One of my other hobbies

[waterfaller1]

 

[waterfaller1]

 

[waterfaller1]

Blue Linckia Starfish

Mandarin Dragonet

Lawnmower Blenny

Coco Worm

 

[waterfaller1]

Priolepsis Nocturna ~Tiger Goby

 

[waterfaller1]

My girl Sheba

 

[waterfaller1]

Nano

Semi-aggressive reef

 

[Jeanne]

I Love your Set-Up! I have a question, in the second post, the little pink fish, are those the fish that swim-lie down-swim-lie down, you know what I am talking about? I love those fish! They are too cute!

 

[waterfaller1]

Thanks Jeanne! Do you mean the two little red fish in the nano? They are trimma gobies. They do hover and rest/perch on stuff. Here is another cool fish~ Orange Spotted Blenny

 

[waterfaller1]

Sandhopper

 

[waterfaller1]

Fridmani Psuedochromis

Bluespot Puffer

 

[waterfaller1]

Yellow Watchman Goby

Scooter Dragonet

 

[brandy101010]

Wow! You have some awesome creatures there! The starfish and the coco worm are awesome!

 

[Grinning Geckos]

Those are awesome reef tanks! Man, I want to have a set up like that one day. I could sit in front of one for hours.

How long has that first tank been going? All of the corals look very well established.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

WOW!!! WOW!!! WOW!!!

 

[waterfaller1]

Thanks all! Grinning geckos..this tank will be 4 YO in Feb 07'. It has changed many times though, as I learned the care of more difficult species.

 

[BalloonzForU]

WOW I'm speachless! I love saltwater tanks, wish I had the time, knowlege, and money to keep one. What do you have in the nano? I'd been looking at getting one, not sure if I could.

 

[PaulSage]

Carole, you have some beautiful tanks! I especially like the Foxface, and the yellow watchman gobies. I used to have two of the yellow watchmans and called them the "grumpy old men" because, well, they reminded me of grumpy old men. lol

 

[waterfaller1]

Felicia & Paul, thanks so much for the nice compliments! I have been so busy. We are planning to buy our first home. Sadly I made the descision to sell my 65 gal. semi-aggressive reef. I could'nt move three tanks, I would have a nervous breakdown. But, I did keep a few fish from that tank..but a few had to go like the puffer, and sandhopper. We are looking to upgrade the 75 with the move, to something in the 180 gal range or bigger. Hopefully we can do it, since there are too many fish in the 75 now. Even though most are small, marine fish get stressed easily when overcrowded.
The nano is a fun little tank, but it took me a few years of experience to get the nerve up to try one. With saltwater tanks, bigger is easier. In a small tank you don't have any room for errors with the low water volume. The nano has some fun hard to keep things in it though, since the nutrients tend to be somewhat higher. I can keep filterfeeding inverts and corals in it. In the nano: a mix of soft corals such as mushrooms and zoanthids, LPS corals such as a mini torch, an orange cycloseris.
some harder to keep species: stuchburyl goniopora, carnation, blueberry gorgonian, red w/ purple polyp gorgonian, blastomussa merletti & welsi.
Fish:
2 Trimma gobies, 1 tailspot blenny
Inverts:
Boxing crab
Randall's pistol shrimp
2 sexy shrimp
mini snails & hermits
Paul, you are right about the watchmans they can be a bit grumpy, and they have that constant frown. If they feel threatened the male will come out and open his mouth as wide as he can. They live in a cave with a harlequin serpent star. The foxface was a recent addition. It was a good choice even though they have venomous spines, they are very docile and are helpful at cleaning up algae in the tank. They always taking a liking to other fish, and will follow them around like a puppy. In this case, the tomini tang, female bellus angel,and the foxface lo are all kind of buddies. It's funny to watch the three of them swim in a line.

 

[RaiQuee]

Your blue Linckia star looks REALLY healthy. There is no sores or anything on them. Hard to fine, good job!!!

 

[waterfaller1]

You are right, it is hard to get one that was handled properly in the chain of people. Most die as a result of osmotic shock{changes}. They need a 4+ hour acclimation, or they fall apart or disintegrate. You also must have a well established tank with plenty of live rock.I keep another type of linckia too...here is a cool story about it taken from a reef forum:

A couple months ago I added a burgundy linckia to my reef that had been doing very well at the shop for a few months. Within a week in my tank he dropped all six of his legs. My first reaction was oh no...but then I noticed this was different than disintigration that you see with most linckias that fall apart. The legs had sealed off on the main body, and all the legs were crawling around the tank. So I read up on them, and in fact like the multiflora..this linckia can reproduce this way. I figure he must've gotten into the back of my tank and once there he figured he needed some help cleaning up. So...without further ado...I present to you little red, and some of his cloned self.
These were taken very early this morning before lights on:

Pretty cool..looks like I'm in the tank huh?

This one was with flash.

This is the top side... the new legs growing are paler or more regular red than the upper side of the body which is burgundy. He's thinking ..."I hope to grow up like "Big Blue" some day".