Lisa166 Posted October 4, 2017 Share Posted October 4, 2017 10 hours ago, Felicia said: Thank you! Ricordea are very easy to keep and a great "beginner" coral. They're corallimorphs, which is the same order of corals/anemones as the rhodactis and discosoma mushrooms. So basically they have about the same care requirements as the mushroom corals, which are soft corals and considered very easy to keep. There are two types of ricordea: ricordea Florida and ricordea Yuma. Both have pretty much the same care requirements. They can do fine in low lighting, but will have brighter colors in more moderate lighting. They don't need super intense lighting though, and they're generally placed down at the bottom of the tank. They also like lower to moderate flow. https://www.pacificeastaquaculture.com/Articles_Product_Care.asp?idNews=8 My plan for this tank is to keep only super easy corals. So if you like anything I have or add, go for it because it'll be easy to keep! Thank you so much for all your answers!! 1 Quote Link to comment
YaBoyLaj Posted October 4, 2017 Share Posted October 4, 2017 I can't get over how much I love this tank, I'm a sucker for soft corals so I'm pretty jealous of some of those pieces you got I look foward to watching the progression of this tank! 1 Quote Link to comment
Felicia Posted October 5, 2017 Author Share Posted October 5, 2017 12 hours ago, Lula_Mae said: My Pederson's is my favorite thing in the tank right now. Your stocking plans sound a lot like what I'm contemplating for when I get the 15L set up! the lionfish! Funny, my hedgie plushies are a lot softer than Violet's quills too! Glad to know you like yours! I've never had one, but shrimp always have such cool personalities and I like how they're almost entirely clear with just the little spots of purple. Mine is supposed to arrive tomorrow, so hopefully he arrives safe and sound. Softies and gorgonians are the way to go! Easy peasy, but they still make for an impressive looking reef. Yeah, I decided to jump on the plushie bandwagon since you have a hedgehog and Dawn has a seahorse. Since I don't have any actual lionfish, I'll make sure with a plush one. I already have a plushie cat who goes by the name of Lily. She's basically a living stuffed animal. 8 hours ago, Lisa166 said: Thank you so much for all your answers!! You're very welcome! Glad to help! 8 hours ago, ThePaontedFrogfish said: I can't get over how much I love this tank, I'm a sucker for soft corals so I'm pretty jealous of some of those pieces you got I look foward to watching the progression of this tank! Awww, thank you! Yeah, I've definitely come to appreciate soft corals and it can be hard to find some nice unique ones. There aren't so many crazy ones on the market the way there are for acros and zoas. I'm really happy with the items from Pacific East Aquaculture, so I definitely recommend them if you're looking for nice softies. My order from KPA shipped today, so it should arrive tomorrow! 3 Quote Link to comment
YaBoyLaj Posted October 5, 2017 Share Posted October 5, 2017 1 hour ago, Felicia said: Glad to know you like yours! I've never had one, but shrimp always have such cool personalities and I like how they're almost entirely clear with just the little spots of purple. Mine is supposed to arrive tomorrow, so hopefully he arrives safe and sound. Softies and gorgonians are the way to go! Easy peasy, but they still make for an impressive looking reef. Yeah, I decided to jump on the plushie bandwagon since you have a hedgehog and Dawn has a seahorse. Since I don't have any actual lionfish, I'll make sure with a plush one. I already have a plushie cat who goes by the name of Lily. She's basically a living stuffed animal. You're very welcome! Glad to help! Awww, thank you! Yeah, I've definitely come to appreciate soft corals and it can be hard to find some nice unique ones. There aren't so many crazy ones on the market the way there are for acros and zoas. I'm really happy with the items from Pacific East Aquaculture, so I definitely recommend them if you're looking for nice softies. My order from KPA shipped today, so it should arrive tomorrow! O.o, Ill check them out ASAP! 1 Quote Link to comment
Felicia Posted October 5, 2017 Author Share Posted October 5, 2017 15 hours ago, ThePaontedFrogfish said: O.o, Ill check them out ASAP! They're softies can be a bit pricey, but they run good sales. I got the ones I ordered for 35% off and then with $19.99 overnight shipping. I'm really happy with all of the ones I got. Ok, so who's going to Reef-a-Palooza in Anaheim, CA this weekend?! I'll be there pretty much all day Saturday and until the early afternoon on Sunday. I'd love to meet up with any Nano-Reef folks who are attending! Quote Link to comment
YaBoyLaj Posted October 5, 2017 Share Posted October 5, 2017 I'm going sunday! cant wait to spend all my money! 1 Quote Link to comment
Felicia Posted October 6, 2017 Author Share Posted October 6, 2017 9 hours ago, ThePaontedFrogfish said: I'm going sunday! cant wait to spend all my money! Same here! I'm ready to SHOP! Hopefully I'll run into you on Sunday! Quote Link to comment
Felicia Posted October 6, 2017 Author Share Posted October 6, 2017 Tank Updates My KP Aquatics order arrived today! Everything arrived happy and healthy. As usual, I'm very impressed with this shipment from KPA. I got 3 of their nano-size gorgonians. I love that they are smaller and more compact, but still have a ton of branches and are really nice shapes. I hate gorgonian frags that are just like a little stick with a single branch. All three of these are really nice! The ricordea they sent are really nice colors. I got 3 orange ones. One is more of a standard orange, but two of them are stunning bright gold colored. Also, the Perderson's anemone shrimp arrived alive and well and is so cute! Very hard to see, but that's kind of what's cool about it. Also, KPA threw in a freebie as usual and this time I got yellow tunicates. Super cool! We'll see how they do for me. I've been feeding a bit of PhytoFeast every couple days in this tank. I've been keeping an eye out for a pom pom crab. My LFS messaged me today that they got in 3 pom poms. I wanted one with both anemones, and all 3 of the ones they got had both anemones! A lot of the times they come in missing one or both anemones. I grabbed one of the pom pom crabs and then also picked up a Randall's pistol shrimp to replace the original one I added that went MIA. This new one is a bit larger. Hopefully it will do well. It went straight into the YWG's burrow and I haven't seen it since, but I've heard it snap a couple times. Here are the new gorgonians - yellow sea whip, purple sea rod, and knobby sea rod. The knobby sea rod I got is definitely a different species than the one I had in my 40B. KPA's website lists Eunicea sp. for the knobby sea rod, so there must be a few related species that they collect. My last one was light tan, while this one is a really deep purple. It also seems to have a different polyp structure. I always enjoy new gorgonians, so I'm excited to see how this one looks when its polyps open up. They're starting to open and they seem to be a nice bright white, which is pretty against the really dark purple. None of the new ricordea are puffed up in this photo, but here's a preview of the colors. [/url] When I first added the Pederson's anemone shrimp, it went right to the St. Thomas mushroom. It has since wandered into the ricordea garden and is currently camped out smack in the middle of the largest ricordea. And finally, here's the cute new pom pom crab. I am having fun stocking this little tank with small, interesting inverts. 6 Quote Link to comment
Lula_Mae Posted October 7, 2017 Share Posted October 7, 2017 Everything looks great! 1 Quote Link to comment
Felicia Posted October 9, 2017 Author Share Posted October 9, 2017 On 10/7/2017 at 11:50 AM, Lula_Mae said: Everything looks great! Thank you, Lula! I just got home from Reef-a-Palooza a few hours ago. What a fun weekend! I got to hang out with my Nano-Reef besties and fellow lady reefers, @gena and @yoshii. I also got to chat with @metrokat and meet several other Nano-Reef members in person for the first time (@Ebn, @Minidoll). It was also a ton of fun to hang out and chat with the vendors, especially some of our wonderful Nano-Reef sponsors such as Robert and Jeff at @Marine Depot and the guys at @Legendary Corals. I did way too much shopping and ended up going home with 7 frags of zoanthids and 2 new ricordea, plus an acan and a super cool mushroom for a friend. I also ended up getting tons of free samples including full size bottles of Tigger Pods and Oyster Feast from Reef Nutrition, some of CaribSea's new purple-colored Rubble Zone rock, small food samples from Hikari and Ocean Nutrition, a small sample of Reef Roids, and some samples of Brightwell Aquatics coral dip and LPS food. I also saw Sanjay Joshi's talk titled "Tales from the Crypt" about different reef fiascos he's had over the years and how to address those and try to prevent failures in your reef system. Sanjay's talks are always very entertaining and informative. Lady reefers! I dipped all my new corals in Revive and got them into the tank. I have corals all over my sandbed and on a frag rack right now. I've purchased too much stuff recently. I really need to take some time and start gluing corals in their permanent locations. I knew I was going to buy quite a bit at RAP, so I've been waiting to place corals until after RAP. This way I have most of my corals now and can really figure out the best spots for all of them together, instead of placing them willy nilly. Here's my frag rack. Nothing is open yet because this is right after adding everything to the tank. The acan and mushroom in the far left column of the rack are corals I picked up for a friend. The rest are my new zoas and palys. In terms of zoas and palys, I got: Goblins on Fire zoas Cornbred Rainbow Infusion palys King Midas zoas Purple People Eater palys Blondie zoas Bam Bam zoas My Clementine zoas I also got a bright yellow/green ricordea from Legendary Corals and a nice multi-mouth orange ricordea from Unique Corals. I think my ricordea garden is complete at this point. The tank did just fine with me out of town for the weekend. Not that I was gone long at all, but its always more stressful with new systems. I fed the fish and inverts when I got home and all the inhabitants are alive and well. The new Pederson's anemone shrimp isn't the least bit shy and has been hanging out mostly on the St. Thomas mushroom and the ricordeas. It will also wander around to other corals thought and for being so tiny, it sure grabs a lot of food. The new pistol shrimp paired right up with the YWG and is snapping away. He's building quite the burrow system up under the rocks. The porcelain crab is still doing well and I also spotted the new pom pom crab out waving around his anemones at feeding time. The fish are all doing well and eating like champs. The corals all have good color and are open and fluffy. The only thing wrong at the moment is that one of my new orange ricordea from KP Aquatics was MIA when I got home tonight. It was very small, so I don't know if it got blown around or what. I didn't see it anywhere. I'm wondering if it could be up under the skirt of one of the bigger ricordea or if it could have gotten pulled down into the pistols shrimps burrow. I didn't spend time hunting for it tonight, but I'm planning to try to locate it tomorrow. It will be a bummer if its lost for good because it was one of the ricordeas with the really nice deep golden orange coloration. 13 Quote Link to comment
Pjanssen Posted October 9, 2017 Share Posted October 9, 2017 Looks like a fun and successful trip! Yoshi looks like a mermaid in the top picture 5 Quote Link to comment
Lula_Mae Posted October 9, 2017 Share Posted October 9, 2017 29 minutes ago, Pjanssen said: Looks like a fun and successful trip! Yoshi looks like a mermaid in the top picture I thought that too! 2 Quote Link to comment
kimberbee Posted October 9, 2017 Share Posted October 9, 2017 Glad you had a fun time at RAP!! Nice new corals!! 1 Quote Link to comment
gena Posted October 9, 2017 Share Posted October 9, 2017 Haha...I love that your snail is getting right to work on those new frags . I had so much fun hanging out with you this weekend . Great summary of the show!!!! I'll just direct people to your page when I do my update LOL. I hope your little ricordea turns up! If not, maybe it found a great spot and soon it will multiply into another ricordea garden. 2 Quote Link to comment
Ebn Posted October 9, 2017 Share Posted October 9, 2017 Was really nice meeting you finally, along with Gena and Metrokat! I spent a lot more than I expected on sticks. Really wanted the big blasto but it was sold on the 2nd day not once (vendor to vendor to vendor) but twice. Should have picked it up on the first day. Oh wells. Sorry to hear about your lost ricordea. Let me know if you're interested in an orange yuma. I have an extra that I cut from my original and it went wandering off my rockwork. It's about 1.5-2" around when expanded and has been sitting in the corner by its lonely self. It originally came in as a pink yuma, but I think that was just in its bleached state. I can bring it with me to AC if you're interested. Here's the clone of it next to the other two rics of my small garden. The top and bottom one are floridas instead and I'm actually waiting for the top one to split since it has 3 mouths on it. The top green one is kind of different. It looks green for the most part, but it's on a very orange red base, which is actually deeper than the orange on the yuma there. 7 Quote Link to comment
Minidoll Posted October 9, 2017 Share Posted October 9, 2017 It was a great pleasure to meet you too, as well as meeting Gena and Metrokat! Your tank looks awesome and I'm in love with your recordias. Hope the little lost one shows up, sometimes they do. Here's that Gorgonian I bought. 8 Quote Link to comment
gena Posted October 9, 2017 Share Posted October 9, 2017 2 minutes ago, Minidoll said: It was a great pleasure to meet you too, as well as meeting Gena and Metrokat! Your tank looks awesome and I'm in love with your recordias. Hope the little lost one shows up, sometimes they do. Here's that Gorgonian I bought. Hi, Minidoll!!!! OH WOW!!!! Your tank is gorgeous The new gorgonian fits right in...so elegant. Did you hear about the horrible fire in Anaheim today?...it's really bad. Luckily it didn't happen over the weekend. 1 1 Quote Link to comment
Minidoll Posted October 9, 2017 Share Posted October 9, 2017 Thanks Gena! Oh, I know, it's awful! We are getting a lot of the smoke here so I'm having to keep all the windows closed. My son-in-law's brother lives in Aneheim Hills and has been evacuated. No news yet if the house is still there. So scary! 4 Quote Link to comment
gena Posted October 9, 2017 Share Posted October 9, 2017 1 minute ago, Minidoll said: Thanks Gena! Oh, I know, it's awful! We are getting a lot of the smoke here so I'm having to keep all the windows closed. My son-in-law's brother lives in Aneheim Hills and has been evacuated. No news yet if the house is still there. So scary! Oh my gosh! I hope his home will be ok!!!!! I just walked outside and I can just barely smell some smoke, maybe. The sky always takes on that weird yellow/orange hue from the smoke and it's like that now. The fire a couple of weeks ago in Anaheim was much worse as far as us getting the smoke from it. But this fire is obviously much worse...so many homes lost already . Quote Link to comment
Minidoll Posted October 9, 2017 Share Posted October 9, 2017 We didn't get too much smoke smell with the Corona fire but this one is different. The wind is strong and blowing over our house. Not only is there the typical vegetal/wood smokey smell but a weird burning chemical smell as well. I'm guessing it's because of the homes burning. 2 Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted October 9, 2017 Share Posted October 9, 2017 On 10/3/2017 at 5:45 PM, Felicia said: I miss my lionfish, so.... .... .... .... .... .... Also, here's a fun photo of the porcelain crab from last night. He's found a spot under a rock overhang where he likes to chill. I love these pics Felicia. That lionfish is adorable and so is the porcelain crab. Dave, my hubby says that the lionfish is not very formidable however. I was reading your last page and saw the reference to my plushie and so had to check out. 3 Quote Link to comment
Subsea Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 As I have surfed this site I have seen many of your post that I have enjoyed reading. Being in this hobby since 1971, I saw the trend to hi tech reefkeeping. All to often I would hear, that “old school” stuff was ok then. It encourages me to hear hobbiest with more degrees than a thermometer say “less technology/more biology. I am enjoying reading your thread. Thank you for your contribution to this hobby. 5 Quote Link to comment
YaBoyLaj Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 RAP was super fun, i spent way too much there and I officially ran out of room in my 12... but it was worth it, bummed i didn't see literally anyone lmao 2 Quote Link to comment
Felicia Posted October 10, 2017 Author Share Posted October 10, 2017 On 10/9/2017 at 5:30 AM, Pjanssen said: Looks like a fun and successful trip! Yoshi looks like a mermaid in the top picture On 10/9/2017 at 5:59 AM, Lula_Mae said: I thought that too! She does! The RAP wave logo thing is in just the right place with where her feet are. On 10/9/2017 at 8:11 AM, kimberbee said: Glad you had a fun time at RAP!! Nice new corals!! Thank you! It was so much fun! I'm excited to get these zoas placed in my tank! On 10/9/2017 at 8:36 AM, gena said: Haha...I love that your snail is getting right to work on those new frags . I had so much fun hanging out with you this weekend . Great summary of the show!!!! I'll just direct people to your page when I do my update LOL. I hope your little ricordea turns up! If not, maybe it found a great spot and soon it will multiply into another ricordea garden. Yep, I just got those trochus a little over a week ago and they're an active bunch. They sure go zooming about. There isn't much algae in my tank at all, so they went straight for any algae on the plugs. It was so fun to get to hang out again! Too bad there aren't more aquarium shows during the year. Maybe I need to come down sometime just for us to do an LFS crawl or something. Glad you liked my update. That was just my quick summary. I forgot to include the free media reactors! I finally opened the box up last night and its super nice looking. Too bad I'm not going to use it. I hunted for the tiny ricordea last night but wasn't able to find it. Yeah hopefully it will attach somewhere and reappear. I spent some time yesterday evening gluing down all the loose ricordea so that no more can get lost. On 10/9/2017 at 12:12 PM, Ebn said: Was really nice meeting you finally, along with Gena and Metrokat! I spent a lot more than I expected on sticks. Really wanted the big blasto but it was sold on the 2nd day not once (vendor to vendor to vendor) but twice. Should have picked it up on the first day. Oh wells. Sorry to hear about your lost ricordea. Let me know if you're interested in an orange yuma. I have an extra that I cut from my original and it went wandering off my rockwork. It's about 1.5-2" around when expanded and has been sitting in the corner by its lonely self. It originally came in as a pink yuma, but I think that was just in its bleached state. I can bring it with me to AC if you're interested. Here's the clone of it next to the other two rics of my small garden. The top and bottom one are floridas instead and I'm actually waiting for the top one to split since it has 3 mouths on it. The top green one is kind of different. It looks green for the most part, but it's on a very orange red base, which is actually deeper than the orange on the yuma there. It was nice to meet you as well! I know what you mean about endind up buying too much stuff. I went looking for nice zoas and there were soooo many nice zoas. Sorry you missed out on the blasto! Which one was it? I remember seeing a lot of nice blastos. You have gorgeous ricordea! That is such a generous offer. However, after rearranging my ricordea garden last night, I think I'm out of space! Especially for a big yuma like that. Man that is a stunning yuma though! Once I get all my new corals placed, I'll assess what space I have left and then I may take you up on your super generous offer! 22 hours ago, Minidoll said: It was a great pleasure to meet you too, as well as meeting Gena and Metrokat! Your tank looks awesome and I'm in love with your recordias. Hope the little lost one shows up, sometimes they do. Here's that Gorgonian I bought. Thank you! I'm trying to get a nice ricordea garden going in this tank. I think I have plenty at this point! I should let them grow and make babies. I couldn't locate the little one, which is a bummer because its such a nice color, but I don't think I'll miss it too much with how many I have now. Maybe it will attach somewhere and reappear. Wow! Your tank is stunning! I love the green leathers (nepthea or sinularia? I'm so bad at ID'ing leathers) and the rock flower anemones! The new gorgonian looks wonderful in there. I like the height it adds and it looks super happy with its polyps out! You should definitely share tank photos more often! This is right up my alley in terms of softy/gorgonian tanks! 22 hours ago, gena said: Hi, Minidoll!!!! OH WOW!!!! Your tank is gorgeous The new gorgonian fits right in...so elegant. Did you hear about the horrible fire in Anaheim today?...it's really bad. Luckily it didn't happen over the weekend. 22 hours ago, Minidoll said: Thanks Gena! Oh, I know, it's awful! We are getting a lot of the smoke here so I'm having to keep all the windows closed. My son-in-law's brother lives in Aneheim Hills and has been evacuated. No news yet if the house is still there. So scary! Yeah that fire in Anaheim is scary. We have a ton up my way right now in Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino counties. Luckily its all north of me, but I have friends whose parents live up in that area. There is a ton of smoke in the Bay Area right now and they're cautioning people to stay inside because the air is toxic. We also had a small fire in the Berkeley hills (a couple miles from my house), but they got it under control before it threatened any homes. The fact that its dry, warm, and there have been high winds is not a good combination. Hopefully they can get all of these put out soon! 22 hours ago, vlangel said: I love these pics Felicia. That lionfish is adorable and so is the porcelain crab. Dave, my hubby says that the lionfish is not very formidable however. I was reading your last page and saw the reference to my plushie and so had to check out. Thank you, Dawn! I'm really loving the porcelain crab. He's so chill and not shy. He has a spot he's chosen, so I know where to look for him and I love watching him wave his fans to filter food out of the water. Yeah the lionfish is a bit more cute than formidable! Granted, my actual lionfish were pretty adorable, but a bit more formidable since they could sting you. I have sea life plushies all over my office at work and I decided I really needed a lionfish. 18 hours ago, Subsea said: As I have surfed this site I have seen many of your post that I have enjoyed reading. Being in this hobby since 1971, I saw the trend to hi tech reefkeeping. All to often I would hear, that “old school” stuff was ok then. It encourages me to hear hobbiest with more degrees than a thermometer say “less technology/more biology. I am enjoying reading your thread. Thank you for your contribution to this hobby. Thank you so much for the kind words! This really made my day! "More degrees than a thermometer" LOVE this!!! I am an engineer, so I love technology, but there's got to be a balance. I think we've had some wonderful advancements in the hobby, and I'm all for using them...for example, LED lighting. However, that doesn't mean throwing on more and more technology is always the best approach. These are living ecosystems and a lot of the hobby is about the general husbandry and maintenance and learning how to properly care for these creatures. You can't rely too heavily on technology and forget about that aspect. Also, the more technology means the more things I can tinker with, which is fun, but it also means more points of failure. Sanjay Joshi's talk at Reef-a-Palooza actually touched on this really well. He uses some of the technology (LED lighting, controllers), but doesn't go overboard and strikes a nice balance. I am glad you are enjoying my thread! I try to just post my thoughts, successes, and failures as I go along. By the way, if you enjoy the "less technology/more biology" approach, you'll enjoy watching the new pico container contest. I'm excited to see everyone on a level playing field with very limited technology and see what people are able to do just with husbandry and maintenance. 3 hours ago, ThePaontedFrogfish said: RAP was super fun, i spent way too much there and I officially ran out of room in my 12... but it was worth it, bummed i didn't see literally anyone lmao Seriously right?! I already have my new 14 crammed to the gills. Sorry we didn't run into each other! Its so hard to find people when you don't know what they look like and only know online user names. Next time, I'm going to post a photo of myself right beforehand so people can recognize me! 3 Quote Link to comment
YaBoyLaj Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 26 minutes ago, Felicia said: Seriously right?! I already have my new 14 crammed to the gills. Sorry we didn't run into each other! Its so hard to find people when you don't know what they look like and only know online user names. Next time, I'm going to post a photo of myself right beforehand so people can recognize me! Lmao, not a bad idea Quote Link to comment
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