QuentinB
Member
Mid-western prairie people?! Pretty well sums it up
Shell is on board too! Very excited!
Our 37 Gallon Display with 10 Gallon Fuge.
- Thread starter Uslanja
- Start date
Mid-western prairie people?! Pretty well sums it up
Shell is on board too! Very excited!
Uslanja
Active Member
Yesterday was clean the tank day. It was do for one of the "extra" cleanings, all the powerheads were removed, disassembled and scrubbed, overflow was scrubbed out and the glass received a fairly extensive cleaning as well. It never ceases to surprise me how tenacious some of the little specks of algae can be when trying to remove them from the glass.
Things are overall looking good however we have encountered another Xenia oddity, but nothing like we've seen before. We had our Pulsing Glove Xenia on a frag rack along the back of the tank and it had been growing very full and large. We had thought that it might even begin to grow on the back glass and we were OK with that. However, the past two days the Xenia has been looking more grey in colour and not as vibrant as normal. Checking the tank I noticed that they were beginning to shed and little pieces were drifting around the tank and settling all over the place. We have had Xenia just melt away to nothing before so I'm not sure if this is a normal reproductive process or if something is wrong, but we certainly don't want the Xenia taking over, so we cleaned out as many of the little pieces as we could find and removed the remaining Xenia from the rack. I really like the look of the Pulsing Glove Xenia, but not a tank full of it. Quite a few empty hermit shells were removed. They are fairly small ones but they have been rinsed out and are now drying. We'll save those for some other hermit to use some day. The Monti Cap is growing so fast that it is getting difficult to work in the tank without knocking it. Another piece has been broken off of it. We really do enjoy looking at the Monti Cap but it does need allot more room to grow in then our little tank offers. While cleaning the glass we grabbed a couple of pics.
Things are overall looking good however we have encountered another Xenia oddity, but nothing like we've seen before. We had our Pulsing Glove Xenia on a frag rack along the back of the tank and it had been growing very full and large. We had thought that it might even begin to grow on the back glass and we were OK with that. However, the past two days the Xenia has been looking more grey in colour and not as vibrant as normal. Checking the tank I noticed that they were beginning to shed and little pieces were drifting around the tank and settling all over the place. We have had Xenia just melt away to nothing before so I'm not sure if this is a normal reproductive process or if something is wrong, but we certainly don't want the Xenia taking over, so we cleaned out as many of the little pieces as we could find and removed the remaining Xenia from the rack. I really like the look of the Pulsing Glove Xenia, but not a tank full of it. Quite a few empty hermit shells were removed. They are fairly small ones but they have been rinsed out and are now drying. We'll save those for some other hermit to use some day. The Monti Cap is growing so fast that it is getting difficult to work in the tank without knocking it. Another piece has been broken off of it. We really do enjoy looking at the Monti Cap but it does need allot more room to grow in then our little tank offers. While cleaning the glass we grabbed a couple of pics.
Uslanja
Active Member
Hi Terry! The Blasto was eating some little cheato pieces that were blowing around the tank. We have cheato in or fuge and it is forever shedding little pieces that then get pumped into the display. It isn't a big problem, but after a while I need to reach in with tweezers and pick all the little pieces out. I had thought of placing a small strip of sponge between the baffles to keep it in the fuge but I don't want to create another maintenance issue. Has anyone discovered a solution to this problem?
Uslanja
Active Member
Still playing with our camera and Photoshop Elements 7 software. Haven't got a clue how to convert a RAW image into a JPEG so that Photobucket can see it. But we did accidentally make a thumbnail. Not sure how that happened but this is what it looks like.
OK, back to the book I go, sure wish I had some understanding of all the terms I'm reading!!
OK, back to the book I go, sure wish I had some understanding of all the terms I'm reading!!
Uslanja
Active Member
Hi everyone! We found a small Aiptasia on the Blasto's frag rock. What made us notice it is that one of the Blasto heads became very small and deflated. Very similar to what it looked like when we first brought it home. Upon closer examination we saw an Aiptasia with it's tentacles touching the head. We are not sure if it was stinging the Blasto or not. The Aiptasia is very small and so I tried something that did not work, I took the frag out of the tank and just dribbled lemon juice concentrate on the area that we had seen the Aiptasia in. All that did was cause the Aiptasia to move over a bit. Believe it or not but that thing is so small that once it was out of the water I could not see it. Now that the frag is back in the water I can see where the Aiptasia moved to. I will need to try some other way to get it. But, and this is the cool part, we found a little critter on the frag rock after the lemon juice drip that we believe is some type of nudi. It is barely a 16TH of an inch in length and very difficult to get a close up picture of. Anyway, here is what we found;
Blasto with the Aiptasia located between the two heads, just below the dead head.
What we believe is a Nudi Branch, but if anyone knows for sure, please let us know!
Best close up of the nudi that we could get.
Blasto with the Aiptasia located between the two heads, just below the dead head.
What we believe is a Nudi Branch, but if anyone knows for sure, please let us know!
Best close up of the nudi that we could get.
That teeny Aiptasia would be an easy kill with Paul B's Zapper. Hopefully you won't see any more nudibranchs - they seem to all be predators, most are specific to one type of coral. Missing any green zoas? I think they often take on the color of the coral they consume, and it does look like it could be one of the zoa predator types.
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...nthids-closed-care-pests-troubleshooting.html
Hopefully you won't see any more nudibranchs - they seem to all be predators, most are specific to one type of coral. Missing any green zoas? I think they often take on the color of the coral they consume, and it does look like it could be one of the zoa predator types.http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...nthids-closed-care-pests-troubleshooting.html