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Billy's 18g Caribbean Biotope - Breakdown Complete!


billygoat

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1 hour ago, Amphrites said:

I need more ceriths and nerites but all the LFS are selling 2-year+ old animals the size of quarters...

Reefcleaners.com is the place to go! Tons of good quality livestock, lots of freebies, and affordable shipping. All my Cerith, Nerite, Planaxis, and Nassarius snails came from them.

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I know, but they have minimum purchase and my invert only tank really can only handle another nerite, two at most, and maybe two more ceriths lol...

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9 hours ago, Amphrites said:

I know, but they have minimum purchase and my invert only tank really can only handle another nerite, two at most, and maybe two more ceriths lol...

Ah, I see. Yeah that makes sense. 😞 I guess it's LFS or bust in that situation! Unless perhaps there are some other reefers you know nearby that you could do a group-buy with!

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10 hours ago, IceParrot said:

Have you had any issues with the masked goby jumping? I love those gorgonians!

Thank you! So far the masked gobies have not seemed inclined to jump. Their instinct is to hide underneath of something when faced with danger, and in fact they rarely venture up into the water column at all except when the pumps are off at feeding time.

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That’s good to hear. Masked gobies are one of my favorites. I have yet to see a large group of them shoaling the an aquarium as they do in the wild though. 

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On 5/21/2019 at 7:09 AM, IceParrot said:

That’s good to hear. Masked gobies are one of my favorites. I have yet to see a large group of them shoaling the an aquarium as they do in the wild though. 

I started off with four of them, but quickly found that in my little tank they were much more inclined to fight than to school together! Now I have just two, and they seem much more comfortable. Each has his/her own space, and they rarely bother each other. I think that they would need to be kept in a much larger tank with less flow and plenty of open space in order to form a school.

 

One of mine did end up making a burrow though, which is pretty cool. I didn't even know that they demonstrated burrowing behaviors before I saw them doing it in my aquarium.

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Also: a whole three days after I said I was "probably finished stocking more fish and invertebrates," I have some new arrivals! 😅

 

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This is a Caribbean sailfin blenny (Emblemaria pandionis). I also got a purple sea rod (Plexaura flexuosa) to round out my compliment of gorgonians, and a new peppermint shrimp test subject. My tank is more stable now than it has ever been, so maybe I can finally keep a shrimp alive this time around.

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1 hour ago, Firefish15 said:

"One more" syndrome... :lol: Pretty little guy!

Speaking of "One more" syndrome... 🙄

 

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I have no idea what I should do with this, so I am open to suggestions!

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5 minutes ago, 748S911 said:

Add water!!

Here and I was thinking it would make a super cool planter box for my desktop Ficus! 😂

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Firefish15
31 minutes ago, billygoat said:

I have no idea what I should do with this, so I am open to suggestions!

Mini mangrove display? 

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1 hour ago, Firefish15 said:

Mini mangrove display? 

Not a bad idea! Might be kind of hard to light it though. It's super small; only 10x10 inches. Honestly I have a feeling the new tank might sit in its box for awhile until I start feeling less obsessed with my biotope. I assume that is going to happen at some point. Eventually. 😂

 

Here's a glared-out midday FTS to show the new gorg! It's the purple one at mid left. It has not extended its polyps yet but it's still very beautiful.

 

I tossed that huge shell in there in hopes that my new blenny might take up residence inside. It's pretty blindingly white compared to everything else in my tank though!

 

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And a macro shot of my zoanthids! Both the greens and blues have more than doubled in number over the past few months.

 

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I loved my sailfin blenny, but the only thing it would eat was algae. Didn’t even look at prepared foods. I ended having to put the algae mat from the fuge in the display for a few hours a day so he/she wouldn’t starve. Just be careful with a smaller tank and make sure there is algae in the tank. 

 

You should do a jawfish tank in that watebox that would be sweet!

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My man keeping us followers happy with more livestock! 

 

Your blenny looks awesome @billygoatlet us know how she does! (I think that's a female judging by the coloration).

 

Regarding your 4G I've always wanted a (simple) kitchen reef tank to stare at while I'm cooking. Plus easy water changes with the sink right there!

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15 hours ago, IceParrot said:

I loved my sailfin blenny, but the only thing it would eat was algae. Didn’t even look at prepared foods. I ended having to put the algae mat from the fuge in the display for a few hours a day so he/she wouldn’t starve. Just be careful with a smaller tank and make sure there is algae in the tank. 

 

You should do a jawfish tank in that watebox that would be sweet!

Mine may be a different variety of sailfin, as it seems to be taking prepared foods with no problem at all. It was chowing down on flakes just a few hours after being in the tank, and it took even more this morning. I guess I must have gotten lucky! 😁

 

As for the jawfish idea, 4 gallons seems a bit small for them, don't you think? A pistol shrimp/goby pair might be perfect though.

 

12 hours ago, melson said:

My man keeping us followers happy with more livestock! 

 

Your blenny looks awesome @billygoatlet us know how she does! (I think that's a female judging by the coloration).

 

Regarding your 4G I've always wanted a (simple) kitchen reef tank to stare at while I'm cooking. Plus easy water changes with the sink right there!

His/her coloration seems to change based on the background, so I am really not sure what to think there! I'll keep an eye on it and try to determine the gender based on fin size and flagging behaviors. S/he is doing great so far and has already staked out a little hole at the front of my rockwork. Any unwitting Nassarius snails that wander by get immediately punched in the face. 

 

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6 hours ago, Ratvan said:

What rooms do you have without a tank...

I think it's either the bedroom or the kitchen. The kitchen seems like an ideal place for a pico tank, with tiled countertops and everything already waterproofed. I've even got GFI outlets right there at the perfect height for everything! So that's definitely something I'll be considering. I just imagine myself picking one room and then regretting not having picked the other, and then ending up having to get yet another tank as a result! 😂

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Just in case you thought I was done... today was Algae Madness! omgomgomg

 

I wanted to pick up a bit of fine branching coralline algae (Amphiroa sp.) to compliment the rigid variety I've already got, so I ordered some from Gulf Coast Ecosystems. Russ over there is a nice guy and sent me two clusters instead of one, which is awesome because it looks great! It even came with three or four super tiny blue-leg hermit hitchhikers! 😄

 

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Annnnnd, as you can also see in the pic above, I also decided to add a bit more Halimeda to my order. GCE decided that I would get more than a bit, though!

 

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This is like four or five good-sized clusters of Halimeda opuntia. It's all over the place in my tank and I love it! A bit bleached out from transit right now but in a few days it's going to be beautiful! 😍

 

So yeah, I hope you guys are into Halimeda, because there's a whole lot of it coming your way!

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Where did you pick up the Waterbox 4G?  I VERY quickly searched for them a couple days ago and couldn't find one without a Kessil attached to it.  I have a 3.7G in my office, but I'm not a fan of the rounded corners and was searching for a 4G with straight corners. 

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10 minutes ago, TatorTaco said:

Where did you pick up the Waterbox 4G?  I VERY quickly searched for them a couple days ago and couldn't find one without a Kessil attached to it.  I have a 3.7G in my office, but I'm not a fan of the rounded corners and was searching for a 4G with straight corners. 

I got the 4G Waterbox from SaltwaterAquarium.com. When I ordered it (a bit more than a week ago) there were only four left in stock, and a quick check right now shows that they all appear to have sold. It's unfortunate because the 4 and 7G Waterbox both seem to be discontinued. Waterbox's website doesn't list either of them, which leads me to believe that they are not making them anymore.

 

Another quick update...

I was just rearranging some macros in my tank and found this tiny crab. It must have come in on some of the algae I added today.

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That's a shotglass it's in, just to give you an idea of its size. My instinct was to euthanize it in my freezer, as unknown crabs have a high chance of being bad news. But I just didn't have the heart to kill this tiny, helpless creature. 😞 I tossed it back in my tank. Hopefully that decision won't come back to ruin my day later on down the road.

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1 hour ago, billygoat said:

I got the 4G Waterbox from SaltwaterAquarium.com. When I ordered it (a bit more than a week ago) there were only four left in stock, and a quick check right now shows that they all appear to have sold. It's unfortunate because the 4 and 7G Waterbox both seem to be discontinued. Waterbox's website doesn't list either of them, which leads me to believe that they are not making them anymore.

 

Another quick update...

I was just rearranging some macros in my tank and found this tiny crab. It must have come in on some of the algae I added today.

IMG_0121.thumb.JPG.66867d531129e943b218ca76d3ff1eb3.JPG

 

That's a shotglass it's in, just to give you an idea of its size. My instinct was to euthanize it in my freezer, as unknown crabs have a high chance of being bad news. But I just didn't have the heart to kill this tiny, helpless creature. 😞 I tossed it back in my tank. Hopefully that decision won't come back to ruin my day later on down the road.

I need to stop reading your updates, I’m wanting to order from GCE 😂, I really want that crab too 😅

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  • billygoat changed the title to Billy's 18g Caribbean Biotope - Breakdown Complete!

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