JamesL

Awesome looking tank! I like the lights and the wall deco

Lookie that the Duncan Thread on nano-reef.

Well, the tank continues to progress nicely. Not sure why, but a few weeks ago all of my snails decided they finally liked hair algae (not complaining! ). And not just "like it" ... they "loved it"! So much, that now the tank is pretty much 99.9999999% hair algae free! Since last post, I caught the strawberry basslet (teach him to eat my Heliofungia shrimp!!) and used the credit to help buy 2 yellow clown gobies and 1 hi-fin striped shrimp goby. One of the yellow clown gobies didn't make it through the night ... found him in the claws of my sally light foot. Needless to say, was not happy ... tried catching the stupid crab, but no luck .. stupid thing is too smart. But the other clown goby has taken refuge in my huge toadstool leather coral and has been safe. And the hi-fin paired up with my existing pistol, so now I get to see my pistol shrimp out a whole lot more! Here are some pictures .. all are click-able for x-tra large versions. Clown Goby sitting in his protective toadstool leather coral. And here is a series of pictures showing the demise and re-birth of the tank since January: January 30th, 2007: March 1st, 2007: And recently, A 99% Hair Algae Free and Healthy Tank:

Thanks for the compliments ... both my wife and I are really enjoying the tank now ... we have chairs on each side of it, and we sit there each night watching the goings on. Heat problems haven't been bad, but that might be because of it not being too hot outside yet. I will have to keep an eye on it this summer. And as for the microbubbles ... well, I run the skimmer only at night now, so I don't really notice them anymore. I think they are still there, just not as bad as before. I also tried something similar to the foam block, but with a bad of Chemi-Pure.... and that didn't help. But I still like the skimmer.

Isn't that called a sea cucumber?

Wo .. I wouldn't be happy with that contrast either!

That new seahorse is very cool! Now you are making me want to have a seahorse tank (think I could convince my wife it would be "hers"? ). BTW, that link should have a .org in it and not a .com ... Was a little confused when I first clicked on it how the Marines got you seahorses

This is the only picture (and not a good one at that) I was able to get when I was acclimating the bag: Wife said I could get another one if I wanted, but will need to get of the basslet first.

And the rest of the pics ... Green/Brown Candy Cane (these thing inflated like crazy!). Burn your eyes out Electric Green Candy Canes. Same electric green candy, but messed with the camera to show there is actual flesh there. Green Galaxia (notice the small polyp forming on the lower left). The Orange Grove (Sun Coral and frag of green slipper from SeaCrop, orange plate is recovering nicely). No set of pictures would be complete without a close-up my my awesome long tentacle plate. And lastly, the full tank shot (I still need to work on taking these ....) Se there it is. Just fed the tank, and that torch is a pig! Both it and my long tentacle plate love the mysis. And tonight my orange plate finally ate again, it has been recovering from a vicious bi-color blennie that was picking on it (caught the blennie last weekend and took to store).

So I thought I would start a tank blog on this forum to share pictures and progress of my tank. The basics: - 24 gallon Aquapod, started last march. - Power compact lights (50/50 Daylight, 50/50 Actinics) - Two MJ900 pumps in second chamber, one goes to a hydor roatating deflector, the other to a locline spray bar. - Sapphire in-tank skimmer in the first chamber. I had a bad tank crash about two months ago after I did some major re-arranging and kicked up lots of organic matter that zapped the oxygen. Lost all original fish, most of the inverts, and part of the corals. The tank has been nursed back to health, along with better tank keeping habits (i.e. using RO/ID water instead of Tap, skimmer, etc). Since today I got a big shipment of corals in, I thought it would be a good point to start this blog. For those interested in the complete history of the tank, you can read it on my Nano-Reef.com tank page. Back to the good stuff. Last weekend I got a Heliofungai long tentacle plate coral. It is awesome! And it is huge I love taking pictures of it. Today I got a shipment of corals from SeaCrop to re-stock my tank. They are a great company. The packaging was superb (like breaking into Fort Knox to open the box and Styrofoam), and the coral frags are a very generous size for the price. So without further yakking, here are the pictures. All pictures taken under the tanks PC (daylight/actinic) lights, with no camera flash. Most of the pictures are taken 1-4 hours after the corals where acclimated and placed in the tank (gives credence to SeaCrop for them opening up so quickly). Click on any picture for a large one. All the new goodies temperature acclimating. Regular frogspawn. Purple/pink frogspawn. Green tipped torch. Orange Bullseye Mushrooms. Pipe Organ. Green daisy polyps (these looked like they took the shipping the hardest). Clove polyps (also slow to open). More pics to come....

You positive it is a peppermint shrimp and not a camel shrimp? They sometimes are hard to tell apart, and I think the camel's are more prone to nip at corals. But I also second headless_donkey, when I had peppermints, they were thiefs of food, and so was my cleaner.

(Sorry if this sounds familiar, I copied my post from Nano-Reef.com) Well, all this hype for nothing. I got my shrimp today, and it was pretty cool looking. Small and mostly clear. After acclimation, I tried placing him right next to the Heliofungia. Well no sooner than he set down on the sand, I saw a purple flash, and BAM!, he was gone! My stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid strawberry basslet snatched him up! Needless to say I was not happy. Well, shall try again later with one... I knew I should have gotten rid of that fish when I caught the blennie.... But on the plus side, the rest of my shipment from SeaCrop was awesome. Tank is back on the right track.

Gott wait till my tank is all nice looking again I am getting a big shipment of coral frags in tomorrow ....

Cool, thanks for the info on the pistol/sexy combo. Will definitely share pictures. Here is the "home" for the soon-to-arrive Heliofungia shrimp (click for larger): [Edit: Please ignore the brown algae .. working on getting rid of that ]

Thanks for the reply. Mary from SeaCrop got back to me and said they basically eat anything but the only think is they are small. So I went ahead and added one to my order from them. I also love the unusual, especially when it comes to symbiotic relationships. I might give some sexy shrimp a try down the road ... but correct me if I am wrong, did I not read somewhere that pistol shrimp and sexy's generally don't get a long? I have a small red striped pistol that used to be paired with a hi-fin goby.

I have placed an order with SeaCrop and I noticed that they have some Heliofungia Shrimp (Periclimenes kororensis) for sale. Does anyone any experience with these? I did some googling, but mostly came up with pictures. I still have time to add to the order, but was sure on the durability of the shrimp (yes, I have read about the sometimes lack of longevity of Heliofungia plates too). Was curious as I acquired a long tentacle plate this weekend that has jumped to the top of the "coolest coral in the tank list" . Thanks.

Nice looking stuff and good prices ... just not in the market quite yet

Welcome! Very cool on the local purchases, I hope to take advantage of that in the near future too

Heh.. stumbled across this today... happy b-day to ARC

Man o man, how the heck have I lived in the Austin area for 9 years and never found these places?!?! Guess I will be making a trip northward once my tank recovers based on all the good feedback for these two stores.

Thanks! Yes, recovering from the crash is a painfully slow process.

Found out about ARC from a fellow Austinite on Nano-Reef.com, so here I am to say "hi". I currently have a 24 gallon Aquapod which is a year old (but has seen better days, short story: recovering from a bio-crash). I though have been involved in the hobby (fresh, salt, pond) for over 15 years. Was living in south Austin for 8 years, and recently moved out to the grand ole countryside of Buda. Looking forward to hearing about local saltwater activities. -James