Trumpet coral moved

One of the corals that really had a hard time with the red hair algae in the red sea max was the trumpet coral. The hair algae gets covered every time by a brown layer of grease or something that results in the polyps not opening.

After cleaning as much hair algae from the coral as possible I moved it into the crab part of the 60 liter tank. Hopefully it will pick up there and hopefully some inhabitants will remove the left over red hair algae from the coral.

Urchins!

Yesterday we went to pick up 2 urchins we where able to trade for a couple of coral fragments. They are 2 really awesome looking urchins, one nice small Tripneustes gratilla and a bigger Echinometra mathaei. Traded both of them for a piece of Cabbage leather, starburst polyps and Finger leather.

At first my wife wanted to test them for eating red hair algae and then think of putting one in the Red Sea Max, because of our fear of them eating all of the algae. But after seeing them she wanted to have one in there right away. So now the biggest of the 2, the Echinometra mathaei has moved into the Red Sea Max. Right after setting him free he moved behind the rocks. Good thing I had my phone with me for a quick picture :p

The Tripneustes gratilla moved into the crab tank. This shouldn’t give any problems for a long time since it is still very small. It moved around a bit on the sand, already leaving a trace of white behind him. The crabs don’t bother much with him, so seems that he is a good addition to keep algae out of there.

Moonlight installed

Yesterday I installed moonlight on the frag/crab aquarium. I ordered 2 SMD LED Waterproof light strips – Blue of 30 CM each at Dealextreme.com. These work at 12v and provide 1.8 watt of light. So now I have 3.6 watt of night light in very bright blue.
I had to put a Power converter between for it to work which I also ordered from dealextreme, but this way I had a full working moonlight for under 10 euro. The LEDs had a strip to attach them to any surface, so I attached them to the already existing T5 armature.

And here is an example of how it looks.

New corals

Yesterday I went to pick up a piece of Cabbage leather coral from a city mate from the Nederlands en Belgisch Zeewater forum, called bawaruba. When I got there I was amazed by his aquarium, it was a fully automated 1000 litre aquarium that was supported by 2 sumps that both have a capacity of another 1000 litre. It all looked very professional with the way everything was placed.

His cabbage leather grows very well, and he had a big rock that he had to remove due to lack of space. I first thought it was going to be a big Cabbage leather, but it seemed to be a big rock with couple of smaller cabbage leathers on it. Even better, since now I could use part for the crab tank.

Together with the Cabbage leather rock I got a small piece of Montipora coral.

Using a chisel I broke the rock in 5 parts (well actually more but 5 parts of cabbage leather). 4 of them are now on the reefrack in the frag part of the small aquarium. Maybe one will move to the Red Sea Max, we will see what happens when we start rebuilding.

And one I attached to one of the rocks in the crab part of the small aquarium using reef construct.

Another piece of rock that broke from the cabbage leather rock I placed as a bridge between 2 bigger rocks in the crab part and I put a small piece of starburst polyp on it.

The montipora is currently located in the Red Sea Max, awaiting his destination.

Cleaning Red Sea Max

Yesterday I cleaned the Red Sea Max again, tried to get rid of as many cyano, red hair algae and planaria as I could.

One coral which I noticed was covered with Planaria is the soft coral, last week I already tried to clean him as much as possible, and I continued with it this week. He doesn’t really seem to like what I have done to him.

Also cleaned around the Xenia, which is getting pressed away by the starburst polyps. I tried to tear some pieces off around the Xenia again, but we already lost a lot of it. I did however accidentally suck a piece of Xenia with the tube and put it in the fragtank where it will hopefully recover. Also placed the pieces of Starburst in the fragtank.

I also moved two rocks with buttons that originally came from the fragtank around a bit, maybe I can keep them in the Red Sea Max. We will see, for now they have to remain there any way :)

Made some frags

I just finished a couple of frags for in the fragtank. Cut of a piece of the Kenya Tree from the Red Sea Max which was bothering the nearby buttons and divided the part in 2 parts again.

I also removed 2 parts from two of the Starburst polyp colonies and attached them to rocks using rubber band.

One of the Kenya Trees and one of the Starburst polyps will be traded for 2 urchins later today.

New hermit crabs

Bought 4 new hermit crabs yesterday, 3 black ones and a orange one like I bought the day before. One black and the Orange one moved into the Red Sea Max, another black one moved into the frag/crab tank and the last one moved into the sump.

Black Hermit in RSM

Black hermit in the Sump

Here is a movie of the one located in the frag/crab tank.

I'm yet unsure about the specific species, but at the store they told me they are from the Calcinus family.

The hermit that moved into the frag/crab tank already had a hard time. The small red hermit I got the day before has no problems with the mud crab, but the new one got harassed right away. And also with the introduction of the second crab he immidiatly got bullied this morning. I now placed a frozen fish in it that I normally feed to the anemone, hopefully the crabs will take that for dinner instead of my little hermit.

Here is a movie of the mud crab with the hermit.

Fragtank mk2 Completed

Yesterday I’ve put the final hands on the fragtank, it is now completely running with the sump and is fully equipped for frags but also for other life. From reefracks I made a nice looking construction that gives the tank 3 floors. This way I can put frags that need much light higher then the ones that don’t need much light. As a test I put in a small piece of Star Polyp bound to a small rock using rubber bands.

Since the work on the crab tank is going very slow and I wanted to clear the sump and make it as it should be I decided to divide the fragtank in two halves, one being like described above, and the other has a nice construction of life rock where the crabs will be placed together with other small life forms. The idea is that they can’t mess up frags this way. 

At our regular aquarium shop I bought 2 small hermit crabs which I don’t know the exact species of yet. One of them will be cleaning the fragtank and the other is running around in the sump in the life rock area.

Here is the other one running around after release.

Before placing the hermit in the sump I removed the Mud crab which was still located in that part of the sump and moved him up to the new area in the fragtank.
Here is a movie of him feeding.

I have placed the old light from the fragtank above the sump, it is only one 15 watt tube, so doesn’t give much light, but for a sump it should be more then enough.

Update on the Fragtank

The hole for the overflow has been made and I put a pipe on it. Everything should be working now. Yesterday I put in the first 18,5 litres of water to check if it was all waterproof, but so far everything seems to be fine.

Less good news is that everything I had put in the bin has died. I tried to save some fragments by moving them to the RSM250 but so far without luck. Only the Cabbage leather is still somewhat ok, but don’t think it will last.

Update on crabrock

Since work on the fragtank took longer then expected and the water values in the temporary tank became real bad all of a sudden I decided to take no chance with the Crab Rock and move it, together with some corals from the fragtank, to the Red Sea Max 250.

So the rock is now located in the RSM where it is also cleaned by the hermit crab and cleaner shrimp (nice benefit). Besides that our Kenya Tree had another fragment which I had to remove and I placed it on the rock using a rubber band, since the previous Kenya Tree fell of. Also I took a piece of star polyp and put it on the rock with a rubber band. Hopefully both will grab on soon and start to grow.