Still Kicking with Updates in the Wings!

Hope this wets the whistle. New tanks, New Coral, New Fish...more to come!

Feeding @ Night

Some cool shots of a late night feeding session. I should call it, a late night over feeding nitrate building that forces me to do a water change the next day session. Enjoy these, cause who knows when I'll post again.

It's been a good fall!

We'll, since it's been so long since I've posted here...I figured I would take a lot of update photos to show you the progress. Let's go back and remember that I put the first drops of water in the new tank on June 14th of 2007...so it's been going now for almost 7 months. I have had some serious ups and downs(scratching the glass all up), some serious bouts with algae, and some serious coral growth.
As a side note, I just turned in my big ol' Xenia at Aquatic Imports for a $40 store credit. It dropped two other babies and the momma was just too big for the tank...that's what payed for the Sun Coral.
Anyway, I can say that the two huge improvements to the tank this fall have been ( besides listening to Kevin's advice and being more patient) installing a better heater (Jager 100watt) and dosing everyday with Julian Sprung's C-Balance...totally awesome.
The big changes:
- good coraline algae growth
- got rid of my big Xenia and my Sps(bleaching out)...soon too be gone is the old leather
- Traded, purchased, or was given several new corals.

These are my new Tubestera or Sun Coral.


These are some Yellow Colonials that were donated to my reef cause.


Here is a nice mixed rock that was also doanted to my reef.


Here are some old favorites that have been doing very well.





Yes, both fish are doing great!

Re-Tooling

I made a few hardware changes/upgrades this week. I installed a Jager heater to take the place of my Hydor Theo heater. I now realize that since the Jager is over twice the length , that it is an obviously superior heater if you have the room in the tank. I also put in a Hydor Koralia Nano water circ pump to boost my flow in the tank. A funny/sad note: I got a container of ChemiPure, and when I unscrewed the cap I realized the seal was boken. I pulled out the bag, and found out it was....an old used bag of Chemipure...NASTY. Good thing Fosters has an excellent customer service center!

New/Old Fish

This is a post about my most recent fish that I have had for a while because I am such a bad blogger. He is a Golden Maroon Clown...first cousin to Nemo. I really do love this fish...actually, I am really loving my whole tank right now. It's maturing and cool things are always happening. I am thinking about a protein skimmer and another pump to increase my flow, but I can't risk any heat gains. My thoughts are that during the winter I can increase my heat in the tank without any problems...we'll see.

Flourishing

The tank looks a lot better now that I have scrubbed some algae off the inside, and wipped the creep off the outside. Here are some current images...notice the new Frogspawn.

A crash, new water, and some fabulous new corals

I got an incredible deal on some new stuff from one of my favorite stores down in Appleton...they are closing down the live pet part of the store and everything was half off. So I got a Folded Brain, Green/Blue Ric, and a another mushroom.


So Yesterday, I stopped over at Fish Unlimited and picked up my very first SPS. That's a Small Polyp Stony coral for all you none reef nerds. These are a little more of an advanced coral so I sure it will die on me shortly. I was also talked into going to Walmart and trying some RO/distilled waster for trying to get rid of my Cyano Agae...so I loaded up on water.


So when I got home, I started messing around with the sps placement, and I toppled my rock into a heap. NOT GOOD. After a few hours of crying my eyes out, I finally got it back to almost the way it was. I also cleaned out all my powerheads which increased my flow.

More Coral!

I am slowly, but surely stocking up on coral. I just got this zoo colony at the same place I bought my fish, and I paid $19 for it. I have seen similar colonies go for thirty or forty bucks!

First Fish!!! - Zebra Bar Goby aka: Dartfish

Some name huh? Whatever you call her...she's good lookin'. I even got her for 10% off in Appleton. I thought she might not eat or come out for a week, but she has already made a home underneath some rocks, and she's eating like crazy. So far so good.

Where did I go?

I know (herb), it's been a long time since my last post...been kinda busy. I am a wedding photographer and this is wedding season. I have also seen the birth of my 2nd girl Riley Jean, and you can see her too on the photo blog. The tank is good...real good. I have had some temperature wars, but it's all ironed out now. I keep a small fan blowing on the tank from about 3 feet away. The fan combined with the AC in the office keeps the tank about 80 on the nose...sweet. My diatoms are gone and the glowing green and white algaes are here. I think I also have a touch of cyano...we'll see how that goes. Here is the livestock count so far:

1 Margarita Snall
2 Misc Sail
2 Asterea Snails
1 Turbo Grazer
1 Reg Hermit Crab
1 Small Hermit in a long shell
1 Blue Legged Hermit
2 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp

Green Star Polyp
Green Candy Cane Lps
Red Lobophylia Lps
Finger Leather
Ricordia Florida
Green Mushroom
Brown Xenia

I think that is it for now.

CORALS!!!

Now we officially have ourselves a genuine reef tank. The mushroom is the one I put in the tank before and almost killed it, but know it's super duper doing awesome. The other one is a ricordia, but it's still acclimating to the tank. When it settles down in a few days, I will move it up onto a rock for better light and flow. Looking Good!!!

Diatoms and Clean Up Crew

Algae! I got green and brown goo growing all over, so it's time for some snails and crabs. I have one misc. crab, one astrea snail, and one turbo grazer in right now...but adding more real soon.

Rock is 3 Weeks Old

Well, I have had my rock in the tank for three weeks today, and good things are going on.


I have good green and red color algae growth, and my chemistry is panning out. The second white square from the top shows that my nitrites are almost zilch! My trates are still about 10 - 20 ppm, but that is pretty normal for a new tank. I am pretty stoked about getting some clean up crew to take care of some algae growth.



p.s. Here is a shot of my good buddy Herb's Feather Duster. He took it with his new Olympus camera...nice shot!

Tank Update - Nothing New

I pulled that mushroom out before it was too late. All my inverts and corals from the frag swap are in Kevin's tank. This pic shows that there is not much going on these days except for bacteria. Hoping for a diatom bloom soon.

Stats at 2:30 -
Temp: 80.9 little high...I know
Nitrite: .5ppm or less
Nitrate: 20 ppm
PH: 8.4
LWC: 063007 10:00pm 4 gallon

Fosters and Smith Conference

So I happened to be in the Reinlander area this weekend (wink, wink), and I mosied on over to the Fosters and Smith Coral Conference/Frag Swap. One word...AWESOME! So here are some picks to tell the story...a lot of pics. The first one is the new sacrificial lamb in my not quite balanced tank...one of many new aquired corals and inverts.









There were lots of freebies and adivce for newbies like me. To bad my weekend is already booked for next year...glad I went this year!