Mixed Reef Jar—big changes

[NatureGuy]

This is beyond me 

edit: I think I figured it out, please call me Dr. NatureGuy now lol 

[NatureGuy]

I’ve realized beyond reasonable doubt, that I have no idea what I’m doing 

[Tamberav]

Any salt or water get near it?

 

never used a usb one before. My tiny heater is still a plug. 

[NatureGuy]

6 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

Any salt or water get near it?

 

never used a usb one before. My tiny heater is still a plug. 

Not that I know of, but it definitely could’ve happened without me realizing 

Edit: it seems like the replacement may be too weak, I didn’t expect that to be a problem lol

[Tamberav]

I use this on my 5g (on an inkbird) - it has been running over a year I guess now.. 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175452485385?hash=item28d9c87709:g:XvsAAOSwqU9jTGu3&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAsNMaSrykM0TdjlB7NKp%2FXFRnxa4fJFtCrFTLt3Wp%2FlxhhW4bty0BJ0iBFdaNm2Yv16b%2BxaruRWkc9UXS9AAzvYQSl1ObkZlgOtdbUZzjurzpyqculJCy2Vm7bySctF1jDFIeSpltEfgc5RGVfEbwogEBiOm4oiD%2FjpLRhLgiEKGkL4K6ff1Ys3mUY7T6tX3jBGRQKJ7WvFwJJlfKnssRLUNV8nfhyLXxLtQDEBLrKdoO|tkp%3ABk9SR8zZi6C2YQ

[NatureGuy]

I got my first coral! I’ll post a pic once they open. 

[NatureGuy]

They’re open! (Mostly) It was $40 in total at my LFS

[Tired]

Looks like you got some nice clove polyps and a couple of zoas. Good solid starter corals, and at ~$13 apiece, a pretty solid price. 

[NatureGuy]

Even though I've only had coral for two days It's already clear that this is my jam. I've never had my intrests seized to this degree by anything I kept in freshwater. I've always been drawn to oddballs and corals seem to really be up there. They're far more resposive to light then I thought they'd be. They were completely closed within only a few minutes of teh lights turnign off. I knew they would do this, but I didn't expect such an inmediate reaction. I chose a pico mainly beacue I thought it would be easy and cheap. So far it has been. Though I've barely done started maintaning it, seeing as its only been set up for a week or so, I think the quick and easy WC will allow me to enjoy this in a way a more brudensome setup, such as my 55 gallonfreshwater setup, inhibited. Though it has been easy so far, I didn't predict the struggle of moving frags inside such a small system. It seems obvious, but I failed to predict it. Luckily, I had forceps on hand already from my freshwater tanks. I am excited to see how things will progress from now on. I forsee that problems with the lighting may occur. I've always loved marine biology; however, I found the legistics of light spectrum and whatnot to be tedious, and, as a result, have completely neglected them despite understanding their importance. My light is customizable, however, I have employed no scientific method watsoever in custumizing it. Asuming I'm lucky in that area, I find myself rather curiousu to see how fast the coral grow. I've chosen varities which are considered to grow quickly, but am unsure how fast that truely is considering that its relative to coral in general which I understand to be rather slow growing.

 

I this is old info to most of ya'll, but I thought it might be cool to wright up my first impressions

Sorry for the spelling, I suck at both that and typeing which makes for some really wonky stuff 

[Tired]

Yeah, it's weird to look at corals doing things and realize, hey, that's an animal! They're so unlike what we think of as animals, but they are living, breathing things just as much as something like a shrimp is. 

(Well, okay, minus the breathing; they absorb oxygen from the water directly.)

I really enjoy showing my reef to people, feeding a coral so it moves, and watching them properly register that this is in fact an animal. People tend to either think that a coral is like a plant, or have some vague "I saw on a nature show that this is an animal" understanding without ever having actually seen a coral act like an animal. It makes sense, since most folks can't watch corals do anything in their backyard like they might see a bird or lizard, but it's no less fun to show off. 

 

In that vein, make sure to, at some point, get yourself a coral that has a strong feeding response. It's fun to watch. I like blue-green sympodium; pretty, unusual, grows at a reasonable rate without being invasive, and closes up enthusiastically when you feed it. You could also try a rock flower anemone eventually, if you can find a good spot for it- ultra stay smaller than shallow-water RFAs, and it's fun to feed them and watch them eat. They kinda evert their stomachs to put the food inside. Very practical way of eating things. 

 

You might want to quickly Google your light model and try to figure out what settings it should be on for corals. Otherwise you may end up wasting time waiting for corals to grow under an un-suitable light. You'll also want to make sure that you have enough nitrate and phosphate; generally 5ppm nitrate and 0.03ppm phosphate are decent minimums. 

[NatureGuy]

I did a quick google, it looks like the seller recommends 90-100% on blues, 80-90% on whites, 90-100% on the darker blue, 40-50% and teh red/green channel. I halved all of these and rounded up to the nearest ten (it can only be adjusted 10% at a time) so as not to go to intense. Its difficult to adjust it to an exact measurement bc the remote doesn't work every click and it can be difficult to tell if it did. I'll see how it goes I guess 

[NatureGuy]

It’s paranoia time! Should by be conserved that one of the clove polyps is droopy. Second pic shows how it looked earlier 

[Tired]

No concern necessary. Remember, these are animals. You wouldn't be concerned if you happened to notice that your dog was in a different pose than earlier. 

[Tamberav]

There is a pulsing leather coral as well as xenia... seriously I love xenia even if it can be a weed. Love to watch it move. 

[NatureGuy]

The ink bird alarm woke me up at 12:30 last night and a giant this morning. I think it was just the continuous heating alarm (bc the heater Barkley keeps up) so I’ve turned that up to 12 hours 

[NatureGuy]

Possible long term plan. Idk though, it could be cool to just scatter them about. I like a messy look 

[NatureGuy]

Should I turn up the lights? First pic is form Monday, last one is for today 

[Tired]

Good luck keeping GSP or xenia confined to any amount of space, let alone that little patch. 

 

The stretching suggests that a slight increase in light may be a good plan, yes. Crank it up a notch or two.

[NatureGuy]

Is it normal to lose a few polyps on a new frag? It’s been about a week now and certain polys still remain closed 

[NatureGuy]

They did the monch, they did the monster monch. 

[Tamberav]

I would not say it is normal though I don't find it particularly alarming as others are opening. The only thing I see going on is they want more light. It looks to me like the little ones never did open. 

 

You can certainly lose a polyp or two and not lose the whole colony and such. 

[NatureGuy]

7 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

I would not say it is normal though I don't find it particularly alarming as others are opening. The only thing I see going on is they want more light. It looks to me like the little ones never did open. 

 

You can certainly lose a polyp or two and not lose the whole colony and such. 

Thanks! I turned up the light yesterday, and am waiting to see if they retract 

[NatureGuy]

What sort of snail should I get to help with the algae? How might I go about removing it manually 

[NatureGuy]

Looks like a new polyp is coming in 

[NatureGuy]

I think I messed up. I did my first water change today, and I don’t think I agitated the coral enough first. They weren’t completely retracted. I also didn’t wear gloves and have an open cut on my hand. I feel a little funny, but I’m probably just being anxious