10 Gallon Rock Wall

[gena]

Love your tank!  I'm now fully up to speed!  Just went through all the pages.  Your frogspawn is on track to take over it's little world!  Is it easy to frag?  I can't remember if they are just one giant head or multiple little heads that can easily be cut apart.  Could be a nice money maker or store credit maker for you.

[growsomething]

Yes!  I don't care for green in a reef tank due to keeping fw planted tanks, but the wife wanted it.  It has about 8 heads.  Got it last year with 2.5 heads.  I pbly should cut them off and grow them out for credit.

[growsomething]

Here's a shot of hard coral in a Sarasota pass.  We had that scourge of sargassum weed covering everything last year, then weird algae and red tide this year (maybe due to the phosphate plant leak in Tampa Bay).  I haven't changed water in my tank since May or June sinceI use nsw.  Nothing has changed in the tank so far.

So the coral in the pic shows how about half of it along this seawall is bleached.  There's a healthy coral above the bleached one.

 

[gena]

That's sad :(.  At least the one above it is alive....and very cool to see "in the wild".  Do you know what type of stony coral that is?  

[growsomething]

No idea what exact coral itbis. There was some debate at my lfs when I showed them an earlier pic of a loose, dying frag I caught fishing last year.

[gena]

21 hours ago, growsomething said:

No idea what exact coral itbis. There was some debate at my lfs when I showed them an earlier pic of a loose, dying frag I caught fishing last year.

After I posted that question I googled it and I'm pretty sure it's porites!  

[filefishfinatic]

On 2/7/2020 at 4:48 PM, growsomething said:

Hello all, starting a journal thread for the 365 day challenge.  I don't expect to win, but it's an excellent excuse to start this IM Fusion 10 tank I purchased before I was married, and I've been married 3+ years!  New baby takes almost all personal time, and I can see I just need to start this thing, or forget about a saltwater tank.

 

Right now I've got a 75 gallon planted tank with angels and rams, a Fluval 6 with the rim removed containing female black bar Endlers, and a 20 long qt/hospital tank with all male endlers.

 

I've had 3 small saltwater tanks, but back when we got fuji rock and had bioballs, and no internet, so I am not exactly full of reefing know how.   The most fun tank I had was a 3 gal picotope with a single fuji rock that filled the whole thing.  I never put any corals on it, but various soft and hard coral, as well as many fans and sponges grew out of it.  I never had a cycle that I could observe in this tank, and I think it was bcs of the large amount of live rock, and a single fish.  It did great for a year or 2, till I slacked on water changes and an algae bloom smothered everything.

 

That pico tank is what I would like to re-create with this IM 10. I dont even remember what all the equipment I have consists of, but I know I had it ready to reef.

 

My plan is natural salt water from the gulf (when there's no red tide), rodi ato, a rock backwall of small individual dry pukani glued on (i never had one when they were popular, and I think it looks like the reef walls in the Philippines when snorkling), and live gulf rock on the floor, with plenty of sand and negative space.  I like macro tanks and zoa gardens.  Also tanks with red, blue, purple, pink, and minimal green colors. I'll pbly try some zoa and encrusting macro, as well as Florida ricordia and a hammer. Being within driving distance of Tampa, I hope to drive to one of the live rock suppliers to pick out a small amount of live rock.

 

For livestock, I'll collect some local hermits and snails, and try some sexy or pompom shrimp.  For fish,  a tailspot blenny, and maybe a high fin goby.

 

I was also considering doing a cryptic refugium in the center section of the sump with rubble and possibly with local mud.  There are a lot of pods in it when catching critters with nephews.

 

New ideas people are trying interest me.  I've had good past experiences with the KISS method, and am leaning in that direction with the IM.

 

Anyone think a cryptic refugium with a mud floor is a bad idea in the center of the Fusion sump?  This is all very sudden and I'm still entertaining different ideas and advise from fauna to flora to setup.

what is 365 day challenge exactly?

[seabass]

21 minutes ago, filefishfinatic said:

what is 365 day challenge exactly?

It was the year long contest that we had recently.

[growsomething]

If it wasn't for the pandemic it would've been even bettter than it was.  Good luck with the 2022 contest poll seabass.  It is an interesting read, along with the "will nr be the next rc" thread.

[growsomething]

4 hours ago, gena said:

After I posted that question I googled it and I'm pretty sure it's porites!  

Here is a broken, dying piece i caught maybe 2 ys ago from the same seawall.  Yes, I threw it back 😎

 

 

[gena]

20 hours ago, growsomething said:

Here is a broken, dying piece i caught maybe 2 ys ago from the same seawall.  Yes, I threw it back 😎

 

 

Looks like a cool sponge growing on it!  

[growsomething]

Shrimp bucket red tide update!

 

The outside of the bucket is now a brown/grey mess covered with stringy algae.  Inside there were no fish or shrimp.  Lots of anemones I hadn't seen before, little seafans, and tunicates.

The black tunicate on top changed to orange...or another one quickly grew in its place?

 

 

Here are some seafans and what I believe are aptasia inside, all over.

 

 

Some new anemone I hadn't seen before:  are these mojano?  I haven't had to deal with mojano in any tank yet.

 

 

 

Looks like some life forms are unbothered by red tide and proliferate, while others die off.

 

[filefishfinatic]

7 minutes ago, growsomething said:

Shrimp bucket red tide update!

 

The outside of the bucket is now a brown/grey mess covered with stringy algae.  Inside there were no fish or shrimp.  Lots of anemones I hadn't seen before, little seafans, and tunicates.

The black tunicate on top changed to orange...or another one quickly grew in its place?

 

 

Here are some seafans and what I believe are aptasia inside, all over.

 

 

Some new anemone I hadn't seen before:  are these mojano?  I haven't had to deal with mojano in any tank yet.

 

 

 

Looks like some life forms are unbothered by red tide and proliferate, while others die off.

 

intresting. are objects like this common? how would you ship one? i really would like to include something like that after the red tide ends into my 10 gallon because of its filter feeder diversity

 

[billygoat]

On 8/24/2021 at 11:42 AM, growsomething said:

Here is a broken, dying piece i caught maybe 2 ys ago from the same seawall.  Yes, I threw it back 😎

 

 

This looks like Oculina cf. arbuscula, sometimes called ivory tree (or bush) coral. It is a common nearshore coral in Florida. 

 

That shrimp bucket is pretty neat! How frequently do you pull it up to look at it? 

[growsomething]

3 hours ago, filefishfinatic said:

intresting. are objects like this common? how would you ship one? i really would like to include something like that after the red tide ends into my 10 gallon because of its filter feeder diversity

 

Filefish, it is really interesting, but it would completely fill a 10 g!  Not sure how many docks have a bucket hanging off them near a pass, most times they are in the intracoastal or a lagoon, and just have some barnacles on them, not much to look at.

 

13 minutes ago, billygoat said:

This looks like Oculina cf. arbuscula, sometimes called ivory tree (or bush) coral. It is a common nearshore coral in Florida. 

 

That shrimp bucket is pretty neat! How frequently do you pull it up to look at it? 

This is at a custom home under construction, so I pull it up every few months I am scheduled to go there.  The dock is scheduled to be replaced at the end of the job so it pbly won't be there much longer. 

I've been thinking of dangling something like this but flat under a public fishing pier in a pass, then pulling it up if something interesting grows on it.  I don't think putting out rock and pulling it is legal, but something non-rock would be ok.  Haven't thought it out yet.

[growsomething]

 

FTS.  I am not satisfied with the way the back wall is turning out.  The xenia are growing all the way to the top, and almost out of the water, shading all life below, even the original xenia placement.  

 

I'd like the back wall to be all zoa, maybe a few rfa, and acans and shrooms in the shaded areas.  

The xenia I'd like to move to the ground rock, since the frogspawn is killing everything it touches.  Maybe xenia, rfa on the ground rock.

The zoa on the rock have remained closed for 3 weeks, and will soon start to wither away.  It's not water related even though I havent changed water all summer bcs the other zoa, including the same variety I glued to the return nozzle are fine.

 

 

 

Wish me luck on moving the zoa.  I'll scrape a little rock off if I have to.  

On a related note, just got water this morning, red tide is still in Tampa Bay, but no traces down here in Sarasota as of this week.  Will change water after the xenia disturbance.

[Tony Bologna]

Your frogspawn has really grown. It looks amazing. Good luck with your zoas.

[growsomething]

These extremely aggressive hitchhiker zoas are growing on the xenia bases.  I don't think I'll be able to keep them from taking over the wall.

 

 

 

I pried these xenia off with the zoa and threw them away.  Nasty purple brown guts.  Then proceeded to loosen two of the large rock off the back wall trying to pry xenia off intact further down.  I quit for now.  Washed my arms, changed water, ran carbon, opened 2 windows, turned on the a/c fan, and we headed for the beach.

[growsomething]

Huge filleted trigger washed up on the beach.  Not red tide dead.

 

[growsomething]

Tank remodel was done today.  In prying the xenia off the back wall rocks, about 2/3rds of the rock came loose, so I took them outside to really finish them off.

It made a big difference:

 Here are before

 

 

And after

 

 

You can see I got the big piece a little crooked, and too close to the glass this time.  It was like putting together a puzzle.

Also, I got superglue on the glass.  I was a little surprised and disturbed by how easy it was to get off with a razor blade, but the back wall is acrylic and the gel was not really hardened yet.

 

 

A lot of bubble algae was uncovered. 

 

 

 

 

That will be my next project, pbly with a crab.

Also, I'd like a back wall of acans (in the shadows) and zoa, but not these invasive unstoppable hitchhiker neon green zoas.

I'll try to kill them with a syringe and h2o2 little by little.

 

 

[growsomething]

Going to start working on getting rid of these invasive green zoa.  Most of my favorite pink ray zoa have been smothered.  They had even moved over to the xenia rock on the right and had started growing on their stems.

 

 

Starting with a few polyps on the top left I'll experiment with h2o2 injections. 

 

 

 

 

I still have one insulin syringe, and will keep cleaning it with fw after each use (I'm not a diabetic, just used to be a nurse)

We'll see how it goes getting rid of all green!  The wife agreed to turning the frogspawn in for store credit at the lfs, and putting acans and more zoa on the back wall.

[debbeach13]

Wow that is a lot of zoanthids to treat. Good luck.

[growsomething]

Bucket update.  It shocks me how quickly this bucket changes with time.  Black sea squirts were absent last update, now are growing all around the outside.  Had a number of crabs drop off the sides as I set it down.  The ones that are the best sheepshead bait!  

 

 

Then this cute little guy starts wriggling after a minute.  Who knows how many things I can't see bcs they don't move.

 

 

 

Snapper are schooled below to catch the falling crabs, etc.  Wish the new contest were started, I'd put this guy in the tank.

[seabass]

That's so cool.  I love the bucket updates!

[growsomething]

Showed this pic at the lfs today, and they offered $25/head for the frogspawn.  They have none for sale right now.  I believe there are 9 + heads, but I haven't really tried to count them.  That will buy some stuff to compete with the green zoa on the back wall, hopefully an acan and zoa wall garden, but more likely whatever is available.   They are out of acan right now.  Next Saturday I'll be breaking it off and taking it in.