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Madcat's Fluval Evo 13.5 - new shrimpy


Madcat

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8 hours ago, Madcat said:

I'll report on its progress!

 

Yes! And yes, the ebay seller mentioned that about international shipping. They said they usually lose the bubbles in transit and grow them back in the tank, so I pretty much expected a slimy red stalk. But it's got little bubbles all over! Maybe they'll survive.

Mine only came from the next state and is losing bubbles lol. Hopefully it starts regrowing soon!

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17 hours ago, Madcat said:

Okay, I guess no peppermint shrimps for me then! :lol: I'd need a pretty big wrasse to eat those if they started killing my zoas.

 

My grape caulerpa arrived! I actually forgot I had ordered it in a fit of grief after missing out on that dragon's breath. Plus, it shipped eight days ago so I had a whole week to forget about it. My stepdad handed me the envelope and I just stared blankly and wondered why it felt so squishy and warm for a moment before remembering.

 

Colour me impressed. This thing has been in transit for EIGHT DAYS, and the rotten-egg smell when I cut open the envelope could have knocked me over. I totally expected the macro to be nothing but a soupy mess and I was like "oh, well, at least it was pretty cheap."

 

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Not bad! The water was horribly hot (it's been sitting in a metal Canada Post box for at least a few hours...) so I just put it straight in a tupperware of tank water. Had to pick off some of what looked like GHA with tweezers. I wasn't sure where it would like to live in the tank, so I just rubber-banded it to a rock and put it in the corner.

 

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Obviously I missed some algae. But seriously, I'm impressed! I hope it grows a lot!

 

it looks pretty. makes me want a piece for aesthetic purposes

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New macro is a lot paler today, though we still seem to have all our bubbles. Closer inspection revealed critters all over it!! Surely they're not going to munch on it.

 

A green critter:

 

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Most of them are tiny and greyish to see-through, so harder to get pics. I don't trust these critters...

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NAFB didn't get any possum wrasses today but maybe next week, they said. Darn. My zoas still seem safe for now, but my palys are looking more ragged and I'm afraid to add new soft corals. Yesterday I walked in to discover a very empty-looking shell at the front of the tank and a very dead-looking hermie carcass on the sandbed being picked at by a pile of pods. I was just about to panic/rage when Marius's tiny face popped out, upside-down, from the shell to peer at me. He's SO little he can actually cram his entire self into the shell so it looks empty. What a silly goose.

 

Guess who eats in the water column like a normal fish now (sometimes)? Jeff does! He eats flakes so good now! He'll be fat in no time.

 

I was feeding last night from the pipette. Puzzle loves the pipette, he likes to nibble right on the end of it and wait for food to come out. While he was off chasing flakes I squirted some water out forcefully to clear out a couple small flakes before getting more. When I put the pipette back in the tank, Puzzle zipped across the tank and hid behind the magnet cleaner. I waited for him to come out again, but when he saw the pipette he flinched! I realized I must have squirted him hard by accident and scared him. I had to squirt flakes in the water and remove the pipette before he would come feed again. I feel like I kicked a puppy! I'm a monster. (He was over it after about a minute, but I still felt awful!)

 

Updates may be more sporadic as I'm going more into maintenance mode with the tank and into active bird-mode for the hawk who's on the way. I'm an apprentice falconer getting my first bird this fall and there's still so much preparing to do, including finishing her outdoor enclosure! I promise to post pics when she gets here. Of course there'll be pics of my possum wrasse if/when I ever find one, too... In the meantime, here is Marius being cute.

 

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Stupid ugly Kenya tree.

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A hawk?!  That's so cool!  Don't feel too bad about scaring puzzle.  One day when he is a she, you might end up doing it on purpose!  I often have to use a turkey baster or tongs to chase my female away so I can actually do things in the tank :lol: 

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3 hours ago, fishfreak0114 said:

A hawk?!  That's so cool!  Don't feel too bad about scaring puzzle.  One day when he is a she, you might end up doing it on purpose!  I often have to use a turkey baster or tongs to chase my female away so I can actually do things in the tank :lol: 

Part of the reason I don't want to get Puzzle a husband. He's my sweet little baby!

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  • Madcat changed the title to Madcat's Fluval Evo 13.5

I had a whole day off and no self-control so I bought two new frags. Arg! In my defense, one of them is a new clove polyp, which I wanted. I have no excuse for the other frag except that it cost $10. I'll post pics when they open up. I took some other pics at the store though! (This time with IDs!)

 

A baby harlequin sweetlips in one of their display tanks! So cute.

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This neon dottyback.... :(

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*grabby*

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A pom-pom crab doing a pom-pom dance! His poms were very hard to see.

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I think this was a high fin goby? They had a tank of them, which I'd never seen there before! But I don't see the fin on this guy so maybe he's something else I took a picture of. (ETA: He's a Wheeler's goby!)

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Creepy-looking little scissortail gobies and a couple different flasher wrasses:

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A bicolour Jeff!!

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The scooter blenny is still there! He was as happy to see me as vice versa.

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I thought again to myself that he looks pretty well-fed. But then I noticed there's a second scooter in with him who's maybe just a little smaller, and that one briefly swam up the glass and gave me a good look at the horseshoe-shaped concavity where a fat tummy should be. :\ It wasn't looking for food as actively as the other one though.

 

The red scooter is also still there:

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YOUARESOCUTE. COME HOME WITH ME. (Rainford goby: "No!") It was like an inch long. I wish I could've got a better pic.

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You can also come home with me, but only if you eat my pods.

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I looked at the freshwater fish too. I think this koi on the left is the prettiest koi I've ever seen.

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African cichlid tank (is a lot nicer than the one at my store):

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A monster tank. There are gar in there and... I got the ID cards in the shot, but it's too dark to make out the names. Sorry! That spotted guy was HUGE, though. (ETA: Water cow goby on the left, jaguar cichlid on the right!)

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Turns out Canada Corals is only 15 min away from Big Al's, so it totally is possible to hit both stores in a day, and that's what I did! I didn't take very many pictures there (they wouldn't really turn out under the lights anyway), but here's a couple.

 

First off, I was looking wistfully at their hairy toadstool frags, and there was one that was just this shapeless mound covered in clove polyp tendrils, with the toadstool shunted off to one side. I was marveling at how ugly this frag was. If someone bought it would they get all that crap on it, too? Would they even want the crap? Only on my second pass did I realize I was looking at a tuxedo urchin with a collection of clove hats. :lol: This was the best pic I could get. Is that not the ugliest frag you've ever seen? :lol:

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Another tuxedo wearing some hats:

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They are so cute, I wish my tank was big enough for one.

 

Lastly, I have no idea what these elephantine hermies are and the sales lady couldn't tell me. But I know I love them.

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Okay, story time. I was really looking for clove polyps, and what I REALLY wanted was peach-tipped clove polyps, which they'd had a few weeks ago. It wasn't on the website anymore but I thought I might as well look. Maybe they had a little dumb baby frag in their bargain bin section? Well, I spotted a whole bunch of peach-tipped cloves right away... all attached to the egg crate in the display tanks, along with xenia which had also spread and attached itself. I asked the sales lady if it was possible to get a frag, but she said no - she'd have to cut them off, and they would need time to recover, and they likely wouldn't survive being cut off and then immediately thrown in a different tank. Fair enough, but I was bummed. :( I looked around a bit longer, and after she'd put together some online orders, she went and looked in the "not for sale" tank where they grow stuff - and found a peach-tipped clove polyp frag for me! Just a little one, so she knocked $5 off the regular price for me and let me take it home. It was really nice of her to find a frag for me AND let me buy it from the not for sale tank. I think she could tell how badly I wanted them, lol. Anyway, a positive customer service experience. :)

 

So, pics of the cloves (and the zoas from Big Al's) to come.

 

Finally, I have to tell you guys the conversation I had at Big Al's. There's an employee there I like dealing with who is often working when I visit. She knew I'd had my heart set on a citron goby (pre-Jeff) and she was just unpackaging a new fish shipment, so she pulled me over to show me the itty little clown gobies they'd just received. My heart! She showed me a couple yellow and green clown gobies and then pulled out a couple really unique, teal-coloured ones she said she'd never seen before. I'm not so into green clowns, they're kind of funny looking to me, but I was admiring the teal babies and I suddenly remembered reading about how green clowns are carnivores who eat amphipods and copepods. There's still a chance NAFB may get possum wrasses this weekend, but would a GCG perhaps do the job? Maybe not quite as well, but enough to put a dent in the population? They're in quarantine for now and won't be available till Thurs at the earliest so I figured I would do some thinking and research. Thoughts? It'd be pretty nice if I could get a clown goby like I had wanted, even if it is a weird-looking green one.

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Thanks! I took another look at the tags and one of the monsters is a water cow, it turns out.

 

Look at all these pretties I got for just $10 (hey, that's cheap in Canada):

 

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They're fuzzy. The rock kind of is too. It was too many to remove with a razor blade, and I've never found anything on my frag plugs from Big Al's, so I just gave it a good blast and scrub.

 

And my clove polyps!

 

IMG_6999.JPG.93b57b9461fe621e3f0ea48454010121.JPG

 

...I have NO idea what the black blob is. Black sun coral came to mind, but it doesn't seem to have an opening...? I'm afraid to remove it, lol.

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I love your LFS pictures!  I want those cichlids :wub: I'm not sure how many pods a GCG who is being fed regularly would eat.  I know when that's the only food option they can eat a decent amount.  That black blobs freaky, I look forward to seeing what it is!

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27 minutes ago, fishfreak0114 said:

I love your LFS pictures!  I want those cichlids :wub: I'm not sure how many pods a GCG who is being fed regularly would eat.  I know when that's the only food option they can eat a decent amount.  That black blobs freaky, I look forward to seeing what it is!

You: "It's freaky, I look forward to seeing what it is!"

My tank:

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Sorry, first image that came to mind. :lol:

 

All the clove polyps are open now and so so pretty with their pink tips. :wub: Now I kind of want regular blue-green octa-leaf clove polyps to go with. Seems there's a coral show nearby this weekend... hm...

 

I think I have a plan vis à vis the GCG. Having thought about it, as cute as the itty babies were, I think my preference would be a possum wrasse. (How 'bout that! My opinion might be different if we were talking about a citron goby eating my pods though.) I would LIKE a clown goby for sure, but I would prefer a fish who will ACTIVELY hunt pods in the tank... and GCGs are still weird looking to me. So here is the plan. NAFB SAID they would probably get possums on Sunday, and then they didn't, and they said probably this Saturday, and my trust in them is now shaky. I KNOW Big Al's has cute little gobies, who are in quarantine, and I know they'll hold livestock for you for up to a day. So maybe I call on Friday, ask if the babies are available and if they can hold one (a cute teal baby perhaps), and on Saturday call NAFB to see if possums have arrived, or if I'm better off picking up my GCG.

 

I've gotten myself all hyped up about this possum! It's probably way more expensive than the goby... and NAFB is an hour's drive away from me, but eh, so was Puzzle. Hopefully it all works out. :)

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2 minutes ago, Lula_Mae said:

Nice pics!  The "pom-pom crab" is actually a gorgeous blue porcelain with its fans out. ;)  Pom pom crabs are teeny and tan and pink-ish.

I thought they were pink! He was labeled as a pom-pom (or at least, there was a tag for pom-poms below the tank), and it was waving its fluffs alternately, so I just figured maybe some pom-poms are blue. Derp. Do you know what the giant hermies are? (I say giant - the shell openings were maybe 2".)

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Just now, Madcat said:

I thought they were pink! He was labeled as a pom-pom (or at least, there was a tag for pom-poms below the tank), and it was waving its fluffs alternately, so I just figured maybe some pom-poms are blue. Derp. Do you know what the giant hermies are? (I say giant - the shell openings were maybe 2".)

Haha there may have been teeny pom pom crabs hiding in a rock crevice or something!  They're so small, the carapace is about the diameter of a U.S. dime.  I do not know about the hermits but I would not put one in my tank lol.

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6 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Haha there may have been teeny pom pom crabs hiding in a rock crevice or something!  They're so small, the carapace is about the diameter of a U.S. dime.  I do not know about the hermits but I would not put one in my tank lol.

No, the lady couldn't ID them but she assured me they are likely NOT reef safe. :lol: Look at that top one though!! He looks like Snuffleupagus with a little feather duster hat... :wub:

 

I just got up and turned on the tank light to see how everything is doing. I had moved the zoa frag lower down on the rock last night where it nestled a bit better. This morning it is absolutely INFESTED with pods. The whole thing is crawling with them. It's disgusting. I'm so mad - partially at myself, but mostly at these FRICKING STUPID PODS. They've left my eagle eyes alone, the other zoas are doing okay up high on the rock. They had me doubting myself. But no. The pods are still here and they're hungry for zoas. I'm NOT crazy! I cannot WAIT to get a wrasse to eat these things. Frag has been de-infested and moved back up high. Hope it's okay there. Grr!!

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29 minutes ago, Madcat said:

No, the lady couldn't ID them but she assured me they are likely NOT reef safe. :lol: Look at that top one though!! He looks like Snuffleupagus with a little feather duster hat... :wub:

 

I just got up and turned on the tank light to see how everything is doing. I had moved the zoa frag lower down on the rock last night where it nestled a bit better. This morning it is absolutely INFESTED with pods. The whole thing is crawling with them. It's disgusting. I'm so mad - partially at myself, but mostly at these FRICKING STUPID PODS. They've left my eagle eyes alone, the other zoas are doing okay up high on the rock. They had me doubting myself. But no. The pods are still here and they're hungry for zoas. I'm NOT crazy! I cannot WAIT to get a wrasse to eat these things. Frag has been de-infested and moved back up high. Hope it's okay there. Grr!!

How much are you feeding?  Sometimes overfeeding can cause spikes in pod populations.  It should settle down, though, hopefully.  Sometimes in new tanks there is a pod population boom and then it dies off a fair bit.  Hope you can keep your frags safe!

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34 minutes ago, Madcat said:

No, the lady couldn't ID them but she assured me they are likely NOT reef safe. :lol: Look at that top one though!! He looks like Snuffleupagus with a little feather duster hat... :wub:

 

I just got up and turned on the tank light to see how everything is doing. I had moved the zoa frag lower down on the rock last night where it nestled a bit better. This morning it is absolutely INFESTED with pods. The whole thing is crawling with them. It's disgusting. I'm so mad - partially at myself, but mostly at these FRICKING STUPID PODS. They've left my eagle eyes alone, the other zoas are doing okay up high on the rock. They had me doubting myself. But no. The pods are still here and they're hungry for zoas. I'm NOT crazy! I cannot WAIT to get a wrasse to eat these things. Frag has been de-infested and moved back up high. Hope it's okay there. Grr!!

could you introduce a mandarin to take care of the pods and rehome i afterwards? 

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3 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

How much are you feeding?  Sometimes overfeeding can cause spikes in pod populations.  It should settle down, though, hopefully.  Sometimes in new tanks there is a pod population boom and then it dies off a fair bit.  Hope you can keep your frags safe!

I don't THINK I feed too much... flakes a few times a week, mysis once a week, Reef Roids once a week. Those are the messy foods and I think Puzzle and Jeff and the inverts take care of the bulk of it. My suspicion is that the pods are breeding in my macro. But I WANT decorative macro in my tank. So I think I need a permanent resident who'll cut back the population as needed.

 

3 hours ago, Lugmos12 said:

could you introduce a mandarin to take care of the pods and rehome i afterwards? 

I'm not sure a mandarin could take care of the bigger pods. Mind you, the biggest ones are only around 1mm, but mandarins have pretty tiny mouths. I'd rather not risk it.

 

Just turned on the light for the day and the frag is still infested. Hopefully the light scares them all away and they don't come back. :'(

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20 hours ago, Madcat said:

Thanks! I took another look at the tags and one of the monsters is a water cow, it turns out.

 

Look at all these pretties I got for just $10 (hey, that's cheap in Canada):

 

IMG_7002.JPG.0a55f9a4e3c7ff26bb5c5905f168d253.JPG

 

They're fuzzy. The rock kind of is too. It was too many to remove with a razor blade, and I've never found anything on my frag plugs from Big Al's, so I just gave it a good blast and scrub.

 

And my clove polyps!

 

IMG_6999.JPG.93b57b9461fe621e3f0ea48454010121.JPG

 

...I have NO idea what the black blob is. Black sun coral came to mind, but it doesn't seem to have an opening...? I'm afraid to remove it, lol.

The black blob looks like a sponge of some sort to me.

15 hours ago, Madcat said:

I thought they were pink! He was labeled as a pom-pom (or at least, there was a tag for pom-poms below the tank), and it was waving its fluffs alternately, so I just figured maybe some pom-poms are blue. Derp. Do you know what the giant hermies are? (I say giant - the shell openings were maybe 2".)

Those giant hermits are life takers and heart breakers, stay away from them unless you have a big tank with mean fish, you have been warned!!

 

You'd be surprised at the size of food particle a Mandarin or Scooter blenny can eat.

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So last week I told my LFS about my TSB dying because it just didn't eat. He told me he was gonna keep an eye on their new tailspots and let me know if one was eating properly. Well he texted me and he's got one TSB eating like a pig and not shy at all:D he's keeping it for me and i'm gonna pick it up tomorrow!!! Sooo excited!!!

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5 hours ago, StinkyBunny said:

The black blob looks like a sponge of some sort to me.

Those giant hermits are life takers and heart breakers, stay away from them unless you have a big tank with mean fish, you have been warned!!

 

You'd be surprised at the size of food particle a Mandarin or Scooter blenny can eat.

Interesting. Probably still not recommended though, huh? Of course I'd LIKE a mandarin or a scooter, but I'd also like to be a responsible fish-keeper...

 

1 hour ago, Melfy77 said:

So last week I told my LFS about my TSB dying because it just didn't eat. He told me he was gonna keep an eye on their new tailspots and let me know if one was eating properly. Well he texted me and he's got one TSB eating like a pig and not shy at all:D he's keeping it for me and i'm gonna pick it up tomorrow!!! Sooo excited!!!

That's awesome! I'm surprised that's a common thing with them, Jeff has always at least picked at his food if not pigged out on it. I did try a few different things with him, and he'll reliably eat seaweed and flakes for me now, but originally he only went after mysis with any regularity, so I just made an effort to feed him mysis a few times a week till he settled in. Try a variety of foods for best success - supposedly Jeff was eating pellets at the store, but he still rejects mine.

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

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