoots sticking out of the sand and I start fiddling with something and they start wiggling. They're so curious.

 

The Canucks are taking over! Whereabouts in Ontario are you? I've been following your tank thread, btw - Norbert is gorgeous. :wub:

Awww thank you! I'm in Sudbury actually like 4 hours north of Toronto.

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I HAVE CORAL!

 

I have the day off so I went to Canada Corals to check out the selection. Left with a mint chocolate chip sunflower paly frag, a little $5 clove polyp frag with 2-3 heads, and (my treat to myself) a very pretty blastomussa. No pics yet because they're all still startled. I hope they open up soon. Please like me, corals!

 

Tomorrow I'm gonna head to my usual fish store to look for coral food and a light timer and see if they have snowflake clowns in. Apparently they're expecting them tomorrow or the next week. (All I wanted while this tank was cycling was to have stuff in it. Now I'm like, am I even ready to be a fish mom?? But I don't want to hold off because they haven't had snowflakes since March, so who knows when they'll have them again! I'll double check my parameters tonight.)

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Wasn't planning on clownfish in my tank but now that I have them I love them they're like little puppies, your tank might be a bit of a tight fit for an adult pair but for babies you should be fine. What kind of food do you plan on feeding it/them if you don't mind me asking? :D

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3 minutes ago, jesseatam said:

Wasn't planning on clownfish in my tank but now that I have them I love them they're like little puppies, your tank might be a bit of a tight fit for an adult pair but for babies you should be fine. What kind of food do you plan on feeding it/them if you don't mind me asking? :D

My plan right now is to start with one juvenile and see how he does. If he's active and lively I may just stick with one.

 

I have NLS pellets and... would actually love to get some opinions on other foods. I'd like to offer them a flake food for variety. Omega One? Something algae-based? For the corals I plan on Reef Roids and I think PE Mysis pellets for the LPS - the clown/s can get in on that too. But yeah, any opinions at all on fish or coral foods would be very welcome.

 

2 minutes ago, fishfreak0114 said:

I'm so jealous that you get to visit Canada Corals in person!  Looking forward to pics :) 

The place itself is tiny, but their set-up is very nice! They have a $5 bargain bin section that isn't on the website. I had to stop myself from buying a tiny ugly pink sun coral frag. Maybe I'll return for it when I have coral food...

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They're opening up! THEY LIKE ME!

 

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(Clove polyp does not like me yet. Clove polyp cost $5 and can do what it wants.)

 

I turned the lights on just long enough to take pics. I was like, "Why are you ugly brown, paly?" Then I went to blue light mode and it lit up green. Are you telling me this thing is only pretty under blue lights? Maybe it'll colour up more when I have the lights on for an extended time. <_< Also - do I spy a second head on my blasto? Not bad!

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55 minutes ago, Madcat said:

They're opening up! THEY LIKE ME!

 

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(Clove polyp does not like me yet. Clove polyp cost $5 and can do what it wants.)

 

I turned the lights on just long enough to take pics. I was like, "Why are you ugly brown, paly?" Then I went to blue light mode and it lit up green. Are you telling me this thing is only pretty under blue lights? Maybe it'll colour up more when I have the lights on for an extended time. <_< Also - do I spy a second head on my blasto? Not bad!

Yep that's a second head!  Love that blasto!

 

I have some palys that were a pretty teal green at purchase but my light spectrum was bad so they turned mud-poop-brown.  Blegh!

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1 hour ago, Lula_Mae said:

Yep that's a second head!  Love that blasto!

 

I have some palys that were a pretty teal green at purchase but my light spectrum was bad so they turned mud-poop-brown.  Blegh!

Oh boo. Well, it was only $10 so it won't be the end of the world if it turns out to be oogly.

 

15 minutes ago, fishfreak0114 said:

Ooooh is that a frost berry Blasto? I got one not to long ago. Very pretty!

:D Thanks! It is indeed!

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Wee little frags:

 

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I turned on the lights after 4-5 hours and the blasto started sulking immediately! It closed right up. I moved it to a slightly more shaded spot and it's opening up again. Clove polyp, on the other hand, started opening as soon as the lights came on. It's an octa-leaf!

 

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Hope it starts growing real fast so it looks less like a $5 frag. :D I'd like to remove the frag plugs from the clove polyp and paly, but I need a blade of some kind. And a bit more confidence.

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I feed my clowns mostly the NLS 1mm pellets but some of them are still a bit too big for them, I also have the hikari marine s pellets and I think those are too small since they just mostly end up getting air when I drop them on the surface. The .5mm NLS would probably be perfect for juvie clowns but I haven't seen them in person so I dont know for sure. You could definitely get away with the 1mm ones though, if they're too big you can always just soak them in RO/distilled or tank water to let them soften up so you can then break them into smaller pieces.

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8 minutes ago, jesseatam said:

I feed my clowns mostly the NLS 1mm pellets but some of them are still a bit too big for them, I also have the hikari marine s pellets and I think those are too small since they just mostly end up getting air when I drop them on the surface. The .5mm NLS would probably be perfect for juvie clowns but I haven't seen them in person so I dont know for sure. You could definitely get away with the 1mm ones though, if they're too big you can always just soak them in RO/distilled or tank water to let them soften up so you can then break them into smaller pieces.

Cool. Thanks. :D

 

I just finished setting up my new temp controller. Set-up was a dream. Even I could figure it out!

 

Where I'm stuck is, my Marina digital temp probe is telling me the tank is 81.7 degrees. The Inkbird temp probe, which I have in the same place, is telling me the temp is 80.4. No worries, you can calibrate the temperature on the Inkbird, maybe I can borrow the temp probe from work tomorrow and see what it thinks... but dude, I'm gonna be pissed if my Marina thermometer was wrong this whole time!!

 

My other problem is, I told the Inkbird I want the tank at 80* and set the heating and cooling to kick in at +/- 1 degree. That way it can only fluctuate within 79-81. But again, it thinks the tank is 80.4, and it wants the cooling fan on. I tried setting it to +/- 2 degrees in case I somehow misunderstood, but it still wants to cool the tank.

 

*headdesk* Why can't everything just be easy and straightforward! I never had these issues with my betta tanks grumble grumble.

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Daily tank update because I love talking about my tank:

 

It started climbing to 82+ (according to the Marina thermometer) this afternoon, so I plugged the fan into the Inkbird and let it do its thing. Once the Inkbird read 80.0, it switched off. So I'm not gonna worry about it. Also, I bought a glass thermometer today, and it's reading 80 degrees exactly. Marina thinks the tank is 81.1. I'm pretty surprised and NOT happy with my Marina thermometer. I gave away my old glass thermometer with my betta tank and supplies to a friend and bought the digital thermometer because I wanted my temp reading to be as accurate as possible.

I guess I can't complain about buying the Inkbird though - again, it's a good failsafe, and obviously my temp HAS been fluctuating, which is no good, even if it's not as high as I thought. Still annoyed though.

 

I went to the fish store today for coral food and a few new shells for Claudette and Edouard. Fish store got the shipment they were expecting from the designer clownfish breeder, but it didn't include any snowflakes. :'( I don't mind waiting for my clown, though. I want him to be perfect. Maybe next week I'll look around for a tailspot blenny or citron goby.

 

I fed my corals today. Dat feeding response! I was fascinated. Now they're gonna grow like hell, right?!

One of my Nassarius snails came out of the sand almost immediately (even though I was target feeding) and started motoring around. No sign of the other one though. Hope they're eating okay. I may have target fed the snail a bit... I feel bad because I didn't realize they're primarily carnivorous! After target feeding I just squirted the remaining food into the tank at large for my babies to hopefully eat.

 

Lastly, here is a pic from last night of Edouard making friends with the blasto. It was surprisingly tolerant and only started closing up when I turned on the lights to take a pic, lol. The hermies are pretty excited about all the crap on the frag plugs. They're so cute. :)

 

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(Not sure what the pink splotch on the base of the coral is. It has points on it.)

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Sometimes digital thermometers can be off a little.  I usually compare to another thermometer or two and keep in mind how far off it is whenever I look at the temp, and try to keep it consistent.

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fishfreak0114

It looks like coralline on the skeleton :) That's nice because now it has been introduced to your tanks and can spread to the rocks!

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5 minutes ago, fishfreak0114 said:

It looks like coralline on the skeleton :) That's nice because now it has been introduced to your tanks and can spread to the rocks!

Perfect! That was my hope. :) There's coralline on the other frag plugs, too.

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fishfreak0114

Once you get some growing, if you want to spread it around the tank quicker, scrape some off with a razor and let the little bits fly!  I do that periodically with the back wall of my tank in hopes of my rocks getting covered quicker.

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3 hours ago, TinyOcean said:

Nice blasto and hermie! 

:D Thanks!

 

3 hours ago, fishfreak0114 said:

Once you get some growing, if you want to spread it around the tank quicker, scrape some off with a razor and let the little bits fly!  I do that periodically with the back wall of my tank in hopes of my rocks getting covered quicker.

Ooh, good advice! Thanks!

 

I have a bit of a funny story to share. I've mentioned in another thread that I work at a chain pet store (no SW stuff, but I like it). We had this odd customer for awhile, a woman probably in her 30's, who would come in several times a week, but disappeared after the store manager invited her to shop elsewhere when she repeatedly refused to utilize our black cashier. Well she reappeared on the weekend which we thought was strange. Then we got an email from one of our sister stores advising us to watch out for this customer - they caught her shoplifting, called the police, and banned her from the store. Employees had seen her putting aquatic plants in her purse on previous occasions. Who does that?!

 

Well she came in today too and we pretty much all kept eyes on her. She knew it and was acting super nervous. After half an hour or so she left. My shift ended not long after that and I headed to the fish store, which is not that close to my own store. I walked around looking at their livestock for a bit, rounded a corner... and saw this customer lifting a plant out of a tank! At that point she glanced around, we made brief eye contact, she casually replaced the plant and then leapt up and scurried away.

 

How weird is this person?! Anyway I caught a couple of employees and advised them to keep an eye on her and told them why. I guess I ruined her shopping trip. Oops.

 

I forgot to mention, I saw this macro at the store. Thought about putting a handful in my pants but decided to get an ID first! Thoughts?

 

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ETA: Oh, and while we're talking about the crazy price of livestock in Canada, I saw a harlequin shrimp that cost $78.99.

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fishfreak0114

:lol:

 

I'm no macro expert, but the only thing that comes to mind is hypnea maybe?  @Weetabix7 might know.  Whatever it is, it's beautiful!!!  If you get some and it grows well, perhaps you could send me a piece B)

 

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45 minutes ago, fishfreak0114 said:

:lol:

 

I'm no macro expert, but the only thing that comes to mind is hypnea maybe?  @Weetabix7 might know.  Whatever it is, it's beautiful!!!  If you get some and it grows well, perhaps you could send me a piece B)

 

I was thinking gracilaria. I'm not sure I like it - maybe it's prettier when it's not all bunched up? But if I buy and grow some, I'll definitely send you a piece!

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I swapped my clove polyp and paly frags so the paly's on the sand bed and the clove polyp up on the rocks. The paly seems to be cool wherever, but the clove polyp is really responsive to the light. When does it start to grow a million heads?! (Paly can stay the way it is if all its heads are gonna be poop brown.)

 

My poor snail has a kinked snoot. :( I noticed it yesterday when he was eating. What happened, dude?

 

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  • Madcat changed the title to Madcat's Fluval Evo 13.5 - now with critters AND coral!
18 minutes ago, Madcat said:

I swapped my clove polyp and paly frags so the paly's on the sand bed and the clove polyp up on the rocks. The paly seems to be cool wherever, but the clove polyp is really responsive to the light. When does it start to grow a million heads?! (Paly can stay the way it is if all its heads are gonna be poop brown.)

 

My poor snail has a kinked snoot. :( I noticed it yesterday when he was eating. What happened, dude?

 

IMG_5274.thumb.JPG.03a3ba7b6f43d92437bf2551e5afae75.JPG

He's still adorable! I'm sure he will be ok.

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  • Madcat changed the title to Madcat's Fluval Evo 13.5 - new shrimpy

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