Pearls of the Antilles - Macro algae reef system

Gerryd;77617 said:

Hi,

It looks great! Keep up the good work and keep posting!

As for trimming, try a small section first. If it has a rhizome type growth, I would try splitting it. If more stem like, I would top a bit of it and see if it branches. I bet it will.

Remember that if conditions are good, you SHOULD be able to trim and expect regrowth/expansion/branching.

Click to expand...

Conditions are good, I was forced to prune rather abruptly, and thank goodness, I'm already seeing regrowth.

Here's the reason why I had to prune.



Some of it went sexual. I read in a couple of articles that regular pruning of Halimeda opuntia keeps the sexual activity in check. Of course none of the articles actually tell you how to physically do it. Big help.

Haha, now I have clippings all over the tank. I'll be reattaching some. It'll fill things out a bit.



Thanks for following me here and in Reef Central. It's appreciated. I feel like I have no clue what I'm doing and I'm just sort of chugging a long, so it's great getting some positive feedback.

L

Udate Time: Got my chalk bass and learned a lesson.

Chalk bass are great. That's not the lesson. The lesson is that though they are vastly different in color and habits, chalk bass and royal grammas are both still basslets. The first night was fine. The gramma was the king of the tank and found a nice cave while the chalk bass were very reclusive. Second night, the chalk bass asserted themselves and drove the gramma from his cave. Then proceeded to gang up and drive him away from every cave. Grammas need a cave to feel secure, as do chalk bass. He was stressed. I was actually going to return him to the store as he wasn't damaged just stressed, but I woke up this morning to a dead gramma. The literature says they are compatible, but I think it's if you only keep one chalk bass and one gramma, or if you have a bigger tank. It doesn't delve into specifics. Lesson learned.

Well, other than that things are going very well. The halimeda recovered from going sexual very nicely and I'm getting some very lush growth from the trim. Grasses are also doing rather well. I have hitch hiker Ochtodes and Dictoya species too. Neato. I like the contrast very much. The female coral banded shrimp has been consistently releasing eggs now. That's awesome, free food. Still haven't dosed the tank yet. Water changes seem to be taking care of my Calcium needs right now.



This is when I first got them, I subsequently added a black background.


Black background. You can see how pretty the gramma was. I'm disappointed, I don't stock randomnly. I did a lot of research before I put my fish in. Doesn't always work out.




Thanks for looking.

aquabillpers;78520 said:

And thank you for posting!

There is so much going on in your tank besides the obvious.

There is a new camera technology aborning called "Lytro" that produces multiple images with different focus points from the same shot. I was thinking about it when I looked at your last picture, and thought how neat it would be to be able to focus separately on the foreground, middle, and background areas of it.

So after the technology has evolved a bit, spend some of your money and get a Lytro camera. (It is always such fun to spend other people's money. I withhold the obvious political comment.)

Thanks again.

Bill

Click to expand...

Thanks Bill. I always appreciate comments like this. It means you're really looking at the tank as opposed to just glancing at the pictures. I'll definitely look into the technology once it becomes more affordable.

L

photo shoot and will be upgrading the lighting!

I finally got around to giving the tank a nice clean and giving it a proper photoshoot. It wasn't really dirty, but it was dirty by my "I love clean tanks" standards. Well, not really a proper one photoshoot compared to some of you do, but proper in the sense that I whipped out my HD camera and actually tried to be artistic.

But first a few things.

1. Added Caulerpa prolifera. Can go "sexual" but a lovely plant and the "sexual" issue can be curtailed with regular pruning.

2. I'll be upgrading the lighting in this tank soon. I've been spoiled by Metal Halide and LEDs in my other system! I found a cheap MH 150W fixture from another hobbyist. Picking that up tomorrow. Yay!

Now for the pictures. Of course with the Halide up, I'll have to take pictures again, but is that really such a bad thing?

fts



jawfish peeking



Macros and ricordea



Ricordeas






Chalk bass





Caulerpa



Another fts



Thanks for looking,

L

aquabillpers;79976 said:

What a nice looking aquarium; what a healthy ecosystem!

Do you spend much time sitting in front of it, watching it live?

What are your long term plans for it? Will you add more rock, for example? Or maybe just let it continue to evolve and surprise you?

Keep posting!

Bill

Click to expand...

First, thanks Bill. Means a lot that you like it. Oh, yes, I spend quite a lot of time looking at it. There's a lot going on in this tank. No, I won't be adding more live rock unless I'm adding a coral that happens to have some. The plan is to add more corals (mostly Floridian/Caribbean zoanthids, gorgonians, mushrooms, corals like that), maybe a few more fish, and to replenish the shoal grass. I didn't really plant it well the first time, and now that I have more know how, I'd like to get more. I'd just like to keep it going. A slice of local waters in my own house.

The caulerpa is doing very well, and I recently added a small, Caribbean brittle star to the mix. Hopefully, he won't eat anything. :lol:

Change of Light

Hi! I upgraded my lighting to a sunpod 15ow MH.

It looks pretty awesome. I made a Youtube video showing off the tank.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXnKLID0nwY&feature=youtu.be

L

I got a few things...

3 more rock anemones
3 more small ricordea florida
1 frag of Caribbean paly

Forgot to take a picture of the paly, silly me, but I have pictures of the other items.

Also, got stupid first rock nem out of the corner. He's now all comfy and happy in a crevice where I can see him! :hyper:

Peeechur time...

Rics



Neony green nem and red tentacled nem



Stunning neon orange nem



Thanks for looking, I'll be HD'ing this tank this weekend. It's due for one, especially since I got the MH.

L

Ohhh, looky what I have. This is the holding tank that I did. It's soooooo ghetto, but it'll house the new ricordeas until I feel like attaching them. I had a migraine last night and the medication made me sleepy so no complicated tank stuff yesterday.



Yes, if the tank looks familiar it's my old 4g. Turns out it wasn't leaking. Oh well, I like my 5.5g now anyway, more space for corals. This 4g just has the cheapo LED lights and a Koralia 240 powerhead, plenty for mushrooms. I like that it makes a nice holding tank and I can attach and heal mushroom frags. I may upgrade this to a spare 8g, but I'd have to get another glass lid. Not expensive or hard to find.

Here are some new corals...

St. Thomas mushroom



Palythoa from the caribbean



Calgranian mushroom, I think, I dunno what the name is.



OK, I couldn't manage to id this either. It was sold to me as a calgranian mushroom as well. Genus Actinodiscus, I think, but I'm not sure on the species name. This is the rare orange morph that was given to me, by a lfs owner who wanted it in my biotope. He didn't want it in just any tank.

Here's mine, it's really small.



This is the lfs owners, bigger. Hopefully mind will grow.



Thanks for looking.

L

State of the tank...

State of the tank...

1. I was going to get a mated pair of neon gobies. But... Uh, gobies may have to wait a bit unless the LFS agrees with my hypothesis. I discovered last night that one of the chalk bass has popeye. So I off and check my water. Everything's fine. So I off and look up popeye. Seems, they can get it when there's a trauma to the eye. Seeing as nobody else in that tank is sick, I'm guessing he got into an accident and hurt his eye. He's eating and otherwise fine. A bit more aggressive when fish approach from the left, which is the eye that's effected. Hopefully the eye will heal and at the worst, he'll be blind in one eye. I've got quarantine... but have you ever tried to net a chalk bass? Better to put the neons in quarantine and wait it out on the status of the chalk bass.

2. Grasses are growing! Woooo, I'm starting to get some fill in with the shoal grass and new shoots. Go Metal Halides and lots of feedings.

3. Pesties - Got me some aiptasia. I need to get rid of them. Fortunately most of them are on plants, so simply it's a matter of pruning that part of the plant. But I will purchase some aiptasia x as well.

4. Pesties (part II) - Some macro algae, dictoya specifically, is getting a bit out of hand. I may introduce an emerald crab to the group. I just don't want the algae smothering my rock. I may consider one for the biocube too. I like emeralds, they have appeal.

5. Corals - will be making ricordea florida rocks and splitting ricordeas today. Will post pictures of my handy work. Caribbean paly is growing new polyps and my Caribbean zoa is doing well too.

6. Will do scheduled water change.

Thanks for reading, time for me to get to work! After I update the rest of the journals. :lol:

L