One of these gomezi’s is not like the other…
I mentioned that we picked up a new “gomezi” over the weekend. I don’t know what it really is, but I’m 99.9% sure it’s not a gomezi. Compare for yourself, the new addition is the first photo:
New Acropora "gomezi"...?
Vivid Acropora gomezi
Completely different structure! I am confident that the piece from Vivid is a gomezi. I have no idea what the new piece is. Maybe a tenuis? Anybody care to wager a guess?
<<<<<<<>>>>>>
Update 01/04/2010: As mentioned in this post, I stumbled on a photo of a similar looking piece that was labeled as Acropora vermiculata. I think we have a match!
Few More Photos; Alkalinity Testing Revisited
It appears I am not the only reefer out there whose Salifert alkalinity kit measured 2.5dKH lower than multiple other test kits. I stumbled upon a current thread in the Chemistry forum at Reef Central, where there are a number of people in the same situation I was a week ago! People who are trying to maintain alkalinity in the tank at the low end of the acceptable spectrum (around 7.5dKH) only to find that their Salifert test kit is reading 2.5 dKH high. At least I’m not alone.
Let’s get on to some eye candy! Here are a few more photos I snapped recently. In a couple you can see some hair algae we’ve been battling. I am hoping that by the next round of photos the algae will all be gone. I have a strategy in mind to accomplish that goal, but more on that in a different post.
Let’s start with the new granulosa frag:
Acropora granulosa
And then the ORA Red Planet. This has more red in it than the photo shows. It was a large frag, and I decided to clip the two main branches and lay them by the base of the frag to encourage it to encrust and grow outwards. Will it work? Beats me! I’ll grab another photo in a few months and we’ll find out together.
ORA Red Planet
This is a millepora that started as a small frag and has encrusted its way around the side of the rock. I’m glad it did because one of the anemones has decided it likes the spot where I originally placed this coral. In the past month it has started to grow the branches you can see just forming.
Acropora millepora
An Ocean Blue Polyp Stylophora I bought as a frag. From the other side and the top this has an absolutely stunning pink/purple body. The polyps are a light blue, which makes a nice contrast.
Ocean Blue Polyp Stylophora
And finally, here’s a great member of the clean up crew. These micro-brittle stars are in every crevice in the tank. Not even visible until feeding or lights out, when suddenly thousands of little arms start waving in the water. For reference, this star is on a 1/2″ tube.
Micro Brittle Star
Couple photos of the new corals
I took a couple quick photos of the new corals. I also got a nice photo of the anemone shrimp, which I added to the sidebar at the right. I didn’t process these photos but the coloration is pretty close to what my eyes see. In the tank the hammer has a little less pink and a little more blue; the gomezi has more velvet-green in the branches; the prostrata is a bit brighter blue and less purple.
Let’s start with the shrimp:
Periclimenes brevicarpalis - Anemone Shrimp
The new hammer coral, not fully inflated:
Blue Hammer Coral
And the new gomezi and prostrata. I still need to get a photo of the granulosa; it’s in a tougher spot to photograph.
Acropora gomezi
Acropora prostrata
Maintenance, New Eggs, Missing Shroom
Yesterday we saw a bunch of snail egg pouches on the wall of the tank. No idea if it was the ceriths or nerites that laid them, but we’ll refrain from wiping the algae off the tank walls until these hatch.
Snail Egg Sack
This morning I made fresh top-off water. Tonight I did a 10-gallon water change. For the first 5 gallons I siphoned detritus directly off the live rock. For the second 5 gallons I blew the live rock out with a power head and then siphoned detritus and algae out of the water column. That method seems to be working well. I also changed out the carbon and phosban media in my two reactors. I don’t even want to go back and see how long these had been in service without fresh media… Also cleaned out the skimmer collection cup and emptied the jug.
So the brand new pink ricordea went AWOL. No idea what happened to it. I had placed it amongst two other types of Florida ricordeas and a yuma… I’m hoping it’ll turn up in a different part of the tank at some point…
Some new photos
Over the past few weeks I took a ton of coral photos to get into the sidebar at the right of this page and onto the main website, but for now here’s a couple sample shots. They lose some clarity during the automatic resampling, but that should be resolved when I add them in higher resolution to the website and sidebar (no resampling required).
Ricordeas:
Orange/Purple Ricordea Mushrooms
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Euphyllia:
Hammer
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Acans:
Red Acan
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Rainbow Acan
Zoanthids:
"Green Felt" Zoa
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Eagle Eye Zoa
New photos
After cleaning the acrylic the other day I decided to take some full tank photos. Didn’t spend any time cleaning up the tank scratches etc in photoshop, so these are pretty raw. This week I think I’ll try my hand at some new macro photos.
click for animated gif
I had tried making a smaller version of the above animated gif for the blog header, but it screwed up a bunch of formating and was so small that essentially no detail was visible. So… still trying to figure out a good header image. The series of photos above makes me really want to get some color in the top half of the tank. The lower 1/3 or half of the tank has been growing out for years and it’s pretty apparent that the top half is mostly barren live rock, especially on the side facing the living room (where the anemone had been for a couple months before moving). On the kitchen side there is at least the anemone, a small piece of millepora that is starting to grow, an encrusting rainbow monti, and a deepwater acro that is also starting to grow. That side will fill out in time, it’s the living room side that needs more color!
Here’s a photo of the tank looking into the kitchen. This is a merge of two photos to preserve the detail of both the tank in the foreground and the kitchen in the background. Looking at it in person the tank is a lot brighter, but the camera washed out any details at slower exposures.
View into the kitchen
Notice the Vortech MP40w on the tank wall? It’s barely visible, next to the closed loop intake pipe. I love how the Vortech pump blends in with the background. It is not apparent until you get close to the tank, and even then it’s not something that draws your eye to it.
