Reefs.org Forums

[Jolieve]

Here it is!

[Jolieve]

Yes... that is my 75 in the reflection on the glass. I couldn't get a shot of the 7g with the lights in the 75 off.

J.

[Jolieve]

Today, just some general commentary about a nano-related experience.

I've posted several times about the other LFS in town, the one I have referred to as the "icky" LFS. Yesterday, I went in there looking for more corals for my nano and was pleasantly surprised. The guy in the shop knows more about reefkeeping than I expected. He really knew his stuff, and definitely knew more than me.

I learned a lot about keeping LPS yesterday, the owner of the other shop is an LPS and softy nut, so his store is packed with these things, and I purchased a red, green and purple trachyphyllia geoffroyi from him before all was said and done. Sadly, he didn't have any ricordea, or zoos that were in a color morph that I don't already have, so I didn't come away with anything for the 7g.

This just goes to show that visiting a place once doesn't give you an accurate judgment of anything. I retract any previous statements about the icky lfs. Just because his tanks weren't flashy, and because the place smelled like.. well.. I can't describe it (but it may have been related to other clientelle in the store at the time) the last time I was there was no real reason to ignore the health of his animals (which is exceptional) or his wealth of knowledge on a subject which, I am glad to say, I am still a relative newb on.

I like being a newb, it gives me something to do while I'm waiting for fall quarter.

J.

[Jolieve]

RIP Emerald Crab. *sighs and wanders off to test all water chemistry measurements*

J.

[Jolieve]

Well.. that was odd. The Emerald Crab is fine. She just.. molted. I've never seen that before, and it didn't look like the skeletons I'm used to seeing that cleaner shrimp leave behind... you know, slightly transluscent, definitely no shrimp in there...

Anyway, she cleaned off the powerhead last night, I got to watch her at work at that for a while, then she cleared everything except the bubble algae off the rock my gorg sits on. Interesting, no?

J.

[Jolieve]

I apologize for being so scarce. My laptop blew up last week. I should have it back tomorrow, but for today, I've borrowed my husband's laptop.

The emerald crab and the tonga conch have really done the trick for my nano. The guy that runs one of my two wonderful lfs's told me I should get a couple for the 75. I intend to next time I'm down there.

While replacing a part for the 75 at the LFS yesterday and searching for new corals, as always (I found a really cool looking stylophora for the 75, and the placement for that coral worked out *really* cool), I found a wonderful zoo that I will post pictures of as soon as the lights come on in that tank. I'm not sure how it's going to look under my light. In the LFS, it looked golden brown, but last night, when I turned the tank lights on to check the placement... it had a flourescent orange skirt with a similar colored ring around a bluish/grayish mouth. So it will be very interesting to see it open today. It is a large piece, the largest colony I've added to the tank so far.

Other than that, everything has been incredibly quiet in the tank. I haven't done a water change in about a month. It's been fun attempting to keep up with evap this summer. At the height of our only heat wave this summer, the tank evaporated off a half a gallon a day. It was good in some ways, bad in others. The tank maintained 80 degrees very well this summer. I only had one stint where I had to get out the ziploc bags and ice, but I was doing the same thing for all the other tanks in the house that day, so the 7 wasn't being particularly out of place.

I was topping the tank off so frequently that I would just hook up the drip line for my state of the art top off system (a water bottle and a length of airline with a knot tied in the bottom of it) and walk away. The tank never really stayed topped off enough that I would look at it and think to myself "You know, I really should do a water change." I was always more concerned about the amount of evap.

It got a small water change last night due to the acclimation of the new zoo.

Pics to come later!
J.

[Jolieve]

Sorry it took so long to get this posted. Hubby doesn't have photoshop, it took me forever to figure out how to resize this with Gimp.

[Jolieve]

So.. after all of my problems with my computer, and an incredibly insane quarter at college (something posessed me to take ten credits of math), I haven't had time to post on the 7g nano, so this will be one heck of a long update.

One evening about two weeks ago, I nearly set my house on fire with the nano. I ran a drip line to the tank to top it off and walked away to work on my math homework. Hours later, I smelled this funny electrical fire sort of smell.. and turned around only to walk into the dining room and hear the outlet below the tank on the wall sizzling.

I immediately cut power and figured out what had happened. I had drip loops in all of the lines, but what I'd failed to do was mount the power strip on the wall away from the tank so that in the event that water dripped down the wall.. the powerstrip wouldn't get wet.

The powerstrip was this ugly distorted.. melted thing when I got to it. I also had to replace the outlet. The tank came out of this fairly unscathed. I did a small water change the next day and everything was fine.

For the sake of everyone's sanity.. I should point out the sad truth. The tank is still up and running, but I lost the tonga conch (the emerald mithrax killed it), and I believe I have actually lost the emerald mithrax crab this time. The good news is, I still have the nassarius and two asterina stars in the tank. I am planning to add another snail this weekend.

I would almost guarantee that these losses are the result of my failure to do a water change in that tank since the night I tried to burn down my house with it. I'm not ready to bow out of the race yet though! I've retested all of the levels in the tank and done a water change today. Everything is looking good. The gorg is growing well, the zoos are growing nicely. I am hopeful that in the next week, I will be able to add a royal gramma and today I am performing surgery on my ricordea so that I can remove a portion of the colony to my nano.

Also on the list is to print out a new tank background, because the last one kind of got wet and made a nasty mess, but it was incredibly helpful because the ink colored the water that was dripping out of the tank... so we knew what we had to dry off beneath the tank...

That's the long and short of it. Pics this weekend!

J.

[Jolieve]

New Additions!

Well... okay, only one.

Last week, after many many months of waiting, I decided the tank was finally ready for a fish. I like to add fish last because they tend to give me the most issues. Corals seem to do well for me, but I have to be very careful about when to add fish and how I acclimate them and etc.

So last night, I took a break from studying for my algebra final and went to the fish store. I came home with a royal gramma and many cerith snails for the 75. I put one of the ceriths in the 7g, because the glass has been looking a tad murky and then acclimated the gramma.

He hid for a while after intro and is very shy. I'm slowly warming him up to me by just peering into the room from around a corner.. then walking a little bit closer to the tank each time I peek at him. Sooner or later, I'll be able to get pictures of him, as soon as he gets used to me staring at him. I hope to be able to get those pictures this week after my final exam.

In other news, the gorgonian I added has more than doubled in size since purchase, I love it. I would take a piece and try to add this to my 75, but the light and flow in the larger system are geared primarily toward the needs of sps corals. I'm afraid the gorg would get blown away in there. Regardless, this was a fun experiment in keeping and raising a photosynthetic gorgonian. It's really very easy, just keep the flow slow, and keep the light low to moderate.. and you've got a really great addition to any tank.

For those interested in a quick growing photosynethetic gorgonian, Eunicea sp. is an awesome tank specimen IMO. It also grows well in water that isn't perfectly pristine, so I might call it a semi-good beginner animal. I say semi-good, because I think that keeping any gorgonian requires an extensive amount of research before purchase.

I hope to get new pics up soon. I should have some up within the next week or so.

J.

[Jolieve]

Okay... so I've missed the week. Finals really stunk and with the holiday season, I've had very little time to rest. The good news is, the Christmas shopping is done. My royal gramma is still alive, and a very big eater, and the corals are all doing well.

I am going to cut the final picture as close to the deadline as I can to give my new emerald crab some more time to clean up the tank. He's very voracious, but there's only so much algae the poor little guy can eat in one day. I also need to supply a new background for the tank. The old one was printed on non-laminated paper, so I lost it in the tank leak I had back in November. Rather than do another paper background, I am going to go with a standard blue tank backing. I don't want to deal with the paper mess again, but the paper did prove beneficial because when the color leached out of the paper into the dripping tank water, it made it easy to see where to clean.

But even more important than that...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!
J.

[Jolieve]

Here's the final pic, sans royal gramma. He either refused to come out, or has passed on, I'm not sure which. *sigh*

J.