Our 37 Gallon Display with 10 Gallon Fuge.

[Uslanja]

Our Montipora Capricornis is growing extremely well and is way to large for our tank now. We are waiting until we have some time so that we can gently cut through the Montipora along the rock that it is attached to and remove it. We're hoping to find a good home for this one and it is too fragile to ship so.... anyone close by that might be interested in picking it up? Our goal is to remove it in one large piece and if we're successful at that... it will need a good size home to go to! At this time this coral is about 12 inches long, 6 inches wide and 4 inches thick with many different layers that are all growing well with incredibly thick growing polyps and ridges. We wish we had a huge tank so that we could keep this one! This coral has grown so well in our tank that we believe the little bit that will be left attached to the rock will just grow out again!


Photos taken under blue lunars because that is when we find the look of this coral to be at its most impressive. Our photo and post processing skills do not do this coral justice! The front edge of this coral is being kept cut back from the front glass so that it doesn`t attach. But once it is in its new home, just let it grow and it will quickly fill in.

Back in the day when we were just beginning, we remember being told by BigAl07 to keep our hands out of the tank...... and his advice is so Right On!! Thanks for all of your wise advice Al!!

 

[PIMPALA]

That monti is awesome looking!!

 

[jpsika08]

Beautiful Picture and Monti

 

[QuentinB]

Great photos! It'll be sad to see that monti go...

 

[Stretch]

Wow, what a beauty!!

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[glampka]

Don't get rid of it. Frag it & trade them to SWP.

 

[Uslanja]

Hmmmm?????? Trade it? Now that sure is an idea with potential!! We have been talking about rearranging our rock work and opening up some more space for a few new additions........ that idea just might work if their interested!

 

[dmatt88]

Trade trade trade! Great idea.

Matt's Droidx via tapatalk.

 

[jjmoneyman]

Awesome monti, wish I was in your neighborhood.

 

[Stretch]

Awesome monti, wish I was in your neighborhood.

Ditto!

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[gimmito]

Nice shots Dave & Tracy...good luck w/the cyano.

 

[Uslanja]

The Cyano actually appears to be spreading on the Cheato in the fuge and we could just pull it out, but there is so much life in the Cheato that we don't want to lose. So we turned the lights off in the fuge for a few days to see if that helps deminish the Cyano. We thought that 3 days might be a good start and we believe the Cheato can surrvive that long untill untill the light is back on.

The Montipora Capricornis is gone! We are real glad that it went to a good home but sad to see it go. It was the laregest coral we had, taking up most of the tank water column. We used an exacto knife to cut it way from the rock. It actually cut off real nice. Only one small piece of a lower scroll broke off. There is still a small piece left on the rock that we're fairly sure will grow out again. We noticed something strange however; the rock that was below the Montipora has dissolved away quite a bit and we're wondering if the Montipora was the cause? The mushrooms that were below the Montipora are back in the light again. Wonder how they will deal with the big light increase?


Our bare rock. The Montipora is gone.

A small piece remains that we belive will grow out again.

We are thinking of rearrainging our rock to give us more shelf area for some more corals as well as more substrate space so that we can try one of the corals that like that type of location. We would love to get another plate coral! We're concerned that we might stir things up and cause some type of trouble; any thoughts? The upside to it all is that we will need to add alot more rock and Tracy and I Love Live Rock!

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

We're concerned that we might stir things up and cause some type of trouble; any thoughts?

You should be fine re-scaping, I would just add some fresh carbon & do 2 water changes that week or so... hopfully you can you do it without going to deep in the sand... see what others think - Cheers !

 

[QuentinB]

It looks so... open! I say go for the re-scape, change things up a bit!

 

[Uslanja]

Finally got a few days off so Tracy and I took advantage of the time and headed straight over the border for our favourite place; Salt Water Paradise! It was good to catch up with the owners, Joe and Annette and find out what some of the other local reef enthusiasts are doing but even better to get back home and scour through the chronicles here on Reef Sanctuary and see what everyone`s up too!! We picked up a couple of new corals this evening and still trying to decide if we should rearrange the rock in this tank or just go for an upgrade. Tracy mentioned doing an upgrade to a larger tank a few times and so I`m starting to think that just might be the direction we should go in. An upgrade just offers so much potential to add additional features to the setup and of course..... get more coral!!!!!! Ahhhhh, the joy of dreaming about it all!! Anyway, for now we picked up a new zoa rock and a pipe organ coral. The zoa opened up right away and the pipe organ started too when a hermit crab decided to check it out and then the polyps went back into their tubes. So we`re looking forward to seeing it open in the morning when the lights come back on. But we did snap a couple of the obligitory pics before the tank went dark. They were taken under the actinics and a little fuzzy from all of the tank food that is growing on the glass but here`s a sneak peak.

Tracy`s Pipe Organ Coral (Tubipora musica). It has not opened yet but here it is anyway.

I couldn`t help but bring these Zoa`s home. The colour just captivated me and so now they are in our living room where I can enjoy them daily! I have no idea what they might be called, but I sure do enjoy the colour!!

We also picked up a bottle of Reef Nutrition`s Arctic Tiger Pods and our plan is to set up a small tank and see if we can get these critters to multiply to a number sufficient enough for us to get then established in our tanks as part of the clean up crew but more importantly as a food source. There are several hundred in the little bottle and can be seen actively moving about so we know that they are alive! Of course we also picked up a bottle of Reef Nutritions Live Phyto Plankton`as well. We prefer to feed live foods whenever we can, frozen if we have to and never dry food. Speaking of live food..... Tracy has set up a little tank with guppies because she really enjoys them and as is the nature of things.... those critters keep themselves very busy and reproduce like crazy! I must confess that I have been feeding live baby guppies to our 37 and Butu (our three dot Domino) seems to like them even more than Tracy does! Poor Digger (our Harbor Goby) does not seem to get any of the guppies because Butu is very fast!! We are experiencing an explosion of Amphipods and that is something that has us believing that the tanks are maturing and establishing themselves nicely.

 

[Uslanja]

Here is the zoa and pipe organ under the daylights. The pipe organ polyps have some very nice detail but we're going to need to practice some more to get a good shot of them.

Tracy's new Pipe Organ coral.

Our new Zoanathid.

 

[Uslanja]

The chalice is just growing off the edge of the rock and up into the water column. We have no idea where it's heading, but it has tissue on both sides so it must be OK.

 

[dmatt88]

As always beautiful pics! Merry Christmas!

Woohoo Matt has tapatalk back

 

[Stretch]

That chalice is cool!!

Your zoas look like the could possibly be "Fire and Ice" zoas. I get those and "Ring of Fires" confused sometimes lol.

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[jjmoneyman]

Looks like fire and ice to me too. Don't worry about the chalice, some go straight out, some go down, you just never know - it looks happy though. Have a great holiday!