Happy Holidays!!!

Merry Christmas (belated) and Happy New Year!  It has been a hectic couple of weeks here, what with all of the family events and things to do.  But, rest assured that my tank saw a lot of action this week (some good, some bad).

I have my first death to report.  The baby half moon angel died after just a week in the tank.  He disappeared for a few days (he was getting harassed) and he showed up dead a few days before Christmas. 

In the meantime, I got a nasty outbreak of both hair algae and cyanobacteria.  And, at the same time, my macroalgae (chaetomorpha) was melting away in my refugium!  Oh no... 

This was so much easier in my little 14g BioCube (where it was supposed to be so difficult).

Well, I managed to figure out the problem in the fuge, I think.  The lights were too close to the water and the chaeto was cooking.  Apparently, it is very temperature sensitive!  So, I raised the lights and it seems that the chaeto is coming back nicely.

My cyano is going away, but the hair algae is still there in full force.  I will give it some time and see what happens.

Meanwhile, my elegance coral bit the dust.  That hurts!

And, the other Christmas present from my wife, the majestic angel had experienced a lot of stress in the new tank and his color was fading badly. I am doing Melafix in the main tank because we could not catch him (and we tried for a half hour) and he seems to be doing a little better.

Who says a bigger tank is easier than a small one?

But, the good news is that everyone else is doing very well.  And I got three firefish for Christmas from a family friend.  

The rest of the fish and coral look great!

Jay (from the Delaware Valley Reef Club) gave me four SPS and they are doing great too!  I got a Tyree Pink Lemonade, ORA Cali Torte, ORA Fuzzy Blue Stag, and one other from Jay!  All beautiful!

More to come!  Happy New Year!

My "early" Christmas Present

Well, my wife took me for a drive on Saturday and we went up to  AZ Pets & Pondz in Reading.  What a great fish room.  She took me there to buy my Christmas present.  I got 2 fish.  First was a majestic angel.  What a beautiful fish.  Really nice colors.  And there was a little tiny half moon angelfish juvenile, couldn't be more than the size of a quarter.  So, I bought him too.

I really love both of these fish.  We will see how they do in the tank however.  So far, my yellow tang is annoying the majestic and the 6-line wrasse is annoying the baby half moon.

I also bought myself a little early Christmas present, an elegance coral. For those of you not familiar, the elegance is a beautiful coral that was once in abundance.  These corals were great for beginners and very hardy.  But over the last couple of years, they have gone down hill, where recent stats show as few as 1 in 30 surviving.  But, I got mine from Australia, which is about the only place you can get an elegance that will survive.  So far, so good.  I have had it for only 10 days though.

Also, I got some nice frags from Angel at the DVRC Holiday Party. 

Here are some of the latest pics of my tank and some not-so-good shots of the two new fish.

 

 

 

My 125g ate my BioCube!!!

Well, I made the BIG move last night.  It took almost 3 hours with all of the drip acclimation, but I moved the contents of the BioCube into the main tank!

First, I drained some of the water and put it in a Tupperware  container.  Then I took out the corals that were not fully attached to my main rock.  I let them drip acclimate for 45 minutes and then placed them in the tank.

Then, I drained much more of the water and pulled out the rock (it was one large piece).  I used a razor to scrape off all of the bubble algae and placed it in a larger tub.  That rock had the  following on it:

• 6-7 ricordeas
• 1 bubble-tip anemone
• a blue zoa colony with about 18 heads

I also removed the fish and put them in the same container which I drip acclimated for another 45 minutes and then did some minor aquascaping to make room and put everything in the new tank!

So far, all looks okay.

The anemone is on the move trying to hide a little more.  The fish are all a little skittish.

I put the trumpets too high I think and the branching frogspawn in the direct path of too much flow, so I will have to move them, but otherwise, all looks stable.

The leather looks great and my ultra crocea clam looks better than ever!

I am running the halides on a shorter schedule to help them acclimate since they were all previously under 48w of power compact lighting.

Once I get my camera out of my wife's purse, I will upload some pictures.

Which brings up another point.  What do I do with the BioCube?  My wife bought it for me for Christmas last year.  It is now empty (and I have to clean it out).  I don't want to sell it because she gave it to me.  I think she might be upset too.

Maybe I can convince her to make it a sea horse tank!!!  lol... not likely...

Scientists trying to save Coral Triangle

Wow... 2 articles in 2 days about the reefs dying...   I hope everyone is paying attention.   

For time beyond memory on this remote bay of neon fish and underwater gardens, people have avoided the "masalai," taboo waters, where a monster octopus might lurk or spirits dwell in coral caves. Now it's science that wants no-go zones in Kimbe Bay, and it's because of a new fear.

From the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean to the central Pacific, global warming and the sea's rising temperatures have been "bleaching" and killing the world's coral reefs.

It's in Kimbe Bay, and in the surrounding triangle of sea stretching from Indonesia up to the Philippines and down to the Solomon Islands, that the strange, beautiful form of life known as coral may someday have to make its last stand.

Read more...

Using electricity to revive the reefs in Bali

There is an excellent article from the AP on how low-voltage electricity is being used to stimulate the reefs to grow. 

While it is impractical to be used on a large scale, the results are impressive. 

Read more...

The things we find...

hiding in live rock.

So far my list of interesting things found in my live rock include:

• many bristleworms
• many peanut worms
• a beautiful, full size feather duster
• 2 asterina starfish
• multiple outcroppings of an as-of-yet unidentified red marine plant/shrub
• 2 very cool, but altogether different chitons. (to the right)
• I also believe I found a small bubble-tipped anemone, but it is almost too small to be sure.  It is about the size of a small zoanthid head right now.

Can't wait to see what else pops up!