A new image gallery with updated photos is online. The new gallery uses a slightly modified NextGEN plugin for wordpress. Slightly modified because I just can’t seem use things they way they are, I have to “tweak” them to suit my own “style”. Check out the new gallery by using the link on the sidebar or click here.

Happy Reefing

When I started this blog/site I did it from scratch using my somewhat limited knowledge of HTML/CSS. As I’ve mentioned before my wife has been a “blogger” for some time and has used almost every conceivable blogging tool/site out there from Yahoo360, Blogger, MySpace; you name it, she’s probably been there and done that. While I was not unhappy with the layout/look of my new site, it lacked some functionality like comments, tagging, archiving, etc. These are things I probably could have figured out with enough research and time, but they were beyond my current abilities. Also, things like RSS feeds that I did have were functional, but not up to par with today’s standards. So, at my wife’s suggestion we both looked into WordPress (amazingly one of the few blog tools she hadn’t yet tried). So, I did a little research, found my web host had Fantastico and installed WordPress onto my server. As with any new “software” there has been a learning curve. All in all I’m pretty happy with WordPress. It’s has forced me to learn more about CSS, but that’s probably not a bad thing. After a day and a half of pulling my hair out trying to modify things so they look the way I want, Reef-a-holic.com has some new functionality more in line with what is expected by today’s savvy blog readers. So go ahead and leave me a comment, you know you’ve been wanting to!

Happy Reefing!

It’s been a little busy with all the holiday hubbub, but I wanted to take the time to make a quick Christmas post and share a little holiday humor.  Below is a “reprint” of something I found that gave me a chuckle.

I hate aspects of this time of year. Not for its crass commercialism and forced frivolity, but because it’s the season when the food police come out with their wagging fingers and annual tips on how to get through the holidays without gaining 10 pounds.

1. About those carrot sticks. Avoid them. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately and go next door, where they’re serving rum balls.

2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. Like fine single-malt scotch, it’s rare. In fact, it’s even rarer than single-malt scotch. You can’t find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It’s not as if you’re going to turn into an eggnogaholic or something. It’s a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Heck have two for me. It’s later than you think. It’s Christmas!

3. If something comes with gravy, use it. I mean that’s the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.

4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they’re made with skim milk or whole milk. If it’s skim, pass. Why bother, right? It’s like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.

5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat other people’s food for free and lots of it. Hello? Remember college?

6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year’s. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you’ll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.

7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don’t budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They’re like a beautiful pair of shoes. You can’t leave them behind and you’re not going to see them again.

8. Same goes for pies. Apple. Pumpkin. Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or, if you don’t like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day, NOT?

9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it’s loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards, mate.

10. And one final tip: If you don’t feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven’t been paying attention. Reread the tips. Start over. But hurry! Cookieless January is just around the corner.

So I hope all have had a safe and joyous holiday.

God Bless & Happy Reefing!

OK, so I swear I really wasn’t looking to add more fish in the near future.  Sure, I have a few fish I’d like to add to the tank before I’m done stocking, but I was thinking a few months down the road.  As I’ve mentioned before I frequent a few saltwater/reef message forums.  One of these, salt-city.org, is local to my area.  I was browsing the new posts today and one of our local fish stores posted a sale on firefish gobies.  Five dollars apiece, I mean who could pass that up, right?  So I bought two!  More than one firefish per tank is generally a recipe for aggression, but they can sometimes be kept as a mated pair.  Some people have successfully kept schools of 5 or more firefish, but more often than not they eventually become aggressive and cull themselves down to one or two.  So far the two I brought home are staying together, with no aggression, but that may just be because they are still young, as they mature we’ll see what happens.  OK, no more new livestock till next year (New Years 2009 is only 12 days away)!

Happy Reefing!

A while back I decided to make a video of my tank.  Now, I’m no cinematographer and my camera leaves a lot to be desired, but it was a fun project all the same.  There’s been a fair

amount of growth since the video was made and a few of the inhabitants have changed, but overall the tank looks very similar to what you see in the video.  It gives a good overview of my basement fish room too.  Again, a few minor changes in equipment down there, but mostly it’s still the way you see it.  The DIY skimmer is going great; I’ll do a post on it in the near future.  Oh, one other difference about how the tank looks today vs. the video is the tank back glass.  I decided I couldn’t stand the coralline covered back and now keep it scraped.  I’ll never let it get that covered again; it took a whole family scraping party to get it all cleaned off.

Happy Reefing!

This seemed like a very suitable list for this blog.  I’m not actually the original author, and I’ve seen this list in various forms on numerous saltwater forums, so I don’t even know who the original author is so as to give them credit.  I did modify it slightly to suit my own taste.  So, without further ado I present the “how to tell if you’re a reef-a-holic” list:

1. You can’t pass your tank with out giving everything a thorough looking over.

2. You try to approx. the growth of your corals on a daily basis.

3. You can’t walk out of the fish store with out spending at least $200.00

4. You will argue about reef lighting with your dying breath.

5. If you see just one coral with its polyps retracted your mind begins to spin (Alk. Calcium, nitrates, phosphates, emergency water change!!!)

6. You will give up vacations, weekend jaunts and so on because you don’t want to leave your reef.

7. When going for a weekend trip you spend 10 minutes telling the babysitter about your kids and 2 hours about your tank.

8. When you have company coming over the first thing you break out is your algae cleaning magnet.

9. The most exiting thing to happen to you in the last 3 years is the purchase of a tricolor Acro.

10. Once you finally get your reef running perfectly and everything is growing, you begin to make plans for your next tank.

11. You feel genuinely sorry and deep sense of grief when one of your snails dies.

12. You feel a great sense of satisfaction when slippery green stuff grows in a Rubbermaid container and you call it a refugium.

13. You will chase the kids around the house chastising them about leaving the lights on… when you actually need your own substation to power your reef.

I hope you got a chuckle out of those as I did, even if some of them hit a little close to home.

Happy Reefing!

I went to one of our local fish stores to pick up some much needed supplies a few days ago.  Like all reefers I had to check out all the livestock in the store even though I was really only planning to take home some dry goods and a few snails.  In the back of the store however, they had two of the most beautiful Coral Beauty Angles I’ve seen in a while.  After talking with my wife, the owner of the store and myself, I decided I wouldn’t get the fish.  Even though I think they are gorgeous fish I’ve always shied away from angels because of their reputation to nip at clams and corals.  After I got home I just couldn’t get those fish out of my head.  I have lost a couple fish over the last few months and hadn’t yet replaced them.  So, after a couple days, and some new research, I found enough people who have kept Coral Beauties as model citizens that I decided to go back and look at the fish again.  They were still there and after talking with the employee at the store (whom I know quite well and trust), and finding out the fish had been there for about two weeks and where eating well I decided to go for it.  The new fish is a bit timid like most new fish, but is coming out more and more and is eating well.  It’s truly a gorgeous animal and adds a lot to my tank.

Happy Reefing!

I’ll get back to the particulars of my tank in upcoming posts, but for now I’d like to talk about something a little different.  I’m a member of several online saltwater/reef communities, some quite large and some that are pretty small.  Most of the extremely large ones I don’t spend much time at except to search for specific information when I’m doing research.  There are two forums, however, that I frequent at least daily; one relatively small one called salt-city.org because it’s local to me, and the other is TheReefTank.  I really enjoy The Reef Tank because it’s big enough to stay active with lots of new info and posts, but still has a true community feeling.  But, what this post is really about is The Reef Tanks new community blog (http://www.thereeftank.com/blog.html).  I got involved with the project when I was asked by Ava, the new head of community blog affairs (OK I made the title up, but it sounds good) if I would be interested in contributing a few articles.  I gladly accepted and she started feeding me topics they would like to see addressed.  The first article I wrote was on aquascaping and was actually a reciprocal post on guitarfish.org, a really cool planted aquarium website (article can be found here).  My second article is on choosing a heater and was just posted today (that article can be found here).   I hope you take the time to visit The Reef Tank and it’s community blog, there is a wealth of great information to be found there.

Happy Reefing!

Since this blog is about my addiction to all things reef, I suppose I should talk more about my setup. After all, that’s what us “reefers” do when we get together and talk. Unfortunately, there is a secret language used by those in “the hobby”, that might as well be Chinese to the uninitiated. I will try to keep my ramblings in the vernacular and avoid the use of terms, abbreviations and acronyms that might not be easily understood by the non-reefer, or at least I’ll take the time to explain what they mean if I do.

I don’t see much point in going back in my history any more than I did in my previous post, so I’ll start with the tank I setup in December of 2007. As I mentioned I got rid off the vast majority of my equipment before moving back to the Midwest last year. Being a true addict it did not take long before I was anxious to set up a tank in my new house. Initially I went the cheap and easy route with a 55 gallon tank plumbed to a simple sump via some DIY overflows.  BTW I don’t suggest overflows, DIY or otherwise, they are just an accident waiting to happen.  Drill your tank from the beginning or get a RR tank (RR = Reef Ready, comes with the holes already drilled and normally some of the basic plumbing).  Over the course of a few months the tank went from the image you see on the left (essentially a pile of freshly cured live rock with a few fish and corals) to what you  see in the image below.  I don’t recall the actual dates, but the pictures are about 7 weeks apart. Then in early February 2007 I was chatting with my buddy Pat, who owns a local pet store specializing in saltwater (I refer to him as the used car salesmen of the pet industry) and he mentioned having a couple of used 125 gallon tanks for good prices.  So I loaded up the family and off to the other side of town we went.  The first tank he described as a little rough, wow was that an understatement.  I wouldn’t have taken that tank if he’d given it to me for free.  The other tank however was in great shape other than being a little bit dirty.  He was asking $650 for the 125 gallon reef ready tank, pine stand, a sump and some filters.  Now remember this is the wheeler dealer pet store owner, who will take all kinds of stuff on trade.  I told him I had my 55 gallon tank, stand, and a MagDrive36 pump that I didn’t need that I could trade (long story, but never hook up a 3600gph pump to a 55 gallon tank unless you want to get wet!).  I also told him I really didn’t need (or want) the sump and filters he was including with the 125 gallon tank.  So Pat did some figuring in his head, a little counting on his fingers, some humming and hawing, then turns to me and says “how ‘bout I keep the sump and filters, you bring me your 55 gallon tank, stand and the pump, and I’ll let you have the 125 tank and stand for $140 cash.  In case you don’t know 125 gallon tanks start at $500-$600 new for just the tank, so needless to say I shelled out the cash, loaded up the tank and stand and headed for home.  As I said the tank needed a little clean up (dang corraline algae) and the stand ultimately was painted black, but all in all I feel like I got an awesome deal.  So that’s the story of how and where the 125 came to be.  I’ll get into more of the technical setup and the change over to the new tank in future posts.

Happy Reefing!

Hello to all. My wife is a bit of a blog-aholic, reading, writing, designing and redesigning blog pages any chance she gets. This, however, will be my first “real-time” foray into the world of blogging. I’m an active member of several online reef aquarium forum style sites. Those tend to be more question and answer related as opposed to blog entries, which I view more as the random ramblings of my mind tied around a general theme.

I suppose the obvious place to start is a little background about myself. My name is Jeff, I’m 39 and I am a reef-aholic. I really can’t pick on my wife too much for her time spent blogging as my addiction takes up just as much free time and costs substantially more to maintain. Seriously though, I’ve been keeping aquaria off and on for about 25 years. My very first tank was a 20-gallon “loaner” aquarium used to conduct a hermit crab behavior study when I was still in school. I lived in Stamford, CT at the time and simply went down to the local beach and came home with some sand, rock and a bunch of hermit crabs. After the paper was written, I enjoyed keeping the critters so much that I kept the tank going for a while with various crabs, macro-algae’s, stars; pretty much whatever I could find in the tide pools at the local beach. After that aquarium, I kept a number of mostly freshwater tanks before again entering into the world of marine/reef tanks. Since then, I’ve kept tanks which have included many different approaches including a cold-water tank with local specimens (this when I lived in Washington State and had access to livestock from the Strait of Juan De Fuca).

When I moved back to the Midwest from Washington I got rid of all of my livestock and most of my equipment. I initially setup up small tank after moving but that didn’t last long and in February 2008 I can across a deal on the current 125-gallon tank and stand that was just too good to pass up! The new tank is plumbed to a 55-gallon sump that is located in my basement just behind and below the display. There is also a 10-gallon fuge/frag tank plumbed to the system. I’ll add more info on equipment in upcoming posts. In addition to the 125-gallon reef tank there is also a 12-gallon nano reef and a 10-gallon freshwater-planted tank in my home.

As they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ll end this first post by including a FTS (full tank shot) of my pride and joy.

Happy Reefing!