Ben's Mixed Reef

[Cwazy Clown]

i'll hit you up with some real garf purple bonsai..friend is shipping some w/ tyree pm

 

[class clown]

i'll hit you up with some real garf purple bonsai..friend is shipping some w/ tyree pm

thanks Bolun - you da man.

Update: Rockscaping is complete. I stayed up past midnight (a rarety in my house ) reorganizing everything. I'll get some pics up once things settle down a little more, but looking good. It's still pretty crowded though so thinking I might try to thin out still even more.

I'm thinking about adding some carbon since there has been a lot of reorganizing/rearranging going on and I've heard this can help elliminate some of the toxins that may be created by that sort of activity.

So good news with the re aquascaping:

• I found that purple bonsai or what I thought was a purple bonsai - it's pale and not looking so hot b/c it's been without sun for about a week, but hey I found it right?
• Also, I found some kick butt purple paly's that went missing about a month ago originally from Jason D. I hope those make a good recovery.
• I rebuilt the cave and it is pretty neat and seems to be even a little bigger than the other one.
• I stirred up a bunch of the sand that was otherwise not getting too much current overtop which felt good to just be able to do that.

But, there was some not so good news about the reaquascaping too:

• I put some superglue in my pants pocket that i thought was capped, but wasn't so I glued the inside of my pocket together
• I haven't seen my copperband that I got from Michael (POTHNTR) - he was one of my favorites :doubt:
• I dropped a purple slimer frag in the rockwork and don't know what the heck happened to it - Jan - don't worry, my recon mission starts in about an hour:doubt:
• And, one of my favorite corals just dissapeared - havne't the foggiest of where it is --a really cool acan frag (orange, blue, and grey)that I picked up a couple months ago from Robert (sushiboy):evil:

stay tuned for pics

 

[spongebob lover]

i'll hit you up with some real garf purple bonsai..friend is shipping some w/ tyree pm

i didn't know you like hitting people Bolun :shock: :lol: .
we need pictures !! ....just don't super glue yourself :lol: .

 

[jezzeaepi]

You lose more corals then some people have in their whole tank! =P You should try building that PVC or acrylic base we talked about. Whats another 6 hours of rock work? =P

 

[class clown]

You lose more corals then some people have in their whole tank! =P You should try building that PVC or acrylic base we talked about. Whats another 6 hours of rock work? =P

I know man.. laughing alone to myself right now b/c it's true. I'm terrible about loosing stuff.

I found the Acan though!!!! woo hoo! and I found some more purple tip pieces to once again add to Jan's pile. 1st Recon mission to find purple slimer failed. Gearing up for a second missoin in T minus 30 minutes.

 

[class clown]

Update:

Carbon has been installed: I've never done carbon before, but have been reading some good things about what it can do to the clarity of the water and to help remove organics and chemicals from the water. I've been doing a lot of fragging and rearranging lately, so hoping this will help maintain water quality. To hook it up, I installed another TLF 150 with about a half a cup of TLF Hydrocarbon. So far, looks really good in there, but it could also be because I've been turkey basting a lot.

And...

Second recon mission was a success! I recovered the purple slimer succesfully and it is now back in it's place glued down so I don't loose it again. :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Jan]

Speaking of glueing, I've been having bad luck with the IC gel stuff. I use a liberal amount, hold the piece of rubble in place for a minute or so, let go and it seems to stick. Then the next day it will fall off. This has happened 3-4 times now since using that product. Is that what you use? I'm thinking of switching to aquarium epoxy...

 

[spongebob lover]

hehe good to hear you found your coral .

 

[class clown]

Speaking of glueing, I've been having bad luck with the IC gel stuff. I use a liberal amount, hold the piece of rubble in place for a minute or so, let go and it seems to stick. Then the next day it will fall off. This has happened 3-4 times now since using that product. Is that what you use? I'm thinking of switching to aquarium epoxy...

My trick is this..

• I take both coral and rubble out of the water.
• I apply a decent amount of glue to the end of the frag.
• I stick them together and kinda rub the frag around on the rock until I'm confident I have a good connection between rubble and frag
• i then hold them in place & stick them back in the water. The water seems to fuse them together much quicker for some reason.
• Mine fall off occasionally, but not usually unless I bump them.

IC gel seems to be good stuff - I use that. I also use LOCTITE gel control (blue and grey container) which I can pickup easily at the Lowes by my house. As long as it has cyanocrylate as it's main contents, you shoudl be fine. The expoxy just isn't my thing, but I know some folks like it. I've got an extra half of a container if you want to try some out before purchasing a whole $15 stick at the store.

 

[spongebob lover]

do the corals slime up a little bit? you know from being out of the water?

 

[class clown]

do the corals slime up a little bit? you know from being out of the water?

Yep definatly. I forgot to add that..thanks gabs.. when you put them back in the water, it's a good idea to suck off the slime with a turkey baster so it doesn't float onto other corals. That stuff is toxic to varying degrees depending on the type of coral, but as you can imagine it's not good to have the slime touch other corals. it seems like everything in the industry trade today isn't super toxic which is good, but still better be safe than sorry and suck it off and remove it from the water.

Ohh.. and there is a reason the slimer is called a slimer --- I wish I couldn've shown you guys what that bad boy looked liked when we fragged it in half and I was going through all the reorganizing.. it was a big mess of stringly slimy boogers hanging from everything.

Stay tuned for some new pics - coming soon!

 

[spongebob lover]

hehe i was just wondering .
do you just rub the turkey against the corals? or just suck the water with the slime?

 

[class clown]

hehe i was just wondering .
do you just rub the turkey against the corals? or just suck the water with the slime?

yes.. well that's a secrety method... you see turkey is vitamin and protien packed, so rubbing the turkey on the corals will help with the transfer of necessary protiens and vitamins :lol: :lol: :lol: you're funny gabs.

the real answer is this.. buy yourself a new clean fish tank only turkey baster - usually only a couple bucks at the grocery store and use it to suck out the slime and dispose of it. I usually keep a big measuring cup nearby (any container will work) and suck out the slime and squeeze it into the contain which I'll get rid of later.

 

[spongebob lover]

lol i see .
since the time Dark fader, i mean my in law used my feeding turkey baster for dumping turkey juices and melted butter last Christmas without knowing what it had in there, they bought us a pair of turkey basters , so i have a back up for the corals ....hmm i think the flavour of the frozen formula with the dried cyclopeeze got lost in the turkey though.

 

[tamarindthai]

still need puple slimmer,,i got a frag

 

[class clown]

still need puple slimmer,,i got a frag

Nope - found it thank goodness, but thank you Dang - very generous of you to offer. I lost the solomon and the granulosa though (what is with me? seriously I have a problem - it's becoming almost laughable now). i've already gone on a recon mission for the solomon and it was unsuccesful. the granulosa dropped off it's rock on Sunday when we were fragging the slimer in two and I have a pretty good idea of the general vacinity of that one, but man.. seriously I need to keep my hands out of the tank and stop knocking everything down. I mean, these colored sticks aren't cheap ya know.

 

[tamarindthai]

sorry to hear about both frags,,,always gonna be another one available soon.carbon+wet skimm should clean it up quick,.

 

[Cwazy Clown]

hahaha color sticks..they expensive. i'll keep you and Dang posted on the 3-23 shippment ..

 

[spongebob lover]

i think the sticks are well worth it .

 

[class clown]

i think the sticks are well worth it .

Try telling that to my better half