OK, I haven't posted in awhile since I have been offshore. I will have a few pics later, I make take a trip down to fish street and get a few pics there also. My wife has been looking after things while I was gone. All in all she hasn't done to bad. We are a little heavy on the fish though I suppose. I'm not so worried about bioload but I would like to save room for future livestock. The water has cleared up nicely and the rock is colouring up well. Here is a current livestock list.
2 Domino Damsels (They got huge when I was gone!)
4 Yellowtail Damsels
5 Clarks Anemonefish
1 Cleaner Wrasse
My wife picked out all the fish, the Wrasse and the Yellowtails were the first to go in. The Wrasse was not my choice and I thought he was a goner. Dissapeared for about a week then came out of hiding. Not sure what he has been eating but he is about 30% bigger than when I left two months ago! They are common here and the locals consider them hardy? Perhaps the local variety isn't as temperamental as some others?
I also expected alot more aggresion but that hasn't happened either. Some of the Clowns are big bruisers too. Everyone seems to have there own territory. Maybe because there is alot of rock. The tank is active though with these guys swimming around alot in the daytime but everyone seems happy. The Cleaner Wrasse also stays quite busy.
So far I mainly have LPS corals:
A Wall Hammer
2 Hammers
2 Frogspawns
2 Elegance
2 Gonioporas
2 Chili Corals and a Green Mushroom Rock
Most colonies you get here are huge, I had to give the Frogspawn and Torches quite a wide berth. One Frogspawn has sweepers about 10 inches long! I had some concerns about one of the Elegance early on as he was bleached almost white when my wife got him. He has coloured up nicely and really puffs up, not much tentacle extansion but the other Vietnamese Elegance seem to all be like this. The Torches are also looking good with good PE and tissue covering the base. I really like the Gonis also. One started out red but has developed a unique deep teal colour. He is also growing tissue over the spot where he was broke away from the rock.
I have had one casualty, a small Elegance that never did well. I wonder if maybe the tank was just too new, he was also bleached out when my wife got him at the same time as the other guy.
The Chili corals are also a surprise. I have had a couple of similiar corals in the past, Neptheas I believe. They just sort of withered away. The Chilis really come out at night with some terrific polyp extension. I keep them in a fairly sheltered cave and have just started feeding them a bit, my wife however has done nothing with them in the past two months. The pics she sent seem to show the same PE. She actually just put them in the sand and let them go since they would end up puffing up and falling down. I hope they do well. I like the NPS corals, I would like to get a few sun corals if things go OK. I may get a tableing Monti or something along those lines and keep him up top somewhere; however, SPS don't really fit the look I'm after. I really want to add a few Zoa colonies and some Gorgonians, this doesn't lend itself well to an SPS dominated tank.
My water parameters are as follows:
Temp 82 to 84 degrees F. I am actually shooting for keeping to temp a little high.
N1=0
N2=0
N3= <> 30ppm I will let it get a bit lower but I'm not shooting for a nutreint poor system. N3 was at about 50ppm when I got home the other day (my test kit requires immaculate timing and a fair amount of guesswork). A water change and sock cleaning brought it down some. I don't have any grazers or CUC at the moment and algae isn't an issue, I haven't measured for phosphate and may not bother, I don't think that the kits available to the average hobbyist are worth the expense.
My Calcium is a little high around 500 and DKH about 7.8. Still OK
PH around 7.8 to 8.4 depending on the time of day etc.
Not too bad. I have about 70kg of really premium rock. It was not cured when I got it. I cured it in the tank and did a couple 100% water changes with NSW (That was my cycle also). I had alot of detritus when I got home and I think that the curing process continued some while I was away. It has cleaned up nicely now about 5 months later. Very few hitchhikers nowthough. I reckon the fish got any pods or inverts that were introduced. I want to get a little sand also. I may use some of the coarse stuff I have seen around here. I haven't noticed any aragonite or anything like that. I will check on that a bit later.
Anyhow, thats about it till I upload some pics. I will add a few of the LFS also, probably a little different than most people are used too.
Neil
