Cali Kid Corals

yaradartist's 36g

Even partial polyps will come back sometimes. Just keep feeding them. :)

Sorry about your spills, but glad your fuge is working. :D
 
Thanks Sherri. Speaking of just keep feeding, I am keeping tabs on the ATL Meteor Showers Cyphastrea that dropped back to only five tips of red anywhere on the frag. I am keeping it free of hair algae, and just wait and see if they will start to grow back.

I cut a dendro polyp off today. Both mother and frag look good. Difficult to tell until this evening when they fully extend.
 
First the dendro mother colony did not make it. The frag is growing down onto the base.

Today I cut up a deep red favia and the project snowballed into suspending a frag rack in the fuge to hold all of the frags. It gets direct sunlight for about an hour and then when I get home after work I will move 18w actinic PC about five inches over them for about 4 hours. Time to upgrade now that I am a proper club member.

The down shot shows the rack hanging by mono filament from bamboo chopsticks. Temporary ;)

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I like how you have the refugium directly in the sunlight, should give you some good algae growth. :D I'm curious as to the colors of the of the frags in the sun, specifically do they turn brown or do the actinics keep the original colors? Keep us posted.
 
Fed pellets to the frags this evening and while not every mouth ate, each frag took some in. The color of most is turning brighter red and the green growing edge is visible on those. A few bleached out white and have not turned the corner to coloring up again. One or two are dull colored, but I think they were treated rough in the fragging and recovering more slowly than others that were not so chopped and handled to get them glued down.

I hit them with phyto and oyster feast every couple days.

I hope to be home Friday to see how long the sun hits them, as it moves higher in the sky and out of the room.

There should be some ready for BAYMAC, and then some for DBTC later.
 
Nice job with the frags. I really like the "temporary" fix that you used with the chopsticks. I think I'll end up doing something like that as a permanent fix, just maybe some different material instead of chopsticks :)
 
I had a hose in the tank last week to pull a tiny fish out with siphon, and hit the hanging rack. It was enough to knock all off to the bottom of the tank. I lost one of the mono filament strings so had to balance the rack down in the tank to tie another and get it hanging again. I am sure the magnet types have gotten bumped before and set the frags jumping off. It still works for temporary space.

The Cyphastria fell back to two tips of color and with the new oyster feast they have connected and have grown to nine new mouths. All red still, but growing out. The larger ones can catch cyclops.
 
I woke up yesterday to a green tank, and had to go out the door to work. It was clear the night before. I set up the skimmer, and had filter socks in several places. After twelve hours the tank looked almost back to normal. It seems the Palm Caulerpa shed spores, or just expelled chlorophyll. It was all bleached out this morning while I was cleaning up the fuge and changing some additional water to the usual weekly 10%. Photos of Sunday morning and then 12 hours later.

The rainfordii in the fuge was dead when I came in from work. The rainfordii in the main tank was dead this morning. All the coral and inverts look the same, and the other fish are fine.

The timing for a shock to the system like this is great. I am out of town for ten days starting Thursday.

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The tank cleared up very well and there are now two shoots of the palm caulerpa regrowing. In all lost several feet of runners and about thirty fronds in the melt.

So my Homer Simpson moment is that I am over feeding. The place looks like Cousin It 24/7 unless I am hand pulling red hair algae all the time. Also planaria in the fuge that I baste out once a week. I am going back to target feeding, and being very selective with the angel and three green chromis. The pods have the mandarin filled back out after it went lacking when first introduced. I miss the rainford's character, and may get another or a tailspot.

Added three one week old Banggai fry to the fuge and they are eating BBS 2x a day.
 
red hair algae? You mean the red cotton candy? It's no way related to hair algae I'm afraid and nutrients don't seem to make it grow any faster as even ULN systems have it in great abundance.
 
It is long filaments just like the green hair I had for months and is now gone. I also found a small clump of the cotton candy type this last week. Check out these photos and see if you can make out the red strings around all of the corals. The one of caulastrea shows the most base rock with the algae covering it.

What control do you suggest other than what I have been doing by hand pulling?

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Full tank shots and some close ups that were not too fuzzy to post up. This was the clean up for the tank tour.

http://s870.photobucket.com/albums/ab269/yardartist/Tank%20Shots%20March%2030th%202010/?albumview=slideshow

The green banded gobie pair is new from Green Marine. They are tiny at about an inch and keep the the very bottom. A great clean up for any food that settles. They can consume in one bite the same as the tail spot blenny.

I have been considering a tank upgrade for a couple months and have looked at two member tanks for sale in that time. Still not decided on the change. I am looking to soften the sound of this system to the next. The return water falls wildly to the sump. And move to another room. I like the ease of cleaning the soft rounded corners of the hex. It is too deep at 24" to get into as comfortably as I would like. I also like that there is not a flat side to the wall so I can see all the rock and coral to inspect regularly.

Given all the great comments on the tour, I am not as keen to bump up the size this move. Would be nice to change the sound and height, and remove the U- siphon overflow. The only thing pushing the size up is adding a few clams to the tank. May be able to do this with better lighting on the refugium and shift some more corals in there.
 
Richard,

After hearing and seeing Jake's talk on LED's, I think your tank would look very cool with those Japanese spotlight LED's. ;)

Jim
 
Jim given the way the sun shimmers in the fuge I am with you on spot lighting.

Last weekend I moved out the 13g fug and removed the sump. In their place a 30g fuge. The water sounds and return pump motor are still high, but the siphon u-tube is gone. Removed a five gallon bucket of chaeto from all the tanks to then start with a small ball again.

Moving about 5lbs of sand I used the waste water all weekend to rinse and in several days of dumping water into the container and siphoning off the muck that settled on top of the sand each time, it was clean to add to the new system and fill of worms and other bugs. The little hanging frag rack will go tomorrow as all the frags are for BAYMAC.

The two hitcher brown starfish made it as did tons of brittle stars. No bump in NO3 so the main tank should keep humming. I was able to pull up the alk to 9.0dKH over two weeks from 7.2.

This set up will work better with ATO. It is next to install. I will be away a couple weeks in July and would like to have the care load less.

The mandarin is thinning out for competition with the two new green banded gobies. Hope the larger fuge will keep up with them all. Adding two small fish and the system is completely out of balance for a third fish. So wild to think small changes ripple out so large.
 
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