My Saltwater Journey: a diary
- Thread starter AnnetteG
- Start date
Few more pics & updates to add to my diary.
I swapped the two tree sponges to a guy in my local reef club for an itty bitty piece of pink ricordia. He also gave me a bit of had coral of some sort and a pretty sps teeny piece that the decorator crab made off with. Yesterday I swapped the decorator and the mantis who turned out to be a slipper lobster to a guy in my local reef club for a bunch of zoa frags and a rock covered in something he called cocos and a couple of hard branchy coral frags. Have to figure out what these are to see if I want to keep them or not.
Here are the latest pictures:
This is what the tank looks like when I don't use a flash. My lights are ALL blue. Must do something about this soon.
I'm using the big version of this one so you can see all the new stuff I've added in!
Hope that's not too big for the screen!
I'm also now testing for Calcium (500), and everything else. I got the API Reef Master Test kit. So I'm adding in things, once in a while, but only after I test and determine if I need to, I'm not doing it daily. I am feeding the tank PhytoFeast so hopefully my corals will start growing! I should be getting an orange Ricordia in the next few days! I ordered one off Ebay. Can't wait!
ETA: Yes, I monkeyed with this picture. There was a big ole glare from my flash, so I painted over it with another part of the rocks near it. There should be yellow polyps in the place that is obviously changed.
Thanks for reading!
I swapped the two tree sponges to a guy in my local reef club for an itty bitty piece of pink ricordia. He also gave me a bit of had coral of some sort and a pretty sps teeny piece that the decorator crab made off with. Yesterday I swapped the decorator and the mantis who turned out to be a slipper lobster to a guy in my local reef club for a bunch of zoa frags and a rock covered in something he called cocos and a couple of hard branchy coral frags. Have to figure out what these are to see if I want to keep them or not.
Here are the latest pictures:
This is what the tank looks like when I don't use a flash. My lights are ALL blue. Must do something about this soon.
I'm using the big version of this one so you can see all the new stuff I've added in!
Hope that's not too big for the screen!
I'm also now testing for Calcium (500), and everything else. I got the API Reef Master Test kit. So I'm adding in things, once in a while, but only after I test and determine if I need to, I'm not doing it daily. I am feeding the tank PhytoFeast so hopefully my corals will start growing! I should be getting an orange Ricordia in the next few days! I ordered one off Ebay. Can't wait!
ETA: Yes, I monkeyed with this picture. There was a big ole glare from my flash, so I painted over it with another part of the rocks near it. There should be yellow polyps in the place that is obviously changed.
Thanks for reading!
Corals I have now.....
I'm posting pics of corals I have right now so I can record their growth as I go along with this. The tanks is going into it's fourth month and I can't believe how much I've learned, but I know I've got about a zillion and 9 more things to learn. 6 months ago, I had no interest in saltwater because terms like "sump" and "powerhead" and "refugium" made me dizzy. LOL
Anyway, so far, I have a zoa garden started with $5 frags, 2 small heads of frogspawn, some yellow polyps, some green star polyps, a leather that is probably bleached, but is otherwise looking good, a small bit of candy cane, couple of itty bitty SPS frags of unknown variety, lots of mushrooms, 2 itty bitty baby ricordias - 1 pink, 1 orange, a flower anemone and a baby GBTA, and my current favorite, a green flowerpot coral that I traded a local reef club member for. And it had a baby in my tank! At first, I got scared of how difficult they are and took it to my LFS and dropped it off for him to take care of. But after watching the baby it had left behind for a few days looking happy, I decided to give it a go in my tank and sent the hubby to get it for me. So wish me luck! I'm reading goniopora.org and I'll be taking lots of pics to keep up with it's progress or otherwise. If it starts to decline, I'll probably take it back in to my LFS guy.
Here are the pics!
I'm posting pics of corals I have right now so I can record their growth as I go along with this. The tanks is going into it's fourth month and I can't believe how much I've learned, but I know I've got about a zillion and 9 more things to learn. 6 months ago, I had no interest in saltwater because terms like "sump" and "powerhead" and "refugium" made me dizzy. LOL
Anyway, so far, I have a zoa garden started with $5 frags, 2 small heads of frogspawn, some yellow polyps, some green star polyps, a leather that is probably bleached, but is otherwise looking good, a small bit of candy cane, couple of itty bitty SPS frags of unknown variety, lots of mushrooms, 2 itty bitty baby ricordias - 1 pink, 1 orange, a flower anemone and a baby GBTA, and my current favorite, a green flowerpot coral that I traded a local reef club member for. And it had a baby in my tank! At first, I got scared of how difficult they are and took it to my LFS and dropped it off for him to take care of. But after watching the baby it had left behind for a few days looking happy, I decided to give it a go in my tank and sent the hubby to get it for me. So wish me luck! I'm reading goniopora.org and I'll be taking lots of pics to keep up with it's progress or otherwise. If it starts to decline, I'll probably take it back in to my LFS guy.
Here are the pics!
Wonderful full tank shot and you have a nice selection of coral there. Sounds like you got some great deals. I bet you will be surprised at how fast things can grow in a couple of months. Soon you can trade off frags for new frags.
aww, thanks! I think the FTS looks pretty terrible with the glare and how blue my lights are at the moment, but I appreciate the compliment! I need to try and take one at night and see if it turns out better.
I can't wait till I can actually start fragging from my own stuff! Tomorrow we're going to a membership drive for the reef club and I'm going to join and they're having drawings for some really cool stuff, including frags! Crossing my fingers!
I can't wait till I can actually start fragging from my own stuff! Tomorrow we're going to a membership drive for the reef club and I'm going to join and they're having drawings for some really cool stuff, including frags! Crossing my fingers!
