wasp

Good one Ben! Don't they have amazing regenerative powers when conditions are good!

EDIT - this is about the chili coral, not the sun coral which is also non photosynthetic, but a lot easier to feed:- Just a word of caution, as I origionally suspected, the "chili coral" is a non photosynthetic coral. I was thinking about it last night & became sure the one you pictured is a non photosynthetic one so did a bit more reading today & it seems there are 2 versions circulating on the net about what this coral is. Version 1, it is low light easy care. Version 2, it is non photosynthetic, difficult care. Unfortunately the easy care version is what appears on the information given by a lot of the e-tailer sites. In fact it is non photosynthetic, meaning it must be fed or die. It does not like direct light, and will extend more at night. Exactly what it eats is not fully understood but in a very clean tank it will usually slowly wither and die over a few months, as did one that i used to have. However there are reports of them surviving long term in certain tanks, either by being placed where a lot of detritus drifts past, or by being direct fed. Their preferred situation is being hung upside down in a cave.

Just a random guess, baby cleaner shrimp?

Walking or swimming?

Tell them to get in touch with Reef, the breeder. I had to tell you this rather than Reef himself cos I don't think he's allowed to promote his own products on this site.

Well looks like you lucked out with that one, I googled it & here is what it says. Going by the description it will be just right for your RSM. Quote "Sometimes you hear of this beauty called Cactus Coral. Others Chile coral. Either way, a real beauty and simple to keep. Does well in under flourescent lighting or low light areas of your tank. White polyps on a strawberry red soft coral make for a beautiful coral for your reef".

What is it? One of those non photosynthetic thingies?

Lovely photos. The babies are very pretty in their little school. Wonder who it is could be tank raising them in NZ Reef? :lol:

Yes lots of fry, trying to raise them is hard though. The only time I came close to succeeding was when I syphoned some fry into an ice cream container which I floated in the tank. I fed them on a liquid fry preparation for fresh water fish, and some of them lived for about a week and at least doubled in size. Then one day they were all dead i think the water fouled despite being changed several times a day. The normal way to raise clown fry is by feeding them live rotifers which have to be cultured, but the whole thing is beyond the time and skill that i have to do it. The clownfish pair in the pic lay a new brood of eggs every 3ish weeks, and each time there is several 100's of eggs, if not thousands but i don't know. As these fish live quite a few years it means that over the course of their lives a pair will lay hundreds of thousands, if not millions of eggs. The thing is that to maintain a wild clownfish population at the same level only requires 2 of all those to survive to mature adulthood. Increadible really the wastage, although in the harsh reality of nature I guess the ones that don't make it are not really waste, they are food for other creatures.

Yes a REALLY nice tank. Kinda surprised he doesn't take that little extra bit of effort & scrape the coraline off the bottom of the front glass. However I've seen some good tanks and that must be one of the best, a pleasure to look at.

Yes run all that. Lots of circulation, the heater will speed up bacterial lifecycle, and skimmer keep the water clean. As you are trying to clean the rock you don't want the water getting too dirty it will re-pollute the rock. Also syphon out the sandy type crud that comes out of the rock, it is loaded with phosphate and best removed from the system. The crud coming out of the rock can encourage algae growth, if this happens keep things dark. Also keep good aeration, if there is a lack of oxygen the rock can turn black in the anaerobic bits. Which doesn't matter a whole lot other than it is preventing the rock cycling as good as it could.

Can't do a pic cos I'm out of town today (i'm in a cafe in Pirongia), but here is a pic from a while back, it is the same anemone, or one of it's "parents". if you look carefully you can see the clownfish eggs on the rock, the orange little bit just in front & below the clowns face. This is not the prettiest anemone it's just basic brown but it's a good hardy anemone survived all the abuse i've subjected it to over the years.

Fish-unit the anemone is healing up nicely, will be ready for your sister on friday .

That is a REALLY nice job! Well thought out at every stage, and quality workmanship also, did you make the stand yourself? Clever idea having the heaters in the overflow, I guess as long as they are in the circuit somewhere, it doesn't matter, good thinking! Great thing about a tank like that you've got everything sorted, now you can sit back, relax, and enjoy it. Cute little green anemone, everything looking healthy.

:lol:

Well that kinda solves it! You going to have all those RSM user rushing out to get an anemone Electric Head! :lol: . And hey, welcome to the forum! I just looked in my tank and found a tiny bit of anemone floating around I must have somehow cut off, it's chances are slim but I've put it in a jar just to give it a shot, here it is BTW Electric Head, you better fill us all in with your advice on how to do anemones in a RSM, you obviously have a good result .

OK well I've cut it, just have to see how fast it heals. Fish-unit if you can let me know a day or two before your sister comes & i'll see if it's ready although probably not, we may have to go with theConch. EDIT - I got your pm Fish-unit & have replied.

Thanks for that, Fish unit & I have pm'ed, still not quite sure how to get it there. But first I have to cut my own anemone in half and then it will take up to 3 weeks to heal till it's ready to be moved. When the time comes I'll post up what's happening & see if anyone can help. When is your trip TheConch?

Yes they will be fine together. There is only so much aptaisia that a shrimp can eat though & you might be in a situation where there are enough aptaisia to breed faster than the shrimps can keep up so the idea would be to kill what you can manually to allow the shrimps to clean up what's left.

That black stuff, or something very similar, appears in my tank from time to time, it doesn't spread very fast and i just syphon it. Does it break off in chunks and is white/grey underneath? There is a product from the shop called Joes Juice to kill aptaisia, you syringe a bit onto the head of each one they ingest it & die. However a big crop of them like you have can be a lot of work a biological control such as peppermint shrimp can be easier, they are for sale from time to time.

Good choice Wilson . I guess you would probably end up at Auckland or Wellington working for Niwa or something? Or go overseas?

Yes i once had one, cheap as cos the stuff is all free and it looked pretty cool. Although it got a bit messy after perhaps a year or so cos I should have invested in a skimmer but didn't. I think you can do one easily and cheaply, but if you want to go all the way you spend more money and get good equipment, same as a tropical tank, and the tank will be even better. Great excuse to take the family rock pooling, my kids loved it, and had their own little pets in the tank that they had caught themselves.

Sounds great, plus I hear you are doing marine biology! Lucky thing when I was young enough if I could have gone to uni i would have done that.

Fish unit, I would be interested to see how this goes in a RSM, so in the interest of science :lol: , I could give you a small BTA. The only thing being I am not confident to send it to Wellington in the post every time I have tried this in the past it has been a disaster. Just wondered if you or anyone reading this would have a way to personally transport one we could do it.