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Loungeview Pico – An Old School Cheerleader


Tempestas

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2 hours ago, Tempestas said:

Just spotted the smaller one again. It's about 1cm in diameter. The second one is bigger at about 2cm in diameter.

 

The bigger one may need to be liberated back into the ocean as the ?favia was severely retracted this morning and one macro had been pushed off into the abyss.

Wow, hitchhiker urchins! That’s not something you see every day! Hope the new frags love the tank, and hope your acro makes a comeback! This is such a fun little tank, and foraging from the Wild makes it that much more interesting!

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You've had some very interesting hitch hikers!

I think your little salty globe is looking wonderful!

Well, except maybe your bleaching SPS...  hopefully someone can give you some tips on that.

I would of be no use with it myself, sorry!

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On 5/24/2019 at 8:34 PM, MetaTank said:

Wow, hitchhiker urchins! That’s not something you see every day! Hope the new frags love the tank, and hope your acro makes a comeback! This is such a fun little tank, and foraging from the Wild makes it that much more interesting!

I know. Sadly they're not as colourful as the ones I saw down in Knysna the other weekend, but still they're interesting to watch. Sadly I haven't seen much of them recently...

 

On 5/25/2019 at 12:58 AM, Wendy said:

You've had some very interesting hitch hikers!

I think your little salty globe is looking wonderful!

Well, except maybe your bleaching SPS...  hopefully someone can give you some tips on that.

I would of be no use with it myself, sorry!

Thank you so much!

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Monday was water change day again, and I used the time to glue down the acro to the very top of the rock, where hopefully the flow is strongest.

 

I also glued down the mystery LPS, but in the process of removing it from its rock, I cracked its skeleton, so it's still quite cheesed off with me.

 

Sadly after Monday, the acros slow bleaching turned into a RTN type of picture. Currently about 60% of the frag has died off. Weird thing is that the polyps are still partially out. Not too sure what to read into this. I'm not sure, if it was the water temperature during the water change. Monday was really cold over here and the apartment was freezing. Even after heating the fresh seawater to 25.8 C, I think it started to cool down very rapidly and by the time I got it into the tank it was 24,5 C.

 

I'm just going to leave the acro be and see what happens.

 

The red macro is also rotting away again, so I think I'm going to invest in an algae feeder and use that to feed the nudi instead of using large macro clumps

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@Ratvan, Ask you and you shall receive:

 

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Walked in from work late the other night and found the urchin battling a bristleworm, with the nudi just watching at a distance...

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Update time.

 

Did a water change on Tuesday and removed most of the rotten macro. I did spot two random anemones (not sure if they were aiptasia) but I superglued them over just in case. There is still one anemone that is stuck onto the glass which I left behind, as I think its a wildling that came in with the macro. We'll see what it grows into.

 

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I also spotted a new florescent organism growing on one of the rocks. Perhaps a coral polyp? Not sure if its similar to the stylo or a new coral altogether.

 

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Lastly the acro continues to not do well. Down to less than 10% of its original tissue. Sadness...

 

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That little polyp is sooo interesting - all the life you are finding in here is so fun!

 

Sorry about the acro... 💩 happens...

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8 hours ago, Tempestas said:

@Ratvan, Ask you and you shall receive:

 

1104965989_IMG_6566copy.thumb.jpg.8c9dbe84e455216706e85db52b25aba4.jpg

 

Walked in from work late the other night and found the urchin battling a bristleworm, with the nudi just watching at a distance...

This is just too cool! It’s so tiny! I’ve never seen an urchin that small, how neat! 

 

The little florescent polyp looks like some of the same that I have on my rocks. They haven’t grown or multiplied as far as I can tell, but neat nonetheless!

 

And sorry to hear about the acro,  maybe one of the sturdier species of SPS would work tho!

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13 hours ago, MetaTank said:

This is just too cool! It’s so tiny! I’ve never seen an urchin that small, how neat! 

 

The little florescent polyp looks like some of the same that I have on my rocks. They haven’t grown or multiplied as far as I can tell, but neat nonetheless!

 

And sorry to hear about the acro,  maybe one of the sturdier species of SPS would work tho!

 

The polyp is super interesting. I'm still wondering if it came in with the seawater from way up the coastline. The other option is that it somehow seeded from the stylo. I see you and I have a similar looking one in our tanks.

 

Thankfully the other 3 SPS seem to be doing okay. I really need to rehome the purple milka stylo onto a more aesthetic frag plug though.

 

12 hours ago, Wendy said:

That teeny urchin is so darling!

What kind of nudi is that?

 

Thanks!

 

Sadly I have no idea. He was also a hitchhiker on some macro. Though I'm more than likely going to liberate him into the ocean at the end of July. Seems like he only eats specific red macro that I can't keep alive in this tank, and which I have to harvest fresh from the ocean.

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Did a water change yesterday. Just before it I managed to get a shot of both urchins out and about.

 

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This is the size of the larger of the two taken the night before.

 

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Any chance anyone can ID this. I think its a sponge. Seems like it's been growing on the underside of the rocks

 

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FTS

 

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Hmmm...

 

So I've decided that I'm going to rehome my nudi into the ocean tomorrow. Unfortunately the weather is just getting too cold for me to go wandering around the beach barefoot looking for red algae for him every week. Plus, with the move coming up, I won't have a source for him afterwards. I tried feeding him sushi nori, but it resulting in him having slimy black poop that got caught in everything.

 

Also, my load-shedding (read: power failure) backup plan hit a major snag this morning. I accidentally ran out of electricity, and by the time I managed to buy and load some more, the tank had dropped by 1,5 degrees Celcius within about 45 mins. So now I need to brainstorm ways to keep it warm in case of rolling blackouts, which may start any day.

 

Lastly, I discovered why hot glue is a terrible choice for gluing frags down. Turns out that corals won't really encrust over it, but rather grow through it. Currently the Puple Milka has two polyps that have pushed through the hot glue base. I'll have to grab a photo in the evening when the polyps are more retracted, but the poor coral does need to be remounted and soon.

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Hot glue :rant:

 

What's about the longest that these power outages usually last? I have seen my picos fluctuate 3 - 4 degrees Celcius on occassion without much retort from any inhabitants. (sorry for bad math, I just had to look at the thermometer and had to edit the numbers...)

 

I'm glad you were able to keep the nudi well for the duration you had it - it was definitely spoiled in there - great work! I'm sure that the little booger really appreciates the top notch service that you provided during his visit  :]

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2 hours ago, Wonderboy said:

Hot glue :rant:

 

What's about the longest that these power outages usually last? I have seen my picos fluctuate 3 - 4 degrees Celcius on occassion without much retort from any inhabitants. (sorry for bad math, I just had to look at the thermometer and had to edit the numbers...)

 

I'm glad you were able to keep the nudi well for the duration you had it - it was definitely spoiled in there - great work! I'm sure that the little booger really appreciates the top notch service that you provided during his visit  :]

It all depends on how many generators they decide to take offline and what stage of load-shedding we have, but it's not uncommon for them to last more than 4 hours at a time, twice a a day.

 

I suspect though that the rapid drop does have to do with the room temperature in my apartment. With no central heating and windows that face south-east, it has gotten pretty cold in here now that winter is in full force.

 

Thanks, it is going to be sad to let him go. He is quite the character, and provided some life and movement to the tank. Especially the day he kept sticking his head into the stream of bubbles. 😆

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Polyps growing through hot glue. And the green slimer is 99% gone 😪

 

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And I still continue to find more wildling hitchhikers. Check out this starfish. Very subtle mauve and pink markings.

 

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I really couldn't risk dealing with outages either, so I have all of my stacking pico's equipment running off of this thing - I know UPCs are kind of a pricey solution, but It has been a huge help during our few outages here because I don't even have to think about it, and the pico just keeps running. I'm very sure it could run a low wattage heater and also keep the water moving for 6+ hours. There are also a bunch of other ways that have recently been discussed about how to acheive emergency power including some crafty DIY car battery projects. 

 

Nice try, starfish. But you can never replace nudi.

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Big update:

 

Firstly, there have been two deaths in the tank. The acro is completely gone and is now an algae covered white stick (Sadness...) The white sponge has also died but more on that later.

 

But that's about it for bad news.

 

Now for the good news.

 

I decided to hit the LFS's this week, and discovered that they had finally fragged my zoas for me, so I was finally able to buy some. The amount of gunk that came off them in the dip was disgusting, but they were all fully open in the tank within 2 hours, which surprised me a lot. I also grabbed a purple tip hammer because I wanted some movement in the tank that had been lost with Nudi's departure.

 

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Sadly no pics of the zoa's individually as I cannot seem to photograph them properly with all the blue from the light.


At the other LFS, I walked in and fell in love with this beauty and bought it on the spot. It was sold as a scoly but I think its more of a trachy. Who knows?

 

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I also bought this tiny mushroom lying in the sand. Of course it's attached to a clam's shell right at the bifurcation, so getting it off is going to prove interesting. This pic was taken in morning natural light. When the LED's switch on the vesicles fully inflate and make it look like a ricordia of some sort.

 

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And all of them together enjoying the blue glow:

 

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The scoly/trachy seemed to cope well with it's new home and extended it's tentacles more and more during the evenings. And they stayed out for quite a while in the mornings. I basically caved in and fed it some coralific delite mixed with reef roids last night.

 

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With all the corals being of frag plugs, I decided to take the opportunity today to alter the rockscape as well. My buddy came over with his chisels and cut down the top of the tall rock. Additionally, I used epoxy putty to stick some fragments into a shelf of some sort to create a shady spot for the scoly/trachy. All the corals sat in a bucket with the other rock and the fishbowl got a thorough cleaning out as well.

 

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Unfortunately this is where I ran into problems. I completely forgot about the white sponge at the underside of the rock, and left the rock outside for a good 90 minutes for the epoxy to set. Needless to say, I suspect that it's dead. After adding water to the tank and placing the corals, there is a fair amount of slime drifting around and most of the corals are unhappy. I may do another water change on Tuesday if i'm not getting the response I want.

 

Before meets after:

 

 

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Huh...


Seems like the mussel shell that the mushroom is attached to came with a living mussel inside...

 

What gives with all the hitchhikers?!? 🤷‍♂️

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6 hours ago, Tempestas said:

Huh...


Seems like the mussel shell that the mushroom is attached to came with a living mussel inside...

 

What gives with all the hitchhikers?!? 🤷‍♂️

I mean...I like mussels. Steamed, sauteed with garlic and wine, bbq'd, baked with japanese Mayo on it and garnished with bonito, green onion and tobiko roe... Yum! 😋

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