ilyad's JBJ build

+1 lil fish

btw, I love your urchin!

Thanks Live Rock... My gf spotted him at the fish store, and after I did a little research, I decided to grab him, its amazing, I love it too.... will def recommend an urchin to anyone with a tank. My half moon rock is really porous and the snails didnt feel like eating the algae off of it, he did a good job taking care of that! Plus, its almost like a coral, but it moves around all the time, and is friendly :D
 
Very nice. :D


I kinda want to get one of those urchin, but... Does your's have a taste for corallin??

Well, Im not sure... I dont have much of it in my tank yet, so Im not sure if he's eating it up or not... But I can say that some that I do have has seeded onto other rocks and is slowly spreading. So if anything, its growing faster than he can eat it. Plus, like my buddy once said, the first few months you cant wait to get coralline algae then you dread having to scrape it off 1/8 of an in every 3rd week so you can see into your tank. As far as Im concerned, he can help me keep that in check... LOL:mrgreen:
 
Here's some more updates of the tank guys

My urchin cruising around the tank

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Here he is on my Candy Cane bonsai tree
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The Candy Cane is taking off in its new place
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Then I got these guys as my holiday present from my parents

A ricodea mushroom (actually a pair :Cheers:)
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Some amazing colors
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The Ric's in their new spot
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I also got a frogspawn as a present
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Its mouth's
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The frogspawn in its new place
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And in the blue light
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The new guys are neon!!!

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Some cool fancy shots of the tank while playing with the perspective

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And then feeding time

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And its crazy in the blue

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And lastly tonight I checked out a new fish store by my house and got one of these guys

A coco worm
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And him out and about
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A shout out to the guys at Coral Collection because I got into a discussion with the guy about whether my tank could sustain SPS's and he gave me a frag of a Montipora coral for free to see how it weathers:mrgreen:

Initially I wasnt a big fan of these corals, but seeing it under the LED's and under the moonlights, it is awesome!!!

Anyways, here is the free frag in its new place
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I'll get a better picture of that guy later.
 
I really hope so too because I do want to keep SPS's in the tank, more specifically, the chalice... I absolutely love the colors those guys have.

As long as your keep your water stable, you'll do fine. Also, chalices are lps's, so they're a lil easier that sps's. :)
 
Yeah I know, the reason he traded that was because the shrimp was confirmed to eat Apteisa. Lucky for me the fish store I go to, doesnt feed their pep shrimps anything but apteisa so when you take them home, they go bonkers for that stuff.

Plus it's good reef karma. Sgt Pepper is doing great btw. He came out and crawled on my land last weekend while I was cleaning the tank. He has been a great addition, thanks :)
 
Plus it's good reef karma. Sgt Pepper is doing great btw. He came out and crawled on my land last weekend while I was cleaning the tank. He has been a great addition, thanks :)

Glad to hear that!! He used to hop on my hand every time I put it in the tank. The first few times it startled me!! Lol then I got used to him sneaking up on me every time
 
Here is the next update as of right now...

The monti when I first got it (about 2 weeks ago)
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Update
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My kitty watching the tank
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I bought 2 small acro frags from a local reefer at $5 each

the green slimer
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Slimer in the blue
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And the tri-color acro
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the tri-color in blue
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Very nice pieces...and that monti is growing quick. :)

Thank you! And yea, things seem to be growing like wildfire in this tank. The monti grew that much in about a week maybe 2 tops. I had 2 polys of captain americas which I got right after thanks giving, and now there are 3 polys and 2 little ones starting to grow. And the duncans started with 3 injured heads and now have two new smaller ones at the base and 2 other ones that are just starting to protrude.

NIce additions

Thank you:^:

$5?!?!! wish my local reefers sold their sps for that cheap :[

Yeah, the guy has a nice tank with a few SPS's... his green slimer is huge! Over 10 lbs now... and it basically came loose from the rock work, hit other corals on the way down and broke those too. So he had to cut down the acros a lot so he can stick it back to the rocks.. when I went, I was expecting little chipped pieces for $5, but the frags were huge! This one is almost 3 in tall:shock:
 
Hey guys,

Its time for a little update...

After I bought the two Acro's and since I was on break from grad school, I decided to redo my aquascape once more...

I moved the rocks so that the rock with the mushrooms is all the way on the bottom, and turned the other rocks to give a little bit more surface area to allow for more corals in the future. I also secured the Acros in place and created a lot more caves than before (in preparation for more fish in the future)

Here is the end result,

The FTS
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And some close ups:

You can see that I gave the Captain America's its own dedicated rock so that it can grow out and be fragged later without spreading to the main rock work
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The Monti and the Tri Color
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Caves and Mushrooms
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Another project I took on is fragging my zoa colony because after a lot of research and inspection it seemed that the frag rock they were on made it difficult for them to spread out and grow (the zoa's would be stuck in the grooves of the rock and when new polyps would grow, they would either die off, or choke out the older ones)

You can see the grooves in this picture
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WARNING: Fragging Zoa's could be extremely dangerous because of the polytoxin they release, so if you take on the challenge, make sure to wear gloves and protective eye wear (in my pictures you dont see the later, but I had the glasses)...

The tools
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Close Up
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What we have: eye protection, gloves, 2 tubs, hammer, nail, a blade, and glue

The Colony
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Sorry there arent pictures of the fragging process, but I didnt want to get any polytoxin on my phone or anywhere else for that matter, so I did not take pictures during the fragging process. Basically, I put the nail in between the zoa polyps and hammered down slowly until the rock chipped apart, then I used the blade to cut any polyps that were not loose.

Here is the end result
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Some Close Ups
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I used the glue to fold over and attach any of the polpys that were not attached to the rock and but just attached through the tissue to other polyps

You let the frags sit in the container for about 15 minutes so they can stop releasing any polytoxins, then move it to another container and do the same. Do this with the water from the tank to minimize stress on the polyps
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Keep in mind, that you still want to keep your gloves on until you've completely finished moving the frags into the 2nd container (I took pictures here because I took one glove, but still used only one hand with the glove to move them). While the frags are resting in their 2nd container, clean up the whole area and rinse off any tools thoroughly. Polytoxin is water soluble, so it will wash away, but just as a precaution, do not reuse the gloves, or the tubberware (you can save the tubs for future fragging).
 
Ok, lets continue...

I went ahead and pulled out the rock that I was going to glue my frags to...
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The frags glued to the rock
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Some Close Ups
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And then back in the tank
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The next day the polyps started to open up
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It really seems like the problem was that the polyps were crammed because the next day the polyps that were not open for a week opened up the next day

And here is an update on my Duncan which is growing new babies
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And the other heads are just starting to do the same, in a little there should be a ton of new heads :mrgreen:
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