Set up a mini-bow 5 nano last night

[chkltcow]

Well, I set up the coral-only nano that I've been wanting to do for a while.... but no coral in it yet. I bought the live rock and some crushed coral substrate last night and set it up. This morning when the dust settled, I had an ungodly huge number of bristleworms and 'pods swimming around in the tank. I know uncured LR carries more critters.... but this didn't smell like un-cured. There was no stink... just the normal saltwater smell to it. I'll keep an eye on ammonia and nitrates over the next few days though.... ammonia should show up if it's un-cured rock... right?

Oh, and my favorite hitchiker, a bright beautiful red zoanthid polyp!! It's tiny, but that color on it is gorgeous already!

 

[chkltcow]

So.... question..... is there anything I can do to help speed up the spread of this zoanthid? It is a single polyp, and it is TINY. I mean, I can't even see the tentacles at the edge of the disc, it's so small. I'm guessing it's maybe 1/8 of an inch across... so what's that, about 3-4 mm or so? Is there anything to feed it to make it grow faster, or just keep it under good light and wait?

 

[chkltcow]

Here I go talking to myself again, and another hairbrained idea. I got started looking at it again, and I'm not even sure it's a zoanthid polyp now. I know I saw it closed up this morning when I first turned on the light, but now that it's open and I'm looking at it...... I just don't know. It's not perfectly round, and there aren't any tentacles on the edge. Could this be..... mushroom coral!?!

You can get an idea of scale in that picture. It's tiny. And for the record, the filter and heater are temporary. I had a 100w Ebo Jager lying around... but... uhhh.... didn't exactly measure to make sure it would fit I'm gonna order something smaller. The filter will get replaced with an AquaClear 300 modded to be a mini-refugium. Right now until all the dust from the substrate is gone, I want to run something with filter floss to catch the crap.

 

[Great Lakes]

The hitchiker looks like a piece of sponge, but they normally suffer dramatically when exposed to air

It would be an unusual color mushroom if thats what it is. It could even be the leftover stem of any numer of soft corals that may have been snipped off before you got the rock.

On your cured question. If the rock was cured in a large tank that has long been established strictly for that purpose, you would certainly get the diversity you mentioned. I would even say it is a greater likelyhood to get better pod life on tank cured rock than the stuff straight from the ocean.

GL

 

[chkltcow]

Yeah, I know sponges die if exposed to air. This rock was in a bag with enough water to keep part of it submerged and the rest at least exposed to humid air.... and then I had it out of the tank once after I put it in initially, too. But a sponge is motionless, right? This thing seems to close up when the lights go out and spread back out once they come on. Even if it were a stem of something, it wouldn't do that would it?

Oh well, I guess the only thing I can do is wait and see what it turns out to be.

 

[Navarre]

Hard to tell from this distance but to me it looks like a zoo. It might not have opened fully and thus its hidungs its tenticles

 

[parker313]

That looks like a fun project

 

[chkltcow]

Well as an update, apparently the live rock is uncured, or at most partially cured. I tested the ammonia last night, and it's up around 1ppm.... not a terrible amount, but more than I'd like to see. Apparently it's not too much for aiptasia, as there are 3 pieces I've seen. *adds Joe's Juice to order with Visi-therm heater.*
The unknown red thing is bigger today, but still not tentacles on it. The center is like a little bump, or something.... and the rest is smooth. Still baffled...
And pods.... god bless those pods.... I have tons of them. I've seen free-swimming pods, which I'll assume are copepods.... and little cralwers on my live rock, which I guess are amphipods. Lots and lots of them already.

 

[Fishy411]

that red thing looks a tiny bit like a mushroom. To get rid of aptasia all u have to do is take boiling water, put it in a syringe and inject the water into it's mouth while the mouth is open.

 

[chkltcow]

I ordered a little thing of Joe's Juice to get rid of the aiptasia. I'm a bit leary of using boiling water in a tank this small as I know even a bit will raise the water temp.

As a side note, I also changed out the filter last night. I took out that crappy Whisper hang in filter and put on a Fluval 204 canister. That should give me a decent amount of extra volme, seeing as how it took about 2 gallons of water to top the tank off after siphoning the water down to the filter. I also got the little "skimmer" attachment for it to keep that film from forming on the surface of the water. Now as soon as my visi-therm comes, I'll be done on the hardware side of things.

And the little red polyp is getting a bit larger. Still no tentacles, and it's starting to look less round..... so I'm still thinking it's some type of mushroom coral.

 

[chkltcow]

Alright, time for more pictures! I added some Xenia today. Beyond that, I've switched out the crappy hang in tank filter for a Fluval 204 with the skimmer attachment, which you should be able to see in the pics. And, the red thing is looking more and more like a mushroom. Still not entirely positive. So without further ado....

So any guesses about the mystery red disk?

 

[Navarre]

Im pretty sureits a mushroom polyp. It gonna take a few months though to see for sure unless you can get a closer piccy

 

[chkltcow]

IT'S GONE!@! THE BLOODY THING IS GONE!!!!!!!!!

AGGGGGGGGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, it looks like the mystery coral will remain forever a mystery, because just as mysteriously as it appeared and lived, it has mysteriously disappeared I came home today and had a package in the mail with the new heater, Joe's Juice, and a Calcium test kit..... so I was gonna go put in the new heater, kill the aiptasia, and test for calcium. First thing I looked at was my Xenia. It's looking GOOD! Almost all the polyps on it are opening and closing.... it's waving in the current... and it's regained most of the pink color it had in the store tank. Then, I lookedat the other one.... or at least where it used to be. No more beautiful red mushroom thingy I had noticed yesterday the base looked small, but I thought that was normal. Apparently not, apparently it was weak. I looked all over the tank and even tore into the Fluval to see if it had ended up down in my filter..... nowhere to be found RIP little coral

In other news, I have a more aptly sized heater in my tank now. I tested calcium and KH to see how that was doing, and it was way off. I was a 15dKH and somewhere around 240ppm on Calcium. The only thing I've dosed this tank with was a bit of B-Ionic to get it started off...... so I'm not understanding why the Alkalinity is so high and calcium is so low. I also tested my 20g tank at the same time.... levels were basically fine there. It was at 10dKH and around 360ppm Calcium. I didn't dose it with B-Ionic yesterday becauseI forgot to do it in the morning, and at night I always have to think "Wow, did I do that already today".

And, finally.... Joe's Juice WORKS! My god, I didn't know how fast it worked.... I thought you guys were exaggerating it. Squirt, melt... gone. BRILLIANT!

 

[Great Lakes]

Here is an article that is nearly invaluable to the reefkeeper for alkalinity and calcium adjustments. LINK

IT is easier for me to follw tha trying to use my head..

GL

 

[fraservet]

I'm glad you have a new heater, the one in the picture is a bit much in that tank.
How small is the new one, please post a picture.

I was just thinking that an in-line heater (e.g. the Hydor one) on the filter return might work well in a tank this size, and would clean up the look. Any thoughts?

I hope you post new pictures regularly, as I would be interested in seeing how things progress.