20150726 Reef Tank update

Life and work has taken a real toll in my life and it's been a really long time since the last update. And also to be honest my tank has been battling against some lost and disease that the whole situation is just very demoralizing and the thought of shutting down the tank has crossed my mind a few times.
I did however acquired 3 pyramid butterfly in the last month or so as I have always loved them.

20150506 Hawaii Vacation Lanikai snorkel- Caution: Strong swimmer alert

panoramic view of Lanikai Beach on the Windward coast

The second snorkel location we took was the Lanikai beach at the Windward coast (Southeastern) shore of Oahu. As you can see from the photo above, this is a much less visited public beach than Waikiki due to its slight remote location, accessibility, lack of public parking and no public shower or changing room. Also, there are no lifeguards on duty so you are on your own.

Lanikai Beach looking Northeast

 There is about 500 meter (1/3 mile) of shallow reef along the entire stretch of this beach. But do not let the crystal clear turquoise water color fool you- the Though the rooftop of most area seem shallow,  unlike the Waikiki beach, once you venture 100ft out, most adults will not be able to stand straight and touch the bottom. Additionally, located in the windward coast, while the water is still relatively calm, it can be more unpredictable. And the water does come in waves of warm patches mixed with cooler patches. For all of the reasons above, you should only consider snorkeling or diving in this location when you are experienced and are a strong swimmer as the current can easily take you off course. There are a few times when I surfaced to find myself way off course from where I thought I was heading- very dangerous situation if I was a weaker swimmer.

Two Islands southeast of Lanikai are bird sanctuaries with strict rules for visitation

The two islands Southeast of the beast are about 1.5 miles off shore. These two islands are bird sanctuaries that has very strict rules for visitation. You may rent a kayak to reach it, rest on the beach then return. But you are not allow to touch anything or venture beyond the beach there. Also, please never attempt to swim there, the current is rough and strong it will carry you off course.

Unfortunately due to the depth of this reef, I was hesitant to bring my camera along with in fear of loosing my grip and to never able to retrieve it should it skips into a tight crack (there are numerous crevices). Based on my observation, the species here are diverse and abundant. Also because of the depth of some of the drop offs, most of the herbivores seen here are reaching good size- sailfin tang at at least 18" diameter, adult yellow tangs at no less than 8" long, adult Achilles tang at 10" long, variety of wrasses so large I almost thought they were parrotfish! The coral system however isn't growing as strongly as it can be due to invasive macro algae species. It also seems that the reef must have been devastated by big waves from storms in recent year as many of the giant pillar pieces of the reef base (at least 10ft tall and each can weight a few tons) were torn off its main structure and were laying on their sides on the sand bed.

20150428 Hawaii Vacation- Waikiki Snorkel

Two weeks ago I revisited my dream destination- Hawaii. And once again we decided to only stay in Oahu as we have not enough time to explore all we wanted to see in our previous visit. But we did recall the wonderful snorkeling experience so we have specifically carved out time to snorkel in various coast lines this time.

The beautify, relaxing white sand of the Waikiki beach at Honolulu, Hawaii

First and foremost we went to the most accessible- Waikiki. It is amazing that with all the tourists, surfing, kids playing, and motorized boats in the near vicinity the Waikiki reef ecosystem remained in a very strong state. The amount and variety of fish in the near shore reef actually had significant increase since our last visit 9 months ago. We were able to see most of all the common species of tangs and wrasse along with a few that would have only appeared in the deeper water previously, but now are also living among the shallow reef. I used only an iPhone 5S with an otter case to shoot these underwater photos.

A goatfish and a two spot surgeonfish patrolling the shallow reef of Waikiki

Really healthy reef system with active growing sps coral such as this porcillapora colony here near shore Waikiki

Moorish idol feeding among the coral reef. Interesting observation: I visited the same area a few days in a row and found that the same group of moorish idol stays within a specific area, no larger than 1000 square feet and feeds only in that area.

Beautiful spotted box fish along the reef edge in Waikiki

A semi adult nano tang, what a magnificent creature and graceful swimmer in the wild.

Water clarity wasn't the best as the waves were quite high that day sweeping up lots of dust from the bottom. 

20150329 Janesville Fragswap

It is amazing that the Wisconsin are has so many aquarium clubs with multiple fragswap or similar community events each year to provide vendors and hobbyists a fair trade platform for quality, and inexpensive experience to fill up their tanks. The event took place at the Janesville convention center, a small venue but sufficient for this function.

Before the event begins, all venfors busy prepping for their start.

Some sexy corals from one of the vendors

 Though there weren't as many vendors at this event (still an impressive 15 or so) as the Madison fragswap event, the quality of livestock and corals is definitely no lesser than the Madison swap.

Torch coral of variety colorations

Coral pricing divided by glowstick

One of the vendors provided some diversity with sea-pen, and a large group of lyre tail anthias

Cool looking nudibranch, though I don't recommend the average hobbyist keeping these difficult to maintain animals

20150329 180 Reef Tank update

A video update of my 180 Gallon Reef Tank after a couple weeks of intensive stocking effort.

Below are some of the new additions from this weeks fragswap at Janesville Wisconsin.

Middle of the 180 tank

New 4" Squamosa Clam

New Rose Bubble Tip Anemone about 3" disk, 6" open

Elegant coral in the process of swallowing some food

The Clarkii clownfish ditched the long tentacle anemone to host this rose bubble tip within 10 minutes of the anemone's introduction!

Live Aquaria- Diver's Den Behind the scene tour: The Corals

In case you've missed my previous posts on the facility's fish and inverts, here are their links:
Fish
Invertebrate
And for you coral fanatics here is the coral section of the facility. The Diver's Den facility of LiveAquaria is also the coral farm for this company. Here is a little background and fun facts of the place: http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/general.cfm?general_pagesid=377

The coral display tank by the office in Diver's Den, very impressive and colorful.

A video of this tank:

First I want to show you this beautiful sps and lps coral display tank made of the aquaculture corals here at Diver's Den. This tank sits at the corner where the coral farm meets the offices.

Live Aquaria's aquacultured coral grow out farm

Here is a panoramic video view of the facility:

The coral farm here at the Diver's Den facility are made of numerous 3'X6' approximately 1' deep. The water is crystal clear and each bin houses a few turbo snails and a surgeonfish for algae patrol. Some of them are impressive adult chevron tangs! The corals all sit on a grid of egg crate that's boosted 4" off the bottom. I see the tangs darting back and forth from the top of the corals to the bottom of it. Some bins contain sand as they place lps or sps onto it. Some bins are bare bottom. Each of the LPS corals are carefully placed onto a ring of cut PVC pipe to prevent the sand from irritating it.
All of the corals that I could see had nice but not abnormally large polyp extensions.

A bin with crushed coral bottom housing non-photo synthetic corals

There are 2-3 bins like the one above housing the non-photo synthetic corals. And as you can see from the reflection, instead of Metal Halide or LED lighting, these bins use t-5 lighting for any misc. photosynthetic coral they need to place here. I also want to mention that one of these bins had a school of baby bangaii cardinal fish and it's a perfect environment since they feed these bins heavily with nutrient rich zooplankton to keep the non-photo synthetic corals happy.

A bin of marincultured sps corals

The bin above showcase a group of the marine cultured sps corals. As you can see they sit on a PVC ring with their sky#, price, and ID clearly labeled so you will always receive the correct item. The egg crate is 4" above the bare bottom with a chevron tang patrolling this bin for algae control. Each bin only houses one vegetarian fish, and with a turbo snail to supplement. You can see this bin features a 400W metal halide from the reflection. The halide sits on a track and is moved up and down the bin to provide the corals lighting from all angels instead of creating a "hotspot"
Here is a short "tease" of what these corals look like with the water flow and the light.

A bin with mixed marincultured sps coral and aquaculture frags

This bin also features some beautifully colored marine cultured sps coral, with some aquaculture sps & lips frags. Apologies for the really blue hue of the picture- I believe they use 20K bulbs for all the corals under metal halide.
I'm just going to post a few more photos here without much further description as they are pretty self-descriptive.

A bin with primarily aquacultures corals here in different sizes and shapes.

Amazing group of blasto frags here. I was really tempted to take them all!

How about a garden of hammers? all in different colors too!

Corals are sectioned of for pricing and ease of identification when workers here pick them for order. These lps and soft corals are under LED lighting as you can see from the reflection.

Another bin of amazing hammer corals! raise your hand if you want them all!

Group of long tentacle plates, the cutie at the bottom right is now in my tank!

And lastly a bare bottom bin featuring a garden of elegant corals!

Diver's Den Tour- Invertebrate Section

To continue the previous thread, this post will feature the invertebrate section of the facility.
First I want to show you the massive protein skimmer and reactor combo at this LiveAquaria, there are several of them:

This protein skimmer is taller than me... enough said.

Asked my wife to model for scale, humongous carpet anemones

More carpet anemones

Each of the anemones in this section, including carpet and a bunch of bubble tip are all hosting a pair of clownfish. it's really cool to see they make them all happy, even though as a retailer it's completely unnecessary to pair clownfish with anemone since one or the other would be sold soon anyways. But they did what they can to make each feel happy.

A bundle of long tentacle anemone

 a cluster of derasa clams (not yet offered on diver's den, they were exclusive for the tour), and a bunch of cultured maxima clam. very sweet deals! I managed to snatch two of these handsome derasa clams

Lighting may be one of the biggest questions any hobbyist buying from LiveAquaria wishes to ask. In the photo below you will see a broader view of the facility with lights running on a track. The lights run in a lateral movement so that it can cover all angles of the photosynthetic animals beneath rather than creating a "hot spot". When I toured this place a few years ago all lights were 400W 20K Metal Halide. Today this facility has a mix of high end LED (such as AI hydra + a few other varieties). All holding raceway are no more than 12" deep. All the animals look healthy and for clams I can observe significant growth indicating excellent health condition.

The livestock raceway

Here is a picture of the holding section for shrimp, small crabs (such as acropora crabs) and small shrimp (pistol shrimp or squat lobster, which by the way are size of a pinky nail!) They are held in individual transparent containers approx. the size of a film box (if you are born after the mid 90's you might not know what that is lol).

squat lobster, I can't believe how tiny they actually are compare to the online photos.

maxima clams in the diver's den section

And lastly, the diver's den clam section. I must say, almost all the clams in this section appears much larger than what is seems on the photo (contrary to the squat lobster), and honestly, the photos don't do justice on how beautiful they are. One of these clams I purchased looks like a mustard, brown color online but turns out to be a shiny gold in person! All of them are kept under 400W metal halide, 20K bulbs hence the very blue photo here. And one thing they offer that no one else do is live arrival ad 14 day guarantee.
Here is a couple videos: