Demasonisrule's 90G

[demasonisrule]

I loved my chalk bass, he was one of my favorite fish. Unfortunately, I lost him when I was battling red bugs. I'd add another, but with all the aggressive fish I have in the tank now, I think adding anything would be a bad idea. I can't say whether or not they do better in groups, as I've never tried of course, but mine did great singly.

 

[demasonisrule]

And so the great star polyp war begins...The #41#### things have caused me to have to move most of my zoas, one of my acans that was doing great, some of my mushrooms, and I fear soon my acro's as well. I've done quite a bit of reading, and it seems like my options are:
1)peel them off the rock (tried this, they are stuck on so well it's impossible)
2)cover them with kalk paste. I'd rather not do this, as it will take at least a week, and will cause everything else in the tank to go downhill as well.
3)remove the rock. Since the rocks are mostly on the bottom, and are the perfect pieces for where they are, and I doubt I'd be able to find equal pieces. Unfortunately, I'm starting to feel this is going to be my only option.
I'm already going to trade a decent sized rock of the stuff for a couple nice acro's, but the other rocks are about 10-15 pounds a piece, and some of them already have nice coral growing and encrusted on them that I don't want to get rid of, and I don't want to ruin their encrusting either. And to think, I thought it was the coolest stuff on earth when I bought it over a year ago

I'll try to get pics later, just to show the damage this stuff has done already.

 

[fishy55599]

star polyp war...whats that mean?

 

[lljdma06]

I loved my chalk bass, he was one of my favorite fish. Unfortunately, I lost him when I was battling red bugs. I'd add another, but with all the aggressive fish I have in the tank now, I think adding anything would be a bad idea. I can't say whether or not they do better in groups, as I've never tried of course, but mine did great singly.

That's just something I read in a book. I'd love to try as I think a group of them would be stunning. Lovely colors. While snorkling in a Caribbean cruise, I think I saw fish that looked just like chalk bass, and they were in groups.

 

[demasonisrule]

star polyp war...whats that mean?

Star polyps are taking over my tank and I'm trying to get rid of them.

 

[Stampos]

You could try putting small loose pieces of LR around their growth area, and remove them as and when the polyps encroach it? Or..........how about an aggressive LPS to keep them at bay?

Tank is looking really good, really like the scape

 

[demasonisrule]

I was going to add my hammer right next to them, but then I realized that even my acro's couldn't keep them at bay, and if the acro's can't sting hard enough, not much can

The other idea (putting stuff around them) isn't bad either, though the problem is I'd have to get a nearly perfect seal, or else they would grow between the pieces. I might try this though, thanks!

 

[demasonisrule]

Just some random pics:
Now 4 and 1/2 heads...

Sorry these came out so blue, they were all blurry even with the tripod unless the shutter speed was up really high...

This favia is growing very well (you can't really tell from the pic but it is...)

The latest acros...the blue one is starting to encrust, and they both are really starting to color up

The fish:
Tang:

Angel:

Hawk:

The latest addition (and the last), the wrasse:

Unfortunately I forgot to get pics of the clowns, but they're still there

 

[seffieuk]

What a lovely photo of your hawk, why not enter him for fotm?

 

[demasonisrule]

I just won recently so I intend to in August. It was either him or the wrasse, but he doesn't sit still long enough for me to get a very good shot.

 

[lewiss]

I love this tank so much!!

 

[lljdma06]

This is a lovely tank. Agree with Seffie, the hawkfish needs to go to a FOTM competition. I see 6 lines sooo often in my LFS, cool fish.

Liz

 

[demasonisrule]

Well, I've been away for ~10 days, and some stuff (mostly unfortunate ) happened in the tank while I was away, namely the death of that purple and green favia. Also, 1 acro frag died, 2 have small amounts of bleaching, and one has quite a bit of bleaching, which I seriously hope isn't STN. Anyways, here's some pics:

Color in this thing is insane in the flesh:

Getting very nice growth on this one:

The hammer is definitely the fastest growing coral I have

The roving frag rack

Hopefully just bleached and not STN:

And some FTS's

 

[lljdma06]

That urchin is soooo cool. How big does it get?

L

 

[demasonisrule]

When I got him a little less than a year ago, he was about the size of a golf ball, he has grown no taller, but a little wider, he know looks like he's maybe 2.5" across, they usually don't get bigger than 3"ish, Hopefully he doesn't get much bigger than that. He runs a good business of plowing my corals and knocking everything down to the sand. As you can see, he loves picking him up, and usually his name is "Trash Heap", as he always has some rubble or broken shells or something on him. The best though was when he picked up a hermit by it's back and he carried it around all day, funniest thing as the crab tried to figure what was going on.

Anyways, I flipped the other big rock that the GSP were on in the middle (the one with the blue chalice and all the zoas and the branching monti), and I moved the zoas to the sand and moved the acans to the rock, and they looked instantly better. Will post pics tomorrow, and I decided not to wait and find out whether or not it was STN so that acro that I was worried about is now about 1/2 the size But whatever, it now looks like it is going to be A OK.