Miniature .75g 11/3/02

[theitalianczech]

thanks my eyes are open............hahaha..........it worked the next time i opened the site but thanks again for your wisdom.............

 

[Anonymous]

theitalianczech-

are you logged in?

 

[theitalianczech]

yes i am vitz.it works now and i can see the pics...thanks.......

 

[brandon4291]

I am using an aquarium for scale comparison of the worlds LARGEST TOOTHBRUSH its just plain fun to put common items next to small reefs.


sharkky we also like feeding time because honestly the pods swarm the frog pellets we add in there, and all kinds of worms and animals come out of the rock (would take a few hours searching to get the gen/species correct so Ill call them worms and pods) and interestingly enough even the worm tracks in the dsb start to aim upwards after about 15 minutes as the worms head to the top. Everybody is very competitive in there, so its a miniature gladiator fest every night at 6.
I am referring to the reefbowl, but soon this one will catch up as well.

 

[brandon4291]

it takes a lucky break and some persistent shopping to locate blastomussa, montipora, and caulastrea frags the size of the head of a toothbrush. A dealer had dropped a larger piece of blastomussa in his tank and broken off several small polyps on the lower sides...these re-glued nicely into that reddish group in the center. the caulastreas were just really small frags, my good buddy knows to hold them for me when he sees 'em. I also purchased the smallest pulsing xenia Ive ever seen, we found it in his tank and picked it out with tweezers on a single chip of aragonite, about 2 mm long. it has five baby heads that are already pulsing nicely (strong light in there) and apparently they just attached on this chip in a calmer part of his tank, beneath some LR. its glued on the right hand side lower down on the purple rock, with the current blowing the heads towards the left side. this weekend Ill stain the canopy to match the stand.

 

[brandon4291]

the light is a galaxy light from azoo stripped out of its housing and screwed into the wooden canopy top. the retrofitting of the canopy is apparent here, as it doesnt match the red wood yet.

anemonebuff yes sir thats my little helper, Treska. she likes to help out with the tiny reefs and especially likes putting on my sterile latex gloves to hold specimens while we glue them in place. its funny to see the fingers hanging down at the knuckle, her hands are not very big.

 

[brandon4291]

not meaning to beat a dead horse, but the toothbrush shows the scaling well. I can't find a ruler anywhere---

 

[brandon4291]

I went to Michael's crafts and bought a plastic tray used for artist paints or something. whatever its intended use, it jig-sawed easily and I took out a small plastic square out of the side to make the walls for the miniature baffle refugium. It took a piece of plastic about five inches square.

 

[brandon4291]

the water line does not meet up flush with the weatherstripping, or it might creep a little. Its one-half inch below the water line and I try not to bump it any to allow the wicking action to start. the drops that collect on the upper inside lid are FW, I tested them with a hardness test-strip. just dipped the end of the test strip into one of the droplets ...


I can't wait to fill up the refugium halfway with miracle mud. see how much deeper it will hold a separate sand bed, about 4-5x as much as the LS in the reef side? Ill drain the tank, hand scoop in some mud, then fill it back up slowly.

 

[highrpm]

Do you have a link for the azoo galaxy lights, and what kind of clip light is that you have pointing at the refuge area?

Very cool tanks, do you have any more pics of the vase tank?

 

[brandon4291]

Hello there Highrpm, there is a lengthy thread about the vase tank somewhere in here... a search under reefbowl project might bring it up. If that doenst pan out Ill post another one, just let me know. The other light is another azoo light, a palm light, Ill find a link to these guys and post it soon.

Heres another shot of the light retrofit:

 

[highrpm]

Thanks

 

[miketlive]

How is the Brandon.75(TM) doing now into it's 3rd week?

 

[brandon4291]

Hello Mike its doing well. just got through stocking it about as full as it can get. today I made a nice find for my area, the mall pet shop had some specimens they were calling "purple squirts" and they are a deep purple color under the actinics. I am presently trying to correctly id them/they are positioned on the bottom of the reef wall and one group is the lower far right hand side.

are you from Lubbock


b429

 

[brandon4291]

another good angle...

 

[tinyreef]

i've said it too many times. you da man! 8) jedi-reef master!

like someone else mentioned, that looks like you took a shrink ray to a 125g tank. that's amazing! i just switched the bulb on my galaxy to a 8000K/12000K from marine depot. looks nice but i need a better reflector.

how much do you feed? i've been wary to feed too much but maybe i should use more macroalgae. i was just concerned about the caulerpenes and crappie. i've got taxifolia in mine right now but it's too slow growing with the nutrient deprived system i'm running. i'm thinking of going racemosa and feed more. what do you think? (asks the padawan)

 

[brandon4291]

sorry for the long delay...

:wink: I know you from nanoreefs com eh? just checking.

I am very interested to know the effect of caulerpenes on surrounding organisms, Ive read in that fantastic article on caulerpas that fish shy away due to the irritants... but I would like to know if these chemicals are emitted from the unbroken macroalgae structure, or if they are mainly associated with broken or stressed macro algae specimens. prob should go re-read. These irritants dont seem to be a problem in my pico reefs, but then again I have recently changed from c tax. to c. ??? (will id soon) not sure if caulerpenes vary from species to species... ?

brandon aka pico-yoda

talk to ya soon

 

[brandon4291]

I currently feed about four soft frog pellets (HBJ Brand) for the mini 75 reef and about 10 or so for the reefbowl every other day or so. The pellets are about twice the size of the period at the end of these sentences.
The pods are very very thick in the reefbowl after a year of eating and reproducing with no primary predation on their numbers... soon the mini 75 will catch up. I also have noticed a slowed reaction in the macro when I went a week without feeding, so on that note Id have to agree some regular feeding helps.

b429

 

[Anonymous]

wow. that is so incredible. thanks for sharing. :wink:

 

[brandon4291]

thanks tons coralshrimp I am having fun with these tiny little guys. they are very simple to maintain. On a side note though, just when I think Ive got it figured out another parameter changes--Im starting to get some salt creep on the back side (not on the front seal) and I thought a good seal was all that was needed (along with a lower water line) to eliminate salt creep. I need to go to the chem forum to find out what is the deal with salt creep-it lowers the salinity too much in picos.
Randy or Craig will know the mechanics of the creep... as far as I can tell, it has much to do with the increased air flow over the rear part of the system. The light would overheat the 36 ounce reef without a good cooling fan.

appreciate it!
b429