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Coral Vue Hydros

Lula Mae's "Make a Wish" IM 14 peninsula--tank came down today. RIP


Lula_Mae

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1 minute ago, fishfreak0114 said:

I always thought PSW's were lighter in color!  He's beautiful though.  Hopefully he settles in quick!

Thanks, I think he is closer to the usual color than my previous PLB (pink lipstick baby @thespinningsadhu :lol:).  It's ridiculous how happy I was he arrived in one piece (#thanksups) this time!  I hope he gets comfortable, I will probably add some plastic plants (since they are easily cleaned) to give him more hiding spots so he feels more comfortable.  After I moved the blenny into the 15, I scrubbed the QT top to bottom and changed all the water out completely.

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Guess who's eating! He went after the Omega One garlic pellets and ate far more than he spit out lol. Hooray! Blurry action shot included, he is very shy! He was eyeing me the whole time, those little orange eyes moving to and fro. :wub:

 

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I spotted pink lipstick baby swimming around openly in the tank this morning and slowly crept up on him. When he spotted me, he promptly hid behind the rock. :lol: I was still several feet away!

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On ‎1‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 4:49 PM, Lula_Mae said:

I spotted pink lipstick baby swimming around openly in the tank this morning and slowly crept up on him. When he spotted me, he promptly hid behind the rock. :lol: I was still several feet away!

Mine always spot me from across the room when I'm headed towards them! They are steadily becoming less shy though. :D 

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9 hours ago, Merthynia said:

Mine always spot me from across the room when I'm headed towards them! They are steadily becoming less shy though. :D 

I am hoping he will, especially once I get him in the 15 after QT. The blenny was spotted swimming in the open in the 15 today! And I think he was even playing in the current! He went and hid on the rocks if I got too close though lol.

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On 1/18/2018 at 3:12 PM, StephLionfish said:

Following along, love the open rockwork! How long before the new guy is in the DT?

Welcome aboard! I've been keeping the fishes in QT for 6+ weeks to rule out ick so that's the plan for now. 

 

I got some stuff from LA and GCE for this tank! It was delayed from the snow so the LA order came Thursday and the GCE order arrived last night and I frantically tried to acclimate and dip before work lol. I got two scarlet hermits from LA and miraculously there were two actual crabs and zero empty shells. I'm 2/4 now on that record. :lol: A porcelain for this and the 5.5, the one in here is currently host-arrassing the St. Thomas mushroom. The one in the 5.5 looks to be a casualty. :( I got a squat lobster that I'd planned to go into my frag quarantine and later my jar but he, too, did not survive. So far everything else seems to be ok! Hopefully pics later after I've had some sleep. If not then early next week (currently on a stretch of working a lot, yuck!).

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Picture time!  Things are pretty messy as I've not had time to arrange things but I snapped a few quick pics to show some of the new stuff!  The TSB was conspicuously absent while taking these despite having been playing in the current moments earlier. :rolleyes:

 

From LiveAquaria I got two scarlet hermits, a trochus, and a porcelain for this tank.  The porcelain has claimed the St. Thomas as his home--it's mostly open today so I guess it's getting used to the little guy.  From GCE I picked up the red macro pack, sargassum, the halimeda sampler pack, and thick branching coralline, a purple ribbon gorg (very dark purple), purple brush and purple frilly gorgonians.  All but the purple ribbon are putting polyps out happily. 

 

I have developed some kind of nuisance something or other--maybe a dark colored cyano?  It's sort of a dark gray-green, forms a sort of mat on the surface of the sand and some strings going up/to other things.  The mat breaks up some of course if I try to siphon it out.  Any positive ID?  It seems to be worst in the lower flow corners so I just got another Koralia Nano to put on the right hand side to help mix the flow up more.

 

Porcelain crab and the new gorg from LiveAquaria (same species as Grube's gorgonian).  You can see the cyano stuff immediately to the right of the porcelain.  A lighter coat is to the right of the gorg.

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New gorgs on the left hand side, and sargassum.

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Clump of red macros lol.

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More mystery/cyano on the right hand side of the tank (left of the blasto it's easy to see).

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Big scarlet hermit harassing the magician paly/eating branching coralline/probably up to no good:

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Thick branching coralline.  This stuff is cool!

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Messy FTS--the halimeda sampler pieces are scattered across the front:

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I'm kind of dealing with that same dark cyano myself in my 100 gallon. :(  I haven't tried Chemiclean yet, but it seems to be controllable by siphoning it out.  I assume that it's mostly a maintenance issue (at least in my tank).  I kind of ignored the tank during the holidays.  I figured that some good sized water changes and some  cleaning should take care of it without chemicals (not that I'm opposed to using Chemiclean).

 

I know you want to clean things up a bit.  But the tank is looking good. :)

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2 hours ago, seabass said:

I'm kind of dealing with that same dark cyano myself in my 100 gallon. :(  I haven't tried Chemiclean yet, but it seems to be controllable by siphoning it out.  I assume that it's mostly a maintenance issue (at least in my tank).  I kind of ignored the tank during the holidays.  I figured that some good sized water changes and some  cleaning should take care of it without chemicals (not that I'm opposed to using Chemiclean).

 

I know you want to clean things up a bit.  But the tank is looking good. :)

Thanks Seabass!  I haven't done a water change in a bit so that may be part of it.  You think it's cyano too?  I may get some Chemiclean to try, or at least have on hand in case I decide to.

 

Edit: In 9 years I've never actually dealt with a cyano problem so it's new to me lol.

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pappadumplingz

Only just noticed you started another tank since I've only been briefly lurking for the past month or so. I really like the display fuge look, all the gorgonians look really nice.

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1 hour ago, pappadumplingz said:

Only just noticed you started another tank since I've only been briefly lurking for the past month or so. I really like the display fuge look, all the gorgonians look really nice.

Thanks!  I'm hoping for a couple more varieties eventually, I think they are just so gorgeous!  I've been on much less the past couple months too, just too much going on!  I'm so far behind on so many threads... :unsure:

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With respect to cynobacteria, you really can not eliminate it.  Cynobacteria is imbedded in coral biomass.  It supplies nitrogen to coral, when nitrogen is not available in bulk water.  

 

I consider cyno as a bioindicator for two things:  excess phosphate or insufficient competition for nutrients.  In both of my display tanks, I add ammonia each day to assist with uptake of phosphate.  Of course, I have fast growing macro in the tank.  Yes, Dragons Tongue is fast growing.  Also, if I did not have cryptic sponges, I would use GAC to remove DOC, which will fuel undesirable algae growth.

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StephLionfish

Looks great, you're making me miss my macro tank something fierce! That branching coralline is wicked; I've never seen it before. 

Plan on doing any sponges? 

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23 hours ago, Subsea said:

With respect to cynobacteria, you really can not eliminate it.  Cynobacteria is imbedded in coral biomass.  It supplies nitrogen to coral, when nitrogen is not available in bulk water.  

 

I consider cyno as a bioindicator for two things:  excess phosphate or insufficient competition for nutrients.  In both of my display tanks, I add ammonia each day to assist with uptake of phosphate.  Of course, I have fast growing macro in the tank.  Yes, Dragons Tongue is fast growing.  Also, if I did not have cryptic sponges, I would use GAC to remove DOC, which will fuel undesirable algae growth.

You may not be able to eliminate it but you can make it not make your tank look messy haha!  There probably are some excess nutrients present which need to be gotten rid of so hopefully in a day or two I can do a good sized water change.

 

18 hours ago, fishfreak0114 said:

I love all those new macros!  I can't wait t watch them grow in :) 

Thanks!  Me too, though I may move some of the smaller and duplicate frags to the other tanks. :happy:

 

7 hours ago, StephLionfish said:

Looks great, you're making me miss my macro tank something fierce! That branching coralline is wicked; I've never seen it before. 

Plan on doing any sponges? 

Thanks!  I have a purple photosynthetic sponge I'll probably put in here but not sure if I want to try any NPS ones, I need a lower maintenance tank for times when I get busy with work and I think I'd constantly worry about the yellow and red sponges!

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I match your purple sponge with my dark burgundy cyno.  

 

This tank  is one month old, but sand was reused and is still full of organics.  Reverse flow undergravel filter prevents sandbed from going anarobic as well as supplying oxygen to the little people.  I know from readings, that cyno has many differrent color strains, I have not had this color before.  After the picture, it will be vacuumed.  When it is thick and has thin trailing hairs get it out because it is getting ready to spread sexually, with spores that can attach most anywhere.  On the other hand, in a differrent area of sandbed, K see some yellow colors beginning.  Too soon to tell, but I think that this is a differrent cultivar of coralline algae. 

 

Lula,

I am having zero success with gorgonions.  I so much like looking at yours.  Mine slough off constantly, I put them in a separate system to not watch them go down hill.  

 

I am implementing  UV protocol on all my macro tumble culture tanks, starting with my Halymenia dilitata tumble culture.

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18 hours ago, Subsea said:

I match your purple sponge with my dark burgundy cyno.  

 

This tank  is one month old, but sand was reused and is still full of organics.  Reverse flow undergravel filter prevents sandbed from going anarobic as well as supplying oxygen to the little people.  I know from readings, that cyno has many differrent color strains, I have not had this color before.  After the picture, it will be vacuumed.  When it is thick and has thin trailing hairs get it out because it is getting ready to spread sexually, with spores that can attach most anywhere.  On the other hand, in a differrent area of sandbed, K see some yellow colors beginning.  Too soon to tell, but I think that this is a differrent cultivar of coralline algae. 

 

Lula,

I am having zero success with gorgonions.  I so much like looking at yours.  Mine slough off constantly, I put them in a separate system to not watch them go down hill.  

 

I am implementing  UV protocol on all my macro tumble culture tanks, starting with my Halymenia dilitata tumble culture.

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My little purple sponge isn't loving the new light in the 5.5, I think the light is too intense for it, which is why I want to move it once I know the plug is free of that awful turf algae lol. I am really happy with the gorgs too, it took me a while to get the courage up to try them. I hope the new ones do well too. They definitely love flow! I wonder if there was some unseen chemical stuff going on that they didn't like which kept them continually sloughing?

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I removed a large Sinularia leather coral which do give off chemicals.  I stopped using GAC when I included cryptic sponges in my refugium.  I do not think that I will bring gorgonians back in this tank until I have completed vacuuming  out the last of 6” high Jaubert Plenum down to 2”.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/21/2018 at 6:42 AM, Lula_Mae said:

Thanks Seabass!  I haven't done a water change in a bit so that may be part of it.  You think it's cyano too?  I may get some Chemiclean to try, or at least have on hand in case I decide to.

 

Edit: In 9 years I've never actually dealt with a cyano problem so it's new to me lol.

9 years and you haven't had cyano outbreak? That's kinda crazy, considering you have had countless tanks.

 

Also I love the color you chose for the back, bright and different.

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On 2/3/2018 at 1:16 PM, samnaz said:

9 years and you haven't had cyano outbreak? That's kinda crazy, considering you have had countless tanks.

 

Also I love the color you chose for the back, bright and different.

Yeah I don't know how that happened lol.  I have red cyano in my little frag tank right now too.  But adding the second Koralia Nano seems to have stopped the dark cyano in this tank unless there is some in pockets I haven't seen over the hectic last few days.  The background color is actually the same as what I used on the 5.5, I was inspired by tanks like Gena's 20L that used white but when I went to get white spray paint, this light gray kept calling to me and I decided to go for it--and loved it!  It was the first time I'd ever painted the background too.  The paint is Valspar "Project Perfect" satin finish in color "Lighthouse Shadows."

 

On 2/3/2018 at 3:31 PM, teenyreef said:

Hey you have a new tank! Sorry I missed it :blush:

 

What did you name your PSW? Or does he remain nameless until he graduates from quarantine?

No worries, the couple months over the holidays were pretty hectic!  I haven't decided for sure but am thinking of calling him Merlin and going with an "M" theme for my fish names in here.  He's gotten to be a little spazzy, he freaks out every time I stick the pipette in to feed him so I don't actually know for sure if he's eating...I may try adding some more plastic plants and see if that helps him calm down.  He's only got a couple more weeks in quarantine!

 

My tanks haven't gotten a lot of attention lately because in the last few weeks my car's broken down twice (at work, an hour from where I live, thank goodness for AAA!) and I chipped my tooth, so today was spent at the dentist and car shopping. :rolleyes:  Plus my hard drive died at the start of the year.  Yuck!  I did find a car I really like which is basically identical to mine but a couple years newer and half the mileage, and in much better shape than my poor old car lol.  Hoping to pick it up on Friday!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, after buying a new car, dealing with a horrible cold, missing lots of work and sleeping a lot, I am returning to the land of the living.  PSW graduated from quarantine today!  He is completely freaked out and last I saw was hiding in some red macro and all I could see was an orange eyeball glaring at me suspiciously. :lol:

 

I am trying to decide what to do for my final fish in this tank.  I will have the TSB, the PSW, and eventually will move the clown into here but am debating whether to get a second, smaller clown or a firefish or something different.  I want to cap it at four fish as I think that will be plenty (or should I even leave it at 3?).  I am open to suggestions! 

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