some sunday morning pics

[murph145]

thanks FireyKat04!

yes very addictive thats true.... im glad u liked the pics...
what size tank do you have?? what exactly do you want to do to it like what kind of animals are you planning on putting in it.... i always like seeing how tanks progress...
if u have any pics of your new tank id like to see
Thanks!!!

 

[fireykat04]

I have a 65 gallon, with 80 lbs of live sand, 65 lbs of live rock (actually I killed the rock, you can read about it in my post of Live Rock Disaster), I subscribe to my LFS web site and saw the other day where they were selling already cured rock from a tank that an employee tore down, so I bought about 12-15 lbs of the rock from them. Hoping it will help my dead. Do you think it will? It also had some corals growing on it. A bonus. AND out of one of the rocks when I got them home was a huge serpent star. More about my critters in a minute. I'm running a Bak Pak skimmer and a Fluval 404 canister filter. My lights are the Power Compact Current Satellite, dual Actinic and dual daylight, 2x96 watts. It finally finished cycling about a week ago. I put in the cleaner crew, a small serpent star, blue and red legged crabs, some margarite snails, a mithrax crab, a coral banded shrimp. And I have the coral that came on the live rock I bought at the LFS. I want to keep anemones, clowns and the easier corals. Nothing fancy or exotic. Just the hardy stuff. With a few reef fish. I'm hoping my lighting will be enough to keep the hardier corals. Nothing delicate requiring the high lighting. My tank is at the ugly stage, it has the brown diatom growing everywhere and it's keeping the cleaning crews busy. I'll have to take some pics and post them; maybe you can tell me what the coral is that's already on the rocks. From the research I've done I think it's Xena colony and there's some little orange looking poylps, bright orange (sun coral orange?). Then there's the green ones, not sure about those either. Sorry to keep rambling but, it's fantastic to find others interested in the hobby!!!! Thanks for the interest and I will take some pics and post them. Ugly brown stuff and all.

 

[murph145]

sounds like your tank is coming along there....
yeah as long as u have some live rock you can reseed your dead live rock so to speak...
it might take some time but after a while it should have organizims on it again and the bacterias used for the filtering of your water.... like i said it will just take some time...
it would be cool to see some pics of your tank and the corals on your rocks....
might be sun polyps those require a shaded indirect light source.... the other green ones are probably green button polyps...
i have some encrusting xenia in my tank it grows on the rocks and spreads like that....
u might becareful with the anemones they require a mature tank with enought lighting.... ur on the lower side but u could probably keep a bubble tip or a long tentacle once your tank is mature enough.... the sebaes and carpets require really good lighting....
the brown diatoms will go away after awhile when the excess nutrients in your water are used up by the bacteria in your tank....
take a pic when u get a chance!!!
good luck!!!!

 

[fireykat04]

I finally took a couple pics. What is the size limit on the attachments of a pic for here? Once I shrink them I will post; soon as I know the size limit. :joy:

 

[murph145]

500X500 pixels use your photo shop program and shrink the image or resize it

 

[fireykat04]

Here are a few pics. First one of the tank BEFORE I killed the rock. The others are a couple critters and of course the coral. I need to get a better pic of the orange coral for you to see. I'll try in the morning when the lights are on. Also couldn't resist the two little clowns. :joy: The one of the crab shows HOW dead my rock is.

 

[fireykat04]

The third pic down at the top is the green coral. I'll have to get a better pic of it to.

 

[murph145]

hmmmm the only one i can see for sure is the xenia.... the others cant really see sorry
yeah i see your rock looks pretty baron... what happened i didnt read your other thread yet so i was just wondering if u could tell me in a short story lol :yes:
i like the clowns i wish i would gotten 2 percs instead of my tomato.... hes a terror lately im thinking of takin him back to the LFS but i feel kinda bad hes one of my original fish from 2 years ago.... but hes very aggressive now.... he attacks my hand everytime i put my hand in the tank now.... he even goes after anything else that comes close to his homes the 2 rose bubble anemones....
im guna have to think hard about this one :thinking:
let me see the close ups when u get them of the other corals so i can see what they are

 

[fireykat04]

I'll try to get the pics taken in the morning and posted tomorrow night. Think there's any chance my rock will come back to life? Long story short, I messed up. I was told by the LFS that my skimmer and power head would be enough for the rock to cycle and I had no other filter or anything on the tank. It never cleared up and started to really stink and I panicked and took it all out and washed it in fresh water. It smelt like a sewer. Went to the LFS and bought a Fluval Canister filter and stuck on the tank. AND what you see is the end result.
Funny you should say your clown is getting aggressive. When I was at the LFS gettng some more crabs the other day a clown came out after the store attendant because he stuck his hand in the tank. The guy knew it was going to happen cuz he was watching it and waiting for it to come out of the anemone.
I think I'd have to do away with the fish for peace sake in my tank. More pics to follow tomorrow night. :happy:

 

[murph145]

o that sucks about your rock!!!
well it can reseed but it takes a long time!!!
it might be better just to slowly add new pieces while taking out old ones.... i know i had a few pieces of live rock that i killed myself when i had a FOWLR tank i had an outbreak of ick and i treated my tank with copper to cure the fish..... well i guess it was enough copper to kill the rocks since they turned brown and nothing existed on them.... thats been over a year or more and the rock is slowly starting to come back to life mainly just different forms of algae coraline and such but i really havent noticed any small inverts or anything like that.... i think once those have been killed off your LR its hard to get them to spread back....
but u never know .... its just guna take time!!!!
lokn fwd to seein the pics tomorrow night then :jumping:

 

[tthemadd1]

I have been trying to figure out what this is. Maybe you can ID it for me. I have two of them and dont know what they are. Got them when I bought a reef setup online..
Thanks,
themadd1

 

[fireykat04]

Here's the orange and green coral, better pics. I'm thinking sun on the orange. The second one is with the actinic lights on, it looks much oranger. I think you're right. I need to start slowly replacing the rock. OR cover it all with coral !!!! The green coral is really green on the top.
The coral in the pic before looks like maybe some kind of Leather? Do a new post and put up the pic. I'm sure someone in here could tell you exactly what it is.

 

[murph145]

easy enough..... :happy:
tthemadd1: what that is, is a yellow leather finger coral.... picked him up about 4-6 weeks ago
Fireykat04: the green ones look like green star polyps which are very easy to maintain and will spread onto surrounding rocks... i have a piece that i split into 2 and now its growing like crazy .... probably 1/8" a day or so....the 2nd pic is of some orange zoo's just another color variation of a polyp coral.... i have a few in one of my pics further up in the thread the pic with my red head jaw fish and the polyps above him....
looks cool both should spread over time given favorable water conditions....

 

[fireykat04]

Mystery solved, it's good to know at least they are easy to keep corals. I would have hated for them to die. Thanks Murph!
Here's a question for you; what is Aiptasia? I just received the weekly email from my LFS and it said they had some fully cured, coralline encrusted Tonga live rock which unfortunately has some aiptasia on it. Since we were talking about me replacing my rock (seems to me it will take forever to re-seed) I'm thinking if it's not something to horrible I could get some of that to replace my dead. They are selling it at $3.00 a lb. Let me know your thoughts on that.
I was looking at your pics again; what kind of camera are you using? Nice and clear. Beautiful shots. Thanks for taking the time to advise a begin again beginner! :happyfish

 

[murph145]

no prob always willing to help anyone i can

as for aipistasia those are a form of anemone which is a pest.... they can sticng nearby corals and fish harming or killing them after a while.... they are very hard to get rid of if they are left untreated and allowed to spread.... they can multiply fast and hide in any part of your tank....
there are ways to get rid of them such as with some boiling lemon juice shot at them with a small baster or suringe.... also a kalk mixture.....
what does your normal LR cost your LFS??
out here it is $3.99 lb.... i dont think i would venture into buying some LR that they already say have those pest anemones on it they can be bothersome.... ive never had one in my tank as of yet so im not sure exactly all aspects of them but ive read enough post to where i know enough about them and that they are not good.... u can do a thread search and type that in and im sure u will find tons of articles relating to these things....
my 2 cents is dont buy the LR with it on it.... sometimes u will still buy LR which may have it on it but i wouldnt buy the rock if it was full of these things.... maybe just go in check out the rock and see what its about...
as for my camera i am using a olympus D-545 camera cost me like $200 or so ... its 4 mega pixel with 3 optical zoom and 4 digital zoom .... works out pretty good for the porice i guess.... thanks again for the compliments....
alot of times alsot the clarity of shots depends on how u resize the image....
i take the shot with a normal 2288X1712 pixel ratio then i transfer the pics to my comp and edit them with my photoshop tool and click the image icon then resize the pics to fit a 500X374 frame on this site.... sometimes if u do on your camera u distort the shot making it blurry... took me a while to figure it out myself

 

[fireykat04]

Sounds like I don't want that in my tank, not after the start I've had. I'll steer clear of those. I was thinking those only because it's already cured. Live rock around here runs $7.99 a lb to $11.00 lb. I guess I'll go back to plan A, get rock in small amounts and add to replace the dead stuff.
I have an Olympus c-765, I edit using photo shop. I haven't had the camera to long and I really need to mess with the settings and get it figured it out. It's the 10 optical zoom, with 4 mega pixels. I'll have to try your settings and see how that works out on mine.

 

[fireykat04]

Do you use the liquid food for your corals or anemones? Or add calcium or any other additiives?

 

[murph145]

hey there on my camera i use the micro setting which is the little flower looking icon .... i usually set it on that mode then i can still zoom some if i want but the close ups are more clear that way....
it took me a while too to figure out how to take some decent shots....
wow i cant believe your live rock is that much.... geeze for those kinda prices id almost consider having a tank full of apistasia lol j/k.... but seriously thats some outrageous prices .... y dont u order some from online from this website its probably a lot cheeper even with the shipping cost....
i include food to feed my corals every wed and sunday..... i use some baby brine shrimp defrost them in some water then i add a couple cap fulls of either phytoplex or coralife marine gumbo.... i switch off every other time..... in between those feedings i feed my fish and inverts with brine/mysid/krill/squid/formula1/formula2 its always good to give your fish a good variety same with your corals....
i do 10% water chages every 10-14 days with real ocean water.... my calcium stays at a constant 450-460ppm but i dose once a week on sundays when i do my weekly testing.... i use a 2 part alk and calcium buffer system and i havent had any problems but i think since i do often water changes with real ocean water thats the main reason i dont have to add much ...

 

[fireykat04]

I have to set my macro internally. I don't have the flower. I did on my other one. That's why I really need to sit down with the camera some and figure out all the extras. I'll have to play with it this weekend.
Hahhaahah now you know WHY I asked about the apistasia, it was such a good buy! If I were to put a large amount of rock ordered from here in my tank and swap out the dead; will it start the cycle again?
WOW, I'm going to have to get some seriuos foods. I read in a few places that anemones like pieces of real shrimp & fish a couple times a week. Do you ever feed yours the pieces (or is that what the squid and krill that are chunks?) Or is it just the liquids? IF you do feed them larger pieces; how do you do it. With long tongs or a feeding stick? NO wonder your tank looks so good. Well taken care of!!
Unfortunately I do not have he luxury of real ocean water; so I'll have to do water changes often. I don't have a calcium test kit. I guess I should get one? I was just afraid if I started putting a bunch of things in the water I was going to mess something up. Throw the whole balance off. I did get some frozen brine for the fish and cleaning crew. So besides the flake they are getting brine shrimp. I remember from years ago giving it to my anemones. I love this being able to "talk fish" with someone it's great!! Thanks for taking the time! :joy:

 

[murph145]

hello again :joy:
yeah i guess the only way to figure your camera out is just keep takin some pics and see how they come out in different settings.....
sucks about the live rock..... yours is so pricy out there i cant believe it.... well what you are looking for is already been cured live rock.... you can get uncured live rock but u will have to have it set in a tub with some salt water for a week or so until all the die off has happened then u will need to do a rinse on it .... ive always boiugh pre-cured live rock from my stores and have added straight to my tank without having a problem....
yeah once u start getting different animals u have to get various food since each one kinda needs a different diet.... as for my anemones a feed them twice a week when i feed the corals.... i feed them either squid chunks or krill....my RBTA's are easy to feed the tomato clown that i have all i have to do is drop a krill or piece of squid in the tank and he grabs it and takes it back to the anemone to feed it.... the LTA's i use a skewer stick that i put the piece of squid/krill on and touch it to there tentacles and they pull it off the stick.....
as far as a calcium test u only need to check for calcium really if u decided to keep hard corals something with a calcium skeletal base.... soft corals such as colt/polyps/shrooms/xenia/etc dont need calcium really.... but its always good to keep it at the proper level anyways .....
what kind of fish do u have right now?? :notsure: u should also include some vitamin enriched mysid shrimp and some type of algae based formula food.... these help maintain there vibrant colors and good health.... regular brine shrimp doesnt provide enough nutrients for a fish after a while.....
as for adding chemicals to your tank u shouldnt really have to add much in terms of trace elements unless u have a lot of corals in your tank that suck it out of the water fast.... i only add the 2 part alk calcium buffer to my tank and i only do a dose every sunday just to ensure that i keep the trace elements in the water system.....
i know what u mean about being able to talk fish with people that actually understand and give advice.... ever since i got my new comp and went back online i have been a lot more succesful with my tank since i have been able to ask a lot of informative people on this site about proper conditions feeding etc etc etc.....
i hope i have been able to help a lil bit.... :happy: