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Lizzyann's IM 20 Peninsula


lizzyann

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Here's hopin' the wrasse is okay. 😞 Everything else is looking really good though! Don't abandon hope. 😊 Even with all of the setbacks, I am sure there are tons of people out there who see your tank and hope that theirs looks halfway as good some day.

 

Also I think rippin' out all your rocks and going full ham on the hydroids is probably not advised. It would be almost impossible to get rid of them all manually, and the disruption to your tank would likely do more harm than the hydroids themselves in the long run. I'm no expert so take it with a grain of salt, but that's my 2 cents!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Any update on Hydros? I have a few on my Zoas, but they don't seemed bothered by them, which I find odd from your experience with them bothering your corals. 

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I definitely lean toward taking less drastic approaches to things, and have decided to just wait and see with both the hydroids and Lily. The hydroids are still everywhere, and spreading, but none of the corals actually seem to care. The acan that I was worried about is back to normal, so something else must have been bothering it, and my leather is acting pretty normal - finicky, but looks great most days.

 

Lily is also back to normal, no idea what was going on with her. After the patches cleared up I did see a different little white/clear thing on her that I thought might be a fluke or some other little parasite but it was gone within the hour so it might have just been some sand or debris stuck to her. Keeping a close eye on her.

 

One of the only things I decided to try to combat the hydroids was a wedge sea hare. After not being able to find any locally, or my usual online places, and against my better judgement, I bought one from saltwaterfish.com. The first one was DOA, then they sent me another that died within a day or two. Not going to try again and hopefully I can get my money back. 

 

I also got a peppermint shrimp from the LFS. It's doing really well and is a fun addition so far. I read an account or two of them eating hydroids and I don't think that's happening, but it quickly took care of the few aiptasia I saw popping up.

 

All the corals are doing well, this area is a bit of a war zone though:

 

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The leptastrea was killing the meteor cyphastrea a little quicker than I'd like, so I built a wall. The two cyphastrea seem ok and I'm curious to see what happens as they continue to grow around and over each other. Then in the top left, just to the right of the blue hornet zoas, you can see the meteor shower cyphastrea is apparently attacking the goniopora from like .5-1 inch away! I thought gonis were supposed to be the more aggressive of the two, which is the main reason why I even put them there. 

 

Oh and in great but slightly annoying news, the yasha goby is still alive! It's been over a month and I haven't even seen the dang thing PEAK out of the rock. I decided I'd check while doing some vermetid snail killing yesterday and there she was!

 

I'm getting more and more curious about the "balance" of my tank right now. I continue to have constant readings of .2 nitrate and 0 phosphate (this ideally should be slightly higher, right?) but also show signs of overfeeding and excess nutrients, like an increasing number of vermetid snails, an overpopulation of spaghetti worms, and of course the hydroids. Do these pests (in combination with my macro algae?) just reduce nitrates and phosphates to almost 0 even if I am overfeeding? I feel like I'm not really feeding enough even, as I only feed every other day, usually a cube of frozen mysis or something similar. On the off days I'll sometimes put a couple flakes in for the shrimps, crabs, or maybe the yasha, but ever since Graygrumps died there hasn't been a fish that actually ate prepared food so usually it's just the frozen every other day. Anytime I've fed less it doesn't seem to change anything except to encourage dino growth. What's going on in there? Is this all normal?

 

I haven't taken a lot of photos lately as I've been super busy and only able to keep up with the basic feeding, water change, and testing of the tank but I did really like this night shot of Maraschino, the pom pom crab:

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Welp, still no catastrophes!

 

Slightly bad news:

1. Peppermint shrimp disappeared when I was on vacation

2. As soon as peppermint shrimp was gone, aiptasia popped back out

3. Some of the LEDs in my older AI Prime have started flickering so I've got to send it in for service

3. Hydroids still flourishing

4. Cyphastrea is definitely going to completely take over my front rock and I don't know what to do

5. This dummy neptune bounce is still as tiny as ever

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Good news:

1. Lily still looks good, no signs of disease or distress

2. Hydroids still don't seem to actually be bothering corals

3. Yasha is finally making the occasional appearance! Not enough to get a good pic, but still so exciting to actually see her out on her own accord! As soon as she comes out the shrimp gets to work right beside her. I feel like he's probably glad she's finally willing to venture out, there's a lot of building to be done around their stoop and he can't do it without a lookout!

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4. And lastly, I cleaned the back chambers and all the equipment and went ahead and just glued all my frags down this week so it's photo time!

 

 

Bowerbanki lookin super trippy as it sprouts new babes 😵

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Cynarina has been fat and happy. I like this coral a lot but every time I see a really colorful lobo or scoly I kinda want that in its place, so we'll see...

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These are the acros I finally glued down. I said I was only going to keep one or two of the three but was tired of looking at my frag rack and realized it's going to take a lot of time before they color up and I probably wouldn't be able to decide anyway sooo... here's the mad raver milli, which I'm hoping might get a bright pink or red one day:

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acropora spathulata, which had more bright pink in highlighted areas when I bought it and will hopefully get that back now that it's more in the center under the light:

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I kinda like it even if it doesn't color up well, so fat and fuzzy!

 

I couldn't get a good closeup of the flaming unicorn (that I actually glued down a couple weeks ago) but you can see it in this group shot. Pretty boring colors now but hopefully a strange, perhaps pastel, rainbow to come

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Ignore that random frag and snail. I accidentally knocked an oregon tort tip off, so figured I should try to get it growing.

 

The monti caps on the other side are finally staring to mingle and I added another red one to the left of the idaho grape on a whim. At the LFS it looked like more of a pink tone than the orange of the starburst on the right, but they ended up having a pretty similar color after a few days in my tank.

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Perfect shelf for Hermie

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He seems to be having a blast every day

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Top down of the back

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I also put the pagoda cup that's been on the sand forever up on a rock. It seems happier than ever to be free from the substrate.

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These two besties that hang out in the open space

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One of the pipe organs that is bursting with new polyps. You can also see some little bits of spaghetti worm in the sand below!

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In the same surprisingly slow growing category with the neptune boune, are these pink diamond zoas. These things are the brightest, most pure pink I've ever seen in a reef tank, but slower than any zoa I've come across. I need to scrape off those digitata and birdsnest leftovers soon! 

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Anyway, there's probably things I'm forgetting, but that's all for now folks!

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2 minutes ago, ninjamyst said:

those eye candies!  I just got a pink diamond too and they are soooo bright!

You'll have to let me know if it grows for you, and under what conditions! I've got these at the top of my front rock so it probably gets a bit too much light and flow, though I do have that light turned down a bit.

 

 

Oh and duh, totally forgot to post these FTS

 

Right:

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Left:

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Stunning! I always enjoy your updates very much. This tank is really vibrant and beautiful, despite the hydroids and dinos and other various problems you've had to deal with. 😁

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1 hour ago, medinar83 said:

Awesome update, what sand are you using? 

It's two types of the CaribSea Arag-Alive. I started my IM10 with a finer sand, I think it was the "fiji pink," then when I upgraded to the peninsula its previous owner gave me some free bags of the "reef sand" so I added some of that. 

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Still haven't spent too long with the camera but finally got a respectable picture of the yasha.

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She's been so much braver and more willing to hang out and look at me every day!

 

Also the yellow leather has been looking extra fluffy the past couple days, right after I complained about it not looking like it's very best self on someone's thread, haha.

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Such a clean setup! Not overloaded, super neat placements. Love it! You have made such good use of the Peninsula space. 

 

It just struck me: I do remember reading you journal long ago. It's still vivid because we both started the tanks pretty much around the similar time. Perhaps, you might be a month or two ahead of mine :smilie:


Great pictures btw! :happy:

 

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Tank is looking great!!! It's amazing to see all the progress you've made, you should be proud! Nice growth on the corals too! You could always try a Duncan coral, they're cheap, grow really fast (especially if you feed them) and look pretty cool (at least IMO)

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On 8/14/2019 at 8:06 AM, Melfy77 said:

Tank is looking great!!! It's amazing to see all the progress you've made, you should be proud! Nice growth on the corals too! You could always try a Duncan coral, they're cheap, grow really fast (especially if you feed them) and look pretty cool (at least IMO)

Thank you so much! I actually already have a duncan, it was one of my first corals 🤗 and definitely been a great grower. It was only a single head back then, so cute:

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And here it is now behind my front rock, with around 20 heads 😁

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1 minute ago, lizzyann said:

Thank you so much! I actually already have a duncan, it was one of my first corals 🤗 and definitely been a great grower. It was only a single head back then, so cute:

MVIMG_20180710_191340.thumb.jpg.48155e3b408f317d8c5471214bd3ae02.jpg

 

And here it is now behind my front rock, with around 20 heads 😁

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Hahaha guess I need new glasses😂 beautiful Duncan!!! Mine is not impressed ATM...had a to glue it to the rockwork and had a really hard time doing so...hopefully it'll bounce back!

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Quick question @lizzyann! Are the possum wrasse and yasha goby the only fish you've got in here?

 

I was just browsing the sequence of photos in your first post and holy cow, the growth you're seeing is amazing! That gorgonian is getting pretty big! 😍

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3 hours ago, billygoat said:

Quick question @lizzyann! Are the possum wrasse and yasha goby the only fish you've got in here?

 

I was just browsing the sequence of photos in your first post and holy cow, the growth you're seeing is amazing! That gorgonian is getting pretty big! 😍

Yep, those are the only two! I'm considering adding another but want the yasha to be super confident first. I also just can't decide what the third fish would be... Either a little clown to totally change up the vibe or an extra pretty blenny, basslet, or other more cryptic fish?

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Up late with the lights on 😴🌟🛸

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On 8/15/2019 at 8:34 PM, billygoat said:

That gorgonian is getting pretty big! 😍

As you can see, it has gotten so big the flow is knocking it over! Need to find a bigger rock to glue it to perhaps.

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23 minutes ago, lizzyann said:

Up late with the lights on 😴🌟🛸

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Awesome shot! Do you use specific settings on your AI prime when taking pictures to capture those colors or is it simply the high quality camera? Will be following along!

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7 hours ago, M&C said:

Awesome shot! Do you use specific settings on your AI prime when taking pictures to capture those colors or is it simply the high quality camera? Will be following along!

This photo was just with my cell phone, but many of the other more recent pics are with a high quality camera. I pretty much always adjust the lights a little when photographing, but don't have any specific settings I use, just fiddle with it until the camera sees what I see. Usually this just means turning up the whites some.

 

This photo I specifically had lower blues and a tiny bit of white on, but also used the polyplab clip on lenses to bring out some of the color and counteract the blue. I can't remember if this one is using it or not but with the lower light pics I also sometimes use the "night mode" function on my phone. It can usually get more detail and a lot of color, though the color is sometimes a little off and too saturated, so I have to go back in and edit them down a little.

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8 hours ago, lizzyann said:

As you can see, it has gotten so big the flow is knocking it over! Need to find a bigger rock to glue it to perhaps.

Beautiful! Looks to me like it just needs a bit more ballast. I'm sure the gorg itself can take quite a bit of flow.

 

I love that mint Pavona too. In the picture above it looks like it's glowing! 😁👌

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  • 2 weeks later...

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