eschaton
Fishaholic
Well, I suppose it's time to update this again. I'll put up some pics later on tonight. A quick update as to what's been going on.
Major development was going to another LFS (actually a franchise of a chain) which also had a knowledgeable (and nice) manager. This store appeals to me because it's close and it has a cheapo frag bin with corals that only cost $17.99. I initally went in there to see what sort of tank-bred fish they had, but the frags were alluring.
I initally just wanted a mushroom or two to see if my tank was Coral ready, but the dude threw in a single polyp of Candycane, along with something called "brown button polyps, which is apparently some sort of stalked Zoanthind he swore would do well in my tank. I also picked up one additional fish, a blackline fangblenny. Fangblenny is a really nice little fish. He's taken to resting all night on the magfloat, which is cute but a bit unsettling as it means the top of his fin is just below the water line - makes me worry from there he'll be more apt to jump.
New corals are doing well. Button Polyps have opened up, and are both feeding on cyclopeeze and apparently photosynthisizing. I already see a few new polyps forming too. I'm hopeful the frag (which partially fell apart in the bag) will attach to the rock fairly shortly. Mushrooms have expanded well, and one of them seems to have split into two babies already - though it's possible that I there was a tiny one in the bag I missed when I poured out the water which somehow "found" the other small mushroom and attached itself. The candycane isn't doing so well - haven't seen it extend tentacles at all yet, and it hasn't eaten anything I've target fed), though the vermatid snails which hitchiked in on the frag are having a mucus trail party.
Peppermint shrimp never ate the Aiptasia. The same store I got the frags had a syringe I was looking for, so I injected kalkwasser into them and was done with it. Some minor damage to an adjoining sponge, but it has since regenerated.
Finally recieved my other saltwater bulbs in the mail. I now have two 10,000K 14 Watt, and 2 actinic 14 Watt bulbs, each in a seperate fixture. I'll be putting them on different timers today. Also got in the mail test kits for KH and Calcium, both of which tested A-OK yesterday. Also tested ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and phosphate yesterday, alll of which were at zero. I'll check my PH and SG (been topping off, but worried the salt spray which collects on my lamps might be cutting down on salinity) today.
Tank is physically looking much better. Algae is way, way down. There was some nasty bits on the "dick rock" that no one touched for weeks which are almost gone. Only remaining hair algae is stuck onto the heater and the cord of one of the powerheads. CUC (down one nerite who crawled onto a powerhead) seems to be doing their job just fine, though I am a bit let down with the hermits, as I'm fairly sure they've been killing dwarf featherdusters and spaghetti worms. If I get the chance I'll return two of the hermits.
Got stung by a bristleworm when moving a rock, and I didn't even feel it.
So everything's going smoothly. Any suggestions on the next step?
Major development was going to another LFS (actually a franchise of a chain) which also had a knowledgeable (and nice) manager. This store appeals to me because it's close and it has a cheapo frag bin with corals that only cost $17.99. I initally went in there to see what sort of tank-bred fish they had, but the frags were alluring.
I initally just wanted a mushroom or two to see if my tank was Coral ready, but the dude threw in a single polyp of Candycane, along with something called "brown button polyps, which is apparently some sort of stalked Zoanthind he swore would do well in my tank. I also picked up one additional fish, a blackline fangblenny. Fangblenny is a really nice little fish. He's taken to resting all night on the magfloat, which is cute but a bit unsettling as it means the top of his fin is just below the water line - makes me worry from there he'll be more apt to jump.
New corals are doing well. Button Polyps have opened up, and are both feeding on cyclopeeze and apparently photosynthisizing. I already see a few new polyps forming too. I'm hopeful the frag (which partially fell apart in the bag) will attach to the rock fairly shortly. Mushrooms have expanded well, and one of them seems to have split into two babies already - though it's possible that I there was a tiny one in the bag I missed when I poured out the water which somehow "found" the other small mushroom and attached itself. The candycane isn't doing so well - haven't seen it extend tentacles at all yet, and it hasn't eaten anything I've target fed), though the vermatid snails which hitchiked in on the frag are having a mucus trail party.
Peppermint shrimp never ate the Aiptasia. The same store I got the frags had a syringe I was looking for, so I injected kalkwasser into them and was done with it. Some minor damage to an adjoining sponge, but it has since regenerated.
Finally recieved my other saltwater bulbs in the mail. I now have two 10,000K 14 Watt, and 2 actinic 14 Watt bulbs, each in a seperate fixture. I'll be putting them on different timers today. Also got in the mail test kits for KH and Calcium, both of which tested A-OK yesterday. Also tested ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and phosphate yesterday, alll of which were at zero. I'll check my PH and SG (been topping off, but worried the salt spray which collects on my lamps might be cutting down on salinity) today.
Tank is physically looking much better. Algae is way, way down. There was some nasty bits on the "dick rock" that no one touched for weeks which are almost gone. Only remaining hair algae is stuck onto the heater and the cord of one of the powerheads. CUC (down one nerite who crawled onto a powerhead) seems to be doing their job just fine, though I am a bit let down with the hermits, as I'm fairly sure they've been killing dwarf featherdusters and spaghetti worms. If I get the chance I'll return two of the hermits.
Got stung by a bristleworm when moving a rock, and I didn't even feel it.
So everything's going smoothly. Any suggestions on the next step?
Immediately did a 10% water change (would do more but I have a limited amount of distilled water and no RO unit yet - I'll buy more water tomorrow). 
