Dr. Felicia's Back to Basics IM14 - Retired 2/25/2020

[Nano sapiens]

32 minutes ago, Legendary Corals said:

I know you asked me to show you a photo when I took one, so here it is. It might be a kenya tree? It's definitely not a carnation coral, it's been alive and growing too well to be one lol.

 

Quite possibly Lemnalia...

 

http://homelygarden.com/img/coral_lemnalia_cauliflower_52_185.jpg

 

Photosynthetic, but being part of the Nephtheidae complex of species, should be regularly fed for long term maintenance.

[Subsea]

On 10/19/2017 at 1:30 AM, Felicia said:

Thank you!  I have a weakness for the softies and gorgonians.  You have such a lovely mix in your tank!

I bet that was an exciting job.  Uni is pretty gross looking but surprising tasty as sashimi and in sushi.  

Thank you!  The gorgs seem really happy so far.  I've been thrilled with how puffy they are.  Yeah, "superman shrimp" is about right!  They're long front arms are so funny and they sure do go flying around.  Mine is a ham and owns the whole front center portion of the tank.  You got a new porcelain crab?  How exciting!  They're so cool!  I just love the fascinating little inverts.

Thank you!  The Pederson's is a hoot!  The St. Thomas so far is touching one ricordea and not bothering it.  I'm hoping it won't get too big and shade any of them.  8" across is HUGE!  I had a couple in my seahorse tank that stayed reasonably small, so maybe there are different varieties?  Hopefully this one won't get that large.  Its super bubbly and I love the colors on it!  Also the Pederson's shrimp and the pom pom crab seem to think its an awesome spot to hang out.

 

I was worried I'd be out of room and get bored quickly with this tank, but I had forgotten how much I love watching small inverts.  I can sit and watch them for ages!  I spent a good amount of time this evening watching the pom pom crab do his thing and it made me so happy!  Video to come shortly.   In terms of space I'll just have to take a page out of your book and spend time fragging, rearranging, and removing some things to add new things over time.

Thank you!  I do all my photography with my iPhone, so not sure there's much skill involved so much as good technology.   I'm not as much for the bright neon/fluorescent color pops, but instead I like the more muted colors combined with a mix of different textures.  That colt/leather coral is a wonderful example.  Its not fluorescent at all, but I love its subtle color and the fuzzy texture.

 

Its too bad ballroom dancing isn't as popular anymore.  I have taken a few ballroom dancing lessons over the years, but never got very good at it.

 

 

 

 

The pom pom crab was sure out and about this evening!  I was having blast watching him wander all around the tank waving his anemones.  I took some quick video clips for you guys and put together a short video.

 

 

I love it.   The music was perfect.  

 

I seek a similar theme that I envision as a mixed garden lagoon with sponges, filter feeders of all kinds.  Definitely interested in NPS, perhaps some deep water gorgonions.

[Felicia]

On 10/19/2017 at 5:43 AM, Subsea said:

I love ease dropping on this thread.  So many different artistic ideas.  Much food for thought and much humor.

 

I remember the first MAST conference that I went to.   It was in Dallas, Tx.  Anthony Calfo,  Julian Sprung and Erick Boreneman were some of the guest speakers that I was interested in.  I had just read Anthony Calfo’s book “How to Grow Corals in a Greenhouse” and I was pumped up.  Living on 20 acres, I had room for greenhouses.  I had already built a surprise birthday present for a friend.  A 30’ by 50’ arched dome greenhouse, that stood up to 100 mph winds from Hurricane Rita.  Anthony and I exchanged emails prior to the conference.   The conference was held near a large speedway track for race car enthusiast.  We were the only building in 10 miles beside the race track.  Don’t ask me what year.  I graduated from high school in 1966.  I am surprised that I remember that.  While drinking morning coffee on the second day there, One of the servers commented how friendly and jovial of an athmosphere the reefers had brought to there convention hotel.  Some few minutes later, Julian Sprung sat down at a table next to me.  As he was sitting alone, I asked if I could join him and was amazed to hear certainly.  What a groupie I was.  We talked and laughed for an hour.  I soaked up a lot of knowledge and had much fun.  He clarified something for me.  I was a caretaker for a 29G reef tank on the Discoverer Seaver Seas, a dynamically positioned drillship owned by Transocean.  In working with the maintenance supervisor, we piped seawater into this tank to flow 24/7.  Being the deep water pacesetter, we were always in deep blue water that constituted “The Gulf Stream”.  The tank was placed in the galley on an end where few people sat.  As this tank matured, it became a central morale builder for the crew.  It became quite a show piece, one of the nicest invert tanks that I have ever had.  I got some Shell company representative of the environmental engineering department interested in doing a public relations video to demonstrate our environmental footprint.  Unfortunately, we went to work for another company, but worse than that, the tank crashed after two years.  A friend from Oceaneering, collected a crab from 3000’ and put into tank.  While I was not there, I was told it happened in just a few overnight hours.   After telling the story to Julian, he informed me that deep water bottom dwellers had high levels of copper.  Mystery solved.

 

I have always enjoyed and been amazed with nature.   Working at sea was a unique time in my life.  I enjoyed the comradary of crew mates and the beauty of many a sunrise and sunset.  Some of the deep water sailors that I worked with had an old saying, “Red sky at night, sailors delight, Red sky in morning, sailer take warning”.   When Hurricane Ritta formed in the Gulf of Mexico, the morning we evacuated a Noble Drilling semi-submersible, I saw the most spectacular sunrise, that changed to a red glow.  It was very foreboding.  As things turned out, a Category 5 hurricane eyewall captured our drilling rig.  All eight anchors were broken.  Each anchor at 50 tons with 5000’ of chain of which each link weighed 200lbs.  With this rig Noble had allowed the USCG to monitor our transponder data as well as wind speeds.  At 200 mph, the wind gauge broke, but transponder kept working.  In Washington, the Coast Guard followed our rigs path across 200 miles thru gas production platforms to be beached off the coast of Cameron, La.  For me, the excitement continued.  Instead of going to a hotel to stand by with the rest of the crew, I drove home to DeRidder, La.  The eyewall of Rita came over my 20 acres, with 200 year old hard wood trees falling different directions when wind changed direction.

 

While working offshore, most days were not like that.   I really enjoyed the tranquility of a sunset at sea.   One evening, as the sun was in it’s last hour.   On the main deck, we were at most 10’ above the water.  Often I would see patches of Sargassum Seaweed float by, I recall netting some interesting fish and shrimp to go into the tank.  I have always been amazed at how nature manifest itself.  One day toward the end of a 14 day work hitch, I observed numerous Portuguese Men of War floating by.  The top portion of these small “men of war” was blue and then translucent at the base.  They all seem to be floating together, then one drifted further off.  To my amazement, he lifted a purple sail and moved back to the “men of war” school.  Once together, the whole school lifted their sails simultaneously.  What was that all about?   These jelly fish had a common conscienness.   

 

Sometimes, I ramble.

You have so many wonderful stories!  That is so cool that you had a reef tank on a ship.  I bet that was fun to maintain and helped keep you occupied when out at sea for long periods.  I'm sure the crew loved it!  The ocean is such an amazing, fascinating thing.  I bet it was wonderful to be able to live and work out at sea.   Thank you for sharing your stories!

On 10/19/2017 at 1:25 PM, gena said:

Best pompom crab video ever

 

Seriously loved it.  I like that music...is that free music?  It goes so perfectly with the crabbie antics.

Thank you, Gena!  I was really excited to see the pom pom out walking around to be able to get a good video like that.  She wasn't fazed one bit by me being up in her face with the camera.  She was out walking about last night too and I just saw her a bit ago as well.  I think this is the most sociable pom pom crab I've ever seen!  I really cannot get over watching my tiny inverts and I'm loving the small tank since they don't get lost in there and I can actually see them!  I'm really loving this tank right now.  

 

And yep, that is free music.  Since I was just making a short video, I just used one of the free jingles that comes with iMovie on my Macbook.  I thought it was fun and fit with the crabs antics.  Glad you think so too!  I really missed making aquarium videos!  Its so fun!

On 10/20/2017 at 9:33 AM, Legendary Corals said:

I know you asked me to show you a photo when I took one, so here it is. It might be a kenya tree? It's definitely not a carnation coral, it's been alive and growing too well to be one lol.

 

Oh my goodness!    That is stunning!  Thank you so much for sharing the photo...I need this for my unique softies collection...  Looks like it could definitely be a capnella species.  Kenya tree is a capnella, but there are a bunch of species and some have some really nice colors.  I got a green capnella from Pacific East Aquaculture that has a polyp structure a bit like this.  For being a fan of softies, I am so bad at ID'ing a bunch of the leathers.  Sinularia, nepthea, colt corals, capnella, etc can all start looking very similar.  You have some serious photography skill by the way!

 

Everything I got from RAP from you all is doing WONDERFULLY.  I'm loving all the zoas I got from you all.  I need to get them off my frag rack and glued on the rocks and then get up some photos.  Also the weeping willow toadstool is doing awesome!  Its adjusted to my lighting now and its green base is back.  Under my white lighting, its got a mint green base and then pastel pink tips.  Its definitely a centerpiece in there among the gorgonians.

On 10/20/2017 at 9:59 AM, ThePaontedFrogfish said:

Those videos were so awesome  I really miss having a pom pom crab, I got mine when I had my old BC29, saw him periodically and then he disappeared only to reappear 4 months later... weird inverts for sure, but they're so pretty 

Thank you!  I'm glad you enjoyed the videos.  I enjoy making them and sharing them.    I had forgotten how much I'd enjoyed having the tiny inverts.  They can be a bit cryptic, but when you do get to see them, they're so fun to watch.  Pom pom crabs are especially weight, but definitely gorgeous!  

On 10/20/2017 at 10:02 AM, Nano sapiens said:

Quite possibly Lemnalia...

 

http://homelygarden.com/img/coral_lemnalia_cauliflower_52_185.jpg

 

Photosynthetic, but being part of the Nephtheidae complex of species, should be regularly fed for long term maintenance.

That photo looks very close as well!  Thanks for finding that!  I am so bad at ID'ing softies.  As long as they're mostly photosynthetic and just need the occasional feeding, then I can handle that.  Granted, I never fed my neon green nepthea that was in the predator tank.  It grew like a beast, but I think that tank was always just so insanely nutrient heavy that it never needed feeding.  In this little tank, I'm feeding the corals/inverts every couple days with either phytofeast, oysterfeast, or Reef Roids (free sample from RAP).  Just very light feeding since this is a small tank.

5 hours ago, Subsea said:

I love it.   The music was perfect.  

 

I seek a similar theme that I envision as a mixed garden lagoon with sponges, filter feeders of all kinds.  Definitely interested in NPS, perhaps some deep water gorgonions.

Thank you!  Glad you enjoyed it!  Love the flame scallop!  I don't have the dedication to keep up with the amount of feeding and then water changes needed for NPS and filter feeders.  I love admiring NPS tanks though!  They're such a fascinating and different take on the coral reef aquarium.  Love the polyps and leather in this photo too!

[Felicia]

Tank Updates

 

1. The tank is two months old today! 
2. Sorry for being a bit MIA this week!  Work was a bit hectic.  I'm a consultant so it can really vary a lot week to week in terms of how busy I am.  That's why having a tank that needs a ton of regular maintenance just isn't working for me anymore.  I haven't touched this tank for like 1.5 weeks besides feeding and a glass scraping today and its doing wonderful.
3. I have not yet glued down all the new frags like I intended.  I'm really hoping to do that tomorrow and get the frag rack out of the tank.
4. I did get all the ricordea glued down, but one of the orange ones from KPA must not have liked the spot and walked down onto the sand.  It looked happy, so I left it there.  Then it vanished.  I really think the pistol shrimp is dragging them down into his burrow or something if they're loose on the sand.  Annoying, but luckily I still have plenty of ricordea.  I have two orange, two blue, and five green ones.  I'm just a little green heavy. 
5. All fish, inverts, and corals are doing well!  The purple ribbon gorg shed again and the weeping willow was closed up for a few days shedding, but now has its polyps out again.  The zoas I've had for a bit are starting to put out new polyps.  The rastas have put out like 3 or 4 new polyps recently.  All the softies seem to be growing, which is wonderful.  All the gorgonians are nice and fluffy every day.  Really I can't complain!
6. Tomorrow I'm planning to give the tank some TLC.  I'm hoping to spend a bunch of time gluing down the frags and then after I make a mess doing that, I'll do a big water change.  I also plan to siphon out the back chambers and replace the ChemiPure Blue and Purigen tomorrow.

 

Just a couple quick very blue photos I snapped the other night.

 

 

[pappadumplingz]

Great pics! Seen some of the vids on youtube, but since I haven't been on NR in a while, this is my first real look at the new tank. 

[Felicia]

1 minute ago, pappadumplingz said:

Great pics! Seen some of the vids on youtube, but since I haven't been on NR in a while, this is my first real look at the new tank. 

Thank you!  Youtube is nice to host the videos, but you can't put up all the details and information that you can put on a forum.  Thanks for stopping by! 

[Felicia]

Tank Updates

 

1. I actually stuck to my plan and finally glued down all the frags today.  Wow is it weird looking to see the nice open sand bed after being used to having tons of frags all over the sand.   It was quite the undertaking getting everything in place because there were like 13 frags that needed to be glued/epoxied.  All of the frags were on frag plugs and very few could be removed from the plugs because they were growing attached to the plugs.  I hate seeing plugs, so I spent a lot of time with bone cutters trimming down the plugs as small as possible and trying to make them look more like rubble rock and less like perfectly shaped discs.  The frag rack is now out of the tank!
2. Of course everything is PO'ed from the gluing ordeal, but other than one zoa polyp that I accidentally got super glue on, everything appears to be fine.  Hopefully tomorrow, everything will be open and happy again.
3. After I made a giant mess glueing down corals, I did a 4 gallon water change.  I siphoned out all the back chambers and also replaced the ChemiPure Blue and Purigen in the media rack.  I'm enjoying how quickly I can do full maintenance on this tank since there isn't a ton of equipment to mess with such as a skimmer or media reactor.  Its so wonderfully quick and simple!
4. Cat hair is the worst when it comes to tanks!  When my hands are damp from working in the tank, cat hair sticks to them like crazy and then I end up adding a bunch of cat hair to the tank.  After my hands have been in the tank a bunch, it always takes a few days to filter out all the cat hair.  
5. Photos to come as soon as everything is happy again after the gluing ordeal!

[Felicia]

Tank Updates

 

Sorry, no new photos yet!  I've had a few minor tank issues.  Everything was pretty mad after the crazy re-arranging gluing I did this past weekend.  Everything was finally starting to perk up and then yesterday we had a crazy heat wave that I wasn't expecting.  I wasn't paying attention to the weather because its been nice cool, autumn weather here and I assumed the end of summer heat waves were done.  It got into the high 80's yesterday and I don't have AC and I didn't leave any fans running.  I got home and the tank was 83.8 F.  Everything looked really pissy, but alive.  I got the temp down to 81 over the next few hours and everything seems to be fine.  I'm not predicting any lasting harm, but everything is just very irked and not fully puffed up and a lot of things aren't open.  Its supposed to be hot the rest of the week, but now I have a fan blowing right across the surface of the tank.

[Felicia]

Tank Updates

 

1. Everything is looking happy again following the glueing/epoxying and then the heat.
2. I haven't had time to do much with the tank this week, but it all seems to be doing well.
3. I've got some diatoms on the sandbed, which isn't surprising considering this tank is really new.
4. I got some of the newly released PE Flakes this week.  I've always been a huge fan of PE mysis and I jumped on buying some of the PE Pellets at MACNA last year when they were released.  I've been feeding the new aquarium PE Pellets and Ocean Nutrition Formula One flakes, so I figured I'd add some PE Flakes to the mix.  The fish and inverts seem to really like the new flakes!  I've been feeding this aquarium pellets and/or flakes every day and then every couple days I've been adding in either some Phytofeast, Oysterfeast, or Reef Roids.

 

I also took some quick and dirty new photos last night!  Please ignore the diatoms on the sand bed.  

 

FTS October 27, 2017

 

I finally got all the new zoas and palys from RAP placed.  Here are the King Midas zoas, Cornbread Rainbow Infusion palys, and Purple People Eater palys by the long polyp toadstool from Pacific East Aquaculture.

 

Closeup of the King Midas zoas, Cornbread Rainbow Infusion palys, and Purple People Eater palys.

 

Closeup of the long polyp toadstool and you can also see the radioactive dragon eyes and unknown zoas I got from my LFS a while back.

 

Here are the other new zoas over on the other side of the tank.  They're partially closed because the shrimp was stepping on them, but this rock has the new bam bam, goblins on fire, and blondies zoas from RAP.  The eagle eye and rasta zoas I got from my LFS a while back are also on this rock.

 

Cespitularia and neon green toadstool from Pacific East Aquaculture between the gorgonians.

 

Cleaner shrimp and a bunch of the gorgonians.  The green capnella (kenya tree) from Pacific East Aquaculture is somewhat hidden between the gorgonians.

 

The weeping willow toadstool from Legendary Corals plus the finger leather, blue photosynthetic sponge, and St. Thomas mushroom from Pacific East Aquaculture.

 

The yellow sea whip and purple sea feather gorgonians.

 

The Pederson's anemone shrimp on the Florida ricordea garden.

 

The porcelain crab using his filtering arms to grab food.

 

The yellow watchman goby being his normal grumpy self.

 

 

 

[Felicia]

And here's a new video of all the activity in the tank at feeding time!  I had just fed some of the new PE Mysis flakes and a couple drops of Oyster Feast.  Make sure you change the quality to 1080p!

 

 

[gena]

Everything looks great!!!!!   That weeping willow toadstool is my favorite .

[Subsea]

I so much enjoy your photography and the beautiful inhabitants in your tank, each with a different personality.  Going from the micro to the macro, I love your focus on gorgonians and how they add vertical depth without stacking up rock that impedes vision & flow.  I am in the evolving stage of aquascaping two different 55G setups that I use as growout tanks.  I will use pieces from these two tanks as well as 60 lbs of diver collected rock from 30’ of water offshore Tampa Bay.  

 

I like lagoon biothemes that are mixed gardens as yours and then some look alike oar grass, Caulerpa Prolifera.  Red macro bushes  of Red Grapes, Gracilaria Hayi and Dragons Tongue contrast with Green Grapes round out the macro.   Green Grapes make a nice snap straight from the tank.  Too salty for me unless I have a Shiner Bock.  A quick snack dip for grape caulerpa.  Use 1 bowl of ice water and allow seaweed to chill for 2 minutes.  Remove and allow to drain for 30 seconds.  Add to second bowl what suites your taste.  I start with sesame seed oil, sweet rice cooking wine, soy sauce and lime juice.  Then add seaweed to bowl and enjoy.   Now, back to my lagoon biotheme. Then add  softies, lps and numerous filter feeders is my vision.  I have been especially inspired in the way in which you use the graceful fans  of gorgonians to compliment your tank.  Very nicely done, it is hypnotic.  Maybe, that is wher Felix gets it from, “hypnotic”.  I think my first NPS will be some deep water gorgonians from the Caribbean.  I want 90 more days of aging on cryptic zone filter.

 

I received five different gorgonions two weeks ago.  Only two made it, but not thriving.

[Felicia]

Halloween party time!

[teenyreef]

Just got caught up, I can't believe how beautiful the tank is after only a couple of months! I love the way the gorgs transformed the look of the tank literally overnight. 

 

PS: great costumes! 

[Felicia]

On 10/28/2017 at 12:47 PM, gena said:

Everything looks great!!!!!   That weeping willow toadstool is my favorite .

Thank you, Gena!   I love the weeping willow toadstool!  It just get puffier every day.  Its looking extra awesome this evening.  

On 10/28/2017 at 1:53 PM, Subsea said:

I so much enjoy your photography and the beautiful inhabitants in your tank, each with a different personality.  Going from the micro to the macro, I love your focus on gorgonians and how they add vertical depth without stacking up rock that impedes vision & flow.  I am in the evolving stage of aquascaping two different 55G setups that I use as growout tanks.  I will use pieces from these two tanks as well as 60 lbs of diver collected rock from 30’ of water offshore Tampa Bay.  

 

I like lagoon biothemes that are mixed gardens as yours and then some look alike oar grass, Caulerpa Prolifera.  Red macro bushes  of Red Grapes, Gracilaria Hayi and Dragons Tongue contrast with Green Grapes round out the macro.   Green Grapes make a nice snap straight from the tank.  Too salty for me unless I have a Shiner Bock.  A quick snack dip for grape caulerpa.  Use 1 bowl of ice water and allow seaweed to chill for 2 minutes.  Remove and allow to drain for 30 seconds.  Add to second bowl what suites your taste.  I start with sesame seed oil, sweet rice cooking wine, soy sauce and lime juice.  Then add seaweed to bowl and enjoy.   Now, back to my lagoon biotheme. Then add  softies, lps and numerous filter feeders is my vision.  I have been especially inspired in the way in which you use the graceful fans  of gorgonians to compliment your tank.  Very nicely done, it is hypnotic.  Maybe, that is wher Felix gets it from, “hypnotic”.  I think my first NPS will be some deep water gorgonians from the Caribbean.  I want 90 more days of aging on cryptic zone filter.

 

I received five different gorgonions two weeks ago.  Only two made it, but not thriving.

Thank you!  I just use my iPhone 7 for photography, so nothing special.    I also love to eat seaweed.  Seaweed salads and miso soup are some of my favorites, and I also love to eat roasted nori with wasabi.  I actually went on a guided kayaking tour through the sea caves along the Mendocino coast earlier this year and the guide was pulling kelp and other seaweeds out of the water and having everyone taste them.  They have such a delicious, salty crunchiness.

 

Sorry to hear your new gorgonians aren't doing well!  Where did you get them?  The ones I've gotten from KP Aquatics have always been super healthy.  I also was very happy with the ones I got from Gulf Coast Ecosystems (live-plants.com) recently.  Starting with healthy ones from the get-go definitely helps with long term success.  Once they start losing a bunch of flesh, it can be hard to stop and get them to recover.  Also, what kind of lighting are you using and what is the flow like where you placed the gorgonians?  From my experience, they need at least moderate lighting and moderate to high flow to really thrive.  If the flow is too low, they won't put their polyps out, will not be able to shed, and grow algae on their flesh which eventually kills them.

10 hours ago, teenyreef said:

Just got caught up, I can't believe how beautiful the tank is after only a couple of months! I love the way the gorgs transformed the look of the tank literally overnight. 

 

PS: great costumes! 

Thank you, Teeny!  Its still definitely in the new tank phase, so I keep expecting issues, but so far so good.  Right now I've just got a bunch of diatoms on the sand bed, but those don't worry/bother me.  I'm glad you like the gorgonians!  They really do make such an impact on the look of a tank.

 

Thank you!  We were dressed as the Sanderson sisters from the movie Hocus Pocus (1993).  I'm in the center of the photo, dressed as Winifred Sanderson who was played by Bette Midler.  Here's a photo from the movie for comparison:

 

We went to a charity part in San Francisco that we go to every year.  Its hosted by a doctor in his mansion in Bernal Heights.  You pay a donation (that benefits the children's hospital) to get in and then there is catered food, an open bar, performers, and live bands.  Its really fun and there are always a ton of people in really elaborate and creative costumes.  We met up with a bunch of friends, but four of us did the matching Hocus Pocus costumes.  Me and two friends were the witches and then another friend was Binx, the black cat.

 

 

 

 

For the Lily fans, photos of Lily in her Halloween costume will be posted on Halloween.  

[Subsea]

I got these gorgonians from GCE.  Shipping takes three days for me.  I attribute the problem to that.  Circulation is very robust at 2000GPHr in a 75G tank.  I have 500W of led bars at 12,000 kelvin.  If this tank needs more light for these gorgonions, I will move them somewhere else.  My focus on this tank will be filter feeders which for many means lower light.  I am shortly starting up a 120G lagoon display.  I planned on intense lighting on left side of tank diminishing to no light over the last foot on the right side.

 

Does KP Aquatics ship next day air.  Also do they have non photosynthetic gorgonians?

 

Felica,

We should start a fad.  “Nutrient export for us means eating seaweed from our tanks.”  Once while posting on a hobbiest forum, I mentioned eating Red Ogo, Gracilaria Parvispora, from my refugium.  A chef in Kansa City asked me how I cleaned the Ogo of pods and things.  I said sushi.  I heard him laugh from Kansa City.

[Ebn]

10 hours ago, Felicia said:

I actually went on a guided kayaking tour through the sea caves along the Mendocino coast earlier this year and the guide was pulling kelp and other seaweeds out of the water and having everyone taste them.  They have such a delicious, salty crunchiness.

 

Hey, what was the guided kayaking tour that you used up in Mendocino called? This sounds amazing. 

[Lula_Mae]

On 10/20/2017 at 12:33 PM, Legendary Corals said:

I know you asked me to show you a photo when I took one, so here it is. It might be a kenya tree? It's definitely not a carnation coral, it's been alive and growing too well to be one lol.

 

 

On 10/20/2017 at 12:59 PM, ThePaontedFrogfish said:

Those videos were so awesome  I really miss having a pom pom crab, I got mine when I had my old BC29, saw him periodically and then he disappeared only to reappear 4 months later... weird inverts for sure, but they're so pretty 

In my experience, they are almost all very reclusive.  I wouldn't know mine in the 5.5 was still alive if I hadn't ticked him off a few weeks ago pulling his rock out to peroxide it lol.  Hope he survived the recent gorg problems...

 

On 10/21/2017 at 8:11 PM, Felicia said:

Tank Updates

 

1. The tank is two months old today! 
2. Sorry for being a bit MIA this week!  Work was a bit hectic.  I'm a consultant so it can really vary a lot week to week in terms of how busy I am.  That's why having a tank that needs a ton of regular maintenance just isn't working for me anymore.  I haven't touched this tank for like 1.5 weeks besides feeding and a glass scraping today and its doing wonderful.
3. I have not yet glued down all the new frags like I intended.  I'm really hoping to do that tomorrow and get the frag rack out of the tank.
4. I did get all the ricordea glued down, but one of the orange ones from KPA must not have liked the spot and walked down onto the sand.  It looked happy, so I left it there.  Then it vanished.  I really think the pistol shrimp is dragging them down into his burrow or something if they're loose on the sand.  Annoying, but luckily I still have plenty of ricordea.  I have two orange, two blue, and five green ones.  I'm just a little green heavy. 
5. All fish, inverts, and corals are doing well!  The purple ribbon gorg shed again and the weeping willow was closed up for a few days shedding, but now has its polyps out again.  The zoas I've had for a bit are starting to put out new polyps.  The rastas have put out like 3 or 4 new polyps recently.  All the softies seem to be growing, which is wonderful.  All the gorgonians are nice and fluffy every day.  Really I can't complain!
6. Tomorrow I'm planning to give the tank some TLC.  I'm hoping to spend a bunch of time gluing down the frags and then after I make a mess doing that, I'll do a big water change.  I also plan to siphon out the back chambers and replace the ChemiPure Blue and Purigen tomorrow.

 

Just a couple quick very blue photos I snapped the other night.

 

 

 

On 10/28/2017 at 3:30 PM, Felicia said:

And here's a new video of all the activity in the tank at feeding time!  I had just fed some of the new PE Mysis flakes and a couple drops of Oyster Feast.  Make sure you change the quality to 1080p!

 

 

I love the part where the firefish pokes her head out like "Oh, hello!"

 

20 hours ago, Felicia said:

Thank you, Gena!   I love the weeping willow toadstool!  It just get puffier every day.  Its looking extra awesome this evening.  

Thank you!  I just use my iPhone 7 for photography, so nothing special.    I also love to eat seaweed.  Seaweed salads and miso soup are some of my favorites, and I also love to eat roasted nori with wasabi.  I actually went on a guided kayaking tour through the sea caves along the Mendocino coast earlier this year and the guide was pulling kelp and other seaweeds out of the water and having everyone taste them.  They have such a delicious, salty crunchiness.

 

Sorry to hear your new gorgonians aren't doing well!  Where did you get them?  The ones I've gotten from KP Aquatics have always been super healthy.  I also was very happy with the ones I got from Gulf Coast Ecosystems (live-plants.com) recently.  Starting with healthy ones from the get-go definitely helps with long term success.  Once they start losing a bunch of flesh, it can be hard to stop and get them to recover.  Also, what kind of lighting are you using and what is the flow like where you placed the gorgonians?  From my experience, they need at least moderate lighting and moderate to high flow to really thrive.  If the flow is too low, they won't put their polyps out, will not be able to shed, and grow algae on their flesh which eventually kills them.

Thank you, Teeny!  Its still definitely in the new tank phase, so I keep expecting issues, but so far so good.  Right now I've just got a bunch of diatoms on the sand bed, but those don't worry/bother me.  I'm glad you like the gorgonians!  They really do make such an impact on the look of a tank.

 

Thank you!  We were dressed as the Sanderson sisters from the movie Hocus Pocus (1993).  I'm in the center of the photo, dressed as Winifred Sanderson who was played by Bette Midler.  Here's a photo from the movie for comparison:

 

We went to a charity part in San Francisco that we go to every year.  Its hosted by a doctor in his mansion in Bernal Heights.  You pay a donation (that benefits the children's hospital) to get in and then there is catered food, an open bar, performers, and live bands.  Its really fun and there are always a ton of people in really elaborate and creative costumes.  We met up with a bunch of friends, but four of us did the matching Hocus Pocus costumes.  Me and two friends were the witches and then another friend was Binx, the black cat.

 

 

 

 

For the Lily fans, photos of Lily in her Halloween costume will be posted on Halloween.  

Fundraiser for a children's hospital?  I approve.   Fundraisers/donations help provide grants for units to buy or replace needed equipment which can be incredibly expensive (example, Giraffe isolettes used in NICUs can run $35k or so ) or provide things that there just isn't room in the budget for, so I love this!

[gena]

Eat algae from my tank????  :barf:

 

 

 

Can't wait for Lily Halloween pics!!!!!

[Subsea]

8 minutes ago, gena said:

Eat algae from my tank????  :barf:

 

 

 

Can't wait for Lily Halloween pics!!!!!

I felt that way about people eating whole, live raw oysters with their live “gut cavity” bacteria.  

[Felicia]

On 10/30/2017 at 6:10 AM, Subsea said:

I got these gorgonians from GCE.  Shipping takes three days for me.  I attribute the problem to that.  Circulation is very robust at 2000GPHr in a 75G tank.  I have 500W of led bars at 12,000 kelvin.  If this tank needs more light for these gorgonions, I will move them somewhere else.  My focus on this tank will be filter feeders which for many means lower light.  I am shortly starting up a 120G lagoon display.  I planned on intense lighting on left side of tank diminishing to no light over the last foot on the right side.

 

Does KP Aquatics ship next day air.  Also do they have non photosynthetic gorgonians?

 

Felica,

We should start a fad.  “Nutrient export for us means eating seaweed from our tanks.”  Once while posting on a hobbiest forum, I mentioned eating Red Ogo, Gracilaria Parvispora, from my refugium.  A chef in Kansa City asked me how I cleaned the Ogo of pods and things.  I said sushi.  I heard him laugh from Kansa City.

Yeah, 3-day shipping may be a bit much.  Mine came 2-day from GCE.  KPA does do overnight shipping and that's how I had my most recent order from them sent.  Their stock varies depending on what they are able to collect, but they do regularly carry some NPS gorgs including red and yellow finger gorgs and orange tree gorgonians.

 

I think I'll skip on eating seaweed from my own aquarium.  I'll take the cleaned and processed stuff from the Asian market! 

22 hours ago, Ebn said:

Hey, what was the guided kayaking tour that you used up in Mendocino called? This sounds amazing. 

The company is Kayak Mendocino.  I've done their sea caves tour twice and its a lot of fun.  Its about a 2 hour guided trip through the sea caves along the coast just south of the town of Mendocino.  Both times I've done it we've gotten nice views of sea lions and otters.

12 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

 

In my experience, they are almost all very reclusive.  I wouldn't know mine in the 5.5 was still alive if I hadn't ticked him off a few weeks ago pulling his rock out to peroxide it lol.  Hope he survived the recent gorg problems...

 

 

I love the part where the firefish pokes her head out like "Oh, hello!"

 

Fundraiser for a children's hospital?  I approve.   Fundraisers/donations help provide grants for units to buy or replace needed equipment which can be incredibly expensive (example, Giraffe isolettes used in NICUs can run $35k or so ) or provide things that there just isn't room in the budget for, so I love this!

Weirdly I've been seeing my pom-pom crab almost every feeding time.  She's a brave one!  And yeah the firefish is so cute popping in and out of her hiding place.  

 

I definitely prefer to go to a charity party like that over paying $30+ to get into a nightclub in San Francisco on Halloween weekend.  I'd rather my money go to a good cause and the entrance fee was only $20 and included food and an open bar.  We've been going to this party since 2011.

15 minutes ago, gena said:

Eat algae from my tank????  :barf:

 

 

 

Can't wait for Lily Halloween pics!!!!!

Here you go!

 

 

 

Happy Halloween from Lily aka Lady Olenna Tyrell!

 

 

 

[Subsea]

I eat oysters.  There is much medical research on the effect of different gut cavity bacteria.   Immune system response is determined by healthy gut cavity bacteria.  In fact, advance notice of infection in body can be determined by bacteria populations.  Not just immune system response, but research indicated that certain bacteria populations effected mood swings.  I thought that was very interesting.

 

So, I eat raw oysters and drink Shiner Bock to be happy,

[gena]

8 minutes ago, Subsea said:

I felt that way about people eating whole, live raw oysters with their live “gut cavity” bacteria.  

More :barf:

 

I used to be able to eat seafood.  Not anymore.  I'll just enjoy the sea without eating it .

4 minutes ago, Felicia said:

Yeah, 3-day shipping may be a bit much.  Mine came 2-day from GCE.  KPA does do overnight shipping and that's how I had my most recent order from them sent.  Their stock varies depending on what they are able to collect, but they do regularly carry some NPS gorgs including red and yellow finger gorgs and orange tree gorgonians.

 

I think I'll skip on eating seaweed from my own aquarium.  I'll take the cleaned and processed stuff from the Asian market! 

The company is Kayak Mendocino.  I've done their sea caves tour twice and its a lot of fun.  Its about a 2 hour guided trip through the sea caves along the coast just south of the town of Mendocino.  Both times I've done it we've gotten nice views of sea lions and otters.

Weirdly I've been seeing my pom-pom crab almost every feeding time.  She's a brave one!  And yeah the firefish is so cute popping in and out of her hiding place.  

 

I definitely prefer to go to a charity party like that over paying $30+ to get into a nightclub in San Francisco on Halloween weekend.  I'd rather my money go to a good cause and the entrance fee was only $20 and included food and an open bar.  We've been going to this party since 2011.

Here you go!

 

 

 

Happy Halloween from Lily aka Lady Olenna Tyrell!

 

 

 

OMG

 

I think this is my all-time FAVORITE .

[Felicia]

1 minute ago, gena said:

OMG

 

I think this is my all-time FAVORITE .

Lily says thank you!  She helped me make the hat.   By help, I mean she played with the fabric!  We've just got to keep stepping up our Halloween costume game each year!   Lily was a sport for the photos and I think she mastered the Lady Olenna Tyrell look.

[gena]

Just now, Felicia said:

Lily says thank you!  She helped me make the hat.   By help, I mean she played with the fabric!  We've just got to keep stepping up our Halloween costume game each year!   Lily was a sport for the photos and I think she mastered the Lady Olenna Tyrell look.

You have a talent!  You should sell them on Etsy .