My part 2!

[MichaelBrock]

Today I picked up my "part 2" package from Tampa Bay saltwater. Spent most of my day driving, acclimating and rearranging. Having to slowly add water to all of those bags takes work! I ended up adding the cucumbers, shrimp, goby, snails, and stars to a single bucket and drip acclimated them all together over about 3 hours. Something to consider is that the dripped into container isn't gong to stay the same temperature as the display tank since it's getting dripped into so slowly. I mention this because it didn't occur to me until after I had been dripping for a few hours. So I temperature acclimated again before adding them to the tank. Seemed to work out.

Before the pictures, I just want to thank Richard for the rock. I know we pay for this but the value here is really more than you can imagine. Richard had remembered the rock he had picked out for me for part 1 and picked out the part 2 rock with this in mind. I'm not sure I stacked it the way he had in mind but I like how it turned out. I ended up stacking two parts of my part 1 rock together on the right side. The piece on the left is a very nice single piece of rock. All told there are only 5 large rocks here with 6 smaller pieces scattered about the sand.

And here's the tank with the new rock in it:

Left side:

Middle:

And right side:

Two anemones:

Not sure what kinds they are (or most of everything else that Tampa Bay Saltwater included). I think maybe I have them in to much current right now. They are swirling about pretty well:

http://www.mikeplays.com/reef/anemone_movie.avi

The sponges are just kind of "sitting there" right now. I think I should probably fix them into place some how. Maybe gel super glue?

Everything is doing very well. All of the corals are extending nicely.

 

[helix149]

Wow those are some of the best quality pics I have seen in awhile here. Richards package is so amazing. Looks amazing and nearly exactly as I hope our 75 we have now or the 120 I eventually want will look like some things to look at but not to cluttered. I like the more of a clean look overall which with the help of Richards rock choices you have achieved. Congrats I am jealous.

 

[Raggamuffin]

Nice! I love the way you have your rock set up, with only a 28 I'm kinda limited to the "lump" look even though I have 2 peices set way out in the sand. Can't wait for my part 2 and seeing all the cool stuff you got just makes it that much harder!

 

[noahm]

Cool stuff. Really like the red macro algae. The anemone on the left a condylactis, and the one on he right is a really sweet looking flower nem E. crucifer They both may change color a bit under bright lights. Expect the condy to tan up, and the green flower nem to get darker green. Both will move if they don't like the flow. My experience with nems is leave them alone. They may wander around if hey don't like a spot, but will stay put once they are happy. Pretty sweet stuff.

To glue your sponges and stuff, a good method is to mix up a small ball of marine/underwater epoxy, tip the base of the sponge or whatever just out of the water and glob some super glue gel on it. Push the epoxy ball onto the superglue, put more gel on the bottom of the epoxy ball and squish it all onto a rock. You can pretty much mount anything anywhere this way as the gel sticks to the epoxy better than the epoxy does to rocks or sponges. FYI, I mounted my yellow ball sponge a couple of times and now its just sits on the bottom and seems happier. The other stuff seems to like a sturdy home though.

 

[MichaelBrock]

Thanks for the comments.

I'll pick up some epoxy putty and gel super-glue. I like the yellow ball sponge on the sand as well and I think I'll leave it there.

 

[Yogre]

Very nice stuff! Really good polyp extension on the purple sea fans, too, those are happy critters. I especially like the tall gorg in front of your right-side overflow.

The glueing technique Noahm described works really well, I've used it several times to glue stuff either to the live rock or to a piece of shale for mounting in the sand. It helps if you can hold the piece stable underwater for a few minutes to let your work "cure", it will be less likely to come undone.

I owe Richard some pictures of my "CARE" package, some of which I glued down, hopefully I'll have time this week to finally get some pics up... your photography has inspired me!