My 29g Reef - former AP24.

[Nebthet]

I can understand a hermit wanting a shell like that, but my hermits are tiny compared to that shell. If they grow large enough to fit that thing I think I am gonna call guiness book of records and check my water for steroids. LOL. The shell is just a little smaller than my closed fist.

Yes, I am aware that Xenia spreads quickly. It is for this reason I think I am going to keep it on the shell as I can remove it very easily and quickly from the water, prune off what I dont want to keep of the Xenia when it gets out of control and place it back within a few minutes.

[Nebthet]

Well, I have some good news and bad new for today.

Yestarday I received my package from J&L Aquatics in Canada. It had my chemi-pure, purpleup, tap water conditioner for my freshwater tank and the Koralia 1 I had ordered.

I put the Koralia into the tank, after rinsing it off of course and wow, the power out of that. My hammer coral was like what the heck?? but got used to it. Unfortunately, the xenia hasnt seemed to like the flow from the koralia either. It was looking real nasty today and has stuff coming off of it like string pieces and small little particles like it was melting apart.

Moving it to a lower flow area didnt seem to help so I have taken it out of my tank right now and put it in a plastic bag with half old water and half new water and switching out a bit. I am letting it float in the back area where it can still get some light but won't impede the flow from the rest of the tank. I also did a little over a 10% water change in the tank itsself just incase it was releasing bad stuff.

Does anyone have any ideas what would cause this? Just a picky coral that didnt like the upgraded flow? or could it be something else.

My parameters both before and after the water change were fine.

Before:
PH: 8.3
Salinity: 1.022
Alkalinity: 4 meq/L
Ammonia: free = 0, total = 0.00 (after the 30min wait)
Nitate: 0.5
Nitrite: 0

After:
PH: 8.3
Salinity: 1.0225
Alkalinity: 4.5 meq/L (9dkh)
Ammonia: free = 0, total = 0.00 (after the 30min wait)
Nitate: 0.2
Nitrite: 0

[Nebthet]

Ok well I ended up cutting the end off the Xenai with a pair of scissors. After a good shake in some salt water I put it back in the tank. The cut areas this morning look well healed now with just a couple little brown spots. So it looks like it is on the mend a bit.

I now have dubbed him stubby. I am hoping that new polyps start growing on it in a couple of days.

[Nebthet]

So here is a pic of what is left of my Xenia now. 24hrs after I cut the tops off.




The tops are not flat but have rounded themselves out and have become stiff again instead of flopping over. I would have figured if it was going to continue to deteriorate it would have over the last 24hrs. Also the colour is coming back.

Do you think it will survive okay? or am I giving it false hope? Has anyone else had this sort of issue with Xenia before?

[Nebthet]

Well I have some updated picks today. I got some frags off of a local guy who was selling them from his tank.


Front tank shot



Hammer and little green zoas on right.


Close up of the Green Zoas


Atcinic shot of the green zoas.


My Xenia, with small new heads starting.



Orange and Brown Zoa


Candy Canes and my peppermint shrimp behind.


Atcinic Shot of the Candy Canes and Orange/brown zoas.


Mushroom Garden


Another front tank shot.


I have a small toadstool in there too but I wasnt able to get a decent pick of it. I will try again later.
Enjoy

[Nebthet]

Here are the rest of the frags and one heck of a large piece of live rock with GSP on it that I had to split up with a hammer and chisel to make room for it. It gave me 2 good sized colonies, some small frags and a nice clam was growing on the underside, with a couple Paly's.

The amount of rock with it also took me up over 20lbs of rock in my tank, so that is good for filtration. It also gave me some rubble to work with for the filter system.

I performed a 12% water change after finishing adding everything in there since the water was mussed up, and I have extra water prepared to do continual small changes through out the next two weeks to help with the bioload and doing frequent testing of the parameters.

My next purchase wont be until February sometime, when I get a small BTA, black sun coral and two clownfish.

Here are some pics.

Front tank shot without flash.


with flash


The clam. I have no idea what type it is right now. Anyone have any ideas?


More Candy Canes


Another shot with my peppermint shrimp


Blasto Merletti with the Toadstool behind it.


Peppermint checking out the GSP as soon as it was in place.


On my next day off work I am going up to the hardware store to find some egg crate and acrylic so I can change from the stock lighting to the 130 watt PC's I have. I just have some other rearranging to do first on another project I am working on.

Please let me know what you think.

[Nebthet]

Some more updated pics for the New Year.


FTS showing the removal of the Aquapod stock hooding and replacement with the Odyssea 130w pc with 12,000k bulb, atcinics and moonlights.
It is sitting on top of a 0.220 thick piece of Acrylic panel cut to fit in the shelving space (due to my stupid cats to keep them from falling or trying to drink the tank water... )
I was prepared wit egg crate to use as well, but have found it unnecessary with the acrylic.


Atcinic wit flash FTS


The Hammer all happy as usual. He has grown 1.5 inches back over his skeleton towards the back of te tank as I was hoping when I put him in that spot.
You can see the colour and density of the GSP on the lower left.
A red hermit is sitting beside the clam shell. It shot out a nice pile of crap just as I was taking the pic.
The Xenia on the shell as you can see has come back nicely and it is pulsing happily now. There are several seperate stalks forming, but they are small yet.


Lastly, a close up image of the Blasto Merletti. It as plumped up realy nice and has started touching the rock it is butted up against. I am hoping that in time, it will start growing over the rock.


I am waiting for an order of 3heads of Aussie Duncans, an Acropora Nano frag and an Acropora Suharsonoi frag (which is a deep water Acro) to come in. I thought I would give the Acro's a try with the higher, newer light and placing them closer to the surface of the tank and since fragalot.com has an awsome boxing week sale going on right now where all of these were only $10 each + $45 shipping. I went for it. Of course I will have plenty of pics to show when they come in.

Let me know what you think.