500 days Old... New Pics!

Awww, I'm sorry to hear that! He was a cutie for sure.

 

I think you're going to regret both sea stars. Green brittlestars (Ophiarachna incrassata) are aggressive hunters. Even if you target feed it krill, it's still likely to engage in predatory hunting of your fish. If you ever see it standing on it's arms making a cave under it's body, it's hunting. You'll also have to avoid any bottom dwelling fish and fish that sleep in the rock work.

For a sand-sifting star, I recommend a minimum of a 150 that has been established for at least a year. Otherwise, it will eat all the life out the sandbed and then starve and die.

 

Thanks for the advisement guys. I suppose I'm living on the edge. We'll see how the saga plays out.

 

As promised, new pics:

Outside is still pretty similar. Got two matching unknown plants for the outside. Still haven't got the cabinet for underneath figured out yet. But I did get some progress done on the independent circuit under the table.


Next up my first nem; A normal cheapo Condi. Again I'm aware I'm crossing some boundaries with this. But I'm new to this so I need to find out if I like them or not. Anyway...


FTS...


And one of the new Ocillaris clowns. For some reason the other of the two stopped associating with this one. Hmmm...?


Finally got a good shot of the Blushing Colt. Its not new and I've had it in many different places but it seems to be really filling out finally.


A new Zoa. Crazy flourescent orange. I gotta figure out how to pic this up on camera.


Same frag but the uncropped shot shows the coraline growth on the 4 week old Koralia nano.


And for the update finale...

A new Duncan's Whisker. This is my first LPS and I'm hooked already. My LFS had a monster colony of this since I started up my tank. Orignally it was prolly 25 heads. They fragged this piece off three months ago. I had my eye on this piece the whole time. I waited patiently till it recovered and first showed a new head. Its 5 true heads with a baby poppin out for $40. Decent deal I feel. Anyway, its been here for two days and its lookin terrific. This thing is awesome to watch. Already witnessed the cleaner shrimp and the stony dukin it out of a brine shrimp body.

 

Nice little nano you got there. keep up the good work. Be careful with that nem, they can be really brutal since they tend to move around quite a lot.

 

So I decided to not go open top at the moment. I'm more interested in letting this tank really settle in and get in the groove in its current configuration to make sure I'm not more interested in the setup of the system than the actual life inside. Plus I want to wait to see how all this LED tech works out price wise.

Yesterday I picked up my first Acan though. Mainly Greyish and red/pink/purple with a tinge of blue in the mouth area. Going home shortly to install two new 50/50 bulbs and see if I can get a good shot of the the newbies.

 

i love those cow fish. there awesome. too bad i dont have a big enough tank. my friends know the fish by the "apocolypse" fish since it can wipe out an entire tank.

 

Last night I replaced my bulbs with 50/50's from nanotuners. They aren't the UVL bulbs as they are still on presale. But I'm going to start going more hardcore with stonies so I figured the light needed to up to par. Let me say to anyone with the stock Biocube bulbs. Get yourself a set of these. My actinic was 8 months old but the 10K was replaced 3 months in because it quit working. So, I feel like the 10K was doing better on output and potentially driving the yellower spectrum harder. Apparently I was right or the output of the 50/50's is just a tinge more blue biased. The color rendition is noticably bluer and it really helps the fluorescent factor.

New pics as promised of the newbies.

First lets show how the Duncan looks now that I've played with its location a bit. I moved it 16 inches or so further away from the prop pump and it seems to be loving it. It extends its feeder arms way further now and seems to be really puffing up. Since originally dropping it in I count 3 brand new heads and the babies that were there are now of decent size. A total of 5 full grown heads with 3 babies and 3 sprouts. And now I can finally see something using calcium in my tank as I can finally get my test kit to read something other than 500+. Its been dropping slowly so now I'm in the market for a nice digital meter. Looking at the Pinpoint line right now.


My first Acan. Its settling in well after only two days. In the morning its feeders are protruding just past the lip of the mouth. I have not spot fed it yet.

 

longhorn cow fish are kool, but very very toxin.. Ive had a few over the years.. my MR. longhorn was probly about 5" long, but some fish would pick on them.. oh the memories..

 

Growth shots.

FTS 6/20/10


GSP's have exploded! They are taking over.


And the reason I started taking pics. My sand sifter freaked out. I believe it got a parasite. Saturday the top of some of its body was kinda festering. But not oozing. Very hard to explain. Now today it has only one full leg left. Yet it manages to stay alive? IDK... I'm not overly concerned as I have had this one for many months and they're cheap. I was having a rough time due to the angle.

Here it is climbing away just a few weeks ago.

And now...