My new 75 gal. Upgrade

[wonderloss]

When I went with 8, I was thinking more was better, and knowing it would be cheaper to take out two bulbs than to buy a larger fixture in the event I changed my mind. I am not having any problems with all 8, either. However, 6 bulbs may be sufficient for what I currently have, namely zoas and rics. Cutting back on lighting will save on the electric bill, reduce heat, and reduce light for any nuisance algea.

If it does not work, then I can just buy a couple more bulbs.

[tbittner]

Really nice looking tank! I love Rics. Looks like you have a bunch of them too. Have they spread like that? Or are they all ones that you bought and placed where they are?

[wonderloss]

Thanks for the compliments, everyone.

The rics are mostly originals from frags that I have placed, but some of them have split. I think I started with two of the orange and three of the blue. I do not even remember where I purchased those colors.

Strangely enough, when I bought the green rics there were six on the rock. Two of them shriveled away to nothing for some reason, but now there are six again from splitting of the originals. The greens were the first ones I bought.

Most of the shrooms have two mouths right now, and are getting ready to split.

[SJS]

Nice pictures - your tank looks great.

[Tru2nr]

your tank looks real nice you did what i would like to do which is go from my 55 to maybe a 75 or a 90 but ima gonna wait untill i can do everything just right and not half it

[wonderloss]

Here are a couple of pictures. I was just playing around trying to get some good closeup shots. These are the only ones I really liked.

First is the new leaffish.


Next is a shot of the green ricorida.


My new lights should be here tomorrow, and I will get some new shots with them.

[Anselth]

Very nice, although the Leaffish looks like he's a bit perturbed at you.

[tbittner]

That leaffish is COOL!!! I don't think I've seen one of those before.

Great shot of the ric too. It looks like you have a big colony of them going.

[wonderloss]

I am glad you folks are enjoying.

Yeah, I really like the leaffish. He has a lot of personality. Having seen him flop around from one place to another, I can see why he is perpetually perturbed. His typical locomotion is very clumsy.

On the other hand, once some ghost shrimp end up near him, he can move pretty quickly.

He is a type of scorpionfish, so another venomous creature. Since he stay pretty still, he is not much of a hazard. I worry more about getting poked by the Foxface.

Also interesting: because he spends a lot of time in one spot, he slowly grows a covering of algae that turns him brown. After a couple of weeks, he molts. I have not seen the molt, but it is obvious because the brown goes away.

[wonderloss]

I have a funny story about the leaf fish.

The other day I fed him ghost shrimp. The live food get his feeding response going, so he gets more likely to try to see things as food. I was on the bottom near the place where my brittle start hides, and its tentacle was moving around with the tip sticking up. I saw the leaf staring at it, and new it was going to happen. Suddenly, he pounced and tried to eat the waving arm. No success, though.

However, he stayed put right where the arm was. In its normal, exploratory fashion, and kept moving around the leaf fish, trying to determine if the fish was food. It kept grabbing one if its pectoral fins, and the leaf would just shake it off, looking perturbed as always. No matter how many times this happened, the leaf would not move away though.

[wonderloss]

No new pictures. I have not changed much, so I do not have anything new to photograph.

As I mentioned in another thread, the leaffish has gotten bold enough to take live shrimp from my fingers. I do not consider this a good thing, because of the potential for accidents. I got some stainless steel tweezers to use for feeding him now. On the bright side, I think it will be easier to wean him onto frozen food with the tweezers.

However, any time I put my hand in the tank now, he comes to investigate. I open my hand and show that it is empty, and he will leave it alone. In fact, whenever I approach the tank now, he will come over to me and start "jumping" back and forth in front of the glass or else start doing his leaf dance.

I have to take a similar action with the rabbitfish, holding my hand above the tank and waiting for him to stop looking for food at the surface before doing anything in the tank. When he realizes I am not feeding him, he will go hide.

Also, last week one of my wrasses jumped into my overflow. I was able to get him out by shutting off the return pump and siphoning the water out of the overflow. It worked out alright since I was due for my water change anyway. He was returned safe and sound, though he hid for a couple of days.

[wonderloss]

Just a few tidbits. No new pictures. I am a bad boy.

Aiptasia. Yuck. When I got the leaffish, I forgot about my peppermint shrimp which I never saw. I did not realize what a good job he was doing at keeping Aiptasia under control. I think he became a meal, and now the little pests keep popping up. Fortunately, Joe's Juice is doing a good job of eliminating them as they appear.

Also, I am working to get the leaffish away from eating live foods. I usually feed him 5 or 6 live grass shrimp every Friday or Saturday. Now, I have started freezing some. I then thaw them out with the next batch of live shrimp. After feeding a couple of lives ones, I feed him the frozen ones. The next step will be to get him to eat frozen shrimp without enticing him with live ones first. Then hopefully I can get him to eat frozen mysis and frozen krill, with live food as an occasional treat.

I have also seen a lot of growth in all of my zoanthids lately. They are spreading like crazy. I think the light change from a few months ago helped to kick that off. I may be out of bare rock before I know it.

[Woodstock]

Love the leaf fish!!
Great job on your aquascaping
Excellent work weaning the leaf fish onto frozen foods! Can you snap a few more pics of him please?

[wonderloss]

Thanks for the compliments.

The leaffish is my most photographed fish for the obvious reason--he does not move much. I need to get a good series showing his color change from yellow to brown as he grows algae, before shedding his skin and becoming bright yellow again.

I decided to try to get him away from live food because he only eats 5 or 6 shrimp, but the LFS only likes to sell in multiples of 10.

[tbittner]

I'd LOVE to see a new picture of your tank.