got ethical husbandry?

OtakuThugster's Mini-reef

Oh, the perimeter around the rock is very important for me. I need to have that magnet access everywhere around the viewing area. I guess I got an OCD when it comes to cleaning the glass<lol>. That's part of the reason I had to restructure everything too. The brain coral kept slipping from it's spot, and when I went to clean the glass, I kept bumping it. Eventually, all the structures around the brain fell completely over. Moreover, those structure are more or less connected to different rock formations around the aquarium, and those fell over too.

To answer your question, Lyn, it took up 'til just recently to get that perimeter nice and secure (thank you Mighty Putty looking aquarium putty); it's been an ongoing process. But to fix that whole brain coral bumping/restructuring fiasco, took me an entire night - didn't sleep a wink 'til 10am.

My New Year's resolution: Keep the "Reefkeeper's Arm" coral out of the aquarium.
 
3/15/09:
Losses/Gains & No More Room

So I ended up baffling the rear chamber in my Nano-Cube with Fiji, refugium mud. Why? Don't know. Maybe I thought it would create a better refugium atmosphere in the chamber with less water turbulence back there. Well, long-story-short, the mud clouded up my entire aquarium for a couple days, and during that time, I lost my Flameback Angel. She just stopped showing up after the mud cleared.

As tragic as the loss was, I did notice the polyps on my SPS's coming out again. Maybe she was the reason why the polyps started retracting, maybe she wasn't. I just know that they started coming back after the mud was added and she disappeared. Oh yeah, I also replaced a spoiled Rotifeast I was using, that I left out for an entire night, so maybe that ticked-off the polyps. Who knows?

Regardless, to be on the safe side, I avoided getting another angelfish (as pretty as they are), and ended up picking-up some kind of sand sifting goby or blenny of some sort, an algae eating blenny, and a something-or-rather wrasse. As you can tell, I'm not a fish man. But once they're out of their hiding phase, I'll take a picture of 'em, so you can help me identify.

But besides the fish, I came up on a whole bunch of new corals from Neptune Aquatics. Man, that place is tight - a coral lover's paradise, with great variety, and a whole range of decent prices. It's just too bad they're located 45min. away from me (well, I guess it's a good thing too 'cause I'd be broke going over there all the time).

Also, big thanks to all the BAR swap and DBTC participants that helped me jam-pack my aquarium with cool corals.

Here's a few random pics I just took:

Zoa from Aquatic Central (I've been lookin' for this since I saw it in RHM magazine a few months ago):


Green Monster Paly from BAR swap (thanks Dyngoe!!!) & Neptune Aquatics Zoa:


Couple pics of the polyps coming back on my gorgorian:



A couple recovered corals:
* Meteor Shower Cyphastrea with the blue pigment back (didn't know they didn't like intense light):

* Peppermint Acan from Ocean Treasures - bought it for $5 and look at it now:


After all the moving around, here's the most recent locations for some old corals (I promise I'll keep my hands out there unless absolutely necessary):

 
My favorite LFS is Lucky Ocean, a guy name Steve always help me out on my coral selection, and what's best for my tank. My favorite that I bought from him is a stem of Frogspawn in September. Now, it's two stem. I really love your zoas and if you are trimming it? Let me know because I want at least 4 polyps :).
 
I was just in Lucky Ocean yesterday. That's where I got the wrasse. It's been hiding, so I'll try and get a pic of it when it's not so shy. But yeah, they're super nice over there.

As for the zoas, they're growing pretty nicely over the few weeks I've had 'em. I'll put 'em in DBTC when they've grown over the main structure rocks if someone can assists me with fragging 'em.
 
I don't even know to frag Zoas, I heard so much stories and i'm pretty scare. Well, when you place it the dbtc thread, send me a link okay.

What city you live in?
 
[quote author=Lyn link=topic=5407.msg89041#msg89041 date=1237222279]
Great deal on the acans! Things are looking good! :D
[/quote]

Yeah, that was a super deal. On the first page of this thread, I got a small pic of when I first got it if you wanna compare. It might be a little hard to see, but it's doin' a lot better now.
 
Yeah, I'm pretty scared to frag 'em too although I did a bit of unorthodox fragging (mainly the ripping-off-the-base-and-shoving-into-an-open-crevice type) before I knew of paly/zoa toxins.
 
What city you live in anyway?

I used to have a Mean Green Zoanthids, but my tank crash and it killed it. It was a really nice set of frag and I bought it for 15bucks, shipped priority. I fragged a Button Polyps before with my bare hand I think. I thinking of placing them in to the next swap. I glue on an 1lb rock hahaha and it's two polyps.
 
A friend of mine actually enlightened me a little bit about that awesome looking sponge you've got there. The white zoanthid polyps on your orange spider sponge (Trikentrion flabelliforme) have a symbiotic relationship with the sponge itself, though I am not sure as to the extent of the relationship (commensal, mutualistic; though I'd guess the latter). I've seen the name 'white lined sponge' thrown around also. IIRC, they're from Australia. The sponge requires frequent feedings of the appropriate sized foods.
 
Thanks for the info. Now I can do a little bit more research :glasses:

Yeah, it looks like it does need quite a bit of feeding. It reacts pretty well when I feed a combo of oyster/roti/phyto feast on a daily basis - zooplankton for the white polyps and phytoplankton for the sponge. However, my tank is small, so I've cut back the feeding, and it shows in the sponge. Currently, it's battling algae overgrowth and has shrunk to 2/3 it's original size since the last time I took pictures of it. I may go back to feeding everyday if I can get more answers on the Reef Nutrition spoiling thread. I've also fragged a small piece of the sponge and placed it in my frag tank to see if it does better in there . It looks healthy in there so far, but only time will tell.
 
Thanks, Robert :bigsmile: I'll post some pics of the corals I got from your place in a bit. A couple of the zoas are on the previous page. But I also got the Red Planet (the one I played hookey at work for), a Gold-tipped torch, a couple bigger-than-normal ricordeas, a couple montis.... Man, this list is longer than I thought. You get the point, tho'.

Your shop is the ultimate!!! Keep up the good work :)
 
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