Jump to content
Premium Aquatics Aquarium Supplies

[CUSTOM] Ann


Ann

Recommended Posts

Ann, I have never kept one personaly, but it;s just like any other coral. Once you start to see transparent and/or white places where it once was colored, it's dieing / a gonner. Maybe it will come back to what it once was, but right now it dosn't look that good as far as color goes, but the fact that it's still accepting food is a good sign.

Link to comment
  • Replies 247
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Interesting, I'll keep a close (closer ;) ) eye on it and if it starts to recede I'll try moving it to one of my other tanks. Perhaps my pictures are giving a false impression of how it actually looks, I'm sitting right next to the tank now and it doesn't look like it's ailing, still I'm not an expert on such matters. I have my fingers crossed that it'll survive.

 

Ack, I do actually have a frogspawn frag that I could put in this tank but it's such an agressive grower that I'm trying to avoid at all costs. It's not a pretty colour morph but what it lacks for in colour it makes up for in growth rate. I have it in my large tank and it's a calcium sucking, coral stinging, monster. :lol:

 

Best regards

 

Ann

Link to comment
Thanks Max. :D

 

I don't think that this is Halimeda sp., it's not got the characteristic segmented growth pattern as seen in this genus, though perhaps that may develop with time.

 

[snip]

 

Here's another shot showing, I hope, the blade composition a bit better. They are quite thin and flexible.

 

paddlealgae241205.jpg

 

Best regards

 

Ann

 

 

Yes, doesn't look like Halimeda from that angle. Very nice algae though. Did you take some sort of photography class?

Link to comment

I agree with everybody, you're doing a great job on the photography.

 

I like the vertical composition to your rock layout. Did you do anything to secure the rocks together? You may have already answered and I skimmed past it while I was looking at the photos.

Link to comment

Max,

 

I've not attended any photography courses, I just enjoy taking pictures. I suppose you could say it's my other passion, after reef keeping. Now that I have a digital camera it's so much easier too. Delete, delete, delete... ;)

 

I'm thinking now that the algae could possibly be Udotea sp. Well, whatever it is I hope that it keeps small and manageable. :mellow:

 

Rob,

 

Thanks! :happy: The rocks do have a secret support. I've not posted about it yet as I wasn't sure if anybody would want to know about it to be honest but since you've asked....

 

I wanted the rocks to be secure but avoid using the likes of milliput etc, so I picked up a length of 6mm acrylic rod and made a frame using it. I cut the rod into 3 smaller lengths and glued them (using Tensol 30) to a bit of acrylic sheeting (black was all I had available at the time). The small squares at the base of rocks have holes drilled through them and sandwiched together with glue as I wasn't sure if the rods would be secure enough without them.

 

acrylicrods.jpg

 

The LR was broken into smaller pieces using a hammer and a hole drilled through the middle bits. Then the pieces were threaded onto the rods to form 3 stacks. Nice and secure but not obvious when viewing the tank. The thin layer of sand hides the black acrylic sheet. :D

 

 

There's been a bit of a development in my Pico since I last posted an update, the pink Seriatopora is no more. :( I had to remove it, but not for any of the reasons I expected. I have already mentioned that my zoanthids were looking a bit rough the other week, I thought that I had cured the problem by adding some carbon/polyfilters in a bag to the refugium but it proved only to be a short term cure. Soon afterwards the zoas were losing colour again and refusing to open fully. I changed out some water (multiple times actually) in case it was a water quality problem and even stuck the carbon/polyfilters into a proper pumped filter unit in case passive filtration was not efficient enough, but the zoas continued their downward spiral. On the morning they refused to open up at all I decided I must take other action. The only change that I had made to the tank prior to the problem developing was to add the Blastomussa corals and Seriatopora. Now, there seem to be a fair number of Pico tanks (in this competition too) with Blastos in so I figured that they were unllikely to be the cause of such problems but I haven't seen many Seriatopora mixed in with zoas. I didn't think that it could be the root of the trouble but I wasn't entirely sure so I decided to take the frag out and see what happened. To my very great amazement the zoas immediately began to open up again and after 3 days all are pretty much back to normal again. I never knew that Seriatopora could pack such a potent punch! There's always something new to learn when keeping reef tanks. :)

 

I had actually been quite pleased with how the Seri had been doing up till then, it had been keeping its colour well and showing signs of growth too. Oh well, this Pico was never supposed to be about SPS corals. I took a quick pic of it before it was banished to the sump of my big tank to show how it had been faring, there are 6 days between the left shot and the right shot.

 

seri6daygrowth.jpg

 

Best regards

 

Ann

Link to comment

I love it Ann, you're such a DIYer!! :lol:

 

That's crazy about the seriatopora. What was it doing to affect the zoanthids? It's a shame it was showing such good growth for under a week.

Link to comment

Zoogirl, there was no direct contact between the Seri so it must have been down to chemical warfare as Ice has stated. I had no idea that SPS corals produced much in the way of toxic substances in the same way as some soft corals (such as Leather corals) are known to do. I know better about that now. :blink: The water changes and carbon etc must have been helping dilute whatever it was out but I guess they just weren't enough to keep up. The water volume is so small and the corals are so close together. I'm just so relieved to have worked out the cause of the problem, I was beginning to think that the zoas might have contracted some sort of fatal disease. :eek:

 

Best regards

 

Ann

Link to comment

Okay, a monster update today. I hope there aren't too many members still using dial up cause there are a lot of pictures, if there are I apologise in advance. -_-

 

So... starting with zoanthids, most are looking good I think. One tiny frag had to be relegated to the refugium as it was knocked off the rockwork, no doubt by one of those pesky hermits. I daren't risk using more superglue to fix it down again so I'm just going to let it attach naturally to a small rock and then move it back to front again once it's secure.

 

The green zoanthids below, have shown great growth which is not entirely surprising as they are getting the best light and they weren't mauled by me (ie fragged) right after introduction.

 

gz040106.jpg

 

Whoopee! The nasty blob of superglue/rock has fallen off these zoas at last. :D The bottom half has fixed itself nicely to the rock and has grown itself a couple of small new polyps. The top half still looks a bit loose but I'm hopeful that it will attach too now that the glue has gone.

 

rz040106.jpg

 

 

The rest of the zoas haven't shown much sign of encrusting on to the rock work or new polyps but seem heathy enough. Perhaps they need a little help feeding wise?

 

pz040106.jpg

 

lgoz040106.jpg

 

oz2040106.jpg

 

Groan! What do we have here? I thought that I'd got rid of this blasted Aiptasia but oh no, it somehow survived my mega fragging. I'm going to have to zap it ASAP.

 

lgzflash040106.jpg

 

I had to relocate the tiny B. merleti frag to higher up the tank as it was getting too much flow in its old position. Actually I'm finding it surprisingly hard to find suitable locations for some of the corals in this tank. The flow is really quite strong round the lower areas of the rockwork.

 

bmerleti040106.jpg

 

The B wellsi is going to have to tough it out where it is cause I haven't got anywhere else to put it. :P

 

bwellsi040106.jpg

 

The Fungia is one, fortunately, that likes the flow, though it does seem debatable as to whether it's really happy or not in this tank. I like to think it's doing OK. Oh and the hermits wanted to get in the act too. :)

 

hermitsandfungia040106.jpg

 

Now as for my poor baby Bubble. It's been tried in practically every location in this tank but I can't find quite the right spot for it. The trouble is that it doesn't have an internal skeleton yet so when it inflates it's like a baloon bobbing about. It finally parted company with the old bit of skeleton it was attached to so now it rolls round the tank like a ball of tumbleweed. :lol: As a last ditch attempt I've made a little corral (heh heh) for it at the back of the tank, if it escapes from there then I'm going to have to pop it in the refugium for safe keeping.

 

bubble040106.jpg

Link to comment

The 'blue' Ricordea is hopefully thinking about splitting in half.

 

ricordeas040106.jpg

 

The red dot 'srhoom is back in the tank again, still small and lonesome but attached to a small rock now.

 

shroom040106.jpg

 

The only new addition to this tank has been a frag of Ricordea yuma that I literally scraped of the rock of my Nano tank. I've had these mushrooms for years now and they grew really really well in my old tank (too well to be honest) but now that I have them in my Nano they do absolutely nothing, they just exist. I wonder whether this one will do better in this Pico??

 

yuma040106.jpg

 

I still have my hitchhiker tunicates but I'm not sure that they are really doing that well. They used to have an opaque appearance but since I've been running the carbon they've turned clear. I don't know if that's significant or not? One thing's for sure the tube worm behind them is very happy. It was nowhere to be seen in the last picture of the squirts but has formed a tube and grown up the rockwork to its present location. :)

 

squirtsnworm040106.jpg

 

Phew, that's pretty much all my news. There's just time for a couple of FTS...

 

fts040106.jpg

 

fts2040106.jpg

 

 

Best regards

 

Ann

Link to comment

i love the wellsi shot! new desktop wallpaper for me! :lol:

 

nice coloration and growth all around. maybe you can get the baby bubble a temporary shell/skeleton, like a hermit-shell type of thing.

Link to comment

Thanks guys. :happy:

 

Hmm, a temporary shell home could be just the ticket. I'll have to see if I can find one that's suitable. :wizard:

 

Best regards

 

Ann

Link to comment
Fishfreak218

WOW!!! those pics are THE BEST... especially the one with the Fungia and the 2 Hermits...that should be in like a book or Magazine....I love that Sargassum Macro stuff and the Rics and the Blasto ..... your tank looks great...(why do you have to be in custom :rant::bowdown:omgomgomg:tears::scarry: )

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recommended Discussions


×
×
  • Create New...