Tina's Twin Bommies

[bagu]

thanks for that info guys! really helpful

 

[TigerIssey]

Go and have a great time and don't worry about tank, where you going, is there fish watching involved

We are going to Turkey, a very small resort just outside Fethiye called Calis Beach, it is the place we went on our very first holiday together in 1998, we have been there for the last 3 yrs running (went as well as Egypt last yr) and we stay in a hotel right on the front that we book by emailing the manager. Booked flights seperate.

Not sure if there would be any fish watching though, I don't even think they have any sea life type centres. Funny thing is though, I keep doing searches for corals and fish and keep getting Turkish oline shopping sites come up so if I find somewhere that sells them, I will be going to have a look.

The only problem is that my Turkish is very basic, I can say most greetings, thanks, I love you, and understand some of the signs however I have tried to convey that we need a room on the 1st floor as I am on crutches, they have reserved our usual room on the top floor left hand side that has the best view of the bay. its 3 flights of stairs!!

On the cyano front, the actinics are on at the moment and I can see a couple of very small patches appearing, will be getting those later with my trusty siphon and an old stocking.

I too would like to know what the minimum lighting would be for corals Rob. Does anyone know??

 

[scott133]

My lfs hads hard and sps corals and has there lights on for 5hrs a day which didnt think was enought but i was wrong

regards scott

 

[TigerIssey]

That is interesting scott, how do other people feel about this, should I change my timers before I go away so that the PC's are not on for as long, what time do you reckon would be best.

CYANO UPDATE

I got up this morning to find very little cyano growing back. I did realise I had missed quite a few bits mainly around the backs of the rocks and the back wall of the tank. I have done another 15% water change this evening and siphoned all remaining cyano I could find. I have also given the rocks a really good blowing off and hoovered that aswell.

I am presuming if I can keep the cyano clear whilst the phosphate remover does its job, I should be able to win the battle, just a question of daily siphoning until there is no more growing back??

A question about harvesting chaeto though. How much should I be harvesting and how often, I read I need to do this to keep it soaking up nutrients.


A few photos now taken this evening with the actinics on.

Tutankhamun

Seti

Ankhesunamun

Ramses and Nefertari (Nefertari left, Ramses right)

The Three Musketeers

Ankhesunamun again. This photo was heavily blued when taken as he was at the bacck of the tank, therefore it is heavily photoshopped. I do think it has created a very spooky look though.

Next up on of the hermits trying to out a Cerith snail from its shell. It spent 10 minutes trying to do this, I thought the snail was a gonner. 5 minutes after the photos were taken, the snail crawled off and reburied itself, one very lucky snail there.

Hope you enjoyed the photos again.

Before I go though, here is a picture of the sump. The foam you can see is polyfilter that I added after I found the wrasse just to make sure there were no spikes in the water stats. I intend to add a little whilst I am away also as a just incase whilst mom is looking after the tank.

In the section with the chaeto you will see a piece of egg crate, I realised the chaeto was getting sucked into the return section, on investigation I found a slight ridge on either side, I cut a piece of egg crate to fit and it solved the problem beatifully. In the far right corner you can see my V2 bubble stop, conveniently hooked onto one of the ledges, this also works beautifully. Next to that is still my V2 Nano skimmer, am still waiting for my Eheim pump to be delivered to swap to my Aquamedic midiflotor skimmer. In order to fit this all in nicely, I am going to put another 45 degree angle in the pipework coming in to the sump, this will enable me to have the skimmer at the front for easy access to the collection cup (which is huge on the midi flotor) good job as the nano needs emptying once a day at the mo. I also intend to get some more LR rubble for the first chamber and perhaps some for the return chamber also. The piece you can see in the return chamber was a frag of green zoas, this got throttled by hair algae, so I decided to grow the hair algae in the sump instead, might be daft but worth a try. May keep it out of the display tank.

Enough of my babbling anyway. More soon no doubt.

 

[Trod]

Another great post T and lovely pictures.
I really enjoy your journal, keep it up

 

[ben1987]

i always like seeing your pics, looking good.

 

[TigerIssey]

Thanks folks, I really enjoy taking the photos. I am desperate to get a decent pic of the wrasse flashing, this ones colours are very slightly different, maybe an age thing not sure yet.

Have you noticed though, I have been really really good and not added any extra fish to what I had in the Nano before I go on holiday?? I think that is fantastic self control, for me anyway. I did it basically so that the new LR could catch up and I would not risk any spikes whilst being away.

So far, with actinics only on, I cannot see any cyano coming back, I have my fingers crossed that I have overcome the worst!!

It will be very interesting to see the growth in corals when I come back off holiday, I am used to staring at the tank most of the day. You don't notice growth so much then.

The downside to today is that my baby (7yr old staffie in Avatar) is going down to the midlands to stay with the mother and father in law whilst we are on holiday, I will really miss him this week.

 

[SkiFletch]

Have fun on vacation TI

Somebody asked on this thread how short you can make your photoperiod and Scott is right, if you have enough light, you can go down in the 5 hour area. Around 8hrs seems to be ideal for growth, but if you're looking to limit evaporation and algae growth while away, 5 hours works just fine

 

[TigerIssey]

^^ That is fantastic Ski, that is exactly what I am looking to do. Normally I top up about a litre a day, mom is only coming every other day so that would make the salinity swings more manageable.

The other reason of course is to limit any algae growth so that it does not overtake my corals whilst I am away.

I don't fly till Sat 6th but this weekend was the only time Andrew had to take the dog down to the midlands. The house is really nice without Andrew occasionally, but I usually have my little boy with me, I have lost my shadow. This week will be unbearable without him. I just have to look up from my desk to see his picture on the wall (it shows above the tank in one of the photos of the set up process. The original was painted by a Midlands artist, she kept the original and did a limited edition print from it, the copy I have was given to me by the artist, it was unveiled at Crufts in 2005. The same year he qualified for crufts 2 weeks later.

Sorry I am rambling again, he is my beauty boy, a proper little mommys boy.

 

[TigerIssey]

Reet oh, I was going to make this post yesterday but was absolutely exhausted from doing washing for the holiday and the other halfs work clothes for this week. I even had them all loaded onto photobucket in readiness.


Yesterday I fed the corals so took some photos as they were feeding and some later after re-expanding the polyps.

First up

Rhodactis mushrooms eating.

Zoas

Button polyps

Frogspawn

Caulastrea

Clowns

Male clown Ramses

The best picture of Seti since moving tanks

Zoas again

Rhodactis

Galaxea

Pearl Bubble

Hammer

Frogspawn

Leather

I will leave this post here and start another as there are still quite a few.

 

[TigerIssey]

Part 2 - These were taken about an hour after feeding

Frogspawn

Hammer

Caulastrea

Zoas

Galaxea

Duncan - It has not yet opened since I gotit on Wednesday, I know they like to be settled, I presume it will open soon.

Some Tank Shots

Through from the left

Through from the right

Left Hand Bommie

Right Hand Bommie

From the Left

From the Right

Full tank shot from afar

Different camera setting

Close Up FTS

Hope you enjoy photies again, I did them specially as Ben and Trod liked the last lot so much

 

[seffieuk]

Again what amazing photos - would look fantastic as a screen saver any chance Tina?

Trod and are were talking about your fab photos and in particular the shape of your Bommies, we love them and hope to do something similar in our tanks

But what does the word Bommie mean and where does it originate?

Seffie x

 

[bagu]

that looks amazing, really amazing. i love the leather its so beautiful

im still not keen on the flasher wrasse's =/ =[

your corals look amazing!

and like seffie has asked, what is a bommie ^^?

 

[TigerIssey]

Again what amazing photos - would look fantastic as a screen saver any chance Tina?

Trod and are were talking about your fab photos and in particular the shape of your Bommies, we love them and hope to do something similar in our tanks

But what does the word Bommie mean and where does it originate?

Seffie x

Had a quick look and found this link about a dive site off Fiji, it has given me an Idea to change the Title of my journal slightly.

Dive the World.

For a screen saver, do you mean you would like the photos to operate as a slide show??

If so I can do this quite easily, however, the photos would need to be from the new tank only as I had a computer crash so the only copies of earlier photos are on photobucket, these would not give good resolution when blown up on screen.

Also to get the full quality of each shot I would need to save the slide show to a disc for you and post it as each photo is taken with 9 million pixels in fine format. I must admit I have the pearl bubble as my desktop background.

You would also need to tell me which pictures you wanted to use, but also bear in mind that once I come back off holiday there will be more fish added, I am really looking forward to being able to photograph a Mandarin, they seem such fine subjects. If there were some photos that were wanted from the old tank, I may be able to play around after loading back to the hard drive and use them with a frame rather than as a full screen shot.

Trod and are were talking about your fab photos and in particular the shape of your Bommies, we love them and hope to do something similar in our tanks

Go for it, after all I used Sanjay Joshi's tank as inspiration.

Oh and I had no idea they they were liked that much

 

[Trod]

They Certainly are Tina. Your tank looks amazing
Great photos absolutely love them