55gal AGA

well, i guess you can kill hydroids same way as aptasia. a little squirt of high PH kalwasser solution.

I have picked up my first piece of coral. I went to Dr. Mac’s today and picked up a Bright Green Star Polyp. After the short acclimation, it’s comfortably sitting at the bottom of my tank. After a few days, I’ll slowly start to move it to its final destination about midway up the tank on a piece of live rock that I have picked out. As soon as I can get a good picture of it all the way open, I will be sure to post a pic.

And as an update on other happenings, I seemed to have found a small crab that hitchhiked on a piece of live rock that I got from Dr. Mac 2 weeks ago. It only seems to be coming out at night and has made itself at home in a network of tunnels inside the rock. Hope it’s not too much of a nuisance, not sure what type of crab, I’ve only got a fleeting look at it at night under a red light… He is no where near as social as my emerald crab is at night…

Here is a picture of my Bright (or Metallic?) Green Star Polyp. He has been shy for the first few days that he has been in the tank.

GSP is funny that way. Sometimes it will come out within hours of going in to a new tank, and other times it will take weeks for it to open fully up.

There will also be times when it won’t open at all after being open for months. Finicky little buggers sometimes.

Yeah, but Ive been told its one of the easiest corals to keep, not quite as tempermental about water that isn’t pristine and identical to seawater…

We will see, I just don’t want it to die. The first couple of days it was out a little bit, nothing close to like what I was seeing while it was at Dr. Macs when I picked it out though…

I’m not sure anyone has ever successfully killed GSP.

You’ll be fine - it is a very easy coral to care for, in fact it is probably one of the most frequent “first corals” out there.

Good, my wife picked it out, and if it doesnt make it, she’s gonna be madder than a hornet…

my small frag actually fell off a rock and landed upside down. i didnt notice it was gone for a few days… i saw the polyps peeking out from under the piece of rubble they were on! lol im sure they r fine. give them some time

Ha. Nice.

Well I just took a peek at it now with the lights being off for a few hours and one of my cerith snails has climbed onto the GSP.

Ill be keeping an eye on him.

It’s alive!

Hopefully it comes out a little further than that, not sure if it’s still trying to get used to the change in lighting, or what…

It looks like they still have a litle further to come out. After they do and start absorbing light and nutrients from the water the polyps will being to grow and you will see it fill-in and looko much fuller in no time at all.

Nice bright greens too - good specimen.

yeah man, ive heard that those things will really take off once they are happy. the only bad thing ive heard is that they can be aggressive and actually choke out some corals. my brother bouht a piece about the size of a quarter about a year ago, now the colony is about the size of a volly ball, lol. nice piece tho, i love the color!

Just an update:

Picked up a couple of Sebae (maybe ocellaris?) clowns from my LFS a couple of weeks ago. They are living pretty happily, or so it seems. I also picked up a nice tri-color zoanthid with about 15 polyps or so on it. I will try to get a picture of it up later tonight. I say tri-color only because it has 3 different types or colors of zo polyps on it. I believe they are watermelon, green, and a pinkish. Really a nice looking coral. And for the father’s day special I got a red zoanthid, although I kind of wish I had gone with the pink that I was offered. The red kind of blends in with my live rock and all of the coralline.

I am thinking about picking up another couple of fish. I am not real sure what kind just yet, I just want something that is very active, and colorful would be even better. Any recommendations?

if you can snap a clear pic of the clown, and count his dorsal spines you’ll get a proper ID.

true amphiprion percula have 9 spines

false or amphiprion ocellaris have 10-11 spines.

tricky to count while swimming, squirmy lil sob’s

if you want active, in a 55 i’d recommend a small shoal of green chromis, they make the tank look more “fishy”

i wouldn’t get any tangs, i put one in my 75gallon and feel guilty about it, they need more than 6’ of tank and even that is small compared to the 25 miles they like to swim a day in the wild.

get yourself a orchid dottyback, a firefin dart fish, and those and thats some good fish’n

they r false percs. pretty sure a pair. i had them for 6 months or so. pretty friendly, as long as u dont add any other clowns!!! they beat the crap out of 2 maroon clowns. a small one, and a pretty big one.

[quote=“TimH07, post:94, topic:1646”]
if you can snap a clear pic of the clown, and count his dorsal spines you’ll get a proper ID.

true amphiprion percula have 9 spines

false or amphiprion ocellaris have 10-11 spines.

tricky to count while swimming, squirmy lil sob’s

if you want active, in a 55 i’d recommend a small shoal of green chromis, they make the tank look more “fishy”

i wouldn’t get any tangs, i put one in my 75gallon and feel guilty about it, they need more than 6’ of tank and even that is small compared to the 25 miles they like to swim a day in the wild.

get yourself a orchid dottyback, a firefin dart fish, and those and thats some good fish’n[/quote]

I found this site on about.com that talks about the difference between false and true percula clowns and how to tell the difference between the two. The specific name for a false percula is Amphiprion Ocelarris. So if i have “False Perculas” wouldn’t they also be consider Ocellaris Clowns?

Here is the site: http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/anemoneclownfishprofiles/ss/sbstruevsfalseperc.htm

It also mentions that true percula clownfish will have 10 spines (rarely 9) and false percula clownfish (ocellaris) will have 11 spines (rarely 10)

Billy

false perc’s = occi’s. same thing.

Ok, here are some pictures from the tank. I am not sure what to go by, what Tim says, these percula’s would be false, or Occelaris. If I follow what About.com says, they would be true percula’s. I will let the experts decide. The pictures below are the best I could get of each of the clowns I have. As for the picture of the GSP, I have been having some problems with him. He hasn’t extended his fingers quite as far as I would think he should, and I have had him all over my tank, can’t seem to find a place that makes it happy. Any suggestions? If it isn’t extending out completely, is it too far away from the light? too close? All of my water parameters seem to be normal. The only thing i was having issues with was high calcium and low alkalinity/dkh. I have started to dose with buffer again, i unfortunately took a break after i started noticing higher than optimal alkalinity levels. Any suggestions? Also, I included pictures of the zoa’s that I got from Dr. Mac on Father’s Day weekend. Good stuff!!


I count 9 spines on this guy…

I count 10 spines on this guy…

Not really the best picture, his green fingers are a little darker green than the picture lets on, but not much darker…


Love the first zoo pic - gorgeous.

The GSP seems to be fully extended now, they’re just short tenticles. Give them time and they may grow longer. there are many different species of GSP, some have very long tenticles, some have very short tenticles. Leave it in one place for a few weeks and take another pic and compare the two.

Yea that was one of the Dr. Mac specials that I picked up. I couldn’t pass up the chance to buy it. The second was a free Father’s Day that I am hoping will start to spread and fill out a little… I am thinking about putting it on one of my lighter colored rocks so that it stands out a little bit more… kinda drab looking right now.