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jlanger's 120gal Arts and Crafts Inspired Reef Build (1 Viewer)

Clownfish Eggs - Day 8 Update.

Yesterday, we were able to start seeing the reflection off the eyes in the eggs.
Today, the eyes are a bit bigger, but I am guessing that the hatch will not happen tonight, possibly tomorrow.
I'm really tempted to move the coral so that we can more readily see the entire clutch; and get much better pictures. But from what I can see, the clutch is attached to both the coral base and the live rock. So trying to move the coral may result in damaging some of the eggs; which I don't really want to do. But then again, I'm not planning on any of them surviving so what's the big deal. Maybe I'm just sympathetic to the parents; they have been working very hard this past week.

 
Clownfish Eggs - Day 14 Update

Yep. Day 14.
It's been a very long week of monitoring the eggs and the clownfish. Every night since Day 8, I have spent my time sitting on a foot stool from 07:30PM to 10:30PM watching and checking on the eggs; and parents. I assembled a collection kit (a glass bowl, flexible clear hose and flashlight) to catch some of the larva so I could get some pictures.
For the past few nights, both the female and male were very aggressive in cleaning and aerating the eggs. I was hoping that this was a good sign and hatching may be taking place soon. But nothing has really advanced since about Day 9. So I am beginning to suspect that this first clutch will not hatch and will be a learning experience for the clownfish and myself.
Maybe the eggs didn't hatch due to being a first clutch?
Maybe the eggs needed to be moved to a hatchery system? I do keep my display tank's temp at 77 degrees and I read that a hatchery system should be more like 79-80 degrees. Probably not a big deal, but worth mentioning.

I did spend some of this time taking a lot of photos.

Parents checking on the eggs.


Female cleaning the eggs.


The female is fattening up again, so this may be a recurring event.


The Yellow Clown Goby made a visit and the female made sure it kept its distance.


I haven't forgotten about all of the other fish in the tank.
I'm actually really surprised how little attention they have paid to the eggs. I would've thought that the anthias and angelfish would've been tempted with live eggs.

One of my best photos of the Lemonpeel Mimic Tang.


And the Lamarck's Angelfish posed for this photo; if the streamers could've been straight, this photo would've been perfect.


Since I just posted that the eggs probably won't hatch, maybe that will prompt them to do so tonight.
Fingers crossed.
 
should be any day now since you're on day 14. mine usually hatch around that time and when the lights are out.
 
souk said:
should be any day now since you're on day 14. mine usually hatch around that time and when the lights are out.
Click to expand...

Yep. All of them hatched last night some time after 11PM so I missed out on witnessing them hatch. :doh:
Next time...
 
For me it's usually about 2 hours after the light goes out. If you have moon lights it helps a ton to see what they are doing. The mama looks like she is ready to lay a new batch anyday now too. GL
 
souk said:
The mama looks like she is ready to lay a new batch anyday now too. GL
Click to expand...

That didn't take long. The female laid her second clutch of eggs late last night.
This time the eggs are completely attached to the base rock and a little further behind the rock. I'm assuming that the water flow is a little less chaotic on the backside of the rock ("the lee of the stone") or maybe she didn't like the publicity I was giving them.
So I'll have to see if I can catch some of the fry in a couple of weeks.
 
Today is Day 14. Fingers crossed.
I did see one larva (dead) floating around last night in the current, so I have high hopes.
At least there's plenty of hockey to watch and keep me busy while I wait.
 
YEA!!! I was able to catch the larvae hatching from the eggs this time!

I started seeing larvae in the tank at about 11:30PM.
Earlier in the evening as the lights went out, I turned off the Vortech water pumps to reduce the amount of current in the tank. (I had been doing this during previous watchings.) When I noticed the larvae, I turned the return pump off and let the water settle.
A few of the larvae had collected on the front glass near a monti frag so we were able to see them swim around.
Using my small flashlight, I was able to locate a couple of larvae near the top of the tank and I collected them using a pipette. I placed them into a glass dish with a small amount of water so we could see them in better detail and I was able to get a couple of photos. Not the greatest photos, but at least I now have documentation of the event. They're so small that the camera cannot focus on them; and my eyes aren't the best either.







I have since turned all of the water pumps back on and left the larvae up to nature's fate.
Except for the two larvae in the glass dish; I'm sure my daughter (at a sleep-over) will want to see how small they really are.

With both spawning events, the eggs hatched after 14 days.
After the first time, the female laid eggs the very next day. Tonight she was fanning the sand bed as before, so we'll have to see what she does this time.
 
I spent a couple hours of hours this weekend doing some well needed spring cleaning.

The frag section of my sump had been neglected as I didn't really have much in it for frags. I removed all snails and crabs about a month or so ago, so algae basically had free reign to grow wild. I scraped all of the glass down and vacuumed out all of the water and detritus that had built up. Now my sump looks nice and clean again!
I also removed and cleaned the protein skimmer and return pump. The skimmer cup gets cleaned weekly and completely cleaned out about every three months. During a recent house meeting, I asked about the automated cleaners for skimmers. While not a necessity, I may try one out down the road. My skimmer gets NASTY!!! The skimmate is thick, dark and really fills the house with that "nice" aroma my family finds so enjoyable; I think I've been in barns that have smelled better!
I also double checked my dosing pumps to make sure they were operating properly. I should spend some time and make some tubing holders so that the lines do not get submerged in the water. The alkalinity line builds up a thick paste when the soda ash solution isn't allowed to drip out of the line.

With everything cleaned up and ready for summer, here's a couple of recent pics.

My sump was covered in algae, but my display tank has none! Here's why...
These four fish are excellent algae eaters and grazers.
I can take small rocks and frag plugs that are covered with algae from my Fluval tank and within hours, they're picked clean!




Not a perfect pic, but the Midas Blenny hasn't been photographed in a while.




And the clownfish haven't laid any eggs since that second clutch, but the pair are always keeping their home nice and clean.
The female clownfish moves just as much sand as my goby and shrimps do!




And another pic of my Mimic Tang.
Just trying to convince Marty that these are a beautiful fish and deserve to be displayed, not hidden in the basement fish room.

 
In another thread, I explained that I have been experiencing some issues with polyp extension from my acropora spp. corals.
Not all of the corals are retracting their polyps, but one coral in particular is my key indicator that something is not right; my Fuzzy Green Acropora. This coral has been in the tank for quite a while and used to be "fuzzy". Lately, it has been less so.



You can still see the polyps and the coral is slowly growing again, but it has not had full polyp extension for a few months now.

On the other hand, the Forest Fire Digitata frags are doing great!
I "fragged" the initial frag when I snapped the coral during the carpet adventure. Both of the new frags have encrusted, grown and look spectacular. I love the color these corals provide against the blues, greens and purples that are predominant in corals.



In that last photo on the far right, there is a frag of ORA's Joe the Coral; and underneath is a ORA Chip's Acro. Both corals that should have a fuzzy appearance with long polyps, but haven't looked so for a while.

One factor that may contribute to poor polyp extension, that I have not mentioned yet, could be the addition of the Yellow Clown Goby.
The goby does use a number of the corals for perching, but I have seen no signs that the goby is picking at any of the polyps. And I have not ever seek the goby perching on the Fuzzy Green Acropora coral. And the montipora spp. corals that it does use for perching still exhibit polyp extension. So it hard to say that this fish is the cause for all of this.

Frustrating... :brick1:
 
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Tonight, I spent some time getting my tanks prepared for our long weekend away.
ATO systems are "topped off", supplements checked and the fish have been over fed.

As I was checking on the corals, I had a thought...
The last time that I really enjoyed the look of my reef was last summer; right around the time of my house meeting.
At that time, the right half of my tank was dominated by the XL montipora colonies.

Photo taken during my meeting; courtesy of Christopher Kriens.



I actually miss having the BIG montipora colonies!

Exactly one year ago yesterday, I removed the big green and red montipora colonies and started the transition to a more acropora dominated SPS reef.
I have had some issues with this transition over the year; including the tear down/set up with the new carpet. While I enjoy having the "stick" corals, I seem to have a tough time getting them to grow out from their frag sizes. I've tried a couple of different husbandry techniques (alkalinity levels, using kalkwasser, dosing supplements, ...) with minimal positive results. Over time, I've gotten more frustrated with my reef than I have been enjoying it.

So... I am contemplating on going back to a montipora dominated reef.
What was it that that Pearson attorney always said in those commercials? "This is all we do, and we do it well."
I can grow montipora, and I can grow it well.

Even with removing the vast majority of montipora frags and colonies, I still have plenty of corals growing.
In this picture alone, I can count eight different montiporas growing well on just the left side of my reef.



So... Maybe it's time to re-boot my tank back to the "Good Ol' Days".
At least I'll have the next five days to consider which direction I want to go.
 
Well... that didn't take long.

I didn't mention it in this thread, but my male anthias passed away last month; June 18th.
I noticed a gradual decline in his activity and willingness to feed and within just a few days time. There were no signs of disease or trauma; I believe he just got old. One night I couldn't find him anywhere in the tank, but the next morning I found the dead body being pushed out of the pistol shrimp's burrow.
I was curious to see if my larger of the two female anthias would make the transition to the male. Or would I need to add another trio of females to kickstart the new hierarchy?
I noticed last week that the larger female was getting more spastic; darting and flaring randomly around the tank. Was she ill? Or was she beginning to transition?

Well...here's what [she] he looks like today.



The hormones have definitely kicked in and he's on his way!
The front dorsal spine has doubled in length and the red colors are coming in nicely. He has A LOT of renewed energy! Testosterone must be very potent in anthias; his behavior has completely changed from just a couple of weeks ago.

This is a picture of the same fish from earlier this year.


Now that I'll be left with just a pair of the anthias, should I add another trio of smaller females to help disperse the aggression towards the lone female?
 
Go full Monti or go home. Nothing wrong with a monti dominated tank...until you see a really cool acro. (Squirrel!). Sounds to me like you need TWO 120G tanks.

So long as my angels and the Idol don't eat montis, my 180 is going to be pretty much dominated by them. I want them all to be 12" or better and scrolling all over the place. My point being: I set up an entire extra tank to hold questionably reef safe fish with montis and mushrooms.

Can't comment on the anthias, I have decided that anthias and wrasses are NOT for me. I just don't like them, any of them. I started with 4 carberryi, I am down to one. I hope that he-she kicks off soon so I don't have to see it any longer. Now that it is the last one, however, it will likely live forever. I will call it BRUCE.
 
A quick (and grainy) pic of the progress the new boy has taken this week; only 5 days since that last picture!


















(And a side note to Apple's new Photos App... YOU SUCK!!! I want my iPhotos back!!)
 
Thats some sexy purple coloration.

Look into Lightroom, its not that expensive and does amazing things for your photographs. Its more geared towards DSLR raw images, but it can definitely improve phone camera photos and is great for organizing, tagging, rating, sorting, and exporting your photos.
 
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eschulist said:
Thats some sexy purple coloration.
Click to expand...

Purple is a weird color to show up.
My first anthias that transitioned also had a purple phase.
Today the head and tail are almost completely purple (like the tail in the last photo) with the body a golden orange color; looks "dirty". Gradually the purple will turn into the nice red color with the soft yellows accenting the scales.

eschulist said:
Look into Lightroom, its not that expensive and does amazing things for your photographs. Its more geared towards DSLR raw images, but it can definitely improve phone camera photos and is great for organizing, tagging, rating, sorting, and exporting your photos.
Click to expand...

I talked to my brother about the switch and he also uses Lightroom. So I'll have to look into it.
What really frustrates me is the difficulty of exporting my photos into other programs once uploaded to the Photos App. Before, I could just drag a photo from iPhotos into Adobe Bridge and then open in Photoshop. Now I need to copy the photo to my desktop before using Bridge and PS.
Apple seems to want everyone to use the iCloud for their media storage and I prefer not to. What's wrong with keeping all of your files on a hard drive?
 
Just a couple more transition pics of the anthias.

From Monday...



From Thursday...




And it looks like it's time I need to move my squamosa clam.



Both of the montipora colonies have grown from remnant pieces that were from frags encrusting onto the rock.
The lighter colony in front is a Lilac Montipora that I thought I had lost a year ago. The parent colony was about 8 inches long and slowly crashed last summer. There must have been just enough of tissue that encrusted to the rock, so that after I removed the parent colony it started receiving enough light to start growing again.
The Idaho Grape colony on the other side of the clam is actually growing up and along the clam's shell. It is not encrusting, just growing along the shell's profile. I am still able to move the clam without any coral being damaged.
I hate moving clams; especially after I find a location where they do well.
 
jlanger said:
I hate moving clams; especially after I find a location where they do well.
Click to expand...

Maybe you don't have to move him. I've adopted the bonsai approach for many of my corals already, especially the plating and encrusting ones. I use a hard tool and score off the coral tissue that is encroaching on other corals. You could continually scrape the montis leading edge back an inch or two every few months. It keeps everything in its place and nothing ever overtakes another coral, or in this case the clam.
 
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eschulist said:
Maybe you don't have to move him. I've adopted the bonsai approach for many of my corals already, especially the plating and encrusting ones. I use a hard tool and score off the coral tissue that is encroaching on other corals. You could continually scrape the montis leading edge back an inch or two every few months. It keeps everything in its place and nothing ever overtakes another coral, or in this case the clam.
Click to expand...


That may be my best option.
Based on how the rest of the reef is assembled, there's not really any other flat surface where the clam can be positioned upright. And if I decide to go "Full Monti" again, the real estate becomes even less available.

In the past, I've had clams decline from a change in location so keeping the clam where it is happy is a priority.
 
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