Monti Cap, Sun Polyps, & Puple Condy

We've added three new things to the tank since the last update...

Sun Polyps

These really "pop" in the tank.  It's the only coral we have in the tank with such a brilliant color. I'm hoping it stays that bright!








 

A Monti Cap

This guy really gave the tank a new dimension.  You'll see what I mean in the current picture of the tank below.





and a Purple Condy Anemone

Unfortunately, due to a minor problem with the nitrate levels in the tank, we lost all of our anemones.  :(  For the last 3 months or so we've been fighting the problem.  We finally had to get a new protein skimmer since the pump kept going out on the one we had.  Recently, we removed all the sponges from the tank and put a mangrove plant in the sump in addition to doing 20% water changes every other day.  That finally seemed to do the trick.  So, we're starting out with a condy anemone since they are cheap and, I think, a bit more hardy than other anemones.  Anemones in general are VERY sensitive to water conditions.  Everyone else in the tank has been getting along as if nothing was wrong.  Of course, that's part of the point of having an anemone in the tank, because it will tell you faster than anything else when something is "off" in the water.


Finally, a current picture of the tank as it looks now:

As you can see, the toadstool leather (in the center) is looking somewhat rough.  Well, he's been propagating.    He dropped 10 or so pieces of himself (babies) and most of them have really been thriving.  If you look closely at the picture, you'll be able to see where we've glued a few of them to the rock throughout the tank.  It's quite interesting.  We sold a few of them to the pet store we get our supplies from.  Yeah, we actually made money off of our marine aquarium!  Woot!  ;-)

Fox Face, Feather Dusters, & Pearl Coral

Well, we have finally figured out that the "red stuff" that is taking over the tank is NOT cyano, it's algae!  So, we bought a type of rabbit fish (these fish are algae eaters) for the tank.

This is our new Fox Face.  We named him Zorro!  ;-)  (I saw the name online and thought it suited his species really well!)

Fox Faces are venomous fish.  They shoot their venom through the dorsal and anal spines in their fins.  I've heard it's painful, though not really harmful any other way unless you're allergic, of course.

This is called pearl coral.  It is a very pretty pink color, but it's sort of washed out in this picture.  :\   

We also got a couple more feather dusters since they were on sale.  We aren't sure if our diamond goby doesn't like them and keeps burying them or if they are just, simply, in his way?



Josh spent A LOT of time cleaning the coraline algae off the back of the tank.  Coraline is good algae and a lot of aquarists let it build up on the back of their tank, but since we already have so much "red stuff" in the tank, it was keeping the aquarium from looking more crisp and clear.  It made a HUGE difference and it looks SO much better!

If you compare this to the picture of the tank I put in the last post, you'll see what I mean.

After over a year of having perfect water quality in the tank, we've started having trouble with the nitrate levels in the tank.  Everything else has stayed on track other than that and we aren't sure why.  We've been doing more larger and more frequent water changes, but that doesn't seem to be helping much right now.  :\

Copper Banded Butterfly, Coral Banded Shrimp, & Anemones

Wow, over 6 months since the last update :-S.   Well, we've slowed down on adding things to the aquarium.  Here are the "new additions" since the last time I posted:

A Copper Banded Butterfly:

We actually bought another one before this one, but he wasn't strong enough to survive the "mean fish" in the tank. In fact, we really only have one mean fish - the neon velvet damsel. When we got this new butterfly fish, he started to go after him too, so we exiled Mr. Neon Velvet Damsel to the sump tank.






This is another Long Tentacle Anemone we bought for the Ocellaris Clowns:

Unfortunately, as seems to be our luck with anemones, it didn't last long in our tank.  We found it shredded to bits a couple days later.  The strange thing is, this one wasn't shredded by climbing into the overflow grating, it was just spread across the tank in bits.  I can't imagine any of the clowns would or even could do this and all the other fish should have felt a sting from it.  Weird.  I suppose it's just as well.  Our ocellaris clowns just do not seem to get how to host with an anemone AT all.  *shrug*


This is a Tube Anemone:


We got this anemone a few months ago, because we loved it's bright colors.  (and, thankfully, it has remained bright and colorful. Many things we put in the tank "wash out" and kind of blend in. They say many of the invertebrates get "bleached out" during transport due to the way they have to transport them to keep them alive.  Super-transfusing them with oxygen and the lack of other food.)   It's a pretty purple color with the bright green center, but it's "tube" looks like a disgusting wad of dryer lint.  Kinda funny!







This is the Coral Banded Shrimp:

It didn't take him long to find his favorite spot to hang out, and I do mean "hang." He likes to hide out, up-side down in a cave of rock on the right side of the tank. All though, he's fairly easy to spot with the extremely long white antennas.

This guy is a "big hairy" crab.  Yep, that's his name.  He's very colorful and fun to watch, but he's also a menace.  He likes to knock anything he can possibly move over.  He's by far the very largest crab we've had in the tank and he just moves everything around to make a path for wherever he wants to go.  So, he ended up getting exiled to the sump tank as well.  LOL

This is called a Bird's Nest.  All though, it doesn't look like a bird's nest, I suppose it does look like a tree a bird might like to nest in?  LOL  It's made of the calcium it collects from the tank and is quite hard, but easily brittle.









Finally, this is a picture of the tank as it looks now.  We ended up rearranging everything again.  Mostly because we had to remove all the live rock to catch the little neon velvet DEVIL!  LOL  Took about an hour - sheesh!  But, at the same time, I had also been wanting to move the toadstool leather to the center of the tank and give him a lot more room to spread out.  He'd been rather cooped up in the right corner of the tank.

Maroon Clowns & Long Tentacle Anemone

Introducing Kate & Leopold, the maroon clownfish! :) The pet store had a good deal on two large maroon clown fish and a long tentacle anemone they were VERY attached to. When we first brought them home, they looked like this:












The next day, after they got comfortable, the anemone swelled up and turned out to be HUGE!












The clown fish hardly ever leave the anemone, they LOVE it! It's so interesting to watch the symbiotic relationship there. However, the male clown (the smaller of the two) has also tried hosting with the Condy Anemone, which we've read is almost unheard of. Most clown fish don't host with that type of Anemone.

Here's a current picture of the tank:

Coco worm, Brain Coral, & Acropora

We added a few more new things to the tank this weekend:

A brain coral:











Acropora & A coco worm:















And a few more candy cane corals to make a little "colony" with:



The tank as of 11/1/10:

Galaxia & Feather Dusters

We made another trip to the pet store last night and came home with a new coral and two feather dusters.

First, here is an updated picture of how the tank is looking now-a-days:

I think it's amazing how much things have changed and grown with the work we've done (all though, Josh has done most of the "work" on it) and the "collection" of corals and a few fish that we've been amassing in just 7 months!  From left to right in the picture above we have the following corals and invertebrates: galaxia, hammer coral, frogspawn, candy cane, condy anemone, toadstool leather, flower anemone, feather dusters, mushroom coral, pulsing xenias, zoanthids, and kenya trees.  Fish and other animal life include: snails, hermit crabs, emerald mithrax crabs, diamond goby, sea urchin, starfish, bi-color angel, ocellaris clowns, neon velvet damsel, and a yellow-tail damsel.  Wow - that's a lot of life to watch!  :)

Galaxia or Galaxy Coral:

The two feather dusters:











I also, finally, remembered to take a picture of the sump we set up a while back:

It works something like this... the water is removed from the display tank by the overflow box and sent down into the right side of the sump, where it is filtered through the protein skimmer.  The water flows through the baffles on the right side of the sump into the refugium in the center, where the live sand & rock and the chaeto help with natural filtration.  Then the water spills over into the left side of the sump where it is filtered through some commercial media (biological, mechanical, and chemical) and finally through the GFO reactor before being pumped back into the display tank.

The protein skimmer (left) removes organic compounds from the water before they break down into nitrogenous waste.  The GFO reactor (right) removes phosphates from the water and helps to reduce algae.

Zoanthids, Hammer & Candy Cane Coral

Sunday, we made a trip to the pet store for some more hermit crabs and snails and while we were there we picked up a few new corals:

My favorite is the Hammer Coral:

 

And, Josh likes the Candy Cane Coral:

But, the "zoa's" or "zoos" or zoanthids are Josh's favorite:

We also had them check the water while we were there and they told us it was perfect!  >.<   Even after the A/C in the house being out for a week and having some temporary troubles with some of the alkalinity, calcium and PH levels in the water.  We've learned quickly how to remedy those.  I have to give Josh all the credit.  He's doing a great job; with everything else going on I just don't have the time or patience for it!  LOL

Josh is on a new project of growing our own phytoplankton to feed the corals and he's having plenty of success with it.  In fact, we're probably growing it faster than we can empty 2 liter pop bottles to keep the stuff in!  LOL  I'd include a picture, but it literally just looks like a bottle full of green water - not much interesting to look at.

Our tank is now 6 months old and at this stage it is considered to be an "established" marine environment.  Albeit a newly established one, but we've made it that far and that's a huge accomplishment!  It certainly hasn't been without effort, but I think it's been worth it!  :)