Lula Mae's Sooper Sekret, just for fun, experimental GSP garden

[GunslingerGirl]

Yay! Money back!

[WV Reefer]

13 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Ya'll, I just got off the phone with Live Aquaria.  Not only did she refund me for the blenny, she was perfectly happy to extend the warranty on and refund me for the sponge and the gorgs since they have not done well!   Thanks LA!

That is the really good thing about LA..... they usually take care of you in one way or the other.   

[Lula_Mae]

1 hour ago, WV Reefer said:

That is the really good thing about LA..... they usually take care of you in one way or the other.   

Yeah I told her, this is why I keep coming back to ya'll!

[gena]

21 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Ya'll, I just got off the phone with Live Aquaria.  Not only did she refund me for the blenny, she was perfectly happy to extend the warranty on and refund me for the sponge and the gorgs since they have not done well!   Thanks LA!

That's fantastic!

[Lula_Mae]

48 minutes ago, gena said:

That's fantastic!

It is!  And the best part is that the Hicksomella gorg looks like it is getting a a little bit of flesh starting to cover where it lost it!  The branching tip is not bare anymore, hooray!

[GunslingerGirl]

Go hick go! Oh wait... that sounds wrong lol

[gena]

22 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

It is!  And the best part is that the Hicksomella gorg looks like it is getting a a little bit of flesh starting to cover where it lost it!  The branching tip is not bare anymore, hooray!

Yay

[thespinningsadhu]

checking in. missing you. hi. 

[cfaye@Delaware]

I had one bad experience with BlueZooAquatics my first order from them, It was terrible, I will never go back. I wrote reviews everywhere, their ratings so far are 3 stars. Just a heads up, they give store credit and you pay shipping and handling again. Maybe you will have better luck. 

[Lula_Mae]

11 hours ago, thespinningsadhu said:

checking in. missing you. hi. 

Hey Jag!  Was wondering where you've been, have been working last couple nights so haven't been on here much lol.  Replied on your thread, hope you're doing well!

 

11 hours ago, cfaye@Delaware said:

I had one bad experience with BlueZooAquatics my first order from them, It was terrible, I will never go back. I wrote reviews everywhere, their ratings so far are 3 stars. Just a heads up, they give store credit and you pay shipping and handling again. Maybe you will have better luck. 

What happened with your order from them?

 

[cfaye@Delaware]

Well, all I ordered was one fish, a Yellow Watchman Goby. The fish looked very healthy, very nice looking fish. Clean water but fish was DOA. Looked like it had died with in just a couple of hours before arrival. I feel that there was no air space in bag, it was just about full to the top, fish just ran out of air and the ice pack was still cool and the fish was packed well. No tissue decay, no nothing.....plus shipped in half black bag, I hate them bags. So I sent email and pictures ASAP, you only get 1 hr to file your complaint from arrival time. Plus I called customer service, no I'm sorry for your loss no remorse, no nothing, just did you send email and pics, then tells me how long it takes to review claim in a matter of fact voice. No feeling no nothing. It took 3 weeks for them to approve the claim got store credit, wasted my money.....they did send I'm sorry email, and yes I email them once a week. Good luck if you use them.....LA I have been very lucky with not DD, Have not tried them. 

I have had plants come in with more air space than what that fish had and I have been ordering fish online for a few years.......

[thespinningsadhu]

lula me and you know how LADD takes care of you. it’s sad but true. between the two of us we may bankrupt them. today’s delivery was the first that i’ve had with nothing wrong. 

[Lula_Mae]

6 hours ago, thespinningsadhu said:

lula me and you know how LADD takes care of you. it’s sad but true. between the two of us we may bankrupt them. today’s delivery was the first that i’ve had with nothing wrong. 

That's good to hear!  What did you get in today?  They had GBG's and I was tempted but decided to try to do a clownfish locally first since I've had such bad luck lol. 

 

[Felicia]

Glad to hear the LA has good customer service.  That's great that they gave you a refund without any issues!

[Lula_Mae]

13 minutes ago, Felicia said:

Glad to hear the LA has good customer service.  That's great that they gave you a refund without any issues!

Yeah, they are pretty good about it, which I appreciate.  Now if only their order packers could do as stellar a job as their reps!

[Subsea]

On 8/17/2017 at 12:32 PM, Lula_Mae said:

Some of you know I've made reference to a project I've been pulling together and jokingly referred to it as my "sooper sekret project," even though it was only secret because I hadn't gotten around to doing the writeup!  The idea for this came from an offhand comment I made on Seafurn's 100 Days of Nanos contest tank thread. 

It received so many likes that I started to think, hey, maybe I should really do this! and I started to think about how to make it happen.  Once I moved into the apartment and had a little space to work with, I started pulling pieces together.  I'd had some rock cycling in an old tank for a while so I pulled out some pieces and put them in a little tank I got after seeing another member pick it up--I loved the shape and have been thinking about a larger tank that is round and wanted to make sure I like the shape before I pull the trigger on it as it's kinda ! 

 

For this tank, I want to experiment with focusing on one type of oft-overlooked coral that many consider a pest.  I am hoping to showcase some of the variety of GSP that is out there--colors, textures, shapes, etc.  I don't expect to keep it up for years and years but it will be a nice little tank to play around with while I gather stuff for a larger build. 

 

Equipment:

3 gallon half-moon Elive tank from Petsmart

Tetra heater 50w

7w Reef Radiance bulb (the purple one from my other tank lol--it will likely be upgraded to the one on my 5.5 once I get a replacement for that).

Tahitian moon sand

black airline with Tetra Whisper air pump for circulation

 

I'm going to try with just airline, treating it like a reef vase or bowl, and see how it does; if it's not enough I'll add a HOB or powerhead.

 

Current livestock:

red photosynthetic plating sponge

Grube's gorgonian

Hicksomella sp. purple gorgonian

yellow dwarf feather duster

scarlet hermit crab shell (I am pretty sure Live Aquaria sent me an empty shell...)

 

I have some stuff arriving today from @Weetabix7 and @schgr.cube that will be going in here as well!

 

Future livestock plans:

GSP (duh)

gorgonian species

macroalgaes

leathers

more feather dusters

a live scarlet hermit...

porcelain crab

sexy shrimp (intend to avoid corals in here that they will munch on)

bimaculatus blenny

 

Here's a shot of the gorgs and sponge (don't mind the ugly AquaClear sponge, it's in here till the blenny comes and will be used for filtration in the quarantine lol):

 

And the feather duster while acclimating:

 

I thought I had a FTS but I dunno what happened to it. I'll take another once stuff is in later.

 

So there you have it!  My sooper sekret project is secret no more!

 

Kudos to you.  Thank you for lifting up an easy to take care of soft coral that is gorgerous.  While there are many color variations, I have a brilliant lime green that has completly covered the back wall of my 75G mixed garden.  No cleaning the black glass.  Just GSP undulating in the current.  Reefing does not have to be complicated to maintain a beautiful mixed garden tank.  Newbies should be inspired by this tank build.  

[Lula_Mae]

On 9/24/2017 at 9:42 AM, Subsea said:

 

Kudos to you.  Thank you for lifting up an easy to take care of soft coral that is gorgerous.  While there are many color variations, I have a brilliant lime green that has completly covered the back wall of my 75G mixed garden.  No cleaning the black glass.  Just GSP undulating in the current.  Reefing does not have to be complicated to maintain a beautiful mixed garden tank.  Newbies should be inspired by this tank build.  

Thanks for the kind words.  I started this tank as a fun experiment to highlight a "weedy" coral that can be overlooked, and sadly the tank quickly turned into a major source of stress for me.  With the announcement of the pico contest, and knowing I wanted to participate, and knowing that I want to set up a larger tank in the near future, I made the tough decision to retire this build for now.  I love the concept of this tank and want to continue the theme either in my jar or in my larger build, but I just don't have the time or energy to maintain four salt tanks, plus the quarantine and my freshwater tank.  I hope all of you will follow along on my "Jarden's" journey in the contest and hopefully beyond!  Thanks for being part of this, it was fun while it lasted!

Final FTS:

 

(Most of this is now in the Jarden)