9to5 Tybee Island Caribbean style tank

[kimdawg]

I am trying to learn how to take my own pictures.  I took about 60 and cut it to 4.  I didn't have a clean front glass in some and I don't know when to use the yellow lense.  Should it be all blue lights or a combo of blue and white lights.  There isn't anything new in the tank since Dec. pics.  I think I want to add a few inverts and maybe another gorg. and then let it grow.Ttt

This one is blue light, but shows most of the tank.

 

I had blue and a little white on in these next two.  I used a yellow filter.  The glass is dirty but my water is crystal clear.

 

 

I think this one shows the colors the closest to the real color.

[AllAboutDatWrasse]

The yellow works best when it’s mostly whites, and maybe a little bit of blue. 
 

The orange works really well for the blue lights. 
 

Your tank looks nice! 

[kimdawg]

4 hours ago, AllAboutDatWrasse said:

The yellow works best when it’s mostly whites, and maybe a little bit of blue. 
 

The orange works really well for the blue lights. 
 

Your tank looks nice! 

Thank you, it is almost 3 months old.  I have been very happy with it since it cleared up about a month ago.  I will experiment with your suggestions and see if I can get rid of the yellow look.

[kimdawg]

I am so bad, I just spent the rest of my Christmas/birthday money on riccordea, 3 more RFA, porcelian crabs and another gorgonian for this tank.  I feel kinda bad, but not really cause it makes me so happy to look at it.

[DevilDuck]

Tank looks great! That one RFA is huge! 

A quick way to take pictures is to turn up the white light in the tank, take your pictures and turn it back down.

Make sure your camera is parallel to the glass to limit distortion.

[kimdawg]

I just added the stuff that I ordered after Christmas.  I got 10 riccordea from one place.  They are big beautiful and oh so colorful.  They sent 4 free mangroves that I put in the sump of my 75.  I got three more RFA, 3 porcelain crabs, and a huge gorg. from another place.  The Rock Flowers attached quickly and are all great colors and different from the others I had.  The tank glass is dirty in these pics but I don't want to mess with the tank anymore for a while.  The riccs will have to be taken off of the plugs, but they have only been in the tank an hour.

[kimdawg]

I have not been home in two weeks, so the tank has been running on autopilot.  My husband knows what to feed and how often to top the water off.  He has emailed me a pic every other day so I can tell nothing is fighting.

 

When I get home next week. I will get a new picture of the tank.  My goal for this tank was

1.  Not to have block wall of rock

2.  I did not want frag plugs all over the sand bed

3.   wanted a sand bed in the tank, but wanted it to stay clean

4.  I want to keep macro algae and gorgonians in the tank

5.  I want to decide what is important to me and move the rest into my larger tank

 

With these things in mind, I have been removing all of the gsp from the rocks.  This next week I want to get the riccordea off the plugs and attach them to a rock. My RFA all seem to like to live on the sand instead of the rock I provided for them.  No hard feelings I just need to encourage them to hit places they like but will look somewhat organized.  Any piece of rock that does not serve a purpose I plan on taking out.

[kimdawg]

     I have neglected this tank for the past month and it is time to fix that.  I just fragged and removed all of the riccordea from their plugs.  Each of them have grown at least one new head since the start of this tank.  I glued one of each to the rocks in this tank and added the extras to the wild child.  I moved to red RFA's to the wild child also. Tomorrow this tank gets a deep clean and hopefully a less rocky aquascaoe.  I will get pics up of both tanks this weekend, if nothing crazy happens.

[kimdawg]

My last post talks about neglecting this tank and I find I am guilty now of neglecting this thread.  I did a two gallon water change tonight and decided I would start testing this tank to see if I need to dose.  I have been putting a little two part in it most days along with homemade fish food and stuff for the corals.  Everything is growing great, but I know I need to test if I am going to continue to dose.  I had to split the original riccs and zoas that I put in here.  They were out growing their space.

 

As I was cleaning the tank I realized the little nano magnet on the inside was missing the cover and beginning to rust.  I took it out and need to get another one.  I am going to put in an effort to update both of my tank threads weekly just to keep myself motivated with my progress.

[kimdawg]

Finally, an update with pictures.  In the past weeks I removed about a third of the rock, the gorgonians, two RFA and a lot of the split zoas and riccs.  The hermit kept pushing the gorgs over into the RFA and they were losing tissue before I could rescue them.  They are better sized for the 75 anyway.  The only thing added to the tank is two new RFA to replace the two I took out and a riccordia yuma that I got at the reef show.

This a full tank shot and shows how much everything has been growing

Left side of the tank with the fish front and center.  I try to keep most of the zoas and all of the RFA on this side.I have one that did a 360 of the tank and went back to the same place he started.  The big green one in the center is my wanderer.

This is the right end of the tank.  It has my red macroalgae, lots of riccs and some more zoas.

This is an angle shot of the tank.  I love that the RFA are between $5-25 each and add so much color to the tank.

[kimdawg]

Everything is continuing to grow like crazy in this tank.  I am very happy with the things that I added into the tank.  Right now I have a small problem with bubble algae,  I going to do a two gallon water change tomorrow and try to get rid of some of it.  I will be getting an order of clean up crews for both of my tanks.  Hopefully the emerald crab along with picking off all I see will take care of it before the final picture.

 

[kimdawg]

I think I have a RFA having babies.  It was in a distorted shape about an hour ago and now little white dots seem to be coming out of its mouth.  I thought it was grains of sand and try to blow them off and the clowns are eating them.  There is still about 30 around the orange disc of the RFA.  My husband has gone to bed so I can't get pictures now.  Does this description sound like babies?

[LazyFish]

Yes it sounds like its spitting them out in a few days under blue light check  in the sand under and around the rfa probly see specks of color not all the babys flouress so depending on the color you may not see them. Usualy they are quite a bit larger than sand grains tho the mother may have ejected them too early while they weren't fully formed.

[kimdawg]

I was thinking they would be bigger also.  This is the first time I have seen this so maybe they will be bigger next time. She is still letting the little dots out.  If they were babies she had a bunch.

[LazyFish]

I've seen mine spit them early from stress or even from nothing apparent. Sounds like she spit the eggs.

[kimdawg]

I have not posted any tank pics since March, but the tank is doing great.  I have been dosing 2 part the last month along with phyto and some red seas coral food.  These zoas came out of my old ugly brown tank and their colors are really changing now.

 

Here are a cople of full tank pics under blue and white.  The riccs are all doubles or triples since I fragged them.

 

 

 

The tank will have a good cleaning before the final pictures.  In some of the pics you may see the molting of one of the porcelian crabs.  It scared me when the tank lights came on, but they are both alive and fanning.  I think I will call the lighter one spots and the darker one shady.  I will post pics of Mr. stripes the cleaner.  The larger clown is Mr. Ed(go figure) and the smaller one is Big Dawg.  It was renamed from wiggle dawg when Univ. of Georgia  won the national champs.  Once a Dawg always a Dawg, How Sweet It Is!!!

Now I will just post extra pics to look at, hope you enjoy.

[kimdawg]

Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers out there.  Nothing new with the tank this week.  I am just setting here and enjoying it right now.

[Dave MN Nano]

Beautiful RFAs!!!! Did they ever have babies?

[kimdawg]

Thank you, the large orange one expelled her eggs early about two weeks ago.  They were like grains of sand, so I know I at least have M/F.  I tried to fill this tank with stuff that I had not really done before and make it Carribean looking.  It has been a lot of fun.  I plan to keep it like this after the contest.

[Dave MN Nano]

And, a gorgeous tank, (I should have said). Almost goes without saying!!!!

[kimdawg]

Trying to decide if I want to write a 200 word summary, or just bow out now and watch my tank.

 

[Ratvan]

love the look of the tank.

Good luck in the voting (please do a write up!)

[aclman88]

Definitely do the write up!  You came this far.  Btw, your tank looks fantastic!  I also wanted to give a quick shout out and thank you for being so supportive.  I noticed you popped into everyone's contest threads with words of encouragement and wishes of luck.  I know I really appreciated it, so thank you!

[seabass]

14 hours ago, kimdawg said:

Trying to decide if I want to write a 200 word summary

Doesn't have to be that long (that's just the upper limit).  Even a short summary would be nice; but single pic is all that's required.

[kimdawg]

Just did a 3 gallon water change.  I will get my husband to take pics Sat/Sun. If I can figure out how to get them to Seabass I will complete the contest.  Like I said at the beginning, I enter the contest to encourage myself to keep up with a journal.  This contest gave me a bonus already.  I have a tank that I am really in love with.