Saving the Reef 1 frag at a time…

It has been a while since the last Blog update, so here is a Monster update!

I stumbled across this little guy in a LFS stuck in a corner of a Small Cube tank, never took much notice of him the first time around.  I went back 2 or 3 weeks later and he was still in the same tank and the same place looking worse for wear, at this point I said “Bag him, he is coming with me”.

I wanted to add RBTA to my Propagation list and this was the perfect Specimen, he/she was already a bud from another RBTA, so with that we are half way their to a 100% Propagated RBTA.

Here are a series of pictures taken approximately 2-3 weeks apart, from when I first added him to the tank up to the day he went under the knife.

He/She was growing in a floating basket that i secured to the side of the tank, the basket is around 25cm[L] x25cm[W] x 15cm[D].

I started off feeding around a 1/4 of a large mysis every 2nd day and progressed from there to half mysis and then mixed it up a little with various other food like Artemia,Squid,Mussels and baby Mysis. All the food was soaked in Brightwell Aquatics AminOmega before feeding.

In the beginning I never thought that he/she would make it, but with all the research I had done helped alot, I do not think if it was for all the people out there helping and sharing their experiences he would have survived.

Here he is looking nice and healthy and ready for the Surgery.

So some things that you might require when Propagating a RBTA.

Here is the RBTA on the Operating table.

With a quick and firm stroke of the Scalpal we have given birth to twins!

Dropped them into the small tub of Tank water and let them release all thier Stinging cells etc for about 15min.

Here is a top view of the Twins, you can see them curling up.

Here are the Twins dropped back into the Tank.

1 or 2 hours after the Surgery.

Here they are 24 hours post operation.

They have moved around a little but here they are 1 Week post operation.

Here they are 1 month after the operation and fully healed and accepting food.

The Right Twin.

The Left Twin.

They have both been growing very nicley since the Surgery, they have been accepting food and react to touch.

The twins will be going into Surgery again in early December.

Now that I have the lights I need to hang them somehow.

So first things first, I went to go get some supplies at the local DIY shop.

I picked up 2m of Link chain that I could modify to my needs, some screw in hooks and some nuts and bolts to secure the chains to the Light units.

Now that I have the supplies ready I drilled 2 holes into each end of the Light unit to fit the nuts and bolts I picked up.

With the holes drilled I had to make the hangers. It was fairly easy to open the links on the chain, as you can see the pic below all you have to do is unwind the link to open it up, the Leatherman worked a treat.

Once I knew the length of what I required I made 4 pieces, one for each end of the 2 units.

I bent the bottom edges so they sit flush when the nuts and bolts were tightened.

Last thing to do was to position the screw in hooks and hang the lights on the hooks.

The fit perfectly, like they were designed to fit!!!

More to come…

G