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.