[zhenya]

Originally Posted by Poseidon

Thanks Gene! Actually I asked for the shade setting because if the colors looked "right" I knew the lights would be TOO BLUE for my taste, if there was not enough blue, then I knew I would like the color in person. (Weird huh?) I am going to put those lamps on my wish list for sure! Debbie over at DIYReef has said she can get them, and she is very close to local for me, not to mention a member of the clubs I belong too!

Oh... By the way, your tank is starting to look much more then "better" I think it is looking VERY GOOD!

You are right, it is weird... I am sure Debbi can get them from Giesemann but I got mine from Jason over at Premium Aquatics. I rarely go outside his store to get anything, I;m so used to it and spoiled by their service...

And thanks for the kind words about my tank, it's been awhile since I could look at it and actually like what I was seen.

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by charlie

The coral in your first post today, looks like a valida Gene. Give it a little time with your current bulb, and I think it will come back to it's original shape!!!

Nice pics again, I still am amazed at the shape or your hystrix!!!

Charlie, I am not sure what it is, actually, but I always thought that it was A.secale that I got from reefermadness as a bonus frag. I mounted it on the large rock, about midway up, and it started to encrust and color up nicely. Then, I sort of forgot about it and only noticed it when I saw color going away and changing back to turd brown. Lots of corals did at that point, that's when I realised that something is wrong and started looking...

Originally Posted by charlie

Forgot to add, maybe sometime down the road you could frag off some of those zooanthids, they would look real nice in my 80.

Why not? I hate fragging zoas but my friend don;t mind, so...
I also have pink zoas that are out of control, I'll give him that colony and he'll frag a few for us and the orange ones as well.

[Poseidon]

PA is awesome to order from as well! And you are right about the customer service, they rock!

I went through the same thing with my after this latest move. I lost a few nice colonies, and I was not happy with the tank, now I have a virtual SPS garden and everything is growing so fast! Funny though, I still want to tinker and change things around....

[Fishyz]

Very impressive tank! Is the tang in the 10th pic a striped bristletooth?

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by Fishyz

Very impressive tank! Is the tang in the 10th pic a striped bristletooth?

Thank you, Fishyz!

The tang is indeed a striped bristletooth, C.striatus. IIRC I got him in 2004 and so far he's been a good sitizen and not too agressive.

PS. I have to add that identification of this fish is tentative at best as I tried to identify it myself via books that I have. Just a disclamer on my part.

[Fishyz]

Originally Posted by zhenya

Thank you, Fishyz!

The tang is indeed a striped bristletooth, C.striatus. IIRC I got him in 2004 and so far he's been a good sitizen and not too agressive.

PS. I have to add that identification of this fish is tentative at best as I tried to identify it myself via books that I have. Just a disclamer on my part.

I also have a striped bristletooth tang, she is by far the best addition to my tank, and the best fish I have ever owned. I hope that one day my tank can look as good as yours.

[zhenya]

Well, since it's the beginning of the month I think I'll updat4e this thread with some new images and some information about my new angelfish.

Anywho, I'll start off with a couple of shots of my Porcellain crab doing it's thing.





Next I want to add couple of shots of my bristletooth and a fairy wrasse that seems to become an odd pair... They swim together for most of the time and one could not be found far away from the other. Go figure...

[charlie]

You are not gonna end the story there are you?

[Poseidon]

No kidding... What a TEASE!

[zhenya]

And now to the matter of the new angelfish that I bought to replace the one I lost to his overly vertical jump abilities...Genicanthus lamark

Anyways, if you have one of this and thought that they are completely reef safe I urge you to be more watchful and observe what exactly they do. Being primarily planktivores makes them reef safe, in terms of coral safety. But are they?
I noticed today some interesting behavior of my lamark's angelfish right after the feeding time. You see, some acroporids send out pretty long mesenteries to feed on a particulate matter and what not is floating in the water column. So I watch this little turd of a fish approach the corals and biting off those filaments. I guess it would be foolish assuming that it mistook them for the plankton...

Here's some hard evidence in the form of the pictures...

First the "I'm innocent" look as he approaches...



And then bam! "I think you look like a plankton to me... !"





"And I think green color plankton is tasty, too..."
Watch him circling for a kill...

[charlie]

Time to go fishing Gene!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by charlie

You are not gonna end the story there are you?

Originally Posted by Poseidon

No kidding... What a TEASE!

Sorry it took me this long to continue with my update. You see, I had to put my granddaughter for a nap and she wouldn't fall asleep unless I'm there with her.

Anyways, sorry to keep you waiting and here's a close up of my wrasse for your trouble...



And I love this picture showing my skunk clownfish staring me down...



And a close up of the blue mille.



And this last picture concludes today's show, folks...

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by charlie

Time to go fishing Gene!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Charlie,

There isn't enough damage to justify removing him from the tank, IMHO. He's not biting off polyp itself just the mesenterial filament, so I think I'll keep him and see what else I can find out about this fella.

[Poseidon]

I'd leave him be too Gene. I doubt he can do any real damage that way. The blue Milli is outrageous! What a bright piece! I have a nice blue from Charlie, but it more of a steel blue rather then an electric blue. (That may have to do with bulbs though.) Have you noticed that one coloring up more under your Geismann's?

[charlie]

Worst comes to worst, you will only get polyp extension at nite like I used to. My bicolor was the same way.

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by Poseidon

I'd leave him be too Gene. I doubt he can do any real damage that way. The blue Milli is outrageous! What a bright piece! I have a nice blue from Charlie, but it more of a steel blue rather then an electric blue. (That may have to do with bulbs though.) Have you noticed that one coloring up more under your Geismann's?

Indeed, Mike. On both parts... I notice more damage done by a comensal crab then by this fish so he is definately staying.

As far as that blue A.millepora is concern, the color was always very blue. The only thing that is different with the Giesemanns is that the polyps have return to their original white coloration as to where they were brownish green under the previous 10K set from Reeflux( a deffective ones).
I have a picture of the original frag when I first mounted it in the tank and you can see the polyp coloration.


I'm real happy with this piece as it came in as a replacement for the coral that were damaged and vendor wouldn't ship damaged piece out. So he sent me something that I was supposed to like instead and I did love it right off the bat ...

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by charlie

Worst comes to worst, you will only get polyp extension at nite like I used to. My bicolor was the same way.

Charlie,

So far I haven't noticed any appreciable reduction in polyp extentsion during the day time, so I'm not overly worried about it. The only reason I posted those shots is to show that some of the so-called reef safe fishes can do things that at times surprising to the keeper.

[zhenya]

Forgot to add a full tank shot for this month... You may notice (or may not) that I removed large Pocillopora colony that grew on the top of my Maxi-Jet and really large colony of pink zoanthids that I tried to keep off the reef structure but failed. As you can see some of it remains as it had colonized the large rock it was touching all this time...

[zhenya]

And finally, one more major update to report. My friend came over today and we finally installed the Lumenarcs and some new moon lights with the loonar tracker from TheLebos.com.
All I can say is that I was blown away by how much brighter tank looks...
It's hard to take a picture of the tank that would depict this difference as I am not a pro photographer, however I did take a quick snap shot just to show what tank looks like under the same bulbs but with different reflectors.
Judge for yourselves.

[charlie]

Take a look at the difference on the purple monti Gene!!!! At least I think there is a difference.
It'll be interesting to watch the corals reaction in the next few weeks.