Randy's 180G Reef-Photo Journal

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7066431#post7066431 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rdmpe
Wow, tube worms and bristle worms? That is cool. I'm not sure exactly what is in mine. The snails keep it pretty clean I think. I also had a bunch of green stripe hermit crabs living in there for a while (gone now). There is a light dusting of sand that doesn't cover the whole bottom. I just can't see in there very well. I need to take a flashlight and look up from the bottom. I'd probably be able to see things better that way.

Although I have a ton of pods, I placed an order from www.oceanpods.com just for the helk of it (to use Tyler's term ). I figured it should at least increase the diversity a little bit. I'm going to dump almost all of them into the refugium, maybe putting some into the main display tank after lights out...

Yup, tonnes of little tube worms and feather dusters in there. Despite being covered there's still some light in mine that shines through my acrylic overflow wrap.

I also have plenty of cerinths living in there too..

I have the same kind of problem; the only real way to see in mine is to look up from underneath; which means peeking in through the thin rings of glass I can see around each bulkhead.

Heh, you bet, gotta get things just for the helk of it!

Are you planning on just dumping the bottle in the 'fuge to boost the population? Or are you going to just feed every once and a while?

I've finally started seeing 'pods swimming around in my sump. I think once I swap out the PCX-70 for a PCX-40 and slow things down in there they'll thrive a lot better...

Later,
Tyler

 

[rdmpe]

I'm just going to dump it all in the fuge I decided. The bottle has a lot of almost-not-visible size stuff...

I'm going to save one drop to put under the microscope - will post pictures!

 

[alien9168]

Wow.

-alien

 

[rdmpe]

LOL I forgot and dumped the pods in without saving any for the microscope. I'm such an idiot that sucks. Oh well, par for the course with me.

That stupid mandarin is back in the overflow only a couple of hours after I got him out this evening. I think he likes it in there. I'm done worrying about it. He's going to live in there until I get it screened. I'm over it.

Good night!

 

[alien9168]

I heard some fish enjoy riding the overflow. Like surfing
I know thats strange, but I did read it somewhere.

-alien

 

[rdmpe]

I've watched him swim down to a certain spot where there is a nice updraft. He gets down onto the sand, then the current catches him and he slowly lifts off and rides the current up to about mid or 3/4 tank height, then he swims back down and does it again. One night I watched him do this at least 10+ times in a row. Of course, that current is pretty much heading right toward the overflow, so maybe it's his little game of chicken... But the overflow is his new home for a while...

 

[alien9168]

LOL!

-alien

 

[tgunn]

Hey Randy,
Your closed loop intake is similar to mine (except I guess 3600 GPH goes in versus 5000 GPH); do you find that snails get stuck on it?

I recently re-make mine using a larger diameter screen and I still find snails get stuck on it (the turbos seem to not get stuck any more, but cerinths still do).

Just curious if you've had this problem.

Tyler

 

[REEFKEEPA]

I noticed in your electrical set-up that you are not using a majority of GFCI. Could you let me know what gear that you run on "regular power".
Thanks
Nice Set-up!

 

[rdmpe]

Hey Tyler, the only thing that has gotten stuck on my CL intake is the Cucumber. Snails regularly go up onto it and back off, as do various crabs.

reefkeepa - the other plugs are all wired in "down stream" of the gfci, so they are all actually protected by the GFCI circuit.

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7086843#post7086843 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rdmpe
Hey Tyler, the only thing that has gotten stuck on my CL intake is the Cucumber. Snails regularly go up onto it and back off, as do various crabs.

Guess I need to go with a larger diameter if I want to prevent the snails from being pulled onto the intake. Oh well, I have lots of cerinths so it's not like loosing some is a loss. :lol:

Thanks!
Tyler

 

[rdmpe]

I have a question for you about the sand that hardened in your tank. Was it on the surface? How thick did it extend into the sandbed? Was it in areas of lower flow?

I haven't found anything like that in my sandbed, but was just curious what to watch out for. Every once in a while I poke around a little bit with an acrylic rod just to check that it's OK.

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7087909#post7087909 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rdmpe
I have a question for you about the sand that hardened in your tank. Was it on the surface? How thick did it extend into the sandbed? Was it in areas of lower flow?

I haven't found anything like that in my sandbed, but was just curious what to watch out for. Every once in a while I poke around a little bit with an acrylic rod just to check that it's OK.

It seemed to have happened mostly near the surface in some low flow areas such as underneath the closed loop plumbing..

However, that said, the flow has almost completely eroded the back-left corner sand away revealing a small pile of hardened sand chunks at the bottom. Yet, if I poke around there's nothing hard elsewhere...

But mostly the surface is where it happened...

Tyler

 

[Airman]

Tyler if just hardened around the surface of the sand would a good sand shifter take care of that problem?

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7089514#post7089514 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Airman
Tyler if just hardened around the surface of the sand would a good sand shifter take care of that problem?

My tiger tail cuke seems to ignore the hard chunks. My conch will sometimes drag across pieces and break them up.. There's not a lot of bound sand, just chunks here and there.
My brittle star just sits in the rocks all the time so he's not doing much to help. :lol:

Tyler

 

[alien9168]

My conch does an amazing job on my sand! Its really amazing. I had sheets of red alge built up on my sand. It was all bound together. I added my conch and my sand bed is clear

-alien

 

[rdmpe]

:celeb1: :celeb1:
I finally caught one of the sally lightfoots crabs! I think there is another one in there. I read through this really good thread on catching livestock
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=707656

I just used a big zip lock bag. I turned the opening edge inside-out so that it would stay open. I tied a string to the edge that would be against the sand, and the string went through a hole in the upper edge. So when I pulled the string it would pull the bag up vertical and close it at the same time. Then I rubberbanded some silverside chunks to a small rock and sat it just inside the bag. After about an hour the sally finally decided to go have a bite. I pulled the string and that was that!

So now I have to figure out what to do with it. I just don't trust it in my tank. So I have to either give it away or try to get a few bucks credit at the LFS. My fav LFS will not sell them since they don't really trust them for reef tanks. The LFS I bought it from will sell anything they can make a buck on... Anyhow, it's hardly worth getting a credit for it. I may just see if anyone wants it locally, knowing that it may be questionable as far as reef safe goes.

My main reason was I'm afraid it may kill my Queen Conch or my Mandarin. Something ate two smallish sized skunk cleaners of mine a while back, and it was either the sallys or maybe the eight line wrasse.

Anyway, I am just so glad, been trying to catch that thing for a while, now I have to start watching for the other one that I think is still in there somewhere...

I spent nearly all day putting together outdoor furniture that we bought for our deck. What a PITA. It takes as long to get all of the packing off the chairs than it does to put one together! But I did get one other fish thing done today - I had some cool pumping zenia that I have been trying to get to move onto my overflow glass. But no matter how I squished the rock against that glass, the xenia just moved around the rock and never moved to the glass.

So I took a hammer and screwdriver and knocked off a very tiny bit of rock that the xenia was on. I ended up with two tiny pieces of rock with the xenia on it. I used superglue gel and managed to glue the rock pieces to the glass. So now hopefully the xenia will spread onto the glass.


Alien - Conchs are amazing aren't they? Mine is really cool and my sand is looking great. I swear I can tell a difference just after having Fritter for only two weeks!

 

[rdmpe]

I figured I'd post some photos of stuff...

Some mushrooms I got along with nice LR from fellow RC'er Daywn

This is a 1.5" or so Queen Conch named Fritter. I got it from SITC recently. It is doing a GREAT job keeping the sand clean, and it sure is a wierd little thing. I thought it would be more like a snail, but it is much different than a snail! Those eyes are FREAKY.

This is a very nicely colored Mandarin that I also bought from SITC. It is doing well EXCEPT that it keeps going into my overflow. It is there now. I am going to have to screen my overflow. It is glass and has no strainers/teeth on it, which is how I like it. But this fish cannot seem to resist going for a rid. You would expect a mandarin to hang around the bottom! Oh well... He is really hard to get a picture of, he likes to hang around the darker areas along the rock, so I haven't managed to get a very good picture yet. I had to adjust the white balance on these to make him more visible.

Next is a Yellow Coris Wrasse from SITC. This guy is about 3.5" or so. I wanted it in order to help eat up some flatworms that I recently found in the tank. The flatworms have not been plentiful yet. At their worst I probably only siphoned about 15 of them out of the tank. But I don't want them to get a good foothold or spread from the one small area where I've found them so far. So this was mostly a utilitarian choice, I didn't expect much in the way of looks. Boy was I wrong. This fish is so beautiful and bright, I just can't believe how great it looks in the tank. So I'm very pleased with this guy. It's the strangest thing how they bury themselves in the sand until they are more comfortable in the tank! Before I read about that characteristic I thought it might have jumped out, I couldn't find it anywhere!

The first two are with no white balance adjustment, the camera really picks up the blue from the 14K lamps...

And this one is with the white balance adjusted

CONTINUED BELOW

 

[Stile2]

Great pics!!

Keith

 

[rdmpe]

And finally some more photos of my Snowflake Blenny aka Starry Blenny etc. This little guy is brimming with personality! This is another one that is hard for me to photograph because it is so dark colored. It tends to come out too dark to see very well.