Picked up my rock

[Mustang Boy]

well since i am local i went to our friend here at Tampa Bay Liverock and picked up my live rock and i must say the rock looks amazing. he included a little surprise that looks like some kind of gorgonian i think(maybe you can inform me what it is and where i should place it and how when you see this richard) i found one bad crab crawling around in the box of water but the nice guy i am tossed it in the tank anyways lol(gonna be an aggressive tank so he wont last anyways) and while i was playing with the rock my mom saw something small fall from one of the rocks so i put down the rock i was holding and squated down and saw a tiny little pistol shrimp. i was hearing this clicking but its too loud i think to be coming from the pistol i saw so i either have a mantis or a larger pistol somewhere in the rock. the rock i got from tampa bay saltwater plus the 3 large pieces that came with the tank made for a really nice structure but i also have 2 more pieces to put in from my aquapod so its not quite done yet.

i have no pictures YET as im letting everything settle because i stirred up some sand while rearranging rock plus i still have the box that the rock came in sitting infront of the tank so its blocking most of it.

 

[BoDiddley]

Pics or it didn't happen

 

[Mustang Boy]

and let the 2 pics i have taken be posted. now this isnt the best angle as i still have the box that the rock came in sitting infront of the tank but i will post some better pictures later.

now the nicer rock came from tampabay saltwater the other 3 pieces came with the tank.

now this is the gorgonian i think?(i will get a better pic of this once i clean the front glass and either figure out this new camera phone or use my spare phone which has a better camera)

 

[Mustang Boy]

ok i snagged my brothers old blackberry and took a couple pics with it after moving the box and cleaning the front glass.

and the gorgonian that i need ID'd

 

[Mustang Boy]

ok after playing with my new cheap phone for a little bit i found out it takes much much much better pics than my lil brothers old blackberry so i took a bunch of pics of the tank and rock and here they are. since i cant edit my last post ill just post em up here.

FTS

left side of tank

center of tank

right side of tank

and the gorgonian that i need ID'd

 

[Madratter]

I believe it is a variety of Candelabra Gorgonian. I have one and it has done very well. It is photosynthetic and with good lighting, mine has grown significantly in the 6 months since I got it.

 

[Mustang Boy]

thanks for the info. hopefully it survives under the 60w of T8 that is lighting the tank temporarily until odyssea gets their 4x39w advanced 36in T5 fixture back in stock so i can order it for this tank.

i also found a mantis shrimp this morning who has built a nice little cave under the rock on the far left so i will be setting up another tank for it once i clean out my eclipse 6g. i will also contact Richard and see if i can order a small live rock piece and a small piece of dead rock for the 6g.

 

[Mustang Boy]

im finding all kinds of neat little critters in teh rock and ive only had it for a day and a half. so far ive seen a few different gorilla crabs, some kind of red crab, and what i think may be a tiny mantis but im not sure as i couldnt see much of it and it was so small

 

[Madratter]

If your tank is anything like mine, you probably have a bunch of porcelain crabs. They are good and I have dozens in my two 12g nanos. Look them up on Tampa Bays site. The red crab might be a porcelain (there are other possibilities as well). If it has net like things, it is a porcelain.

 

[Mustang Boy]

im hoping it is a porcelain crab because it looks very cool and i want a porcelain for my pico build. i have not seen any net things coming from this crab as it has been hiding alot. i tried a little while ago to get a pic of it with my phone but the pics didnt come out very good at all. this tank will become a scorpion/lionfish tank so anything good will be taken out as i dont want them eaten. i will put all good crabs and shrimp(except pistol shrimp) in my aquapod where they will be safe from hungry mouths. i moved the bottle trap around closer to the hole the crab is hiding in so maybe he will try and get the silverside thats in it so i can trap him and get a really good pic of it because i cant find anything on anysite that looks like it

 

[Madratter]

Go here:

http://www.tampabaysaltwater.com/thepackage/organisms.html

and look up red mithrax crab and porcelain crab.

 

[Mustang Boy]

ive looked there and it kinda looks like the red mithrax but at the same time it looks alot different i hope that makes sense lol. the main body isnt mottled like a mithrax crab is it is perfectly flat and smooth. the legs are alternating red and white stripes. the pincers are red then about halfway down they switch to white. and it has very orange eyes it reminds me of halloween they are that orange.

 

[noahm]

sounds like lots of cool stuff. Those candelabra gorgs are nearly indestructible. Fasten it to a rock and you will have a portable tree for your aquascape.

 

[Mustang Boy]

i hope so because part of it has started to die off so im going to look into fragging it. if you look at my previous pics of it you can see part of one of the branches that there are no polyps extending and that is where the die off is. so tomorrow im going to cut off a little before the die off and probably make 2 frags out of that branch so then ill have 3 gorgs in the tank

here is a pic of the affected area

 

[troyman]

good ole florida rock

good ole florida rock

This is a sponsored forum. It exists so that sponsors can interact with customers. It is not an open discussion forum for you to harass them. If you have a legitimate first-hand experience with their product that you wish to share, you're more than welcome to do so in the Vendor Feedback forum.

 

[noahm]

full of bad hitchhikers who needs it buy somthing good some of your rock looks like base rock meaning its dead rock

Seriously dude, if you had read the post you would know that that is is the rock he already had, not the TBS rock. I am suprised you came back to troll.


Just so anyone new knows. Troyman is a 100 % troll who hasn't bought TBS rock and came on here about a year ago for whatever reason and started the same stuff. It would be one thing if he was a dissatisfied TBS customer, but he had a bad experience with another online rock vendor and apparently feels the need to go around venting because he got burnt somewhere else. I will dig up the old thread so he doesn't have to repeat himself.

Here is the original thread. In it you will find links to Troyman's posts about his own LR vendor so you can see what kind of person he is. After that i would suggest not giving him any response.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1540868

 

[Mustang Boy]

full of bad hitchhikers who needs it buy somthing good some of your rock looks like base rock meaning its dead rock

you wont find any live rock in the world that doesnt have a chance of having bad hitch hikers unless you start with dry rock. now i love mantis shrimp so im hoping i can catch the one that i have seen in this batch of rock and place him in his own tank. as for the gorilla crabs well they will become mantis food which means i wont have to buy food for him for a week or 2. also this rock is some of the best looking rock i have ever seen especially for the $5/lb price. i have only ever seen one other rock that had better growth but it was almost $8/lb and was almost all flat didnt have anywhere near the shapes this rock has. i WILL be ordering more rock from this vendor in the future especially once i am able to snag the mantis because im going to need a piece of rock to go into my eclipse 6g so the mantis has somewhere to make his tunnels.


oohh yea if you guys havnt figured it out i found the mantis this morning in a cave under a piece of rock that came with the tank.

and since this is my thread so im allowed to be a little rude to troy because he did one of my biggest pet peeves ever. READ AN ENTIRE POST BEFORE REPLYING if you had done that you would have known that i have 3 pieces of base rock that came with my tank so ****

 

[riverviewmike]

I had the same issue with my gorg. I thought I had some die off, but left my lights on a while and came back and the polyps started to extend again. Now it looks fairly healthy again.

 

[noahm]

I had the same issue with my gorg. I thought I had some die off, but left my lights on a while and came back and the polyps started to extend again. Now it looks fairly healthy again.

If you do lose a section, have no fear on fragging it. Some of the gorgonians are a bit more sensitive, but those candelabras can be chopped up pretty good. Just super glue gel onto a plug. It helps to dry the cut part first with a paper towel or something and let it set good before putting into the tank. The piece will survive for a long time out of the water, so no worries there. I have one that had a section of a branch die and it just kept on growing anyway with a 1" gap of stem held together by a thread of skeleton.

 

[Mustang Boy]

i think i going to get a masonry bit tonight because the fragging instructions i keep instructing me to drill a small hole in the rubble then cut a branch off and scrape off some of the flesh so i have the skeleton then put some glue in the hole of the rubble piece and place the skeleton in and let it setup then place back into the tank. also ive heard water will speed up how fast superglue gel sets up and hardens is this true and if so would it be smart to once i stick the skeleton in the hole with superglue and then place it in a bowl of tank water that way its ready to go into the tank that much sooner?


also i have one question i have an oversized powerhead in the tank because its the only spare powerhead i had/have right now and it blows pretty hard even clear across teh tank so will this be a problem or do gorgs not mind a decent amount of flow. also i will be placing the frags at the direct opposite side of the tank from the K4