natalia_la_loca Posted November 27, 2023 Author Share Posted November 27, 2023 towels out for water change day. The evo is doing great. time to frag the green nephthea again, and soon i’ll need to frag the miss piggy goni too. The little bailed-out frogspawn is still chilling in the cup. It still doesn’t seem to have much of a skeleton, but it has more than one mouth now. Progress! 3 Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 What a great read, I enjoyed immensely! Especially love the Roman emperor fish names! (all horrible tyrants though?) Thanks for sharing. Greg 1 Quote Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted December 2, 2023 Author Share Posted December 2, 2023 10 hours ago, Koleswrath said: What a great read, I enjoyed immensely! Especially love the Roman emperor fish names! (all horrible tyrants though?) Thanks for sharing. Greg tysm, glad you enjoyed it!! damsels and dottybacks can be pretty horrible tyrants…it turns out these guys are a little nicer than their namesakes though ☺️ 3 Quote Link to comment
Staticmoves Posted December 2, 2023 Share Posted December 2, 2023 Good read here, tank looks great. love reading the trials and tribulations. 1 Quote Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted December 4, 2023 Author Share Posted December 4, 2023 The miss piggy goni was shading and possibly stinging the micromussas, so i moved them out into the open the other day. They look happier already. I keep going back and forth about the koji wada “pink” nephthea, which is usually a very muted pink at best (at least in comparison with the insane neon pinks of the gonis and zoas). But it’s really pretty on cloudy days in winter. On my smallest zoa rock, there is a sponge that seems to be competing or fighting with the zoas. Next water change, i’ll probably try to scrape off most of the sponge, along with the “nirvana” zoas that are crowding out the more colorful morphs. Caligula was parading in front of my phone today. Nero too! 3 Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted December 5, 2023 Share Posted December 5, 2023 Nice photo's, everything looks colorful and puffy. 1 Quote Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted December 5, 2023 Author Share Posted December 5, 2023 3 hours ago, debbeach13 said: Nice photo's, everything looks colorful and puffy. thanks, not too bad for an old iphone xr! I keep thinking about upgrading and then i look at the prices and decide my old phone is good enough 😅 1 Quote Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted December 7, 2023 Author Share Posted December 7, 2023 cozy vibes. 5 1 Quote Link to comment
night_cloud Posted December 7, 2023 Share Posted December 7, 2023 One of the sickest evo builds on the internet! 1 Quote Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted December 8, 2023 Author Share Posted December 8, 2023 11 hours ago, night_cloud said: One of the sickest evo builds on the internet! aww thanks ☺️ i love the evo so much!! it’s so simple, affordable, easy to work with and easy to customize. Quote Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted December 16, 2023 Author Share Posted December 16, 2023 The tank is doing extremely well overall, but the ricordeas are struggling, no idea why. The green one is on its way out. The orange one is looking better but is starting to shrink. I might try bumping up the nitrate a little, it was around 5 last time I checked. The HG micromussa is still colored down a bit from being shaded by the pink goni, but continues to recover. I think i’ll keep it in the front corner. i’m debating where to put the other micromussa. Luxurious problems! 2 Quote Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted January 14 Author Share Posted January 14 time to frag the green nephthea again. It took some trial and error but i figured out a good way to do it. Nephtheas are way too slippery to stay put with glue and I don’t have space for a big rubble container for them to latch onto naturally, so a few days before go time, I glue a few pieces of live rock rubble to a frag plug, leaving a hollow area. Then on a water change day, I lop off a big branch with scissors left over from an old planted tank. Then I take a rubber band and fasten the nephthea in the hollow area of the live rock rubble; the nephthea will eventually attach to the frag plug, while the hollow area allows circulation within the branch (without it, the bottom part could necrotize, causing the whole thing to fall off the frag plug). the big guys the frag plugs with rubble Operation successfully completed tonight. Will post more tomorrow. 3 Quote Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted January 14 Author Share Posted January 14 Frags were looking good this morning and already starting to open up before lights on. (Caligula says hi) 2 Quote Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted January 14 Author Share Posted January 14 The mother colonies are still pissed (cut mark visible at bottom left) but are starting to open. The leptoseris to the right of the cut will have a little more room to breathe now. I’m glad i’m staying on top of fragging now. Green nephthea is so pretty and has a very satisfying shape in the tank, but I’ve lost a lot of other corals in the past (mainly due to shading) when I allowed it to overgrow. 1 Quote Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted January 14 Author Share Posted January 14 One of the masterpiece rhodactis decided to take a walk today. Fortunately it had a little rubble attached, so I glued it to a frag disk and put it in front of the ricordeas, which are continuing to not thrive in this tank. 1 Quote Link to comment
Tempestas Posted January 16 Share Posted January 16 Wow. You continue to amaze me with your reefkeeping skills. This tank looks absolutely amazing!!! Also, your's was the main inspiration for my reefbowl. 1 1 Quote Link to comment
geekreef_05 Posted January 17 Share Posted January 17 Phenomenal looking reef! 1 Quote Link to comment
colormegone Posted January 17 Share Posted January 17 It is an Awesome tank for sure. I can't believe how well it does with the simple light you use. Very impressive! 1 Quote Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted January 18 Author Share Posted January 18 Thank you so much y’all ☺️ On 1/16/2024 at 11:12 AM, Tempestas said: Also, your's was the main inspiration for my reefbowl. I’m so glad!! my goal with these threads is to inspire people (and hopefully keep them from making the same dumb mistakes I make lol) 11 hours ago, colormegone said: It is an Awesome tank for sure. I can't believe how well it does with the simple light you use. Very impressive! I know right?!! to be fair, i’m not trying to grow acros under that light, but it gets some amazing growth for $25! 1 1 Quote Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted February 2 Author Share Posted February 2 I got the clip-on macro out to photograph the reefbowl, so I took some pics of this tank too. I’m worried about this one because my smaller pink goni from Cherry corals started to RTN last week. You can see in my nephthea-fragging pics above that it was looking unhappy, but last week I started seeing exposed skeleton and it began to lose tissue daily. Rather than risk contaminating the whole tank, I pulled it and threw it out. (It smelled like death.) Now I’m concerned I might have some kind of pathogen in there, but haven’t seen other signs yet. I’ll be really sad if it hits the miss piggy goniopora or the zoa colonies. The holy grail micromussa has colored up really well. I love the new spot it’s in. The bernardpora is doing great. it took a while, but this leptoseris(?) has finally recovered from the alk spike. it came so close to dying out. Zoas doing great. FTS. 4 Quote Link to comment
Tempestas Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 Sorry to hear about the Goni. Rest of the tank looks amazing as usual 1 1 Quote Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted February 14 Author Share Posted February 14 I’m still kind of nervously watching this tank after losing the smaller pink goni. I pulled the duncan out from under the surviving pink goni and moved it to the right side of the tank because it was getting shaded and/or irritated by the goni. It looks like hot garbage right now, but fingers crossed it recovers. The big pink goni is a beast as always. So far, so good. 7 Quote Link to comment
GeorgeUnutt Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 Can algae growth on coral have any positive effects, such as providing additional nutrients or aiding in coral resilience, or is it solely detrimental to the health of the coral? Quote Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted February 15 Author Share Posted February 15 8 hours ago, GeorgeUnutt said: Can algae growth on coral have any positive effects, such as providing additional nutrients or aiding in coral resilience, or is it solely detrimental to the health of the coral? For purposes of our tanks, completely detrimental. On the reef, it’s a little (a lot) more complicated. Quote Link to comment
natalia_la_loca Posted February 18 Author Share Posted February 18 Beetlejuice was briefly out in the open today. I see them pretty often, but usually only at night. Such an amazing animal. 3 Quote Link to comment
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