Blue gigantea

[Delphinus]

Hey, I gotta show SOMEthing once in a while to justify my post count. There are far nicer tank systems out there than mine, usually it's me looking at everyone else's tank thinking "mannnnnn, these guys are all showoffs."

The two things that have me a little concerned are it's complete lack of zooxanthellae (it's white, not brown) and it's not eating. But, it's pretty early yet so hopefully it will come around. One of my other carpets was similarly white at time of purchase and darkened up within a few weeks. Although it wasn't nearly this to begin with, so it might not be a fair to be comparing them yet at this point.

May 12, 2004:


June 21, 2004:


@Dave - yeah it is sitting about 8" right now on account of its folds. If it chose to lay out flat I'd guesstimate it's more like 10" diameter.

@Michika - Yeah, fitting it is a bit of a challenge. It's currently in the cube, sort of kitty-korner AND underneath the ritteri. It's summer so the ritteri is particularly huge and causing problems trying to be about 24" (it's bugging my clam in there ..).

@Drew - Yeah, I know, I'm predictable.. I was hoping to have seen some of the blues from the batch yours came from, but maybe they're not folks on Canreef.. So I had to take matters into my own hands.

[Monti-Man]

You know what though Tony.. Remember how you had said you thought that it was going to turn a more brown colour. You were right. I can see a very noticiable difference in the oral base and the outer tentacles for colour. I believe that both of the yellow ones that Drew and i got were bleached. But now after 2 weeks of lights and 2 feedings it is starting to change.It is starting from the outside in. But they are definetly getting darker.

When i feed mine the krill it was okay but not fast like it is with the tiger prawns. I feed it again today and it was gone in about 1 1.5 min. And the piece i feed is about a 1/2 inch that i soaked in selcon since last night. So you are right maybe it likes the bigger stuff.

I am sure all will be we'll. You are the most knowlesgeable when it comes to these guys so he is in the best hands.

Thanks for all your help with mine.

[Delphinus]

Day 6 update. Still not really a strong feeding response as yet, but has eaten small pieces of cut prawn when it was gently placed right on the mouth. Did notice the tentacles seem to be getting sticky, seems to be expanding a little more, although the mouth is not as tightly closed in today's pictures as it was on Saturday.

End-to-end diameter seems to be sitting at 8" but given that it's sort of potato-chipping itself in shape, I think if you took a measuring tape and followed along the contours it would measure closer to 12".

[michika]

Nice video! I love the way it moves.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Ditto. Nice flow, Tony....looks much more wavy-random than mine. Hmmm. Maybe I should stick one of my Koralia 3's in the tank (*sigh*...goodbye minimalist approach?....)

[digital-audiophile]

Tony,

Is this in the cube with your ritteri?

[Delphinus]

It is - it's just underneath the ritteri. I realize it doesn't belong in there long term but it was the only spot it would fit for now.

I tried a second video last night where I started off zoomed in on the carpet and then pulled back to reveal the ritteri above - thought it would be a neat effect, but 2 things kept me from posting it. 1) I had filmed it vertically, I thought it would be easy to rotate the frame 90 degrees (just like you could with a photo) but I couldn't figure out how to do that, and 2) when I pulled back enough to show the ritteri the exposure jumps off the scale. I might have had it on auto-exposure-lock. It looks like the sun is going supernovae. So I'll try again maybe tonight and see if I can do a better job this time.

The flow patterning where you see a displacement wave is caused by a maxijet with upgrade kit running off my wavemaker (a really long extension cord from one tank to the other). There are also two other MJ-upgrades but they are on full time. I found that placing them on a wavemaker is hard on the attachment bracket because they vibrate ever so slightly on startup. Eventually the little swing arm snaps off because of this. So I had an unused upgrade kit but no mounting bracket (because it had broken), so I used the standard suction cup mount for a Maxijet and just stuck the whole thing to the glass. So the fan shape flow output is more of a half-fan that follows along the glass. It's not really an ideal setup (this won't hold forever) but I do really like the flow effect I get from it.

[Delphinus]

Guess this is about week 5 for the blue. I've formally hit the panic button tonight and by that I mean I've removed it from my 110g cube and placed it into my 40g shallow tank, which is probably what I should have done in the first place, just didn't want to rearrange things in there to make it fit.

The problem is it doesn't eat. Week after week of .. just .. just doesn't eat, just doesn't eat, just doesn't eat, doesn't eat, doesn't eat. It's losing stickiness and even placing small chunks of prawn in the mouth it fails to swallow.

The main concern I had about it being in the larger cube is that the theivous pests of a peppermint shrimp and a cleaner shrimp do anything in their power to defeat any attempt to feed it. I've had it with them, I hate them, really anything with claws are not to be trusted. The cleaner shrimp was supposed to be something I was going to babysit for only 6 weeks, that was two years ago. I don't think the guy is ever coming back to get his shrimp. And the peppermint I only had because I hoped they would eat aiptasia, I started off with 5 and this is the big meanie who seemed to outlast the other 4. Of course they never touched aiptasia, just like the other 20 times I've tried peppermints for this purpose, they've just been a big disappointment. These shrimp are done in my book. I've laid a trap for them and once caught they are going out. If I catch them I will be putting them on the livestock for sale forum ... freebies. Frankly I don't care if someone uses them to feed their eels ... stupid things have crossed the line for the last time.

Anyhow, I'm still concerned that the lack of a feeding response of *any* kind will eventually spell out that this carpet is doomed, but at least in my 40g there is nothing to steal the food. Only things capable of it are the clownfish and they are the stupidest fish in the universe, so they shouldn't pose a serious threat on that front.

The purple tries to eat just fine, except of course that it can't because the food gets stolen every time. Yep .. I can't wait to get those stupid shrimp out of there.