20141016 Flame angel

Saw this guy at the store over the weekend. I know I already have a flame angel in my 92 corner. But hey, I don't have one in my 75 yet! And this little guy came at a great price. But most importantly- the marking for this guy is truly one of a kind. Just goes to show how remarkable God's creation would be!

Flame Angelfish named "AVID"

20141014 Roberto's impressive 720 Gallon Reef

In case you haven't seen this thread in Reef central
You definitely want to check out his tank, the planning, the build, and the progress.
It is a stunning tank!

Roberto's 720 Reef Tank in Brazil

Desjardini Update

Just an update of my Desjardini Tang. Doing great, getting fat, and kicking everyone else's ass in the tank!

20141012 Neon Goby

So I decided to get some tank mates for my seahorse that are not other seahorses!

I have always wanted to have these tiny cute little gobies. But when I was a store manager at an aquarium store, I noticed sometimes these small fish would fall into the overflow and just vanish after a while. So I have been hesitant to place them in my reef tank. Now that I have an enclosed seahorse tank I think the timing is right! both are ORA captive bred gobies and they are eating frozen and flake food like crazy!

20141008 Freshwater Angelfish

I have been posting almost exclusively saltwater content sometimes it seems like I don't have any freshwater tanks at all! But like most aquarists, I also began my adventure with freshwater.

Here is a photo of my 75 Gallon freshwater setup. I wanted to do a planted tank. But with four plecos in this tank I don't know if that's a good idea. I have four Angelfish, five Denison's barbs (they are beautiful), five Congo tetras (2 male, 3 female), 3 Pearl Gourami, and an assortment of tetras. The four plecos I have are 1 bushy nose, 1 gold nugget, 1 leopard, and 1 snowball. Ironically, the last three are the most expensive fish I have in the tank yet are the least seen!

20141006 Derasa Clam nipped!

For the last two months I have been keeping my Derasa clam separately in a 75G RR that I have set up to allow the two squamosa clams more room to stretch. But two weeks ago I discovered that the Derasa clam have not been opening. So I decided to take it out of the 75 and place it back into my 92.

It turns out- someone has been nipping this clam! See the hole in the middle of the clam mantle (the white circle) My suspicion is the orange or gold spotted rabbitfish. Because not only the clam, the rabbitfish has also nipped on my leather corals.

20141005 Seahorse! Hippocampus Erectus

I have had my 28 gallon cube sitting for a while running with just live rock for about 2-3 months. I have always wanted to get some seahorse in that tank. And the opportunity finally arrived! Last week while browsing Best Fish in Milwaukee, I noticed they had a tank full of captive raised seahorses!

 Initially I saw the label "Kuda" on the tank so I thought I was looking at Kuda seahorse. The store was feeding them live brine and frozen mysis shrimp. These guys gobble up the food very eagerly. So I decided to take a couple of these 3" ponies home!

Although at the time of purchase, one was significantly lighter color than the dark one, they do change color to match the environment. Over the course of a week, they have both shifted color slightly and are not not as far off from each other. I started by feeding them Hikari mysis since they are small in size. But then they were not accepting the mysis very well. After some forum posting on reef central, I decided to try PE mysis on them, with the fear that the big shrimp would not fit through their fused jaws. And to my surprise, they were able to chew up some pretty chunky shrimps!
Also, as I began to research more about seahorse, I realize they do not look like Kuda at all! Instead, I thought they look more like erectus. So I called the store today and confirmed that indeed they are erectus. The store only has females at this time, which is OK with me because I don't think I am ready for the difficult task of breeding seahorse just yet.