New Corals

[Rcpilot]

To my complete amazement, the smaller emerald came out and the two crabs were grazing side by side this morning. Both the LFS owner and myself were convinced the larger would kill the little one and eat it. But they are like buddies. The little one was NEVER seen during daylight hours and now it's out and crawling around with the larger emerald. Maybe they are social? Or the smaller one just needed some encouragement?

This is AWESOME!! I've got bare patches on rocks that were covered in turf algae 24hrs ago. Bare rock is better than algae rock. If they keep up like this, I'll be algae free in less than a month.

I have one of these in my 5.5g nano too. But it's the size of a nickel. It's not doing much to control the algae. I took these rocks out of the 30g when my 6-line got banished from the big tank. These rocks happened to be covered in turf algae and caulerpa so I was happy to remove them from the 30 when the need came up.

I don't know if I'll ever catch the 2 in the 30g tank. They are lightening fast and there's TONS (well, about 54lbs -- since transferring 8lbs into the 5g tank) of rock in that tank and a zillion places to hide under and inside. It would be nice to put them in the 5g tank for a week and watch them gorge on more turf algae.

I'm suddenly a believer in emerald crabs. I've been rather pissed off lately about this bubble algae and the turf algae. Nothing would eat it and I was DAMN skeptical about putting the first emerald in my tank. That didn't work, but on Biffs advice (even more skeptical), I bought another to see if they would "compete for food" . It worked!! Thanks Biff.

I shot some video, but it's kinda lame.

[Bifferwine]

Awesome so those emeralds are taking care of the turf algae??? I have 4 in my tank, but hardly ever see them, and the turf algae is making me ANGRY. I may just have to buy a few more and glue their carapices to the rock that's covered in turf algae, that way they won't have a choice but to sit in that spot and eat.

Just kidding.

I'm glad you're seeing such good results with your cleaners, congrats!

[yote]

My emeralds want touch the turf either.The lazy f%&@#&s.

[Rcpilot]

I did manage to sneak up on the big one and put my finger on top of it. I trapped it on a rock by putting my finger on it. But I couldn't pry it off. They are STRONG!! I was afraid that I'd hurt it, or it would pinch me and hurt me. So I let it go. At least now I know how to sneak up on them. You gotta do it from the front when they are upside down on a rock and come in fast. Their eyes are situated so they can see behind them when on a rock and upside down. I came in from the front and it never saw me coming until it was too late.

They ARE eating the turf algae.

All HAIL the hungry Emerald Crab!!!

[Rcpilot]

I bought 2 new frags of purple palys today. One frag is a short with a deep purple color and the others are large palys that are kinda soft velvet purple and pink. Very large polyps too.

Also some kinda orange,green acan. 2 small polyps. They are all acclimating right now. I'll be ready to dump them in the tanks in about 15 minutes.

Pics will be forthcoming shortly.

[RAYRAY]

awesome, congrats !!!!

[Rcpilot]

Thanks RayRay.

Since these frags were intended for my farming operation, I decided to go ahead and frag the colony of velvet and pink palys right away. It was a nice colony of about 75 polyps anyway and I don't plan to grow ALL of them out for my own tank. I discovered that the rock they were growing on was actually 2 rocks, so I gently cut a few of the polyps around their bases and separated the rocks into 2 smaller frags. That led to taking a 1/4" screwdriver blade and a tiny hammer and busting the larger rock into 2 more pieces. It ended up in 3 pieces. One end of it shattered off.

So, I got 1 large frag of about 35 polyps. One with 11-15 polyps. One with about 25. One little rock with 4 polyps. And about 7 of the polyps just completely dislodged from the mother colony altogether, so I nestled them down into the dish of a clam shell and ran a couple rubberbands over the top. The rubberbands aren't crushing them or even touching them--just sort of a rubberband net over the top to keep them from drifting around. Hopefully they will attach.

I have 5 frags of these polys now.

The acan is just 2 polyps. One polyp is about the size of a nickel and the other is 1/4" size. They'll need to grow for some time before I can frag them. I couldn't resist the color though. Halloween is my favorite holiday and these acans are pumpkin orange and vine green.

The dark purple palys are on a frag plug. There's only about 6 of them on the plug. They'll have to grow out a bit too.

Pics of them all still pissed off:

Acans and a hitch hiker bristle star arm. I don't mind bristle stars, so he can stay.

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Dark purple palys:

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2 frags of the velvet/purple/pink palys and the dark purple payls on the left.

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1 of the velvet/purple frags

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Another of the velvet/purple frags in the clam shell

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Whats left of the mother colony

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Another frag of the purple/velvet

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More pics after they open up.

I may be able to run an add on craigslist and sell whats left of the mother colony and make some of my money back. I paid $100 for these 3 frags. Acans, velvet palys and dark purple palys cost me $100.67 with tax. I think I can sell the mother colony for $2 or $3 per polyp and make back some of my money right away. It would be REALLY cool if I sold that colony for $100. That would be like getting free frags.

[daugherty]

looks good and good luck with the frag farm.

[Rcpilot]

Here we go. The dark purple ones are already completely opened up.




The velvet/purple/pink ones are still mad from being fragged. I should have fragged them and THEN acclimated them. I spent 3+hrs acclimating them and then busted up the mother colony. ROOKIE!!

[yote]

Great looking corals Rc.