Mike Mays

Thanks all for the great guidance. I may suck it up and go to a 12K or 14K and then if I want, try the 20K next year.

It was time to replace my bulbs and I thought I might like it more blue, so got a 20K from RCA. My welso and my red brain are not happy with the new lights. Is this normal? How long should I give them to adjust be for panicking and getting another 10K?

I concur with the feeding to help them grow back to their glorious selves. I have two Rose BTAs (clones) and a green BTA. They really like to move around from time to time. I feed them frozen krill. I read somewhere that bigger food is preferred.

OUCH, WARM WATER BAAAAAD!!!!

Hopefully not too bad. When I went to hang seaweed last night, my water felt way warm. I went and checked the thermometer and the tank was at 89 degrees! I quick went out to check the chiller and it wasn't running. Apparently, when we had the power glitches Monday night, my chiller had reconfigured the set point. The temp was set for 220 degrees! Thank God it only cools the water! I reset the temperature on the chiller control panel to 80 and all is well again. My corals still look stressed today. I checked my chemistry and all levels are good. I am doing a water changed tonight, hoping that all will come back to life.

Fingers crossed everyone!

PM Sent.

Just noticed this guy on the top rocks. Pretty cool how much like a Christmas tree he looks!

My son saw this wrasse at the LFS and can't find any info (other than this pic) online. Any help would be great.

Man, I am going to try to make this meeting. I won't have any frags, still too new, but can't wait to see all of you and meet more of you!

how heavy is that tank? Just curious as I see it looks like it's sitting on a glass top table. Also, I won a little 2gal tank from RCA at their annual sale and am trying to decide what to put in it and whether it would even work w/saltwater.

I have the same tank as yours and have a skunk clown (the male, I think) that has taken a bachelor holiday into the overflow twice. The first time, I was able to get him out by shutting off my drain and letting the overflows fill higher and shutting the tank down for a little while. He just swam to the top and i was able to scoop him back into the main tank. the second time i did the net thing, and boy what a pain! I need to get some plexiglass to just set over the top. I also have some of the light diffuser panels on the back of my hood like you do.

Great posts. Thanks for sharing!

New addition! four-legged star. I don't know what flavor of star fish it is, but he sure moves about the tank. On the glass, on the rocks, on the sand. He's big too. about 8" from one leg to the opposite leg!

Hmm, that's weird. Maybe he got stuck under a rock that slipped or something. How are your calcium levels?

I am keeping calcium spot on at 450ppm

Here's a link to a picture of Devil's Hand

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=597+2856+646&pcatid=646

I posted in reef keeping as well, but want to keep it with the chronicle of my tank build too. My fighting conch has cracks in his shell. Nothing has fallen on him (that I know of) and there hasn't been any rearrangement in the tank either. Weird huh?

Gonna put it on my calendar now, so I remember. Hope to see all of you there!

Hey gang,

My conch was cruisin' along the bottom and I noticed that it looked like he might have been scrappin! Check out the cracks in his shell. Is this a normal occurrence?

GLAD THE HIPPO MADE IT!!! tank lookin good!

Yep, the fighting is over and all are getting along fine.

I've always heard bristle worms were bad. They can sting fish right?

I have read that. The big nasty that I posted last fall has not been seen since I got the malenaurus wrasse.

those coris wrasses have some beautiful colors as babies. i need to get me a tang im gonna try to find out what the lavender tang looks like, ive never heard of them before you posted it up here.

I have a picture of mine posted earlier. It's kind of light grey, with two blue spots aligned vertically in front of a lyre-shaped tail. It's a very active fish.

Man that is a nice setup. How many lbs of rock and what kind?

I think I have approx. 150 lbs. of rock. I only had maybe 30lbs. of it live to start. I ordered some dead rock and bought some from Prof. Then it was just time, time, time. Now 7 months later, I have pods and coraline and all sorts of other life going on!

Here's most of my fish:

This is a nice group shot of several of the fish.

Here's the new hippo and the yellow tangs

My ellusive melanaurus wrasse and the ever present cleaner wrasse

The baby of the tank. This red coris wrasse hangs out in one corner of the tank most of the time. Given that it is the smallest residents, it's not surprising.

Here's a shot of the female skunk in one of the rose BTAs.

All taken with my iPhone.

That is correct, I love those still have yet to buy one though. Where did you get yours, and does it grow well?

I got it at RCA and it has doubled in size in less than six months. I'm wondering, how do they reproduce? I haven't seen where anyone "frags" these guys. Any idea how they multiply?

Update. Just added a nice hippo tang from Josh. Thanks bud! When I got home, the bucket was pretty cold, so I used my spare heater to warm the water a bit. Then waited until he started to move around. He's in the tank, hiding in the rocks right now. I'll get a picture of him soon!

Looks beautiful, I love the wessophylia!

That's the brain, right? Yes it's pretty mesmerizing.

Full tank view

Green bubble tip anenome

Candycane Acan (Christmas gift from son), green ricordea, Mellow (the yellow tang), Cleaner wrasse that loves to get in the way, below Mellow is a beautiful patch of zoas - blue center green outside

This brain has doubled in size over the past six months

Marlin is the original inhabitant of the tank. He's seen many come and go. He pretty much stays on this side of the tank

Not sure what kind of palys these are, but I love the mint green color and they have spread to other areas in the tank.

These two Rose bubbletips just split a week ago. The pair of skunk clowns love them! The montipora on the right has tripled in size since I got it at the ARC meeting at Kevin Locklear's house (October I think?). Just below the Montipora on the left you can see a nice patch of star polyps.

This maxima has the most beautiful blue flesh. The mushroom rock has sent many 'shrooms forth to populate other areas of the tank.

This pair of cleaner shrimp have provided snacks in the form of shrimp spawn a couple of times.

These two patches of zoas have been covering the rocks at the top of the tank.

So current fish and such are as follows:

Maroon Clown (Marlin)

Yellow Tang (Mellow)

Lavender Tang

Melanaurus Wrasse

Juvenile Red Coris Wrasse (looks like a clown right now)

Pair of Skunk Clowns (Pinky and Yes Dear)

Fighting Conch

Emerald Crab

Pair of Cleaner shrimp

3 peppermint shrimp

All pictures taken with my iPhone

Enjoy!

Argh! I've been remiss on keeping up on all the goings on here at the ARC. Sorry I missed today's meeting. Is there a way to get a premium membership w/o going to a meeting? maybe the ol' fashioned snail mail? I'll be taking some pics of my tank here tomorrow. A lot has changed!

I will be there