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Sea of Ferns - Tank Closed

Gill

Member
Joined
17 Mar 2008
Messages
3,898
Location
Coventry
Evening All,
Apologies for not posting for a few months. Have not had a good run of late. And have Moved twice since February. And Have now stopped working due to my Health.
I am not letting this get me down, so As I moved into my Brand Spanking New 3bed detached house on friday afternoon. I was itching to get the tank out of Storage and get it setup.
Started setting it up on saturday Night.
So its the EA600 with Anthracite Grey Matt Stand.
Sadly there is a massive scratch along the left hand corner of the stand. Hoping to find a scratch filler in this color. Scratch must have occured when it was being transported from storage.

Tank: EA Aquascaper 600 is in the Dining Room.
Lighting: Chihiro A601 White & Chihiro A601 RGB on Chihiro Acrylic Double unit stand.
Filter: Jebao 1200LPH with Big JBL Sponge prefilter (glued onto the Inlet)
Substrate: Dennerle Yukon 5mm & River 5mm x1 box of each - Really Like how the two mixed look.
Hardscape: Dried Sea Ferns x6 ranging from 10 to 40 cm width/height, with some of the larger peices above the water. With Moss attached and shredded Marimo Moss. Also Lava Rocks covered in Moss.
Planting: Moss Only with red root floating plants.
Ferts: Aquascaper 5ml per day.
Tank seeded with EA bio pearls and 1 bottle of ATM colony.

List of plants used:
Phyllanthus Fluitans Red Rooter
Moss:
Taiwan Moss x3 Mesh Pads
Weeping moss
Christmas moss
Giant moss
Spiky moss
Peacock moss
Java moss
Creeping moss
Pelia -monoselium tenereum
Feather moss
Taiwan moss
Marimo

Fish to be Housed:
Longfin Czech Rams Hareem
Platinum Magenta Guppies x2 Males to Females x6
Pair of Honey Gouramies
x3 Twig Cats.

On Order:
Pipefish - x10 Microphis Deocata and x10 Doryichthys Martensii

Shrimp: On Order
x200 Mixed Sakura red,yellow,orange,blue,green,black, blue diamond
Shrimp:
x3 Vampires

Crabs:
Of Course Thai Micro Crabs, by the droves, so that they are scampering amongst the ferns.

Snails:
Blue Pearl and Pink Galaxy Ramshorns and a few elephants.

Feeding: Full range of NT Labs tropical and Shrimp foods with Micro Crumb for the Filter feeders.
Also live feeds of Daphnia and Brine Shrimp and Ostracods. maybe a few gammarus

I wanted to use sea ferns for a long time, since seeing them used for Ecospheres for Opae Ula Shrimp.
And as soon as I sourced them, I knew exactly what and how I wanted to use them.
I wanted them to slowly be covered in Moss and become fronds of moss.
Also the ferns will give a massive biofilm and grazing surface for all the shrimp and snails. I have placed the biggest fern at the back and then spread them out in a fashion around the midground of the tank. with two peices at angles into the front corners of the tank.
I am so happy with how they look and cant wait for the moss to attach to them and start growing. I shredded a bad of christmas moss and let it settle into the fronds.

The Lava rocks have been covered in various moss and will see what happens as its all an experiment.

This scape is going to be a longterm scape. And will enoy watching it evolve over the next few years.

And Yes this time I am sticking to just moss as the main focus of the planting. And looking forward to how this will grow.

The main purpose of this scape is for the Pipefish, to give them so much hunting grounds to predate on the shrimp and snails. Also the fry from any of the fish within.

I have found a local source of rilli shrimp in an array colors, and waiting for them to go on sale. To add to the mix.

I will be taking pix over the next few days once the tank has cleared up and have cleaned the glass.
As moving an buying everything for the house takes time. Who knew how much you had to buy when starting from scratch.
 
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Can’t wait to see this Gill,just wondering about the Honey gouramis. With the selection,but Rams tend to be all bluster I think
 
Can’t wait to see this Gill,just wondering about the Honey gouramis. With the selection,but Rams tend to be all bluster I think

Thanks
Honey Gouramis are one of my all time favorite fish. And found nice big chunky pair. And could not possibly turn them down. if they were not in the LFS at the time, would prob not of got them.
Also Love Rams and they have so much character. Also just had to get them.

Also I did not want a scape where the fish are obvious. I wanted to create a scape where the fish are hidden away all over the tank. And You have to look for them, or they pop out every now and then.
The Vampire Shrimp have been exploring all over the sea ferns already. And one has staked out its spot. And just sits there wafting food into its mouth. Which is what i wanted to see, a little glimpse of an inhabitant behaving as naturally as possible.
So far the Rams have been exploring and also staking out spots. as Created alot of caves with the Lava Rock and Plec Clay Tunnels.
 
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Good to have you back and posting Gill. Hope you're doing okay now and enjoying your new house :)
Looking forward to seeing some pics of your new tank ;)
 
Thanks Tim, House is lovely, Area is So Quiet in a private Cul-De-Sac.
Going to try and take some pix today if i get the chance. Need to sort out the electrics in the utility room, and sort out more boxes etc and get the sofas sorted.
Dont hold onto any hopes of decent pix, what i see as in focus, is not always what the camera captures.
 
pic of the tank, excuse the fork, fish were snacking on cucumber.
The shredded moss needs to settle in, so looks a bit messy.
As the Ferns create such a dense network of layers, you Hardly see any of the fish. And they are happily in between the layers of the ferns.
Waiting on the floating plants coming this week, and there are some of the pipefish(Martensi) arriving in the morning. Along with the bulk of the Blue Diamond Shrimp.
FTS.JPG
 
Here is a better pic, from this aftenoon.
was just acclimating the Super Reds and the pipefish - Martensi.
1.JPG


Cheeky rams only creep out from the back of the tank, when i turn off the main lights and switch to just thr RGB.
 
The Martensi acclimating, using flamingo bucket. chose this so it stands out as my acclimating and water change bucket.
acc martensi.JPG


Dining room is still a bit of a mess, so excuse that.
you can see the interpet light unit I used while sorting out the issue with the chihiros ballasts.
fts.JPG
 
Thi s how much i have left open. this is one of the things i love about the depth of th EA tanks, gives you so much more room.

open.JPG
 
After the huge storm we had a few weeks back, the shore line on our west coat has had hundreds of Gorgonians washed up!
I occasionally see living ones while free diving but I am not sure of the origin of the ones that have been washed in?
We also have had thousands of 'Portuguese men of war' washed up too!
My partner Sarah has brought home around 10 or so Gorgonia but she is still finding them....
 
The Martensi acclimating, using flamingo bucket. chose this so it stands out as my acclimating and water change bucket.
View attachment 111410

Dining room is still a bit of a mess, so excuse that.
you can see the interpet light unit I used while sorting out the issue with the chihiros ballasts.
View attachment 111411
Hi Gill,

Have you kept pipefish before? I had some many years ago and found them particularly picky feeders. I appreciate you're trying to provide some in tank livefood etc - but I'd be worried about competition from the other fish. Those rams for example are going to hoover up any small shrimp etc fairly quickly.

And out of interest - where did you order them from?

Thanks and regards,
Mark

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
 
Hi all,
After the huge storm we had a few weeks back, the shore line on our west coat has had hundreds of Gorgonians washed up!
I occasionally see living ones while free diving but I am not sure of the origin of the ones that have been washed in?
We also have had thousands of 'Portuguese men of war' washed up too!
My partner Sarah has brought home around 10 or so Gorgonia but she is still finding them....
You get them off the west coast of the UK (I've seen pictures of them from the Skomer "no take" zone).

I assume some live in deep water (others have photosynthetic zooxanthellae), but I don't know how common they are further towards the south and west.

The ones washed up may be the "Pink sea fan" (<"Eunicella verrucosa">), I know these are relatively common in Lyme Bay (so presumably on the NW French coast as well) and they are mentioned in <"this report"> as being (mainly) in poor condition around the Channel Islands.

The "Portuguese Man o' War" may have come from a lot further south, I know it has been a year where a lot of them have made it to the UK. I've never seen a Portuguese Man o' War, but I have seen Vellela ("By the Wind Sailor") in the autumn in Pembrokeshire.

cheers Darrel
 
There are so many The "Portuguese Man o' War" on the beaches that the authorities have put out notices warning beach comers, surfers, swimmers & dog walkers to be carful! Our dogs love rolling on them, luckily only a few still have their tentacles still attached!
These wont survive submerged i guess
They are like little stone trees, I don't know if excess C02 would dissolve the calcium but I would think they would last a long time?
 
Hi all,
These wont survive submerged i guess
I don't know if the protein skeleton type have embedded calcium carbonate spicules, but I assume they would decay pretty quickly.
They are like little stone trees, I don't know if excess C02 would dissolve the calcium but I would think they would last a long time?
I assume they would dissolve at the same rate as any other biogenic limestone, as soon as you were below pH7. Because of the large surface area to volume ratio, I'd assume they would lose structural integrity relatively quickly.

As they are almost hard "corals", and known to be slow growing, I had assumed they were all covered by <"CITES">. I know Corallium spp. are, but apparently most of the others aren't, as "soft corals".

cheers Darrel
 
Hi Gill,

Have you kept pipefish before? I had some many years ago and found them particularly picky feeders. I appreciate you're trying to provide some in tank livefood etc - but I'd be worried about competition from the other fish. Those rams for example are going to hoover up any small shrimp etc fairly quickly.

And out of interest - where did you order them from?

Thanks and regards,
Mark

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk


cheers, yep kept them a few times and different types.
Once you get them eating they are great.
I am feeding the NT Labs micro crumb, Live daphnia, mix of frozen daphnia, cyclops and lobster eggs, Decapsulated BS eggs. And of course in the long run the shrimplets from the colon of shrimp.
They are hard to get hold of initially, but once you build up a relationship with the sellers that can get them in. It gets a little easier. I find most of the time ebay has them. And I send messages to as many LFS in and around me to ask if they can get them in.
I find it helps to turn off the filters when feeding, as they are more able to get to the food. Also helps that is Use long pipettes filled with frozen and live foods and squeeze out a little at a time in one location so they get used to where the food will be.
They are behaving axactly as I had imagined. And anchor themselves to the Ferns or rest in amongst them.
 
So today I went black friday shopping and bagged some good deals.
And on the way home spotted there was a parking space outside the LFS that was having a Sale. So just had to go in and have a look.
Now I was not looking to buy any dither fish, And spotted some Albino Neons, which turned out to be Albino Black Neons.
 
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