Dick, I can't tell you how much I really enjoy following your thread. I enjoy all the visuals and store my pumpkin with the tidbits of knowledge I pick up along the way. And thank you for reminding us all that it is asking for a permit for disaster to push the envelope in our systems when our knowledge and experience does not support it. We all need to make our achievements in baby steps to maintain a stable environment.
__________________
The Following User Says Thank You to Skurvey Dog For This Useful Post:
Dick, I can't tell you how much I really enjoy following your thread. I enjoy all the visuals and store my pumpkin with the tidbits of knowledge I pick up along the way. And thank you for reminding us all that it is asking for a permit for disaster to push the envelope in our systems when our knowledge and experience does not support it. We all need to make our achievements in baby steps to maintain a stable environment.
Thanks Skurvey,
There is so much to learn in this reefing hobby. To complicate things it's evolving all the time. What we do today wasn't even thought of 5 or 10 years ago. It will continue to evolve as new and improved equipment and techniques evolve. Wise is the reefer that admits to not knowing everything. I certainly do not and find I learn something new all the time.
As an example, my post below will show how easy it is to have a setback.
Dick
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
That Orange Spotted Filefish is awesome. It sounds like you have hime eating everything except what they usually eat in the wild, which is fantastic. How long have you had him?
---
On another subject, you have quite a few hermits. I know this has probably been discussed to death, but I am finding the Dwarf Zebra Hermits (Calcinus laevimanus, formerly known as IPSF "micro" hermits) to be getting much bigger and pretty darn irritating and sometimes deleterious. Don't get me wrong, watching them is really cool; they are far more active and interesting than the sedentary Scarlet (Paguristes cadenati) hermits I have. However, the Zebras are pestering the snails, camping outside retracted Ceriths and killing them for the shells even though I just provided them with a dozen empty shells. These hermits look ridiculous navigating the live rock with these long cumbersome conical shells. The Zebra hermits are also climbing and perching on top of my Caulastrea furcata polyps on a regular basis, tromping on other Corallimorphs and Ricordea, and sometimes knocking over smaller unanchored things like a Turbo. All this would be excusable if they would stop eating meaty foods and start eating micro-algae.
Perhaps these hermits are just being "hermits", but I cannot imagine having a hundred of them unless they were Scarlet.
Everyone loves to tell of the good times in reefing. I think it's important to tell the tragedies, too.
For two years the Zoanthid colony below grew from about 30 polyps to well over 200 polyps. I had four total colonies about this size.
This pictures only a few, there were a couple of other colonies that I moved to other parts of the tank. Then one day they didn't open. Not too unusual because they always closed up at night. But when they remained closed for several days, concerns were raised.
I did an Iodine dip of 30 ml to a half gallon of seawater. I chose not to do a FW dip because of the extra stress on this already diseased stress colony. The above picture was an hour after the dip.
Two polyps of a different colony than above seemed to respond to the treatment.
Here you can clearly see what I think is a secondary disease (fungus?) consuming the dead polyps. This was very sad to witness the destruction of my favorite zoanthids!
I decided to "frag" off the two polyps above in the third picture. Plus I found one polyp separated from the rest that was healthy. I decided to discard the rest of the colony, well over 200 polyps.
Of the three polyps salvaged two aren't looking too good. The third is open and looking like it may survive.
This one above did have it's tentacles out a bit earlier but doesn't look too good right now. The other that wasn't looking too good is still not worth taking a pic of.
This may be the only survivor to a once thriving multiple colony of beautiful Blue Alien Eye Zonathids.
All this happened, from picture one to the last picture today, in a week and a half.
So, if you think you know everything about reefing, watch out, reality will jump up and smack you a good one!!!
Still, happy reefing.
Dick
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
That Orange Spotted Filefish is awesome. It sounds like you have hime eating everything except what they usually eat in the wild, which is fantastic. How long have you had him?
He is turning into quite an acquisition. He isn't afraid of anything in the tank including the 6" Sohal, who exerts his "authority" on everyone.
Here he is getting right in the mix at the veggie clip. I'm totally surprised at his tenacity and how he's adapted to "foreign" food stuff. I haven't seen him go after a polyp in days. That doesn't mean he hasn't, just that I haven't witnessed it. I still hesitate to give them a blanket OK recommendation. I would need to find another, or two, to confirm my suspicions. That being, current literature is out of date with reality. We'll see. I've had him for two months. On Monday I'm going to Ft Lauderdale to get another 100 bags of Aragonite. On the way back I'll swing into the LFS where I bought him. I'll see if they'll call me when another comes in.
I am experiencing the same problems with the Zebra hermits. I will recommend people NOT get them when ordering from IPSF. I've witnessed them doing the same things in my tank. When I find them perched on top of my SPS corals, that's beyond the limit. They are removed and literally tossed into the refugium. I've decided, when the aquaculture facility is up and running they will go into the LR curing tubs. Maybe not the initial curing tub but the secondary one.
Dick
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
I have a friend who has had a orange spot for a couple of years. The key is to get it to eat something other than polyps. She feeds hers frozen food.
A small number of these guys convert to food items other than live coral. Unless you are willing to feed it it's natural food for the rest of it's life (if it refuses substitutes) these fish should be left at the dealer.
I couldn't agree with you more, Renee. If you haven't read my thread on this guy and how I happened to acquire him, here's the link - And the May POTM Winner is ....
I don't advocate the average reefer getting an Orange spot File fish. Only the dedicated experienced aquarist with plenty of experience.
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
A purple tipped Acropora reflecting on the water's undersurface with the pumps off for feeding. I thought it was kind of neat.
A colorful Micromussa.
I'm going to have to go back into my archives for the name of this coral. It had fallen behind the LR and forgotten until I was doing some cleaning/rearranging and stumbled upon a very diminished, almost dead coral. I put it back up near the top and it's making a comeback. When ever I feed the corals, out come his tentacles. I've been spot feeding him with a mix of phytoplankton, zooplankton and Cyclopeze. He is responding to this TLC. I just can't remember what he is. Any guesses?
A shot of the center.
Dick
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
I am experiencing the same problems with the Zebra hermits. I will recommend people NOT get them when ordering from IPSF. I've witnessed them doing the same things in my tank. When I find them perched on top of my SPS corals, that's beyond the limit. They are removed and literally tossed into the refugium. I've decided, when the aquaculture facility is up and running they will go into the LR curing tubs. Maybe not the initial curing tub but the secondary one.
They are so lively compared to the Scarlets, so it is a shame. I will also be moving them to the display refugium when I finally have it set up. Good idea. For now, I continue to "airlift" the hermits off the Caulastrea to the far corner of the tank using turkey baster suction on their shell backs.
Is this "forsaken" coral your speciousa? It sort of looks like a Faviid. Hope it pulls through...
Yes this forsaken coral...
Was once this coral...
I'm sure it will pull through. What I'm wondering is, will it recover that beautiful color. So far it's not looking too good in the color department. We'll see.
Thanks for digging up the original. I knew it was in this thread somewhere.
To answer your other question about the similar looking corals. The top picture is a Bastomussa wellsi and the other a Micromussa species.
Dick
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
And thank you for reminding us all that it is asking for a permit for disaster to push the envelope in our systems when our knowledge and experience does not support it. We all need to make our achievements in baby steps to maintain a stable environment.
These hermits look ridiculous navigating the 
.