Maroun 150g Build Thread

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Didn't get lucky to see hard corals but at least the Penguins did get lucky excuse bad quality pics as glass was very dirty...

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Thanks to Dave ( a spanish RC member) for all the help in locating some Spanish LFS. the best of which was Superfauna. where I got some great help from Roberto and went back with some nice corals, not to mention a great packing as this is one of the few times where I fly back without saltwater spilling on my cloths...

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Got this great looking clam which unfortunately didn't make it past 3-4 days in my tank

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They had the amazing LPS however the prices were outrageously high to take the risk in shipping those...

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Got the followings:

From left the montipora and the digitata next (blue tips looked better than pic) and birdnest next to digitata. Also got that acro behind the birdnest which looked great but was a new arrival. unfortunately didn't make it though shipping excpet for a tiny part of its encrust on the rock, hoping it'll grow fast.

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Also got the green mille on the left
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Looks brighter than in pic and although I have lots of green corals inthe tank it was too nice to skip. arrived fine but browned a bit for some reason same for the green montipora in first pic. the millepora recovered it's colours in few days and the monti is getting better.
 
and a better pic of the blue accro
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Also got 2 small blue mille frags one of which had a nice enrusting monti on it's rock all made it through shipping but colours were brown on arrival. they are recovering but very slowly.

some more pics of corals in their display which unfortunately are not for sale (did get some tiny frags of some but all didn't make it)

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And last pic of this great purple accro never seen anything like it and pic isn't even clsoe to how purple and shiny it is. got a tiny branch frag and I wish it made it...

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Beautiful tank and many pics which I like but surprised that you are from Lebanon.

and why I say that because I am from Saudi Arabia and we do not have a good salt water store.
 
Hi Salaly,
We do have a decent saltwater store and few stores that will sometimes ship stuff on demand... however it's a bit overpriced and you have to wait weeks and months to get basic things. You will find a nice variety of fish and soft corals here, LPS are sometimes available, SPS are very very hard to find, That's why I buy most of my stuff when I'm on travel...
Where in Saudi are you? I travel very frequently to Saudi, was supposed to be in Jeddah Next week but it got rescheduled till 5th of Dec.
 
And some more pics of a couple of stores in Switzerland, Scalaire and Marine life.
Scalaire was more high tech with a nice small dispaly tank, marine life was a store ran by an old man and his wife, got excellent support from both stores. unfortunately both had limited stocks as it was just the end of the hot season...
Still I managed to come back with some frags.Had not anticipated to come back with frags from Switzerland so was traveling with a small bag and no cooler, nothing a small box and few styrofoam sheets can fix, tailor made my own cooler in the hotel room, still it had to be very small as I had no space inmy bag, got most of the frags 1 day before traveling and as I had limited space I had to ship them in small "urine sample" containers and changed theyre water every 6 hours before traveling. they ended up making a 12 hours flight instead of 6-7 dues to some delaysa dn amazingly all of them arrived in great shape.
Some pics:

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Need a well established pod population for keeping a mandarin? NO
Live bread small mandarins that eat pellets wish my travel time was acceptable and I had the space to bringa couple back with me
sorry bad pics
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and a fluorescent green Candycane? that I got looks great under actinics
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I live in America right now and I do have salt water tank. In Saudi Arabia I live in the east side. I got a lot of friends from Lebanon most of them from Aljanob.
 
And few pics from Marine life that I also visited in Switzerland.
Looked more like a workshop than nice display tanks but with the amount of tanks they have I'm sure they have decent collections when they're full. to my badluck they were getting stock the day after I was traveling.

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Got this orange red digitata however half of it turned out to be brown, still I have hte nice orange half.
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Also got this only accro they had, pretty light color with darker polyps arrived well however I don't see polyps as much as in the store
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acreichthys tomentosus: this fish does eat aptasias as I've seen it actively do in their tank. They wouldn't sell it as it was for their aptasia infected LR. I'm trying everything to find one or a few berghias for a friend who has a sever infestation of aptasia as well as my tank that shows a few every now and then and my frag tank which is packed with them as they seem to prefer to grow on Eggcrate? Will be back to spain next week and Roberto is trying to get me some Berighias and a couple of Tomentosus so Roberto if you're still on this thread better get that order ready for next Friday!!!

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First time I'm in a lfs that has seahorses for sale, was trying to get some for years and now that I found them I won't risk keeping them as I'm not there to feed them most of the time.

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and finally some pics of the corals from Spain and switzerland in the tank in addition to a few I moved from my frag to the dispay as it's getting jammed inthe frag tank.

A 2 headed green Frogspawn that got fragged for me from their display colony in Switzerland.

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Green candycane? is much more phophorescent green than pic

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Got 2 of these frags from Spain they arrived a bit brownish but are regaining the blue.

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the green mille, looks much better dark green with long polyps as soon as light is on, next to the clam I lost.
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and in light acclimation with tank looking very untidy (not complaining)

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Couple of questions to end with:

got this frag froma friend few weeks ago
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Is this a Palytygra? is it an LPS aor SPS? ID and positioning info would be great.

I'm also getting an explosion of these snails. somehow they got in the tank and are reproducing:

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Will try to take one out for better close ups if needed, Are these good snails? I did loose 3 clams recently and was worried about them although I never caught them on a clam. yesterday found 2 close to my remaining clama nd it wasn't looking very happy? thanks for any ID and please inform me if I need to post better pics of them.
 
Thanks for sharing the pics.
Love Egypt pictures, Especially that camel laugh. Is that you on that smiling Camel?
Are you sure you travel for business? Seems your building up quite a nice collection of corals. Time for a FTS.
 
No problem Fred.
Yep that Camel was quite hilarious, Each time the guide would try to take a picture of me it would always smile like that. That is me on that camel.
I always travel for business but if you don't add a bit of fun to business then you can't do it for long!
My coral collection is growing but still very few SPS and Accros.... most of them are still frags so will need some time for the tank to get that SPS look and then maybe I should be taking out some of the softies... FTS and tank pics will be for next week as I'm traveling to Spain tonight and should be back in one week, hopefully with some nice frags or corals to spice up the pics...
 
acreichthys tomentosus: this fish does eat aptasias as I've seen it actively do in their tank. They wouldn't sell it as it was for their aptasia infected LR. I'm trying everything to find one or a few berghias for a friend who has a sever infestation of aptasia as well as my tank that shows a few every now and then and my frag tank which is packed with them as they seem to prefer to grow on Eggcrate? Will be back to spain next week and Roberto is trying to get me some Berighias and a couple of Tomentosus so Roberto if you're still on this thread better get that order ready for next Friday!!!

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The file fish also eats other stinging anemones etc so it is just as well that they won't sell it to you
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/marine/inverts/cnidaria/anthozoa/aiptasia/aip&filefaqs.htm

The berighias on the other hand will float to the surface when they have exhausted the supply of aptasia which they only eat. This way you know it is time to remove them and put them in another infected tank
 
ditto on the thanks for sharing the pictures Maroun
I am also curious as to the type of snails those are.

Hi Capn
Guess I'll try posting a few better pics of them here and on the forum to get an ID as those are reproducing really fast.
The good part is that I don't see them on corals just on rocks at day time and on the glass when ligths go off.
Thanks for the link.
A friends tank is overfilled with aptasias and he's even willing to take out all his corals for few months while the fish is cleaning up his tank. In my tank I do see a few 4-5 each time I'm home and for some reason their always on a single rock the one I bought last which has all my SPS on and some are encrusted. My frag tank however is filled with aptasias on the eggcrate racks and it's really ahrd to reach them so I'll try a fish in there which should be very easy to take out if it nips at corals or when the aptasias are cleared...
forsome reason I'm not able to get any berghias and I've checked with 5-6 suppliers. the one who have them won't shipt o Lebanon so for the time beign we have no solution other than the tomentosus or peppermints which an LFS in Spain is trying to get for me. Should be there this Friday to pick those up...
 
Here are some better pics of one of those snails out of the water.
They seem to have a small smooth shell which weirdly houess a bigger body:

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Thanks for any ID
 
Amazing pictures.
Thanks for sharing. Yes that Camel is weird not sure if it's cute or freaky seeing how big it is. It's weird how your Lowepro bag contrasts with the rather poor environment. So What camera body and lenses do you usually use/travel with?
Egypt is on my Countries to visit list.
Love the Croals you got and hope they'll do fine in your tank.
 
One last question,
Is that head wrap part of your local dress as it's a bit weird with Jeans? No offense intended just interested in knowing the local egyptian dress code.
Thanks
 
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