I've been growing phytoplankton for about two years. The first 6 months were a breeze, splitting the cultures to grow more about once a week.
I thought I'd update you with some fresh images. I'll try to make it fun tonight.
First of all, my lovely (yet aggressive) Orange Mandarin. Yes, orange. It was more orange when I acquired it(check my ID page), but it is more greenish today. But not like the male Target Mandarin. This is my fattest mandarin in the tank, and chases the other three.
Man, I almost got a picture of the Peppermint Shrimp releasing her (its?) eggs tonight. I saw it crawling up the coral as I was aptasia hunting, her belly ready to burst. I dashed to get my camera and a flashlight pointed on her, but before the camera could find her and focus, BOOM there were a million little shrimp everywhere in the water. This time I netted a few, and took about 100 pictures.
I reworked my food recipe as the main ingredient was no longer available. I also put together a webpage about feeding methods, and hope it helps you guys in some way.
http://www.melevsreef.com/feedings.html - methods
http://www.melevsreef.com/food.html - recipe and servings
I took a few pictures today. First, here is a poor image of the two corals that are most likely goners. I didn't spend much time getting the shot, possibly due to my annoyance that they are dying.
Last night, I observed more of the baby peppermint shrimp in my tank again, and assume that was a secondary release of them. I don't believe any will survive in the main tank.
The blue mandarin I've had the longest is fattening up, so the Mandarin Diner is working as I'd hoped. Her colors are still faded, but that could be stress-related since the Orange Mandarin still chases her from time to time. On a good note, I've seen her chase the Green Mandarin, so she's getting stronger.
Recently I was asked which corals are in my tank, so I created a list (as of today)
Yesterday morning, after the lights had come on, I was feeding the tank to discover that my Green Slimer (Acropora yongei) was sloughing off tissue. Half of the coral had already RTN'd (Rapid Tissue Neucrosis), and if I didn't act quickly it would completely die from core to tip.
These are some pictures of my reef that I took today with my topdown box. http://www.melevsreef.com/topdown.html
The Identification page has been updated with 8 new critters.
My images from MACNA XVI are now online and available to be viewed.
