Archive for the Corals category
New goodies
Posted on Sunday, 06 May, 2007 at 2:43 PM by miskairal
Back in 2005 I saw a fish in a pet shop that I so fell in love with. It was the Psychedelic Mandarin (Synchiropus Splendidus) and the one I saw was in a nano and putting on a great show for us, checking us out. Well yesterday I finally got my own Psychedelic Mandarin. She is tiny, only about 4cm long and she likes to watch us. I think I will name her Whoopi for her flamboyant dress sense and big lips. I have released Whoopi straight in with Angelina with no quarantine so she has a plentiful supply of pods. Blags had her a few weeks so it is less likely she is carrying white spot. He says she is eating brine shrimp and nori of all things.
I also got a Bicolor Blenny to replace the Midas Blenny I lost last year. I've named him/her Dave after my brother who really liked one of these when I took him to the same petshop back in 2005. Dave is in quarantine in my 120 litre tank but I only have about 80 litres of water in it. There are heaps of hidey holes in there in the form of old bioballs and pvc pipes laying round and some pieces of egg crate. Dave has found a few bioballs to hangout in and poked his head out to watch me. Dave is only about 5cm long.
Two new corals as well, neither of which I can get decent photos of. One is a lovely yellow Alveopora and the other is a Euphyllia Ancora, I think also known as hammer coral. So we shall see how they fare in my tank. I've kind of decided that some things suit and some don't.
Again a big thankyou to Pete and Sue for getting this stock to me via Sue's lovely Dad, Stuart.
Edited on: Sunday, 06 May, 2007 4:51 PMPosted in Corals (RSS), Fish (RSS)
Coral
Posted on Thursday, 03 May, 2007 at 12:57 PM by miskairal
Came with original live rock in October 2005
2
x Favia sp (1 brown, one brown with green centres)
2 x Galaxeas.
All
appear to have died during March-May 2007
6th Dec 2005
1 x Leather Coral Sarcophyton
8th Mar 2006
1 Small Leather Sarcophyton Died about 2 months
later suddenly
1 Duncanopsammia
1 Probably Heliofungia
29th April 2006
Scolymia Australis I believe. Bright orange.
10th August 2006
1 Scolymia I believe. Bright darkish green
1
Cynarina I believe. Opaque brown with inside "lights"
1
Elegance Catalaphyllia Jardinei
1 combo brain with 2 extending
probable sea fans
23rd August 2006
1 Pavona from Alf_D (posted
in the mail from Sydney) Died during July 2007
12th Oct 2006 (Kingaroy rescue)
1 Sinularia Died
July 2007
1 Gonipora Died June 2007
16th March 2007
1 Blastomussa Merletti
1 Symphyllia
1
acanthastrea lordhowensis
5th May 2007
1 Alveopora
1 Euphyllia
Ancora, a sick piece that was given to me Died July 2007
21st July 2007
1 medium acanthastrea lordhowensis
1 yellow fungia
1
green lobophyllia
Zoanthids, green with orange centre
green
corallimorph
Posted in Corals (RSS), Stocktake (RSS)
New Mandarin and corals
Posted on Saturday, 17 March, 2007 at 2:54 PM by miskairal
On the 16th March I drove to a tiny town called Linville where I met up with the wonderful Pete and Sue (blags) who brought some coral and a fish up from Brisbane for me. A 2 hour drive each way was worth it.
The mandarin is a spotted Mandarin same as Angelina 1 so I have named this one Angelina 2. She is much more shy than Angelina 1 but is far better in the eating department. I have seen her eat a single brine shrimp and i have seen her eat Granumarin granules although I think she spat them out again. Like the first Angelina she sleeps late and I wouldn't be at all surprised if she sleeps with one of those eye covers on as well, you know, like you used to see in the old movies. She is a lady.
Coral - I got a Symphillia, a Blastomussa Merletti and an Acanthastrea lordhowensis, all in great condition.
I also got a mixture of orange, blue, green and brown corallimorphs and 2 peppermint shrimp that I haven't seen since releasing them in the tank.
Posted in Corals (RSS), Fish (RSS), Other Critters (RSS)
August-October 2006
Posted on Thursday, 19 October, 2006 at 3:26 PM by miskairal
The 22nd of August saw my purchase of a goatfish. I should have
known not to get involved with something with goat in it's name but some
of us just never learn. I put this fish in the Peregian tank with the
Mandarin as I figured it was a form of quarantine and Mandarins aren't
supposed to get white spot (more reading tells me otherwise). I don't
want to go into a lot of detail here but the goatfish died on the 23rd
September and and Angelina died on the 24th, both from white spot.
Angelina was a very outgoing little girl although I never saw her eat
any food I placed in the tank. She had the hots for my husband I suspect
because she used to do little dance things for him which I managed to
capture on video but have never had the heart to look at.
On the 12th of October I rescued some stock for a guy in Kingaroy
who's lights had failed and he couldn't replace them. I arrived to find
a very white anemone blowing around the floor of the tank, a gonipora
that was looking good, a sinularia that was ok and two other leather
corals that had an unhealthy colour to them. The two leathers died, the
gonipora thrived until my last tank break and the anemone has fully
recovered and grown and been taken over by my clowns. The finger leather
appeared to thrive for a couple of months then all of a sudden the base
turned white and it kind of fell over and shrivelled up. I moved it over
to the Peregian tank and it is now looking good again.
I setup an old 4 foot freshwater tank as a proper quarantine tank in
October 2006 complete with PVC pipe for hidey holes and moved te Eheim
canister filter over to it. On the 19th of October I bought a decorated
goby (called Gollum) and put him in quarantine. Nice fish and easy to
care for he is a sand sifting goby who eats just about anything that
goes in the tank. He is unable to swim to any degree and instead lives
on the bottom only occasionally getting as high as 10 cm in pusuit of
food. He even eats flakes but they come back out through his gills
usually. So Gollum briefly had the Q tank all to himself. I will be
forever greatful that he didn't carry any disease because of what
happened next.
Posted in Corals (RSS), Fish (RSS), Other Critters (RSS), Tank in general (RSS)
April 2006
Posted on Sunday, 30 April, 2006 at 1:57 PM by miskairal
Some friends of mine had a saltwater tank (FOWLR) but had lost just about everything when a power outage went unoticed by a house sitter. In April 2006 I bought a lot of rock off them, much of it being that man made stuff. The man made stuff has taken a long time to show much life and only in the last month has it shown some coralline growth along with some spaghetti worms and mojano and tube worms. I gained a cowrie with this rock as well. I am guessing that the total live rock volume I now have in my main tank is around 80kg. I also aquired a cowrie with that live rock and it is happily living in the Peregian tank.
At the end of April I discovered a shop in Maryborough sells marine and
brought home what I think is a Scolymia Australis, sold to me as a
Cushion coral for a whole $8. Bargain.
Posted in Corals (RSS), Other Critters (RSS), Tank in general (RSS)
March 2006
Posted on Wednesday, 29 March, 2006 at 1:48 PM by miskairal
Well not a lot to tell about the tank for the first 4 months. I managed to get 5 smallish hermit crabs in February 2006.
In March 2006 I bought yet another 2nd hand tank, I call it the Peregian tank or the 4 footer. This one is 120x35x40cm drilled in the bottom and has a small sump so that total water volume is nearing 200 litres. The tank had lots come with it but had been left to get too warm the previous summer and much was in trouble.
- 1 anemone bleached totally white
- Approx 8 fluffly mushrooms totally white (quite pretty actually)
- 1 small leather coral
- 1 juvenile sailfin tang that was quite skinny
- 1 large red crab
- 1 very large hermit crab
- I broken little piece of heliofungia
- 1 duncanopsammia
- Pods! I had no pods that I ever found with my first 6 footer but now I finally had heaps
- 3 zoanthids which have not multiplied
- Mojano which has multiplied
- An unknown growth which I finally have a decent picture of and am trying to ID
The fluffy mushrooms coloured up quickly and have multiplied to more than double their number. The anemone has slowly divided into 6 that I know of and just recently 3 of those show signs of colouring (more than a year after bleaching). They have received mostly prawn and whiting in that time. The tang has grown heaps and has pretty much got his adult colouring from what I can read and see. He's got a beer belly and eats out of my hand. He/she doesn't like a T-shirt I was given that is black with orange and white south park figures on it. He also doesn't like a singlet top I have that is orange and green horizontal stripes. If I wear either of those items when I go to feed the fish the tang goes into a spack attack and shakes in a corner of the tank and "runs" from me.
The leather coral thrived and grew well for about 2 months when it suddenly got a yellow spot in the centre and within days was dead. That was a bit of a shock.
The duncan has thrived to the point I can no longer count it's polyps and the helio has mostly thrived although it seems to have "off" days particularly after feeding. Both have been fed much the same as the anemone - pieces of prawn and whiting that were blended in the blender and frozen. The pods I'm happy to say have multiplied very well especially during the many times the tank has had no fish in it. There seems to be both amphipods and copepods.
Edited on: Tuesday, 01 May, 2007 4:07 PMPosted in Corals (RSS), Fish (RSS), Other Critters (RSS), Tank in general (RSS)
Tank Beginnings
Posted on Saturday, 31 December, 2005 at 1:29 PM by miskairal
I live near Murgon, a small town about 3 hour's drive from Brisbane airport and 2 hours from the sunshine coast. There are no shops within a 2 hour drive that sell any type of marine animal so obtaining stock for my tank has always been a challenge. Hence my 6 foot tank looked very bare for some time.
I bought my tank 2nd hand, a 6x2x2.5, in May 2005, from a guy in Brisbane and started reading all I could. Until I set it up though I didn't understand a lot of what I read. The tank came with a broken protein skimmer of some description, 2 x 150W Metal Halide lights, also home put together and a sump that was designed to hold bio balls and spray bars etc. It was drilled high up on one short side and had a metal and timber stand that was also home made and built to hold a TV as well. Luckily Tony, my husband, is pretty handy and cut down and rewelded the stand.
On the 13th October 2005 I started with a shallow coral sand bed and 21 kg of good live rock, no sump or refugium and a Tunze skimmer designed to go in the tank. I also had 1 Turbelle stream 6000 with a single controller. I barely saw a cycle with so small an amount of rock in such a large tank. I made the salt water up using my new R/O unit and corallife salt which gave me a Ca reading of 600 for the next year until I switched to seawater for changes. Oh and I also had a canister filter which only gets used on my Q tank these days.
My live rock provided me with
- 2 Favia type coral
- 2 Glaxeas
- 1 Cucumber (which came out and died mid 2006)
- 2 corallimorphs
- sponges
- halimeda
- several other smaller corals that have never been identified
My Fish
- 2 Ocellaris clowns (captive bred, bought on the 8th November 2005 still very young)
- 1 Coral Beauty bought 6th December 2005
- 2 Pyjama Cardinals bought 6th December 2005
I also bought a Leather coral and a Coral Banded Shrimp on the 6th December 2005 but the shrimp was dead when I returned from the MASQ AGM in Feb 2007. The Pyjama Cardinals perished on the 9th December 2006 as a result of my tank breaking which you will read about later. The leather coral looked great for a week then sulked for the next 6 weeks or so. It is thriving today despite two tank leaks/breaks and I have a sneaking suspicion it kills other leathers I put in the tank. I have no proof of that, just that they do great for 1 to 2 months then go downhill all of a sudden while it keeps going.
Posted in Corals (RSS), Fish (RSS), Other Critters (RSS), Tank in general (RSS)