DanW's 187 SPS Dominated Reef Journal

[DanW]

Beautiful Ponepe. What kind of lighting do you have it under? How high from the surface. I have a colony that I have under 400w MH and I have been keeping it on the bottom.

Thank you for the compliment. I am running a Giesemann Spectra (2 x 250 Radiums on Galaxy ballasts w/ 2 x 54 T5s). The Ponape is high up but off to the side. My tank is 60" and the fixture is 48" so the light is lower along the edges. I would think that keeping it on the bottom w/400s would be fine.

 

[DanW]

So I had two pretty cool sightings in the thank last night after the lights went out. First the clown eggs hatched and there was a ton of fry swarming in the tank. Unfortunately (and as expected) none to be seen this morning. Secondly I spotted this guy last night, I still have at least one left :dance:

 

[pookstreet]

Cool. Now you need to get a couple of Harlequins to take care of the the Asterinas

 

[DanW]

Cool. Now you need to get a couple of Harlequins to take care of the the Asterinas

Yeah, I've got hundreds in my tank but they don't seem to bother anything. Asterinas good, bad or just there?

 

[jeff1225]

The tank is looking beautiful...what a great rebound!

 

[DanW]

The tank is looking beautiful...what a great rebound!

Thanks Jeff, but I'm not too sure that it's a rebound yet. Still crossing my fingers that whatever it was is gone.

 

[Reefer08]

Yeah, I've got hundreds in my tank but they don't seem to bother anything. Asterinas good, bad or just there?

A lot of people consider asterinas harmless but I this they irritate the corals too much. I manually remove them from my tank. If I don't remove them, then I always find them ontop of my zoas/palys.

 

[mpoletti]

A lot of people consider asterinas harmless but I this they irritate the corals too much. I manually remove them from my tank. If I don't remove them, then I always find them ontop of my zoas/palys.

Ditto, I even added a harleqin just to rid them when I still had zoas as certain zoa colonies always had asterinas on them when the lights came on

 

[DanW]

Ditto, I even added a harleqin just to rid them when I still had zoas as certain zoa colonies always had asterinas on them when the lights came on

Did the Harlequin take them all out? Do you guys think that any wrasses or a flame hawk will eat the shrimp?

 

[pookstreet]

I've never seen any fish try to eat the Asterinas. My population explosion was so bad that after lights out, the tank glass would be covered in them. I think they crawl onto the zoas/palys to eat the algae, not so much the corals themselves. But they still irritate the corals nonetheless. I have a few Harlequins in the tank and the population definitely has gone way down. I still see some here and there but so are the Harlequins.

 

[Ian]

They ate coraline in my last tank. Id pull one out and find a white spot under it. Just siphon them into a filter sock in the sump...

 

[Ian]

Check out your post count Dan...

Make a wish!

 

[DanW]

Check out your post count Dan...

Make a wish!

1,111 funny but still made a wish.

I'm game into throwing a pair of Harlequins into the tank unless it will become a snack for one of the wrasses or the flame hawk. What do you guys think?

 

[pookstreet]

Dan, just keep in mind that the Harlequins will eat ALL starfish. If you have one or more that you would like to keep, then Harlequins will not be a good idea. To answer your question, I have never seen any of my wrasses go for either the Harlequins or Cleaners. The Harlequins move much slower but it's never been a problem for them. Just in case you are curious, I have a mystery, melanurus, flames, and rhomboid.

 

[Dejavu]

1,111 funny but still made a wish.

I'm game into throwing a pair of Harlequins into the tank unless it will become a snack for one of the wrasses or the flame hawk. What do you guys think?

It will become a snack for your flame hawk. Don't you have a mystery wrasse too. Dan I have never remove asterinas. They never seemed to harm any thing in my tank.

 

[mpoletti]

My mystery did not bother mine. I can not remember if I had my flame hawk and harlequin at the same time.

 

[Dejavu]

Hmm... I wish my mystery would eat any invert that I put in. The only thing that it doesn't eat are snails.

 

[DanW]

I had to start over with the Mystery after the wrasse wipe out so my guy is pretty small and I'm not too worried about him. I'm worried about the flame hawk though. He's been with me for over 2 years so he is good sized. I do have cleaner shrimp in the tank that he doesn't bother but they are also pretty good sized. Hum?

 

[DanW]

Feeling better about the recovery. This guy was almost completely gone, just a few polyps and very little green, now he's looking much better.

 

[mpoletti]

Is that the wildfire from richard? Awesome piece