Jill's 14 gallon Biotopia

drstratton · Oct 16, 2015

Just looked through your thread. I love your tank! I hope I have as much success with my new Pom Pom as you did with yours, sorry you lost it. My tank crashed 4 yrs ago and I was heartbroken, I lost everything. Except maybe bristle worms and any Aptasia hiding where I couldn't get them.

reeferKen · Oct 16, 2015

Sure do love this thread, your enthusiasm comes through and makes me more enthused

Congrats on your new pom pom looking forward to it. For the blueberry gorgonian, you can look up azox macro diet. A pump bottle. I think I read it was 9 species of food and and "neutrally buoyant, packed with energy and ideal in aquariums with Non-Photosynthtic specimens"

Ahruk · Oct 16, 2015

Thanks for all the compliments

Tank looks like such a mess right now as I'm still light acclimating a lot of new stuff, also dealing with a touch of hair algae. Currently testing whether it's related to the morning sunshine it's receiving, thus far covering the tank in the morning seems to have stemmed the spread and even slightly helped. (Although I've been dosing mag because my test kits been reading ~1200. My acans are looking unhappy and the test never gave me the same answer twice so I picked up a new test kit so... it might be that my mag is high we'll see...)

@drstratton Good luck with the pom pom crab, they're the best! Although you may have to get out a flashlight to spot yours as most are a lot shier then mine was. Sorry to hear about the crash, I can't even imagine how devastated I'd be. I'm glad your giving it another go after such heartbreak

@reeferKen Thanks! I am definitely enthusiastic about my tank (except when it comes time for water changes... xD) Thanks for the heads up about the coral food, that one looks really awesome, like the best I've seen (may have to wait until my next paycheck though as I blew all my coral funds at reef-a-palooza T_T). My only problem right now is that my gorg is never open when I want to feed him /sigh.....

Ahruk · Oct 18, 2015

Okay so just did a 5 gallon water change, reduced my light cycle and added purigen, carbon and GFO to overflow area to try to help with algae issues. Magnesium was high as I suspected which seems to be what was upsetting my acans.

On a brighter, less technical note I ordered some color photography gels for my cellphone and finally had some time to play around with them

First up, Me playing around with different color filters trying to get a good picture of my quickly growing montipora garden.

Now onto ZOAS!!!!

Tyree Orange Rainbow

My personal favorite zoa in my tank. First time I've beeen able to get an accurate picture of him. Some sort of Gold maul morph.

And finally no picture thread can be complete without an updated picture of my urchin <3

drstratton · Nov 5, 2015

Good morning! I have a question about the pom pom crab. Mine's been hiding during the day, but I finally got a good look at it last night. One of the Anemones was fully open but the other is kind of balled up. Did you experience that with yours? Thanks! How is your tank doing, anything new and exciting?

Ahruk · Nov 5, 2015

I didn't really experience that mine was out in the day quite a bit, however most pom Pom crabs are known to be nocturnal. The anemones they carry are non-photosynethic and the crabs will take care of their nutritional needs. From what I've read if one of the anemones dies they'll simply "frag" the other one.

Definitely some ups and downs with the tank this month. Hair algae been getting slightly worse and a growing cyano issue.... Been neglecting the tank a little the past couple of weeks due to crazy work schedule (T_T) Starting to mix my own salt water again because I found out that the store I've been getting mine from doesn''t do a good job changing out their RODI filters so hopefully that solves the problem. Also my fighting conch randomly died which is a total bummer. Coral all seem to been doing fairly good although all the montis except my new green plating monti have been looking SLIGHTLY off. The new green plating monti on the other hand is looking fabulous. I can see his polyps out and everything, honestly I kind of thought that type of monti didn't even have polyps xD.

Also just witnessed a fight between my puffy green acan and my acan echinata... It was very cool to see, my fluffy acan definitely lost but I hope he's okay. Here's some very poor pictures of the attack and the aftermath, try to ignore all the annoying corralline and cyano. That brown lump in the top right corner of the acan used to be a head...

My latest tank purchase was a new magnetic glass cleaner because mine was falling apart (Man I love those things!) Also just realized that I don't have any pictures up of my new favorite zoa in my tank, JF Acid reflux which I got at Reef-a-Palooza, will definitely have to snap a shot when the lights are on.

drstratton · Nov 6, 2015

Wow, sounds like you've had a lot going on! I hope you can get the gha under control quickly. Sorry about your conch, I thought one of my Halloween hermits died today, but it only molted. I don't think I've ever seen corals fighting, a video would have been pretty cool. Hopefully they will heal okay. Can't wait to see your zoa, I think that's the first coral I'm going to get. Just need to decide which ones. Thank you for the info on the Pom Pom, that's pretty cool if they can actually frag the anemones. Thanks for the update, looking forward to more!

Ahruk · Nov 7, 2015

Wish I could've gotten a video of when the acan first attacked but unfortunately I didn't get an opportunity to see that, just saw a spider web looking thingy holding the two acans together and knew one or both the acans were in trouble. While the fuzzy acan definitely lost some flesh and probably a head, he seems to be doing just fine. The echinata looks very happy and victorious xD

Did a much needed and very much delayed water change today and noticed what appears to be either a limpet or a baby trochus (while it looks more like a little limpet, I did put in a bunch of trochus eggs in my tank after a couple of snails my boyfriend bought spawned on the way home from the fish store

) Sorry for terrible picture he's in the back corner of my tank making it very difficult to photograph him.

Finally, a picture of my new favorite zoa, JF acid reflux. I had trouble getting the color balance just right but this is pretty close to in person. The skirt is SLIGHTLY more orange and the center is SLIGHTLY more purple then pink but as for brightness this baby stands out!

drstratton · Nov 7, 2015

I'm glad they are doing well! I had limpets in my tank before it crashed, it's so fun to have so much diversity in our tanks. Love the colors on that Zoa! I'm in the process of figuring out what corals I want in my tank.