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the tank looks awesome when its overgrown like that. you should try and scape using the macro to create a zen garden or some kind of picture with tit.
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Thank you. :D
I use seachem for pretty well everything because its cheaper and I used Kent Iron again because it was cheap lol. Yes I want to scape it which is harder to do with faster growing macros. As you can see it needs a major trim which I plan to do very soon. Currently Im leading Drama Camp for a group of 17 kids. We are having a preformance at the end so I am swamped for the next 2 weeks. But im hoping that this weekend I will have my trim day. Im noticing a lot of hitchhiker macros that are growing now. I like em. |
havent seen this tank in awhile...looks like all the macro filled in nicely, great job!
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And to think this would be a nightmare in any other situation! That looks pretty cool. I'm sure since you've decided you want algae, it by default becomes harder to keep alive lol.
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the "au natural" look, looks great.....although I do like the neatly trimmed look:wink:
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Thanks all. Macro algae is really easy to keep if thats what your 'main' interest is. If its both corals and macro its a bit more difficult but it can be done. I have a few corals in my system and I want to add more, mainly mushrooms because they do so well. But im more slack about corals now and more in tune with the macro.
I typically like things trimmed espically when there are viewings but when no one is looking I let it all go au natural. ;P For your eyes only. |
So, Im strongly considering picking up 6 sexy shrimp and a candy pistol shrimp for the tank. What do people here think.
Currently there are 2 clowns and a peppermint shrimp as well as 2 hermit crabs in there. Any Input ? |
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Macro is going NUTS! gonna send out a few packages now and hope that helps. I may have more up for sale soon too. Im going to be very generous to those that did order :)
Anyway I put my order in for 7 yes 7 sexy shrimp. :) I cant wait. I do already have a peppermint shrimp who is in LOVE with the macro in my tank. I see him out all the time in my red halymenia. Camouflage I guess. Pretty cool stuff. |
I want to cry when I see how beautiful my tank was. I got a new teaching Job in Sept. With that new job, taking care of my son and husband as well as the regular chores my tanks got neglected. The macro took over EVERYTHING! well I shouldn't blame all the macro. The grape calpura is EVIL! Stunning if it is well kept but I didn't have the time to trim weekly. It smothered everything including other macro. It killed off a lot of my nice macro and some of my corals.
I went in and pulled EVERYTHING out of my tank. Including rocks. I pulled off every bit of macro I saw with tweezers and threw everything out except for the pretty macro that isint invasive. I cleaned EVERYTHING! About 2 weeks later the grape calpura was back and worse than before. WHY! I stopped dosing to starve the macro. It killed off nearly everything except the grape. I pretty much gave up. I was looking for a tang to temporarily put into the tank to just clear it up. Yesterday I pulled about half the macro again and today I will do the other half as well as a WC. I can honestly say that it is finally starting to slow down. I do now have a lot of nuisance algae. What I do like is how truly wild the tank looks now. It is very natural. Not man made natural, but coastal saltwater natural. I am hoping that after this next big clean It will be under more control. I noticed A LOT of snails, I didnt have before. NICE! and my mushrooms are COLOURFUL! They were in near complete darkness. Also, the green grape that was in the dark didnt really grow. It gave me an idea. I now have enough lighting for sps. I want height in my tank as well as a lot of shade for my mushrooms. MONTI CAPS! I tried a couple before, but I only had just enough light and the frags were constantly knocked over, so they didn't make it. Now, I have a plan. Mount it DIRECTLY to the rock, right at the top of the tank instead of just waiting for them to stick, themselves :) They can completely shade the lower part of the tank making my mushrooms pretty and my keeping the green macro at bay. YAY! Then for height, some very easy to keep sps like birds nest. I really want some photosynthetic gorgs, but I still cant find any :( This tank is going through a transition and I am actually getting excited about it. I hope it lasts. |
Alright, so the plan is to have something to control the grape caulpera. I would like to save my nicer macro algae.
I was reading around and a recommendation is emerald crabs. They are hit or miss, but at least its a chance. So, Im thinking one or two emerald crabs, and then when they get older I would trade them in. Although having crabs in the tank would just be so cool. :) I'm going to do more research to see if it is worth the risk. If that doesn't work, I will seriously consider a tang, but I really don't want one. After that, Im going to tear everything down and sell or trade all my LR but keep my coral and just start over with normal LR and NO CALPURA. Any advice ? |
If you got a tang, it would probably eat all the macro algae, or at least most of it. I had a yellow and he ate caulerpa.
The only thing I could suggest is get another tank, and keep the tang in there . You would give him only the LR with the grape on it. After all the grape is gone, you could give the tang back to the LFS |
No chance on another tank. I dont have any room at all. As for the caulerpa ITS EVERYWHERE on every rock. If I put rocks in another tank one at a time and then replace, it will just spread onto the rock that was just cleaned. :(
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Hate to rub it in but...
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EDIT: J&L and Progressive Reef both have several varieties of photosynthetic gorgonians for sale right now. |
:P Yea I know. But I wanted and still would like a macro algae tank. Unfortunately it is much more management than I believed. You MUST trim weekly, no ifs and's or but's. Its gotta be religious trimming.
I can handle dosing and topping off no problem but weekly trimming took some time. I was in my tank for 30-45 min at least once a week trimming. Thats not including top offs and measuring the proper dosing amounts. The grape weed just grows too fast. Everything else (except for pest algae) is pretty manageable. It grows slow enough or is strong enough where I could grab a chunk and rip it off the rock without much difficulty. |
Foxface can also do massive clean-up of macro algae, any time I've had a frag or coral colony come in to my tank with any sort of macro hitchhiker it's gone within a day.
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Yup Ive been thinking about them but im worried about their poison as well as their ability to munch on lps and softies. I have some corals and I would like to keep what I have.
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The more I look at the tank, the more I just want to tear it down and start over. I have algae growing on everything and its not the pretty stuff either.
My husband does not want me to tear it down at all and just leave it as is because I did like it. DID is the term to take note of. It depresses me now. :( Im gonna see if the lfs will trade my rock for some of their rock and Im thinking of maybe getting all new sand as well to make sure there is no green grape in there at all. I just dont know. :( The rocks I am almost positive on. I think it will be cheaper to trade it if I could. Im also going to pick up another big jug of vinegar and soak my powerheads in it for a few hours to get rid of macro and such. Same thing with my skimmer. So sad. :( |
Well, my stubborn side took over (that would be my dads genes). I am ordering 5 trocheus black foot snails, 1 emerald crab, 6 mexican red leg hermits and 2 more blue leg hermits. (to make 4 hermits) I will continue with manual removal, large water changes, no dosing any ferts, and only feeding two or three times a week and only a small amount. We shall see how this goes :)
On a side note I am also setting up a Hawaiian volcano shrimp species tank aka opae ula. Should I set up a separate thread/nano journal for this or just keep it here? hmmm ponder ponder ponder. |
BOOYA! CUC is ordered plus some photosynthetic gorgs :) YAY! Major WC is in the future for my tank tomorrow as well as a MAJOR pruning. Gotta get things presentable. :)
Then I think I will start dosing again to get the macro growing and hopefully it will starve out the nuisance algae. Gonna start off really slow. |
Ok, how about some before and after pics?:mrgreen:
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*shudder* I dunno. My tank looks really really bad... and empty. Even my corals are suffering... except the shrooms. My goal is to bring my candycane back. Each head is 1/2 dead. Maybe I will take a pic. I dunno. It disgusts me.
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Right, so I did a 10 gal WC on this thing which is about 50%. Yes the tank is a 28gal but the rocks, equipment and sand take up volume so there is less than 28gallons of water in the tank.
(I know the majority of you know this but I am just stating this again for those that are unsure and because a couple of my students wanted to look at my tank :P ) I did a vinegar bath/soak, for my powerheads, and now my skimmer. It works wonders. All kinds of algae just melt in the vinegar and I use a toothbrush to just brush it all off under hot water. Comes off smooth like butter in a hot pan. Waiting on my skimmer and then that will go back into the tank. As I look in there I can see quite a few strands of grape calupera. I just want to stick my hands in there and rip more out but, I need to spend some time with the most important thing in my life. My son :) Maybe tomorrow during his nap I will tear some more out of the tank. |
Right...so... here it is after a cleaning....
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...a/DSC_9172.jpg WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! |
Pulled some more macro today. It was pretty difficult as there isn't much to grab onto. On a good note, my candy cane and frogspawn are puffing up very nicely. I'm not sure if it was the massive WC or the stirring of the sand bed releasing all the gunk into the water column. I know they loved it when I did that before, but I'm betting the WC helped out a lot. :)
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Hey Ska,
Been a while since I've checked up on your tank. Sorry to hear bout all your aquarium troubles! I'm glad you haven't given up yet. Being a saltie - there's tons of rewards but also some real tough lessons to learn both emotionally and financially for a 'light' hobby. In terms of the choice of macros, especially caulerpa - one has to be careful in chosing the varieties. I've found any for of caulerpa racemosa (espcially any form of grape caulerpa -var. pelata) and caulerpa prolifera (ex: knife caulerpa) to be especially aggressive. Others include sawband caulerpa and sometimes C. Mexicana. In your tank's best interest, I would very strongly suggest you get rid of all your live rock and sand that was covered by your grape caulerpa. From experience both Grape caulerpa and Knife caulerpa can re-grow from just a few cells (root, stem, any sort) clinging in a fissure in your live rock. So for months after you think you've cleaned it all out, suddenly you may experience a re-birth/ explosion of this nuisance macro. I know it seems like such a waste of money/ live rock but think of it this way, by throwing them out now, you're saving yourself a ton of future grief and heart ache. You can always re-use your old live rock after you've let it dry thoroughly for about 3+ months. As for having to spend money on new live rock - look at it as if it's a fresh start. To save some money, you can buy a third of the amount you need live and the other 2/3s dry rock/ man made which will be seeded by the new live rock. In terms of suggestions for future macros, the safe forms of caulerpa in my experience are Caulerpa Paspaloides (Palm Caulerpa) and Caulerpa Cupressoides (Cactus Caulerpa). Both are comparatively slow growing and easy to manage. In addition, they look nicer than most other caulerpas :). |
Thanks.
I'm gonna try this first. Honestly I don't mind the grape, I just wish it didn't take over like it did. I loved the look of it. If the cuc can help at all then I will just keep up with that, otherwise I will just have to remove all the sand and LR and start over, which is what I was thinking of doing to begin with anyways, but I'm stubborn. :P |
Nothing wrong with the 'look' of grape caulerpa - in fact I agree it's nice in appearance. It's the aggressively growing behavior which I'm wary of. The ability of it to choke out any rival type of macro algae as well as coral by the sheer speed and volume of its growth...Thus resulting in your need to prune them weekly.
:laluot_32: I swear, if my macro tank was as labor intensive as your macro tank, I would have quit long ago lol. Weekly pruning of macros? Pshhh far too much work for me lol. Macro algae tanks are meant to be easier to handle and ARE easier if done the right way. Pruning in my tank is more like once every 2 months or so... at it's worst I had to do it once a month. Just trying to make you see reason loooool. Then again, to each his or her own I suppose. Cheers! :cool: |
Yup, I didn't mind the weekly trimming. I actually like to work on my tanks. Its relaxing, but now I have a toddler and we are planning on another one and its not relaxing anymore. I just don't have as much time. I still love macro tanks, but the grape just takes over. The calupra prolifera just cant compete, although now I'm hoping it will get a foothold but we shall see how things go.
I notice that after being squished the grape calupera goes pale and dies. The only places it seems to crop up are from the tips of stems. I'm wondering about taking a brush to the whole thing and squishing the lot of it. It cant get any worse than it is now... (famous last words). |
My shipment comes in today. YAY! I had a good look in the tank and it looks more bare than before.... hmmm A lot of the green grape is disintegrating, while others are still green. I have noticed a few stem tips are starting to grow so I will rip those out today and squish the rest of the stem that I can see. I dunno what is going on, but I like it :).
Even my calpura prolifera is melting. :( Which I don't like but, focus right now is to get corals back to health and get grape back to a manageable state or gone. My frogspawn is puffing up very nicely and my candycane is very puffy again :) Needs some time to heal itself and cover the exposed skeleton. I didnt see any feeders come out but when I do I will give it some num nums. Next week I think im going to stir the sandbed like crazy and do another 50% WC. Im thinking that helped out quite a bit. |
Delayed... boo. I don't get it until tomorrow night.
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GOT MY SHIPMENT!!! Everything looks good, we shall see how things go. :)
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What gorgs did get? Picts plz.
Msjboy |
Isis gorg and Muriceopsis sp. (aka purple plume). Fully open this morning. Everything is doing well.
I will take a pic tonight. |
Pics are from this morning :)
Corals some doing very well, others healing nicely http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...blueshroom.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...2greenzoas.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...erhodactus.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...anehealing.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...enmushroom.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...012blueric.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...12greenric.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...skinnygorg.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...iceopsissp.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...12isisgorg.jpg Some of the livestock http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...2eraldcrab.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...canhermit1.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...92012clown.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...uemushroom.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...2012clowng.jpg |
And now a question. WTF are those things on my gorg? There is a starfish wrapped tightly around the main stalk in the top left, and a praying mantis looking thing on the right of the picture. The praying mantis thing (there are lots) are firmly attached by holding on with their legs and then waving their arms around trying to catch whatever floats by. They look vicious. Mainly transparent, but some have dark stripes/blotches.
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...b292012wtf.jpg |
thanx for the updates. Watch out for strands of algae that might catch on the gorgs... it can quickly overwhelm it and kill it off.
Also, knowing you're a macro algae fan, here's a recent link on nano-ree that you might be interested for a read: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/inde...&hl=macro+reef he has just a 12 gallon tank. He got a lot of his stuff from La reef... sigh....wish we could get some of the stuff. regs msjboy:wink: |
Thanks for the link. I LOVE macro tanks. :)
I had to move the big purple gorg in my picture to a lower flow area. The polyps were not coming out as much as they were before. Yesterday, not at all. My isis gorg has all polyps open and they haven't gone back in. She is happy where she is. I noticed the very tips of the branches on my purple gorg are thinning. But only some of them. She is starting to go pale all over. I am wondering if she is about to shed? I dunno, but I blew her with the turkey baster to get any algae off (I didn't see any) and I moved her. The smaller purple gorg is in slightly lower flow and has some polyps coming out, but not all. We shall see how they do after the move. I am planning on another WC today or tomorrow. If that doesn't work, the gorg will go on the sandbed and then finally over to where the isis gorg is... well after that then I will put it at the back of the tank hiding behind the rock work :( Perhaps that will help it. Those little mantis things on my gorg had babies. The majority of the adults die when they have babies I guess. A couple large adult's still remain. I also noticed 4 of those starfish things clinging to my gorg. Are they harmful at all? I cant find any info on them. Should I dip in freshwater for 3 minutes? |
The sea stars look like harmless mini brittle stars. I've got a billion of them throughout my system. You bought some coral off of me two years ago so I'd be really surprised if some didn't hitchhike into your tank back then. Sorry I'm not sure about the other things but maybe you can find an ID on this page http://www.melevsreef.com/id/
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