I've gotten super behind on updating the blog. ALOT of progress has been made since my last entry. In order to get caught up I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures and skip the commentary. So here we go . . .

5 Gallon Mantis Shrimp Tank progress:

Frogspawn




Full Tank Shot





55 Gallon progress:

Echinopora (I'm not for sure if it's Echinopora or Echinophyllia, but it's one of those)




Blue/Green Zoanthids




Green/Grey Zoanthids




Clown Goby






Blastomussa (not sure if this is Wellsi or Merletti, I think it's Wellsi)




Montipora Capricornus




Pink Zoanthids




Tube Anemone




Full Tank Shots










Ok, I think that covers most of the new additions we've gotten since the last update. Things are going pretty well, other than the fact that our Nitrates in both tanks have been averaging 15 ppm even though we've got refugiums now on both tanks, plenty of sand and live rock, we've cut down on our feeding and added more mangroves and cheato. We're still trying to figure out what the problem is. We will probably be getting a new fish tomorrow so more pictures and updates to come shortly.

After getting the mantis tank upgraded a little bit, Gary wanted to get a small cleanup crew for the tank as well as a damselfish to add some life to the tank. So far the mantis shrimp only comes out of hiding every few days, but just to where we can barely see it. It's not very interesting at all, and in between appearances we don't even know if the shrimp is still alive. So with a damsel in there we will have something more interesting to take care of and watch. Apparently they are also too fast for most mantis shrimp to kill, so the fish should be safe in there (I really hope). Gary is hoping maybe the cleanup crew will entice the shrimp to start killing, I'm hoping they will continue to escape death and keep the tank clean.

So we went to The Coral Palace and got 3 dwarf blue legged hermits, 1 small Atrea snail and 1 Nassarius snail for the clean up crew. And we got a cute little Domino Damsel.

Here is a picture of the Damsel:




Well the owner had just gotten a whole bunch of new stuff in and it was super tempting not to buy the whole store. He had in stock almost every fish we've been wanting. He also had some skunk cleaner shrimp which Gary has been wanting to get. So we got one of these as well.

Here is a picture of the skunk cleaner shrimp, he's very cool looking:




The owner also had in three different clown gobies yellow, black, and green. Gary and I had just decided recently that we would like to get one of these, so it was a cool coincidence that the store had them all of a sudden. We were so tempted to buy one right then, but we don't have the quarantine tank set up yet. We really don't want to take a chance not quarantining the next fish we get, so we decided to wait. We plan to get the QT set up and go back for the green clown goby this weekend. Hopefully he still has it.

I've been taking a lot of pictures lately and I want to post some better pictures of stuff that I've posted earlier, or didn't have pictures of at all.

I couldn't get a picture of the sea cucumber we bought earlier, so here it is now:




Here is a better picture of the Candy Cane coral than the one I posted perviously:




And here is a picture of the candy canes with their feeder tentacles out:




Finally here is a better picture of the Midas Blenny, which we have since named Haku:




Haku has been doing great! We've had him for a few weeks now and he's swimming around comfortably, perching on his favorite rock, and he's eating great (he's kind of a pig).

We still don't know if our feeding regimine is right or not but so far we've been feeding him once a day most days of the week and then on some twice a day. We typically feed around 6:30 pm either frozen mysis, frozen brine, or Sweetwater zooplankton and then some days we also feed in the morning either Prime Reef or Formula Two flakes. We soak the night time food in Seachem Garlic Guard. And then every other day or so we feed the tank Cyclopeeze which Haku also eats plenty of. Twice a week we add to the tank Seachem Reef Plus, which is Amino Acids and Vitamins, so we're not sure if we also need to get some Zoe or some kind of vitamin supplement to put in his food as well. But so far he's turning out to be a beautiful and happy fish!

Current Mood: content

Well now that we have the Mantis Shrimp in the 5 gallon minibow tank Gary wants to make the tank look nice. So over the past couple of weeks we've been working on some upgrades to fix it up.

The first night we put the mantis in there it was just barebottom with some rubble rock, pretty ugly. A couple days later we went to The Coral Palace and got a bag of CaribSea Aragalive sand.

Well in order to put the sand in we had to take the mantis out first. This was another excercise I was not excited about. Gary borrowed this floating basket thing from the owner of The Coral Palace, which is what he uses to float macro, and keep the mantis shrimp in that he currently has in the store. So he used a net to grab the mantis and put it in this floating thing and then floated it in the 55 gallon.

We weren't sure how long the mantis should stay in the floating thing though. We couldn't decide if we should put him back in the 5 gallon as soon as the sand settled, or if we should wait and see if there is a cycle and let it finish first. I knew I didn't want that mantis floating in the 55 gallon any longer than it absolutely had to. I kept getting visions of it getting out of the basket and getting loose in the 55 gallon. So we finally decided to put it back in the minibow as soon as the sand settled and just do water changes as needed if there was a cycle.

Here the basket is, with the mantis in it, floating in the 55 gallon:




Here the tank is after the sand settled:




After the next few days we ordered and received a microjet powerhead to replace the airstone we were using for flow and we got in a Coralife mini compact 50/50 bulb to replace the bulb that came with the minibow. Gary also fragged our silver branch xenia and moved a green striped mushroom to put in there.

Here is what the tank looks like now with the upgrades:




It's not great, but it definitely is better than before.

Current Mood: okay

Yesterday, while Gary and I were performing some maintenance on the tank, Gary noticed something moving around in the overflow area. After a closer look with a flashlight we realized we had a Mantis Shrimp in the tank!! Now, to me, this is horrible news and I immediately start to stress out, while to Gary, this is the coolest thing ever. Gary has been wanting to setup a tank for a Mantis Shrimp for a while now so this was his excuse to finally get one started.

Thankfully the mantis was in the overflow, so it wasn't in the main part of the tank, where we never would have been able to get him out. But the overflow is still not an easy area to get things out of. First of all Gary had to go quickly get set up the 5 gallon minibow that we had used previously as a quarantine tank but which was sitting empty. He took water out of the 55 gallon and put it in the 5 gallon. Then he took some rubble rock out of the refugium and put that in the 5 gallon as well. He let it run for a little while, letting everything settle, and then it was time for the big move.

At this point I was really starting to stress out because I'm imagining all these catastrophic things happening. In order to reach into the overflow we were going to have to take at least one of the pipes, if not both, out. So I was worried, what if we can't get the pipes back in, or what if the bulkhead pops out and all of the water from the overflow pours out onto the floor, what if something breaks, etc.

So far Gary was successfull getting the return pipe out of the overflow and had taken the couple of pieces of rubble rock that were down there out, but then he couldn't find the mantis anymore. During the process of taking out the rocks the mantis had gone down into the flexible tubing leading to the return pump. Thankfully the tubing is clear and we could see it in there. So now we had to disconnect the ball valve and the tubing from the return pump which wasn't easy. At this point I'm still picturing floods and other catastrophies happening at any moment. We then had to open the ball valve over a bucket until the mantis shot out of the tube and quickly close the valve again so that the entire overflow didn't empty into the bucket.

Now that the mantis was finally out of the tank (big sigh of relief from me) we had to put everything back together again. It was still a little scary, but everything went back together just fine. No catastrophes.

So now Gary has his mantis tank and it didn't cost us a thing. That part I'm happy about, but I am not excited at all about having this thing. We don't know yet if it is a smasher or slasher type but I'm not looking forward to finding out. I have no interest in seeing this thing kill and eat live food any time soon. But the good news is, if we hadn't have found it, and if it hadn't have been in the overflow, it would still be lurking in the 55 gallon somewhere, growing and getting bigger. We wouldn't even know it was in there until inverts and maybe even fish started to mysteriously disappear. I can't imagine what a nightmare it would be then to try to find it and get it out of the tank. So things certainly could have been worse, and Gary's happy, so that's good.

Here are a couple really crappy pictures of it. I haven't been able to get a good shot of it yet before it zips back under the rocks where I can't see it.

Current Mood: stressed

A few days ago I started talking to someone on www.reefmonkey.com who lives in Orlando. It turns out she works at a Fish Store there called Sea in the City. Since she is one of the most helpful and knowledgable people on the forum, we wanted to make a trip out to visit the store some time soon.

Well after trying to find some Cerith and Trochus snails locally for about a month now and still coming up empty handed we decided to call Sea in the City and see if they had any. They had both kinds in stock so decided to make the trip out there yesterday.

It took us about an hour to get to the shop but it was so worth it! The place was super small, so small there was only enough room for a few people at a time. But they had the largest and best selection of coral we have seen so far. They had tons of really good quality frags. Many of them were pretty small but at this time that's all we can afford, so for us it was perfect. They had a good selection of invertabrates as well. Their tanks were all super clean and their prices were amazing as well, not to mention everyone there was super friendly and helpful. I can't say enough good things about them.

So, like I said, we went to this place to buy snails, but we couldn't help but get more than that. We got 5 of each of the Ceriths and Trochuses. They had three different types of conchs available. We were interested in the conchs but thought they were all too big for our size tank, however, they had a Persian Conch which they said would not get that big. So we bought one.

Here is a picture of the conch, it's only about half an inch long:




And as I said, their selection of corals was amazing, as well as affordable. So we had to buy some. After deliberating over what to get for quite a long time we decided on some Ricordia, some Candy Cane and a rock with three purple Mushrooms on it. They had such a huge selection of Zoanthids that we couldn't decide. We will have to go back again just to buy some zoas next time.

Here is a picture of the Ricordia. The owner showed us that it has three mouths, which means it may split soon:




Gary has been wanting to get some Candy Cane badly lately, so we couldn't pass up on this nice frag with three polyps on it:




And finally, this rock with the three purple Mushrooms on it was such a great deal we had to get it as well:




We will definitely be going back to Sea in the City soon. They have their own forum which we have joined and the have raffles every few months for huge prizes. Thanks goes to Carole (waterfaller1) for letting us know about this great place!

Update on the Midas Blenny. He's doing great so far. He started off a little skiddish, mostly just hiding in a little tunnel in some rock, carefully watching us. By the second day he was eating and coming out every few minutes for short little swims before going back to his hiding place. Today he is swimming almost constantly, or perching on his rock out in the open. He ate a good bit today of pods and cyclopeeze. He seems to be doing really well, we're really excited! Now it's time to think of a name for him . . .

Current Mood: pleased

Well we hadn't quite yet decided when we were going to get another fish and give the QT another try. But there was a local reefer selling his entire tank and stock that caught our attention. He had a Midas Blenny for $20! These fish usually go for about twice that in the store. The Midas Blenny is the one fish I have been wanting the most.

So we deliberated as to whether we should buy it or not. We also talked about whether we would put it in the QT or the main tank. We finally decided this was too good a deal to pass up and that we would put the fish in the main tank. We felt like if this fish has been in this guy's tank for over a year it probably is in good health. But just in case we will not introduce any other fish into the main tank until after 6 weeks or more and we will watch it carefully for any signs of disease. If we do see any bad signs we will move the fish to the QT and leave the main tank empty for a good 6 more weeks.

So we got in touch with the guy and set up the transaction. Today we went out to his house and picked up the fish. He is a beautiful and healthy looking fish. We were so excited but still nervous. We will be watching him very closely and watching the Ammonia levels better this time.

Here is a picture of him perching on a rock. He seems to really like to hang out on and underneath this rock:




Before we went to go get the fish though, we stopped by The Coral Palace to get some RO/DI water. While we were there we noticed he had some sea cucumbers in stock. We've been wanting to get something more to clean up our sand as we have a lot of detritus and some more diatoms messing up the sand bed. So we decided to get one of the cucumbers. We believe it's a Tiger Tail, but it's still pretty small. I'll have to try to get a picture of it and post it later, so far it likes to stay tucked behind or in between the rocks.

Current Mood: nervous

Today Gary got a call from The Coral Palace saying that the mangroves we had ordered were in, so he went over there to pick them up. Well while he was there he just couldn't resist, and he bought a Yellow Gorgonian. We've both been wanting one of these for a little while now. I've been a little nervous about getting one, however, as they can be difficult to keep. They need to be placed in an area with low light but high flow because if algae forms on them it will kill them. But we feel like we have done enough research to take care of one of these, so we got one.

Here is a picture of the Gorgonian:




We found a spot for it we think will be perfect. We'll just have to keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't have any algae forming on it.

I also wanted to include a better picture of the Silver Branch Xenia. We moved it to a spot with higher light and a little less flow and it seems to be really happy there.

Here it is:

Current Mood: happy

We've been really needing to add to our cleanup crew lately, as the green algae on the rocks is getting worse. Unfortunately The Coral Palace has not been able to fill our order yet, so we went to Trident Pets to get just a few things to help get us by in the meantime. We got some more Astrea snails and some little blue legged hermit crabs as well as some Nassarius snails to help clean up the refugium. We also finally got three Peppermint shrimp! Gary has been wanting some shrimp badly and we have some Aiptasia we would like them to eat. The are really cool!

Here is a picture of one of them hanging under some rock:




The other day I came home and found that one of them had molted. It was a little gross but until our order with our tongs comes in we can't really reach the molt to get it out. Here is a picture of it (towards the bottom of the picture):




Yesterday, my friend and coworker, Steve, joined me in attending this month's meeting for the Brevard Area Reef Society. Steve has a 20 gallon tank with two fish and some Xenia and an Open Brain coral. We were really hoping to meet some people and make some connections with local reefers for the purpose of trading corals and equipment and advice. The meeting was hosted by one of the members at her house and she had a pretty nice tank even though it was only 3 months old. There were only a few other people there, not as many as we were expecting but it was good to talk to some other people and hear what they've got in their tanks, where they get what and what experiences they've had.

One of the bonuses of going to the meeting yesterday is that one of the guys there brought some Silver Branch Xenia frags with him to sell/trade. The Silver Branch is one of the types of Xenia I really like. Both Steve and I each bought a frag from the guy for $5 a piece! I couldn't believe how cheap that was and it was a good sized frag.

After I got the Xenia home and Gary and I acclimated it we were faced with the challenge of how place it in the tank. Unfortunately this frag did not come attached to a rock or anything, it was just free floating. We have no experience yet with how to attach coral to something so that it's not floating around in the tank.

First we tried just sticking it into a hole in a piece of rock. That worked for about a minute before the Xenia floated out of the hole and started to blow all around the tank! We ended up having to rearrange the entire tank trying to get this frag out from behind the rocks. At this point both Gary and I have both arms in the tank, our shirts are wet, the carpet is wet, etc. Gary finally gets the great idea to take a rubber band and gently use it to hold the frag against a piece of rubble rock. The rubber band did the trick and we found a place where we think the flow and lighting will be good for the Xenia, and that's where we placed it.

Here's a picture of it in it's new spot:




We're still not sure if it's getting too much flow where it's at, or perhaps we still need to adjust the flow throughout the tank. We'll just have to keep experiementing and watching it. Hopefully the Xenia will attach to the rock soon so we can take the rubber band off of it.

Finally, I wanted to throw in a full tank shot as it's almost been a month since we put the live rock in, to show the progress so far:

Everything in the tank is still doing very well. The diatom outbreak has completely subsided and taking its place is some green algae. We need to get some more snails to take care of it. The clean up crew is doing a good job, there just isn't enough of them. We're also noticing that coraline algae is growing everywhere! Everyday we see more purple on the rocks, even the base rock has some nice spots on all of it.

Water parameters are still good though:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
pH: 8.2

So we went to The Coral Palace today to see if the owner has had a chance to get the snails, shrimp and mangroves we ordered. Unfortunately he was not able to go to Tampa this week so we did not get any of the stuff we had ordered today. But since we were already in the store, we decided to buy a couple little coral frags.

There was a nice little green striped mushroom on a little chunk of rock we decided to get. The owner threw in another little frag with a bunch of star polyps on it. Both of the frags are pretty small but corals aren't cheap so it's a start. We're probably going to try to get most of our corals from other reefers who are selling their own frags, these tend to be cheaper, and by buying aquacultured corals it helps to preserve the natural coral reefs in the ocean.

So we got our little frags home and gave them a long acclimation time, just to be safe. It took some more time for them to open up completely after being placed in the tank.

Here is a picture of the mushroom coral:




And here is a picture of the star polyps:




As far as the fish and QT issue goes, we've decided we will give it another try this weekend. But after much thinking and getting some advice off of the www.reefmonkey.com forums, we decided to buy a bigger tank for the quarantine. We went to Wal-Mart and got a 10 gallon for $10. We're pretty much reusing most of the stuff we had for the 5 gallon, only a couple new things will need to be purchased, so it was a relatively cheap upgrade.

Here is a picture of the new QT all set up:




We've also made some decisions on things we will do differently this time. We're not planning on running in hyposalinity this time unless we see signs of disease on the fish. We want to keep things simpler this time, without adding more confusing steps that we could mess up. We've also moved the tank into our office so that we wont be walking by the tank so often and causing the fish any stress.

We're planning on getting another fish and starting the QT process again on Sunday. So I'll post again when that happens.

Today when I got home from work I couldn't see the new Firefish, I assumed he was hiding as he was still a little skiddish (sp?). So we put some frozen Brine shrimp in the tank to feed him and he still didn't come out to eat. At this point I was starting to get worried and moved in to take a closer look. He was lying on his side not moving. Gary got out the net and picked him up . . . he was dead.

So I checked the levels in the QT to see if the Ammonia was too high and it was 0.50 ppm. I honestly don't know what level of Ammonia is high enough to be lethal but I'm thinking that is what killed him. Let me back up and explain the actions we had taken up until this point, I'm sure to someone more experienced it will be obvious what mistakes we made.

The first night we brought the fish home we fed him some shrimp pellets after he had been in the tank for a couple hours. We did not see him eat and did not remove the food from the tank. This was probably our first mistake.

The second day I checked the levels and the Ammonia was up to 0.25 ppm. I guess we were afraid to do a water change so soon as it might stress the fish, I think this was a mistake, we should have done one that day. I fed the fish once in the morning, more shrimp pellets, which he ate some of, and once in the evening, some flake food which he didn't eat at all. Once again I didn't remove any of the leftover food from the tank. I was planning to do a water change the next day and would siphon out all the uneaten food then. The fish was starting to come out of hiding more often throughout the day and seemed to be getting more comfortable. Things were looking good so far.

The third day I decided to begin dropping the salinity for the hyposalinity treatment we had decided to do in order to kill any diseases the fish might have. We had read up about how to drop the salinity safely over a few days by removing 1/5 of the water volumn every 12 hours and replacing it with freshwater. I had decided to take this process even slower and do a water change every 24 hours instead.

So after feeding the fish shrimp pellets, a little less this time since it seemed I was overfeeding it before, we did the first water change. While doing the water change we decided to remove the fake rock that was in the middle of the tank. After each time we fed the fish, food would quickly be swept under the rock by the flow of the water, making it impossible to siphon out the food without rearranging the tank. We thought it would be cleaner and easier to maintain if there was only the PVC pieces in there. We siphoned up all the food that was leftover and it was quite a lot that had been sitting in there from the past two days. We obviously had been overfeeding and decided from here out, to feed less and quickly remove any leftover food from the tank after the fish has stopped eating.

It seemed like this water change and removing the fake rock process had really stressed the fish. We tried to do it as quickly and smoothly as possible but after that point we barely saw the fish come out of hiding in the PVC pieces again. Later that evening I fed the fish a shrimp pellet and he did not come out and eat it.

The fourth day we did not feed him in the morning and figured we would feed him and then do another water change as soon as we got home from work around 3 pm. Of course that is when we found him dead.

So the things I think we did wrong were:
1. We should not have had that big fake rock in there to begin with. It did give the fish a nice place to hide but it also kept us from cleaning up any uneaten food.
2. We were overfeeding the fish. We should have only put in a small amount of food and only if the fish ate that amount should we put anymore food in the tank.
3. We weren't cleaning out the uneaten food immediately, so it laid in the tank causing the Ammonia to rise.
4. We weren't testing and doing water changes often enough. Obviously since the tank is so small the Ammonia can rise much faster and we should have been much more strict about paying attention to that.

I feel so dejected right now. It was our fault the fish died, we caused a living thing to die because we didn't take good enough care of it. We did all this reading and research and it wasn't enough, we failed. I'm afraid to go get another one now because what if we mess up again and another one dies? Did we learn our lesson from this one, or am I wrong about what caused the fish to die and whatever it was we're going to do again?

We now have a dilemma facing us. We know that quarantining a fish is the right thing to do. We don't want to put a fish in the main tank that has a disease and then spread the disease and kill other living creatures that we've worked so hard to protect. But the process of quarantining the fish is so risky at the same time. Our QT is so small it takes much more work than the 55 gallon to keep the levels consistant and we're totally inexperienced on all of that, water changes, testing the levels, feeding, cleaning, etc. A 5 gallon tank should probably only be kept by experts and here we are, total newbies, putting our stressed out first fish in a 5 gallon. So what do we do, skip the quarantine process and risk destroying the entire tank, or do we stick with the quarantine and risk killing more fish because we are still inexperienced?

I will have to seek some expert advice on this one. Of course we're not giving up, but I do feel pretty sad and frustrated right now. We're going to wait a few days and try to figure out what we are going to do next. Whatever the next step is going to be I will of course post the updates.

Current Mood: depressed

The levels in the tank are still holding steady:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
pH: 8.2

When I got home from work today, Gary had surprised me, and had set up the quarantine tank already. We hadn't really talked about when we were going to get our first fish but I figured it would be in another week or so. But Gary decided today would be the day.

He had done a water change in the main tank and taken the water that was removed and filled the quarantine tank (QT) with it. In addition we had the filter pad from the QT submerged in the sump of the main tank so that it would be seeded with beneficial bacteria.

We had bought all the different supplies we needed. We got a refractometer to make sure we could accurately test the salinity so that we could do a hyposalinity treatment. We have an ammonia badge and some Amquel in case the Ammonia gets out of hand. We put some PVC pipes and a fake rock in there for places for the fish to hide. We covered the back and sides so that there would be less light and the fish would not be as stressed when we walk by the tank. We've been doing lots of research so we're ready to start the quarantine process.

Here is a picture of the tank all set up:




So we went to Coral Palace and picked up some more snails, this time we got 6 Astrea snails. Here is what one of them looks like:




And we noticed the owner had a Sea Star in one of the bags of coral he had acclimating in one of his tanks. We thought it looked like it would be a good size for our tank so we asked him about it. It turned out that he didn't even know he had picked it up with the coral, it was a hitchiker. So he let us have it for free! When we got home we looked up the exact type of sea star it was just to make sure it was reef safe and it turned out to be a Fancy Banded Serpent Sea Star, which are good. He seems to be nocturnal, so here is a picture of him at night filter feeding through a piece of rock:




We also picked up the live rock rubble that we had ordered last week for the refugium. The owner got 10 lbs and had us pick out 5 lbs for ourselves and he said he would take the other 5 lbs. Well 5 lbs turned out to be way more than we needed for our refugium, but they were really nice, coraline covered pieces. So we took the 5 lbs and had to cram it all in the refugium while putting a few of the bigger chunks in the main tank. Eventually we will probably take the bio wheel out of our wet/dry filter, so at that time we can take some of those bigger pieces and put them in the sump where the wheel was. We should be all set now for breeding pods in our nice live rock rubble piles!

So after picking up the snails, sea star, and rubble rock we picked out the healthiest looking Firefish Goby he had. We also got some food for it of course, some shrimp pellets and some Prime Reef flake food, we already had some frozen Brine shrimp at home.

So we brought it all home and acclimated everything. We put the Firefish in the QT and left the lights off in the house the rest of the night to help reduce any stress the fish might be going through. We're just going to have to be careful to move slowly when we are in front of the tank and not get too close unless we have to. We will feed him some shrimp pellets before we go to bed tonight.

Here is a picture of the new little fish (I took the picture with the flash off from a distance so I wouldn't scare him):




So for now he looks ok, we'll just have to monitor him closely and see how it goes.

I also wanted to add some pictures I took of the Emerald and Porcelain crabs we got a few days ago. These guys are so cool!

Here is the Porcelain crab filter feeding:




And here is the Emerald crab:




An update will be coming soon to show how the new fish is doing.

Current Mood: nervous

The cleanup crew that we added a few days ago has been doing great so far and our levels are as well:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
pH: 8.2

The only problem we've encountered so far is there seems to be what we think is a Diatom outbreak starting up in the tank. We've heard that this is totally normal and to be expected in a new tank, but it's still kind of gross looking. Everything is starting to turn a brown, dirty looking color. Here are some pictures:







But from what we've heard if you just continue to do things right the stuff will go away in a short time.

So we decided to go back to the Coral Palace and get a couple more crabs that Gary's been wanting. We got an Emerald Crab, which are good for eating green hair and bubble algae as well as the same stuff the Hermit Crabs eat. And we got a Porcelain Crab which is a filter feeder, and really cool to watch. In order to catch it's food it has these two legs that have what look like fans on the ends of them. The crab puts those fanned legs up into the flow of water above him and catches it's food in them like a seive. It then shovels whatever it's caught into it's mouth and does this over and over again. It's very cool.

We also put in an order for some more things we wanted that the owner didn't currently have in the store. We still want to get some Trochus and Cerith Snails as they are both very good snails to have.

We also wanted to get some Mangroves to grow in our refugium. Similar to the Shaving Brush macro we got the other day, Mangroves are very good at exporting Nitrates and Phosphates from the water, not to mention they're pretty cool looking as well.

And finally we ordered some live rock rubble to go in the refugium. Live rock rubble is supposed to be really good at creating a breeding ground for beneficial pods. Since we've decided not to grow Cheatomorphia in our fuge, which is a very popular method for breeding pods, we are going to try using the rubble rock instead.

So here is a picture of the Emerald and Porcelain crabs acclimating:




Over the past few days of staring at everything in the tank we've noticed a couple more hitchhikers that came in on the live rock.

At first I thought this thing was part of the rock but each day I noticed it was in a different spot on the rock than the day before and after I took this picture I've lost sight of it. So since I figured out it was something living I looked it up and it's a Chiton, which can be beneficial for a tank. Here's a picture:




This is probably the coolest of the hitchhikers so far, we noticed it a little while ago but I haven't been able to get a good shot because they are so tiny. But these are unmistakably a little colony of Zoanthids! There seems to be about 6 little polyps and we've noticed they're already a little bit bigger then when we first spotted them. Here there are:



Yesterday we started a dosing regimine that was recommended to us using a set of Seachem suppliments. The regimine is detailed at www.GARF.org and it's part of their Bullet-Proof Reef Recipe. So with these suppliments hopefully the little Zoas will start to grow faster. The Calclium will also help all of our clean up critters stay healthy as well.

Current Mood: enthralled

It's the end of week two after putting live rock in the tank and things are still going extremely well. We've been starting to get a little anxious as our levels continued to remain at 0 for everything. We're thinking maybe the live rock we got was so well cured that all of the beneficial bacteria was already built up in the rock enough that our tank has instantly cycled.

So in an attempt to try to force a cycle, in order to ensure the bacteria can handle any ammonia in the tank, we put some frozen brine shrimp in there to see what would happen. But still the levels are reading 0. We also have an ammonia badge in the tank for the cycle and it remains in the "Safe" zone. So we talked to the owner at our LFS and he confirmed our theory that our tank has already cycled.

So we decided it was probably safe enough to go get a small cleanup crew to start working on the algae and detritus that is starting to build up in the tank. We went to our LFS, The Coral Palace and got 7 Dwarf Blue-legged Hermit Crabs, 6 Scarlet-legged Hermit Crabs, 6 Turbo Snails, and 6 Nassarius Snails. We also bought a larger, different type of Hermit crab, called a Halloween Hermit. When Gary went with the owner of the store to Tampa to get the live rock, he showed the owner some Halloween Hermits and he liked them so he bought a few. They're pretty cool looking with orange and maroon striped legs. Luckily he had one left so we bought him. Finally, we noticed that the store had a bunch of new macroalgaes for sale. So we bought some Shaving Brush for our refugium, which is supposed to be a great macroalgae for reducing nitrates and phosphates.

Once we got home from the store we floated all of the bags in the tank for about 15 minutes to allow the water temperature to equalize between the bags and the tank.

Here's the Turbo Snails and the Scarlet-legged Hermits:




And here's the Nassarius Snails and the Blue-legged Hermits:




Then we emptied each of the bags into a bucket where we slowly dripped water from the tank, into the bucket for an hour, while periodically removing water from the bucket as it's replaced with the tank water:




Then it's time to gently place all of the critters in the tank.

Here's a picture of the Shaving Brush macro in the refugium:




Here it is again, with a Nassarius snail crawling on it:




Here's one of the Scarlet-leg Hermits:




Here is one of the Turbo Snails that happens to be HUGE:




And finally, the critter we're most proud of, the Halloween Hermit:




After we added all of the new critters we did our first water change of 10%. It was easy and went pretty well. We're hoping we didn't buy so many critters that we end up with a higher bioload than the bacteria can handle. We'll just have to keep testing and watch everything carefully. But we're so excited to have more living, moving creatures to watch. We can't stop staring at them all!

Current Mood: giddy

So it's been a week now since we put the live rock in the tank and our cycle officially began. Our parameters are doing great so far:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
pH: 8.2
Specific Gravity: 1.024

We're a little curious as to why the Ammonia hasn't gone up at all yet, but we're gonna be patient and give it time and see what happens over the next week.

We have noticed a super abundance of different little creatures that hitchhiked their way in on the live rock. We've been spending hours looking at them and research what everything is. Here are some pictures of some of the things we've found so far.

Here's a little snail we found, we think there is more than just one of these guys. From doing some research he is a Stomatella Snail. These snails rapidly reproduce at a rate that some consider a nuisance. I guess we will have to watch for this and hope it doesn't get out of hand:




Here's a little tube worm thing. We don't know what it's called yet:




We've seen some bristle worms, which are definitely beneficial to have in our sand bed. Here is a picture of a worm burrowing through the sand:




Here is another picture of a bristle worm coming out of a hole in a rock:




Here is a mussel we found. We put it in the refugium but a few days later lost sight of it. I'm thinking it's hiding in either the intake or outlet of the refugium filter feeding:




We've noticed some Aiptasia, a pest anemone, popping up on one of the rocks. We've been debating whether to get some Joe's Juice to get rid of them or just let them go until we can get some Peppermint shrimp to eat them. So far we've decided to watch them and see if they don't spread too quickly so that we can just get the shrimp to deal with them naturally. Here is a picture of one of them:




Finally, the most mysterious of all of the hitchhikers, is this creature that lives in a crevice of one of the rocks. I've been doing a lot of research and I believe it is a Corynactis or a Pseudocorynactis, I can't really tell the difference between them. It is from the Corallimorph family but it is commonly referred to as an orange ball anemone or a jewel anemone because it looks and behaves like an anemone. This one that is in our tank only comes out in the dark, and if we shine a flashlight on it, it retreats back into it's crevice. I've read conflicting opinions as to whether it is a pest or not. So for now we are going to watch it carefully and let it stay where it's at. It's actually pretty cool looking:




So for now we wait and keep testing our parameters to see what to do next and when. So far so good.

Current Mood: optimistic

So as planned, this morning at 4 a.m. Gary set out to Tampa with the owner of The Coral Palace to pick out and purchase our live rock. After almost three months we finally have it!

Gary had a great time seeing what a wholesale marine business looks like. He got first pick on the live rock in this entire place. He picked out some awesome pieces that added up to 44 lbs of regular Fiji rock and 10 lbs of Fiji branch rock. I think we ended up with more than 10 lbs of the branch but two of the large branch pieces were in the tank with the regular Fiji, so we paid the regular Fiji price for them.

Once Gary got all of the rock home we laid it all out on some towels.

Here is most of it on some towels:




Then Gary took each piece one by one and cleaned them really good with a bucket of saltwater and a toothbrush. This was to get off all the dead stuff and to look for anything bad, like algae or pest critters.

Here he is cleaning a piece of rock:




While cleaning one of the rocks Gary found a hole-boring clam that he had to dig out:




Here's the tank after a few pieces were added:




Here is the tank again after a few more:




And here it is finally, with all of the rock added and the aquascaping complete:




Here it is from the right:




Here it is from the left:




We were trying to make sure to create a lot of nice caves, tunnels, and arches for the fish to hide in. There is not as much of a rock mound like you see in most tanks but this arching/branching/ornamental look was what we were going for and we're really happy with it.

So now that we finally have all of our live rock the real cycle begins. I'll post small updates during the cycle with pictures and parameters and any details or problems that arise. We're so excited, now the fun really begins!

Current Mood: accomplished

Ok, so we had been talking about getting a Refugium at some point. We knew we had no space for one inside our sump so we'd have to get a hang on the tank or some other kind of seperate unit refugium. Well Gary decided to go ahead and order us one now, deciding it would be best to have it installed and cycling at the same time our main tank is cycling. So that arrived yesterday.

We got the large CPR AquaFuge External Hang-On Refugium, which measures 25-1/2"L x 4-1/2"W x 12"H and is about 4.7 gallons. It comes with a Rio 600 pump for the intake.

Here is a picture of the front of it:




Here is the back of it, notice it's painted black already, so that light wont bleed through to and from the main tank:




Here it is from the side, installed on the tank:




Here it is from the top, installed on the tank:




So today, Gary went down to Trident Pets (we usually do most of our business with the Coral Palace but the owner had been signed up for and won a Father's Day makeover on the Today Show so the store was closed while he was in New York City for all that) to buy some more RO/DI water, a 20 lb bag of live Aragonite sand, and (to my surprise) a couple lbs of live rock to put in the refugium.

The rock Gary got is from the Gulf of Mexico and it comes covered in Coraline algae and potentially many other living creatures. He picked out two small pieces of rock, each with some macro-algae already growing on them. We think there is Codium Fragile on one of them and maybe a type of Halimeda on the other. He also got a mussel shell covered in Coraline algae.

First he filled with water and placed some PVC pieces with some egg-crate on top inside the refugium, and placed the live rock pieces on top of the egg-crate. This was so that any debris on the live rock would fall down to the bottom of the refugium making it easy to siphon all that stuff out before putting the sand in.

Here the live rock is, sitting on the egg-crate:




Then, we took the live rock out and placed it in a bucket of salt water with an air stone.

Here the live rock is, chilling in the bucket:




After siphoning out all the junk we could from the refugium (we actually found a bristle worm and a micro star which we put back in the refugium once the sand was in), we dumped the entire 20 lb bag of sand in. We had decided that we wanted to have a Deep Sand Bed in the refugium to get some Nitrate reducing benefit, since we have a Shallow Sand Bed in the main tank. After the sand storm settled we placed the rock back in the refugium.

Here is a side view of the rocks and sand:




Here is a top view of the rocks and sand:




So we're very excited to finally have a little bit of life in the tank. Only thing now is we need to find a light to go on the refugium ASAP. We're not sure how long the rock and macro-algae can go without any light whatsoever. We certainly don't want to lose any of the life on the rock. So we're trying to find an inexpensive light that is the right dimensions, wattage, and Kelvin rating.

We've talked to the owner at The Coral Palace, Ralph (the one who got the makeover), about Gary going with him to Tampa this upcoming Monday to finally buy our live rock. Gary's supposed to meet him at 4 a.m. for the two hour drive to Tampa. He'll get to handpick all of our rock and probably get some help from some experts while doing so. Hopefully he'll learn some things while he's there, so that should be a cool experience. We're so excited, finally live rock, woo hoo!!

Current Mood: excited

I just got back from a four-day weekend in the Florida Keys, taking some time off and celebrating my birthday with my husband and co-workers. When we got home we had another shipment of stuff waiting for us, woohoo!

We ordered a test kit from Aquarium Pharmaceuticals for testing the Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, and pH levels in the tank once we start cycling it. We didn't really know what brand of test kits to buy, some people recommended this one and it was pretty cheap so we went with it. Probably once we get more in depth and have more requirements for more precise parameters we will start buying the Salifert tests, but for now those are too expensive.

Here is our test kit with an algae scrubber/scrapper tool we got as well:




The pump for our UV Sterilizer came in as well today so we went ahead and hooked that up in the sump. We got a MaxiJet 400 which is 106 gph. We figured that would make the flow of water through the UV Sterilizer slow enough that the water contact time with the bulb would be long enough to kill more of the bad stuff (algae spores, bacteria, protozoa (like Ich), disease-causing pathogens, etc).

Here is the UV Sterilizer hooked-up:




Before we left for the Keys we got our Quarantine Tank on a spree buy while walking around Petco. It was a 5 gallon Mini-Bow on clearance for around $30. After looking at a lot of the other tanks, once you added up the cost of the tank, lighting, and filter they were around $50 and up. So we thought this was a good deal and jumped on it. After we got back from the Keys we bought an air pump, some air stones, a heater, and one of those Ammonia Alert tags, then we filled it up with some good-ole tap water and tested it all out.

Here it is with some decorative junk in it running (we wont be leaving that in there while quarantining of course):




That's it for now, I think maybe in a few more weeks, after we recover from this vacation we just took, we'll be ready for some live rock . . . finally.

Current Mood: tired

The salt was finished mixing up yesterday and we decided to go ahead and put the rock and sand in. Gary cleaned all the base rock off really well with the hose outside. After it was done drying we brought it inside and decided how we wanted to arrange it in the tank. We decided to putty a few of the pieces together to make them more stable.

Here it is while we're discussing the aquascaping:




Loco was overseeing the process:




As was Lalo:




The putty took 30 minutes to dry. We drained out what we thought would be enough water to give space to the rock and sand, and then we went ahead and placed the rock in the tank.

Here is the rock arranged in the tank:




Once we decided we were happy with the rock placement we poured the sand into the tank. The sand we decided to use was the CaribSea Arag-Alive Bahama Oolite Sand. We used 3 bags and were aiming for a 1 - 1.5 inch sand bed.

Here's the sand storm after pouring in all the sand:




By the next morning the sand had all settled. After using a turkey baster to blast most of the sand off the rocks and even it all out here is what it looked like:




We're happy with the depth of the sand bed so we wont need to go out and buy any more sand. It looks like we're done with everything until it's time to go get the live rock, which we're still planning on waiting until after our trip to the Keys. We ordered a test kit set and once that comes in we'll start testing our levels.

Current Mood: ecstatic

The salt we ordered arrived today and we had been thinking about going ahead and buying some base rock ahead of time so that we would already have it by the time we get our live rock. So while buying our base rock in our LFS, Coral Palace, the other day, we asked the owner if he thought it would be beneficial at all to go ahead and start cycling the tank with the sand and base rock only or if we should just wait until we have the live rock. He said to go ahead and get started cycling with the base rock. So we decided to get started today.

We went back to the LFS to get our 55 gallons or so of RO/DI water. We only had two 5 gallon jugs so we were expecting to have to make at least six trips and perhaps not have enough time to get it all today. But when we got to Coral Palace, the owner had a whole bunch of 4.4 gallon jugs he let us use so it only took us two trips instead.

Here Gary is filling up the tank with the RO/DI water:




Here's the base rock we bought. Gary picked out some nicely shaped porous pieces. We should be able to create some nice caves and tunnels with them:




After getting all the water in the tank and sump we measured out all the salt we needed based on the instructions on the back of the salt bucket into another bucket:




We put in an extra powerhead that we bought for mixing up water-change water and then just left it to mix overnight. Here it is mixing:




The other thing that arrived in the mail today was my birthday present from Gary. He'd been doing a lot of research and decided that we needed a UV Sterilizer. We still need to get a pump for it but it only needs from 100 - 200 gph, so a MaxiJet 400 will do. Here is the UV Sterilizer we got:




Once the salt is mixed up and the salinity level is right we will go ahead and put the sand and base rock in. We're hoping to get it all done tomorrow.

Current Mood: anxious

After lots of time and research we finally settled on the protein skimmer we wanted to buy and found a good deal for it. We decided that based on the limited amount of space in our sump, we were going to go with the Aqua-C Urchin Pro. The dimensions are roughly 8 " x 3.25" and about 20" tall. I had also read an abundance of good things about the Urchins and pretty much nothing bad.

I got a tip from someone on the forums that you can contact Aqua-C and ask if they have any slightly imperfect (scratched or blemished without effecting the performance) or refurbished models (brand new Remoras converted to Urchins) for sale. So I contacted Aqua-C and I got a great deal on a refurbished Urchin Pro (handles 75 gallons and up) for $100. It didn't come with a pump so I ordered a Mag Drive 3 from Marine Depot for about $40. So total cost for a skimmer that normally retails for about $227 was $140!

So now that the skimmer has arrived and we have all of our equipment it was time to do the full tank test run. So my husband, Gary, and I carried the tank and stand out to our patio. This was a fairly scary experience. The tank and stand weren't heavy but there was nothing to really grab on to, so every couple of steps we had to put it down. I kept visualizing the entire tank just tipping over and shattering into a million pieces on the ground. How heartbreaking would that be?!

Anyway . . . we got it all outside without any accidents and started filling up the tank with water from the hose as shown here:



It's a good thing we did move the tank outside because we got water everywhere. Once the tank was full we let the Overflow run completely out into the sump to see where our Maximum Water Level on the sump would be in case there is a power outage or something. Then we turned on all the equipment. Once everything equalized we determined our Operating Water Level. It took some trial and error of adding more water to the sump and turning things off and on and moving things around until we got it all right.

Here is the sump and the skimmer running:




Final result: no leaks, no malfunctions, everything is set now and working ok. In addition to all this we got a little break in lesson on how all this stuff works and what to expect, which was really useful.

After we stared at how cool it was just to see water moving around in the tank, we let it run for a couple hours and then drained it. Draining the tank took about 30 minutes or more. It was dark outside so we got eaten up by mosquitos and soaked from all the siphoning and carrying buckets of water. Then we cleaned everything up and brought the tank back inside.

Overall the process was not fun but it was uplifting to see everything working properly.

Now we're ready for salt, sand, water and live rock. We've been buying the sand already and the salt has been ordered. As of now we're planning on waiting a few weeks until after our vacation to the Keys to get the water and live rock. That part is going to be expensive. ( >.< )

Current Mood: tired