Pisces's Aquatic Evolution

pisces4u · Aug 28, 2009

Thanks all~

I'm finding myself with more free time as cleaning and chemistry based tasks are lessening. I took the time to take some really nice pics (I think). One of the things I really love about reefing is how so many things are happening in your tank at so many different levels. The overall squascape changing as corals grow, all sorts of critters scurring and grazing, things changing on a microscopic level and at a snail's pace. I enjoy trying to capture a fraction of the wonder we experience while gazing into our glass boxes. I hope you enjoy and I'm not boring you to pieces with my photos.
Sorry for the blues! By the time I finished cleaning and the water cleared, the daylights were long gone.
Frogspawn with striped mouth.

Green Star Polyps. So many people give them a bad rap but they are truly beautiful.

Green striped mushroom.

White sponge that's been growing over some of my daisies. Not yet decided if I will let it be or pluck it off.

Birdnest close up.

My favorite Zoanthid grouping.

Another Zoa mix.

Xenia.

My accidental Acan. This poor fella started out as a bare skeleton with some Zoanthids. The skeleton has since come back to life miraculously.

Acropora polyps and turbo snail.

Red polyp digitata recovering.

Montipora spongodes.

And I'll leave you with another of my favorite monti. Thanks for looking~

pisces4u · Sep 3, 2009

Well, I tried the top-down shots but I wasn't happy with them. It's hard to get an angle without reflections of the lights. Also, the top shelf of rock is where I mounted my acro colonies with epoxy putty. From the front and back, you don't see the white blobs so much but they definately detract from the top-down look for now.
Some of my critters were feeling photogenic though so here are a couple of my fav's.
Stopping to smell the roses...

Scarlet

"Tiny Tim" our smallest blue hermit

Skunk cleaner "Jesus" (he walks on water)

"Cloverfield"

"Champeezy"

FTS trio coming soon. Next week will be the 5 month anniversary for this tank! Thanks for looking.

bluebeltreefer · Sep 3, 2009

great looking tank! congrats. i like the picture of the emerald crab, looks like a monster!

ahayes13 · Sep 4, 2009

not boring at all ! beautiful pictures

pisces4u · Sep 16, 2009

Well, last weekend marked the 5 month anniversary of the birth of our 50g display =)
I figured that I would shoot some pics to mark the date. Pardon the yellowness I was fiddling with the white balance on the camera.
Front side 09/16/09

End

Back side

Acro garden front side.

Acros back side

End 'scape uphill

Green corallimorph collection

Frogs

Zoanthid collection

White sponge on daisies and clovers

Scarlet

We actually spent the weekend away from the tanks on a business trip to Atlantic City. Here's us on the roof of the AC Aquarium.

Thanks for reading =)

pisces4u · Sep 20, 2009

So I broke down and bought a Todd's Torch today. It's a pretty hot item here in NY and a LFS had two beautiful ones.

This piece has 7 heads and super long tentacles. 6" so far and it's only been in the tank a couple hours.

It's funny how it steals the show as a centerpiece in the tank even with $100's in Zoanthids and rare SPS. Sorry for the crappy night shot i'll grab a better one tomorrow.

pisces4u · Sep 21, 2009

pisces4u · Sep 22, 2009

New FTS with the Todd's Torch.
9/22/09

pisces4u · Sep 23, 2009

Started yet another system (our 4th) up this weekend. The woman loves mushrooms wih a passion and I've been promising her a mushroom tank for a while. Plus, after we move over her sizeable collection from the 50g, I'll have more space for my fav's.

The tank is a 37g hex that we found on CL for free. Picked up a 24" t5ho in a trade for frags. The rock was $$$ tonga branch but since everything else was free it's not too bad. It's cycling now with just a ac70 + floss for flow and filtration.

Here's a 3 was FTS.

Here's a new shot of the 10g frag system packed with frags - 117 atm.

pisces4u · Sep 26, 2009

Here are some growth comparisons I put together. When you spend a couple hours a day looking at the tank, you lose appreciation for how quickly things are growing so I like to look back at older pics.

My first SPS, ORA Verde I think - 4 months growth. Fragged twice also.

My second SPS, unkown green acro w/ blue tips - 3 months growth. Also been fragged twice.

Monti Digi - 4 months growth. Frag was remounted vertically and fragged. Colonies on the left are frags of the mother.

Millipora or Prostrata, dunno which. 1.5 months growth.

Birdsnest growth - 1.5 months.

Frogspawn growth - 1.5 months.

pisces4u · Oct 1, 2009

Last week was a busy week in our little reef collection. The new 37g hex completed it's little cycle and I moved nearly all the mushrooms over from the 50g. This left many gaps as we had 60+ mushrooms on about 10lbs of live rock so I re-scaped some of the 50g.

I also did some big water changes and serious cleaning. Of course I broke some of the SPS during maintenance and needed to glue and re-home some pieces. Anyways, I babble on... here are pics of the revised 50g and 37g mushroom tank and a couple coral pix.

50g front side

End view

Back side

Acro garden. Pretty stoked with the recent growth rate.

<3 my torches. The purple/yellow one on the right is new. The Todd's is expanding more every day. I can't tell if it's continuing to adjust or if it's growth but the tentacles stretch up to 9" now.

37g mushroom hex FTS (front)

Bottom left detail.

Center detail.

Bottom right detail.

Thanks for looking!

johnanddawn · Oct 2, 2009

very nice pics

pisces4u · Oct 3, 2009

Thanks!

I had some spare time tonight so I snapped a few with the actinics on. Sorry for the poor color balance as a result.

Friends! Cyphastrea and Spongodes.

Hungry candy cane frag.

Frogspawn duo.

Chalice duo.

"Octo Mom". We picked up this zoanthid as a single polyp back in April. The resulting colony has also been fragged 3 times...

Zoa compilations.

Thanks for looking!

pisces4u · Oct 6, 2009

Shameless update. Nothing new I just love taking pics hehe =p

Obligatory torch shot

Front side

Back side

pisces4u · Oct 11, 2009

Well, today marks the 6 month mark for the 50g. I snapped a couple pics to mark the day in my photo log. I did do some minor re-scaping and found new homes for the acros on the top shelf. I think I've nearly got a look that works asthetically.
FTS 10/11/09

Back side

Couple people eaters

Green cap with purple polyps

Healing monti, either pokerstar or rainbow, we'll see

Orange torch I picked up for the red/orange side of the penninsula

pisces4u · Oct 23, 2009

Haven't updated recently but we picked up some new pieces, namely 3 non-photosynthetic frags. We also nabbed a sick mushroom and a couple more acros. I'll shoot a few pics when they settle in more but here's a teaser for now.
One of our new sun corals.