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Anonymous
Guest
Mine split up at night. Most of them stay out in the open, but one of'em has a particular spot behind the rocks he tends to hang out in at night.
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Anonymous
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Just a small update. No new tank shots yet, I still havent picked up a replacement rock to mount the loose xenia elongata to so things look a bit cluttered at the moment.
All this time and still no signs of predation at all, so I think I can safely conclude for good and all that removing that one rock from the tank rid me of whatever my problem hitchhiker was.
Most things continue to grow well. The cespitularia has surprised me by being a quick grower, more than doubling in size since I got it. It's spreading method of putting out club feet that attach to whatever they can land on and then sprouting stalks from it that creep along the rockwork is fascinating. It's currently making a beeline in it's growth towards several frags of the giant bali xenia so I may end up having to take some cuttings of it soon.
The sympodium continues to not do much. Not a coral that spreads quickly at all. Makes for a nice accent, but probably not something to devote a focal point to.
As far as the redspot cardinals, I'm down now to just the breeding pair. Unfortunate, but I won't add more of them as I'd expect this pair to harass them to death as they did the others. In a larger tank with a larger school of them I really don't think this would be an issue, but the elos mini is definitely on the small side. Instead I'll add some trimma gobies when I get a chance, probably trimma cana.
From a technical side the tank is running beautifully. Feed the fish, refill the ATO reservoir once a week or so, empty the skimmer and scrape a little bit of algae from the glass about that often... 5 gallon water change once a month. That's it.
All this time and still no signs of predation at all, so I think I can safely conclude for good and all that removing that one rock from the tank rid me of whatever my problem hitchhiker was.
Most things continue to grow well. The cespitularia has surprised me by being a quick grower, more than doubling in size since I got it. It's spreading method of putting out club feet that attach to whatever they can land on and then sprouting stalks from it that creep along the rockwork is fascinating. It's currently making a beeline in it's growth towards several frags of the giant bali xenia so I may end up having to take some cuttings of it soon.
The sympodium continues to not do much. Not a coral that spreads quickly at all. Makes for a nice accent, but probably not something to devote a focal point to.
As far as the redspot cardinals, I'm down now to just the breeding pair. Unfortunate, but I won't add more of them as I'd expect this pair to harass them to death as they did the others. In a larger tank with a larger school of them I really don't think this would be an issue, but the elos mini is definitely on the small side. Instead I'll add some trimma gobies when I get a chance, probably trimma cana.
From a technical side the tank is running beautifully. Feed the fish, refill the ATO reservoir once a week or so, empty the skimmer and scrape a little bit of algae from the glass about that often... 5 gallon water change once a month. That's it.
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Anonymous
Guest
Photo update likely sometime this weekend, I've got some livestock being delivered saturday.
After talking about it with a few people I decided to order up 15 pounds of Marco Rocks key largo nano-sized dry rock. Price was ridiculously low, about $25 with shipping IIRC, so I figured it'd give me an assortment to pick through so I could choose a piece I really liked to replace the one rock I tossed in november. The rock got here last night and I have a couple pieces soaking that I plan to make use of. I have to say I really, really like this stuff. To the point where I wish I hadn't used the fiji live rock in this tank and had just gone with this stuff instead. Great shapes, great variety, very porous... could really do a nice aquascape with it. In future this is going to be my go-to rock.
After talking to Meredith I've decided that much as I love xenia, the tank needs more variety and color. To that end I'm going to be relocating some of the xeniids (some of the pom pom xenia for sure, possibly also the octopus ink) to the top rear of the rock formation, then using the space that opens up for some colorful LPS. I've got a small green and purple duncan and a flourescent tipped torch coral arriving this weekend, which is a start.
Also arriving are a couple fish. As much as I wish I could add more redspot cardinals I'm pretty sure the pair I've got would harass the hell out of them. So instead I'm adding a pair of tiny ORA tiger gobies and a small centropyge argi. I've had good luck with c. argi in reefs in the past, so hopefully that will hold true this time as well. Trying to stick to small fish that won't eat the sexy shrimp, won't get into it with the pistol shrimp+goby and won't jump out the open top.
Did a water change last weekend with a new batch of the 4 part ESV salt. I've no hesitation at all in recommending it. Little more measuring involved than with a regular salt mix, but being able to use a new batch of saltwater almost as soon as it's made is a real convenience. Everything in the tank seemed to respond quite positively to it, as well.
After talking about it with a few people I decided to order up 15 pounds of Marco Rocks key largo nano-sized dry rock. Price was ridiculously low, about $25 with shipping IIRC, so I figured it'd give me an assortment to pick through so I could choose a piece I really liked to replace the one rock I tossed in november. The rock got here last night and I have a couple pieces soaking that I plan to make use of. I have to say I really, really like this stuff. To the point where I wish I hadn't used the fiji live rock in this tank and had just gone with this stuff instead. Great shapes, great variety, very porous... could really do a nice aquascape with it. In future this is going to be my go-to rock.
After talking to Meredith I've decided that much as I love xenia, the tank needs more variety and color. To that end I'm going to be relocating some of the xeniids (some of the pom pom xenia for sure, possibly also the octopus ink) to the top rear of the rock formation, then using the space that opens up for some colorful LPS. I've got a small green and purple duncan and a flourescent tipped torch coral arriving this weekend, which is a start.
Also arriving are a couple fish. As much as I wish I could add more redspot cardinals I'm pretty sure the pair I've got would harass the hell out of them. So instead I'm adding a pair of tiny ORA tiger gobies and a small centropyge argi. I've had good luck with c. argi in reefs in the past, so hopefully that will hold true this time as well. Trying to stick to small fish that won't eat the sexy shrimp, won't get into it with the pistol shrimp+goby and won't jump out the open top.
Did a water change last weekend with a new batch of the 4 part ESV salt. I've no hesitation at all in recommending it. Little more measuring involved than with a regular salt mix, but being able to use a new batch of saltwater almost as soon as it's made is a real convenience. Everything in the tank seemed to respond quite positively to it, as well.
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Anonymous
Guest
Turned out to be a busier weekend than I'd planned so no photos just yet. Will try to get some in the next couple of days, though.
Saturday's delivery came without a hitch. The torch coral looks great, the duncan is a bit on the dinky side but those are fairly fast growers if you feed them so no real worries there. I was a bit worried the pygmy angel would be a bit of a bully, but this one is decidely shy. So far it's spending most of it's time hidden in the rockwork, and when it does come out it shadows one of the other fish, swimming in formation and mirroring it's movements.
The ORA tiger gobies are real winners. Not a very colorful species, but very personable and entertaining as hell. Active, endearing and downright funny.
Saturday's delivery came without a hitch. The torch coral looks great, the duncan is a bit on the dinky side but those are fairly fast growers if you feed them so no real worries there. I was a bit worried the pygmy angel would be a bit of a bully, but this one is decidely shy. So far it's spending most of it's time hidden in the rockwork, and when it does come out it shadows one of the other fish, swimming in formation and mirroring it's movements.
The ORA tiger gobies are real winners. Not a very colorful species, but very personable and entertaining as hell. Active, endearing and downright funny.
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Anonymous
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Missed this when you posted. Sounds like some nice additions to the tank. A bit of variety which actually help show off your xeniids I'm guessing. 8)
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Anonymous
Guest
Yeah, it was just too much white. White with tan overtones, white with blue overtones, white on white, white on gray, blue that looks white when viewed anywhere but from above.... just a lot of white. The torch went a long way towards livening things up, and one or two other small additions should complete the job.
Sorry I still don't have pictures. I've got a bunch taken, but my main home desktop went bust and it was my only machine at home with photoshop installed (which gets used for resizing and some white balance corrections on tank pics)... I've got to grab something that can do the same on the netbook before I can get the pics up.
A couple quick observations while I'm posting...
The ORA tiger gobies are quickly on their way towards becoming one of my all time favorite fish. Their method of locomation looks like nothing so much as surfing. Over the sand, the rockwork, up and down the glass walls of the tank. It's so damn cute it's hysterical. They're also lively eaters on, well, something... I've seen them eat the occasional pellet, but mostly they seem to be keeping themselves fed. Whatever they've been eating, both are getting royally fat very quickly.
The cespitularia has been growing steadily and has increased it's mass by four or five hundred percent since I got it. Not quite xenia elongata speed of growth, but not all that far behind it. It's growth is fascinating. It started by generating a triangular 'foot' of tissue midway up it's stalk. The foot gained mass until it was large and heavy enough to put down on the rock, whereupon it just took off... rather than growing into an upright stalk it has grown 4" of snaking along the rockwork, and from out of it's mass stalks have grown intermittedly. Very different growth form compared to other xeniids, the entire colony is very much connected and not a mass of individual stalks. Currently the original stalk appears to be developing another foot and I'm curious to see if it will head in a different direction or if it will intersect the growth from the first foot and combine.
Sorry I still don't have pictures. I've got a bunch taken, but my main home desktop went bust and it was my only machine at home with photoshop installed (which gets used for resizing and some white balance corrections on tank pics)... I've got to grab something that can do the same on the netbook before I can get the pics up.
A couple quick observations while I'm posting...
The ORA tiger gobies are quickly on their way towards becoming one of my all time favorite fish. Their method of locomation looks like nothing so much as surfing. Over the sand, the rockwork, up and down the glass walls of the tank. It's so damn cute it's hysterical. They're also lively eaters on, well, something... I've seen them eat the occasional pellet, but mostly they seem to be keeping themselves fed. Whatever they've been eating, both are getting royally fat very quickly.
The cespitularia has been growing steadily and has increased it's mass by four or five hundred percent since I got it. Not quite xenia elongata speed of growth, but not all that far behind it. It's growth is fascinating. It started by generating a triangular 'foot' of tissue midway up it's stalk. The foot gained mass until it was large and heavy enough to put down on the rock, whereupon it just took off... rather than growing into an upright stalk it has grown 4" of snaking along the rockwork, and from out of it's mass stalks have grown intermittedly. Very different growth form compared to other xeniids, the entire colony is very much connected and not a mass of individual stalks. Currently the original stalk appears to be developing another foot and I'm curious to see if it will head in a different direction or if it will intersect the growth from the first foot and combine.
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Anonymous
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Until I do get my own pics up, here's a shot from ORA's website of a tiger goby...
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Anonymous
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8) I like
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Anonymous
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Very cool CJ. I need to get some more fish soon too. I was going to buy a N.decora to replace my N.helfrichi over the weekend, but all three the shop had had very frayed fins so I went with coral alone in the end.
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Anonymous
Guest
It's been a bad week for the tank.
Last week the four colonies of "pom pom" xenia (the one that turned out to be a giant bali xenia and the three similar colonies I purchased later) began crashing. I tried getting ahead of it by removing the most heavily effected bits and fragging tissue that still looked healthy (as well as doing daily 20% water changes), but by sunday all of it had succumbed and had to be removed. I thought that was the end of it, but I came home last night to discover the very nearby blue heteroxenia was now melting as well. Got it out of the tank.
So far the rest of the xeniids appear to be holding together: the sympodium, the cespitularia, the xenia elongata and the "daisy xenia". Everything else, the remaining softies, LPS, snails and fish, have been completely unaffected.
Jeebus knows what triggered the crash, it's one of the joys of keeping xenia. At this point I'm just hoping to keep it from hitting the rest of the xeniids. Not least of which because I've got a couple pounds worth of xenia elongata in there now. If that all goes at once I'm going to have some real problems.
Holding off on doing any planning beyond damage control until I know whether any of the other xeniids are also going to crash.
Last week the four colonies of "pom pom" xenia (the one that turned out to be a giant bali xenia and the three similar colonies I purchased later) began crashing. I tried getting ahead of it by removing the most heavily effected bits and fragging tissue that still looked healthy (as well as doing daily 20% water changes), but by sunday all of it had succumbed and had to be removed. I thought that was the end of it, but I came home last night to discover the very nearby blue heteroxenia was now melting as well. Got it out of the tank.
So far the rest of the xeniids appear to be holding together: the sympodium, the cespitularia, the xenia elongata and the "daisy xenia". Everything else, the remaining softies, LPS, snails and fish, have been completely unaffected.
Jeebus knows what triggered the crash, it's one of the joys of keeping xenia. At this point I'm just hoping to keep it from hitting the rest of the xeniids. Not least of which because I've got a couple pounds worth of xenia elongata in there now. If that all goes at once I'm going to have some real problems.
Holding off on doing any planning beyond damage control until I know whether any of the other xeniids are also going to crash.
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Anonymous
Guest
That blows.
Were they at the top of the rock? - Climbed as high as they could go..?
Been a while since I've kept any but I think that might have been the cause of a couple mystery crashes for me in the past.
Just tossin in out there.. - Hope the rest stay healthy.
Were they at the top of the rock? - Climbed as high as they could go..?
Been a while since I've kept any but I think that might have been the cause of a couple mystery crashes for me in the past.
Just tossin in out there.. - Hope the rest stay healthy.
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Anonymous
Guest
Actually, yeah - the initial colonies to go bad were the ones at the top of the rockwork. With that (or those, I think it was two similar ones) particular species they tend to grow more than to split so I wouldn't have thought that would be a problem. You never know though, coulda been. My only other theory is that the mass of xenia in the tank just hit, well, critical mass as it were.
Be heading home shortly. If the remaining species of xeniids are still okay I'll breathe a sigh of relief and cross my fingers.
Be heading home shortly. If the remaining species of xeniids are still okay I'll breathe a sigh of relief and cross my fingers.
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Anonymous
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GratefulDiver":21q9cjm7 said:
+1
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Anonymous
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No sigh of relief. Both the daisy xenia and the piles of xenia elongata were melting down when I got home tonight. Just spent the past couple hours pulling things out, doing a water change. All the xenia and heteroxenia is gone, as is the gorgonian. Most of the sympodium made it, as did the torch, the cespitularia, ricordea, mushrooms, GSP, duncan, the three gobies, the pistol shrimp and the clean up crew.
Looks like I'm going to be needing a new direction with the tank once I get it back in shape. Got most of the decaying xenia out before it could melt away and the skimmer seems to be handling what's left fairly well. Hopefully this is the end of the losses.
Looks like I'm going to be needing a new direction with the tank once I get it back in shape. Got most of the decaying xenia out before it could melt away and the skimmer seems to be handling what's left fairly well. Hopefully this is the end of the losses.
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Anonymous
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Sorry dude.
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Thanks guys. Good news is things are looking fine this morning. Everything left is looking healthy and the water is crystal clear again. No more lingering 'dead xenia' smell to the water.
I'll probably leave things sit for several weeks, give everything a chance to really stablize and make sure the water chemistry hasn't/doesn't get out of whack. It'll give me a chance to take my time figuring out what my next plans are as well.
I'll probably leave things sit for several weeks, give everything a chance to really stablize and make sure the water chemistry hasn't/doesn't get out of whack. It'll give me a chance to take my time figuring out what my next plans are as well.
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Anonymous
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That's good to hear
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Anonymous
Guest
I've taken advantage of the tank's current situation to swap out one of the large boulders of live rock that was in the tank with a handful of smaller dry rocks from that batch of Marco rocks I picked up a few months ago. Frankly wish I could swap out all of the live rock for this stuff, but there's no way without really messing up the tank's biofiltration. I've got a little bit of live rock sitting in the sump but not enough to pick up the slack if I removed all the live rock. Maybe down the road I'll swap more, doing it gradually so the new rock has time to develop as a biofilter as I go.
Between the xenia deaths and the new rock in the tank I'm starting to see some nuisance algae, a bit of hair algae and some dinoflagellates. I've added some phosphate removing resin in with the carbon I run and I'm adding a tuxedo urchin this weekend, so hopefully I can head it off before it gets much of a foot hold. Been doing 5 gallon water changes every couple of days, and I think I'll toss a power filter on the tank this weekend, storm the tank and get things as clean as I can. The bubble magus skimmer has been performing like a champ through all this, but even with it and all the water changes I shouldn't be surprised water chemistry took a bit of a hit.
Needless to say I'll let everything get back to normal before I add anything more than the urchin.
When I do start adding things again I think I'm going to go largely with LPS, with an emphasis on euphyllia. Hammer corals were what got me into keeping reef tanks all those years ago, might be time to revisit them.
Between the xenia deaths and the new rock in the tank I'm starting to see some nuisance algae, a bit of hair algae and some dinoflagellates. I've added some phosphate removing resin in with the carbon I run and I'm adding a tuxedo urchin this weekend, so hopefully I can head it off before it gets much of a foot hold. Been doing 5 gallon water changes every couple of days, and I think I'll toss a power filter on the tank this weekend, storm the tank and get things as clean as I can. The bubble magus skimmer has been performing like a champ through all this, but even with it and all the water changes I shouldn't be surprised water chemistry took a bit of a hit.
Needless to say I'll let everything get back to normal before I add anything more than the urchin.
When I do start adding things again I think I'm going to go largely with LPS, with an emphasis on euphyllia. Hammer corals were what got me into keeping reef tanks all those years ago, might be time to revisit them.
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Anonymous
Guest
Euphyllia are a fav of mine too 8)
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