PeeperKeeper

Thanks Niko and hall1027!

It was great meeting you too and Niko's mom. I hope the pieces do well for both of you. Niko, I'll catch ya next time.

I'd love to see a photo of your 'horses with the Lakers!

+1 on give it time.

Yes, I think you got it Timfish, and thank you Bio. Looks like there is a fair amount of variation in color on the photos I can now find online but this one looks the most like him:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/maynard/401390561/

Oh and this one is gorgeous!

C_venusta.jpg

Got a couple better photos of him:

This one shows the spot on his top dorsal.

This one shows his face.

Smaller colony still available. Larger one gone.

I also have kryptonite candy cane. Is $3/ head fair for that?

I think I can be there.

I'll try to get some better photos with my real camera. Those were just with my iPhone.

I think I got him late last summer & he is slightly bigger than he was. I probably paid around $30 for him @ Fishy Biz.

I could just call Shane & ask him but I feel bad sayin, "You know that fish you sold me 4 or maybe it was 6 months ago? What was that? "

As I said, the fish is very social. In fact when I have my hand in the tank he's always right there, even to the point that I can touch him, especially if I'm moving rocks. Once I picked up a rock and he nabbed a 1" bristle worm off the bottom of it and attacked it on the tank floor til he could eat it. When I first added him to the tank, I also added a 2 spot hogfish & a Firefish & I thought the first day my Melanaris Wrasse was gonna kill him (the hogfish hid under a rock while they battled it out) but after a couple days they were fine and I haven't seen them mess with each other since.

I don't remember for sure what I was told this is. I want to say yellow fin wrasse, but I see no yellow on his fins. Sorry for poor photos. He is very social and likes to come to the front of the tank, but he moves so fast I can't focus on him. He's the orange and purple one.

Yes it helps keep your Alk/Cal balanced so it's a real help if your trying to dose and get your levels up since without it you'd be fighting an uphill battle due to the swings alk can have.

The trick with pickling lime is to put it in a gallon jug (I perfer the clear gallon jugs you can get from rudy's tea) and shake it a bunch of times then let it sit over night.

In the AM everything should be settled and you should have a clear solution above that. He's the trick: Use an aqua lifter or gravity feed method to move the clear liquid to an empty clean container so none of the major residue gets stirred up and mixed into your tank.

So do you siphon off the clear liquid into another clean container and top off with that as needed? Is it okay to top off by hand like adding a gallon at a time, or is it important with pickling lime/vinegar/kalk to use an ATO so it goes in slowly?

Larger colony spoken for pending pick up by Friday. Smaller one still available.

That's awesome! You could do it with GSP for a real Chia pet effect or better yet pulsing zenia!

Replied.

One has 75+ polyps. The other one used to be the same size, but it was hidden under a thick bunch of halimeda (sp?) for a while and I think it may have shrunk a bit.

$75 for this piece with 75+ polyps and one small very fuzzy shroom. I have lots of this kind of shroom and really like it because it has blue tips that glow in the actinics and create a lot of movement when they wave in the current.

$65 for this one with 55+ polyps plus a bonus red shroom. The good thing about this second one is that it actually has 3 separate colonies and would be super easy to frag if you wanted to keep some and sell some. I just don't want to bother with fragging.

Please PM to establish first dibs but also call me at five-1-two, 9-six-4 - twenty fifteen because I forget to check PM's when I get busy. Pick up will be at Parmer Eye Care on Parmer Ln at Lakeline Blvd (aka Neenah).

Love all the info. I especially like the idea of separate containers for the tuber and the wrasse's "sandbox".

I probably should have said in the beginning my list of fish because I already have some wrasses and similar species. I currently have a Melanaris wrasse, a two-spot hogfish and a twin spot goby (or is that a two spot goby and a twin spot hogfish?**) a Hippo tang, a fire fish and what I was told is a yellow fin wrasse, but it might be some other kind of fairy wrasse because I don't really see any yellow on his fins. Are any of them sand sleepers? Maybe I'll need a couple of sandboxes.

** looked it up. I was wrong both ways, it's a Tailspot Blenny and Two Spot Hogfish.

So is sympodium the same as cloves? Because looking over at Reef Central, I came across this thread about blue cloves taking over someone's tank: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2153276&highlight=sympodium

But within the thread, the OP suggested sympodium as an alternative to blue cloves. I'm wondering if cloves grow as separate polyps and sympodium grows as a mat like GSP. He said you could pull sympodium right off the rocks.

Edited to say: Here's another thread at RC that indicates there is a difference between cloves and sympodium, but there's differing opinions on how fast it grows.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2248412&highlight=sympodium

Most of the ones who say they have an overgrowth problem call it blue cloves and most of the people calling it sympodium say it grows slowly.

Yup, that's it.

I am thinking of getting a leopard wrasse, but currently I have an *almost* BB and the direction I've been going with my tank is toward more SPS, so knowing leopards need at least some sand, I'm hesitant. Also, my tank is so full of rock that there isn't even that much area in the bottom that can be seen from the front/reached to be able to stir.

That being said, another critter I've wanted to have is a tube anemone like the one in my profile pic that I used to have and I know they also like to have their foot in the sand.

So how much sand would I need to add and what problems might it create?

The link is supposed to go to atomic sympodium.

Kim, you're making me want some, but I would be interested in whether it's pesky if not surrounded by sand because I don't have a lot of sandy real estate and I just got done getting rid of a lot of rock that I otherwise liked because GSP was taking over my tank.

I tried to just copy the image and post it here, but apparently either Vivid doesn't allow that or there's something I'm missing.

http://www.vividaquariums.com/10Expand.asp?ProductCode=05-5870-10&Category=Coral%20And%20Invertebrates:Polyps&SortBy=Price

Do you like it? How does it look standing back from the tank? Sometimes they look really cool in a magnified photo, but not so exciting in the tank.

SChrisEV, thank you for posting this topic. I was planning to ask pretty much the exact same thing. I've had my tank for many years, but it was mostly softies until recently. I've finally gotten my Ca and Alk in the right range by dosing manually with Reef Builder and its calcium partner. Haven't checked magnesium yet, but will do so ASAP.

I would love to go to a meeting to learn about dosing pumps, etc. I'm just realizing that I'll need that to maintain the right levels now that I'll be keeping SPS.

I just left it where it was. I did use a soft toothbrush to try to remove some of the algae a few times, but it didn't really seem to do anything and I was afraid to brush too hard. I've been religious about maintaining the calcium and DKH, and since all my lights are working well now, I think it was just a matter of getting what it needed just in the nick of time. I was really shocked that it came back at all because I swear for at least a week or two it just looked like a part of the rock, no polyps and green algae growing over it. Superman Monti is a good name for it.

I actually credit that little piece of coral with my tank being in such good shape now because seeing it recover kept me watching the tank, which kept me adding calcium, and reef builder, etc. which made me want to add more corals, which made me enjoy the tank more...

Here's the whole tank. Superman is just to the right of center, mid-level. Look how it pops!

Great news! The monti is in full recovery mode and growing very nicely.

Also, I had added a new birdsnest to my tank a couple weeks ago and it started bleaching just a little. I took Jestep's advise and moved it lower in the tank and it recovered immediately, like the next day. It made sense on that one because I had just bought it and it wasn't used to my 2x 250W MH's and 4 x 54W T5's.

I'm really happy with my tank now. I think it's in the best condition it's ever been (I've had it about 12 years). Now I want to get more SPS, but I'm gonna b careful to make sure I can keep up with the calcium needs as I get more stonies growing.

Just an update: Took about 2 weeks, but the superglue came off his mouth and he's fine. I noticed when I came back in the office January 2nd that it was gone.

That is a gorgeous nem. Too bad it's a condylactus. They have a mean sting and like to move around.

I have a PJ Card who has been in my tank for about 10 years. He used to have buddies and they frequently went missing, or I would just see one for a while. Originally there were 3, but the first one disappeared in the first year or two. It's been two for the past 8 years or so, but now I'm pretty sure it really is just the one left because before I stopped seeing the second one, it was having swimbladder issues. But there were a good several months that I was just sure there was only one Cardinal in my tank and then I moved the tank to my new office and found they were both still there. They looked so similar that I guess sometimes I would see one of them and sometimes the other, but they were rarely together.

That being said, since they are new additions to your tank, chances are probably that something happened to them, but you might just be surprised one day to see a "resurrection."