Islandoftiki

A few new things happened today in the pico reef pest tank. Added some new stock: About 10 new green majanos with red tips. (courtesy of Rose City Aquarium) Bubble algae. About 10-15 bubbles of various sizes. Popped a couple. Hair algae, small clump about dime sized. (Courtesy of Rose City Aquarium) Various other macros. Caulerpa, some red, some other green stuff. (Courtesy of Rose City Aquarium) A new piece of live rock for the back to give it some height. Came with some green mushrooms that I hacked up with a razor blade; threw half of the bits into the tank randomly. A small mat of GSP that I robbed from my main display tank, about dime sized. Glued it to the back wall of the tank. Mantis Shrimp going in! (Also courtesy of Rose City Aquarium)

Looking awesome! This is going to turn out amazing! And I thought your last tank was amazing. This is going to be amazinger!

I'm pretty sure now that he's nearly full grown (if I've ID'ed him correctly). Recommended tank size is 2.6 gallons, so he should be good in this tank unless he gets to the maximum 45mm that they can get to, but if he turns out to be an average 35mm size, then the 2 gallon could do him just fine. This particular type spends 95% of it's time in it's cave, so it doesn't need to roam much.

double post

And here it is... I may make a few minor adjustments to the rockscape over the next couple days, but I want to let the corals settle down and heal up a little. The xenia just got fragged and it's not too happy, but who would be after getting cut in half and glued to a rock. I threw the Chemipure elite into the back chamber and some filter floss to help clear up the water and remove some of angry-coral chemical warfare agents. I did a 100% water change after messing with everything so much. They all look quite pissed off, but the palys and zoas are starting to open back up and the xenia is waving a little. I won't add the Mantis shrimp for a couple days to make sure the tank doesn't mini-cycle after all of the trauma.

Today is the day we can start stocking our pico tanks! I'm in the middle of building a new rockscape. With the surprise addition of a Mantis shrimp that I have identified as a (Haptosquilla glyptocercus), I've had to re-do my rockscape with the addition of a mantis shrimp home. I'm building a new base layer with an irrigation pipe coupler to house the Mantis. I've coated the visible part of the tube in epoxy and aragonite to make it look more natural. While I was doing this, the Mantis shrimp came out to see what I was doing and then promptly disappeared when I tried to take a picture. Cheeky little devil.

I will try to get pictures when I feed him tonight. For the moment, he's kinda hiding out when there isn't food around.

Here's a little video of my new Mantis shrimp's first feeding. It's amazing how beautiful he really is. I'll try to get some better pictures as he gets more comfortable being out in the open.

Oh man, so the guys at Rose City Aquarium came through bigtime for me. I can't tell you how stoked I am. So... What would be the ultimate pest for a pest tank? What about, say... a jet black mantis shrimp? He'll be chillin' in my 7.5 gallon emergency tank until Sunday when we're allowed to start stocking our tanks. He's little, about an inch and a half total length, so the 2 gallon tank shouldn't be too small for the duration of the contest. It looks like he's a basher and not a spearer. I couldn't ask for a better main character for this tank. I'm really stoked. The fiance is also surprisingly excited about him. :-) I'm going to have to get him onto a hand-fed diet. Now I'm going to have to re-do the rockwork to include a cave for him.

Rose City Aquarium is keeping an eye out for pests for me. :-)

Ok boys and girls, the pest tank has been sitting quietly on my workbench doing not a whole lot of anything as I wait for the official start of the pico competition on Nano-reef.com... On April 1st (Sunday) I can start stocking it! So, I'll be revisiting all of the offers for pests and looking for any new ones. I'll contact folks in the next couple days who offered stuff before to see if they still have the goodies. If anybody has anything new that they want to donate, please let me know. Here are some current shots of what the tank looks like: Stocking plans: I have a frag plug of the seafoam green pallys that Kimberlee gave me at the last meeting. I was warned to keep them off of anything that I didn't want them to take over. I also have a frag plug of poop-brown zoas that look like they're going to be prolific. There's enough aiptasia in there to choke a donkey. Little baby ones popping up all over. Plenty of brown majanos. I have two Green/Red majanos in there, but I need more of those. I'm going to frag my xenia in my main tank and put in a good size frag of that. I'm going to rob some GSP's from my main tank if I can get them off the rock. Or if someone has a nice sized mat of them (like a couple inches square) that I could stick to the back wall of the tank, that would rock. I have some little red mushrooms that love to split and spread. I need some plain green majanos. I have several folks who have offered those up. I think some clove polyps might be a good idea as I hear they can overrun things. As for critters, I have one mexican red leg hermit and one dwarf blue leg hermit in there right now along with a small cadre of snails. I would love to have some sort of appropriate invert in there. Does anybody have a hitchhiker pistol shrimp they would like to get rid of? I'm going to add some bubble algae and possibly some caulerpa to the main display. What else would be good to put in there? Anybody have anything really cool that they don't want? Cheers! John

That's going to be epic. Can't wait to see the you put it all together!

Ok, so what I thought was my pistol shrimp is actually just a very large pod of the same color/pattern. So, I'm afraid the pistol shrimp is AWOL. No idea if he's still alive. Any thoughts on how to find him if he's in there? Probably just have to wait it out.

The two were paired up at the LFS when I got them. They were sitting in a box together with the goby next to the pistol and the pistol was keeping his antenna on the goby. I think it's kinda weird that the goby isn't going into the cave where the pistol is now. She was spending most of her time in there until the other day, now I can see the pistol in there and she's not. Who knows. Some people have said it took 10 minutes for theirs to pair up and some have said a couple months. Time will tell. I specifically went with a Yellow Watchman and a Tiger Pistol because they seem to be the most likely to pair. It's still early. I suppose they might pair a little easier if the pistol would come out of his den for 10 seconds.

The two were paired up at the LFS when I got them. They were sitting in a box together with the goby next to the pistol and the pistol was keeping his antenna on the goby. I think it's kinda weird that the goby isn't going into the cave where the pistol is now. She was spending most of her time in there until the other day, now I can see the pistol in there and she's not. Who knows. Some people have said it took 10 minutes for theirs to pair up and some have said a couple months. Time will tell. I specifically went with a Yellow Watchman and a Tiger Pistol because they seem to be the most likely to pair. It's still early. I suppose they might pair a little easier if the pistol would come out of his den for 10 seconds.

If they grow as fast as I suspect they will, I'll have some to share in the future. They're really nice iridescent pink. When I changed tanks, my old pink palys closed up and died. Good news is that these are way nicer than my old pink pallys and hopefully more hearty.

My new TECO Forbidden Fruit Palys! 4 polyp frag with 6 polyps! Woot! And these things look even cooler in person than the pictures. I hope they take over the rock that I'm going to put them on!

Thanks! Just wait until April 1 when I can start stocking it. It's gonna be epic pestiness. (I just made up that word)

Yeah, he's a tiny little dude. I'm not sure I could find him if I wanted to. I keep checking to see if he shows up in the goby's cave. I have no idea where he's living. Somewhere near the back of the tank by the look of the sand piles. The cleaner shrimp have nowhere to hide though. Those huge white antennas stand out like a sore thumb. Funny thing, BOTH cleaner shrimp are now carrying eggs.

Yep, I'm on there.

Looks good. Welcome to the 10 gallon club!

Here's a short video of my new Yellow Watchman Goby. Still don't know where the Tiger Pistol Shrimp is hiding. Saw his molt yesterday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKKhJaZUzTs

Update: The goby is doing very well. She spends about equal time in her little cave and out milling around on the sand bed at the front of the tank. She seems to like cyclopeze the most. She doesn't seem to have much interest in most other foods. The sixline doesn't even notice her any more. Her pistol shrimp hasn't shown up since the day after he went into the tank, but he's obviously alive judging by the new sand arrangements that change from day to day. I moved the goby's rock yesterday and turned it around making her a slightly larger cave. I suspected this was where the pistol shrimp was living because that rock has a natural cave formation underneath it. When I lifted it up, I discovered that the entire underside of the rock had be stuffed with every loose piece of red macro algae that had been scattered around the tank. How funny. I didn't find the shrimp though. Perhaps with the new rock arrangement, he'll find his goby a little easier.

I should also say, the goby is eating well. And to keep her company until she finds her shrimp, she has some sort of hitchhiker bivalve above her entrance.

Update: The goby has settled in comfortably to the first hole that the shrimp dug. I haven't seen the goby and shrimp together, nor have I seen the shrimp, but there are new piles of sand around the tank, so it's safe to say that he's been busy. The sixline completely ignores the goby now.