Reflection

I have always wanted to try a reflection shot of my tabk once the coral growth has adequate coverage. 

Seahorse tank change of plan

First of all, change of plan. I decided seahorses are just way too much maintenance and work that I am not quite ready yet. So I am going to take time and put together a jewel tank- all the most colorful trinckets I can find out there in here.

I ordered my Tongan branching rocks from Bulkreefsupply.com. I was extremely pleasantly surprised with this shipment. These are the most beautiful rocks I have ever seen and for a really reasonable price! The shipping was amazingly fast as well! I would highly recommend buying from them.

Filled the tank with water finally. I did have to epoxy the rocks a little. Strangely enough, while there is no water in there, the weight of these rocks keeps everything in place. Once the water begins to lift the weight of these rocks, they begin to shift and tumble all over the place.

Tankshots update

This was actually an unfinished post from a few weeks ago. And during that time unfortunately the beautiful crocea clam has passed. I have also sold one of the rbta and set the other two into my newly setup 20 gallon drilled tanks upstairs

Setting up seahorse tank 1

So my wife and I have been talking about setting up a real peaceful species tank with seahorse. A friend from local reef group is selling his 20g drilled reef ready setup so I picked up this used unit.

It's a traditional 20g high with the top rim removed, in its place is a custom made screen to prevent jumpers. The overflow is built in but no plumbing in place.

My weekend assignment was to collect a 10 g tank to be used as sump. Bought plexy glass to build buffers and also purchased pvc plumbing parts.

I took a long time planning the pipes including valves and joints for easy moving, cleaning, and feeding time water flow control.

Frag time!!

It been a long while since I fragged anything, last week one of the local pet stores in town- Animart in madison, WI was giving away some of their never used fixtures for free. So I took a couple coralife power compact 130w lights to replace what I had on the mantis tank.

For some odd reason the green star polyps just dont do very well in my 92 corner reef while most other sps and lps as well as soft corals are thriving. So before the entire colony comes to non-existence, I decided to frag it and attempt to revive the colony in my mantis tank.

I then also fragged some soft corals, mostly pumping xenia and Kenyan tree, they grow like weed.

Vietnam Squamosa Clam from Divers Den

When I saw this 5" Vietnam squamosa clam posted on Liveaquaria's Diver's den I knew I had to get it.

The order was placed Wednesday afternoon, I received the shipment tracking info Thursday afternoon and the clam was delivered Friday morning around 10.

As always, Liveaquaria takes great care in their packaging.

Even after spending over 12 hours on the road, this clam does not show much sign of distress.

Placed the clam in my mid foreground

Clam opened up almost fully within 15 minutes of placement

Freshwater painted

Last week I decided to move my 42bow freshwater tank downstairs. The main reason is I installed a new faucet to my kitchen sink and it is not compatible to any of my python's adopters! So I have not changed the water for this tank for nearly two months, ew~

I used this opportunity to clean the tank, toss out an old Drs foster and smith hang on filter. Clean out my Hagen fluval filter(which I still think is the best hand on filter ever), bought a powerhead to increase flow, and painted the back of this tank black.

Temporary frag tank

I am sick of fragging corals and just parking them in my display tank!

So i went to the store and got some ceiling grill to make my make-shift temporary frag shelf in my sump.

First I spent an hour clean out my sump and scrubbed everything clean. Then I cut the grill to fit the tank. I then drilled four small holes on the plastic top and hang the grill using fishing lines.

At the moment I dont have too many frags but will be expecting quite a bunch in the near future. I am placing some of the low-maintenance frags here such as some shrooms and leather. The lighting for my sump is a reef ready marineland LED

Mantis claw

This would be the second time my mantis have molted since I obtained her earlier this year.

The previous molt was buried deep inside her den so I wasnt able to retrieve it. This time around she decided to kick one of her claw molts out of the den like a piece of garbage!

If you are used to seeing the mantis punching around, it's hard to imagine the underneath the puncher there is a razer sharp blade that even not on the mantis, must be handled with respect.

This is what the claw normally look like, with the razer closed in a beater shape

And here is the post molting mantis stalking my movement

Blue Squamosa!

Even though blue squamosa clams are not as rare as it once was, it still is rare!
When I saw this blue squamosa up for sell on Divers Den I actually tossed and turned on my bed and had to put it in my shopping cart in the morning. Liveaquaria used to use Fedex for their delivery which I hated. I can still remember tracking the order last time from Liveaquaria, the shipment flew out from Wisconsin to Memphis TN, then back to Chicago, then back for delivery in Wisconsin- talk about the lack of logic in their logistics. Fedex did slightly better, it went from Wisconsin-Minneapolis-Chicago-Wisconsin.... just wondering when will they ever learn.

So obviously no one is home to sign for the package during work days, I had it sent to my office. I considered paying for Saturday delivery ($15 extra), and was like- nah!

You do get free shipping if the order is $225 or more, so I threw in a tabling acropora to go along with my clam.

the clam, did I mention seven layers of bags in my previous DD post?

The coral, again, seven layers of bags! wow!

And... here it is! it's about 2". I honestly didn't photoshop the color of this photo too much as my AI sol superblue LED does give out this much blue, and it is perfect enhancement for this little guy's coloration.

Coral growth august 10

Made some water flow adjustments so I can see the coral better from the top. It's week two with the Aqua Illumination sol super blue LED and the corals are reacting to it very well sofar. Compare to the last six months, I can definitely tell a steady growth on all of my sps.

Starving snails

So here is the first "bad" thing I can share about the aqua illumination LED light: my snails are starving to death!

Above is a starving snail laying on my sand today, I had to move it into the sump so it can find some algae to chew on.

Other family members who are becoming very hungry in the main tank. So, if you are converting to AI sol superblue, be prepared to see some snail casualties as algae growth will deplete significantly in you tank. So, good new if you dont want to deal with algae, bad news for the snails

My dog Lego

This is my dog Lego, an American Foxhound. She is, in my opinion the world's most beautiful dog.

Plumeria growth

My first post on plant. My wife thinks I have a green thumb- I either keep plants and they will prosper or I can revive near death or what appears to be dead plants back to life. I wouldnt say its a gift, but I think everyone can have the green thumb if you pay attention to you teacher duirng high school biology, do research and learn from others' failure.

Plumeria is not a plant you can grow outside yearound in Wisconsin. I managed to keep it alive (with leaves) through the winter indoors, and then placed it outside when spring hits wisconsin in May. That's right, spring did not arrive until may thus year.

You can tell the growth rate difference, pale green on the stem is from last September through this april. And the dark green from the tip two inches down were all in the last three months!

Coral growth august 7th

An update of the coral growth on August 7th. Looks like the miami orchid in the middle are starting to form little bumps- a little more protruding than before

Anemone buddies

Here is my quartet of rosy bubble tip anemones (RBTA)

At the very first post of this blog was when I bought two of them from a fellow hobbyist. They were both small at that time. Over the last few months despite not so good lighting and my make shift water filtration system, they have survived and grown. 

I actually just sliced one of the larger one into two halves recently with a razor blade. I prepared a tub of water from the tank in a restaurant dish tray. I added a few drips of lugol's solution to help disinfect the post trauma anemone and to promote healing. I removed the anemone from the water and sliced it. Soaked both halves in the solution for 10 minutes then returned them back into tank. It's been two weeks now both anemones are happy and accepting hand fed food again!

Mantis update

My mantis is still alive and punching! In case anyone is wondering...

I am not really sure whatthe growth rate of this creature is. But since I've acquired her (yes, we are sure it is a her), she has only molted once that we know of.

She has been constructing and reconstructing her burrow into a chain of chambers. So we cant exactly be sure whether she's molted deep in her hole. But in order to maintain the water quality, I try my best to feed her minimally- one meal every three days with either a silverside fish or a cooked shrimp. 

Coral growth under LED

Now that the new LED AI Sol superblue is set up, I will begin a photo journal to document the effect of this light to my corals' growth, sps, lps, and soft polyps. 

My previous light, 250w metal halide with 4x 24w T-5 didn't exactly promote much coral growth. Like I said, you get what you pay for. So I'm hoping this light will alllow faster growth.

After three days of light acclimation, I increased light intensity to: w25, b55,r55. My plan is to gradually increase 2-3% every 2-3 days until I reach the level where corals can all achieve maximum growth without bleaching.

One of my good light indicators will be my RBTA as they stretch with insufficient light and bubble up when lighting is ideal!