Mr. Fosi's 5.5AGA fish/coral mix

[Mr. Fosi]

Blue: I'm down, but I'd feel bad if I didn't have something to give you. Are you looking for any powerheads or anything?

 

Prop: I am about 600 miles from Cincy, OH. If it wasn't a 10hr drive (+ new baby + grad classes + papers to grade etc... ) I would certainly be there.

[bluebastion]

You would owe me nothing. You shouldn't feel bad, plus it would be doing the softies a favor. How's this Saturday sound?

[The Propagator]

600 MILES OUCH !!!! Sorry dude !

 

Hey play with that baby and smile big bro' !! I aint got one of those yet so you one upped me !!

[Mr. Fosi]

Sure!

 

My wife has two friends in town from PA, so she doesn't need me (read: I can leave the house without a postpartum guilt trip).

 

Where at?

 

EDIT: Prop, you don't need kids, you have a 100g prop tank!

[bluebastion]

My place if you want. I live in marriage housing at CIU off of exit 68 (Monticello Rd.)... one exit down from you. 15 minute drive. I get outta work at around 12:30pm on Sat... so we can make it a 2 or 3 appointment?

 

I'll show you my tank.... and you can have my 2.5 and all it's contents... btw I know the Sexy (the sexy shrimp) is still alive... Cindy (the pom pom crab) however may not be as I have not seen her in a long while.

 

Ah, if you don't mind I'll be keeping the wood work though... Matt Gecko original. I'll probably use it in the future.

[Mr. Fosi]

Dude, that it too awsome to even comprehend!

 

2-3 works for me, I'll do whatever is easiest for you. PM me your addy so I can map it out.

 

I am totally floored...

[bluebastion]

No problem... Merry Christmas.

 

Just don't think it's a beauty... used to be... but the 2.5 is majorly a has been now.

[Mr. Fosi]

It doesn't have to be a masterpiece, the fact that it is offered at all is off the charts. Know what I mean?

[bluebastion]

Cool. You'll get a PM before Saturday on directions.

[Mr. Fosi]

Awsome! See you then.

[Kamla]

Damn -- Mr. Fosi

 

Thas a long thread..

I fanlly read it all..

Lot of good info in it,

 

ur tank lokking good.. Post some more recent Pics..

Please

Thax

Kamla

[bluebastion]

Check your pm box Fosi.

[Mr. Fosi]

Got it, blue.

 

Due to popular demand:

 

Here is the GSP. You can see a new protrusion of new growth pointing toward the camera and to your right.

 

 

 

Here is a shot of the purple chalice.

 

 

 

Here is a shot of the chalice eating some mysis. You can see that different mouths are comsuming the mysis at different rates.

 

 

 

Here are the xenia babies. They are doing well, but they would grow much faster if I had more light over them.

 

 

 

The mushroom babies. They are kind of unhappy in this pic, but at different times during the day they peek out from under their mother's skirt.

 

 

 

You can see that I am in the middle of my second battle with cyanobacteria. I have circled a bristleworm that I have seen on and off over the last 10 months. I am glad that I was unsuccessful at removing him when I first set this tank up. You can see the circle of of rock devoid of cyanobacteria around it's head. As I watched, the worm scraped the cyano off the rock and ate it.

 

 

 

Here is a shot of the two Madracis colonies (finally) and one of my neon green sponges.

 

 

 

This is a shot of the colonies eating mysis. They were all bloated after they finished eating these, which took about 40min.

 

 

 

The obligatory FTS. I also made a 30sec movie with my camera. It's 15.3 megs, sorry dialup people.

 

 

 

My bathroom 10g planted tank. Why? Because I can.

 

 

 

 

[PhatSOB]

looks good, I miss my planted tank, maybe someday I'll start another.

[Anachronos]

Cool planted tanks Fosi, I got some good lighting for my FW 10 gallon, so I'm in the process of getting it heavily planted.

[BasementJungle]

Well I finally finished reading this whole thread. Lots of good info on here that I'll keep in mind as my 5.5 matures. Good luck.

[Mr. Fosi]

Thanks for the kind words and well-wishing, guys!

 

I have a short update:

 

I traded some chaeto to kidzatheart for a kenya tree frag.

 

This is the frag seconds after I added it to the tank:

 

 

 

This is the same frag one hour later:

 

 

 

And 24h later:

 

 

 

 

Initially it looks very happy and I hope it stays that way. I wish I had time to write more, but I don't. I plan to have a full update within a week.

[adinsxq]

this thread has a lot of views.

[FUGU!!!]

Very nice mr.Fosi

What is the next thing that you want to add?And what is your long term goal for your killer 5g?

I am also very glad you chose to keep your planted FW tank!

[Mr. Fosi]

Hey, FUGU.

 

I never know what I am going to add next, since most of what I add is decided on the fly. As for long-term goals, I always knew that this tank would be a stepping stone to something bigger. I have been trying to upgrade for months, but the $$ just never seems to materialize.

 

If I have my way, I will always have a FW planted tank. The 10g I have now isn't is really great shape because it is like the oldest kid of a family, it gets the least amount of attention because it can mostly take care of itself. Unfortunately, it really needs some CO2 injection and more water reqular changes. I know I can't manage the CO2 injection, since my wife would kill me if I put a DIY CO2 generator in the bathroom.

 

As for the rest, here is the promised update.

 

We'll start with a new shot, one that shows where the 5.5g is located:

 

 

 

And I'll follow that up with an FTS:

 

 

 

Here is where I was having some cyano problems. If you compare this with the last shot of this area, there is significantly less cyano here than before. RO/DI water really does wonders:

 

 

 

Here is the bomb-proof GSP. They are growing like gangbusters, so I must be doing something right... :

 

 

 

Here is the blue/purple chalice. I changed its orientation so it could capture light at a more direct (rather than oblique) angle:

 

 

 

I haven't put a pic of my wonderful clownie up in a while, so here she is. She hates the green pre-focus light that the camera puts out, so she is up under the AC70 intake:

 

 

 

The next pic is my vermetid snails, which I haven't posted about in a while as well as my big purple mushroom. It was a pain to get the snails in focus, but the shroom is nice and sharp... If you compare there to the intial pics, you will see that the snail tubes are 2-3x longer than when they were first introduced:

 

 

 

Another piece of livestock that hasn't seen the limelight in a while: my red mushroom. It just hasn't been happy since I changed the lamps a few months ago, but it is kind of extended in this pic. I am hoping that it will do better when I am finally able to roll it into a bigger tank:

 

 

The forum software is telling me I have too many pics, so I am going to try and add the rest in another post. Maybe I'll get lucky and it'll just append them to this one. Here goes...

 

 

 

Next up is my Madracis. It is apparantly loving the tank and has started construction of two more polyps:

 

 

 

Here are the baby xenia polyps that have sprouted from the strip of xenia flesh that escaped my poor treatment. I with I had stronger lighting so they wouldn't have to reach so much...

 

 

 

Here is the new kenya tree frag in its new, and hopefully semi-permanent, position:

 

 

 

Last, but not least, I have some pics of the 2.5g that bluebastion gave me. The hair algae is having a bonanza and I am doing my best to defeat it, but I haven't seen much progress yet.

 

These pics show some before and after shots. I took two pics with the flash so you could see some of the coloration that is present in the shadows, but I also did a couple without flash so you could see what it looks like with a couple normal output, GE, "full spectrum" lamps over it. The pics on top are before I did some weeding and the bottom pics are after I spent 1hr+ tweezing the hair algae out. You can see that it looks a little better, but not much. To see more detail, right click on the image and select "view image" or whatever option your browser gives you to single the image out of the page:

 

 

 

Here is the GHA harvest that I reaped over the hour. I get this much out every 3-4 days and it just keeps coming back. I have added some chaeto to the display to shade out the GHA in some areas as well as provide some competition, but I have seen only marginal success.

 

 

 

The only real success I have seen with the chaeto is the fact that the first, small ball that I put in there quadrupled in size within two weeks. I took about 90% of it out and traded it for that kenya tree frag and put the 2% back in the tank and the other 8% in my 5g exile system. The 2% that I put back in the 2.5 has already doupled in size and it has only been 5 days. I guess there is a lot in there for macroalage to munch on, but my NO3 test kit reads zero.

 

Just for the heck of it, here is a pic of my 5g exile bucket that I keep my extra LR in, as well as a wad of chaeto that I am testing that incandecent light with:

 

 

[FUGU!!!]

You should try some nice polyps mr.fosi,or these ones I want to get: I really like them.But I dont know what kind they are.Those vermetid snails are cool,I have never heard of them befour.

 

Stay cool mr.fosi,one day my 5g will be as cool as yours:I have a shipment of stuff coming in next week so if I can find my USB cable we can get some updated pics!

[travisurfer]

still looking good fosi. i forgot i could also get some codium(its here year round) in addition to the sargasso. lmk.

[Mr. Fosi]

I'm down trav, but I haven't been able to make good on my xenia promise yet so I would be ashamed to ask another favor.

 

FUGU: Did you see how this tank started out (page 1)? It was pretty sorry. All it takes to have a nice tank is time and some well-timeed purchases.

[travisurfer]

no problem, maybe you could trade something else or i could just send it when i ship the sargasso the second time this spring.

[Mr. Fosi]

You know everything I have, aside from unlisted dry goods. LMW if there is anything you are looking for.