PeeperKeeper

Sold.

This piece has a small frag of orange/red montipora cap (bottom tip of rock), MANY bright red mushrooms, some fuzzy shrooms, some green shrooms, a large mat of Green Star Polyps (closed in the pic, toward the top of rock) and some zenia. It is actually limestone (about 12" x 6.5" x 4") but has been in my tank for over 10 years. Just trying to make some room for more SPS and less softies.

Everything is closed up tight in this picture because the tank had just been cleaned.

$60

PM me if interested however I tend to forget to monitor my PM's here, so you can also call at 512 964-2015. I'll be in the office Friday and Saturday 9am-2pm so those would be good times to pick it up (tank's at my office, Parmer Eye Care).

I love my two spot hogfish. I got it from Shane at Fishy Business and last I saw he had another really nice one. It's a nice yellow with a little orange mixed in, swims around where he can be seen a lot and looks like a wrasse. I haven't looked it up, but I assume hogfish and wrasses are closely related.

+1 on great personality on lions. It's been years since I had one but when I see them I always think about how attached one of my staff members became with the antennata I used to have. I'd like to have one again sometime, but I like my little reef creepers too much.

Here's an interesting thread about asterinas. http://www.3reef.com/forums/inverts/asterina-starfish-45802.html

I don't think it's bad enough to need a specialist urchin. I think I'm "nipping it in the bud" but I want to make sure I have adequate numbers of CUC.

I know this is sort of an old tired subject, "How many crabs/snails per gallon....." but I did a search here and didn't see anything so thought I'd post the question. I should know this by now for as long as I've been doing this, but I wanted y'all's opinion.

I have a well established 75 gallon (over 10 years old) that I moved at the beginning of August. Before moving it was doing well except for a bubble algae problem. I've been steadily adding emerald crabs so that there should be at least 6 or 7 in there but I have a feeling some didn't survive the move so there may just be 2 or 3.

Just in the past week or two, I've noticed some hair algae getting started, and the rocks just generally look "dusty". I have a fuge but probably need to change the bulb on it to get more macro growth. Nothing ever shows up on n'ites nor n'ates but I haven't done a phosphates test in ages. I have no idea how many snails and crabs there are at this point. There may be as few as 4 or 5 of each. I haven't put any in since the move. So let's just say I'm starting from scratch. What would you add?

I know the way to control HA is to cut back on feeding and maybe do a few days of darkness then let the CUC take over. The fish inhabitants are: a big fat green Mandarin (who eats frozen. I've had him close to 2 years) a two spot hogfish, a mystery wrasse, a purple fire fish, a bar goby and two PJ cardinals. I've been feeding a frozen cube every other day so I'm going to cut back to just twice a week until the HA is gone.

I agree Flatworm Exit works really well, at least the first time you use it. I think they can become immune to it with multiple uses though. I was amazed the first time I used it and they immediately started dropping off the tank walls and rocks! That was about 3 years ago and it completely killed them.

More recently I had an outbreak (different type, first ones were white, these were red) and although most of them did die when I used FE, enough survived to still be a problem. Maybe the red ones are just tougher. Luckily, it was shortly before I was going to be moving my tank so I made sure every rock/coral got a 10 minute dip in a strong Lugol's solution before it went back in the tank. Almost 2 months later and I haven't seen any yet. *crossing fingers and knocking on wood*

Hydro: I am in Georgetown (6 mi. west of I-35 on Hwy.29)

Does that put you in Cimarron or Gabriels O? I go by there several times a week. I live in Escalera and my folks live in Middle Gabriel. I'd like to come by sometime and see your tanks, maybe pick up a frag!

Congrats! Probably one of the less expensive things to break on an AC unit.

For the sake of anyone reading this who's in the same boat, I recently had a reminder of how well plain ol' evaporation works to cool a tank. In the new location, my tank is completely enclosed in a cabinet and was getting a little warm in the afternoons. I put a fan inside the cabinet, but just down next to the tank and without an actual vent it wasn't doing much. Then I mounted the same fan at the top where it was blowing across the surface of the water. The temp immediately dropped a good 6-8 degrees! Downside is that I have to fill my top-off almost twice as often, but oh well. Now we're running around 75 instead of 80-82 at times. The first day I had just plugged the fan into an outlet and it stayed on overnight after the lights went off and the tank went down to 73 by the next morning. Now I keep it plugged into the same timer as the MH's so the temp doesn't swing so much.

We moved my 75G about 6 miles to our new office in August. It went fine and everything survived. I thought I had lost my orange Lynkia star, because he was just floating along in the water movement the next day, and then I didn't see him for a while, but then a couple weeks later he showed up with half of each of his arms gone (like he had a bad case of frostbite). He is recovering well and his arms are growing back, so no casualties.

I did do a Lugol's dip on every rock/coral because I had had some flatworms show up a month or so before the move and I didn't trust that they were all taken care of by the Flatworm Exit I used. I only had/have about a half inch to inch sandbed, so I wasn't as concerned about it, but I think it could be a problem with one as deep as you have.

Oops, just realized you probably already moved it. Oh well. I hope it went well. Let's hear an update!

Those you listed, BTW, aren't considered softies. They are LPS and shrooms, and zoas. Softies usually means leathers, Xenia, kenya tree, etc.

Really? Shrooms and zoas aren't softies? I thought anything (i.e. any corals) without a calcified skeleton was a soft coral.

On your question, I concur with those who said no need to feed the corals if you're feeding fish, but adding iodine and some other replacement minerals won't hurt in moderation. Then again, if you do regular water changes, that may be all you need for that as well.

I like the Fairy and Flasher wrasses, but I guess they are a jumping hazard. I've had my Blue Side for maybe 5 or 6 months (counting before the move) and I got a Two Spot Hogfish (Twin spot? anyway a pretty yellow and orange wrasse type fish) when we moved to the new place the first week in August and so far these two are always out and haven't attempted a field trip. The redfin wrasse I had before did go down the overflow regularly, but I think someone was chasing him. Unfortunately he ended up getting munched in the return pump as I was trying to catch him during one of his adventures. I was trying to net him in one compartment and he just raced through the bubble trap into the compartment with the pump.

Some kind of nudibranch?

"Bob the nudi" . . . I like it. Makes me think of streakers in the 70's . . . or maybe Hippie Hollow.

Yeah, okay Sea. Thanks, I guess.

"Always" was overstating how often I have an overflow. I can turn pumps off without overflowing normally, but sometimes accidents happen. The staff helps me keep the top-off filled, but sometimes someone will accidentally fill the sump instead. I've also had overflows happen when the macro in the refugium overgrows and clogs up its return, although I have a redundant return. Once, the slots on the tank overflow got some bubble algae stuck in them after I'd been messing with it and I didn't realize it, so the display got overfilled and subsequently overfilled the sump when the clog was cleared. Sheesh, just doing a water change you can overflow a bucket if you're not paying close enough attention. I guess in your world nothing ever goes wrong, but in mine I'd rather not deal with salt water on the carpet, so I got hard surface and yes, a mop.

As for the sump, I had the biggest that would fit in my old stand and I do plan to get another now that there is more room. I just have a few more pressing things to work on since moving an entire business.

Mike that's a good idea, just doing the powerhead on a UPS. I was thinking of the whole setup.

Derek, you betcha! Hmm that reminds me, I never did pay my husband for all the hours he spent getting it moved, plumbed and lighted!

Timfish, the contractor who did all the cabinetry in my office build-out provided the carpentry. I think it was Burrows Cabinets. There actually were a few hiccups along the way (the frame boards on either side were supposed to be 9" taller, but the measurement for the space got messed up somewhere along the way and I didn't catch it in the plans when I signed off on them, so we had to cut down the frame boards) but overall I'm really happy with the outcome. If anyone is getting ready to build a house (or commercial space) I highly recommend my builder. He also built our custom home 3 years ago and we were so blown away by the level of customer service and quality of work that I asked him to do this project for me, even though he normally does residential more than commercial. How many people do you know who still like or even speak to their builder after a custom home build?

Sold to Dave/kinz. Thanks! Kinda funny, I bought it from one Dave and sold it to another Dave.

Mike, I am planning to get rid of some of the pieces of live rock I have that are overgrown with soft corals (zoas, shrooms, pumping zenia, etc.) so I can have more room for SPS. If you want to just come by and see if there's something you like, we can probably work out a deal for your son's tank.

Tubbs are sold, thanks Kris!

The larger flat rock with the shrooms and yellows are pending Nemir picking up this afternoon. It's about 11" by 6" by about an inch and a half thick.

Still have LA Lakers

Green Monti in pic above is $25, well encrusted.

I also have lots of Nuclear Green Candy Canes for $4/head. I've got 5 frags with anywhere from 3 to 8 heads.

The smaller frag of Tubbs Blues is for sale. About 15 polyps for $30. Thanks Kris

I'll also sell the green Monti behind it and I have tons of shrooms!

I also have a flat piece of live rock about 11" X 6" just covered with regular green mushrooms, yellow polyps and some really nice hairy mushrooms. Obviously you can't see the rock for all the coral, but it's the whole piece from the green shrooms on the left, including the mat of yellow polyps back to the hairy shrooms in the back/right. (It doesn't include the red shrooms but I can make you a deal on lots of red shrooms too.) The hairy shrooms don't look like shrooms at all. They make a mat of tentacles that move nicely with the water movement. There is even a little tiny pink birdsnest frag stuck in this rock that you can have. $50 (SOLD- thanks, Nemir)

LA Lakers frag 3 polyps for $12 or 5-6 polyps for $20.

I sometimes forget to check my PM's here so you can call me at 512 964-2015, but send a PM too so I can track who asks first.

Thanks for the tip, Mike. I can definitely imagine that happening. I've had this same tank in my office for the past 10 years, and I've been lucky so far. I thought about putting a UPS on it, but I don't think that would last long enough to make much difference, besides, it would be the AC/heat that would be important.

I've definitely had power failures which always seemed to cause overflows at my old office, so I planned for that here by having flooring I can mop up easily. I was going to put a drain under it, but it was going to be too expensive to cut the concrete.

For a while, I was worried about the temp because it was getting up around 81F in the afternoons when the MH's had been on all day. I set a fan inside the compartment where the tank was to try to circulate the air, but since there wasn't a vent, it wasn't helping. Then I mounted the fan up high where it could blow across the top of the water and that dropped the temp by like 6-8 degrees! Evaporation is an amazing thing!

Here's a pic with the cabinets open. You can see the fan in the upper left area. The lights are built in above the tank with a panel mounted up high for the ballasts so I no longer have a big mess of cords, timers, etc. tangled underneath.

Check it out! I'm so happy with the way my tank surround turned out! The frame boards on the right and left are hinged so they swing out so I can get to the sides of the tank. It's so nice having all the cabinet space to put tank maintenance things in (they lock so kiddos don't get into anything they shouldn't) instead of always having to walk back to the storeroom to get a test kit or water change stuff or additives.

I don't know all my corals well enough to be able to picture what you have listed in my head without a photo, so I'll just ask. Do you have any really deep blue SPS frags? Maybe the Oregon Tort or Cali Tort is what I'm looking for? I'm thinking about coming by just to "window shop" if you don't mind.

Is "the whole thing" everything in the picture, including the zoas in the middle, the mushrooms on the right and the SPS plug on the left, or just the zoas? It's hard to tell what color the zoas are. Which variety of zoas makes a big difference. Some blue ones or other named varieties go for $10/head or more, but your garden variety brownish/greenish might only be worth $0.10/head or even less.

Bumping. The photos really don't do this thing justice.