Lisa's Reef
  • Home
  • About
  • Tank Diary
  • System Details
  • Livestock
  • Full Tank Shots
  • Previous tanks
  • Contact
  • Links

Decapod des res!

23/8/2018

0 Comments

 
I first discovered Charlize the hitchhiking crab sitting at the base of the Seriatopora in February 2017, she was such a tiny little thing back then no bigger than the nail on my little finger. For a couple of months I let her do her thing before deciding to move her after she knocked a frag off the rockwork. She was surprisingly easy to catch and rather than dispose of her, something I never like to do with any living creature, I placed her into the most desirable of crab residences, the refugium! Since then she has positively thrived and has grown incredibly. She's a beefy crab now measuring a couple of inches across, quite a bit bigger than the Emerald crab she now shares her home with. When I added Bruce (the Emerald crab) I did worry that there might have been issues between the two but so far everything's been good. They tend to hang out at opposite ends of the tank although I occasionally find them relatively close together as in the second photo below. I can't help but wonder how much growing Charlize still has left to do, I may need a bigger refugium if she keeps expanding, gulp!
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Happy Birthday!

16/10/2017

0 Comments

 
My tank is exactly a year old today! Wow, where has the time flown to? I've been a bit lax with the updates recently so there's lots to catch up on.

First lets get the bad news out of the way. I'm afraid that I've lost the lovely Tridacna maxima clam, it simply never thrived in my tank. Before adding it I carefully checked the shell looking for any nasty hitchhikers but I never found any. I must have missed some (or their eggs at least) as I started to notice some pyramid snails feeding on my precious Trochus and Turbo snails. Nooo! I checked the clam regularly at night with a flash light but never found any of the little devils feasting on it. After two and a half months it finally it became clear that the clam was doomed so I decided to remove it before pollution became an issue. I checked it over again when it was out of the tank and still couldn't find any pyramid snails on it. These guys are so small and clearly hide really well! Later on three teeny tiny ones did emerge from inside of the clam, it's hard to imagine that just three could have any impact on an animal so much larger than they but clearly over time they do. Unless of course the maxima was suffering from something else too? 

At this point there's not much I can do about the pyramid snails, I am removing any that I see every day and I've become quite adept at spotting them now. On average I remove about 10 per day. The wrasse are sadly not eating them, come on guys I could really do with a helping hand here, sheesh earn your keep why don't you!! At least I haven't lost any of the snails yet and my original Tridacna crocea clam seems to be doing fine, it's laying down new shell so I take that to be a good sign for now.
Picture
Tridacna crocea, 4th October 2017.
The other blip on my reefing horizon is the Balanophyllia. It just doesn't look as good as it once did and I can't work out why. Am I feeding it too much or not feeding it enough? I had been offering it a piece of food once per day (at night), generally PE mysis, clam, Krill or lancefish, perhaps that wasn't enough to sustain it? So I decided to up the feedings to multiple times per day (anywhere between three up to a maximum of five a day) but this seemed to make no difference at all (in fact the coral looked a little worse) so now I'm trying less food. It's really frustrating because the sun coral is looking fantastic on a single feed per day.
Picture
A food issue or something else? 15th October 2017.
Picture
Tubastrea sp. I had to move it to the right slightly as it expands so much at night that it was close to touching the Acro growing above it, 13th October 2017.
Picture
The baby sun polyps are doing well too, getting bigger, 14th October 2017.
Apart from the above everything else seems to be doing OK. The fish are all good, Rei the Yellow wrasse eats like a horse and is noticeably bigger. The best news is that my Tomiyamichthys nudus gobies have finally paired up with the Red Spotted pistol shrimp so I get to see them all much more now. The male goby still goes MIA every now and again but always resurfaces at some point. The gobies and pistol shrimp do not naturally associate together in the wild but I suspect they have done so in my tank because there are simply no other alternatives.
Picture
Poor photos (from above) but pictures of these guys together are really hard to come by, 14th September 2017.
Picture
Whole body shot of the pistol shrimp, amazing! 14th September 2017.
The corals are getting bigger and  some are starting to get close to each other already, war is on the horizon I expect. 
Picture
I fear skirmishes between the Favia and Cyphastrea have already begun. Score 1 for the Cyphastrea? 15th October 2017.
The zoanthids are spreading nicely especially the Utter Chaos, these are reproducing at a phenomenal rate and unfortunately over taking some of the original slower growing morphs. Whatever was afflicting the Red Tuxedo zoanthids seems to have subsided and I've not lost any more recently,  I hope that's the end of that.
Picture
Utter Chaos and Sunny D zoanthids intermingling, 15th October 2017.
Picture
Red Tuxedo zoanthids (in the middle), pox free now? 15th October 2017.
After a bit of a slow start the algae in the refugium has really got going now and the amount of life in there is incredible. It's amphipod, mysis shrimp and brittlestar heaven! Charlie the hitchhiking crab is alive and kicking and still growing. She was such a tiny thing when I first noticed her in the DT hanging out in the Seriatopora, now she's huge in comparison.
Picture
Charlie doing some algae surfing, 25th September 2017.
Picture
Post shedding, a clear shot of her abdomen showing that she's female. 8th October 2017.
Life in the refugium.
Whenever I harvest any algae, I spend the following 30 minutes rescuing brittlestars from amongst the fronds. Well I can't just throw them out can I? It's easy to see how they are reproducing by division. 
Picture
A day's brittlestar harvest, 6th October 2017.
My first canister of ATI Carbo EX came to the end of its life in September, it lasted just over 3 months which I don't think is too bad. I have decided to continue with the CO2 scrubbing and have replaced it with a fresh cartridge.
Picture
ATI Carbo EX filter after just over 3 months of use, 15th September 2017.
Last week to celebrate the fact that the tank was approaching its first birthday I decided that some new additions were required. There was a gap (left by the T. maxima clam) that was just crying out to be filled. OK it didn't really need to be filled but what can I say, any excuse to shop for new corals.

I decided another encrusting Montipora sp. would do nicely and since it was likely to be the last addition (never say never tho) I wanted something special. I decided the Beach Bum (what a name!!) Montipora would contrast nicely with the three that I currently have. Since I was mail ordering from a fellow reefer I found I couldn't just buy the one coral so I ended up with frags of Hawkins Echinata (Acropora echinata) and a Sunrise Goniopora too. My name is Lisa and I'm a coral addict, lol!

Here they are on the sand awaiting fixing (squeezing!) in place.
Picture
Beach Bum Montipora, pricey for such a tiny frag. I hope I don't kill it! 11th October 2017
Picture
Hawkins Echinata, 11th October 2017.
Picture
Sunrise Goniopora, 11th October 2017.
Phew that was a marathon (are you still with me?) before I sign off I'll add a few more updated photos. After all who doesn't love a bit of eye candy?!
Picture
FTS, 16th October 2017. Five fish in view (sort of), can you spot them all? ;o)
0 Comments

Who's a big girl now then!

17/8/2017

0 Comments

 
Charlie climbed to the top of the refugium to say hello to me this morning. I discovered her sitting on top of the thick mat of algae. Oh my, she's grown a lot! So is clearly finding enough to eat down there. :o)
Picture
0 Comments

Clawed his (her?) way back!

15/5/2017

0 Comments

 
On the 18th April I relocated Charlie (or is it Charlize?) the hitchhiking crab from the DT to the refugium. After almost 4 weeks of no-show, today I discovered him (her?) alive and well in the jungle. I am chuffed, what a survivor!
Picture
Also I've also been playing around with a new macro lens, starting with some of the easier corals to capture.
0 Comments

Pincer movement!

19/4/2017

0 Comments

 
Never in a million years did I think that it'd be easy to catch and remove my hitchhiking crab  but boy how very wrong I was. My deluxe homemade crab trap actually worked first time! I propped an empty glass spice jar up against the top rock where the crab lived and baited it with some mysis shrimp just after lights out. I honestly felt that the jar was a little too tall for the job and it would never catch anything but to my very great surprise it did. I checked back on the tank after just an hour and was gobsmacked to discover the crab sitting in the jar.  It's so great when a plan comes together without any blood being shed (and doesn't cost anything, lol).

With clearer photos I'm now confident that the crab is indeed Chlorodiella nigra. Please refer to the link below for comparitive purposes.

www.crabdatabase.info/krabi/brachyura/eubrachyura/heterotremata/xanthoidea/xanthidae/chlorodiella/chlorodiella-nigra-2558

Of course I couldn't bring myself to kill the little guy, after all he had done no wrong, simply knocked a frag off the rock which was probably my fault for not fixing it down securely enough. The biggest issue for me was the fact that he'd set up home right next to my clam and whilst this species is reported to mainly eat algae I didn't want to take the risk of the clam being irritated or even worse becoming a crabby snack down the line. So off he went into the refugium where hopefully he'll be content with an endless supply of algae (and pods?) to munch on.
0 Comments

The final tank toy....

18/4/2017

0 Comments

 
 ....probably, lol!

After waiting absolutely ages for delivery I was finally able to set up my shiny new GHL Profilux 4 controller over Easter. The hope is that when the time comes I can monitor the tank whilst I'm away, so less worry for me. At the moment I just have it set up with four probes measuring temperature, pH, redox and conductivity.

There is just 0.1 degree Celsius difference in temperature readings between the digital GHL probe and the Simplyaquaria temperature controller which is pretty good going considering the price difference between the two. I am going to keep the Simplyaquaria controller running as a backup to the GHL, two alarms are better than one in my books. I may actually move the Simplyaquaria probe to the DT so that I have two separate temperature readings to compare.

The conductivity of the tank water measured by the GHL probe was 51.8mS which converts to a specific gravity of 1.0257. My calibrated refractometer measured it to be 1.026, again the values are pretty close which is good. I am happy to know that I've been maintaining a suitable salinity using the refractometer.

I never bothered to purchase a pH test kit this time round so I had no idea what the actual pH readings were going to be. The levels are fluctuating between 8-8.2 or thereabouts, I would like to study the whole 24hr cycle but haven't managed to work out how to access data from the Profilux yet (if indeed it's actually possible to do).

The redox probe is still bedding in, to be honest I'm not really sure what to expect from the readings as I've never used one before. It came with the set so I thought it'd be interesting to set it up and investigate what it can tell me about the tank.
On the livestock front, Charlie the hitchhiking hermit crab is now on borrowed time after his first tank misdemeanor yesterday. He knocked my prize Acropora gomezi frag off the rock in his quest for food. I supposed I should be pleased that he just wanted to graze off the rocks and not eat the coral but still it's annoying. He's really quite big now so I'm sure that he'll cause more trouble in the future if I don't try and catch him now.

I think the T. nudus gobies have spawned again, Hop has been sequestered in the cave for the last two days and Skip won't let him out to feed, so I'm hopeful that there are eggs hidden inside. I hope I actually get to see some fry this time round, pretty please! The Cardinals also appear to be courting but there's been no further release of eggs.
0 Comments

Peek-a-boo!

11/4/2017

0 Comments

 
My hitchhiking crab has been getting bolder and I've finally managed to snap a few photos of him. Charlie is much bigger now, at least 2 times larger than when I first spotted him or maybe even 3 times now! When I say 'him' I may be incorrect, in reality 'he' may be a 'she', so a Charlize as opposed to a Charles. Female crabs have a wide abdomen and males have a narrow one. In Charlie's case it looks sort of in between, an immature female perhaps?
0 Comments

April Update.

2/4/2017

0 Comments

 
This tank is approaching the 6 month mark (on the 16th April). Wow, where has the time gone to? It's now well and truly in the 'spotty phase', the back glass is covered with spots of coralline algae and spirobid worms. I have scraped it once already and am now in two minds if I should do it again. Does it look natural or does it just make the tank look messy? I can't decide, answers on a postcard please. :o)

I've had to move the Lobophyllia yet again. The Lobo was very happy in its last spot but, darn it, the snails (Mr Conch I'm looking at you particularly!) just kept knocking it over no matter how hard I pushed it in to the sand. So now I've glued the base of the skeleton to the rock work on the right-hand side at the back. It's not great for viewing but at least it won't get damaged there. Fingers crossed that's the last time I have to move it!

Acropora sp. #2 still appears to be red bug free and the PE looks good. Acropora sp. #3 is on the mend I think, to my eye there appear to be less blistering now. It's not completely out of the woods yet but I'm feeling a little more confident about its future. General coral colouration is not great but I'm not too concerned about that at this point.

My mysterious hitchhiking crab has thankfully moved away from the S. hystrix and has set up home in the uppermost right hand rock. I still don't have a decent picture of him to show I'm afraid, he moves like lightning whenever I get close. So far he's not attacked or eaten anything that he shouldn't, I regularly observe him scraping at the rock work with his spoon shaped claws and he does a great job of keeping that area clean of algae and detritus. He has grown considerably and I am probably not helping matters by occasionally feeding him directly. I have tentatively identified him as Chlorodiella nigra which is a member of the Xanthidae crab family. According to my research they are generally fine when smaller but can become troublesome as they grow and their appetite increases. I am investigating removal options just in case.....

Yesterday afternoon I introduced probably my last fishy additions for this tank, they are still settling in at the moment, pictures to follow hopefully later on in the week.
0 Comments

    Author

    Hi, my name is Lisa and I live in Derby, UK. I am a self-confessed reefaholic!

    Archives

    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016

    Categories

    All
    Acanthastrea
    Acropora
    Acropora Echinata
    Acropora Gomezi
    Acropora Hyacinthus
    Acropora Loripes
    Aiptasia
    Aiptasiax
    Algae
    Alkalinity
    Allogalathea Elegans
    Alpheus Rubromaculatus
    Amphipod
    Apogon Parvulus
    Ascidian
    Asexual Reproduction
    Asterina
    ATI Carbo EX
    ATI ICP OES
    ATI ICP-OES
    Balanophyllia
    Ball Anemone
    Beach Bum Montipora
    Beamswork EVO
    Bivalve
    Black Sun Coral
    Blistering
    Brittlestar
    Brunn's Cleaner Shrimp
    Budding
    Caulerpa
    Cerith
    Chlorodiella Nigra
    Cirrhilabrus Isosceles
    Clam
    Clibanarius Tricolor
    Colpomenia Sinuosa
    Conch
    Conductivity
    Copepods
    Coral
    Coralline
    Court Jester Goby
    Crab
    Crab Trap
    Cuprisorb
    Cyphastrea
    Deltec SC 1351
    Dendrophyllia
    Diatoms
    Dipping Corals
    Ecdysis
    Eggs
    Elos
    Emerald Crab
    Equipment Failure
    Fauna Marin Skim Breeze
    Favia
    First Birthday
    Fish
    Foraminifera
    Fragging
    GHL Doser 2.1
    GHL Profilux 4
    Glass
    Goby
    Goniopora
    Gorgonian
    Green Tentacled Corallimorph
    Hair Algae
    Halichoeres Chrysus
    Heliofungia
    Hermit Crab
    Hitchhiker
    Iodine
    Iron
    Isis Hippuris
    Kessil H80 Tuna Flora
    KH
    Koumansetta Rainfordi
    LED
    Live Rock
    Lobophyllia
    Lotilia Graciliosa
    Lybia Sp.
    MACNA
    Mail Order Corals
    Maldives
    Marginopora Vertebralis
    Mexican Turbo
    Mithraculus Sculptus
    Mitras LX7
    Montipora
    Moulting
    Mouth Brooding
    Muricea Elongata
    Mussel
    Mysid Shrimp
    Nassarius
    Nitrate
    Non Photosynthetic
    Non-photosynthetic
    Nudibranch
    Oxypora
    Pale Corals
    Petrolisthes Galathinus
    PH
    Phosphate
    Pink Streaked Wrasse
    Pintail Wrasse
    Plexaurella
    Pom Pom Crab
    Porcelain Crab
    Possum Wrasse
    Potassium
    Power Cut
    Pseudocheilinops Ataenia
    Pyramid Snails
    Rainford's Goby
    Rapid Tissue Necrosis
    Red Bugs
    Red Dragon Acropora
    Redox
    Red Spot Cardinalfish
    Red Spotted Goby
    Red Spotted Pistol Shrimp
    Red Striped Goby
    Reefer 170
    Reefloat
    Reef Primer
    Reefworks
    Refractometer
    Refugium
    Reverse Bleeding Apple
    Rowaphos
    RO Water
    RTN
    Rusting
    Sand
    Scolymia
    Second Birthday
    Seriatopora Hystrix
    Shrimp
    Siporax
    Skimmer
    Slow Tissue Necrosis
    Snail
    Snorkelling
    Spawning
    Spherasorb
    Spirorbid Worms
    Sponge
    Squat Lobster
    Stomatella
    Strontium
    Stylophora
    Sump
    Sun Coral
    Sycon Sponge
    Symbiotic Pair
    Tank Views
    Tegastes Acroporanus
    Temperature
    Time-lapse
    Tin
    Tomiyamichthys Nudus
    Top Down Photos
    Tridacna Crocea
    Tridacna Maxima
    Trimma Cana
    Trimma Rubromaculatus
    Triton ICP OES
    Triton ICP-OES
    Trochus
    Tropic Marin Balling Salts
    Tubastrea
    Tubastrea Micrantha
    Ultra Reef Akula 160
    Ultra-reef Akula 160
    Urocaridella Antonbruunii
    Valonia
    Video
    Vilamendhoo
    Wetmorella Tanakai
    Whitecap Goby
    Yellow Wrasse
    YouTube
    Zoanthids
    Zoanthids Agarve
    Zoanthids King Midas
    Zoanthids Red Tuxedo
    Zoanthids Sunny D
    Zoanthids Utter Chaos
    Zoanthids Wango Tango
    Zoa Pox

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • About
  • Tank Diary
  • System Details
  • Livestock
  • Full Tank Shots
  • Previous tanks
  • Contact
  • Links