Fishheaded's 10g Journal

[fishheaded]

Hey guys, here's my contribution to the journals
First off I've had my tank for about 10 months... Sad thing is, I didn't quite give it the time and dedication it deserved.
And when I say that, I mean, I didn't really care much for it because I wasn't into it as much as I was + lazyness. For ex; barely ever did water changes, didn't buy any livestock (corals, fish, etc.) , so on and so forth...
But the good thing is my buddy and I motivated ourselves to get back into the salty world.
Anyways now that that's outta the way, here we go, I currently have:
10 gallon tank (10% water change every week) w/
a true perc
firefish
c.u.c.
hammer
brain
and a xenia. Hey I know it doesn't seem like much but like I said, I fell off...so it's basically like I'm starting over.
Now for pics:
heres my tank before I redid it..

Eww gross, I know right?...

So I decided it was time for change :

Hammer (gettin bigger and bigger everyday):

Brain:

Xenia (accident happened during the aquascaping, dropped the rock on it , and it might of been out of the water for a little too long)
My params are good, but seems like it doesn't seem to be getting any better, any advice on what I can do to revive it?:

Here is a pic of how it used to be:

I'll be going to my LFS tomorrow, planning on getting somethin new

Thanks for lookin guys

P.S.: I would like to thank one of the greats, mr. SkiFletch! For all your advice, guidance, and everything else you've helped me with.

 

[Matthew5664]

Could I ask what sand that is your using?

 

[SkiFletch]

Heh, glad I could help . The tank looks great so far and don't sweat it about the Xenia, it'll bounce back.

 

[fishheaded]

Could I ask what sand that is your using?

The brand is arag-alive; indio-pacific black
Here's a link

 

[kkyyllee]

i love ur aquascape, tanks looks awosme

 

[fishheaded]

i love ur aquascape, tanks looks awosme

Thanks kkyyllee

Update:
Hey guys went to the fish store today and picked up a
trumpet coral (it was connected but i cut it down the middle to have 2 branches so it could stand upright):

actinics:

 

[fishheaded]

Hey all, haven't updated this for awhile, but went to my lfs and bought a pink bubble coral He was huge at the store with all of the bubbles open. Just got done acclimating him, so hopefully later on today he will open up as big as he was..i'll post some pics later.

 

[fishheaded]

Hey guys, finally was able to take some pics of my bubble coral, here they are:
(Excuse the horrible quality)

Here it is closed when i wiped past it to wipe some algae off with the mag float:

Picture next to the trumpet:

I noticed that some bubbles arent as big as others, so will feeding it more often, help enlarge the bubbles?
Also i noticed that near one of the mouth's theres a patch and there isnt any bubbles, you can't really see it in the pics so here is a random pic so you can see what i am talking about:

Will my bubble coral ever look like this:

 

[SkiFletch]

There are many color variants of bubble coral so it's hard to say which one you mean. As for bubble size, (assuming there are good water conditions) this is typically dependent on the flow in the area of the coral... In general they will react to either low flow or moderately poor water conditions by inflating their flesh. They'll be slightly retracted in higher flow. And in poor or very poor water conditions, or in extreme flow they'll be retracted to the skeleton

 

[fishheaded]

Thanks Ski, so mine looks pretty healthy right? Its not in direct flow and I have low to medium flow in the tank. Water params are good and lights are on for about 8-9 hours a day.

 

[Matthew5664]

You may find putting the coral in a moderate flow and low light will expand the bubbles. Each bubble is full of the symbiotic algae zooanthallae and if too much light is given then the bubbles will shrink because of over production of 'energy' by the zooanthallae algae. This can get to a point where the coral will expel the algae. Putting it in a low light area will cause the bubbles to expand to catch more light. However this is not always the case but its something to try.

As for feeding, during the day the coral will get all the energy it needs from the zooanthallae algae. I would target feed it about an hour after lights down when you begin to see some of the feeding tentacles come out. In the wild these would catch the floating zooplankton however it’s hard to find live zooplankton, most of the shelf 'snow' contain dead plankton so I would use a mix of mysis shrimp and a liquid coral food supplement. Soak the shrimp in the liquid food for 15-20 minuets before feeding directly into the centre of the coral with a pipette/syringe.

 

[Matty P]

Your tanks is looking much better. Love the aquascaping, very unusual Not so sure about the substrate

 

[matalan]

what tank are you using? whats the make and name?

also have you got any updated pictures of the whole tank?

 

[fishheaded]

Thanks for the info Matthew

Your tanks is looking much better. Love the aquascaping, very unusual Not so sure about the substrate

Thanks, took me awhile to get the rocks that way. As for the substrate, yeah its something different.

what tank are you using? whats the make and name?

also have you got any updated pictures of the whole tank?

10g acrylic flat back hex and its made by SeaClear
ill try and post some FTS in a lil bit

 

[fishheaded]

Here you go: (not really much of a change)
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FTS: