Lula Mae's "Jarden" of Enjoyment--dinos :(

[Felicia]

Just a friendly reminder that your write-up and final three photos are due to me by private message by tonight at midnight (PST).

[gena]

Love the blenny!  I'm so glad he's a good fish for you too .  I think I'm done with fish forever LOL.  But if I change my mind I'm definitely keeping one of those in mind.

[Lula_Mae]

21 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Tank looks great.

 

I can't believe it's over.

 

I want to set up another one?

I can't believe it's over either!  Wasn't just last week or so that we set them up?

 

12 hours ago, teenyreef said:

Looking good, can't wait for the final pics. And I am so excited you found vice zoas! I have their aquafresh ones which I think are the same as yours, they're one of my favorites. 

Thanks, me too!  The store had a few different ones but I picked some that had loads of pink, which of course have less pink under my light lol.

 

5 hours ago, gena said:

Love the blenny!  I'm so glad he's a good fish for you too .  I think I'm done with fish forever LOL.  But if I change my mind I'm definitely keeping one of those in mind.

He was so wonderful!  But today...the very last day of the contest, the scarlet hermit was found cleaning up his remains.   I'm not sure what happened as he was fine and swimming and eating a couple of nights ago when I was last off of work.  RIP little buddy, you were the bestest!  I'm so disappointed as I was looking forward to having him in the final FTS and maybe featuring him in a photo.  I guess it's fitting that he passed on the last day of the contest since all good things must come to an end.

 

I'm working on uploading pics for the final writeup and will share some of them here as well. 

[fishfreak0114]

I’m so sorry to hear about the Benny!  Sometimes we just don’t know why fish did when they do. I look forward to seeing your final write up and pics!

[Lula_Mae]

17 minutes ago, fishfreak0114 said:

I’m so sorry to hear about the Benny!  Sometimes we just don’t know why fish did when they do. I look forward to seeing your final write up and pics!

Thanks, fish are definitely a mystery sometimes!  Instead of a Garden of Eden, I have a Jarden of Eatin'! I've seen the write up in and final pics but I am going to share the other pics here.

[Lula_Mae]

Zoa garden

 

 

 

Scarlet hermit:

 

'

 

Two types of GSP and a yellow sponge!  The GSP wall can be kind of seen in the background (the metallic one climbing the wall is much more prolific than the others lol)

 

 

 

 

GSP wall from the outside lol

 

 

 

 

 

[fishfreak0114]

That GSP looks sweet climbing up the wall! 

[Lula_Mae]

2 minutes ago, fishfreak0114 said:

That GSP looks sweet climbing up the wall! 

Haha yeah it's pretty cool!  The jar isn't really big enough for it to do that well but I think I'll glue some of it to the back wall of the 5.5 since I'm planning to combine that one and the jar.

[MainelyReefer]

The tank turned out awesome!

[seabass]

Beautiful pico!

[vlangel]

I love the natural feel of your jarden.

[Lula_Mae]

On 4/1/2018 at 7:00 AM, GraniteReefer said:

The tank turned out awesome!

 

On 4/2/2018 at 6:11 PM, seabass said:

Beautiful pico!

 

On 4/3/2018 at 11:54 AM, vlangel said:

I love the natural feel of your jarden.

Thanks guys! I've really enjoyed this.  I'm making plans to rearrange the 5.5 and move this into it sometime in the near future lol.

[teenyreef]

It looks so much bigger in the pictures than it really is

[Lula_Mae]

Well, the Jarden is still up.  I haven't mustered the energy or motivation to combine the tanks yet.  I've been battling cyano despite doing water changes as frequently as I can and it's frustrating.  I posted on my 15L thread that I'm debating what to do with my tanks.  I don't have the time or energy to maintain so many (which I've mentioned before) and also just started back to school to further my career.  I don't want to be without a tank entirely but I need something that's smaller and simpler than what I've got.  I'm thinking, if the clownfish keeps biting me, that I may get something larger than 5 gallons but smaller than 10 and combine bits of all the tanks so I have something enjoyable but not overwhelming.  Not sure exactly yet what I'll do.

[Lula_Mae]

 

Oh, and I lost the Vice zoas. The cyano kept covering them and one night the hermit was on them, I thought he was just cleaning but nope, he ate most of them!   Little booger.  I moved what was left to the little frag tank but they just melted away.

[Pjanssen]

I understand completely about too many tanks, I have three. You put so much time energy and money into them that it becomes difficult to decide which one to break down. Then what do you do with all of the equipment? I still have the brand new IM 20 that I won in last years 100 days contest that i haven't set up.

Sorry about the vice zoas, and the cyano problem. I always have success with chemiclean. I've read a couple articles lately that suggest too many water changes may contribute to cyano. Good luck with everything, especially school.

[MarieH]

I found too many water changes to be detrimental in fighting cyano.  10 to 20 percent weekly and adding macrobacter 7 from brightwell as per direction had almost eradicated it for me in my 3g pico.   I also manually removed by basting and sucking up the loose floating pieces with a turkey baster.  I just started macrobacter 7 and I think it's awesome to reestablish bacterial colonies that  out compete the cyano.   Just an idea.

[seabass]

12 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

I may get something larger than 5 gallons but smaller than 10 and combine bits of all the tanks so I have something enjoyable but not overwhelming.

That sounds like a really good plan.  I also try to simplify things.  If you have too many balls in the air, things inevitably start to suffer when you get too busy.

 

Find a tank that works for your livestock plan, lifestyle, schedule, and home; then enjoy.  Sure there will be things that you'd like to keep, but having something that is pretty, and healthy, and easy to maintain, is more rewarding than keeping everything that you find interesting.  I know that you know all of this, but this advice is as much for the other people following along as it is for you.  Heck, sometimes I need to remind myself of this too.  And when I forget, things always seem to go sideways.

 

Good luck!  I always enjoy your posts.

[Lula_Mae]

On 5/15/2018 at 7:16 AM, Pjanssen said:

I understand completely about too many tanks, I have three. You put so much time energy and money into them that it becomes difficult to decide which one to break down. Then what do you do with all of the equipment? I still have the brand new IM 20 that I won in last years 100 days contest that i haven't set up.

Sorry about the vice zoas, and the cyano problem. I always have success with chemiclean. I've read a couple articles lately that suggest too many water changes may contribute to cyano. Good luck with everything, especially school.

It's interesting you mention that about water changes because after doing a couple big ones, the cyano came back with a vengeance! I haven't tried chemiclean but may look into it. And yeah deciding what to do with the tanks is hard enough without me being an indecisive person haha.

On 5/15/2018 at 10:35 AM, MarieH said:

I found too many water changes to be detrimental in fighting cyano.  10 to 20 percent weekly and adding macrobacter 7 from brightwell as per direction had almost eradicated it for me in my 3g pico.   I also manually removed by basting and sucking up the loose floating pieces with a turkey baster.  I just started macrobacter 7 and I think it's awesome to reestablish bacterial colonies that  out compete the cyano.   Just an idea.

I did notice the cyano got worse after water changes. I think I've still got some microbacter or something similar from cycling the 15, I may try that or order some fresh as I dunno how long that's good for haha. I think I will try that to help get it back in balance.

On 5/15/2018 at 12:22 PM, seabass said:

That sounds like a really good plan.  I also try to simplify things.  If you have too many balls in the air, things inevitably start to suffer when you get too busy.

 

Find a tank that works for your livestock plan, lifestyle, schedule, and home; then enjoy.  Sure there will be things that you'd like to keep, but having something that is pretty, and healthy, and easy to maintain, is more rewarding than keeping everything that you find interesting.  I know that you know all of this, but this advice is as much for the other people following along as it is for you.  Heck, sometimes I need to remind myself of this too.  And when I forget, things always seem to go sideways.

 

Good luck!  I always enjoy your posts.

So true, I've been thinking about what I really want to keep if I do take down the 15, especially since I have some duplicates (like two different toadstools and pink cabbage leathers). Got to figure out something that works cuz right now it doesn't lol. And thanks! 

[Lula_Mae]

So I'm about 95% certain now that what I thought was cyano is actually dinos...I've done water changes and the other day added some of my Microbacter7 from last fall/winter and today added my Biospira that I just got and came home tonight and there are now nice brown snot strings with bubbles at the end...everywhere...

 

Getting ready to transfer what I can into one of my other little tanks and ditch the sand.  No way am I sticking anything into the other tanks right now!  Yuck.   Any advice for beating dinos is welcome.  The tank I'll put it in is rectangular (probably my little 2.3 gallon from last year) so I'll be able to get a little hob to run media if necessary.

[Lula_Mae]

 

 

 

At least the feather duster is happy...

[seabass]

I feel for you.

 

I could never clear my 100 gallon tank of them.  Battling it proved to be time consuming and fruitless (I tried multiple methods).  I ended up transferring what I could to a makeshift quarantine tank and broke it down.  I treated what I could with peroxide to try avoid transferring the dinos to QT (I don't know if that helped, but I didn't have much to transfer at that point).  It wasn't a fun time, and it has totally changed the way I look at my tanks.

 

I'm pretty sure that freshwater kills them better than anything.  I'm also pretty sure that zoanthids can take a freshwater dip.  Another thing is that lights out doesn't kill dinos, but makes them release into the water column.  That might fact be helpful prior to transferring any coral.

 

I wish you luck!!!

[Lula_Mae]

24 minutes ago, seabass said:

I feel for you.

 

I could never clear my 100 gallon tank of them.  Battling it proved to be time consuming and fruitless (I tried multiple methods).  I ended up transferring what I could to a makeshift quarantine tank and broke it down.  I treated what I could with peroxide to try avoid transferring the dinos to QT (I don't know if that helped, but I didn't have much to transfer at that point).  It wasn't a fun time, and it has totally changed the way I look at my tanks.

 

I'm pretty sure that freshwater kills them better than anything.  I'm also pretty sure that zoanthids can take a freshwater dip.  Another thing is that lights out doesn't kill dinos, but makes them release into the water column.  That might fact be helpful prior to transferring any coral.

 

I wish you luck!!!

Good to know. I'd tried lights out several times but they just came back with a vengeance. I just got done transferring everything salvageable to a barebottom tank except a tiny cup of sand for the pink and white feather duster. My zoa's were already quite stressed so I figured it couldn't hurt to get rid of the primary nutrient storage (sandbed). Pics once I clean off my phone lol. Do you know if dinos can be transferred via inverts?

[Lula_Mae]

 

FTS. Some of you might recognize this as the little 2.3 gallon I started off with when I came back to the forums. The red cup is a plastic shot glass.  It's got a little sand and the feather duster is in there. When I gently dug him out of the sand, I was shocked to see his tube is about three inches long! No sign of the yellow one, not sure if the GSP smothered him or what. 

 

Pom pom and blue coral banded shrimp facing off! Poor little CBS had jumped off the rock while I transferred it and wound up so covered in detritus that he looked like a scary monster! I was afraid to touch him at first cuz I was like WHAT IS THAT?!?! But then I realized what he was so I scooped him up and moved him over. He was terrified! Hope he'll be ok.

[seabass]

9 minutes ago, Lula_Mae said:

Do you know if dinos can be transferred via inverts?

I'm guessing they can (if there are dinos on their shell, or in the water that is transferred with them).  Kind of make one a little paranoid, doesn't it?  That's why I chose to QT versus just moving stuff to another tank.