Rollermonkey's First Upgrade

rollermonkey · Feb 28, 2014

One Central American Red-eared Blenny, from Diver's Den heading into QT:

My 4-year-old daughter has decided that since the fish has 'eyelashes' that it must be a girl.

I didn't realize that the red 'ears' are actually more like eyelids. Weird. Good news is I dropped an herbivore pellet in there and she immediately started picking at it.

I'll check and see if the zoa colony has opened up and get a picture if it has...

Fishlee · Feb 28, 2014

rollermonkey said:
Surprise delivery!

My ReefCleaners order was supposed to get here tomorrow, based on USPS's service commitment, but surprise, surprise, a government agency that performed better than it was required to!

I'm not going to post pictures of the algae, but here's the snail piles:

"18" Nerites:

(Actual quantity: 51, DOAs? Probably zero, most are already upright and open within ten minutes of opening the bag.)

"26" Florida Ceriths:

(Actual quantity: 32, unless any grew legs and metamorphosed into hermits, DOAs unknown, these do tend to wake up a little slower.)

"16" Nassarius:

(Actual quantity: 20 DOAs: unknown)

"50" Dwarf Ceriths

(Actual quantity: 185-ish based on an estimate using snails per square inch in the bag, DOAs: unknown, but many are already moving and they were the last ones into the tank)

Not shown:
1 electric-blue hermit, 1 scarlet hermit and two striped leg hermits. These were the first bag I opened, and had already catapulted themselves off the rock tower I placed them on so I could ID the species as they woke up, AND run clear across the whole tank in every direction, before I was even done opening bags.
1 emerald crab. It scurried into a crack within seconds of touching down.
2 clumps of Chaeto, one clump of Red Gracilaria, about 8 Ulva rhizomes and a quart bag of pods.

As a brand new tank. With no detritus or extra nutrients i would think your poor cuc might starve to death

rollermonkey · Mar 2, 2014

Fishlee said:
As a brand new tank. With no detritus or extra nutrients i would think your poor cuc might starve to death

Where would detritus come from? Who puts fish in before the CUC?

I've been cycling the tank for six weeks, and as for nutrients: there's been diatoms for two weeks and starting last week, algae blooming all over the place, so there's got to be something in there. Heck, I think I might see some cyanobacteria, so HIGH nutrients might be a bigger problem than low nutrients. Give me some credit, K?

rollermonkey · Mar 7, 2014

Sorry about the lighting on some of these...

Blenny is very protective of her food.

For each, I'm posting one immediately post-dip and one after an hour in the DT.

Frag #1 purple montipora capricornis

(This had been sharing a frag with a green monti cap, but it came off the plug)

Frag #2 green montipora capricornis (bonus frag)

(this was the frag that had the purple on it)

Frag #3 "wow toxic" psamacorra sp

Frag #4 'blue eyes' trumpet (Caulastrea sp.)

Frag #5 'appleberry' montipora capitata

(I actually forgot what color this is supposed to be... turquoise maybe? )

(on the right)

Frag #6 unknown zoanthid (probably miami vice)

on the right and still VERY ****** off...

Frag #7 unknown zoanthid (bonus frag)

(This is in the picture just above, on the left. No other zoas in this order.)

Frag #8 turquoise discomas mushroom

(Not sure why no frag plug / frag prison...)

I just deposited it inside a small hole and I'm hoping it stays put... Couldn't really get a picture.

Frag #9 'sea dreams' (?) ricordea mushroom (I think, this ID and #10 may be backwards)

Frag #10 ricordea mushroom (bonus frag)

(foreground)

Frag #11 duncans

(on the left)

rollermonkey · Mar 7, 2014

...apparently only allowed to have 21 images per post... so part two, I guess:

Frag #12 'caribbean dream' leptastrea

(foreground)

Frag #13 'birds of paradise' birdsnest

(background)

Frag #14 'mystic sapphire' favia

Frag #15 'rainbow delight' chalice

Frag #16 'fiery' digitata

...or is it a ***** coral?

Coral #17 pink fungia plate coral

Coral #18 purple rim fungia plate coral

Oh, and a bottle of tigger pods and another pound-ish of chaeto.

I think that's everything.

Oh. New FTS, right?

Bam.

Probably nothing to update for a while, apart from when/if some of the corals open up better.

The next steps are to finish the blenny QT, move the blue assessor and helfrichi firefish from the 'cube, before I can get the Red Velvet Fairy Wrasse pair delivered.

But progress is progress.

jkirk · Mar 9, 2014

Very nice start, i like the diy a350 mount you made. Kessils really do make a beautiful spectrum

TJ's Reef · Mar 11, 2014

Dude, come on up for a visit and I'll send you home with some nice sized Coral frags/mini colonies for your Reef. Big Believer in 'Paying it Forward' so give me a call or shoot me a pm for address if interested bud.

Cheers, Todd