Grog

Yes, lots of sponges, cup corals, and crabs on this rock. Like I picked up like 20 crabs when unpacking. One gorilla and he went bye bye. Mostly, emerald and porcelain crabs. I don't think his sweepers will impact the sponge but we will see. And no, the galaxea is a mean one for sure. That side of the tank is pretty much reserved for it. I heard a lot of people say online that higher flow brings out the sweepers. I'm going to say that I don't agree. It is in lower flow here than in the last spot. These sweepers are the longest I've ever seen it put out. Sample size of one so maybe I just have a particularly onerey one 😅

Galaxa sweeping away. Those sweepers are no joke. It wants to tell everyone, "The new tank belongs to me!"

TBS ID on this was lightbulb anemone....

Dunno if that is good or bad but I'm leaving it for now. Enough of dipping my hands and arms in the tank today. I'm sure fox face agrees. Thanks tho.

Oddly enough after aquascaping this was on one of the new rocks, in almost the identical space as the original 'thing'. It is a cursed spot. Apitasia? Or a rock nem of some sort? It looks different than the last one. Last thing had clear plain tentacles and looked glassy or translucent. This one has striping. Looks more like a rock anemone to me. But I'm not a biologist. Also sent a note to TBS about it to see what their input is.

Big day today as the second part of "The Package" came in from TBS. Couple of developments before I get to the good stuff. DId a water change and tested everything, as is my normal Sunday process. Ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate were all at zero. I assume that algae was eating the nitrates and that is the reason for the mini-algae bloom I had. Either way tank was great parameter wise IMO. Rock came in on time at AUS from TBS. This is a flawless system in my experience. I've done it 6-7 times now and never had an issue. It is not cheap, but you get what you pay for. Including pickup time, it took me about 3 hours to get it into the tank and looking good. The worst parts were driving into town , avoiding getting spiked by the foxface, and avoiding trapping the foxface under the new aquascape. Rocks looked good. There were some meh pieces, but it put them underneath. Good mix of lumps, shelves, and arches. Now the fish have some hidey holes. Tons of life on the rock and in the bags. I put no less than 20 crabs from the bags into the tank. This does not consider what is in the rock. Nice mix of porcelain and emerald crabs. (I know I'm way more crab tolerant than others. Worst case I can pull them out. I have my crab game on.) Good assortment of macros but not as good as I've gotten in other shipments. I think this is a seasonal thing. I've adjusted the LED in this tank to a less blue spectrum that makes the macros look normal and not washed out. Maybe not the thing for most reefers but this tank is not for the color popping corals that most want. This is going to be green and purple mainly. Side effect? Very easy to take pictures. I do have a sunrise and sunset cycle that is mainly actinic so I can get that view when I really want it. The fox face was totally freaked out by this process. Hid the entire time. But now he is out and more active than I've ever seen him. Apparently happily munching away at little stuff on the rocks. One thing to note, these pictures were taken an hour after rescaping the tank. I'm super happy with the way the rocks had little detritus and the way my filtration system is clearing the tank up. It looks clearer now than this morning. Some of the goodies. Cup Corals I and II. II is in the back of the second photo. Great Caulerpa rock. Codium Foxface FTS BTW That top left rock may get removed. I put it in because of the macros on it. I'm NOT sold on it being there.

I busted the rock with a chisel and hammer. Broke into three pieces. I could see the darned thing in the smallest piece so it went into the trash can. Other rocks are back in the tank and no sight of the thing for two days. Lots of crabs and starfish came in on this rock and sand. Like lots.

Ok, This thing is super annoying. Chipped off some rock the other day. Look this morning the thing is still there. Maybe I missed it. Took another 4" chunk of rock off this morning. Go to dog training. Come back and it's there again. I wonder if it has a really deep root/foot in the rock and is retreating when I take the rock out of the tank.... Time to get medieval on it.

Tanks at night are a different world. Unusual inhabitants out, and the normal guys behaving differently. Hollywood Stunner has now shown me why people call it aggressive. Thing has 3" long approx. sweepers, and like 20 of them. Never seen it like that but I don't normally look at the tanks when the light is out. Only seen one or two small sweepers in the day, and they were small. Guess it opens its mouths up in the day and sends the sweepers out at night... Glad it is not near anything else and on his own little island. Love this coral though. One of my favorite purchases. Entertaining is an understatement. More like fascinating. I'd get a picture but no lights. I took a few and they were all terrible. I need to work on night shots next.

Took the rock out and busted that section off with a hammer and chisel. No more bad guy. Didn't care about losing a little rock on this 'base' rock. Easy Orc method. Cool thing with that rock is it is colored through. Not just a surface coating. As always, I appreciate the feedback Tim. I'm over here in a vacuum. I have ideas and they aint always the best.

Taking a small break from the day job. Removed the rock with the aiptasia kind of thing. I wasn't very subtle about it. Just whacked that portion of the rock off to be safe. I have a LOT more rock coming in and this is out of the 'base' rock so a broken off piece doesn't really matter. Done Now, for every bad hitchhiker I find 10-20 cool things. Feather duster.

Thanks Tim. I'll pull that rock and dig it off. I was under the impression that aiiptasia was not in the Gulf. Interesting.

OK what are these things? First thing, is it a majano? If so, remove it? I'm thinking this may be a tiny condy. I'm not the best at nem ID tho. Second, what is the white stuff? No clue from my side.

The cheap $30 filter clip on from Amazon did the trick IMO. Using automatic HDR settings. Looks decent with minimal edits. Stunner has a huge new growth spurt on the left side, and on the right side. 8 o'clock and 4 o'clock. I agree with all the online musings. It is a fast grower.

Coral beauty died Sunday. Foxface is fine and water parameters are fine. Corals look good too. Woke up Sunday to feed them and the CB was stuck to the overflow. Blah. I rarely lose fish. Very confusing. On a good note the Foxface seems to really like nibbling at the sargassum attached to the rocks. He also seems to prefer the Seaweed Extreme pellets over frozen. My previous Foxface preferred the frozen Rod's but his guy seems to prefer planty type foods. He's leaving corals alone so far.

Photography ain't my thing but I'm trying. Two good things today. Fireworks clove polyps really like the better lighted, higher up, spot I put them into and have developed the splash of red and orange. I was actually able to take a decent photo. Some post-processing done to make it look closer to what the eye sees. Ordering some filters for the cell phone camera to see if that makes a difference. I'm happy with this one though.

I was a wild man today and needed a break from work. Ran over to Aquadome and bought a fox face and a coral beauty. Only two fish for now. Ammonia and nitrites still at zero this AM. Need to do the screening over the top before I add the wrasses. That is a job for next week. No pics of the new livestock. They not happy with the hour drive from Aquadome and are in hiding.

I wish this was on the market when I got back into the hobby a few months ago. Awesome deal for whoever picks it up. GLWS!

48" SB Reef Actinic Supplemental Bar for sale. Mix of Cree Blue and Epistar Violet LED. 3:1 ratio of blue to violet. LED Bar and driver both included. Fixture is dimmable and has mounting brackets on the bar so you can screw it into a canopy or an existing fixture. If you want/need a hanging kit, I can include one. This bar puts out some good PAR. I had it for maybe a month, month and a half, decided to not use it because I replaced the main lighting it was supposed to supplement. (I'm using a different SB Reef product as my primary light source on this tank and it doesn't need any supplemental.) I'd say I used the bar for 10 hours max. and that is a high estimate. Completely functional, like new, except for some salt creep from being over the tank for a month. Nothing a quick wipe down won't fix. Retail price on their site is $186. I'm asking $100 and will deliver as far as south Austin. I'm in Bastrop so I won't go north. Link to OEM site. sBar Supplemental Actinic Bar Light (sbreeflights.com) I may be open to a combination of cash and/or frags. PM me, you never know. Grog

Example of what I was describing. This picture is fairly close to the visual. Took some phone and GIMP edits to get it right. GARF Bonsai. Looking much more like the pictures that drove my purchase.

I like the green. But..... I did move the settings on the AP9X closer to what BRS recommends. It is more purple to the eye than I prefer but the corals look better to me. Reminds me of running multiple Fiji Purple in my T5 fixture. A lot more pop. I'll just adjust my eyes.

FWIW I tested when I put everything in. Ammonia at .5 PPM at about 1:00 PM today. KInda expected to have some spike during shipping. Not a bad spike though. Tested again just now. 0. Tested nitrites too. 0. Nitrates spiked up to 15 PPM from 0. Looks like the bacteria is doing its job very well. Pretty cool for an 8 hour shift! Good little bugs. I'll do a small WC tomorrow to get the Nitrates down to about 10 or so. I want to keep them a lower until I get macros.

Big update today. First part of "the Package" came in from TBS. Great packaging! Boxed, with styrofoam inserts, and triple bagged with water. Lots of cool critters, snails, urchins, crabs, macros, etc. and this is the first 'base rock' portion. I didn't want to lose the bivalve so he went into the 40 breeder. Tank is clearing up quickly, even after just one hour. Ignore the scape. I put zero thought into that, just wanted to get the stuff into the tank and cycling. And of course I sliced my finger on one of the shells. Every time.

Interesting thing. The Paly Grandis were almost all with the cinnamon and green variant. There was one head in the colony that had no green. Now it has developed the green like the rest of the group. Bottom right head. Now if they can get that blue center like some get.

Just go by sense of smell?