Me, Myself, & Sherman too.

[OmarD]

Was a very nice visit...thanks for sharing all your great stuff with me. --- Remember I am close by if you ever need another pair of hands to help with. --- right around corner almost...

Maybe you can come by and visit in AM sometime next week (when wife is at work) - she is terrified of me meeting other reefers, esp. those with larger tanks. --- ummm, can't imagine why

Scott

 

[jnarowe]

yeah I am trying to get over there. I would like to bring Sherman too, but he works most days. Sometimes he gets Friday off so maybe then?

 

[dhnguyen]

Was a very nice visit...thanks for sharing all your great stuff with me. --- Remember I am close by if you ever need another pair of hands to help with. --- right around corner almost...

Maybe you can come by and visit in AM sometime next week (when wife is at work) - she is terrified of me meeting other reefers, esp. those with larger tanks. --- ummm, can't imagine why

Scott

You have no idea how right your wife may be in her fears Scott. Jonathan has been trying to talk me into a "small" tank lately. Nevermind that small to him is 300 gallons or so :lol:

 

[jnarowe]

come off it Don, you could easily turn that guest bathroom into an in-wall display, get rid of that 50" flat screen, and make your kids stare at the tank! Or a nice 4' cube in the center of the room. You're wasting your talents on those sumps dammit! :lol: Heck, with all the sun you get on that lot, you could do a greenhouse system too!

 

[jnarowe]

So after months of deliberation I finally picked up a CBB from The Shark Reef. I know it is a risky fish for a reef like mine, but the 40+ peppermint shrimp in the display have done nothing to aiptasia population.

It's a small one that looks very healthy and I am acclimating him to the snail grow-out tank to be fed only aiptasia until I know he will take them out in the display.

Also, while I was at Eric's shop, I got to watch the Black Tip Shark eat a large grouper. Wow, that was something else!!! He tried to swallow it head first but it was way to big, so he re-grouped and attacked from the rear, biting down on about 1/3 of the fish. Once he had a good bite, he shook like a madman until he had bitten off the entire back third of the grouper, which I estimate to have been about 11 - 12" in total length.

After swallowing that, he took a couple laps around the tank and went back for another bite, taking about another 1/3 of the fish. What a site!

 

[jnarowe]

Pics!

I know I have been remiss in posting pics but time has been scarce and I still haven't gotten a better camera. So here are some in the meanwhile, though none too good:

 

[jnarowe]

 

[jnarowe]

As I was taking this picture with my poor-man's light box (just a sheet of acrylic held in my left hand), I dropped the sheet and it swayed through the tank, taking out a mille and landing on a fungia...

 

[dhnguyen]

Yeah your camera looks about as bad as mine J.

Hey Wally World is having a clearance sale on digi cameras. I saw some a Pentax SLR for like $300 and a Samsung SLR for $400. Not bad at all for SLR cameras then you can really do some serious macro shots

 

[jnarowe]

well, I have Nikon stuff already since I bought an N50 right before digital cameras came out! So I would like to be able to use what I have of that...

BTW, don't forget I have a frag for you. It has nearly doubled in size since I put it in there.

 

[dhnguyen]

BTW... Your MJ1200 is modded. Don't forget though there is no Aikido tomorrow.

 

[jnarowe]

No Aikido again? Why is that?

 

[dhnguyen]

testings tomorrow. I had a feeling you didn't know about it either :lol:

 

[jnarowe]

yeah, that doesn't mean that class is cancelled. In fact, it means that everyone should be there. Ari got his red belt.

 

[jnarowe]

Hey Don, what's up dude? How's that stand coming along? Are you going to post a build thread?

 

[dhnguyen]

Stand is mostly done. I have the doors still to figure out.

To post a build thread though, I would need a bunch of photos and well my camera sucks... Infact I don't think it even works right now. :lol:


Still need to figure out the sump and overflow though.

 

[jnarowe]

Some things to make note of:

1. The CBB has been eating the smaller aiptasia in the grow-out tank so that is definitely good news. I am going to wait a few more days and see if he can finish off a medium sized one, and then pop him into the display.

2. I deployed a Nguyen Maxi-Jet 1200 mod in the grow-out tank today and let me just say, it is freakin' unbelievable. I can't even guess as to how much flow, but I am quite sure it's well over 2000 gph. In fact it turned the tank into a whirlpool.

3. I tested the tank and water change water today also and got the following results:

Tank:
Mg: 1440ppm
dKh: 8.6
Ca: 430ppm

Water change:
Mg: 1200ppm
dKh: 7.6
Ca: 255ppm

So the tank is in OK shape but again bizarre results from the water change tub. Last test the dKh was below 3.0 and the Ca was above 350ppm. So this salt is very different bag-to-bag and a bit troubling right now.

Otherwise, tank is looking sweet. I am very happy with coral growth and color, as well as the health of the fish.

 

[jnarowe]

So, Sherman has swapped tanks out and decided not to include some animals from the old one...

So I now have a Sebae Clownfish, 2 cleaner shrimp, 1 coral banded shrimp, and some kind of a pincushion urchin in acclimation. I guess all of these present a risk on some level, but they have been model citizens in his tank so I will give them a try. The urchin will go into the overflow, and the rest into the display.

He also has some other stuff available to local reefers like some nice leathers including a very bright green mushroom leather (Tyree I believe), xenia, and blue damsel etc. His tank is totally looking sweet. It's a 90g tall and he has a really nice blue-tipped elegance and some sweet acans he just got from Eric. They are all really top-notch.

 

[jnarowe]

Interesting Thread: When Good LFS's Go Bad

 

[jnarowe]

tank room was a bit of a mess this morning with beer bottles and shot glasses...we had the Rogue Old Crustacean last night...and wow, what a bang! Greg also came over and the three of us talked reefs for a few hours. Sherman and I are working Greg towards turing his cichlid tank into a reef tank.

Too bad Don couldn't come over!

The sebae is keeping to the West end of the tank, well away from the maroons. It seems to be hovering over the hammer, which is interesting because that hammer was in his prevous tank a few months ago.

The CBB appears to be doing well. It has tried to socialize with the other fish but they apparently couldn't care less. The maroon has chased it off, and I saw it orient its spines towards the sebae in an interesting defensive move. No wounds on any of them so that looks good. The reef is doing well but I am definitely having a bown algae event that has me a little worried. Corals continue to grow nicely.