Nebthet's 56g Reef

[Nebthet]

Well I went to Toronto and picked up some SPS from a fellow hobbyist from another site. Nematoad. Some may know him here, he goes by another name, shrimp something, but I cannot remember it right now.

I have to say I am very happy with my purchase. He kept them in his tank after cutting them for a couple of weeks to ensure they were well healed before I got them.

When I brought them home I did a quick water change in my tank of only 5%, temp acclimated the sps and put them in. Within an hour the polyps were extending on all of them.

These are all nice healthy frags. (These are the quality of frags a certain seller should be giving to people ...)

So here are some before and after 1 hr pics.

Dendro



MontiCap



Digis



Green Slimer



Bottlebrush



Here is my cleaner shrimp checking over the frags. He went through all of these and was finished with them in less than 5 minutes. He is my first indicator on whether or not a coral or frag received is healthy.


and here are a couple other pics of stuff in my tank too.



This guy is really starting to regrow now. Sorry for the crappy pic, my fish are camera whores and kept getting in the way.

[Nebthet]

Ok, time for an update, it has been a few weeks.

I have finally removed the container from my system and let my baby Onyx's roam free within the tank.

My main reason for doing this is because I believe the container was leaching phosphors into the tank since right after the cyano algea started going haywire.
So now with the container removed and I have reduced my lighting to 6hrs a day right now with water changes it has started to disipate.
I have to get new chemi-pure this week and I am going to buy seperate activated carbon to help out as well, I am at my 6 month mark for them.

So here are some pictures.

Duncans


Frogspawn in actinic


The MontiCap has healed fully now. You can see the green flourescents in the actinic shot.



Digis are doing nicely. The purple tipped is really purple now and the orange polyp has green and blue skin, and not brown underneath.



These zoas are super troopers and have overgrown a couple places where aiptasia had taken root.


Red Mushie under actinic


My regrowing acropora. You can finally see the green colour coming through. Any idea of the name?


Suncorals and Dendros



Finally Pics of my baby clowns. Some are blurry some similar, but they show them free in the tank now and I think they may finally be developing colour.

I have been very lucky that neither of my 2 larger clowns, Big Momma and Jigsaw, have been overly aggressive towards the babies. I think that is mainly due to the fact I kept them in the container within the same tank so they could see each other.

They all keep to opposite corners of the tank from each other. Big Momma and Jigsaw have paired up together. They make their hourly rounds and check in with the babies making sure they submit to them, but there has been no fin nipping or other unneccesary roughness.

On another note, my blue damsel doesn't seem to give a crap about the babies being lose in the tank. He doesn't bother them what so ever, even when he is among them trying to score some food.


Runt




Runt and Omen



Omen: It is not a very clear picture, but I used it to show that I think this is the darkening of the skin just before the black coloration starts coming in. I am keeping my fingers crossed.


Omen, Jigsaw and Runt: Jigsaw doing his hourly duty and checking up on the babies.

[rkelman]

Everything looks great. Keep up the good work.. How about a FTS?

[fishytime]

Your not at all worried about your "big buck" clowns killing each other in the same tank? I would be.....

[Nebthet]

Originally Posted by fishytime

Your not at all worried about your "big buck" clowns killing each other in the same tank? I would be.....

Actually they have been extremely passive with each other. They really don't bother each other too much and both the larger clowns go over to the little ones frequently and there is no chasing around any more, they all rub up against each other and then back off to their respective corners of the tank.

Now the one thing I had been informed, which helps, is to always keep your clowns in pairs and they will be less likely to fight. Now if I had only one baby in there, there would more of a change for the male to take out the other male and there seems to be some good research to support this.

Either way, just in case, I do have a 25g set up just in case.

A think the success factor also came by keeping the babies within a container in the same tank, so the other two clowns were able to see them all the time over the last 5 months, and the younger clowns would do the submissive dance to them through the container.

In the wild, clownfish have tendancy to live in groups within a large anemone with one female, one male and a bunch of unsexed adults. I think within our aquarium standards, it depends on the size of the tank a person has and how the new fish are introduced.

Most hobbyists get their fish as adults and introduce them that why, however I think if you can get your hands on baby fish, less than an inch and raise them yourself within the same tank where the other fish can see them and not feel threatened by them, then there is a much higher chance of survival.

[rkelman]

I agree. There is the off chance that they will start to fight when they get older but I think its more likely they will be ok with each other. You'll have 1 Female 1 Male 1 unsexed. As long as they tolerate the unsexed guy you will be fine.

[Nebthet]

Well, there will be two unsexed ones in there..

So I went up to Jim's today (fortyfathoms) and got some stuff, I have even had a homicide in the tank already.. shown below. Here are the pics.

Bengaii Cardinal: This guy is smaller than Omen, at 1.5 inches



I bought two peppermint shrimp to help take care of my aiptasia issue. They quickly became an expensive snack for my cleaner shrimp.


Ultra Crocea Clam. Approx 3".



Elegance Coral: Several shots as it expanded.





Mandarin Goby. Looks like Red with green strips. He has already been going around the tank and pouncing on pods, so here is hoping he gets fat.





Mid-tank shot