sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
So I decided that my nice purple gorgonian that I've had since the first frag workshop was occupying too much valuable real-estate, so figure I'll chip it out and move it, plus one acropora is getting too close, so I'd want to chip it out before it's too late.
Now luckily this rock is not an integral part of the rock formations structure so I can yank it out of the tank, only damage was a few branches of micropthlama but meh that's a weedy coral it'll grow back! I also yanked the rock because there were a few too many bubble algae colonies around, so I wanted to flick them off without worry that they'd pop in the tank. Finally there were some palythoas I wanted to hack off before they become a problem.
So I put it in a nice sunny position on a salt bucket lid.
First thing I did was flick off the bubble algae, then I noticed how incredibly bland it looks, that big purple monti actually is blue in the tank (reminds me of the Jim Coral! *sniff*), other corals are extremely washed out, sunlight sucks for corals!
Then I realized how flipping big that monti actually was! Remember that's a salt bucket lid the rock is on, so yikes I guess that enjoyed it's spot, it's actually flowing down the side of the rock too where it's getting close to a green slimer (then more fireworks will happen I'm sure). The original frag came on a triangle sized piece of rock that you can see where I placed, come swap time I think I'm going to chip that triangle out so it's more smooth a formation on the rock
Ok enough about that, this is acro vs gorg! So I set about chipping the gorgonian out until I realized... too late!
Sucker is growing around the gorgonian! Even more so you can see over on the right side a branching piece is actually supporting and starting to grow around a branch! Well I could snip off the gorgonian at the base and rescue it, but in all honest what fun would that be!? So I'm going to let it continue on, I did snip a couple branches off that allowed me to put an additional coral on top there, but other than that I want to see if I can get a gorgonian shaped acro shell
Ok now if you actually stuck with me through all of this you deserve some comic relief. After I chipped off the palys (no nothing palytoxin), I wanted to move the "deep water" acro a bit (it's the one that's a tiny branch over an encrusted frag plug), basically the plug is only touching one spot of the rock, so the coral can't exactly puddle out very easily to encrust, well I popped it off, cleaned the bottom of the plug up and moved it over a bit, opened up the super glue with my teeth since my hands were full and glued it down. Then I remembered the coral I actually wanted to put on top, so I go to the tank, get it, chop off the frag plug bottom, grab the tube proceeded to open up the glue again with my teeth... until a second later I realized the cap was already off, as a result, a big glob of superglue that was in there proceeded to smear right onto my tongue. OOF! Well at that moment I got smart... I didn't close my mouth... I basically had my tongue hanging out like a dog, while I put everything back in the tank (like a good reefer I finished my job)... well as I'm doing this my mouth is producing saliva like crazy, and I'm drooling all over the floor, there's a funky flavor on one part of my tongue... and I finally get upstairs I see the damage... it's not bad, luckily it crusted up and super glue doesn't stick to tongues as much as it sticks to skin, and I pealed of a dime size piece of glue. *TADA!!!* I did remember to wash my hands though before taking the glue off, especially after messing with those palythoas, didn't think you'd get a two-fer did you?
Now luckily this rock is not an integral part of the rock formations structure so I can yank it out of the tank, only damage was a few branches of micropthlama but meh that's a weedy coral it'll grow back! I also yanked the rock because there were a few too many bubble algae colonies around, so I wanted to flick them off without worry that they'd pop in the tank. Finally there were some palythoas I wanted to hack off before they become a problem.
So I put it in a nice sunny position on a salt bucket lid.
First thing I did was flick off the bubble algae, then I noticed how incredibly bland it looks, that big purple monti actually is blue in the tank (reminds me of the Jim Coral! *sniff*), other corals are extremely washed out, sunlight sucks for corals!
Then I realized how flipping big that monti actually was! Remember that's a salt bucket lid the rock is on, so yikes I guess that enjoyed it's spot, it's actually flowing down the side of the rock too where it's getting close to a green slimer (then more fireworks will happen I'm sure
). The original frag came on a triangle sized piece of rock that you can see where I placed, come swap time I think I'm going to chip that triangle out so it's more smooth a formation on the rock
Ok enough about that, this is acro vs gorg! So I set about chipping the gorgonian out until I realized... too late!
Sucker is growing around the gorgonian! Even more so you can see over on the right side a branching piece is actually supporting and starting to grow around a branch! Well I could snip off the gorgonian at the base and rescue it, but in all honest what fun would that be!? So I'm going to let it continue on, I did snip a couple branches off that allowed me to put an additional coral on top there, but other than that I want to see if I can get a gorgonian shaped acro shell
Ok now if you actually stuck with me through all of this you deserve some comic relief. After I chipped off the palys (no nothing palytoxin), I wanted to move the "deep water" acro a bit (it's the one that's a tiny branch over an encrusted frag plug), basically the plug is only touching one spot of the rock, so the coral can't exactly puddle out very easily to encrust, well I popped it off, cleaned the bottom of the plug up and moved it over a bit, opened up the super glue with my teeth since my hands were full and glued it down. Then I remembered the coral I actually wanted to put on top, so I go to the tank, get it, chop off the frag plug bottom, grab the tube proceeded to open up the glue again with my teeth... until a second later I realized the cap was already off, as a result, a big glob of superglue that was in there proceeded to smear right onto my tongue. OOF! Well at that moment I got smart... I didn't close my mouth... I basically had my tongue hanging out like a dog, while I put everything back in the tank (like a good reefer I finished my job)... well as I'm doing this my mouth is producing saliva like crazy, and I'm drooling all over the floor, there's a funky flavor on one part of my tongue... and I finally get upstairs I see the damage... it's not bad, luckily it crusted up and super glue doesn't stick to tongues as much as it sticks to skin, and I pealed of a dime size piece of glue. *TADA!!!* I did remember to wash my hands though before taking the glue off, especially after messing with those palythoas, didn't think you'd get a two-fer did you?
