12_egg_omelette Posted May 4, 2015 Share Posted May 4, 2015 Looking good man, looking very good! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bpb Posted May 4, 2015 Author Share Posted May 4, 2015 so apparently the pictures arent showing up in the order I uploaded them. Oh well, have fun guessing what text goes with what pic! LOL...Thanks josh! Hopefully these thrive so we can do some trading real soon. Also picked up a tuxedo urchin which I love already. Munching away on coraline on the back glass. Big patches missing already after one day. Have a friend going to donate me another one later this week. Hopefully I have a male and a female then. Or is that not how urchins work? Are they hermaphroditic or dimorphic or anything strange? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
12_egg_omelette Posted May 4, 2015 Share Posted May 4, 2015 They have to fall in love first, this is college station john. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted May 4, 2015 Share Posted May 4, 2015 Mine are distinctly male and female... got 4 males and 1 female. The only way I found out what they are is when they started releasing gametes into the water column. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makena95GT Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 My fave urchins. Be ready for some ridiculous antics and frags that arent glued "mysteriously" moving :3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bpb Posted May 6, 2015 Author Share Posted May 6, 2015 I hear they like to redecorate and play coral dress up! Good thing I'm very heavy handed with glue and epoxy. Nothing goes on my rocks without being securely bolted down. This guy has already began working on the coraline on the back glass thank goodness. He seems to only hang out in one area though. I can see his spines sticking up behind my montipora stellata all day during the light hours, and then at night, he comes out but hangs out only on the back glass and overflow box near the return spout. My clownfish has drove me to near insanity. I'm about ready to cull the you-know-what! She protests any and all changes I make to the tank, and is just generally cantankarous. When I try to use the tongs, she literally bites, grabs, and pulls them right out of my hand over and over. For those who are unaware, I don't have a little mild mannered occy. This is an 8 year old 5" and very fat clarkii clown. She has already successfully buried my new lobo, and an old one I moved to a different spot. Several times now too. Apparently she doesn't like where I chose to put them. Then the real kicker is the frag rack. I watch her go to the rack, pick up acro pieces on said rack, lift them up, swim off and drop them on the sand, normally on top of an lps colony. She's deliberate. Last night she actually BROKE my cotton candy acro frag in half in the process. So, I figured maybe the rack is just too close to her home, so I move it to the opposite end of the tank....NOPE!!! from the kitchen I actually witness her ram the entire rack, knocking it down and the magnets hit the floor. I have the rack lowered all the way to the sandbed now so she cant do that again, but I'm at a total loss on what to do. Hate to get rid of my clown but this is almost too much to handle. It's one thing if a fish tries to eat coral becasue it's hungry and that's naturally in its diet, or if you have a hawkfish who will perch on top of coral colonies, but to be violent, vindictive, and altogether just mean is another. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makena95GT Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Haha! I will admit I do leave some frags loose just so the urchin can have some nice clothes [emoji14] My lord.. See.. I tell people clownfish are the devil, now my old ocellaris of course wasn't that bad jut he was a jerk. He would headbutt and nip me when I put my hands in the tank. Nemo is a lie!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Jeez, you guys are making me keep one eye on my pair of ocellaris! They are as docile as can be! I clean stuff with my hand around their eggs and they'll just retreat into their anemones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jolt Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 My black ice clown bites me like crazy. I have to mentally prepare myself when I put my hand in the tank and sometimes it still catches me off guard and I splash water everywhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bpb Posted May 6, 2015 Author Share Posted May 6, 2015 Oh and I noticed something else cool/not-cool at the same time. So two LPS species that I can confirm are NOT compatible to be within feeder/sweeper range is Goniastrea and Symphylia. No bueno. Symphylia wins. Shining a flashlight into the tank this morning to scope it out in the dark before work, I saw a battle. I had put my little 4 polyp Goniastrea frag a LITTLE too close to my Symphylia colony last night when rescaping the sandbed. I saw the symphylia had spit out all of its mesenteric filaments onto the goniastrea and was in the middle of consuming one of the polyps, Ty, I don't think you have much to worry about with your occys. Number 1, they have an anemone so they're always preocupied, number 2, they're occys, and stay small. If it were a big maroon or clarkii clown and you had no anemones i'd think twice though. A clown without a home is a destructive clown Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bpb Posted May 7, 2015 Author Share Posted May 7, 2015 Couple days later and all the new acros are still holding strong. Polyp extension is great. It's been months since i've seen good acro polyp extension. Clownfish seems to have accepted the frag rack and hasn't been bothering it for the past day. Counting my blessings. My plan to rearrange the sandbed was not without fault. I decided to move alot of my LPS to the same sort of area so I've got lobo, goniastrea, symphylia all kind of hanging out together. i didn't anticipate how incompatable these are all with each other. Inspecting the tank again this morning in the dark, I see my prism goniastrea (or "dragon soul favia" for some of you), attacking and eating my orange and teal lobo. So i plucked it up and moved it. I noticed when an anemone has ahold of something, it's not letting go, It'll let itself get ripped in half before releasing its tentacles, but lps stingers and mesenteric filaments let go at the slightest bump. I think I'm going to mount this orange and teal lobo up on the rocks to get it away from other lps that may sting it. I'm also not being conservative in fragging my montipora. These things grow so ridiculously fast I feel like I can break off huge chunks and it'll be as if nothing happened in a few weeks. I can forsee myself getting rid of a very large rock on the scape that my rainbow monti appears to be completely taking over. Pretty as it may be, It grows way too fast and I don't want it becoming a nuisance coral. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nvrEnuf Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 Clownfish are damsels...all of them. Good to see the tank doing better Bpb, I'm not out there often, but I'll let you know next time I'm coming, I love 90's! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bpb Posted May 8, 2015 Author Share Posted May 8, 2015 You've got that right! Do let me know if you ever come to town. Honestly, only like 3 other hobbyists have ever even seen my tank in person. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bpb Posted May 16, 2015 Author Share Posted May 16, 2015 Update on the stonies I got a few weeks ago. No overwhelming growth but color and polyp extension are good and getting better daily. The bleached sides are regaining color, and the dead portions aren't spreading or anything. I've been running with the Red Sea reef energy a&b. I think their ca, mg, and alk supplement is total garbage and after it not only not making sense, but witnessing it crash a tank, I wouldn't touch it with a 10ft pole. The coral colors program scares me in dosing a fixed amount of trace elements being as I don't test for them and I have to wide of a variety of coral to say what a safe level would be. The reef energy a&b I have to give glowing remarks to. It could be coupled with tank age and stability, but the colors it's coaxing out of things is just lovely. I am seeing pop and boldness that were not present before with the elos amino acid and carb program. I'll DEFINITELY be refilling them. I've been dosing the recommended 2ml per 25 gallons once a day of each for accelerated sps and Lps growth. Very happy with it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
12_egg_omelette Posted May 16, 2015 Share Posted May 16, 2015 Looking good. I might switch to this after I'm out of the Aqua vitro fuel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted May 16, 2015 Share Posted May 16, 2015 I've been using the Red Sea Reef Energy B for about 1.5 years now. No complaints here but I only dose it 2x/week at 20ml/dose for 250 total gallons in my tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bpb Posted May 19, 2015 Author Share Posted May 19, 2015 Oh what a lovely day. I just get off the phone with my wife becasue the exterminator came to spray the house and yard again. After being specifically told not to spray the garden, grape vines, or FISH TANKS!!!!!......the exterminator goes to work, and is heading out back and says to my wife "ok I'll hit the back yard and then that'll be it for today, and I'll stay away from the garden and the fish ponds." To which my wife replied "no, there are no fish ponds, I said dont spray near the two obvious brightly lit fish tanks right there" pointing at my planted tank and reef. Exterminator replies "oooooh...Yeah I sprayed around and behind those, I'm sorry I misunderstood. I'm pretty sure it'll probably be fine though, I think i'd have to actually pour this stuff in for it to hurt anything." I'm pretty irritated. I'm a fairly non-controntational guy that is quicker with flight than fight, but if I come home and find any deaths in either thank there will be H E L L to pay. Fingers crossed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jolt Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 Oh wow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reburn Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 fingers crossed for you buddy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 Yikes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bpb Posted May 20, 2015 Author Share Posted May 20, 2015 Tank made it through the night. Thank goodness. All corals feasted like royalty this morning in the dark hours on a wonderful mixture of reef chili, amino acids, live tisbe pods, and cyclopeeze. Everybody got a generous dusting. It's been a while since I've done any real tank pics. Probably because due to the acro die off of 2015 I've just not been to proud of anything. Plus with the ole wife home all the time now and the baby taking up so much effort and attention, it's been darn near impossible to sneak in sps purchases under the radar. Maybe I'll do a few one year pics next month. Hard to believe it's already been that long. Truth be told, I've been going the same way of ARC member Jimbo and focuing most of my attention on revamping my 75 gallon planted tank. Taking it from neglected trash plant jungle scape, to a neatly organized Dutch style aquascape. It's been a fun change of pace. Working in a different enviornment where everything isnt SOOOO sensitive, and you see immediate changes to feeding and dosing, not changes over months. Where you can experience 100% growth in biomass within days/weeks, vs years. Anyhow. I digress. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 My SPS experience 100% growth in a week Bpb. What are you doing wrong? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bpb Posted May 26, 2015 Author Share Posted May 26, 2015 I dunno I read somewhere that copper infused bleach water was a PE stimulant. Been dosing it for like 6 months now and haven't noticed any improvement. Should have made a world of difference from what I hear 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bpb Posted May 26, 2015 Author Share Posted May 26, 2015 This guy is actually my new favorite and happy to report its growing. Going in the right direction. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted May 27, 2015 Share Posted May 27, 2015 What is it? Looks good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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