Just some pics and primitive vids, green and purple gigantea and two ocellaris..

[delphinus]

Been a while since I posted any pictures in here so here goes..

Both carpets are S. gigantea, the green I've had since 2005, and the purple since May. The purple was tiny at purchase time but has been growing steadily.

The female ocellaris is around 7 years I think. Actually maybe even older now that I think about it. I've lost track. She was initially the male of a previous pairing I had, but the female was lost to carpet surfing.

Here also are some videos I took tonight as well. The tank actually has only about half flow right now as I've turned off two of the powerheads to help acclimate a new addition, a sargassum filefish whom I'm hoping will help with the abundance of aiptasia. Yeah, please try not to notice how lovely they undulate in the current.. Stupid aiptasia. Or stupid me for letting them get so out of hand. There's a reason I'm not showing a FTS, let's just say.

Sorry the videos are primitive, I don't have the talent or tools to put together nicer videos with editing and sound and stuff... One day I have to learn how to do that..





Anyhow, thanks for looking, hope you enjoy.

 

[OrionN]

Very nice. I wish I got some S. gigantea like you. I recently tried to get one but it did not turn out well.
You had a blue one and a brown one also. Did they not make it? I seem to remember the brown one was one of the first you had.

 

[delphinus]

The blue one did not survive long. It just never ate and continually kept shrinking and eventually just literally disappeared one night.

The brown one I lost after 5 years last autumn. I realize now what happened and but I didn't know it at the time, and had I been able to deduce what the problem was I would still probably have it. Anyhow, what happened is I would keep finding one side injured on it, it would recover but not eat for a while and thus shrink, then it would seem to be OK but then there would be an injury again. Then went on over about a 6 to 8 week period.

I didn't realize what the cause was until it started happening to my green one in April this year. It turns out the cowry in the tank was becoming predatory - the green carpet started getting an injury that just wouldn't heal - well it would start to look better but then quickly get reinjured again. I started to suspect the cowry, so I took apart all the rockwork to find it - and found it in a hole in the rock just under the spot the carpet was getting injured. Now with the cowry removed, the green has recovered and not had another incident.

I wish I had been able to piece it together sooner and maybe I would still have the brown one. Eventually what happened was it just stopped eating, and that seems to be the point of no return with these guys.

I documented the cowry incident in a thread in here - I'll go look for it and post the link to it.

 

[delphinus]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1600920

 

[Doni]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing the pics and videos!