Above and beyond once again.

noahm

Active member
So about a week ago, I got back from putting in a few weeks of hard labor to help pay for tuition and also update my clean up crew. Things were getting a little bit of algae on them and snails were down to the bare minimum due to the fact that I invariably feed a 3" mantis with the slow and weak of my CUC.

I contacted Richard and told him my budget and basically told him I need some snails and hermits, and whatever critters might help tidy the place up. Well here it is a week later, and I have just spent the first half of the day doing some major remodeling in the 125. I had to increase the real estate to accommodate the bonus items. It really brought new life into the tank and every piece has found a nice home.

Aside from the hermits and snails, Richard sent a couple of new cukes, some small serpents that are perfect for the fuge, some really nice macros that also add great color and diversity to the fuge, and then gorgs, corals, and sponges galore. It has really renewed my desire to someday do a 3'x6' gorg forest caribbean biotype.

Anyway, thanks so much Richard. There is no way to call this update anything but far and above what I would have been able to expect from my budget. Here's a few pics for everyone.

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Here's a couple of sweet Caribb corals. I was forced to actually mount my rics too so I could free up some sand bed, lol. They will grow in nicely there.

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A nice red sea fan with two of the craziest clams I've ever seen grown onto it as well as a neat macro. They have a long pointy shell extension. Also, another sweet coral colony in the background about 4" across.

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The two leftmost gorgs were already there, but the sponges and two left gorgonians are both part of the CUC lol.

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Some new flower nems. I have several of these in the tank already, and love them. I can't wait to see how they color up. The tiny one on the left has a really neat yellow rim.

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Here is a FTS. Sorry I am no good at camera settings, so It looks a bit bright. The fish are loving the new scenery. Going to have to cut back the halides for a couple of weeks so I don't wind up with any 'arctic' corals though.

Anyway, Enjoy!
 
Sweet, I can't wait to order my TBS package. I have a 60"X18"X19.5" tank that is just begging to be filled with "the Package".
 
Everything settling in nicely. The very branchy gorg is dismantling, and never opened polyps, but all corals and sponges are doing great. I will let it ride as the tank is big enough to handle a bit of gorgonian tissue. One thing I noticed is the large golf ball? coral has a tiny tiny crab living in a hole in it. Neat stuff.
 
Very cool stuff!
Do you know what the min. light requirements for the sponges are?
I got my part 2 for my 35 gal. today with a lot of sponges and a big coral, I will post pictures tomarrow!
 
Minimal light requirements (wide range), but good flow is a must. They are finicky at best and some will likely slowly die while others will last quite a while and even grow. The corals are from waters with a lot of suspended particulates, so give them a chance to adjust if you have MH lighting. They will usually darken up a bit under the halides over time. Get a good skimmer and feed phyto regularly. I use the spray dried kind as it is way easier to store and buy. Can't wait to see your pics. Feel free and ask questions about whatever.

I had to ditch the dying gorgonian as my skimmer was going nuts and it kind of made the house smell like yeast. Much better now.
 
Thanks for the reply!
In this tank I just have regular (no HO) 36 " fl. lamps 1 attinic, and one daylight, I had to pull the other two lamps out to get my water temp. down to 74 deg. for sea horses!
I feed Photoplex and Microvert ever other day to my cup corals,tunikets, and my sponges on the LIVEROCK with a turkey baster and I have been feeding my sea horses 3 times a day (frozen brine shrimp and frozen mysis) about 4 cubes a day, what they don't eat the hermits and hitchickers seem to cleanup the left overs, and when 1 hr has passed I turn on the pump for my sump and any floating gets eaten as soon as it flows down the tube to my damsels in the sump. One of my purple sponges started dieing a couple days after getting my first shipment so I started spot feeding and it is doing good now. Does the big star coral need stronger light? If so I can put it in my 90 gal. with VHO lighting. I just got the big sponges and the big star coral yesterday and have never had any before so im looking for info on them, the big sponges have 3/8 in. size cup corals on the bottoms of them and I feed them Frozen BS this morning and they took them right away :)
I am probly doing everything wrong but it seems to be working for now!
 
My 35 gal. pics.

My 35 gal. pics.

Sorry for the bad pics.
I will send more later!
 

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More pictures of my TBS Stuff

More pictures of my TBS Stuff

Here ya are!
I will posting new updates for the 90 gal. soon with an updated critter count, They will be posted in my 90 gal tread on the TBS forum, hope the pics. are ok. Still trying to learn how to do this stuff :)
 

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That big coral should probably be in a bit more light. I think it is called a 'golf ball' coral. They are definitely more tolerant of turbid water and lower light than a lot of the stony corals, but maybe move it up into the rock work or into the other tank. Other than that, stuff looks nice. The strawberry sponge on the left is one of my favorites. Are you going to be attempting to breed the seahorses?
 
Yes, but not right away, I have a cultures of Green Water, Brine shrimp, Mysids, Tiger Pods, and (L) Rodifers going right now to see how raising the food goes, far the last few weeks cultures are ok, the GW is getting darker green, feeding the BBS to the Mysids and the Mysids are haveing babys, started out with 500 now probly down to 300 adults, don't know why, The pods are about doubling every 2 or more weeks (kind of slow) the Rodifers are much faster. I am just testing with these right now to see how it goes.
The Sea Horses H. Erectus I got from Sachs Systems Aqu. (CB & CR)
Back to the sponges, I did not notice the the red one in the middle is on top of about a 2 1/2 in. clam until I was posting the pics. and seen the mouth open, so I will glue one side of the clam to a rock so it can feed better.
 
Yes, but not right away, I have a cultures of Green Water, Brine shrimp, Mysids, Tiger Pods, and (L) Rodifers going right now to see how raising the food goes, far the last few weeks cultures are ok, the GW is getting darker green, feeding the BBS to the Mysids and the Mysids are haveing babys, started out with 500 now probly down to 300 adults, don't know why, The pods are about doubling every 2 or more weeks (kind of slow) the Rodifers are much faster. I am just testing with these right now to see how it goes.
The Sea Horses H. Erectus I got from Sachs Systems Aqu. (CB & CR)
Back to the sponges, I did not notice the the red one in the middle is on top of about a 2 1/2 in. clam until I was posting the pics. and seen the mouth open, so I will glue one side of the clam to a rock so it can feed better.

just set the clam on the rock when you want it....he will extend his foot and grab on by himself!
 
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