Hi everyone
It's been a couple of weeks now since i last updated so it's time for another, and unfortunately it's gonna be a biggen with masses of photos. (i know how much you hate photos
)
First off let me thank everyone for your lovely comments and answer some Q's
hi i really love the rope in your tank what sort did you use and how did you prepair it
Bae the rope i used was Polypropylene Rope which i purchased from a well known diy store and all i did to prepare it once the glue and putty had set was to soak it for 24 hours in a bucket of ro water and gave it a good rinse before attaching the algae and putting it into my tank.
What a fantastic thread and tanks! I am in awe!
If you don't mind me asking, what is the green algae? I really like that and would like it for one of my tanks
Thanks jenny, the green almost seaweed looking algae is caulerpa prolifera which i purchased on ebay - not too expensive but i have never seen it for sale in the local fish shops. If you would like some next time i'm doing a bit of a tidy up and a prune if you pm me your address i will send you some, or if you live close to us you can always pop round to pick it up. (langley spitting distance from heathrow airport.)
Ok where do i start with this update - quite a bit has gone on?
I've decided - I would like to share with you some pictures of the coral in the nano tank
First is our duncan nowhere near as nice as ski's but getting there
And a picture for Tina - our frogspawn
and finally the dwarf blue stars
With that out of the way we can get back to the main event the SH tank update.
I made the decision that my tank was lacking something - we all do it, and generally that decision is quickly followed by a rescape. Where the algae is growing so well on/in the sand creating an algae bed sunny jr., toady and the xenia were getting lost - they needed to be moved but where? the left hand side of my tank had nowhere big enough to fix them too and also has algae growing on it. The right hand side of my tank like the coral was lost to the algae as the rock was quite low, nothing for it but to build up the right hand side of the tank. I wanted a flat piece of rock to form a platform for the coral to sit on - but flat LR is like gold dust and couldn't find any in 4 different LFS. The other thing i was worried about was introducing unwanted hitchikers like crabs (as every batch of LR we have purchesed to date has had a demon crab/crabs in it and they would be impossible to get out of my tank now if they got in). We found the answer at the last LFS we went too - TMC fake rock. It was flat enough, light weight and best of all crab free!
I was a little concerned about how it looked out of the tank (some of it was very shiny and bright) but when it was in the tank it looked quite natural even if it's a bit bright. I'll let you judge for yourselves
Now i have my shelf up the corals went - i should mention at this point when we were searching for the LR we found some bargins. A beautiful piece of bubble coral for the nano (will get a pic and post at a later date) and another toadstool - hadn't planned to buy anymore corals particually another toadstool but it was soooooooo different, the head was 4 inches when open, long tenticles with green tips. The bubble cost £25 and the toadstool £10. I had to have it! I don't have a picture of him (toady2) open yet but as soon as i do you'll see it.
Here's a close up of the shelf with the corals on - not sure on final placement but at the moment i like it.
As with most of your tanks ours also have been suffering from the extremely hot weather. The frag tank and the baby SH tank upsairs reached a whopping 32 degrees and the tanks downstairs were only fairing a little bit better with the SH tank reaching 29 and the nano 31. The tanks upstairs and the nano didn't seem to bad - not great but everyone was out and eating. However the SH's ideal temp is 24 and they were suffering - the corals were sulky at one point i thought i was going to lose the xenia, and the SH's were unhappy - they weren't coming out of they're hiding spots and weren't eating much at all which was a cause for concern as SH can go down hill very fast if not eating.
So as they are predicting a hot summer this year and i couldn't take the summer of work to have the tank open and fans on etc to keep it cool we had to bite the bullet and buy a chiller unit. D+D DC300. problem sorted right? wrong the problems just started - the pumps i ordered to pump the water to the chiller was delayed (this was Tues 30th and still haven't arrived) So had to find a way to use my exsisting pump. A trip to the LFS some jiggery pokery with the pipes and connectors and haypresto 3 hours later one chiller unit up and running and once again happy SH's.
Here are a few photos of the process.
Let me introduce to my guard cat Teal'c who loyally guarded the chillers till the other half was home to help fit them.
And now the reason he was guarding them so loyally (note what's on the left)
The pipework - which was hours of frustration
First pipe in place
The drilling done for the second pipe
Pipe work done
Chiller working
No baby SH's yet - fingers still crossed. We thought saturday night was it (it wasn't) but on one of the many checkups of him saw lots of small white things floating around the tank - upon closer inspection one of the cleaner shrimp had released their larve and these were the white things floaty round the tank.
Picture time
and a vid (finger crossed)
I'm not trying to raise them this time but thinking of giving it go in the future.
And i think that brings as to the end - One last thing is i want to show you how well sunny jr. is doing. He has loads of new heads forming and looks really good.
Sunny jr. not long after i brought him
And sunny jr. now 3 months on
And that's it - still got the second chiller to fit to the nano (waiting for pumps) but i think we're all up to date. Hope it wasn't too long and there was enough pictures for you all.
Hopefully baby SH news soon.
Kelwoo
