Rhy's Juwel Rio 125L Tropic To Marine Attempt!

[ozzie2011]

First time I have read your journal and must say Im really impressed with what you have accomplished in a relatively short time.

Unfortunately these things happen so keep your chin up and everything will hopefully come back.

I know someone who lives in Scotland, during the bad weather in December they lost their electricity, they were told it would be off 6 hours, it turned out to be over 36 hours and they have lost their whole reef and fish. Things can be much worse...

All the best and keep going!

 

[GGtank]

Cheers Ozzie!!! I guess I just got to take it on the chin and plough on!

The good news is that everything seems to be catching back on... slowly but surely.

In other related news------------ say hello to the newest member of my tank!
My MACRODACTYLA DOREENSIS

Also I found an aptisia on my zoa rock garden so there are 2 new peppermint shrimp in my tank now plus i have a berghia strolling around somewhere in the tank (unless it died)

Not the best but I'm just counting myself lucky that the only thing I've lost so far is a few heads of the trumpet and torch (both of which seem to be coming back) and my fire shrimp (who has been missing for a while, body not found...)

Also does anyone know if the trumpet can survive long after it's expelled its zooxanthellae~? The middle of my trumpet has gone pinkish brown (from mossy green) so I assumed that while I was on vacation my sis forgot the lights or something and it expelled the photosynthetic zooxan. Only thing is now that I'm back, the remaining heads look nice and plump and full but they are still pink, will it survive???

 

[GGtank]

Little update!

Everything has been back on track, corals are looking good, anemone has settled in and exapnded to twice its size. Also got a new fish (lawnmower blenny) and two new corals. My six line harassed the blenny for the first day and he was forced into a corner the first night. But she's slowly getting used to him and currently has stopped pecking him. Phew!

New corals

Anemone

Anemone with clowns above, they havent hosted it yet

Fully expanded macrodactyla doreensis

New rock with corals

My emerald crab, Dorothy

My new Lawnmower blenny, Fred

Purple Gorgonian, really making a recovery now

Mushroom corner, iPhone doesnt show the vibrant green that those mushies actually are; they are soooo green

New rock

left side tank

 

[ozzie2011]

Nice pics mate, nice nem, that zoa garden will look awesome when it fills out. Nice work

 

[GGtank]

Thanks Ozzie! Much appreciated

Update

Blenny is finally starting to move about the tank (albeit at lightning fast speeds, I think he's still afraid of my six line so he tries to get to move as quickly as possible), I've seen him munching on algae here and there so I'm happy.

Tried feeding the anemone but no luck. It's been 6 days in the tank now. I've placed squid and cockle but it hasnt eaten anything. It wraps its tentacles around the food easily enough but it doesnt seem able to bring the food to its oral disc. Eh, maybe it's just not hungry yet. It's colour is good (no bleaching) and it's a lovely glowing green when the blue LEDs come on.

I hope the clowns soon realise that the anemone is their friend and host it, instead of my algae scrubber!

 

[GGtank]

Update:

Here's a little update

My sis was practically crying for the macrodactyla, so I eventually caved and let her have it. It's replacement

Placed into tank

Starting to crawl about the rock looking for a nice cave! which I thought was REALLY WEIRD! I thought it'd float to move around, but nope, it crawled!

Finally settled. Pics don't do it justice, it's actually very brightly coloured and very very luminescent under LEDs with BRIGHT pink tips!

Clowns havent gone near it (but my clowns are a bit slow anyways - whenever I put the net in the tank, they dive into it while the other fish scatter! LOL)

 

[GGtank]

A little extra update to add on to the one above (which I was supposed to post a few days ago)

I've gotten some new tank mates (and a bit of extra live rock)

Angelina, the flame angel

And Nteri, the neon dottyback

Now I've read several conflicting reports on dottybacks on the web, any reefers want to share personal experience with neon dottybacks? My tank is FULLY stocked now. She was added at the same time with the flame angel.
Currently (and in order of being placed in tank) I have:
- 2 clowns (harpo and bingo)
- 1 sixline wrasse (cleopatra)
- 1 Algae blenny (fred--- cleopatra did not appreciate him in the tank and harrassed him no end! She only left him if he was on a specific powerhead in the corner, in fact she would regularly check up on him to make sure he was there!!!) Because of this I figured any other fish I added would have to be semi-aggressive to contend with my sixline, so I saw these two and couldn't resist
- 1 Flame angel (angelina - big lips) and
- 1 Neon Dottyback (Nteri)

I had only planned to stock 4-5 fish max but the dottyback was so beautiful! Anyways I hope she'll be ok with the other tank mates as she was placed last into the tank with the flame angel. So far I've already seen her have some fin exchanges with my sixline. Will my shrimp be ok? and snails? Some say yes, others say no. Anyone with experience with these beautiful fish?


right side

Anemone looking good

Fred the algae blenny who finally is getting a break from the sixline's harassment

Neon dottyback

Left side (my wellso gets so excited at feeding time now as I've been giving him small pieces of mussel/shrimp, he puffs up to about 3 times his normal size once he gets a whiff of food)

Flame angel

Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[GGtank]

Found this lovely looking coral at the LFS, really want to get it but unsure of how hard it is to keep:

PS photo is not of the actual specimen but it looks IDENTICAL to this

 

[sorgan]

that is Cirrhipathes spiralis AKA the corkscrew gorgonian.
to my knowledge its not photosynthetic but they are one of the easier NPS to keep, easier i would say than diodogorgia. it will require feeding but whether or not it will need constant feeding i am not sure as i have never kept one.

 

[GGtank]

Hmmmm they are tempting looking but I think I'll shy away for now! Thanks for info Sorgan, much appreciated

Of note a few things happened this week!

1) My torch died - yup. In the space of 42hrs, every head had died. I'm still confused as to how/why. It was great, healthy and extended. All water parameters checked out perfectly (only nitrates were a tad high at 15-20, but that was right before a water change.) Basically I noticed some reddish/brown slime looking stuff on one head when I got up to go to work. That particular head was retracted but the rest of the torch was fine. Thinking it wasn't anything too serious, I went to work (and I was on call ie 36hrs in hospital non stop). By the time I got home, the brown gunk had covered almost all the heads, many of which seemed to have 'dissolved???', the remaining heads which were retracted had patches of their green tips missing. I tried to salvage by squirting with RO water (couldn't do a dip as it was properly epoxied on the LR). The RO squirts removed most of the gunk easily but I couldn't save it. That was perhaps one of my favourite corals...


2) In all the chaos I accidentally shifted my Anthelia rock (which happens to be the rock that props my BTA's cave.) The cave collapsed a little (not by much) but the BTA didn't like it. Now it has decided to roam again *sigh* and is currently in the back of my LR (where it will definitely not see much light). I'm gonna let it roam (no point in moving it anywhere) and hopefully it will re-find its cave (which I've tried to make as large as it was before). On a brighter note, at least it's not floating about! (It's crawling)

3) Did a bit of a move around with the corals, I'm pretty happy with their placements for now (fingers crossed my BTA won't kill anything as it roams). Have a Kenya tree frag which I nicked from my sister's tank (it was about 1.5cm, absolutely tiny when I nicked it, didn't expect it to survive but it was a bit of her Kenya colony that had broken off), anyways it is about an inch now and looks great

4) Hermit decided to change shells. Have no idea where he found the new shell (which is an immaculate white) but hey, props to the hermit!

5) I got me a duncan Steal of a deal! 14 heads for 50euro! couldn't resist. The 'stem' part fluoresces a brilliant green (as green as my green zoas!) but only on one side... weird. The heads fluoresce as well but I thought it quite weird that the stems fluoresced as well!

Had a hell of a time trying to epoxy it to a bit of rubble. Of all the corals I have ever handled, this one was the MOST mucous-y I've ever seen. Proper slime!


Enjoy!

 

[seffieuk]

Sounds like your euphyllia died of brown jelly disease, curse of euphyllias

Tank is looking gorgeous

Seffie x

 

[GGtank]

Thanks Seffie

Brown jelly disease I think you're absolutely spot on. It was such a pretty torch as well. It's somewhat put me off keeping any Euphyllias now (that and the fact that they like to sting). Ah well, who knows, maybe I'll change my mind and get me a frogspawn some day!

On a brighter note, I've decided to start a rotifer culture. Bought the air pump, phyto and rotifers; now to do some more research lol!

I'm also thinking of starting an in-tank refugium. Not sure how to do it though but i have a small cylindrical unit that sucks on to the glass of the tank with an air hose outlet (used to hatch artermis shrimp eggs) and I'm thinking I could possibly put some cheato in there?? and maybe lower the top so that the tank water can flow into the cyclinder??? Dunno if that;ll work though, what do you guys think???


Rhy

 

[sorgan]

best bet for a fuge would be to get a acrylic box of some variety, pop some holes around the sides (not loads but enough so water can get in and out) stick some sand, LR rubble and cheato in and stick to the inside of your tank.
your lights should keep all the stuuf in it growing and water will transfer via the holes but your fish wont be able to get in and eat everything. this will also make a nice shady spot to put corals that like less light.

 

[dannywrc]

your tanks looking great. wish mine looked like that. i need to get some more rock i think. how much have you got in there?

i started a zooplankton culture about a month ago, theres a thread on here about it or a link in my journal. very easy to do. the entire end of my tank is covered in thousands of rotis after just 2 harvests, they must reproduce very quickly.

speak with the lfs about the torch coral. my friend had the same happen to him a few weeks ago and the shop exchanged it for him.

 

[Harry1996]

just flicked through your journal and my favourite stock is the red star fish thing and the flame angel