Dawn's shrimp chalet & 5.5 AIO !

[Lula_Mae]

6 hours ago, vlangel said:

My January FJS.  You can see the new cabbage in the lower left of the rock. That pretty much fills up the jar!  So the only thing left to do is grow!

Looks great! I have a couple cabbage leather frags and have considered adding one to my jar as well.

[vlangel]

2 hours ago, TheRope said:

Looking incredible as always. Im in love with fiddlesticks! Hes a great addition! Have you though of adding a porcelain of sorts or maybe one of those super cool harlequin swimming crabs?

Thanks Rope!  I might still have a pom pom crab and I am not sure how many crabs one can put in a pico jar before they starting getting into each other's faces.

[Lula_Mae]

On 1/30/2018 at 8:27 PM, vlangel said:

Thanks Rope!  I might still have a pom pom crab and I am not sure how many crabs one can put in a pico jar before they starting getting into each other's faces.

This has been my worry, too--how much space does each invert need?   Don't want Thunderdome in my jar!

[TheRope]

Well id say its very limited! I have 3 hermits and a porcelain and i think its kinda crowded... but that depends on food availability and their temperment i guess my porcelain takes up no space though so small 

[Orangutran]

18 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

This has been my worry, too--how much space does each invert need?   Don't want Thunderdome in my jar!

I HAD 3 blue leg hermits, and a pom pom. So far, 1 hermit is missing and 1 lost a claw. Not sure if the pom pom is beating them up, or some in-fighting between the hermits. I find that blue leg ones are more aggressive. 

[vlangel]

I moved my light back up after reading that someone's LPS were bleached by too much light.  I noticed that my orange acans (which used to be a vibrant) may have bleached.  As heavy as I feed I think the coral should not suffer from less intent light.

[vlangel]

I am very sad this morning.  I found Fiddlesticks dead on the bottom.? I really don't know what killed him but I never saw him eat.  I offered him mysis, fish frenzy plus the tank got fed invert food, enriched brine shrimp and bbs.  Perhaps my nitrates are too high, although with doing 2 water changes of 100% per week, that would surprise me.  Anyway, I am not putting anymore inverts in the jar. 

[RIP Sebastian]

I'm sorry to hear that.

[teenyreef]

Dang, sorry to hear about Fiddlesticks, he was really cool. I had never heard of keeping a fiddler crab in a reef tank and I was hoping it would work out. 

 

From doing some quick searches, it sounds like at least some kinds need some live rock out of the water so they can come out and breath and/or dry out periodically. But I didn't see anyone who had kept one for very long.

 

I've been scared to keep anything other than corals in my jar. I just want to see if I can make it work without having anything that poops.

[Pjanssen]

Sorry about your little friend.

[ChristopherDido]

Sorry about Fiddlesticks. The jar is looking amazing though! I wish I could bring myself to stuff mine full! However on a teacher's salary that's not happening lol. 

[vlangel]

4 hours ago, teenyreef said:

Dang, sorry to hear about Fiddlesticks, he was really cool. I had never heard of keeping a fiddler crab in a reef tank and I was hoping it would work out. 

 

From doing some quick searches, it sounds like at least some kinds need some live rock out of the water so they can come out and breath and/or dry out periodically. But I didn't see anyone who had kept one for very long.

 

I've been scared to keep anything other than corals in my jar. I just want to see if I can make it work without having anything that poops.

Yeah, I should have researched it first.? I feel so bad about Fiddlesticks.  He could and did crawl up the coco worm tube.  There was no way any of the crabs could get out of the water in the lfs tank.  I am not putting anymore creatures in the jar other than coral.

3 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

Sorry about your little friend.

Thanks Penny.

[vlangel]

34 minutes ago, ChristopherDido said:

Sorry about Fiddlesticks. The jar is looking amazing though! I wish I could bring myself to stuff mine full! However on a teacher's salary that's not happening lol. 

Me too.  I feel so sad about the little guy.

 

Ha ha, yeah I did cram the coral in didn't I.  Actually, I did not have a lot of $ for coral either.  I was just lucky enough to have struggling coral in my DT and sump that had nothing to lose if they died.  Also I gave a reefer friend euphillia when I went to seahorses and he gave me frags back.  I did buy the 2 acans, the zoas, the 2 trumpets and the struggling yellow polyps, but I think everything else was free.

[ChristopherDido]

3 minutes ago, vlangel said:

Me too.  I feel so sad about the little guy.

 

Ha ha, yeah I did cram the coral in didn't I.  Actually, I did not have a lot of $ for coral either.  I was just lucky enough to have struggling coral in my DT and sump that had nothing to lose if they died.  Also I gave a reefer friend euphillia when I went to seahorses and he gave me frags back.  I did buy the 2 acans, the zoas, the 2 trumpets and the struggling yellow polyps, but I think everything else was free.

I've only been in the hobby for less than a year, so I don't have anything that I can grab like that. Maybe one day. 

[vlangel]

5 minutes ago, ChristopherDido said:

I've only been in the hobby for less than a year, so I don't have anything that I can grab like that. Maybe one day. 

Oh, it definitely helps to have a few years in.  I have been keeping coral for 20 years and I throw anything that isn't thriving in my sump.  

[tanacharison]

Soon as I get my frag tank tank up you can have a few goodies! Unless this winter storm is actually the end of the world 

[TheRope]

On 04/02/2018 at 4:03 PM, teenyreef said:

Dang, sorry to hear about Fiddlesticks, he was really cool. I had never heard of keeping a fiddler crab in a reef tank and I was hoping it would work out. 

 

From doing some quick searches, it sounds like at least some kinds need some live rock out of the water so they can come out and breath and/or dry out periodically. But I didn't see anyone who had kept one for very long.

 

I've been scared to keep anything other than corals in my jar. I just want to see if I can make it work without having anything that poops.

Youll definitely notice the difference with the poop... let me tell you! With 2 big snails 3 hermits and a porcelain and no sand, i can seeeeeee it allll! Thank god for waterchanges

[Lula_Mae]

On 2/1/2018 at 4:59 PM, Orangutran said:

I HAD 3 blue leg hermits, and a pom pom. So far, 1 hermit is missing and 1 lost a claw. Not sure if the pom pom is beating them up, or some in-fighting between the hermits. I find that blue leg ones are more aggressive. 

Someone on here once posted a video of her pom pom trying to drag baby blue leg hermits into its lair...it was hilarious to see the pom pom with a hermit in each front leg, trying to grasp the third, and barely able to walk!

 

On 2/4/2018 at 4:03 PM, teenyreef said:

Dang, sorry to hear about Fiddlesticks, he was really cool. I had never heard of keeping a fiddler crab in a reef tank and I was hoping it would work out. 

 

From doing some quick searches, it sounds like at least some kinds need some live rock out of the water so they can come out and breath and/or dry out periodically. But I didn't see anyone who had kept one for very long.

 

I've been scared to keep anything other than corals in my jar. I just want to see if I can make it work without having anything that poops.

Your jar would be perfect for a little pom pom.

 

So sorry about Fiddlesticks, he was a neat invert!

[vlangel]

Hi all, I was away with a girlfriend for a week and got back home last night.  My hubby stayed home until the weekend before he joined us.  He had instructions for the seahorse DT but I told him that he did not have to do anything at all for the jar reef.  I was hoping from what I have heard from others that that was true.  Well, its confirmed!  The reef jar did splendidly in my absence.  There was almost no algae (not even on the glass).  The coral all looked the same except the neon green candycane that looked a little closed up.  I fed leftover mysis and there were some hungry mouths!  With the lid evaporation was not a problem, even though my other candycane is very near the water surface.  It is awesome how these little jars can go a week with nothing done to them at all.

[seabass]

1 hour ago, vlangel said:

It is awesome how these little jars can go a week with nothing done to them at all.

That has been my experience too.  TBH, I really don't do much with mine, even when I'm not gone.  That's one of the reasons I've put off adding a goby.

[vlangel]

This morning I worked on the 5.5 gallon shrimp chalet.  It worked great the week I was gone so now to continue to make it more finished looking.  I am painting the back where the chambers are to give it a cleaner and more appealling appearance.  I did leave the sides above the pump clear.  Where the paint begins is a guide as to how high the water should run.

 

 A lot of ghost shrimp were in the chambers. I decided that I could prevent that by glueing netting behind the teeth of the overflow. I checked to make sure that it did not slow down water going over the teeth and possibly creating the display portion of the tank to overflow.  Fortunately it did not.

 

Lastly, I made a new cover since ghost shrimp are spazzy when they first arrive and more than several jumped out!  I will take pics and post when the paint dries.

[vlangel]

 

 

 

The finished product!  This lil' aio 5.5 tank is going to make a great shrimp chalet for my feeder shrimp.  It turned out better than I could ever have hoped for.

[vlangel]

The reef jar looked pretty good ladt night after everything got a good meal.  Sadly however, I can see that I am losing my yellow polyps.  They are supposed to be an easy coral and now this is the 2nd time I have done them in.  I am pretty sure that they must need higher nutrient water and maybe having growing macro algae in with them prevents them from competing with all the WCs I do.?

[vlangel]

 

A 2 minute video of my reef jar.

[Clown79]

Very nice! It's so full.

 

I have 2 pom pom's in my jar. They stay on opposite sides, mostly hiding in their rock homes.

 

I did witness a little tiff between the 2 but it amounted to one scurrying back to his area.