RuralReef 2.1

[BlueAbyss]

Grrr, just when thing are going great... and also, just when you think they're over for good...

So I lost both zoa frags behind the rockwork since they aren't glued down (I'll be tracking some sort of glue down this weekend). This necessitated moving the rocks to retrieve them... and then I couldn't make the rocks fit the same, so I needed to rescape.


I like this the best yet and everything is more stable than before. The frags reside on the front sandbed for the moment. Green palys are putting on another bud, everyone is eating well and looking good (the open brain eats greedily every day and doesn't seem to be regurgitating at night, score! ). Things looked so good after cleaning the glass (and missing a spot) and the water change that I decided that I will be doing more frequent water changes... the old water was slightly yellow, probably since I feed relatively heavily for a 10 gallon. Things looked so good, though, that I decided to make a FTS video.

Oh yeah I keep forgetting... the orange zoas are recovering and at least one polyp from each frag is opening now.

[BlueAbyss]

My tank has come alive...

I've suddenly noticed some new growth on things (and things growing where there were none). The pink zoas are budding, with pink sponge growing on the back of their rock, and a bubbly looking red algae growing from the top. The blue algae on the red-ringed zoa rock has added some growth, as has some greenish brown ferny looking macro. There are fanworms everywhere... even a purple one on the Vanuatu rock, in a hollow. The back of the tank has covered itself with little calcareous spirals. There is a pineapple sponge growing near the top of the tank, where the flow from the filter moves across a rock. I saw my little Asterina star, he's grown 2 more legs (so now has 5). And an unidentified snail that I will post a pic of here when I figure out what he is.

I have a 5.5 gallon waiting to turn into a `fuge for this tank. In the process of figuring out how to work it... more to come on this.

[BlueAbyss]

Pics...

The snail has been IDed as a Stomatella... I thought these guys were small, this guy is almost an inch long fully extended!


FTS: about 2 hours ago.



Happy brain coral...


Miscellaneous coral pics... I finally got the frags mounted on individual rocks. No glue. This way they aren't attached to the live rock (well, on rubble pieces).




And Apollo. I tried to get a shot of Toby but the lights went off.

[BlueAbyss]

Things looked really great after the water change yesterday, so I thought I'd share a few pictures.

FTS:


I have another 10 gallon, a 5 gallon, and a 2 gallon Tupperware container that will be set up as a display 'fuge and 'nursery' tank, a 'bubble breaker' tank, and a CSD, respectively. I would like to add some of the easier SPS to this tank, but I'm not sure if SPS and the brain coral can coexist... I feed heavily since I really want him to do well. There are a few spots with somewhat turbulent flow on some of the higher spots in the tank, I would like to try them there. We'll see how things progress.

Pics!

I've been having trouble getting good pictures of these pink zoas. This is as close as I have come to getting a good representational photo of them. They are multiplying though






I call these orange zoas 'Evan's orange zoas of wonder' They haven't started multiplying yet, but they have colored up.


This macro, Dichtyota spp., popped up and has added some much needed color variety to the tank...


Featherdusters of all colors and sizes are also making their home here.


EDIT: OOO! I forgot this one (but it's just a texture shot of the Vanuatu rock).

[BlueAbyss]

So, over time a few of the pink zoas have shriveled and started looking 'moldy'. I moved them to a spot with a lot more flow and light a few days ago, in the hopes that whatever it is that is affecting that colony will work itself out... I have not been able to ID any of my zoas or palys, so I don't really know if they should be in low flow or high flow, low light or high light. All of the polyps are open and the flow from one of the filters runs right through the colony, and I have noticed some change in polyp size (to be fair, they are now basking around 4" from the MH bulb and I'm surprised that they have fared so well... no photoinhibition, so maybe they like high light?).

I fragged my green paly colony, ending up with a frag with 4 polyps, the original colony of 7 polyps, and a single polyp. I used a sharp knife to cut the mat where it was encrusted on rubble, but one of the polyps was sort of hanging in no man's land (just has a tiny chunk of rock it's encrusted to) so I have given it a place of it's own. Another couple months and I should have 3 nice little green colonies.

I also fragged some of the 'red ring' zoas (which might be a really small paly by the way the polyps look attached... just like the paly), and I discovered some of these same zoas attached to another rock, I lost these polyps a while back and now I discover them at the back of the tank Sweet. These zoas will peel off the original colony rock with some work, since there seems to be coralline algae underneath the polyps. Strangely, they are also attached to each other quite strongly but didn't need to be cut apart. So, zoa or paly?

I've also been working on evenly bending plasic pipe. I need to make a 1.5" U tube to connect the 10 gallons together, and BAM!... instant fuge. I'll move some of the rock rubble from the rubble pile to that tank, and give it a scoop of sand (and some new sand). It will also get some new rock, and a 10K DIY MH, and some macroalgae. And not much else, maybe when the tank gets going Toby will move in.

No pictures yet, I haven't gotten that far

[BlueAbyss]

Some new pictures, from this afternoon at feeding time.

FTS:








No idea what kind of algae this is, but it looks cool and only seems to be growing on the Vanuatu rock.




Enjoy! I'm working on my continuous siphon overflow this weekend, so we'll see what comes of that

Oh almost forgot, I've dropped 4 hours from my photoperiod in the morning. I had a discussion with someone about my long photoperiod, and they've convinced me that I'll get better color on my corals with a shorter photoperiod. So, I'm running an experiment and we'll see what changes happen over the next few months. I want to add a DIY skimmer and a second tank to the system, mostly to increase stability since I plan to add some SPS soon.

[BlueAbyss]

Well... I'm not entirely happy with what I've done, but it's different and it will likely grow on me.

Front FTS:


Side FTS:


Back FTS:


The 'sump'...


The 'overflow'... no more scum on the surface of my water, and the water level never changes


The 'scape took me a few days to come up with something that looked good and was stable. Again, not entirely happy with it... but who is totally satisfied with the way their tank looks

[christyf5]

Don't forget you'll need a final pic for December 1, thats next Tuesday!

[christyf5]

Final tank pic due tomorrow December 1st (if no final pic, the last FTS in this thread will be used).