Jump to content

JamesL's 75g Blog


JamesL

Recommended Posts

Some more shots from the other day, this time focusing on corals (mostly zoas).

I, um, "fragged" my frogspawn while moving stuff around ... I decided to put in back on the sand, because it was shading some zoa's below it on the rock work. This picture is just a fun macro I did.

IMG_3901.JPG

Some fire and ice type zoas (ignore the aipista on the left :P)

IMG_3905.JPG

The way I shot this picture washed out the color ^_^

IMG_3908.JPG

More washed outness, but some blues that are doing decent:

IMG_3911.JPG

My one SPS, battling to stay above a flood of zoas surrounding it.

IMG_3916.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

Wow, it is hard to believe that this past January, I passed the 1 year mark with my 75 gallon tank (and 20+ year mark for keeping saltwater).

The tank has come a long way from starting from this:

IMG_0533.JPG

To looking like this today (excuse the horrid full tank shot ... was in a hurray as usual):

IMG_4350.JPG

It has had it's ups and down, but at the 1 year mark, the tank has really reached a point where I am very content with it. Other than dealing with my current infestation of aptasia (which the peppermint shrimp are annoyingly ignoring), there is not much more I want for the tank. Maybe a clam r plat coral to sit in the sand bed would be nice. But the growth of a lot of the corals has been phenomenal, and I am rapidly covering a lot of the live rock.

Here are some great examples of the growth.

Here is an early picture of the left side of the tank:

IMG_1095.JPG

And here it is today:

IMG_4355.JPG

BTW, that Kenya tree tree above went from:

IMG_0705.JPG

To:

IMG_4356.JPG

Will post more growth shots in the coming days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here are some more picture from the 1 year(ish) mark.

"Exile" island showning my recently split bubble tip anemones:

IMG_4358.JPG

Some of the zoas on the left side of the tank. Those green ones started as a few polyp trade with Robb, and have been growing really nicely lately:

IMG_4359.JPG

Close up of them:

IMG_4427.JPG

Macro shot of a orange ricordia I have had for a long time:

IMG_4424.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

A little bit of time cropped up to take some more pictures of the tank. Here are the results.

One of the many asterna stars in the tank (not too shabby considering I was holding the camera):

IMG_4611.JPG

Finally got a decent picture of these zoas:

IMG_4602.JPG

Killed off some aptasia's around these, so they should start spreading onto the main rockwork:

IMG_4583.JPG

My little kryptonite candy cane that I traded for at the last meeting:

IMG_4561.JPG

Beware of the guard damsel!

IMG_4549.JPG

And a decent full tank shot (contrast/brightness adjusted to lighten up the pic - click for xlarge version):

IMG_4541.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Here are some of the goodies I got from the frag swap this past weekend.

Squat Lobster (thanks Mama!), glad he moved to a visible spot:

IMG_5011.JPG

Mini Carpet Anemome (thanks Gonzobob!), love the green striping:

IMG_5015.JPG

Pink/peach centered zoas (sorry for the bad picture... from Theresa if I remember correctly, thanks!):

IMG_5017.JPG

Nice bright green paly's (from JeffT, thanks!), these things remind me of venus fly traps:

IMG_5021.JPG

A fantastic colony of zoas (thanks KeeperOfTheZoo!), I really love the colors:

IMG_5026.JPG

Halloween hermit (thanks Andrew!), gave me a scare.. thought he died, but had just molted:

IMG_5048.JPG

And I got lots more... just no good pictures (yet).

It was great seeing everyone!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good looking additions you have there. Those green palys look like mine. Sorry I didn't get to stick around and chat more....I was chasing my son around the area :)

Cool, thanks for letting me know who I got them from. I really like them, as they have a very unique skirt compared to the other zoas/palys I have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Awesome pics. I wanna get one of those lobsters.

The molt of the Halloween definitely looks like a corpse. More so than other crabs.

Yeah, the molt was very "fleshy", that is why I thought it was a gonner. Glad I left the shell in there :)

The lobster is cool... but you can only keep one. Mama said this one killed a bunch of other she had in the tank with it!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you know how big the Halloween crab gets? Very nice collection of zoas you've added.

From what I can find, they get up to 2" in size. He is already about 2 times larger than my biggest red legged hermit that cruises around the tank in an astrea shell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

The zoas look beautiful in your tank James, I'm glad you like them! I've gotta change the color of my bulbs. When I have just my 50/50s on the more actinic lighting makes everything in my tank look prettier (than when I kick the other bulbs on with the 10k/65K)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The zoas look beautiful in your tank James, I'm glad you like them! I've gotta change the color of my bulbs. When I have just my 50/50s on the more actinic lighting makes everything in my tank look prettier (than when I kick the other bulbs on with the 10k/65K)

This picture above was under Pheonix 14K bulbs. I have since switched to Hamilton 14K bulbs which are a lot less blue, thus the centers of the zoas are not as purple looking. But the switch was only a week ago, so the bulbs are still in their break in period, and long term affects are yet to be seen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

About a month ago I changed out my (very old... almost 11 month old) 14K Phoenix bulbs with new 14K Hamilton ones. I cut my photo-period in half, and slowly bumped it up an hour each week.

I went with the Hamilton ones because I was not really liking how blue the Phoenix where... well the Hamilton were at the exact opposite end of the spectrum. Very white.

After only a few weeks some of my zoa colonies started to melt, and my ric's started bleaching. So I cut my photo-period back to the original half (I think 6 hours).

But I was still loosing some stuff.. zoa skirts where shrinking (on some colonies... other didn't seem to mind). So on Friday I put back in my old Phoenix bulbs, bumped back up my photo period, and will let things recover.

In the end, I think I do like the Phoenix coloring better. The colors floresce a whole lot more. So I will probably get some new Phoenix bulbs once everything is back to normal.

I guess my mistake was not shortening my photo-period enough when adding in the new bulbs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...