Diary of my LiL 40 Gallon Breeder(Intense)

[InsaneClownFish]

Well initially, since I used the plastic bag over the sand, and the grain size I used was slightly larger than southdown, it didn't cloud much. Subsequent water changes would make it cloud quite a bit, and turkey bastering sand/detritus off the rocks would also make it cloudy for at least 2-3 hours.

silentshawn just went through the same thing. It should clear within 2 days. Powerheads directed toward the surface will help slightly.

After awhile you'll get a bacterial film that will hold the sand down. How deep are you going for a sand bed again?

Tyler, whenever I get my first batch of Ricordia, if you want one, I'll frag you a polyp..

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Here's some pics of the Chiton I found last evening. Look directly at the center of these pics:

Such a neat lil bugger.

 

[InsaneClownFish]

My new religion:

Another 8 gallon water change and the tank has officially passed the 5 week mark.

Diatoms are in full force. The snails have been happy at work along the rocks. Some algae remains on the glass, but easily wipes off. I'll be picking up a few new snails on Satruday.

I also now have TONS of what look like pyramid snails- they only come out at night and congregate in groups. However, I have yet to get a clean pic of one. I'm pretty sure they are not pyramid snails for three reasons-
I have no clams.
They are not infesting my snails, and I inspected them pretty carefully.
They are a bit big- the largest one I have seen is aprox. 3/16 of an inch.
:strooper:

 

[InsaneClownFish]

CTARS had another great meeting this weekend. Over the past couple of days I've picked up some really neat additions, and I've also taken some pics of some interesting "stuff." I hope everyone enjoys the new pics:

This is a better picture of that great looking sponge that migrated in.

Here's the Trochus I picked up at the meeting this weekend. If you look closely, you can see what looks like "eyes" on its shell. It's pretty amazing seeing all those lil eyes open up into feathers at once.

Here's the tiny black and white starfish that migrated in on my live rock. I'm still looking for a positive ID...any takers?

I just found this pic amusing. Anyone ever seen the movie Cliffhanger?

 

[melev]

Looking good.

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Thanks Marc! Any thoughts on that lil starfish? You're one of those pseudo masters of the identification...

 

[InsaneClownFish]

I snagged some more pics of this lil bugger the other night. I had no idea chitons have a chameleon quality. There is no difference in camera flash, or any other settings in these photos. This little guy really did appear ALL white. Crazy. The only difference is that the chiton was under the aquablue(60/40) bulb, and in the original pics it was under a sun bulb. Also, it was closer to some white sponge, and generally more pinks and whites on the rock:

 

[InsaneClownFish]

I picked up a nice branch of Rhodactis sp at the meeting. The branch also had some nice coralline, macros, and sponges on it:

I also bought a nice sized, red Discosoma:

 

[melev]

I can't really see the starfish, but it could be in the Asterina family.

The rhodactis mushroom.... I saw some recently in person and was told their name but I'm drawing a blank. "Bullseye", "Tonga Target"...... something in that vein. I'll try to find out what they were called again, because I think that you have the same thing I saw.

 

[nebraskareef]

Good luck with the mushrooms under the t-5's. I've been hearing some people are having problems w/ the lighting scheme. I wish you the best of luck as I am planning my 40brdr t-5 lit tank as I type.

Great start btw!

Daniel

 

[melev]

Okay, I was told it is a bullseye mushroom, but some vendors refer to them at Tonga Bullseye Mushrooms.

 

[floppyfish]

Yep, lookin good bud


You're motivating me to get mine started. Hehe can't wait!

 

[InsaneClownFish]

floppy...what are you waitin for?!?

Marc, "Tonga Bullseye Mushrooms" works for me..

I was tooling around the internet last night and found this article by Julian Sprung:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/oct2002/invert.htm

Rhodactis inchoata is the scientific name for what I have. That's a really cool article. I never realized there was a Florida varient of the purple Rhodactis.

mmmm and shroomies that eat fish....yummy.

I posted, regarding the star, in my reef clubs' forum. They also agree it's an Asterina. In fact, one of the guys who gave me live sand added a bunch of goodies...sponge, cheato, micro brittles, and asterinas. All of the above, including a couple of the brown Asterinas, I saw when I added the sand. He thinks he might have added that black and white one. Nice. It's been on that front rock as long as I can remember, but then again....it COULD have come from the sand.

Here's a cool pic under the Blue+ :

 

[tsquad]

Hey John, nice job with el tanko so far! Mine is currently cycling...can you help me out here? I messed up my plumbing, so I'm getting more parts tomorrow. I won't be able to have the skimmer running till Monday earliest, but then the skimmer wont be on the tank for a total of 2 weeks. Do you think my tank will be ok skimmer AND filterless (with the exception of liverock) until then?

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Tyler, you don't have any fish in it right? It will be fine.

What happened with the plumbing?

Just be sure to do a 20% water change at the end of each week. Perfectly fine. You have a large volume of water.

 

[tsquad]

Eh, the plumbing decided it would be anti-Semetic, and not work with me . I wonder if RC will edit that. Anyways...I guess I measured wrong, and glued and it didn't fit, stuff like that. So 20% water change, I can do that. I will have the plumbing finished on Sunday though, I'm getting new parts tomorrow night. So I guess I'm not in that much shape. The algae due to my cycle kinda freaked me out, I guess.

 

[melev]

InsaneClownFish, I just wanted to mention that we (my son and I) loved playing Zool2 on our Atari Jaguar many years ago. That avatar of yours brings back memories.

Atari Jaguar - first 64-bit game console to reach the market, ahead of Sony, Nintendo, and even Sega.

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Zool2...now why does that sound familiar. Atari rocks.

Besides the numerous baby feather dusters, I have found a few more interesting ones. One is a deep violet that's about 2/3 the size of a dime. One is a bright red. The final one that just came out the beginning of this week is almost identical to my large feather duster, and it's the size of a dime.

Here's a pic of another great find. I'm 90% sure this is some type of baby clam. I have two of these, and this one closes if you shine a flashlight at it(dead center in the pic):

This is definately some type of mollusk, but if someone knows it to be something different than a baby clam...let me know..

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Wow!!! I had a bristle worm spawning event last night!!!:love1:

I came home last night and immediately shut down the powerheads in order to remove some debri. The water column was completely stagnant because I have no overflows, so my tank was like suspended animation.

I decided to tool around the tank with a flashlight, and I caught 30-40 baby bristles vibrating, jetting, and generally going banannas all over my glass. :celeb1:

Dr. Ron helped me ID this bizarre phenomenon, which come to find out, is altogether common in reef tanks. It definately freaked me out at first.

Let me tell you it was one of the damndest things I've ever seen.

A special thanks to melev's oldie but goodie:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=399906&highlight=spawning+worms

Marc posted up a neat video of this event in his tank...the survivor music makes it. :thumbsup:

 

[chrismunn]

im sorry, but i stopped reading when i saw that you used shims to level out your tank....maybe someone else has told you this, but thats a very bad idea! now rather than having a sloid base for your entire tank to sit on, you have the one end on the base, and the other end on shims.....this leaves everything in the middle unsupported! unless the tanks bending untill it touches the base, which is just as bad, if not impossible. seeing the pics, it shos that its a little too late to do anything about without taking down the whole tank, and you probably dont wanna do that. anywho, dont be suprised if you end up with 40g's of water on your floor.......i only say this coz its happend to me before! luckily it was only half the amount of water..........