Cali Kid Corals

Kinetic's ELOS 120

cool, sb600 is a nice little flash =) That's what I have had for 3 years now.

85mm is an awesome lens, ever since upgrading to my D700, it's always on my camera body! The 75 to 85mm focal length is one of my favorites (hence I used to use the 50mm on my D80 all the time).

Do you have a Flickr photostream or anything?
 
Sad, the larger of my pair of Porcelain crabs died this morning. I saw it out and about fishing for stuff really early (2am) this morning, and today it's belly up under the rock. It's not molt either, it's her =(

I'm not sure how well those porcelain crabs do in captivity but wanted to try. This one found the anemone though today:




Here's a top down of the clam I got from Neptune Aquatics:




And a really cool picture of Bryan's Burning Spear Acro:




I'm so happy that my corals are finally coloring up now, it's almost unbelievable. The last little thing I did was change the lighting, I think that did it for sure. Phoenix 14K's are great.

Now my Mg and Ca levels are dropping a lot more than before, my auto water changes can't keep up. I had to up my ALK dosing a tad (18mL instead of 15mL). Things seem to be happy. I hope I can maintain it that way.

Some proof that things are going from brown to colorful, it's an amazing transition to watch:







 
Beautiful pictures Art!
I believe some of the difficulty associated with porcelain crabs is accommodating their feedings needs; IIRC, they're filter feeders -though quite honestly I would imagine they might also eat any other food/algae matter they can find :)
That is a nice clam as well ... is it a T. maxima? How long is it across?
 
A_Lee said:
Beautiful pictures Art!
I believe some of the difficulty associated with porcelain crabs is accommodating their feedings needs; IIRC, they're filter feeders -though quite honestly I would imagine they might also eat any other food/algae matter they can find :)
That is a nice clam as well ... is it a T. maxima? How long is it across?
Click to expand...
Thanks!
Yeah I think they're tough to feed unless the tank is really established, but not sure if I have enough stuff floating around. I'm not sure if I want to start dosing live phytoplankton or anything, but maybe since I have the clam and this guy now.

Yeah the clam is an aquacultured maxima =) claimed to never been in the same water as anything with the pinched mantel bug, so it should be pretty good as long as my tank makes it. It's a little over 3" across. Borderline too small to only survive off lights.
 
The porcelain crab I said was dead, is still alive. I guess I was tricked yet again by molt. I should know better.

The anemone I got from LA is actually doing great. When it first arrived, it was puking it's guts out, now it's fat and happy. It's still in the shade under the rock unfortunately, but at least it's not out walking over my corals and killing everything. I hope the spot will provide enough light. I'll start feeding soon.




Going to need to start dosing Mg and Ca real soon, the levels are dropping a lot. ALK is doing OK with dosing.
 
A_Lee said:
Beautiful pictures Art!
I believe some of the difficulty associated with porcelain crabs is accommodating their feedings needs; IIRC, they're filter feeders -though quite honestly I would imagine they might also eat any other food/algae matter they can find :)
That is a nice clam as well ... is it a T. maxima? How long is it across?
Click to expand...

Pretty sure your wrong and they're dedicated filter feeders. Time to ask the true expert, Jonathan Stillman. They ahppen to be one of his research projects ;)
 


Yessir, that's another Bellus! The timing was right, parameters in check, I stopped tweaking around with my equipment, skimmer filling with goop, and diver's den had a beautiful 2" female Genicanthus Bellus! 2"!! Wow!

She's smaller than one of my chromis, and smaller than the female sanjay black photon clownfish I have. She started eating frozen, pellets, and flake today. A lot of it!

I'm hoping she does well, and didn't carry marine velvet in like the last one =X
 
Update:
Porcelain crabs doing great! both of them! Killed my anemone I think. They would both clutch onto the anemone, keeping it from opening up and getting light. I shooed the crabs away and then the anemone opened up again, but the crabs kept coming back.

Bellus is doing well, the top fin has some pattern changes, it's kind of interesting. I wonder if she's growing older or morphing into a male. Still really small, smaller than my largest clownfish.

My Black photons are almost all black now, their faces still orange.

Two bartlett anthias, still doing well. Handful of chromis, pretty much gigantic.

Corals, not so good. Browned out and then RTN'd all within a week. I bought even more test kits and nothing seemed to be off. I've done some massive water changes the past month to prepare to try again.

I removed about 40% of my rock, not sure I really need so much and i want more of a minimalistic look. I'm going to rearrange them and post new pictures next week =)
 
Good to see you're still in the hobby. This can be a frustrating hobby, though. We'd love to have you join us again on the Memory Walk. It's Sept 11 this year, down by AT&T Park. I'll post a thread very soon.
 
zepplock said:
Art, it happens to all of us at some point.
Check your refractometer and temp sensor, those are very easy to screw up.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the suggestions! I double checked both, and they're in check. I used the official bar salinity control solution, and it was right on the dot. I have two thermometers running on my tank already (neptune aquatics lab grade and another digital one on my teco chiller).

Tomorrow I'll be blasting the rock by taking a koralia 3 in hand and going over all the rock, filter socking it, and then adding new GFO and Activated carbon. Doing another nice water change and keeping my auto water changer going at a higher pace. In the evening I'll test the crap out of the water, everything from NO3 to Mg and beyond.

I'm also finding some of my fish a better home (Roy's gigantic tank), just to lessen bioload (though I think bioload is fine).

I might fiddle around with Vertex biopellets too for fun ;) Then I'll start restocking with coral once things seem to be settled down.
 
patchin said:
Good to see you're still in the hobby. This can be a frustrating hobby, though. We'd love to have you join us again on the Memory Walk. It's Sept 11 this year, down by AT&T Park. I'll post a thread very soon.
Click to expand...

Still in the hobby, and believe me, I know frustrating =)

I'm totally interested in the Memory Walk. I did just fracture my fibula a few weeks ago in my ankle, so I'm not sure I'd be able to walk so far =/ We'll see though.
 
oh crap, just found out what is going on. salinity in the tank is 1.033 instead of 1.026

My auto water changer is totally out of sync =(

I'm now slowly bringing it back to 1.026. NO WONDER =(
 
Go to Jim's (GM) and use his refract solution to double check. The BAR one can get a little salt creep and that I have found throws it off.. depending on how the bottle was stored.

Go with the EcoBak pellets :)
 
GreshamH said:
Go to Jim's (GM) and use his refract solution to double check. The BAR one can get a little salt creep and that I have found throws it off.. depending on how the bottle was stored.

Go with the EcoBak pellets :)
Click to expand...

Good idea on going over to Jim's. I'll head over there later today if I can.

I couldn't find any online vendors with the WM EcoBak pellets. Do you have a source?
 
www.mobileaquatic.com (Richard) is one I know who has been selling a lot, and he's one of the Beta testers so you can ask him use questions :D
 
get his email off the website and contact him, I do not see it listed right now.
 
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