John,s Reef Journal {experience Newbie}

Looks like a finger leather to me, but it hasn't opened yet (polyps extended) May take a while but it will open. Looks a lot like mine only less lobes (but they will grow)
It goes that colour when its stressed (new from LFS) but I think it will come back a creamy colour with white polyps. Post pics when it acclimitises.
Nice pics of the new aquisition.
Regards
BigC

Thanks bigC your helps much appreciated as always the coral had only just been placed in the tank when that photo was taken it is much bigger now 3inch by 4inch approx across the top but the polyps have still not extended like you say it will take it a day or two to settle in then I will post some new pics once again thanks for your help

Yeah you'll see it a whole lot differently when it opens. Give it a bit of space when you aquascape with the corals as these can get big. Also they will retract (sulk) from time to time dont worry it will come back again in a matter of days.
Regards
BigC

Update on coral frags
Karen from cool corals emailed me yesterday to let me no she had posted the zoa coral frags.
She posted them as late in the day as she possible could to help reduce the shipping time which I thought was a really good idea. They arrived first thing this morning by royal mail. The packaging was really good and the corals were rapped in shredded paper to help keep them warm. I could not be happier with the over all experience from ordering off the net. I did have my doubts but Karen was at hand to answer all my questions and put my mind at rest. After acclimatizing them for 3 hrs they have now gone into the tank and the polyps have opened out really nicely and the color are really vibrant and the frag sizes are good {10 – 15 polyps on each}. I think if I was to buy frags of this size from my LFS I would be looking at paying £15 - £20 more for them {if I could get them from my LFS} so yeah really good value
So if your looking for good quality frags I can defiantly recommend giving Karens site the once over. The communication was excellent and the packaging was much better than I ever thought it would be and the corals are 5* for the price
<a href="http/www.freewebs.com/coolcorals/index.htm" target="_blank">http/www.freewebs.com/coolcorals/index.htm</a>

Excellent John
Just a word on the LFS front, vary rarely does your local get such colourful zoos, mostly they are dull looking browns with orange centres. If they did stock the more colourful ones i'd expect to pay top dollar for them. In any case they are usually attached to very large of pieces of rock and you struggle as to where to site them. I prefer frags as it gives you more scope on the aquascaping front. Nice aquisitions there John. Its always good to get recommendations about a particular site/dealer. Which makes this whole internet buying process less stressful.
Regards
BigC

I guess I am quite lucky because my LFS {it’s a marine only specialist} do get some lovely looking zoa, s in from time to time. But I agree with what your saying 100% bigC, that there usually attached to large piece of rock which could be difficult to place in the tank. I have also found that they normally have mushrooms ect growing on them as well which kind of spoils the look for me. So yeah it defiantly makes more sense to me to buy frags I know you don’t get the immediate visual impact that you would by filling your tank with large corals. But i have been told that these things grow pretty fast any way just how fast I don’t know. {Just thought off some thing how do you stop these things taking over the rock work?} by pruning them sort of speak?, don’t know if this is possible going to have to look this up {mite have to be dipping into the wedding funds to get a bigger tank on stand by }
But yep I have 4 medium sized corals which give me some thing to look at in the tank and the rest are going to be frags. I am going to be looking at getting some ricordea mushrooms next from a guy that you have made a recommendation on bigC again like you say it’s always good to get a recommendation on a particular site or dealer. Which makes this whole internet buying process less stressful?
THANKS AGAIN BigC/guys

Update
On the leather coral

As you can see in this pic the coral is now looking a lot healthier. It has now been in the tank for 1 week and today for the first time it has extended all off its polyps, {each polyp is about 1… 2 mm long} It was identified simply as a leather coral in my LFS so I have been looking around for information on it and well it looks like a Yellow Fiji Leather coral to me what do you guys think?
As for the zoas there doing really well they have already grown there is a couple of extra polyps on the green/orange frag. So yep they do grow really fast I read a bit on zoanthids by Eric Borneman he recons that One small colony of Zoanthids consisting of a mere six or seven animals can cover roughly a square foot of the rock with in a year and a half, and number in the hundreds. So it looks like I will have to be learning how to frag them

Definitely Sarcophyton Elegans, aka yellow fiji leather. Looking much healthier too, w2g

There you go a nice healthy looking Leather.

I am going to be looking at getting some ricordea mushrooms next from a guy that you have made a recommendation on bigC.

Click to expand...

You wont be dissapointed, only thing is keeping the bloomin things in the position you want them.
Regards
BigC

Well just finished the re aquascape
I have a cave in the bottom center where I plan to put a sun coral {when I think I have the experience to deal with its needs } and I have now positioned the rest of the corals where I think I want them. I have a plan to grow zoas up the left hand side and mushrooms and ricordeas up the right. with the leather and orange xenia coral right at the top and the green star polyps around on the right hand side. I would also like to get a hammer coral at some point I plan to put it at the bottom of the tank on the sand bed away from the rest of the corals.


Will try to get a better pic tomorrow when all the corals have settled back down and opened out sort of speak

Updated pic

Lookin Good John,
Hows your GSP doing these days
Regards
BigC

the gsp is doing really well, ive found that it likes a higher flow over it and i'm feeding it with ocean nutrition nano reef coral food and phyto plankton.
the polyps have extended more and the colour's of all the corals are more vibrant now

Well its almost that time of the week again, I have 5 gallon of RO salt mix on the go {getting it ready for Saturday morning } I have also got some new rowa carbon 500ml & some rowa phos 100ml the directions for use say that the 500ml of carbon will treat up to 264 us gallons and phos will treat up to 106 us gallons

Here are my Questions
How often do you guys change your media?
What media do you use rowa carbon / rowa phos is there any thing else I should be using ?
Do you think I should put it all in {is it a case of more is better} or should I weigh it out properly?
Any comments would be much appreciated THANK YOU!!!!!!!

John for my tank I use just Rowaphos. I buy the 250ml tub with sock and I place around half of that in the sock and I replace it monthly.
Any more pics for us to drool over.
Regards
BigC