Reef Safe With Caution

[pcon]

Shot from opposite end of the tank than I usually take pictures from. But loved the character of the burgess in this shot. I feed from this end so he was wondering why he was not getting any food.

I was getting some shading in the Euphyllia garden. (well technically Fimbriaphyllia as its all frogs, hammers and an octo) Hard to see but, two heads of the blue hammer to the right are completely covered by the bicolor hammer in the middle. It is also beginning to shade the more blue green hammer below.

Hard to get an angle to see but you can sorta see it here:

So I planed to simply cut down the bases of the bicolor and green hammer in the upper left. Well, Robert Burns puts it in his famous poem "The best laid schemes of mice and men, Go often askew."

Removing the two hammers on the left knocked down the rock to the right. which knocked down the third blue hammer and the bicolor octospawn.

So after several tubes of dollar store gel super glue, seemingly mostly on my hands, and wrestling with getting the rock back in position, without knocking down any further corals I have got the corals back in place with a bit more space.

 

[pcon]

@Wrangy Inspired me to share an update on my puppy, who is currently in the cone of shame:

 

[Wrangy]

Everyone loves the cone of shame hahaha love the pic of the burgessi though

 

[pcon]

Acro garden is starting to fill up.

Had to rearrange the hammers one more time, trying to un shade some heads and I shaded some others. And got a purple tip hammer from a local friend.

Dollar store glue restocking. Shocking how quickly we go through super glue in this hobby. More than when I was making miniatures as a kid.

finally got the 3D printer running excited to start some projects!

going to need some tuning but working well enough to get some basic stuff started. Some brackets for hoses are running on the printer as I post this, hopefully ready when I wake up.

 

[pcon]

Not a whole ton of changes just appreciating the reef.
Full system shot for anyone interested, see my messy sump.

after all the rearranging on the euphyllia/Fimbriaphyllia garden:

Picked up a small acro frag at one of my favorite stores today:

 

[Wrangy]

Looking good! And everyone loves a messy sump pic

 

[pcon]

Slow going with life and on the reef with the restrictions from corona concerns. Hope all is well with all my reefing friends.

Angelfish posed for a couple pics today, Think it wanted food.

Monti Cap finally hit the surface, and the water level is at its max with my horrible overflow so I am interested to see how it will grow at the surface, seen some other SPS do strange things when they grow at the surface.

Aculeatus doing its thing picking between corals, always fun to watch. Aculeatus has grown more confident and seems to be eating better, particularly likes the SFBB fish eggs. Eats them out of the pipet when I do my nightly coral spot feeding. Still goes to the back to eat for the rest of the foods, think it doesnt like being watched while it eats.

Fimbriaphyllia garden doing well, lost a frag from the lower left frogspawn. I broke the skeleton of the lower head on it about 6-8 months ago and it has been dangling down there for a while, but was still attached by the flesh and hadn't fully split. When I rearranged a few weeks ago I decided to rip off that section as it had its own mouth. the frag unfortunately did not recover. Luckily the mother colony seems to be doing better without having to support it.

As always sorry for the blues, got to get myself one of those coralview orange lenses.

 

[pcon]

This monti needs fragged again, was just a few weeks ago that I cut off about a half dozen frags of it.

In other coral news I am super happy with my little acro garden, it is filling up quickly:

 

[Wrangy]

Looking good mate!!

 

[Angel_Anthias lover]

LiveAquaria® - Chaetodon burgessi x C. declivis

Does Mr Burgess need a fancy, expensive lady burgess.

 

[pcon]

LiveAquaria® - Chaetodon burgessi x C. declivis

Does Mr Burgess need a fancy, expensive lady burgess.

I have had no luck pairing burgess. Seems like the conspecifics get along okay. Based on others experience such as @Wrangy so I would like another Roaops soon, when I can afford one lol.

 

[Angel_Anthias lover]

I have had no luck pairing burgess. Seems like the conspecifics get along okay. Based on others experience such as @Wrangy so I would like another Roaops soon, when I can afford one lol.

That would be cool, pity theyre so expensive lol

 

[Wrangy]

I have had no luck pairing burgess. Seems like the conspecifics get along okay. Based on others experience such as @Wrangy so I would like another Roaops soon, when I can afford one lol.

I'd be hesitant to add another burgessi, even a cross species. If they were added at the same time you'd probably have better luck but they do get a little territorial sometimes so I'd only do it with a massive tank haha

Edit:
Prognathodes would be fine in multiples as they're such timid fish Roaps need to be different species Have a look at Tanne Hoff's or Bryn Robert's tanks for an amazing butterfly community tank! Those are the two tanks I'm modelling mine after

 

[pcon]

Ah yeah I meant to say congeners other roaops seem fine, but the same species seems problematic, except for true mated pairs.

 

[Angel_Anthias lover]

Is that because they are gonochorristic (if i spelt that right)

 

[pcon]

Is that because they are gonochorristic (if i spelt that right)

I think that’s why they are difficult to pair. Got to get a true male female pair and have them be the right sizes for them to partner.

 

[pcon]

I might have a bristle worm problem:

 

[Angel_Anthias lover]

Lol thats like my worst nightmare

 

[pcon]

Not a whole lot of adding to the tank under corona lockdown, so I printed a "random flow generator" style nozzle for my return. After 24 hours to adapt to the increased flow the hammers and frogspawns are really liking it, and are nice and fluffy. Eductors are working, but I think I can get some more performance out of it by reducing the twist rate of the flutes, so I may model and print another version and tweek some things. I really should do some CFD on it but the setup is a bit more work to appropriately model the eductor effects.

Seemingly happy Hammers and Frogspawns with the new flow.

 

[Wrangy]

That's so cool!! Awesome they work so well and the corals are loving them!