Dawn's 56 gallon natural nutrient reef.

[vlangel]

9 hours ago, kimdawg said:

I really enjoyed the video, it is very relaxing.  Can you tell how many and what type of blennies you have in your tank? I have a 75 gallon with a small yellow tang, pajama cardinal fish and a clown fish.  I would like to add several blennies to the mix if that is possible.

 

Sorry I don't know why it is underlining part of my reply

 

Sure I would be happy to share what blennies I have.  In the combtooth variety I have a linear and an orange spot.  They are the kings and to keep 2 of them the tank will need a lot of rock and hide holes.  I think I lucked out that they get along pretty well.  Then I have 2 yellow head blennies that are in the fanged variety.  They are venomous but they don't bite me.  In the wild if a bigger fish tries to eat them they bite the inside of the fish's mouth.  And finally I have the 2 barnacle blennies.  Although they are small they are packed with personality.  I would think blennies would be a nice addition to your 75 gallon tank and should do well with the fish you have.

[pgrVII]

27 minutes ago, vlangel said:

Sure I would be happy to share what blennies I have.  In the combtooth variety I have a linear and an orange spot.  They are the kings and to keep 2 of them the tank will need a lot of rock and hide holes.  I think I lucked out that they get along pretty well.  Then I have 2 yellow head blennies that are in the fanged variety.  They are venomous but they don't bite me.  In the wild if a bigger fish tries to eat them they bite the inside of the fish's mouth.  And finally I have the 2 barnacle blennies.  Although they are small they are packed with personality.  I would think blennies would be a nice addition to your 75 gallon tank and should do well with the fish you have.

Thats alotta Blennies!😊

[vlangel]

9 hours ago, pgrVII said:

Thats alotta Blennies!😊

Yes it is, but they are so darn cute!  Unless they are fighting one can never have too many blennies!

[pgrVII]

Just now, vlangel said:

Yes it is, but they are so darn cute!  Unless they are fighting one can never have too many blennies!

I've only kept ruby red dragonets,the blennies are so cool to watch. Like a spongebob character...but for real.😆

[kimdawg]

Thanks for the info.  I would like to get a couple of lawn mower blennies if that is possible.  I have about 50 pounds of rock from reef cleaners.  It has lots of holes and I have caves and swim holes all over the tank.  I also have 4-5 pieces of barnacles that I have picked up off of the beach here. I live on tybee island.

[vlangel]

11 hours ago, kimdawg said:

Thanks for the info.  I would like to get a couple of lawn mower blennies if that is possible.  I have about 50 pounds of rock from reef cleaners.  It has lots of holes and I have caves and swim holes all over the tank.  I also have 4-5 pieces of barnacles that I have picked up off of the beach here. I live on tybee island.

Lawnmower blennies are in the combtooth variety but they do not spend as much time in caves.  I also do not think that they would tolerate another of the same in their tank unless you could perhaps get juveniles together.  I have never heard of anyone keeping more than 1 lawnmower in a tank however.

[kimdawg]

Thanks for the help.  I might try a lawn mower and an orange spot blenny if you think that would work together.  I just looked up the orange spot and it is a beautiful kind of goofy looking fish.

[vlangel]

4 hours ago, kimdawg said:

Thanks for the help.  I might try a lawn mower and an orange spot blenny if you think that would work together.  I just looked up the orange spot and it is a beautiful kind of goofy looking fish.

I love my orange spot blenny.  He has the cutest knobby face.  Good luck with the blennies, I hope it works.

[vlangel]

Tonight Mike Paletta is speaking to my areas marine aquarium club on coloring up coral.  I am looking forward to what he has to say.

 

PS. Maybe I will stop at a lfs to check out what they have in stock, so may come home with some goodies!

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

4 minutes ago, vlangel said:

Tonight Mike Paletta is speaking to my areas marine aquarium club on coloring up coral.  I am looking forward to what he has to say.

 

PS. Maybe I will stop at a lfs to check out what they have in stock, so may come home with some goodies!

That will be really cool, share some stuff with the class afterwards lol

[vlangel]

1 minute ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

That will be really cool, share some stuff with the class afterwards lol

Ok, I will.

[vlangel]

Mike Paletta's talk was good.  He spoke on coral color.  He shared that its the aquacultured corals that are in these bright colors.  He warned that a lot of the pics we see online of coral are taken under blue lights with orange gel covers on the camera lens.  Also some vendors enhance color with photo shop.  He showed how corals that are 2" higher in the tank can be a different color.  That some coral will color up when they are stressed.  

 

Basically his bottom line was don't buy a coral strictly based on color because it can change.  Do feed your coral and keep alk, mag, calcium and PO4 stable and you should have good healthy nicely colored coral.

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

1 minute ago, vlangel said:

Mike Paletta's talk was good.  He spoke on coral color.  He shared that its the aquacultured corals that are in these bright colors.  He warned that a lot of the pics we see online of coral are taken under blue lights with orange gel covers on the camera lens.  Also some vendors enhance color with photo shop.  He showed how corals that are 2" higher in the tank can be a different color.  That some coral will color up when they are stressed.  

 

Basically his bottom line was don't buy a coral strictly based on color because it can change.  Do feed your coral and keep alk, mag, calcium and PO4 stable and you should have good healthy nicely colored coral.

Wow that's really cool. Coral are crazy animals for sure. I wish they had something like what you went to around here, i'd love to go to a talk about corals. I figured the colors vary, I mean my acans have basically turned orange and red. I didn't notice anything else in my tank change colors though. 

 

[vlangel]

15 hours ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

Wow that's really cool. Coral are crazy animals for sure. I wish they had something like what you went to around here, i'd love to go to a talk about corals. I figured the colors vary, I mean my acans have basically turned orange and red. I didn't notice anything else in my tank change colors though. 

 

Different trace elements can impact color.  Potassium can bring out blues/purples.  I forget what it takes for other colors except that true yellow is hard to get.

 

Mike Paletta is a diver and he also said that in the ocean most coral looks brownish or tan which I found interesting.  Its because of aquaculturing that such bright colors have become available.

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

1 minute ago, vlangel said:

Different trace elements can impact color.  Potassium can bring out blues/purples.  I forget what it takes for other colors except that true yellow is hard to get.

 

Mike Paletta is a diver and he also said that in the ocean most coral looks brownish or tan which I found interesting.  Its because of aquaculturing that such bright colors have become available.

It's funny you say that, I've seen dive videos and they aren't as bright as home aquaria and that makes sense. Must be all the manipulation that we can do in our glass boxes. Very interesting. I have never been one to dose things like that, one I'm way to new to this and two I figured water changes were the best for the elements.

[vlangel]

1 hour ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

It's funny you say that, I've seen dive videos and they aren't as bright as home aquaria and that makes sense. Must be all the manipulation that we can do in our glass boxes. Very interesting. I have never been one to dose things like that, one I'm way to new to this and two I figured water changes were the best for the elements.

I have been a reefer since 2004 but I am also trusting my water changes to provide what my corals need, that and food.

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

9 minutes ago, vlangel said:

I have been a reefer since 2004 but I am also trusting my water changes to provide what my corals need, that and food.

We'll keep doing what you do cause your tank is awesome 😀

[vlangel]

5 hours ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

We'll keep doing what you do cause your tank is awesome 😀

Wow, thank you!  I appreciate the compliment. 😊

[vlangel]

This tank is cruisin' along just fine.  The macro algaes (at least some of them) are really beginning to grow well; green grape caulerpa, the feather caulerpa, red grape and the red titan.  I am not too sure how healthy my calcarous macros are.  None of them look that great.  I keep hoping they'll turn around.

 

Most of the coral seem pretty good except the rose coral died.  When I epoxied a piece of rock near it some of the epoxy actually got pressed into it.  Immediately after it began to recede until there is nothing left.

 

Tomorrow I go to the LEAR frag swap and I hope to come home with some nice goodies.

[debbeach13]

How exciting new goodies.

[vlangel]

Going to LEAR was amazing.  We got there about 40 minutes to an hour after it started and there was still a huge long line to get in.  Fortunately it went fast.

 

Seeing so many beautiful coral in 1 room was overwhelming.  I was not sure to shop around or to just buy when I deemed a coral a good price.  I ended doing the latter.

 

I went knowing that I was going to look for ricordia, and a long polyp toadstool.  I also thought different color euphyllia would be nice.  Beyond that, I wasn't sure.

 

Well I came home with 14 new coral!  It was so much fun.  I did not spend more than $35 on any coral.  I have 5 new ricordia/yuma/shroom, 2 new acans, 1 new gorg.  I saw a very pretty acid washed BTA, (of course he chose to attach to the back of my rock on the left).  He's still viewable and feedable so it's ok.  And he can't hurt anything else back there.  Also I saw a beautiful yellow torch and I always wanted one. There was a green tipped hammer and mine is a purple tipped hammer.  And there was green pipe organ, another coral that I always wanted but never tried.  On my list was a duncan frag so I had to buy that and also my long polyp toadstool.  Lastly I bought those large brownish tan and white palys which I can't recall the name atm.  Anyway it was a great day.  The coral are in the tank and I will get pics when I can.

[vlangel]

FTS

Acid washed BTA

Acans

My 1st ever pipe organ

Yellow tipped torch, although it looks pale green in my tank.  Still a beauty.

[vlangel]

The new coral from LEAR are looking good.  The BTA, acans and duncans ate well tonight so I was happy to see that.  The ricordia/yumas all look happy and the torch and hammer look pretty good.  The hammer may be getting too much flow as it is not fully open.  The long tentacle toadstool is fully open. The only coral that has not open at all is the yellow non photosynthetic gorg.  I know they are tricky but I figured if I ever had a tank suited for it, this is it, so I had to try it.

[vlangel]

The yellow gorg still has not opened.  I don't know about it.  I ended up moving the hammer, hopefully it likes its new spot better.  Everything else looks really good though.  I should probably take a video soon.

[Sharbuckle]

9 minutes ago, vlangel said:

The yellow gorg still has not opened.  I don't know about it.  I ended up moving the hammer, hopefully it likes its new spot better.  Everything else looks really good though.  I should probably take a video soon.

yes, yes you should 🙂