9600oz to freedom: Our 75g (Coral growth picture update! 9/14)

alisamac

alisamac

Member
Sorry it's been so long since the last update but we haven't done anything crazy enough to update on it's own so i'll tell you everything here now.
Unfortunately we lost our seahare.. There was plenty of hair algae to go around but we think it was just his time. He was large when we got him and it was about 5 months later. The lifespan we found on the net was only about a year so regardless of what may have happened I'm gonna go with that reason. I don't know if we'll replace him because he was an awesome maintenance critter but I haven't seen one locally since.
Josh went to move our large feather duster from where it rooted itself and it wasn't having any of that so it stayed but he pulled off it's tube... LUCKILY it had grown enough new tube to survive and seems to be happy still.
Our sebae is h-u-g-e. and the saddlebacks are still refusing host it..
The maxi mini is large enough to where it spread onto another rock and looks awesome still.
We are looking for monti's and encrusting stonies lately, I guess we've conquered the squishy game soo we're moving on.
Started fragging our ricordia, hairy shrooms, kenya tree, and soon to be the xenia.
Today we picked up two peppermint shrimp to help with a recent little outbreak of aptasia.
And in a nutshell that's about it for now..
 
alisamac

alisamac

Member
We fed the tank some mysis last night and I got some pictures while in the actinic light..

the cynarina eating.. it's pretty entertaining to watch

Got a new mouth growing!

Tons of wild growth lately.. I want to take a razor to those branches soo bad I've just gotta get more glue.

Very slow growth here, but it's doing really well

Poor buddy, something spooked him so he's been a looking a little beat up and being really shy recently but it's getting better slowly

This is beginning to scroll at the edges pretty nicely

I don't really know why the bubbles are collecting there..But the cap is really scrolling and the tubinaria is super slow growing..

This is as big as this is allowed to get.. It's tripled in size in 4 months

It's kind of cute, every so often I'll find one little polyp somewhere random in the tank. I loved these so much when I found them and now I'm sort of over it. I'm giving it a few more months to spread on to the base rock and then that colony is coming out.. (I'm ready to spring clean this house and the tank apparently..)

This is sprouting another mouth, I can't wait till this is bigger.
We haven't seen the peppermint shrimp a whole lot since we put them in.. Which is a little concerning given the disappearance of our cleaner shrimp but I just keep telling myself there's lots of rocks for them to hide behind!
 
alisamac

alisamac

Member
Nope, he looked fine when we got him.. I've got no idea what happened but he's coming around and looking better now.
 
alisamac

alisamac

Member
We might have cracked the case on where all the shrimp are going.. After a text from Josh while at work saying the maxi mini carpet nem had a hold of the yellow tang, I definitely don't need much more convincing.. I love that thing in the tank but now it's taking money out of my pocket. Soooo we're taking it out of the tank as soon as we can detach it from the (of course) massive rock it moved to.. I knew strong swimmers should be fine so I never thought it'd get the tang.. I'm sure that's why he's been looking really rough lately, probably not his first run in.. The shrimp probably never had a chance.. Oh well at least some store credit is coming our way.. Crazy how something so pretty eats everything..
Picked up an awesome frag of blue hydnophora today, I'll put the picture up tomorrow sometime when Josh and I arise from the dead. We've been battling flu (and then some) symptoms for three weeks now. With summer comes the huge purchase of the chiller but if that's what it takes I'm ready..
 
alisamac

alisamac

Member
The yellow tang died sometime last night.. He looked the worst I had ever seen him after the nem attack last night so I'm not too surprised.. Now trying to get the nem to move is going to be a challenge. It's taken pretty well to it's prime fish eating spot.
 
alisamac

alisamac

Member
Incase anyone still reads this thread.. We traded in our maxi mini carpet nem for credit towards a frag of green goniastrea. Then popped over to the other store and picked up a goby for me finally (now that the fish killer is gone), a replacement peppermint shrimp, and replacement yellow tang. We ordered frag plugs that should be here this weekend so the fun can really get started.. Oh and on a non-fish note we are getting a dishwasher =))))
Now for some pictures.

There's the hydnophora I mentioned a post ago.. It's in the back of the tank and a smaller piece so the picture isn't awesome because it's zoomed in on a cellphone.. But it's pretty!

Hard to see the new diamond goby, but he's obviously making himself at home! He's about 4 inches so should hold up well.

Blurry fish action shot but there is the yellow tang and the welcome committee.. literally 5 out of the 6 fish..

the goniastrea, don't know if it'll stay there permanently but it's good for now.. Annnd we're trying the clear black back drop for a while and clearing off the coraline to help the coral colors pop, which is 100x more annoying than I had expected..

Up close of the stylo, we're picking up a pink frag next time we go shopping.. I just really liked this picture..
 
alisamac

alisamac

Member
It's been about two month so an update is due. I was about to be modest about what we've been busy with and say not much but we've been up to a whoooole lot.
We acquired a 65 gallon which mad scientist Josh put in the basement and plumbed to the 75 upstairs. So with the two tanks and the sump we've got a 170 gallon system now. We bought our chiller and built some frag racks and fragged a whole bunch of coral. We posted a couple ads on craigslist to try and sell but no luck.. We aren't trying to rip people off either, just really want to get rid of some of this stuff.. So If anyone is near Rochester NY and looking, we can definitely talk!!
The diamond goby wanted to try living on the carpet and that obviously didn't work out well. We found a pink spotted shrimp goby to replace him which I adore but it isn't quite as social as the diamond.. Very pretty though!
We've gotten a few new corals, a blasto frag, pin leather, yellow leather, yumas, shrooms, green favites, and some green hydnophora..
No coral death, but lots of growth.. The goniastrea bounced back fantastically from it's scary bleached edges. The favites we bought had some death before we got them. Apparently something stingy fell onto them but they seem to be doing ok for us so far, eating meaty foods and keeping their color.
The daisy polyps and the kenya tree have been moved into the 65.. It's been so nice having the room to move things around..
Enough talking, here are pictures.




Put together some over time collages





That's about it for now.. We'll get a new fts soon!
 
alisamac

alisamac

Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by cryptics http:///forum/thread/383442/9600oz-to-freedom-our-75g-new-pics-coral-growth-5-15/40#post_3383961
Try selling the frags on Manhattanreefs.com You will have better luck.
We were actually talking about figuring out ways to ship and trying to sell on ebay.. The whole idea makes me super nervous lol the NYC area is about 6 hours from us still but wouldn't be too crazy to ship to so thanks for the link!
We love our lfs' and would sell our stuff to them but one pays a 1/3 of what they would sell it for while the other is a 1/2.. We would end up getting around what we would price them at ourselves but then they would turn around and charge a ton..
Now that we have the frag tank I'm not so worried about getting it out that we would do something rash. When our sand bed was littered with plugs and had conch's running them over it was a totally different story. So I guess we'll just wait and see what we can figure out..
Tonight I'll try and get a fts and maybe a shot of what we've got going on in the basement. (basement set up = not pretty, but efficient) But here's a teaser: in the basement there's a garbage can of our mixed salt water.. ooooh.. our chiller, and sump up on cinder blocks... aaahhh.. and a sexy power compact light system.. are you turned on yet? Give it a few weeks and there might even be a fancy fish in there..
 
gemmy

gemmy

Active Member
Looking good. I LOVE the growth shots. I think it is neat to see the changes that occur in our tanks.
 
alisamac

alisamac

Member
Here is the updated fts like I promised.. as well as some pictures of the basement set up..

taken on a cellphone camera.. so it obviously looks like garbage. We've also been feeding the crap out of everything so the phosphates are a little out of control

taadaaaa..

the high tech garbage can of ocean, fancy shmancy chiller, sump and the clusterfudge of cords..

more clusterfudery behind the frag tank..

the not sexy, not happy at all frags. We just moved them all around so everything is all upset and looking like garbage under these PC's
and I really hate to end this post with such an ugly picture

so there's our dog. =)
 
alisamac

alisamac

Member
Been so long since I've updated this thread but I've got goodies!
Pictures over time of some of our pieces.. click through for bigger..
blue chalice
orange cap, and cup coral
war coral
stylophora
goniastrea
lol.. xenia
wellsophyllia

and we got a clam!
 
alisamac

alisamac

Member
I miss this thread/forum. Posted a few days ago about our goby being a predator and decided now is as good a time as any to update this. I'll get a new fts soon, I was chasing clowns earlier so things aren't too happy.
Let's see, what's changed.... The yellow-i-have-to-have-this-leather died. Randomly got a black spot that soon melted away the whole piece. and really that's it.. Everything else has just been growing. We've made some large equipment purchases so nothing really as far as coral has been added in about six months.. Yikes, I remember for a while we were going shopping once a week with money to blow. I guess that's the problem with running out of room. The space you have being so limited so you've got to make your choices carefully.
I did find my pink stylophora and buy that a while back. So much slower growing than the green, definitely not used to that.
On the wish list is a watermelon chalice that our lfs should be fragging this summer.. Josh wants this stuff so bad and I might just be a wonderful girlfriend and buy it for his birthday.Only problem with that is finding room.. Our blue chalice might be either moving, getting cut considerably, or both. Blue is such a hard color to keep.
Speaking of colors being hard to keep. We have a clam (afore-pictured above) No idea what kind, irresponsible I know, but it was purple and wonderful. Now this guy is sorta brownish purple. Happy but not as nice looking any more.. Anybody have any idea why?
I posted this in the goby thread but sadly he went back to the store today
loved that fish but had an expensive taste for shrimp. I chased the saddle back clowns for close to an hour but they were too hard to catch. I ran the net through the xenia to flush out the female and spooked our blue hippo. He hit a corner and had what looked like a fish seizure and laid there. I freaked out, apologizing to this poor thing and putting things back as fast as I could just frantically reassuring it, "I'm so sorry, I'm all done I promise, no more, you're okay, I'm so sorry.." After I had the lids back on I nudged him out of the corner and he went to a different cave. He looks fine now, but he's a forever resident in that tank, I did not wanna risk killing him.
Ever have a moment where you realize how badly you need someone else? Today was one for me. I love this hobby a great deal, but Josh is my fish guy. I can't imagine having what we have as far as tanks/equipment/livestock without him. I'd be staring at a bowl with an upside down goldfish floating on the surface asking it to wake up.
Yesterday we got a reef refresher package and some extra peppermint shrimp. The two cleaner clams both died. One DOA and the second dead in the morning, and that's how I learned that cleaner clams, especially dead ones, are the worst smell ever. Worse than any skimmer cup I've ever cleaned. The emerald crab is pretty neat, hope that little guy flourishes. Tonight we'll introduce some shrimp after the lights are off. I took in a piece of cap too today and found a peppermint underneath it. Glad the goby didn't get all three we bought this weekend.
 
hookem0981

hookem0981

Member
really nice tank. I started mine about 2 months ago.. can't wait until the corals start filling in like that :) best wishes to you
Joe
 
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