My 1st Father's Day Gift

[astiesi]

I know, I know, I'm seriously overdue for some pictures at this point. I'll try to get some tonight. I've added a few new frags...an Idaho Grape Monte, a green Birdsnest, and an orange Digi....but I also lost the purple Firefish. I just don't seem to have any luck with Firefish at all. In my 2 years of keeping SW tanks my only loses, either fish or coral, have been the 2 firefish.

 

[nstiesi]

How is that digi doing? Is it encrusting more?

Mine seems like it is not growing much, but when I did my WC last night and was blowing crap off the rocks, its polyps retracted and I noticed 5 or 6 "bumps" on it.....hopefully those are all branches in the making.

 

[astiesi]

Well on 3-10-2010 I took the following picture:

Things were going good and I enlisted my wife who has a bit more of a photography bug than I to start trying to get some good pictures, to give the tank justice as the pictures never turn out as good as they should based upon what the tank looks like in person. Before she got a chance to do this disaster struck. Here is a list of everything that I lost:

- 10+ head Green Hammer Coral :cry1:
- Purple Polyp Birdsnest colony, baseball sized
- Green Polyp Birdsnest frag
- Purple Monte
- Green Stylophora colony
- Orange Digidata frag
- Toadstool
- Large Xenia colony (this may not be a bad thing)
- 2 Firefish
- 1 Fire Shrimp

Possibly Lost:
- GSP Colony
- 2 Orange Rics
- Armageddon Zoa colony

Survived:
- 2 Clowns
- 1 Yellow Watchman Goby
- Red Zoas
- Some random green Zoas

Enjoy the pics:

 

[Eric]

It'll be twice as nice this time around.

 

[nstiesi]

I'll be here to help you re-stock!

 

[astiesi]

So after 5 days I'm getting a better picture of what will survive and what will not. Here is the updated list:

Lost:
- 10+ head Green Hammer Coral
- Purple Polyp Birdsnest colony, baseball sized
- Green Polyp Birdsnest frag
- Purple Monte
- Green Stylophora colony
- Orange Digidata frag
- Toadstool
- Large Xenia colony (this may not be a bad thing)
- 2 Firefish
- 1 Fire Shrimp
- GSP Colony
- 2 Orange Rics

Survived:
- 2 Clowns
- 1 Yellow Watchman Goby
- Armageddon Zoa colony
- Red Zoas
- Some random green Zoas

Also, I just had the A/C guy leave my house and after an hour and $500 bucks, the technician has replaced a few parts which he suspected to be the problem. Just a suggestion for those who have invested money in this hobby, most reputable A/C companies have yearly check-up services which are reasonably priced. It may be wise to get your A/C checked once or twice a year, preventative maintenance goes a long way to preventing disaster, something which I never considered before but will never forget again.

 

[astiesi]

So now that my tank is fairly empty, I'm kicking around the idea of adding more LR. I like the open look of the tank but I think I need a little more height. What do you guys think? Currently I have about 80 lbs of rock in the tank. Here is a picture to give you an idea of how the 80 lbs looks in the tank:

 

[ChrisOaty]

Just remember, more LR = less water volume. I personally like height to my scape, that way I can move corals/clams up and down as some like more/less light than others. Maybe see what you can do with rearranging the rock you have and adding a little at the same time.

 

[astiesi]

Well, I guess its time for an update.

Since my tank heated up to 93+ degrees I decided to invest in a ReefKeeper Lite. I'm currently using this to control my heater, turn a small fan on/off blowing over the sump, and control my lighting. I must say I really like the controller and am surprised I lived without one for so long. I can see the upgrade path to the Elite being embarked upon in the future, but for now its serving its purpose well. Since putting it into service the temperature of my tank only fluctuates between 79.3 and 79.9. The cooling fan works wonders!

I also added a nice 4 head green tipped Frogspawn frag. Its doing great and I'll have to get pictures of it soon.

Unfortunately over this past weekend I decided to finally try an anemone. My thought was with no corals left I wouldn't have to worry about it wandering around until it found a spot it liked. I was talked into a LTA instead of a BTA and bought it without researching first and relying on the LFS owner (mistake #1). Once I got the anemone home I acclimated him properly and in he went. This was Saturday at about 5 pm. By Sunday morning he found the spot of deepest sandbed and buried himself nicely, taking hold of the bottom glass. He looked great most of the day.

Then at about 8 pm Sunday he decided to leave that spot and float to the corner of the tank. As of Monday morning he was still there but looking ok so I figured I would pick up some dry sand and build up a place for him to take hold. I also moved an entire tower of LR and made him a nice open, deep sandbed area to take hold in. He was still opening and still looked pretty good.

Tuesday was another story. He was not looking good at all and just lay in the corner. Long story short, after moving around the scape that I really liked and going through the meticulous process of adding carefully rinsed dry sand, the anemone started to fall apart on Wednesday and was removed from the tank. Honestly I am so discouraged right now by the last 2 months of events that I'm about ready to quit. What makes things worse is my water quality seems pretty darn good:

NH3 - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 0
pH - 8.2
Ca - 380 (low, I know, I just dosed a bit of 2 part to bring it up)
Alk - 10 dKh
Salinty - 1.024
Temp - 79.7

I have no clue why the anemone deteriorated so quickly. Lighting would take more time than 5 days to cause a problem and I cannot find anything wrong with my water. I did notice on Tuesday a small cut on its foot but it was not there when I put him in. Maybe he got hurt trying to find a place to live? I guess I'll never know.

 

[crespeto]

Dude, we took wicked pics of the clowns and some of the corals with the new underwater camera, this past weekend and still no new pics. Please, please gimi something to read.

 

[crespeto]

Its okay Tony, I'll just add my own stuff to read. The tank was looking pretty cool when we visited for Dom's birthday, and you have a little shelf full of new stuff or stuff that you were waiting to figure out where to put. Hope to see some pics soon.

 

[astiesi]

Finally here's an update. Since the partial tank crash and a very unsuccessful attempt at keeping an anemone, I've managed to add a bunch of different coral frags without killing anything else. One of my favorites is a Duncan frag that has been doing great. I'll try to get a good pic of it another time. I've also added another fire shrimp to replace the one I lost due to the 95 degree water.

Alright Chris, for your viewing pleasure, here are some pics taken with you wife's camera, which takes much better pictures than mine. I'll have to get a FTS another time as I couldn't find a suitable one to post.

 

[ReeferMan420]

great looking zoo colony! love the coloring on those clowns too

 

[crespeto]

yeah, I'll have to tell chrissy, you posted some of the pics. The tank really does look awsome. Did you start putting the new pieces around the tank or are they still chilling on your little holding shelf? Anyways, thanks, you just made my morning. Time to see if I get to pick on your brother now.

 

[crespeto]

Dude I so love the anemone looking things, some day, in the far away future when I can set up my tank I'm definitely going to want to get a couple clippings of those. Tank looks good bro.

 

[astiesi]

Chris, you are this thread's biggest fan!

Hopefully by the time you are ready with your tank most of these pieces will be big enough to frag out, let alone still alive. As for the other pieces, I finally placed them around the tank on Sunday but have to re-glue one of them that fell. I'll try to get some pictures this weekend.

ReeferMan, thanks for stopping by. Those Armaggeddon zoas have been around for a while and they are probably my favorite thing in the tank. They started with a single polyp and lived through the 95 degree water incident, which even killed off all my Xenia. Far more resilient than I thought them to be, that's for sure.

 

[wannenmacher]

the pics look great sry about the crash and the bad luck but things are looking better good thing u didn't tack the tank down.

 

[crespeto]

sweet, only a few more days and I'll get more fun pics. sorry I'm living vicariously through your tank until I get to play some day. I'm glad you were able to get the stuff put around the tank, hope they all find happy homes in their spots and go forth and multiply

 

[crespeto]

I forgot to mention yesterday that I'm for sure you biggest fan. With luck all the corals will grow and be happy, and your temp and other tank problems are all cleared up for the near future. That way they will be huge and happy, and I'll be able to get some pieces. Course by the time I get to build my tank, you'll be done with the whole salt water tank thing and have moved on to Dominic's football career.

 

[crespeto]

Okay so we need to work on getting alive streaming webcam feed on you and nicks tanks, that would be so cool, I could use it like a screen saver. Well guess that is all I have today, get some pics up of the new location for all the new corals you got put in when you can. Later.