Maroun 150g Build Thread

[maroun.c]

I'm still tempted to get me some clams, but with the bad luck and unstable tank parameters I did not want to risk one. Still I could not skip trying it. the safest choice was suggested by a frined of mine who got me one of the "eatable clams" to try it in my tank. It did get it's attachement damaged while being taken out and the guy told me a big chunk of it remained stuk to the rock but it seems tohave made it. it attached tot he rock in my tnak the second day I placed it in. and seems to be doing fine since then (4-5 weeks now). I was told these usually starve in the tank. I'm feeding phyto plancton but was told not to try to direct feed it as it could suffocate? it's not opening fully but does open at all times and close when I move next to the tank or plalce my hand above the tank if there is shadow so its quite responding to light changes which should be a good sign. also it was a nice test to see if my coral beauty would nip at clams which it did not.

Any further info on how to keep it would be appreciated as I plan to keep it in the tank even if I get nice looking clams.

 

[maroun.c]

Last update for today is this type of euphilia??? that the same guy got me from a dive. he told me usually they are in clusters but he thought it would be best to try with one to see if it makes it in my tank before getting me a bunch.

I'm assuming its and LPS? any ID and info on where to put it (flow and lighting) would be great. It's still in my frag tankawith very low lighting as he got it from 20 m deapth and I have it in low flow. weirdly its only opening at night.

 

[maroun.c]

Found out these 2 new hitchhikers on a rock in a nigh tank check.
any idea what these are and if I should take them out?

 

[Aquafred]

Very nice pictures.
Hope this clam makes it in your tank. What color is it when it opens up?
Really like the second coral you got can't help with ID though. what is the size of it?
Can you please share your camera and lens and settings? did you use flash for these shots?
Last question: Do you really work in Nuclear Stuff?

 

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13288770#post13288770 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by maroun.c
Found out these 2 new hitchhikers on a rock in a nigh tank check.
any idea what these are and if I should take them out?

are they fixed like a sponge or are they moving around like pods

 

[maroun.c]

Aquafred Thanks.

Hope this clam makes it in your tank. What color is it when it opens up?

It still has not completely opened up, don't know if these open as much as the regular clams. I can see it in the inside it's got a bit of orange in it.

Can you please share your camera and lens and settings? did you use flash for these shots?

Those were taken with my nikon D70s and Tamron 17-50 lens. with a tripod. and external SB800 Flash with the diffusor dome on it. Camera square to the glass and hood directly resting on the glass gives you reflections free pics.

Do you really work in Nuclear Stuff?

Yes but it's basically shorter liver radioIsotopes used for medical imaging. used to work in the American university medical center in Beirut for 10 years and 3 years ago I started working as Application specialist for Philips healthcare prviding training to the users of Nuclear Medicine equipment we sell, this isthe cause of my non stopping travel.

 

[maroun.c]

are they fixed like a sponge or are they moving around like pods

Hi Capn
They rather move like snails and only show up at night. the momnet I direct my flash light on them they dive in the rocks. they seem to have soem type of shell but it's less rigid than snails shells....

 

[michika]

They are stomatella snails, and they are okay to have in your tank.

 

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13306093#post13306093 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by michika
They are stomatella snails, and they are okay to have in your tank.

I have a few of those too--they stay in the sand bed along with the nessarius snails

 

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13283813#post13283813 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by maroun.c
Ok Time to start the updates of the last few weeks.
fortunately it was mostly good updates and additions.
I finally finished my DIY Q tank. I intens to use it as introduction tank and sometimes I endup buying more than a fish a time as the LFS only get 1shipment ever 4-5 weeks which sells completely in few days so 1 fish every shipment with the high risk of death due to shiping conditions will take me years to fill the tank. IT's a bit over filtered but at least I can hook another tank to it and have it filter both.

the triangle in it is to add bioballs and I decided to have a flow of air in the bioballs to make it wet dry instead of having a small wet dry trickle witht he risk of it running dry due to the small volume and my frequent 1 week travels.

Also added those small supports to be able to insert a separation in case of fish agression:

It also has a small fiilter with only carbon in it. in addition to an old seaclone which at least would aerate the water. it did skim a bit on the first few days though.

Bioballs were running for around 10 yrs in my 80 G kept them in my sump for 3-4 months. still have a few in case I have any spiles to help increase my bacteria population quickly.
I believe bioballs are the best iltration methos for a Q tank. I also have a sand bed and some rocks. My old Q tank never cycled till I had a sand bed and rocks in it.

First inhabitant was a hyppo tang that arrived in really bad shape, half dead in the bag I had no time to acclimate and dropped him immediately in the tank. ran the skimmer and the airston in the bioballs partition and an additional airston in the Q tnak to increase the oxygenation. he was suffering from amonia poisoning and laid on the sand then started surfacing and spiiting water out and trying to jump out. Luckily he made it and improved the second day, was fine for 10 days that I was considering transfering it to the display 2 days before I traveled. Murphy always works it's best before I travel as it showed severe spots all of a sudden. Luckily I had two days to drop the salinity, been fine since 2nd day in hypo salinity (14 days now)

just curious why you would stick with bioballs?

 

[Moonstream]

those snail like hing are called stomella snails, and the clam that you have it not a clam at all, it is a non photosynthis muscle or maybe oyster. they resopnd to shadows because they think that they are moving fish.

muscles will not open up, as they have no visible mantle, the orange you see if the clams phisical body. also, I dont think that this would proe that your CB wont nip at clams, because this is not a clam and it has no mantle nor anything that might be tasty that the CB could get to.

 

[maroun.c]

CAtherine, Capn
Thanks for the ID. It would have sucked to know that these can much on corals especially with being away till the end of this week to be back to take them out.

just curious why you would stick with bioballs?

Capn,
it's not only bioballs, I have a skimmer ( cheap one but is producing some skimmate), Carbon in that black filter, sand that has been in my sunmp for some time so has some bacteria without any worms in it (no die off when medicating) and some rocks that were placed in my sump for some time.
In the past I had many fish loss in Q tanks due to ammonia and nitrites and the best 2 things for a Q tank IMO are bioballs and sand. I have a few bioballs floating in my DT sump to act as emergency backup in case of any spikes in the QT.
I believe fish are ok with some nitrates levels not to mention that the Q tank gets a weekly 25% waterchage when I ahve fish in it and a total water change with water from teh DT after treating.
Any suggestions on what to do differently?

 

[maroun.c]

Moonstream,
thanks for the info

 

[maroun.c]

Well time to catchup abit on some of the updates before I go back on SAtuday and get much more pics and questions.
for the last 3-4 weeks things have been a bit quiet in the tank. I have been traveling a lot had to go to Turkey, Dubai, Syria and now I'm in Holland till Saturday.
I have been checking on the tnak on week ends when I'm back home and things have been fine with the care of my weif who now is feeding the corals, fish, and finally cleaning the skimmer to my relief so I can run them a bit more wet when on travel.
My corals have been fine. no new corals have turned for the worst and some have started improving as far as I can tell.
My RBTA that has severly bleached looked like it was going to day for a couple of weeks and I had to force feed it at times. It looks better now. IT has never lost it's stickines and is still at the same place and never lost attachemnt. Also it still maintains a bit of pink colour which give me some hope. I also fell it's improving colourwise and it's mouth is not as wide open as it was. Here's a series of pics. hoping it'll be a bit better next week end.
So here are a few pics of how it looked from some time till last week:
it was frequently looking like this which they sometimes do when they "poop" but from what I've read it should not be as frequent as it did. luckily this seems to have decreased a bit.

Then it was looking like this for some weeks with the mouth always this open

But even at this stage It would still eat eventhough I had to force the food in its mouth at first but it would close down on it with it's mouth and eat it withoutthe usual rapid reflex of closing down and initially without closing down at all.
Then the mouth conidition improved a bit and it started opening more:
Initially:

To this

At this stage I had realized that I was running a bit high on Calcium and alkalinity and stopped adding any. and also I had switched to Reefcrystls for the last water change.
So dno't know if that was the cause or not but all my corlas including the RBTA started opening much more and at this stage I realized tha the RBTA was very clsoe to the Carpet next to it. so i had to move one of them. I did not wan to cause any further stress on the RBTA as well as it was staying right where I wanted it to be. Also the Green carpet is usually very easy to pull out by detaching the much robust foot with no risk of injury so the carpet had to be moved. Before moving the CArpet the RBTA was already raeching this size and always showed nice bubles although very light pink cpm[ared to the dark red it was.

 

[maroun.c]

Thsi is how close the RBTA and carpet anemone got:

So I pulled out the carpet and placed it in the RT lower side of the tank:

The second day after the moove it was fully open. This is what I lke about this anemone is that it always stayed wherever I put it and that it seems to have recovered completely after it bleached last year.

 

[maroun.c]

Last very important update for today.
Just before I removed the Green carpet I was offered an RBTA clone that had recently split. The mother one seems to have split in the middle and both parts were rather big instead of splittin into a small clone one that needs months to grow. This anemone was a the LFS display with the one I got for months. When they tore up the tank I got one and the other was given to another reefer. So I was very happy to buy that clone as it was doing ood for some time now. it was a bit different coloration than the onw I previosly got, same dark red but a very nice dark green in the middle. this is the first time I see such coloration is it normal with you guys to get such colours on the same anemone?

The green colour oes not really show becuase of some WB issues I've been facing but it 's a very dark and nice green. You can also see it on this feeding pic. I usually feed one silverside but my clown stole the other one and fed it to the anomone.

My maroon clown immediately relocated from teh bleached RBTA to this one and even kept me from feeding the bleached RBTA by stealing the food from the feeder and feeding the new anemone which did not eat the first week. eventhough it catched teh food and took it to it's mouth. Guess the mouth was still not developped after teh split for it to eat as two weeks later it immediately catched and ate whatever I fed it.
Pics of the clown in the new anemone:

This wasa ctually a relief that the Marroon left the RBTA to the new one as Ihad doubts that it was bothering the anemone. I did watch for 2 days before I traveled how the marron was dealing with the anemone and there was no sign of any aggression or pulling of tentalces... it was repeatedly feeding it but it was not eating.... when I cheked it the first week ithad mooved a bit and the following weekend i found it moved a bit more. it is still very close to where I put it but moved its foot into the rocks and expends out into the light every day as soona s lights go on and retracts to the shade if it wants to during the day and when lights go off. when I sa it last week end it was fuly open and had lost a bit of the bubble shape. it looked just a bit lighter but that is due it being fully open compared to when it was more closed when I first got it. IT did eat and swallow last week end for the first time.

 

[maroun.c]

I still see signs of the spit (or maybe signs of a coming split???) It did also loose those whitish spots that it had when I first got it.

One mushroom was getting stung but the final anemones position. this was corrected last weekend so hopefully it has now recovered.

 

[Aquafred]

Very nice anemone and pictures.
Thanks for sharing.
Sorry can't help with the colouring on teh anemone but i think its very nice to have a green red buble tip. don't know if they are usual or not but their nice for sure.For sure I have never seen this white on any BTA before
Man each time you post you're either traveling or about to travel next week. do you have a tank sitter? or do you just rely on luck?
Need any assistant on your travels
Must be a very interesting experience each week for you.

 

[Aquarist007]

fantastic anemomes and fantastic pictures

 

[maroun.c]

Aquafred
Thanks for the compliments.

Man each time you post you're either traveling or about to travel next week. do you have a tank sitter? or do you just rely on luck?

Yes life was very crazy the last 3 years. itused to be my father and sister when I lived in my parents house, now my wife takes careof thet ank when i travel. she only does the basic things feeding fish and corals adding some additives and repositioning any corals that my cowrie pushes while moving in the tank (weirdly it never drops anything when Im home but will drop a coral or two every few days when I travel. I managed to convince my wife to clean the skimer when its fills up and I still have few days to be back. still when I'm traveling my wife would sleep with our kids at her parents or mine so most of the time the tank will stay 1-2 days beofor she cehcks on it and this is a major source of concern for me. Guess I got lucky so far.

Need any assistant on your travels

Must be a very interesting experience each week for you.

Well no need for assistants, anyway you don't want to do this believe me. Travel is nice at first but when yuo start visiting the smae country 15 time a year even very nice places start to get boring. not to mention how exhausting it is.
I'm lucky that it's not really long travels most of the time and I'm mostly waway for 5 consmecutive days with very rare 2 weeks trips. sometimes it can be very short stay flights like 3 countries in one day then yuo get home for the rest of the week...