Way over due update...

So it's been some time since the last update to everything or even a just a general post on something haha. Things have been pretty busy around here with work, moving my roommate out and finally getting things back in order in the apartment. The last post I did revolved around the baby rock flower anemones that I had, ~120 in total. Sad to say they didn't make it. Due to a huge hair algae outbreak in the tank, they were smothered and the ones that made it past the outbreak got lost in the rocks because they were to small for me to save.

When the outbreak started, I didn't think it would be that big of an issue. I moved what babies I could reach to a dish in the tank so I knew where they were and could target feed them when I fed the rest of the tank and they would, hopefully, stay away from the algae that was covering the rest of the rocks. Soon that wasn't even enough. As I fought the algae, I moved the babies to a breeder box on the side of the tank. That was a bad move. Soon the algae was in there as well. I then decided that I would move the remaining babies to their own 3 gallon tank. I don't know if it was the move or something else, but they soon disappeared...

I dismantled the 20 gallon in attempt to rid it of hair algae. I had some nice rock that was curing in a bucket that I decided to use. New sand was bought and an internal filter was made using acrylic and put into the tank. There's the overflow compartment that I can put a filter pad and a Phosphate remover pad in. Under that is an area for Cheato, since it's growing like a weed in the sump of the 75 Gallon, then there is the return section with a powerhead for a return pump.

The goals in doing this:
To be able to house the cheato in the tank to help with the algae.
Get rid of the ugly HOB filter.
Increase flow in the tank to kick crap out of the rocks and keep it suspended to get sucked into the overflow.
Give the tank a "cleaner" look.
Most of all: set the tank up the right way from the beginning...

When I first set this tank up I did so in a rush. I wanted an awesome Rock Flower Anemone garden. What I ended up with was a massive headache and a major mess I was always trying to clean up. Learning my lessons, I let the tank go for a month without anything in it. Then added the Cheato when I started to see algae growing on the rocks. ~20 small Limpets and ~30 small unknown snails were added to the tank shortly after that from the 75 display to start reproducing and help with the algae. After I was sure everything was good to go, I added the anemones to the tank with a couple other snails to clean up the remaining algae and keep it gone. One month later, everything is going great and will hopefully stay that way.

I'll be looking to add to the 6 Anemones in the tank to make a nice little colony of them with the hopes of them reproducing again and being able to raise some of them to maturity. Not much is out there as far as breeding these guys in our tanks. Most of it is just luck. I'm hoping to be able to put my experience with it all on here to help those who might want to do it as well. These little guys really are a great addition to a tank for people from expert hobbyists to the new people getting into the hobby.

Baby Rock Flower Anemones!!

So as I've said in past posts, I want to breed Rock Flower anemones. Well it seems that that has happened! Over the past month I've found 7 small baby nems throughout the tank, all different sizes. From what I've read of others experiences they will be different colors then the adults. I'm still not sure who the parents are, but I have an idea about the fathers since I've only seen two of them spawn and those are the big red one and the big green one.

Some of these babies are tiny! The latest one I found is about he size of the end of my dropper for my refractometer haha. They all seem to be doing well and I've corralled them in a small dish with rubble and sand to keep them from disappearing. The bigger of the two are big enough to accept a small Omega 1 pellet, but the other 5 I'm still feeding plankton. They aren't showing any real color yet, but I figure it's still early and the two bigger ones with start showing some soon since their pattern is developing.

I was trying to get them to spawn this spring, reading that they normally spawn around the spring solstice (some time around March 20th), but that hasn't happened and I'm not sure if it will. Both of my males seem to be a little stressed for some reason that I cant find. The big red one has it's stomach all puffed out and has been that way for about a month or more. It's still looking good besides that and accepting food. The large green one just keeps standing tall and wont calm down and flatten out like he should be. The only thing I can think of would be the lights, but the other nems I have in the tank all seem fine, nice, flat, and open.

At some point I will do a write up of all my experience with these guys as well as what I've collected from around the net for my reference as well as sharing this collection of information since I've see lots of others interested in getting these gorgeous little guys to breed.

Long Overdue Update

So it's been a long time since I've done anything with this blog. In my defense things got a little busy... I got a job offer from a company in Chicago, had to find a place and move within a month, go to some training within that month, take down all the tanks and get everything ready for the move. All while still working and going to school haha. It's been about a year since I've actually posted anything. There have been some losses and some gains during the whole process. I lost the vast majority of frags I had in the frag tank from the move. My fish died from being kept from new water for to long. My banded brittle starfish almost kicked the bucket, but I got to him just in time. Here's the newish setups.

40 Gallon Breeder
This tank has mostly remained the same. Same corals, same livestock, everything. The few changes that were made include moving the hang on breeder box that was on the 20 gallon over to here as a refugium, building a small frag rack for the side of the tank and keeping all the surviving frags over here. The fish have been replaced and are all doing amazing. Yes, I know... People will say that a blue tang belongs in a bigger tank. Well there is plenty of room for him to swim around, plenty of places for him to hide and we've become very good buddies haha.

Bayer Dip and Tank Update

So as of today the Red Bugs on the Blue Stag have not returned so I'll call that a success. However, after dipping the zoa frags a few times it seems that the Byprosis is just as resilient as ever. It kind of faded away for a day or so looking like it would die off, but was back a couple days later in full force. I need to find a way to take care of this stuff cheaply. Yes I know, some of you may say that there is nothing cheap about this hobby and I will agree to some point, but the point of this blog is to find a way to keep reefs somewhat inexpensively. The majority of us, including myself, don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on keeping reefs.

Corals Under LED's!!

For the longest time I've admired the color of corals under blue LED's. To me they look so much more eye catching than when they are under other actinic lighting. Capturing that color in photos has always been on the back of my mind, but every time I've tried it I failed miserably. Until yesterday.

After I finished with the water change and frag rack replacement yesterday, I figured I would grab the camera again and try to capture that amazing color again. Photo after photo just kept turning out too blue or purple. I took a look online and realized that I had forgot the most basic step in video and photography: White Balance. I felt so stupid afterwards since I had taken so many video and photography through high school and college. I set the camera's white balance to custom, took a picture of an empty spot on the frag rack, set the custom white balance to balance off of that picture and started shooting again and with a couple minor adjustments to some of the other settings, I had my photos. Now all I need is a macro lens... These are some of the results:

 

 

RBTA update!

So when I got these two little guys, well two halves of a little guy, they had just been split on accident by the seller. I was about 90% sure that they would be fine and it turns out I was correct. Within the two weeks I've had them they've healed up nicely and are accepting what I give them for food which is usually mysis every other day and a few small chunks of deboned silverside on the weekend. Next time I feed them I'll try taking a video of them feeding along with my rock flowers who greedily accept anything haha but a pic for now is all I have which is not the best due to the LEDs.

Frag Swap Goodies

Some new additions to the frag tank and display that I got at the Flint Swap yesterday.

Two halves of a Rose Bubble Tip Anemone.


A red, white, pink and yellow Rock Flower anemone.


Some blue and yellow zoa. Still have to figure out the name of them.


A Hawkins Blue acro (back) and a purple and blue encrusting Montipora.


And lastly a 2 headed frag of torch which will hopefully get to a nice size so my clowns can play in it. They miss their frogspawn that died in the crash a couple months ago.