The Nano is dead. Long Live THE 23!!!

[Uslanja]

The clavularia covered rubble has shipped out earlier today. Its heading to another RS members tank and we hope it survives the trip but it`s still not too late to change your mind!! It has taken over our 23 nano and saddens us to say but we are starting to think that we might need to take it down and rebuild. The stuff is prolific and now growing across the substrate in thick mats. We are even sceptical if we can re-use any of our existing corals. The stuff is horrible, covering almost everything now and has pretty much cost us the tank. We`ll take an out of control algae problem over this stuff any day! We`re now looking to see if it might have some type of predator, maybe something peaceful with our pipe fish but has an insatiable appetite for purple clove polyps.

 

[QuentinB]

I've got an easy solution for you, guys! I'll just ship a bit of my tank water to you! Guaranteed to kill everything but shrimp and cabbage leather corals!

 

[Uslanja]

Hi Quentin! Work has been real busy and I just haven't had time to hang out here much, but being as I spend most of my time in the US and its turkey day down there.... Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!; I have a day at home as well. We might need you to send us some of that water!! We upped the carbon significantly because we read somewhere that it might hurt the Purple Demon..... but I think its growing even faster now. Another reefer mentioned that they experienced a Purple Demon Crash from high amounts of GFO but we have no idea what other side effects might occur from that.... anyone have any ideas about using GFO?

 

[Uslanja]

The Nano has been doing real good and we really haven't been taking very many pictures of it.... just sitting and watching and checking things out real close with our magnifying glass. The Clavularia is proving to be tougher than the GAC and still growing!! Last week Tracy noticed that the Clavularia was covered in little white balls and we thought that maybe it was finally going to die off but then the balls were released into the water column and so we thought.... cool, we just witnessed a spawn and those ball things are the gametes. So now we fast forward about a week and get to this evening where we are witnessing the same type of event only this time the things that we thought might be gametes last week are not in the shape of little balls but longer. About the same diameter as the balls but instead of round, they are long. So what are we witnessing? Is it a spawn and do the gametes change shape and if they do does anyone know why and .... and..... and......?????? Below are two photos showing the different shaped things???? Can anyone shed some light on what is happening?


The round gametes?

The long gametes?

We have posted this in the corals section as well hoping to get an answer or at least learn a bit more to help us research on.

 

[Uslanja]

A few new pics.

Two Green Pallys fighting the Clavularia for some reef space.

These Pallys or Zoas, not sure which they are, are loosing the battle with the Clavularia. Slowly but surely they are being pushed out of their space.

A nice coloured sponge has been growing on a frag plug but the only way to get a pic was on an angle through the glass and focusing was pretty tough. But we find the colour to be unique and so it is becoming one of our new favourite things to keep an eye on.

These star fish have pretty much eaten all of the coraline algae from the glass. Not sure what type they are. Heavy coraline algae similar to what is seen on our HOB fuge

has been eaten from our back glass. The glass is pretty much devoid of any coraline now. We are slightly concerned about what these things will do to our rock, but then it is pretty much covered completely in Clavularia.... so maybe they won't do anything?

The Clavularia is growing in thick mats across the substrate and even under rocks and into dark caves. This stuff has taken over!

 

[Uslanja]

We both arrived home early the other day and decided that Mighty Taco was just the thing for dinner, but wait, that means that our favourite LFS, "Salt Water Paradise", is right across the street!! A plan quickly came together and off we went. The burritos were delicious but even better is the Bubble coral that Joe and Annette had ordered in for us. We even picked up a few other things, I guess I should say that Tracy picked up a few other things and now it looks like we're heading back over the border tomorrow to get a few more things for Tracy's new "project". Stay tuned for a new chronicle!! But this story is all about me and my new Bubble! So, without further adieu;

My new Euphyllia "Bubble" coral just placed in the tank under the lunars.

The Bubble opening right away.

Opened under the daylights the next day in all of its glory!

I really enjoy the Euphyllia corals and have been wanting one of these for quite a while! Hmmm...... I wonder what I should get next??

 

[Stretch]

I LOVE that second pic!! Awesome!!

 

[BLADEYAMAHA]

Sweet Photos!

 

[Uslanja]

I got home early today and while Tracy was at work I opened her camera bag and thought I would try to get a couple of pics with her new Canon 60MM macro lens. I need to figure out how to use her tripod...... this thing was difficult to hold steady! Anyway..... a couple of shots showing the Clavularia encroaching on just about everything...

The frogspawn is growing right into the clavularia but I have faith in the Euphyllia being the stronger coral.... I hope!

Clavularia growing up the trunk of this Euphyllia Torch coral.

For a while it looked like the yellow polyps could hold their ground, but not anymore.

Zoas getting a bit of a squeezing.

I can't believe that I actually see this stuff offered for sale on a few sites!!! We're sitting on a veritable gold mine!!

A hermit crab cleaning a friends shell.

Polyps on our Leather Toadstool coral.

Another hermit crab digging around the base of a yellow polyp.

 

[Stretch]

Nice shots Dave!!

 

[Uslanja]

A while back, can't remember exactly when but thinking almost a year or so now, we picked up our first acropora; Acropora yongie, AKA Bali Green Slimer. It looked very green for a few months and had put on a about an inch of growth when it suddenly stopped growing and lost a significant amount of its green colouring. We feared that the coral had bleached and died but when we touched it, there would be a slime reaction and there was the faintest pale beige colour in the branches and a very faint pattern could still be seen. So we left it in place and hoped for the best. A few times over the months a small amount of algae would be seen trying to grow on a tip or two and then the next day or so the algae would be gone. So we left the slimer in place, watched close and continued to hope for the best. Well, a bit of colour is returning to the slimer, although it still does not display the intense green that it originally had, but small polyps are starting to be seen opening into the water column. Our hopes are increasing for the survival of this little fella but we realize that it's not out of the woods yet.


Small polyps are starting to open into the water column and a slight green colouring is returning. We almost gave up on this coral.

 

[jjmoneyman]

Looks like she's finally trying to come back.

 

[Uslanja]

The slimer is showing continued improvement and becoming darker in colour every day.

These mushrooms are spreading in spite of the clavularia.

The Duncan has just been fed.

 

[Uslanja]

Just hanging at home and its raining outside so I get to play on RS for a bit. Just some pics of a few things that we have photographed so many time before, but here we go again, one more time.....

I really like the yellow polyps and this lonely fella is putting up a good fight against the clavularia

Another single yellow polyp is just hanging out on the substrate and I couldn't help but take a few pics showing how it was responding to the current. It is difficult to get a clear shot where this one is situated and the current is fairly strong here so the polyp is always moving, but

I enjoy looking at close up shots of the pattern on the Duncan tentacles

 

[Uslanja]

 

[Stretch]

LOVE the shot of the clown!! Great stuff!!

 

[omerojs]

wow... i just digested 47 pages in 2 days of awesome pics and great corals!!
a few questions, what happened with the idea of the yellow tang to eat the clavularia?
what happened with the idea of a 150 for your grand daughter?
have you tried to get a few shots of "Slim" with a wider aperture so that you get focus all over the fish?
i heard the Bioballs are bad because they are a Nitrates factory.. are you using them?
any news from the one who got your "frag" of clavularia?

again, love the tank and the pics!

 

[omerojs]

I found this:
"Anyway...if you want to get rid of them, the long-spine urchin will eat them and some cowrie species as well as a chocolate chip star fish. Problem is they may eat things you don't want them as well. "
you could try that...

 

[glampka]

You are alive!

 

[Uslanja]

Hi omerojs! Thanks for the kind words and the info on the critters that might help reduce the clavularia problem. The nano is a 23 gallon long and we could try a few of those critters but the space really is tight in there. We might need to re-home them once they get the job done for us. We will do some research into the ones that you mention and try and identify the best candidate for the task. We lost Slim a few weeks back and we're not sure why. He was doing very good swimming the tank and the currents didn't seem to bother him and we observed him eating so all should be well, but sadly he just became lethargic and even though we moved him into a hospital tank so that he would have no competition for food or such, he lingered for a few days and then stopped swimming. I understand that these guys were wild caught when we bought him so there is no way we could determine his age. He may just have been at the end of his time. Hopefully we didn't cause an early demise for him.

A tank for Olivia is still an ongoing discussion and the real problem is the logistics of where to put it. Over the past 2.5 years we have gone from no aquarium to 5 of them. Albeit they are small tanks with our largest being 37 gallons, but by having so many we get to create different environments in each one and there is something rather enjoyable about that. A large tank would most likely mean that we would go down to a single tank. And that is something that would make maintenance a little easier. As of now we are pretty much working on a tank 5 days out of the week. But it is a passion that we have developed so it's not really an unpleasant task. But on the Olivia topic, we have little fingerprints on the front glass of every tank and it seems that the sump is her favourite place to get wet! So far we haven't found anything in the sump that shouldn't be there but I'm sure the day will come when we will discover how a skimmer reacts to Cheerios!

Thanks again for pointing us in the direction of some possible clavularia eaters and we'll be researching those in earnest.

Oh, we never did hear back from the person that we shipped the clavularia rock too and we haven't seen them on RS since.