RuralReef 2.1

[BlueAbyss]

Calgary is awesome! You guys are really REALLY lucky! Beautiful, lots to do, and not too bad to drive (though I have avoided rush hour so far!)... actually stuff is easy to find, if you have a GPS

I've stopped at 3 LFS here, Elite, Red Coral, and Gold Aquariums... awesome stores, I saw stuff I wanted in every store (and spent 100 bucks on coral in one... a pink Paly colony, a zoa colony with fanworms (can't remember the color but the rock looked nice ) and a little green brain coral. Pretty good deal, I think. I still need to buy a piece of rock that I found at one (perfect piece of rock to finish the tank), a fish, a shrimp, and some snails. I've decided a couple Trochus snails and a couple Nassarius snails would be a good addition to the CUC, and should be enough to keep the tank clean.

I will yet be shopping further... I haven't decided what else I want, but there's so much nice stuff and I need to eventually fill this tank

[karazy]

lets see pics of the tank with the new stuff!

[BlueAbyss]

Pics of the tank tomorrow... lights have been off for a while. Did some final positioning today and everything except the 'orange zoas of wonder' have opened. Whether they are PO'd because I moved them and cleaned the glass today, or because the light is too strong I'm not sure.

Pics of the mountains!

[karazy]

nice! the orange zoas of wonder are probably PO'd cuz you moved em. they should be fine tomorrow.

[BlueAbyss]

I'm not too worried, they were peeking a little at the end of the photoperiod. I'm more worried about the fishes and the brain coral, but the fishes will need some time to adjust anyhow (I expect this) and I'm not sure what a happy brain coral looks like. The brain refused mysis today, but doesn't have any signs of losing flesh or bleaching, so it is probably fine. I'll let the experts be the judge of that tomorrow

[karazy]

haha, that firefish does quite the disappearing act. when i bagged him up, the second i put the net in the tank he was gone. i literally could not find him anywhere.
thankfully he was out again in 20 minutes.

[BlueAbyss]

Yeah the firefish is rarely seen... mostly at feeding time and a while after when he comes out for bits of mysis. And then darts back in to the rock

Anyhow, without further ado... the new, improved, greatly upgraded GhettoReef!

FTS...


Closeup of the green and red open brain... seems to be quite puffy today but still rejected the mysis...



Hector's Goby, seems to be sifting sand, eating algae (picking at the rocks anyhow, bare or not), and was relatively visible today. He's pretty entertaining, I hope he does well. He has been named Toby by my friend... I have a feeling it will stick.


Pink paly rock above (I expect these will turn fluorescent pink with streaks on the disc), single green mushroom below. This mushroom was much more expanded in the store, I suspect that there is a lot more flow in my tank than the tank in the store, so it looks a lot different here than it did there... but I'm super happy with it


This it the zoa rock that I bought at the same time as the pink palys, also quite brown but I expect changes here also... I really like this rock because it has some sponges on it (that don't seem to be rotting away and most of which was on the top side of the rock where it would have gotten some light... maybe photosynthetic?) and it HAD a whole lot of tiny fanworms on it but these may be getting preyed on by one of the crabs, since there seems to be less of them today... we'll see what happens over time.




A couple zoa frags (one is fresh cut so it's not opening fully yet)...



Now I need the orange zoas to open, and the firefish to be a little more active (so I can get a picture!). And the brain coral to start eating... it worries me that it won't eat.

[karazy]

that green mushroom looks great in your tank.

[BlueAbyss]

Yeah I thought so too... hope it's happy and decides to multiply. Thanks for all your help in the store, BTW... much appreciated (and I felt sort of lost in these stores at times, being new in the hobby and all).

[karazy]

Originally Posted by BlueAbyss

Yeah I thought so too... hope it's happy and decides to multiply. Thanks for all your help in the store, BTW... much appreciated (and I felt sort of lost in these stores at times, being new in the hobby and all).

no problem man. must be hard not having an LFS