Newbie 30 gal. journal...

[joe schmoe]

How did you get it to be quiet?

I put about a 3 foot length of air hose on the nipple where the air is taken in. It would be a good idea to zip tie it and keep it above water level just in case something goes wrong. Now the only thing that makes noise is the powerhead itself. The dang thing vibrates so much (can't be a sign of a good powerhead) that pieces of the skimmer buzz at times. Mine is setup kinda weird, but that piece o' crap needs to go.

BTW, I found something interesting yesterday. I purchased a thin flat-ish rock with just a few light green zoanthids on it. I bought it mostly for the various forms of coralline...some dark red and bright red. I noticed something that looked like an empty shell...like a short length of straw under a small ledge. I got a flashlight and pointed it in there to see what was at the bottom and the whole little shelf/ledge moved. I think it's some sort of clam. When it opens back up and I peer in there with the flash light, I see 3 or 4 widely spaced little white nodules that almost look like teeth. I'll have to get a pic for you guys.

 

[joe schmoe]

Nitrates are down to next to nothing. I lost my chart for checking the level but the test comes out nearly clear. Ordered a bunch of fun stuff this evening...pics to come later. Red slime has made a big comeback...which prompted my water test. My guess is that some of the stuff I'm dosing is pumping up the red slime. Coralline is still spreading showing up on the powerheads and everywhere else. The big feather worm dropped it's feathers...so we'll see if they come back. What I thought was bright red corraline that came with the new zoanthids has mostly been eaten...must not have been coralline. The clam is still there and the zoanthids are already perking up. Found one Aiptasia and I've let it live so far. I guess I'm walking a tightrope...how do they reproduce anyways?

 

[mogurnda]

Aiptasia reproduce by "pedal laceration." They crawl along the rock, leaving pieces that turn into new aiptasia. Getting rid of the one would be a good idea.

 

[joe schmoe]

Here are some pics and notes and new additions. All pics are darker...I'm playing with exposure times to try to keep things from being overexposed.

New Orange Zoanthids from Foster and Smith. These didn't handle shipping well. Some polyps were DOA. Others were weakened and are falling off of the rock. Not too impressed by this piece, but I expect it to recover. Also the Brain. This one sends out the feeler tentacles quite often...and this was the first time I've been able to see that behavior in a coral. Kinda weird. It seems to be fairing much better than the Zoanthids. Found a cool thing though. After taking this pic, I noticed later that there were two holes in the coral. One hole can be seen near the top, and the other is pretty much in the middle. I was snooping around at night with the lights off with a flashlight and noticed something in there. Turns out there are teeny tiny little crabs living in there feeding on the coral. COOL!

The green Zoanthids I mentioned earlier...and the big fat clam (purple lump with the oval-shaped valve in the middle. The other valve is behind the zoanthids). Cool bonus.

Catalina Goby. Saw these at the Long Beach aquarium a couple years ago and thought they were cool. I was surprised to see that they were available from Foster and Smith. They are noted as liking cooler water, but it seems to be doing great...although it seems to breathe heavily at times perhaps because of the temps.

Bimaculatus Blenny. This fish was SEVERLY emaciated on arrival. It couldn't hardly hold down ANY food. It's such a curious looking fish...I really hoped I could pull it out of it's near-death state. Thankfully, it is gradually gaining it's appetite, putting weight on and tonight it gorged itself and is displayed a fat belly. Cool.

Sand sifting starfish. This one only lasted a day or two. It buried itself initially. Then was unburied the next day...later on the glass as pictured here. Not very "sand sifting-ish" of it so that concerned me. It was dead the next day. I didn't do any kind of drip acclimation...I just floated the bag for longer than the other stuff and added tank water a bit at a time. I guess that wasn't enough.

Firefish Goby purchased earlier...

Feather duster growing it's "feathers" back.

I've also received a Royal Gramma. It's quite shy and hides behind the rocks much of the time. Tonight, it's seems it's becoming more brave and has been out front for a significant amount of time. Lastly, I lost one Green Chromis. I didn't pick them out at the LFS, so that one might have not been great to begin with.

I also just received a bunch of stuff from Indo Pacific Sea Farm (or something like that). Bought some amphipods, mini starfish and some of their "live mud".

The macro in the tank is overgrowing everything. I think I'm gonna remove each of those rocks one at a time so as not to be too drastic of a change in the overall bacteria population.

 

[joe schmoe]

Picked up some pulsing Xenia and got rid of 2 out of 3 of the rocks that were infested by macro. Pulled as much off of the 3rd rock that I could. I learned that caulerpa has tiny little spines/thorns that can stick into you like cactus. I moved the orange zoanthid rock to the substrate, moved the pagoda to the substrate and planted some bleached coral shards in the substrate to make a place for a shrimp and shrimp goby to make thier home...to be purchased later. Also got rid of the one aiptasia. The skimmer is foaming a bit more...probably a result of the removal of the rocks.

I did my taxes and found out that I'm going to get a FAT refund check...so I think a lighting upgrade is in the works. Something near 300W with metal halide that looks a lot better than the hodge-podge I have going now.

EDIT: found another clam on that same rock. This one is TINY. Camouflaged pretty well.

 

[joe schmoe]

Well, that macro is pretty indestructable. I'm going to have to keep at it to get rid of it. When I bought it, I knew I was asking for trouble.

Here is the current setup and there some interesting things going on.

-You can see the Gramma spending more time in front.
-If you look at the substrate, you can see tunnels. Something is living in those. They are hard to see, but they look like some sort of tiny shrimp. From what I can see, their front end has tiny little claws that it uses to feed off of debris in the sand. Can't see much else of them.
-Spaghetti worms invade when the lights are off
-The one Aiptasia that I thought I destroyed has almost completely come back. I see why they can be a nuissance.
-The bimaculatus blenny is diong much better. This morning it found a hole in the rock that it seems it wants to live in. It was clearing the hole of debris by taking in a spitting out mouthfuls of the stuff. Every other mouthful, though, was spit out like a smoke ring. You think your fish are cool? Sure, but can they blow smoke rings? :joke: Tried to get a pic, but I don't have the patience and I think it's already cleared most of the stuff out.
-The big clam expells a bunch of debris every once in a while, spitting it into the water column.

Click pic for full-res...


Below is a pic of a little anemone (upper right) in the refugium that came with the Amphipod "breeding kit" on one of the pieces of leaf(?). You can see it retract and arm or two every minute or two...presumably because some little organism bumped into it and was caught. There is also some weird colonial organism (bottom middle) encrusting the shaving brush plant. I don't know if it's some kind of coral, or what. The plant looks like it's going to kick the bucket, so I don't know what's gonna happen to that stuff.

I ordered a 24" PFO acrolight with one 250W metal halide and two VHO actinics. That will allow me to try the SPS corals...but I'm not a fan of the looks of many of them, and it will require moving some of the stuff lower in the tank. I still think it will be much better looking as a fixture, and give the tank a much better look. I'll probably try one of those fancy clams.

 

[joe schmoe]

Got the lights today, but they were sans VHO and halide bulbs, and sans the halide ballast. I called Marine Depot and hopefully they will be here by the weekend. The xenia on the right fell onto the pagoda coral (that is a pagoda, right?). It doesn't look like it enjoyed the experience. I moved the brain back to the middle so it could get more light. I picked up a Flame Angel, one little ricordia polyp and a yellow polyp colony rock today. I found what I think is a sea squirt on the orange zoanthid rock and I went after the one Aiptaisa with a toothpick - we'll see if that does the trick. I pulled some more of the macro out too.

This is fun stuff. All kinds of critters keep popping up.

 

[macphoto]

My Royal Gramma did the exact same thing... disappeared for the first day (making me wonder if I had just spent $20 on a beautiful fish that I would rarely actually get to see), but since the second or third day, he's been out in front quite a bit.

He found a great home in one of the rocks (a fairly large hole on the underside of one of the bigger rocks), and he does spend some time in there (especially at night), but during the day, he's usually front & center.

My mom came and visited over the weekend, and called him the "Mardi Gras fish."

--Mike

 

[joe schmoe]

My GF called it the Lakers fish.

 

[joe schmoe]

Finally got the bulbs...the correct ones.
-Much of the macro is gone in the refugium. Hard to tell if it was eaten by some snails I put back there.
-I picked up a flame angel and a little Ricordia mushroom that just fell of it's rock and disappeared today.
-I also picked up some yellow polyps seen at right.
-The one aiptaisa anemone never came back, but now I find two in my refugium...who knows what took those so long to show up. I also found one Aiptasia that had made it's way out of the refugium and onto one of my turbo snails...essentially turning it into a mobile coral stinging machine.
-The new lights have created quite a difference in the tank. All of the corals have perked up. The brain coral was looking quite flat, but now it has regained it's "brainy" appearance. The new lights have also supercharged my red slime algae...to the point that it pearls like FW live plants do with CO2 injection. It's pearling so vigorously that chunks of substrate and red slime alge lift off of the bottom and float to the surface.
-I actually observed my Firefish goby eating one of the brain coral's sweeper tentacles this evening. I thought those sting fish, so I was quite surprised.
-The skimmer still sucks
-The tank is hot with the new lights. As the tank nears the end of the photoperiod, it's up to 83 degrees. Not good. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do about that (fan on the tank wont work for me)

Pics. Each can be clicked for full resolution...

You can see the burrows of the little shrimp (Mysis?) that live below the substrate.


Flame angel on the move. Almost a good shot if the head were in focus. The background is *not* digitally enhanced...I'm moving the camera with the fish.