Well all the little things in life that keep us busy have certainly caused me to neglect my blog entries for a while.  The good news is that life is going well both with the tank and also the other things in life.

The tank is stable and really very little has changed.  I moved the clam up onto a rock a little higher in the tank, it looks awesome there and has grown quite a bit.  The Condy anemone was causing problems with some of it’s neighbors but conveniently moved it’s foot just enough I could relocate it rock and all to where the clam used to be.  It actually get’s a bit more light there and seems very happy. One other change has been the food I’m feeding. A local reefer makes a frozen concoction called “Black Jack Reef Crack”. I won’t even begin to list all the ingredients, but suffice to say it has just about everything needed for corals and fish, and it stinks to high heaven so it must be good stuff, LOL!

To close I’ll add a new full tank shot.  I still have trouble getting a FTS that I’m happy with.  The colors and the contrast always seem to be an issue, but this one isn’t too bad.

Happy Reefing!

OK, so it’s been ages since I posted anything. I don’t have any good reasons for not posting, just been busy keeping up with life! So, let’s see, what’s new? Well my tank really hasn’t changed much over the last few weeks. I’ve just been trying to keep up on maintenance, and keep things really stable. The Condy anemone seems to still be growing. I have placed two rock above it trying to keep it from brushing up against a Fiji Finger leather nearby. Otherwise, things have been quiet and going well in the tank. I’ll leave you with a current full tank shot.

One of the several tanks in our house is my daughters 24 gallon aquapod.  She has been very specific about what she wanted in it.  As far as fish go, she knew she wanted two Clown Fish.  As luck would have it we have a breeder in our area (goto www.homegrownclowns.com to check out Jay’s breeding setup) so good healthy Clown Fish are easy to come by.  As you may know, in the wild Clown Fish have a symbiotic relationship with certain anemones (we’ve all seen Finding Nemo right?).  The Clown Fish develop an immunity to the sting of the anemone and “host” in it, which provides a safe place for them to hide.  Meanwhile the fish will venture out of the anemone and find food which they will bring back “home”.  The fish get a safe place to live and the anemone gets a dinner, delivery style!  So, it came as no surprise when my daughter said her Clowns needed something to host in.  We did some research, and decided a Bubble Tip Anemone would be the best choice in terms of being easier to keep (all anemones are on the more advanced list) and also the most likely to host the fish.  It took about two days for the fish to decide they were interested in the anemone, but when they did they took too it like glue.  They now bring it food at feeding time and both fish snuggle in deep to sleep at night.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this little video must be worth ten thousand.  Enjoy!

Happy Reefing!

With my upgraded lights I’ve been thinking about adding a clam. They don’t come cheap though, a nice ultra-grade Maxima will set you back anywhere from $60-$100+! I already had some store credit owed to me from a local fish store for a mistake that was made on some bulbs I purchased, but not nearly enough to equal a clam. You’ve maybe read some of my other posts about Pat, the used car salesman of saltwater fish? Well, I’m talking to Pat (via messaging on a forum I frequent) when he says, help, call me asap!!! Come to find out he had 14 boxes of livestock from the South Pacific and Hawaii arriving at the airport in about an hour and no way to get it all. So, long story short, we loaded it all up in our SUV and hauled it out to his store for him. As repayment (along with my existing store credit), I scored one of the best looking Maxima clams I’ve seen in a while.

Happy Reefing!

Let’s face it very few of us (if any) enjoy doing water changes in our tanks, especially once you get into a larger tank. Many months ago I started researching ways to at least partially automate this chore. My original thought was to mimic some of the systems I’ve seen that employ a container of some sort that can be taken off line, drained, refilled with new salt water, then placed back on line. This essentially allows a good sized water change to be accomplished by just turning a few valves. While this is, in of itself, a great system I was intrigued by what is referred to as a “continuous water change system”. Some of these systems are quite complicated with peristaltic pumps that continually add and remove small amounts of water. In my case I went for something a bit more simple. I drilled a hole in the top end of my 55 gallon sump and installed an overflow. I then plumbed a pump from the basement to the display tank. I have a 30 gallon trash can with a power-head and heater that I mix and hold new saltwater in. Every day at 11AM the pump kicks on for 2 minutes and pumps approx. 3 gallons of fresh saltwater up to the display. That, in turn, displaces the same amount of water in the sump and causes it to overflow. Presto! Two minute water change and I didn’t even have to be home. I still have to do some vacuuming/siphoning and other water removing maintenance but even that has been simplified, as I can siphon out what I need to and then just manually activate the pump to refill.

So why do I like this method over the typical weekly, bi-weekly or even monthly large water changes. In a word “stability”. I find it keeps things very stable, adds trace minerals daily and overall keeps my livestock looking healthier. I actually did a test for a while where I manually hauled a bucket upstairs each day and did a 2 gallon water change. During this time I noticed that my corals looked better and polyp extension was noticeably increased. With the new system up and running for a couple of weeks now, polyp extension is phenomenal. There are of course down sides. Nutrient reduction is not as effective this way as each days small water change is diluted before the next one happens. There are some graphs and figures out there (reef central even has an interactive calculator for water changes) that show to what extent, but I have a big skimmer and I’m careful to limit nutrient input as much as possible, so the slight decrease in nutrient export doesn’t worry me.

There are lots of ways to run a successful reef tank and this may not be for some folks, but I’m very happy with what it’s done for my tank and the automation has left me more time to enjoy the hobby.

Happy Reefing!

While I find them a beautiful animal, I’m not really a big fan of the Condylactis or Condy anemones…I’ve owned a couple over the years, but I’m always afraid of their tendency to go “walk-about”…enter my wife! She see’s several at the local fish store the other day and falls in loves with the bright white one’s with the pink/purple tips/hue…Pat, the store owner, says “I’ll make you a deal” (big surprise there, huh?)…long story short, we ended up with what Pat says is the largest Condy he’s ever seen…at any rate, so far so good…I knew exactly where I wanted it in the tank, and after some minor adjustments to rock placement and flow it seems to be happy there…I’ve included a couple of photos to show it’s size, but it’s hard to tell all the same (you can see some snails in the pics for reference)…I would estimate it to be close to 12″-14″ across and I’m afraid it has yet to fully inflate…oh and it eats like a pig, so I think we are out of the woods, and it may just be happy right where it is.

Happy Reefing!

The tank got away from me a little bit and I’ve slowly been battling back a mild algae outbreak.  On a recent visit to a local fish store, I came across a Sea Hare.  While I’ve long known about these creatures for some time I’ve never actually used it’s services before.  Let me just say that everything they say is true.  They consume algae like a vacuum cleaner, are very gentle hardly ever disturbing or knocking anything over and are tough as all get out. The tough comment comes after my Sea Hare (named Jaba, after Jaba the Hut by my kids) has twice been sucked up to a pump intake. Both times he was so stuck I had to dismantle the equipment and perform surgery to remove him. I can also report that the pretty purple colored ink they release when stressed is not toxic or damaging (at least not in a 200 gallon system). Anyway, Jaba has nearly completed his work in my tank and will soon be moving on to the other two tanks in our house (both my kids have nano reefs these days). After he is finished in those tanks we will have to see what happens as we may not have enough algae to sustain him. In that case we will find him a new home in someone else tank that needs his algae cleaning services.

Happy Reefing!

OK, I now it’s been a long time since a real post here.  I won’t make excuses; let’s just say life has been crazy and leave it at that!

So what’s new and exciting?  Well a few things are changed, but the most exciting without a doubt is my new lighting which was a slightly belated Birthday present from my wife.  After months of research I almost went with an LED setup, but in the end decided against it.  Metal Halide has it’s place, but I’m not really a huge fan of MH’s (heat issues, energy consumption, etc).  So I ended up choosing a High Output T-5 arrangement.  It a six bulb setup with individual reflectors all built into one retro fit unit that tucks neatly into my canopy.  I did a lot of reading and asking questions about bulbs, and it seems the consensus is ATI bulbs are tops, with Giesemann and UV not far behind (the first two are German made, and the Germs are well known for their advancement of the reef hobby).  I’ve chosen to run 4 x ATI Aquablue Special bulbs and 2 x Giesemann Actinic Plus.  The Aquablue’s are a very cool white 14,000K bulb and the Actinic Plus is a 60% blue and 40% true actinic.  The all actinic’s are too pink to suit me, but this bulb is very blue to the eye but still adds some nice fluorescence to most corals. All in all, I’m very pleased with the new lighting, Thanks hunny!

Happy Reefing!

I’m tired of trying to beat the spammers at their own game, so I going to fix them once and for all. From now on if you wish to leave a comment on this site you’ll have to be signed in. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I’m sick and tired of deleting spam comments. Thanks for your understanding!

It never ceases to amaze me all the little critters that hitchhike there way into our tanks. My latest find is that I have Limpets (sounds like I have a new disease, LOL). I noticed one on the glass about a week ago, and I’ve since discovered more in my sump, so I guess they are multiplying. I don’t know where they came from as I’ve not added anything to the tank that they could have hitchhiked in on in months (I started seeing them before I added my Birthday order), so I guess they’ve been in hiding for a while. Now while this does sound exciting there is a potential downside. Some Limpets are herbivores, meaning they are beneficial algae eaters but, there are a few species which are known to munch on corals. Fortunately, these species generally attack SPS type corals which I do not have in my tank. Beyond that, I’m fairly certain I have ID’d these as one of the algae eating species. Let’s hope so anyway!

Happy Reefing!