The Scleractinia Shallows

Wow! Those first pics of all the new acros are inconceivable to us here in North America. That is the stuff that fantasies are made of. I am actually considering a vacation trip to Dave's just to experience this in real life. As of now, I have your thread and my dreams to see stuff like this.

Your two week old blue baby is looking sweet. The new additions will put it over the top.

I have to ask ; Are these the claimed "stolen" acros?
If so, then because of their celebrity lineage; their value just went up.
 
Wrangy said:
As you can well imagine I tormented Andrew with these pictures all day! Domshop was in full swing! Of course with such a glorious selection of goodies available I simply HAD to buy some so I pic myself out 4 lovely little pieces as the big colony that I wanted would have left no room in the tank at all :debi:
White skin with blue corallites and polyps! Hopefully I can keep the white skin! lol


Drop dead gorgeous blue loripes with a green hue through the body


This piece I believe turns into the pretend firetruck that everyone has at the moment lol the blue/purple tips make it interesting and while there's less red the differing colours make it interesting!


This is just a simple SSC variant that I've had previously but I love it so I had to get myself some more to replace my lost piece!


This was the piece I got two weeks ago, the deep sky blue with green corallites, going to be stunning when it comes back a little more and the system is happier


Well I suppose I better give some progress on the tank and things are doing really well which makes me happy but I'm off for a week on Monday and the temps are going to be 30+ here in Melb that week :( No halides and I think I'll run the lights for half period to avoid too much heat in the tank!
Flubber is coming along nicely, I going to get some vibrant to deal with the coralline covered nasties that are hiding lol


Annnnddd a FTS :)
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Mmmmm.. so nice..
I am imagining beating you, while you protest vehemently, with a whip made of starfish mouth/anuses!!
For some reason, you bring this out in me, Dom!
I blame the stunning acros..
 
Love the blue loripes dom! i know theres plenty of particular wrasse floating around.... can we expect an announcement soon of new additions to the tank???
 
martinphillip03 said:
Dom, It has been awhile since you posted. How are things going.

Marty
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Things are good, tank is chugging along and the fish are healthy. Just haven't had a lot of time for the forums! lol

reefmutt said:
Mmmmm.. so nice..
I am imagining beating you, while you protest vehemently, with a whip made of starfish mouth/anuses!!
For some reason, you bring this out in me, Dom!
I blame the stunning acros..
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hahaha I'm glad to hear I can bring out such wonderful emotions in you Matt :lol:

bgouges said:
Love the blue loripes dom! i know theres plenty of particular wrasse floating around.... can we expect an announcement soon of new additions to the tank???
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Yeah, she's a real beauty! The colony that came in was one of the most beautiful corals I've ever laid eyes on! :inlove: but it was her or the 4 frags I got instead lol
There's so many pretties at the moment!! I REALLY REALLY want one of the coral sea fairies from CM, they're stunning! lol but I got no cash for them haha
 
So I don't have the motivation to re-type my current thoughts from my hometown forum but here's the gist of my crazy *** mind at the moment! I'm preparing for the months and years of torture! haha

So am I crazy if I want to start looking into breeding? I've had this tingling sensation in my nether regions telling me that I ought to be doing something in order to have some fun with live foods and breeding some different species that aren't clowns or dottybacks. No idea on what I want to breed yet really, maybe something interesting like the liopropoma genus, the centropyge genus or something from the blenniidae family. It's a lot to blast myself with little to no experience but hell, how else do you get rocking into something that's such a demanding part of a demanding hobby haha.

It's something I've always had in the back of my mind, along with coral propagation but that's a bit wonky at the moment and I think I would get a little more enjoyment out of breeding and rearing too! Especially if they're from species I truly love! lol. Don't worry about that, I'm setting things up with the expectations of lots of failures and lots and lots of small steps but I think that learning curve is going to be one of the most enjoyable aspects! Especially while working with a single species too

Oh and I'm bunkering down alright, I haven't mentioned it to Georgia yet though :p hahaha she'll love it though! Given that I'm still at uni, with no full time work and most of my time is at home anyway, the time dedication is not something I fell I'm going to have issue with or struggle with as I'll be around a large amount of the time anyway!
I know, I know they're a good place to start and would be fascinating to watch but I have no love for clowns lol I really will need to start with something different in order to keep the fires stoked under my *** lol. If I start with something that may be more difficult and may mean I take a lot more time to get the hang of it will mean more and keep me more motivated! I just can't do clowns lol so any other suggestions would be amazing :) I'm trying to get into contact with the breeding rock stars in the US too, Todd, Kathy and Karren as their insights would be invaluable!!

Already signed up with MBI, listening to all the Reef's Threads podcasts at the moment and reading all of Kathy's, Todd's and Karen's various writing as well lol I'm jumping in deep :p
I've also emailed Todd as he's a bit of a hero/rockstar to me with his work with liopropoma sp., lipogramma klayi, gramma dejongi and of course the illustrious r. opercularis :cum:eek :rofl

I'm doing a little research on the smaller species that have been bred and successfully raised in captivity as I want to do something groovy as we don't have many home grown groovy breeders at the moment! I'm also going to try and get in touch with a few of the larger institutes and uni's :)

My plan is being formulated haha

I hear the very mixed feelings and experiences with breeding but that's also because I think people don't realise quite what's involved beyond ooh my clowns are spawning I can totally do this lol but that's also how it starts for some too :) Not trying to put anyone down by saying that haha. I think the feelings of excitement and elation from having a success in any of the stages, even making it an extra day post hatch would be amazing! I live and breathe this hobby like a lot of us and have always loved the idea of breeding but never thought I'd be capable of it, but having read some of Todd's work and listening to people talk about it has me beleiveing in myself haha

Unfortunately I don't live at home anymore so I can't say I have no expenses but I'm definitely rich in spare time :p it's going to be small beginnings, as simple as getting my first pair to spawning condition in my tank or sump to prove I can hit stage one lol. I'm thinking a blenny species to start with as people have had success with them, they're readily available and small so I don't have to do anything special just yet :)

I agree with you though, there's been some amazing advances of late! Especially with pelagic spawners! I'm defintiely going into this head on to start with because how else do you do it lol.
 
So my plans as I'm thinking about them have a line of thinking with the end goal of successful larvae rearing :) It's going to begin with live food culturing moving up the chain of difficulty and at the same time find myself a pair of something to get to spawning condition :) And finally end up with a rearing tank or two :)
Firstly I'm going to start with the culturing of phyto, as that's the staple for the rest of the systems to come and it's the easiest to master in the early stages. The species I'll be focusing on is nannochloropsis oculata and I may also see if I can source another species to run in tandem to add variety and nutritional content to gut loading other foods and feeding my tank as I'll be dosing the Shallows directly with phyto. I'm going to run all this in the cupboard of the study in some shelving racks and in simple plastic bottles. I plan on running three cultures so that I have backups and can produce a decent amount on a regular basis.
Once I reach a capacity point with culturing phyto and have been through a few cycles of cut and refill and have them successfully sustaining, growing and not crashing, I'll move onto the lovely rotifers and culturing those little guys as they're the next step in the progression of live foods. Once again I plan of having several several cultures revolving at once in case of crash and also so I can test my abilities on them. I'm pretty sure at this point the tank is going to be in love with me and all the live food being pumped in!
Next we move onto the trickiest part, the much loved copepod! I'm going to try and get at least two species running here, as they have different applications and responses from different species of fish at the various stages of development. I want ot try and aim for a mix of parvocalanus, harpacticoid or anything else we can get here in Aus. I'll be breeding them in a divided tank setup for ease of maintenance and once again I want to run two cultures of each strain to help ensure I always have some around. These guys will also be feed with phyto but I will try and see if I can get them thriving on freeze-dried/paste phyto as that's easier to maintain!
Well that's my food plan at least :) I'll be updating with more once I narrow down the species I'll be attempting :) I would like to try with blennies but who knows lol it'll depend on what I have access too!
 
Wrangy said:
So my plans as I'm thinking about them have a line of thinking with the end goal of successful larvae rearing :) It's going to begin with live food culturing moving up the chain of difficulty and at the same time find myself a pair of something to get to spawning condition :) And finally end up with a rearing tank or two :)
Firstly I'm going to start with the culturing of phyto, as that's the staple for the rest of the systems to come and it's the easiest to master in the early stages. The species I'll be focusing on is nannochloropsis oculata and I may also see if I can source another species to run in tandem to add variety and nutritional content to gut loading other foods and feeding my tank as I'll be dosing the Shallows directly with phyto. I'm going to run all this in the cupboard of the study in some shelving racks and in simple plastic bottles. I plan on running three cultures so that I have backups and can produce a decent amount on a regular basis.
Once I reach a capacity point with culturing phyto and have been through a few cycles of cut and refill and have them successfully sustaining, growing and not crashing, I'll move onto the lovely rotifers and culturing those little guys as they're the next step in the progression of live foods. Once again I plan of having several several cultures revolving at once in case of crash and also so I can test my abilities on them. I'm pretty sure at this point the tank is going to be in love with me and all the live food being pumped in!
Next we move onto the trickiest part, the much loved copepod! I'm going to try and get at least two species running here, as they have different applications and responses from different species of fish at the various stages of development. I want ot try and aim for a mix of parvocalanus, harpacticoid or anything else we can get here in Aus. I'll be breeding them in a divided tank setup for ease of maintenance and once again I want to run two cultures of each strain to help ensure I always have some around. These guys will also be feed with phyto but I will try and see if I can get them thriving on freeze-dried/paste phyto as that's easier to maintain!
Well that's my food plan at least :) I'll be updating with more once I narrow down the species I'll be attempting :) I would like to try with blennies but who knows lol it'll depend on what I have access too!
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Sounds exciting mate! look forward to tagging along!
 
Wow Dom that's a big undertaking. I wish you the best of luck with it, hopefully you can eventually breed lesser seen species in Aus for your fellow reefers. :)

Your last photo update is beautiful, as usual!
 
Well, you better get all that rearing in before you start working in rearing humans. Otherwise, it's a lot of rearing.
You got time! Good luck!
 
Buddy i haven't checked your thread for a long time and what i see is amazing mate:beer:
So many beautiful pieces in there and tank looks really good as a general result!Love it
 
joshky said:
Wow Dom that's a big undertaking. I wish you the best of luck with it, hopefully you can eventually breed lesser seen species in Aus for your fellow reefers. :)

Your last photo update is beautiful, as usual!
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Yeah just a little bit of an undertaking haha. Aside from clowns and dottybacks, very little is bred outside any institutes and even then that list expands to cardinals, assessors and gramma's so it's a pretty poor form here. Especially when you consider the type of work that ORA do just within themselves! I'm going to start small and we'll see how and where that progresses too. I have some pretty large scale plans in my mind with where I want to go in this hobby :)

Thanks Josh :) I need to take a couple of new pics!

martinphillip03 said:
Dom, Do you plan on starting a thread in the Fish Breeding forum? Do you plan on keeping the SPS tank?

Marty
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Hey Marty, I'm not planning on it at the moment. I'll be documenting all my live food culturing here and then once I have a pair, I'll start a thread in the breeding section but post the updates here as well :)
Marty, Marty, Marty... the alk runs thick through my blood :inlove: the acro's won't be going anywhere!

reefmutt said:
Well, you better get all that rearing in before you start working in rearing humans. Otherwise, it's a lot of rearing.
You got time! Good luck!
Click to expand...
haha humans won't be for a while :fun5: it's going to be a lot of work and time but I'm making a lot of contacts now as it is, including talking to some large scale wholesale aquaculture farms :)

glaukos said:
Buddy i haven't checked your thread for a long time and what i see is amazing mate:beer:
So many beautiful pieces in there and tank looks really good as a general result!Love it
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Thanks Mike, I'm pretty happy with how she's chugging along :) We had a little hiccup while I was away for a week but that's correcting itself now I'm back :)
I'm feeding the fish a whole heap more frozen too which they're loving!
 
glaukos said:
You feed frozen every day dom?
What kind of frozen?
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At the moment I'm trying to feed it everyday but we'll say, because I'm lazy lol, it's 5-6 days out of the week :) They always get at least three feeds of my pellet mix though :)
Mostly ocean nutrition mysis soaked in Selco Boost but I have some frozen mix prduct that I use every so often :) I'm going to head down to the local market soon and make a mix myself with a bit of everything! lol
 
martinphillip03 said:
Have you considered Mandarins? I'm sure Andrew would take a couple of babies off your hands.

Marty
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They would definitely be cool but too much of a PITA for me lol. I want to have a broodstock that happily eats prepared foods so the live stuff only needs go to the larvae and juveniles :)
 
Liopropoma are my long term goal once I have some experience, it also took three years for me to source a single l. susumi specimen as it was anyway so getting a second individual or pair could be quite a while without import anyway. Rainfordia would be the main goby species I would look at here as they're reasonable priced and easily accessed and not huge or expensive like some other species. I would love to try yasha but they are upwards of $2k a pair here, so a little out of my range. I think the type of fish I will aim for to start with will be either a species of ecsenius sp. blenny or a trimma sp. goby as they're small enough that I won't need to make any major changes to work with them and the larvae and fry aren't overly picky about foods :)
 
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