I Fragged My Carpet Last Night

Wow, Phil! I was amazed at your story and the pictures! I have a carpet anemone with a female maroon clown mate...I don't think I'll look at it in the same light anymore! LOL It's a month later...how's things now?

Cindy
 
Phil, the question is, are you going to try it again once you give your other half sometime to fully make a comback again?
 
Here is a picture on the anemone today. It is doing well. The mouth seems to pretty much reformed at this point and the foot is a circle. It eats small food as well as shrimp or silversides about half the length of my little finger. The cut edges did not fuse together and have created a bit of a heart or swirl shape in the anemone depending on how you look at it. I have no idea if this will be permanent or not.

I have no reason to do this again. One of the biggest reasons I did it this time was because it was way too big for my tank and their aren't many people or public aquariums that want a 24" anemone. The clone that is left is ~12" wide. If it ever gets to 24" again I will consider fragging it if I can't find someone to take it.

Today's pic: The clownfish is on the bottom layer of the overlapping edges.
gMerten1month1.jpg


Pic of entire 48" tank"
g50gal100106.jpg
 
Phil, how many lbs of liverock is in your tank and what kind of lighting did you say you were using again? I can't remember if you said MH or PCs.

Oh and how often do you do water changes?

Sorry about all the questions, I am just curious. Thanks
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8258898#post8258898 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 55semireef
Phil, how many lbs of liverock is in your tank and what kind of lighting did you say you were using again? I can't remember if you said MH or PCs.

Oh and how often do you do water changes?

Sorry about all the questions, I am just curious. Thanks

Well lets see. I spelled out some of the parameters back on page 4, but let me give you a little more background.

This tank has been set up for about 16 years. Because of this, it is pretty stable. The current lighting is 4x65 watt PCs. Most of the liverock is the Florida live rock that was originally in the tank. Florida rock is more dense than Pacific live rock so it was normally stocked at 2lbs per gallon instead of 1lb per gallon like Pacific live rock. So, that means that I probably have about 100lbs of live rock, but it looks like I have less than 50 lbs. (Florida live rock is no longer legal. Most of it was collected from the base of causeways and wasn't very high quality)

The bottom has only a sprinkling of coral sand and in some places the bottom shows through. In a couple places the bottom is more "mud" than sand.

The small outbreak of cyano on the back is a result of my fish death. I wasn't able to find the body of my large royal gramma. The little carpet of algae on the back used to be controlled by the purple tang and the tomini tang. It only appeared since they died.

I don't do "planned" water changes. I changed water when I pulled out water to raise the baby clowns from the pair of orange skunks I used to have. I will make a water change when I think I need to remove some of the "mud" from the bottom of the tank or something like that. I might do a 5 gallon water change 3-4 times a year. When I set up a new tank I do water changes once a month for about the first 6 months. After that I just sort of read my tanks and let them tell me when I need to make a change.

The only thing I add is a two part calcium additive. I used to use the stuff from Warner Marine. Now I use C-Balance from Two Little Fishes because I can get it cheaper and see no difference in the ability to control my calcium and alkalinity.

I do not tell people that they should keep their aquariums like I do. I have to do what works for me and fits my life style and my budget. There are some things I can keep and some things that I can't. At this point, for the most part, I know what those things are, and I'm OK with that. :)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8259965#post8259965 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by phender
Well lets see. I spelled out some of the parameters back on page 4, but let me give you a little more background.

This tank has been set up for about 16 years. Because of this, it is pretty stable. The current lighting is 4x65 watt PCs. Most of the liverock is the Florida live rock that was originally in the tank. Florida rock is more dense than Pacific live rock so it was normally stocked at 2lbs per gallon instead of 1lb per gallon like Pacific live rock. So, that means that I probably have about 100lbs of live rock, but it looks like I have less than 50 lbs. (Florida live rock is no longer legal. Most of it was collected from the base of causeways and wasn't very high quality)

The bottom has only a sprinkling of coral sand and in some places the bottom shows through. In a couple places the bottom is more "mud" than sand.

The small outbreak of cyano on the back is a result of my fish death. I wasn't able to find the body of my large royal gramma. The little carpet of algae on the back used to be controlled by the purple tang and the tomini tang. It only appeared since they died.

I don't do "planned" water changes. I changed water when I pulled out water to raise the baby clowns from the pair of orange skunks I used to have. I will make a water change when I think I need to remove some of the "mud" from the bottom of the tank or something like that. I might do a 5 gallon water change 3-4 times a year. When I set up a new tank I do water changes once a month for about the first 6 months. After that I just sort of read my tanks and let them tell me when I need to make a change.

The only thing I add is a two part calcium additive. I used to use the stuff from Warner Marine. Now I use C-Balance from Two Little Fishes because I can get it cheaper and see no difference in the ability to control my calcium and alkalinity.

I do not tell people that they should keep their aquariums like I do. I have to do what works for me and fits my life style and my budget. There are some things I can keep and some things that I can't. At this point, for the most part, I know what those things are, and I'm OK with that. :)

So your tank basically stays stable. But I am kind of amazed on how you only do 4-5 waterchanges a year on your tank and at that, they are only 5 gallon ones too. But like you said, your tank has been setup for 16 years which explains a lot.


BTW, congratulations on thread of the month.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8264635#post8264635 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 55semireef
So your tank basically stays stable. But I am kind of amazed on how you only do 4-5 waterchanges a year on your tank and at that, they are only 5 gallon ones too. But like you said, your tank has been setup for 16 years which explains a lot.


BTW, congratulations on thread of the month.

FWIW, there are some very famous keepers of SPS that never do a water change. If you talk to the really good reefkeepers, who have been doing it well for a long time, there are a lot of things that they will have in common, but there are just as many things that they do totally different.

I think the congratulations should go to you guys. Without the great response this thread would have died an early death.
 
I also do not change the water in my 90 gl that often. Maybe every six weeks...sometimes as long as 2-3 months. However; if I notice stress in the corals or fish, I do one immediately and that usually takes care of the problem. I have had my tank setup for almost 10 years and feel it is pretty stable at this point requiring hardly any additives to maintain good levels.
 
Wow, I am surprised I had not seen this thread before. You did an awesome job, congrats to you! Sorry about your losses, but I think it is still a successful experiment, great education for all of us!
 
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