Samantha's 47 Gallon Macroalgae DT

Well, I've got some good news and bad news. Bad news first...

Unfortunately, the halimedas died, the codium died, and so did all of the brown macros (scroll and dictoya). I believe the halimedas and codium died from shipping stress, but I'm not sure what happened to the brown macros. The different macro colors require different parameters, and I think my lighting or something may have been too much for them. I had a bit of brown macros still hanging in there until we left out of town to the beach for a week and my ATO quit on me...

The good news, is that the other macros are doing really well. The red macros seem to be the happiest. And, even better news! While we were at the beach this past week, I found a lot of new awesome macros that I added to the tank.

Here are some pics of the new additions:

Some more Red Gracilaria:


Codium:


Halymenia:


Turtle Grass:


Sargassum:



Hopefully all of these new macros will do well. I think one of the gracilarias sporulated yesterday. It's now pretty pale, and my tank is is a little cloudy. Other than that, they all look pretty good.

Here are a couple more shots of the gorgonian. I've never kept a gorg before, and so I'm really enjoying keeping one for the first time. The poylp extension on the gorg keeps getting better, and I saw some pretty long sweeper tentacles out for the first time this week.

Pics:

Beautiful pictures. I love colorful things

Thank you!

Some FTS's...

Just White LEDs:




White and Blue LEDs:




Glamour Shot

I bought my first fish for this aquarium yesterday. I got two green mandarins. Neither are trained to eat frozen food yet, so that's going to be a struggle. The male has been picking at pods all day, but I haven't seen the female eating. I'm a little worried, but maybe they just need some time to adjust to the aquarium.

I'll try to post some pics of them soon, and I'll keep you all updated on their eating habits. I tried Melev's jar trick today with some live brine, frozen brine, and pellets. The female went in it, but didn't eat anything. I'm going to start raising some homemade brine for them in the next few days (thanks again, Eric).

Well you're going to have to hold on pics of the mandarins. I made an oopsie. It turns out, I bought two male mandarins on accident.

I thought I bought a male and a female mandarin like I wanted, but apparently not. The one that I thought was a female hadn't flashed her dorsal fin, so I thought it was a female. Ever since I put the mandarins in my aquarium, they'd been chasing each other. I kept thinking to myself, " Aww...how cute" and picturing Pepe Le Pew. Turns out, they weren't love birds, they were trying to attack each other. One of the males grabbed a hold of what I thought was the female mandarin's tail fin and wouldn't let go for about 10 seconds. That's when the mandarin finally flashed its dorsal fin, and I realized that I had bought two males on accident.

The good news is, I managed to catch one of the males this evening, and I took it back to Corals and Fins to swap it for a REAL female mandarin. I missed WOW Week's Burgers and Bands which sucks, but at least I was able to catch the fish before the war between the two males got too intense. And, yes, I'm positive I finally purchased a female. She showed off a nice lovely rounded dorsal fin this evening.

Hopefully, the new pair of mandarins will get along. I'm not sure they've found each other yet. The aquarium is pretty big and there's a lot of macros and rock. I'll try to get some pics in the next few days and keep you all updated.

I wish you the best of luck with the Mandarins!

Thanks!

Any luck getting pictures of the mandarins?

No. I don't think they like me.

I took some pics of them dripping in the bucket that I can post, but I haven't had luck getting any good pictures of them in the aquarium. They look healthy. They are always fluttering around looking for pods and eating my homemade baby brine. But, whenever I come near the tank, they swim into the rockwork...

Play Possum on'em, and catch'em off guard!

Yeah, sure. I'll try that.

I like the fts!

how'd those red macro's i gave you ever do? The spiney one has kept his own in my tank but the flame looking one is entirely gone..

Thanks, Eric! The red grape is doing really well, the spiney one has turned pink in my aquarium (it's close to the LEDs), and I've got one strip of the flame one left. It's the flame one and the halymenia that I can't get to stay put, so they keep getting shredded in the Koralias...

Ok, cool! Thanks for the update

could you take a picture of the spiney one? Sounds interesting in pink.. wish mine would do that..

mangoman wrote:

Ok, cool! Thanks for the update

could you take a picture of the spiney one? Sounds interesting in pink.. wish mine would do that..

Yes, I'll put it on my to-do list. I'm actually thinking I should move it lower. The pink is pretty, but I feel the macro would do better in lower light...

As promised - a pic of the pink macro:

Also, here are some shots of the mandarins. They still are photo-shy, so these are the best pics I could get...

These were the first two mandarins that I bought while they were dripping in a bucket. I thought the bigger one was a female and the smaller one was a male, but later realized they were both males and then had to take one of them back to the store.



This was the first time that the mandarin that I thought was a female flashed her dorsal fin, and I realized "oh crap" she is a he.



This is a picture of the new replacement female dripping in a bucket. I swapped the large male for this female.



And, here's a pic of the new female (notice her dorsal fin is completely rounded). Score!

Looks like that pink aglae has grown quite a lot for you!

I clumped all of the pieces that you gave me together, so it looks like a lot. It has grown though.

Still can't get any good pics of the mandarins. They're getting a little more friendly. If I am sitting perfectly still in front of the aquarium they'll swim out, but as soon as I move or whip a camera out, they're gone.

Here's the one non-blurry pic that I managed to take:

SOOO CUTE! They look great! I haven't seen them in person yet lol, maybe I should go and do that

Thanks

Good news!

So, this past summer my family and I went out of town for a week, and while we were gone my ATO broke, the water in my aquarium evaporated, and my salinity spiked. It killed all of my brown macros. Or, at least that's what I thought! Turns out, a little bit of scroll algae survived! It seems to be growing pretty well. When I saw it in my aquarium, I was, like, "no.....it can't be!" But it is!