Fragging

Yesterday I have did a lot of work on the fragtank and everything in it. Someone was coming to pick up the anemone in the fragtank in the morning and because of the lack of space there I decided to start fragging and changing some rocks around.

Unfortunately the person who was coming for the anemone never showed up and didn’t give any reply so far. So it is still in the aquarium.

I did however remove the mushroom that was on the rock, just in case I would sell the rock with the anemone attached to it. The anemone won’t move anymore, no matter how I rotate and place the rock, he stays in his spot.

Since I wanted to keep the mushroom I took it off the rock with a spoon and placed it in the shot glass located in the RSM. So it has temporary moved to the RSM till it has attached to a rock and recovered.

Then I started with the rock that broke off the Toadstool rock, the one with the mushrooms and buttons and one toadstool also.

I took the rock out of the aquarium and fragged it using a chisel and hammer.

The result: 4 rocks with buttons, one small rock with a toadstool, a big rock with red mushrooms and many fragstones that went into the small bin where the Kenya Trees where located. 3 of them that had attached to a rock have been moved to the RSM.

And then when I wanted to start on the big toadstool rock the doorbell rang. Hoping that it was the person for the anemone I opened the door. The mailman, with a huge package…from Hong Kong. I opened it, and there was my new light armature and cooling for the fragtank that I ordered from fish-street. I opened everything up and was getting ready to install the lot when I noticed the light had a different power plug then our EU power plug. After a quick message to fish-street I heard that it only can be delivered with Australian power plug, but they offered a free converter right away. So hopefully using the converter it will work.

Knowing that I had to wait a bit I bought a reflector in our local pet store for the Juwel 60. This should help a bit with the amount of light in the fragtank.

More work will be done probably this weekend.

Aquarium Saturday

Saturday I had a nice aquarium drive. Went to pick up some extra life rock for the fragtank and ended up with some corals as well. I traded 7 life rocks for 2 Kenya Trees and a mushroom, well if that isn’t a great deal I don’t know what is :).

In the Red Sea Max I added 3 of the corals.

First is a small branch of Trumpet Coral, a small LPS Hard Coral. We have seen this before at someone’s aquarium and thought of it back then. So when I got this offered I couldn’t refuse. I just dumped it somewhere quickly, we still need to find a spot for it.

The other 2 are an unknown kind of soft coral. The colours are very nice, so that’s why I wanted them. Just need to find out what kind of coral it is. It looks a bit like Kenya Tree coral, but no polyps (yet) and different colour. Also this one is still not where I would want him.

Then in the fragtank there are a whole lot more corals, some might move to the RSM, some may not.

The first is one that really caught my eye, it’s a giant toadstool leather coral. Unfortunately we found it was even too big for the RSM. But it looked so much like the one we had, so I’m still thinking of a solution. Maybe cut it off a bit, since it’s foot is damaged because of a piece of rock that broke off during transport.

The rock also had many smaller Toadstools, which are ideal for sale/trade later.

The rock that broke off was covered with buttons, 2 kinds and Red Mushrooms. The buttons are one that I might consider nice for the RSM, since there are some really beautiful ones there.

The mushrooms will probably serve as sale/trade material and be separated. Basically this whole rock will probably end up in pieces.

Then I also got a piece of cabbage leather coral, which is also located in the fragtank now. No plans yet for that piece of coral. 

Then all the pieces of life rock also had buttons, mushrooms and other stuff on them. This needs to be sorted first. I now put it all in the sump to keep it alive.

After my round I got a visitor that wanted to buy some Kenya Trees from me. He bought all the fragments located in the RSM, so there is none left over there. Only fragment there now is a mushroom fragment I made for trade for the life rock. It still has to attach to rock, but when it does I probably visit again to give it to him.

Here some shots of the Kenya Trees in his aquarium.

All this might result in some changes in the Red Sea Max, but no concurrent plans are made so far.

New Male Manderin

Last Friday we got a call from our aquarium store saying they had a new male manderin fish for us. I went to pick it up and put it in the RSM.

They immediately went to find each other and they seem to like each other a lot. I must admit that I was pretty nervous about it, if they would like each other and if I really saw correctly that the one that died was the male. But I guess I was right :)

So we have a happy couple again in our aquarium!

Here are some first pictures of him:

Work on Frag-Tank Pt 1

Wednesday I bought a new lighting armature and cooler for the fragtank. The armature is a lot cheaper then the cheapest I could get here and the cooler (just a bunch of fans) weren’t very expensive either. I ordered both of them through the internet at fish-street.com and I got the Aqua Japan 4X 24"Inch T5HO (60cm) and the Jebo Reef 4 DC Fan Silent New Design. I got some mixed messages for the arrival, at first it was 12 days and later I got a message that because of Christmas and thanksgiving it might become later. Guess we will just see when they arrive.

Meanwhile I will go and see if I can find a reflector for the current light, this might also help a bit. Shouldn’t be too hard to find a 40 cm long T5 reflector in a hardware store. Only problem which I still need to figure out is how to attach it under the hood.

Yesterday I setup a laptop to support the fragtank. The laptop is in charge of the lights going on and off at the right time and I can shut down the pumps and turn them on again through the laptop. More functions will be found for the laptop, since it’s dedicated for the fragtank :)

Male manderin died

Thursday the mandarin male died. He was probably dead for some time already since it looked as if he was eaten (he had two holes in his body). He didn’t seem skinny, so it probably wasn’t because of a lack of food. So no idea what happened to him and what killed him.

My wife went back to the store Saturday and they ordered a new one without any problems. The female is still doing well and showing more and more. She is hanging out mostly in the left corner, just like many other fish. Probably because of the anemone on the other side, but she seems happy around the rock where the Clam is on.

A quick update on the fragtank

Here a quick update on the status of the fragtank. Currently it is running, but without any filters or skimmers (or heating). I already replaced water a couple of times, using water from the RSM to make sure it had enough good bacteria etc.

As noted in the previous posts I already have some life rock in it. This rock already contained some corals as well, spotted a total of 4 mushrooms and some weird blue flowery stuff. Also the box I had in the RSM is placed in it now containing some Kenya Trees and the anemone that had split is also located in the fragtank now.

This weekend we bought some filter materials and as soon as we start cleaning the RSM again this week the old materials will move to the fragtank’s sump and the new ones will be placed in the RSM.

The surface on which the fragtank will be placed needs some adjustment before I can use it, since there is no room for the tubes to go down towards the sump (and back up again). But when this is realised (probably before that even) we are going to see if it works the way we want.

The biggest problem at this point is the light. I’m busy looking for something to replace the poor single 15watt tube, but prices are very high. Cheapest one (and best option) I found so far is an Aqua Japan 4X 24"Inch T5HO (60cm) from Fish-street.com. However, I did get a message from a forum sponsor saying they will get some 4x 24watt armatures for a rather good price next month.

So this is still ongoing. I will also check with our local fish store to see if they have a solution which saves me more money. I know, I sound cheap, but it’s only a fragtank so I’m trying to get as much as I can for as little money.

So this story is to be continued :)

Snail identified

From the forums I got the tip that it might be a Turbo snail. When googling on that I found that almost all the Turbo snails have their Spiral cord on top. But then another person told me it could be the Turbo Brunneus and this one actually has its spiral cord on the side. Also the colour form in all the pictures I found looks a lot like the colour form of this snail.

Also the location fits, this snail comes from the Indo-Pacific and Philippines, same area as where my life rock came from.

They can become up to 5cm and feed on Algae, so it’s a good addition to the aquarium.

A week in the life of…

A lot has happened in the last week, but I didn’t have the time to post many updates in that time. So here is one big one for the whole week together.

Kenya Trees sold

Thursday I had someone coming over to buy some Kenya Trees. He took 3 from me, so that makes some more room in the aquarium. Unfortunately he doesn’t keep a journal, so no updates on how they are doing.

But we still have a couple in the RSM250, also couple in a shot glass in the RSM250 who hopefully recover, they had been in a bowl without current and light. And every piece I now get has been inserted in the fragtank where they hopefully do well underneath the 15watt 10k Kelvin light.

Also the one which I had cut of because it was bothering the buttons is growing some new tentacles, so it will only be a matter of time when we have another new one here.

Bought couple Green Manderin Dragonets

Friday I got a call from the aquarium store that they found a couple of Green Manderins for us. I picket them up after work, a really cute small couple. They seem to be doing very well, and we are both already in love with them. It’s a remarkable and beautiful fish.

Got life rock for 60 liter aquarium

Friday in the evening I went to someone from the forums to pick up some life rock for the fragtank. I got 8 kilo with some nice rocks, most of them already have corals on them as well, couple of mushrooms, some polyps. They are in the fragtank now with the 15 watt light above it and 2 pumps. It is partially filled with water from the RSM250 now to have some bacteria in it.

I’m still thinking about which parts I will keep in the fragtank and which will move to the sump. There is one rock that doesn’t have any corals on it, but that one is rather nice for one of the projects I have in mind. The other rocks all have corals on them and one of them I bought hoping it would fit in the RSM250, but afterwards it looked too big. But it has a very nice shape, so I will keep it in the fragtank.

Found a snail in the RSM250

Sunday we found the snail I noticed earlier. Still unsure what kind of snail it is, have asked now on the forums, so more on this later.

Progress on fragtank

Like I mentioned earlier I bought some life rock last Friday, so all that is left is the technique that needs work. I have a couple of pumps, which should be enough. The skimmer and sump are already present for a while, as is the heater. I bought a small thermometer last Friday at our aquarium shop, so I can check the temperature whenever I want :)

My current problem is the light. Aquarium light armatures are extremely expensive (200 euro’s without the actual T5 lights in it is the lowest), but if I would buy a greenhouse armature that can hold 4 T5 tubes it only costs 85 euro’s. In both cases I would still need to add 60+ euro’s on tubes.

Seems the choice is easy, but then the question is, can I use the greenhouse armature for an aquarium…why is the aquarium armature so much more expensive? I hope to have a good answer to this question soon…

Then there is another “problem”. How to get water from the aquarium to the sump. My first plan was to have water overflow into the sump and let it be pumped up again into the aquarium (this was with the 3^rd tank included). Only problem here is when the overflow gets stuck the pump will continue pumping letting the aquarium overflow. My wife had the idea to let both work in a natural water circulation. This idea has no pumps or anything in it, both work with an “overflow” method and will continue to work as long as there is suction on the tubes. She is in charge of figuring out how to get this to work and I hope to understand it enough when it works :)

Small changes in RSM250

Wednesday I did some small changes in the RSM250, we have cut loose the Anemone and removed the second one from the RSM into the fragtank. Both are doing fine now, the “mother” is still recovering, but the little one was already waving nicely yesterday evening.

I have moved the Maxima Clam a bit again, since it was slowly falling down. Now it should have a more solid underground to stand on.

I also removed a rock which was next to the Toadstool and moved the Toadstool a bit away from the Anemone, this was it should have more room before getting bothered again by the anemone.

Birthday “Boy”

The Hermit crab had his first birthday in the RSM, so he is moving around there for a whole year already. I hope to see him for many more years too :)

Cleaning + Anemone Splitting?

Tuesday I did a full cleaning of the RSM again and also started a little with the second aquarium. I dumped one bucket of water from the RSM into the 60 litre aquarium and also added some freshly made water to it till it was half full. Reason for this quick action was the big amount of Kenya trees we got again from our first Kenya Tree. I had put them in a small bowl, but of course this isn’t very ideal. I figured that putting them this way might give them a better chance of surviving.

Tonight someone is going to visit to buy some Kenya Tree(s) again, so slowly the RSM will be free from Kenya Tree fragments.

Also replaced the fourth light in the RSM, only 2 more to go now.

Yesterday when I got home late in the evening I noticed the light of the RSM was still on, while normally it should be off at that time. But I figured that maybe the timer was set wrong maybe, forgot to correct the time after cleaning maybe. Took a quick look in the aquarium, everything looked ok, only the anemone was deflated…well…that happens.

Went into the living room to say hello to my wife, but she immediately send me away to look at the anemone. When I took a closer look it seemed that a part of it was wrapped around the rock, even being visible on the bottom of the rock. Also its mouth looked like someone torn it apart. It looked a bit like my toadstool did just before it died.

Immediately looked on the internet for pictures about Anemones splitting and found one which did look a bit like what we had. To be sure I asked on the forums to see if I wasn’t mistaking, and there I also got a confirmation that it was splitting. So soon there will be 2 Anemones in our RSM, only problem will probably be getting one out…to be continued.