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Post by Wood~Ant on Oct 11, 2013 16:33:01 GMT
On a conservation of wildlife note Timenova, do you know if corals sold in this country are home grown or taken from wild coral reefs? I imagine most of the fish are bred in captivity much like fresh water fish are these days.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2013 21:26:44 GMT
Hardly any Marine fish are bred in captivity Wood. I get a few Clown species in and the odd Cardinal. Corals are slightly better where they are cultured in their local area like Indonesia and the surrounding areas.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Oct 11, 2013 22:58:04 GMT
Hardly any Marine fish are bred in captivity Wood. I get a few Clown species in and the odd Cardinal. Corals are slightly better where they are cultured in their local area like Indonesia and the surrounding areas. Thanks for the info Jon, it is handy having a fish expert to answer questions on this topic.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2013 5:52:13 GMT
The percentage that is brought in from the wild for the aquatics industry is tiny compared to what is caught for the food industry. To a greater degree it is well policed.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Oct 14, 2013 12:08:48 GMT
Not to mention that plenty of coral species are meant to be easy to propagate anyhow (My xenia definitely is), so I'd imagine that many of them are captive-grown.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Dec 27, 2013 15:33:22 GMT
Here's the latest newcomer, a great looking rose bubble tip anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor). I got it from the same man who sold me the xenia coral. This anemone was propagated from an enormous bubble tip anemone he keeps, and has been reserved for me until it got big enough. When I first got it: Taken this afternoon after feeding it a bit of squid: Luckily, it seems to be happy where it is and hasn't felt the need to move around. It has anchored its pedal disk underneath a large rock, and expands beautifully each day. This species of anemone can get very big when fed about twice a week, so I hope it does well. As a side note, a few weeks ago I cut off a branch of xenia and placed it in a container of salt water (Which I partially changed daily) with some small stones and shells at the bottom. It attached and began to flourish in about another week!
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Post by Joona on Dec 27, 2013 16:32:56 GMT
Looks amazing ! My wifes grandad used to have a 5ft custom set up in his computer room it looked so nice, he had allsorts of things in there, my favourite being his puffer fish. Sadly due to his health the aquarium perished abd is now used for tropical fish. Looks very nice though well done!
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jan 17, 2014 16:22:59 GMT
This new light arrived yesterday. It is a LED light I've been saving up for, 120 watts. Much more powerful than the old one! It gives the corals a beautiful florescent appearance, really brings out the colours in them. The bubble tip anemone is currently sheltering at the back whilst it acclimates to the light, but I'm sure it'll be happy once it's used to it. :)The reason I bought it was so that the corals and anemone would get the proper amount of light that they should have to remain healthy.
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Post by Jonzii on Jan 17, 2014 19:28:00 GMT
Wow, they look amazing under the new light. Really makes them glow.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jan 19, 2014 9:50:27 GMT
Went out yesterday and returned with two more corals. The first is a giant cup mushroom (Amplixidiscus). He is at least 3 and a half inches in diameter when fully inflated. To my surprise he was only £10, and it looks like they're as easy to look after as the smaller mushrooms. I've read horror stories that the largest giant cups can actually catch slow-moving fish, but none of mine rest on the bottom so I seriously doubt that they'd get eaten. Second, a frogspawn coral (Euphyllia divisa). These are closely related to the similar looking torch and hammer corals. Euphyllia is my first attempt to keep an LPS (Large-Polyped Stony) coral. Corals under this category have a hard, calcareous skeleton which the polyps can retreat into when disturbed. Because of this I'll have to keep an eye on the calcium levels in the water to ensure it remains healthy. You can see part of the skeleton under the left "head" where another head grew. I guess the people at the shop removed this head in order to grow another coral from it. My family were shocked that I actually paid £65 for it, but this is a gorgeous coral I've always wanted to keep. They have a pretty powerful sting, and at night they may release their sweeper tentacles to sting rival corals that get too close. Consequently I have made sure the other corals are out of range. Apparently I have "too many" greenish corals in the reef so next time I'll look for something else.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jan 23, 2014 16:34:07 GMT
I was completely taken by surprise when I was greeted with this sight just now! This is the male clownfish, who has now formed a symbiotic relationship with the anemone. I did notice him nosing around it yesterday but until now, neither of the clownfish showed any interest. I merely looked away from the computer to see him snuggling into it. He also sucks the tentacles periodically, I think this is part of how he gains immunity to the stinging cells. Honestly, this is the very spectacle that drew me into keeping saltwater fish. The anemone has shrunk up a little in surprise, but in time it will grow used to the clownfish's attention. Here's a short video of them:
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Post by TenebrousNova on Feb 12, 2014 19:00:09 GMT
New aquarium! It was pandemonium, but worth it. The man who sold it to us is the same who sold the bubble tip anemone and xenia. We've also inherited his fish- a large bright blue damselfish, a golden damselfish and a massive pair of true percula clownfish (Amphiprion percula). This means that I had to give my own false perculas to the pet shop, as they would've fought. Here's a young cleaner shrimp I got a few weeks ago. He's young and pretty shy, but has been doing well. He molted a few days ago and takes food readily. After three days, the clownfish took an interest in my anemone (Which is much happier in the new tank) and now live in it. It's nice to see their interactions. The female likes to turf the male out of it so that she can have the whole anemone to herself. They both sleep in it. As an experiment yesterday, I turned off the powerhead and put in a piece of squid meat. The male clownfish grabbed it and pushed it into the anemone's tentacles, which is something I'd never seen before. Unfortunately, the female clownfish is fiercely protective over her host and bites me whenever I get close! There is bad news though- a few weeks ago, the frogspawn coral pictured in an above post that I loved so much died of a dreaded condition called brown jelly disease. This is a bacterial/protozoan infection that digests the coral's soft tissue, turning it into a brown sludge. It usually results in the death of the entire coral, as it did with mine. It can apparently be caused by rough handling or damage to the flesh, and since I only picked it up once (By the hard skeleton) in order to put it in the tank, it certainly was't to do with me. Meanwhile, the man at the shop who put it in the bag had picked it up by the fleshy part, which must've been the cause! I phoned the shop asking for a refund (Having failed to find a way to treat the coral) and they flatly said no. I've read horror stories about brown jelly disease, it seems to be alarmingly common. A shame, as that was easily my favourite coral.
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Post by deansie on Feb 18, 2014 18:49:13 GMT
Great thread timenova, can't wait to see your new tank in the coming months. Really enjoyed keeping them myself but what a money pit it can be. Aqua scaping with acrylic rods can result in some really nice arrangements.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 7, 2014 11:51:28 GMT
Sorry for the lack of updates everyone, I've been pretty busy with coursework. To compensate, have some new pictures. The bright yellow fish is a relatively new addition called a Midas blenny. He's full of character and likes to bask on the rocks (Until feeding time!). This is a new zoanthid colony. You can see one of my two hermit crabs at the top left, they are both doing excellently. As you can see, the pulsing xenia really is taking over! I'm probably going to start selling pieces of it soon. Here's a closeup of the Kenya tree with its polyps open. The bubble tip anemone really is getting huge. I feed it twice a week. It is now sticky to the touch, meaning it has recovered its stinging cells (Which it didn't seem to have when I first got it). I may upload a video later. Edit: Here it is!
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Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 17, 2014 9:50:42 GMT
A few weeks ago I ordered a trumpet coral from Ebay. They are a species of Larged-Polyped-Stony coral named after the shape of their polyps and everything was set for me to get one after meticulous research. Here is what I hoped to receive: And this is what I got- an obviously sick specimen, the polyps receded into the skeleton: I'm hoping I can nurse it back to health eventually, so I've placed it in a nook in the rock where it won't be disturbed. It extends tiny feeder tentacles at night so I might be able to feed it up. Disappointing, but I won't give up yet. In better news, my new green star polyps cutting is beginning to take off. Some people hate these because they grow very quickly over every available surface, and can look like a lawn of grass in the tank: excellent! And this is the effect they can create when they really start to spread. I love the look of that: Finally, here is a little red mushroom polyp I got along with the tank. So far I haven't mentioned it, but a few days ago I noticed that it has began to spread. You can see the "baby" just above its parent. On a related note, I got an update on the pair of ocellaris clownfish I gave to the pet shop. They have been sold on, and my suspicions about them being ready to spawn was correct: they now lay eggs frequently in their new owner's tank.
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