Archive for the Other Critters category
Other Critters
Posted on Thursday, 03 May, 2007 at 1:22 PM by miskairal
Came with Live rock October 2005
1 Cucumber. Died
mid 2006
1 red crab
2 Corallimorphs
3rd Feb 2006
5 Hermit crabs (small). July 2007 I think only 1 left
8th March 2006 with Peregian tank
1 Anemone, bleached (I think a bta)
Purple
corallimorphs
Fluffy Corallimorphs
Red crab, Large
1
Hermit crab, Large Died 22nd July 2007
Majano
Zoanthids
10th August 2006
Zoanthids
23rd August 2006
Green Corallimorphs from Alf_D
16th March 2007
Corallimorphs, green, blue, orange and brown
21st July 2007
6 micro hermits
4 Trochus snails
1 urchin
orange
centred zoanthids
green mushy
Posted in Other Critters (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)
June - August 2006
Posted on Monday, 26 June, 2006 at 12:39 PM by miskairal
June 2006 saw me fed up with the R/O unit so I went and spent more money ($288) on a booster pump and UV steriliser. I also bought 5 x 200 litre ex olive drums for carting seawater from the coast back home ($250). I made my own sump out of an old 3 foot tank I'd previously used for freshwater and Tony helped me get the plumbing to it. I got some pieces of glass cut and sealed them in to form an area for my skimmer and a heater, a refugium area and a a return area. The sump has a moderate coral sand bed of about 30x30cm and maybe 6-8cm deep. The sump is not under the tank but rather sits sort of beside and behind on it's original stand. I find this perfect for access with my sore back but a bit of an eyesore. Lighting consists of simply two of the compact fluoro bulbs attached to a piece of wood on which Tony put the holders and a power lead. It is in serious need of some sort of guard so you are not looking at the light and for now only has alfoil. My return pump is a power head that came with the main tank. Water flow is low because the hole in the main tank is so high up on the side.
On the 25th July 2006 I bought a spotted Mandarin and a Midas Blenny and
put them into the Peregian tank where they could not infect my other
fish. I loved both of them, they were great fish but I stuffed up. The
Peregian tank had bioballs still in place in the sump from when I bought
it and 8 days after buying Nuggett the Midas I found him in the morning
dried up on top of the bioballs. In that short time that fish was taking
food from my fingers, even flake food. That fish death really cracked me
up. So easily avoided if I'd just stopped procrastinating and got rid of
the bio balls. Needless to say they are now gone and there is gutter
guard over the weir.
August saw some coral purchases. One of those is something weird, it's
base is a brain of some sort and then it has sea fan type elkhorns
growing out of it. All is brown unfortunately. That is quite tall and
was hard to get home and ended up with some dead tips but it has
survived although not thrived.
- Elegance (my favourite coral to date)
- Green brain which was doing well but has died right back in April 2007
- small zoanthids
- Candy cane which has never looked great and is finally dying back
- Scloymia and Cynarinas
Alf_D posted me up some (thankyou Alf)
- Nice bright green mushies
- Pavona which is slowly growing
- Acropora which was DOA and stank
Edited on: Wednesday, 02 May, 2007 3:59 PM
Posted in Fish (RSS), Other Critters (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)