Stuart's Reef

Carbon Dosing

2010-09-13T19:04:00.000-07:00

Back to work today... I decided to conservatively begin carbon dosing, using distilled white vinegar as the organic carbon source, to reduce phosphates and improve the health of the sps corals.

The dose I started with is 0.8ml/25gal. x 18gal. = 0.6ml per day. I'm adding it at the same time as the usual alkalinity supplement to hopefully reduce pH swings.

Zoanthids

2010-06-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos of our zoanthids. All of them are from Florida. Except for the yellow "paly's" that I collected last week, these were purchased from sealifeinc.net.

Happy Fathers Day!

Spring Cleaning

2010-05-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

I finally got tired of looking at the hair algae growing up from the bottom of the birdsnest coral at the top of the tank... so I pulled it off and cleaned it as best I could. It is now resting on the sand bed, and hopefully the algae will rest in peace!

Of course, I had to replace it with something! I picked up a good size gold and green Acropora frag from Chris' store, and while I was there noticed a great deal on a red, tabling Acropora frag, so...

Here they are photoadapting on the bottom of the aquarium. Decent photos from Ryan of the corals in their final position coming soon!

The hermit crab seems very interested!

New Coral Update

2010-05-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I picked up this branching torch coral (Euphyllia glabrescens) from Einstein Aquatics. I attached it to a piece of coral rubble, and it seems pretty happy in the back of the tank. (I'm sure that Ryan will be glad to know that I am putting the random rocks I drag home from vacation to good use!)

Hopefully Big Girl will decide to hang out here, instead of the pump outlet she is currently using as her home...

Finally, a good photo!

2010-04-18T12:41:00.000-07:00

Ryan has been taking a photography class, and last week turned her skills on the aquarium. She was a more talented photographer to begin with, and pretty soon it will be ridiculous. She took this without a flash or anything. Anyway, I was lucky enough to get a copy of this shot of the two Montipora capricornis corals. Enjoy!

For comparison, here is an older photo from August 2009. You can see they have grown pretty well since then. I even broke a decent piece off of the orange colony since then!

2010-04-04T20:25:00.000-07:00

I did a little tank maintenance last night, such as cleaning the circulation pumps and pulling out some of the hair algae (bryopsis) so here are some new (and hopefully improved) photos. I also started dosing amino acids for the corals today, in lieu of feeding them as regularly. The idea is that the amount of nutrients in the water will decrease while the health, color, etc. of the corals will improve. This concept is the brainchild of Chris at Einstein Aquatics. There should be noticeable changes in coral colors in a couple of months, so it will be interesting to look back at these photos then.

Front:

Side. Note that I brought the Hill acan up from downstairs. It does not look very good.

The tuxedo urchin has started camouflaging itself with random objects from the bottom of the aquarium:

Updated Tank Shots

2010-04-03T20:53:00.000-07:00

Here are some updated tank shots from today...

There is a new member of the "clean-up crew"; it is a small tuxedo urchin.

Update!

2010-03-21T20:20:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a long time since I posted anything so an update is more than overdue. We have had a long battle with bryopsis and then cyanobacteria, but I'm cautiously optimistic that it is over. If I take any reefkeeping lesson from that process, it is that shortcuts don't work- patience is the best approach to any challenges...

Here is a frontal photo of the aquarium:

Here are the three fish... Yes, three, Little Boy is no longer with us; he died from a swim bladder disorder a couple months ago, unfortunately. Big Girl seems to miss him, or at least miss bossing him around! You can also see a brand new frag in the middle of this photo...

This is a photo of the frag with the aquarium lights on. It is a Turbinaria spp. coral that I was unable to resist (at 30% off) when I picked up some supplies from the fish store. Einstein Aquatics was having an 2nd Anniversary Sale. Congratulations Chris!

This is the same coral with the lights off. The polyps are really extended and looking cool; I hope they'll start looking like this during the "day" as well.

The blue-green Acropora coral has started to grow extensions from its branches, and it has also gotten bluer... I hope this is a good thing. The photo below is from November of last year.

Trip to the GA Aquarium

2009-11-24T19:37:00.000-08:00

Evie and I just had a Father-Daughter weekend. This may sound a little off-topic, but the highlight was a visit to the Georgia Aquarium. I was hoping she would enjoy it as much as she did last time, and her expression as we were waiting in line gave me some hope!

The first view we had was the Jack Crevalle exhibit, where the jacks swim around and around on either side of the aquarium entrance.

The next stop was the Pacific Sea Nettles (jellyfish). This is the one display where the creatures swam slowly enough for me to photograph with my camera phone! (No iPhone here...)

Evie seemed to enjoy watching the jellies float by (they were somehow floating in a loop from top to bottom) but was not overly impressed.

The next stop was the highlight of the trip- the Pacific Reef Slope. We spent a lot of time watching the reef fish (and a couple of blacktip sharks) swim by. This display earned a good number of claps and excited yells!

Here is a video of Evie enjoying the fish swimming by:

Of course, we visited the famous Whale Shark exhibit on the way out. It was interesting, but not too exciting- where did all of those colorful fish go?

At the end of the afternoon, there was one tired baby (and Daddy!) We hope to come back soon.

New Coral

2009-11-17T19:07:00.000-08:00

I picked up a bright pink Porites coral frag over the weekend. It cost more than $5, but it didn't cost $20, but still... don't tell Dave Ramsey.

Here is a photo of the new coral:

And a random photo of Big Girl and Little Boy swimming in formation. :)

Coral growth update

2009-11-13T15:17:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned earlier, the Acropora corals are looking especially good since we left them in Chris and Emily's care. :)

Here are some recent photos of the yellow $5 frag, and green just-a-little-more-than $5 frag. Looking back, the green coral has grown radially very visibly whereas the yellow one has only encrusted, but substantially, since July. I think it is about to branch; look at the lower right side of the colony where the corallites are extending noticably from the face of the colony. I still have no idea what the common or species names of these corals are, although I saw a similar yellow frag at a store in Orlando a couple months ago. Please post a comment if you have an idea...

Here is the same area again from the side. The area that is hopefully about to branch is more visible from this angle:

This is the same area in July. You can barely notice the yellow Acropora, and its color is much more muted.

I don't think that a photo of this Montipora digitata frag has been posted before. It was such a pathetic little nub originally, stuck in the back of the aquarium, that I doubt I had any desire to publicize it... It has encrusted on the rock pretty well now, is starting to form 4+ new branches. I'll post another photo once it grows out some more.

Aquacultured Coral Spawning

2009-11-09T20:20:00.000-08:00

The below link has a description and videos of aquacultured Staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) corals spawning at Molasses Reef in the Florida Keys. These colonies were originally started by the Coral Restoration Foundation at their undersea nursery as small fragments in either the spring of 2005 or the spring of 2006, and were transplanted to their current location at Molasses Reef in the summer of 2007.

http://www.coralrestoration.org/CRF/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12:articlespawningcorals&catid=4:categorynewsreefblog&Itemid=13

This is a great success story!

Thanks Chris!

2009-11-05T20:02:00.000-08:00

... and Emily too of course! Chris with Einstein Aquatics came by the house a couple of times while we were on vacation to check in on the aquarium. This let us relax just a little bit more on vacation, and it seems like the corals are in better shape now than before we left... :)

Coral Gardens, TCI

2009-10-30T20:31:00.000-07:00

I snorkled the Coral Gardens inshore reef this afternoon. Visibility was mediocre due to the tide and time of day, but it was still fun. in a nutshell, I would suggest this site over Smith's reef since it is easier to access from most hotels on Grace Bay, and seems larger.

View Larger Map

Fish diversity and abundance was as good or better than Smith's Reef, and there was a greater diversity of stony coral species, including some good looking brain, Siderastrea and Montastrea coral colonies of various sizes, although as at Smith's there were Montastreas that appeared to be ill. There were some large Porites porites heads as well, that appear to be recovering from storm damage. This is a web image of a Siderastrea colony.

Macroalgae growth was much more controlled, maybe due to the greater number of parrotfish? This was a nice surprise, since the reef is off of Beaches resort, without a doubt the largest one on the island boasting 15 bars and restaurants! (We liken it to a beached cruise ship :-) ) I could clearly hear the Parrots munching on algae.

I did see at least four lionfish. Finding a submerged stick, I was as able to severely harrass a couple of them. It made me feel better, of nothing else...

Ray Ray and I plan to dive this area again in the morning.

Diving at Smith's Reef, TCI

2009-10-30T12:09:00.000-07:00

This morning while the girls were asleep I went snorkeling at Smith's Reef, an inshore reef near Turtle Cove Marina. (Here are the coordinates if you're interested: +21° 47' 15.73", -72° 13' 20.54")

View Larger Map

The islands were directly hit recently by a hurricane recently, so the coral was not in good shape, but it was still in better shape than the inshore reefs we saw in Anguilla. The shore is developed with villas and homes, so that cannot help either. There were a lot of fish to see, including a good number of small groupers, a small moray, and a juvenile blue angelfish, so fish watching was a lot of fun. I saw no spiny lobsters at all, which was surprising, and no lionfish, which was a pleasant surprise. I also noticed a large yellow octopus down in a cave, probably the biggest one I've seen while diving.

The macroalgae had not overgrown the dead coral and rock here as badly as in Anguilla, but there was very little surviving brain coral and no Acropora corals at all. There were some isolated massive star corals (Montastrea sp.) however they seemed not to be growing back well, and a couple were visibly bleaching/receding. There were surprisingly few parrotfish and Diadema sea urchins, so maybe that's why. Diadema urchins and parrotfish are important species in controlling algae that can otherwise overgrow and smother reef buildiung corals.

There was a great diversity of gorgonians, though few sea fans, and the Porites astreoides (mustard hill coral) seemed to be growing back very well. These colonies were all over the place, and were a vivid yellow color.

Apologies for the lack of photos. Our underwater camera broke, so these pictures are similar photos linked from other web sites.

Here are a couple of relevant links if you are interested in coral reef recovery and conservation. Hopefully we can dive at the Coral Gardens before we leave, and post a description of that dive as well.

Coral Restoration Foundation in the Florida Keys

Write-up of a study of near shore coral habitats from the U of Miami, found by accident in looking for photos to link. :) Near shore Coral and Epifauna Diversity

Lionfish!

2009-10-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

I found a pair of lionfish lurking in an old tire in front of our hotel. It is sad that this invasive species has spread this far, and that the aquarium hobby is ultimately responsible.

Check out lionfishhunter.blogspot.com

Good news, maybe bad news?

2009-10-12T14:25:00.000-07:00

The gray finger leather is looking better, here are some photos from yesterday:

On another subject, the green Montipora capricornis that turned brown when the old light bulb went bad is looking... different. There is a patch of light green, but I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing...

This is a closeup of the weird area:

Yikes

2009-10-08T15:03:00.000-07:00

I came home from work to see the gray leather coral looking like this:

Not sure what to make of it- it may be a natural phase but it's the first time since we got it, so I'm going to look into it...

Sorry for the long pause in posts, but I've been a little under the weather. :)

Coral growth

2009-09-11T19:42:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be interesting to look back on how much a "mystery" Acropora frag has grown since we got it back in July. Here are some sequential photos- its footprint is about twice as large now. (Still no idea what species it is exactly!)

July:

August:

September:

Aquascaping

2009-09-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

Too many $5 coral frags means not enough space to put them, so Ryan had the great idea of creating a new rock outcroping to attach some of them to. There were some extra pieces of dry rock from when we set up the tank this Spring, so with a little bit of epoxy and some artistic input from Ryan I created a new rock to set in the right rear corner of the tank. Since most of the frags are adhered to "plugs" which are kind of a pain to set into rock work, I drilled some 1/2" holes into the rocks that could receive the plugs before putting them into the tank. Here is the new rock ready to go.

Here are some photos of the rock in the tank, before and after the three frags were attached to it. It's kind of hard to see, but then again it went a long way toward cleaning up the frag junk yard in the front of the tank!

Before:

After:

Updated Tank Shots

2009-08-31T17:27:00.000-07:00

We moved the new corals around, and here is how the aquarium looks today...

Front:

Left side:

Right side:

Ryan found a really good location for the new purple sea blade:

Gorgonians new and old:

Collecting Trip

2009-08-29T07:56:00.000-07:00

After a business trip in Miami, I spent Thursday night at Nana and Papa's beautiful condo in Key Largo. After a very good night's sleep, I stopped by Harry Harris Park on the way back to the airport. For no particular reason other than where boats and fishermen were not, and the direction of the wind (from the SE) I decided to snorkel on the leeward side of the north boat ramp breakwater. Snorkeling is one of my favorite activities (I've done it in the Everglades, mangrove swamps, the Gulf Stream- pretty much anywhere there is something to see...) so I figured there would be no such thing as a bad place to go in- especially in Tavernier!

View Larger Map

I brought along a plastic bag and a $1 (i.e. disposable prior to boarding!) utility knife just in case I saw anything to bring home for the aquarium. The water in the area I dove was about 6-7' deep at most. The bottom was a combination of turtle grass beds, and "hard bottom" areas largely covered with macroalgae and scattered sponges and gorgonians but not much rubble. There was a good sprinkling of small stony corals such as rose, cup and star coral and branching Porites (I assume.) I had no idea what to expect, but did a lot of looking around and ended up finding a few interesting things.

There were a number of sponges, mostly large ones and "chicken liver" and black ball sponges. There were some pretty orange ball sponges, but they were all a little large except for this small and somewhat worse for wear specimen; I didn't feel like fragging one of the larger ones since I'm not sure how it would do. The branching sponge in this pic is a chicken liver sponge; this was cut off from a larger specimen.

There were a lot of purple sea blades, Pterogorgia sp., mostly kind of large. I found this smaller one a little further out, that is in very good condition as well. This is an entire specimen broken off from the base.

This is another gorgonian that is really cool, and looks even better under the tank lighting. I think/hope that it is a corky sea finger (Briareum asbestinum) since they are highly photosynthetic and easy to keep. Unlike others that I've seen in the past that are brown/yellow, this one is light purple with bright white polyps. It was cut from a larger colony, and an additional frag broke off in the bag.

This is an encrusting Briareum (caribaeorum?) gorgonian. The polyps are larger and cream colored, and it looks very cool- at first glance kind of like Pacific star polyps. There were quite a few of these colonies scattered around at the base of sponges and so forth; I used the knife to pry this section off the rock.

There were just a couple of what I think are purple sea plumes, Pseudopterogorgia bipinnata. I cut this off of a larger colony, and ended up with another bonus frag when a lower branch fell off. :) As you can see, this (left) has a distinct look from our existing purple gorgonian- Muriceopsis flavida (probably) (right). The branches and polyps of the P. bipinnata are smaller and more delicate looking, and the polyps are lined up on the stalks as opposed to being randomly arranged.

This little guy came home with me unintentionally. I was already out of the water when I found it in my pocket! I have no idea how it got there, but he did help me get through airport security a little easier. To make a long story short, TSA allows you to bring aquatic animals on board with you, but they need to be able to see that they are alive. I had to convince a couple of the agents that this actually was the case, but once they called a supervisor and spoke to him he was happy to help. After showing him all of the containers, I was able to get through to the gate at long last. He is still in the container, since we aren't sure what kind of crab he is... Any ideas?

One Fish, Two Fish...

2009-08-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

There has been some friendly criticism that some blog posts have been kind of complicated, nerdy even. Well, this post is designed to address those concerns! Please post a comment if you have any questions. :)

One fish:

Two fish:

Red fish:

Blue fish:

Yes, Evie has a new fishie! Here are all of the pretty fish at once:

Ouch!

2009-08-12T17:45:00.000-07:00

I came home yesterday to find that the Chalice coral frag had been knocked into the Hill Acan. This was very interesting in that the flesh of the Acan that was in contact with the chalice was disintegrating! No apparent effect on the Chalice, though.

Here is a photo of the Acan today. Yesterday I pulled it out of the display tank and into quarantine (after a quick iodine bath), but wasn't optimistic that it would make it- this was more to make sure it wouldn't foul the tank if it totally disintegrated. We'll see what happens... A good eighth of the one polyp that was in contact with the chalice is totally gone- evidenced by the white patch of skeleton visible in the photo below:

Here is a picture of the two characters from about 2 weeks ago. The potential for catastrophe is evident in retrospect... ;)

We're Back!

2009-08-11T18:55:00.000-07:00

The computer was fixed today, so we can once again blog to our heart's content. :)

Evie is really enjoying "her" reef tank. Here is a photo. More to come!

Coral Restoration

2009-08-01T20:10:00.000-07:00

You've probably seen the link at the right side of this Blog to the Coral Restoration Foundation. Since our Mac is temporarily kaput and we can't readily blog, skype or anything else interesting related to our personal lives, I thought I would share some of the great work that Ken Nedemyer and friends are doing to restore coral in the Florida Keys.

Here is a photo of the latest project- restoration of Elkhorn (Acropora palmata) coral. This is the first Elkhorn nursery around, as far as I know.

Ken has been working hard to restore Staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) coral for quite a while, with the help of students from Coral Shores High School in Tavernier, and many other friends, including our parents! If you are old enough (like me) to remember the remarkable "thickets" of Staghorn coral that used to exist on the reefs in the Keys before storms and man-made influences reduced them drastically then I think you'll really appreciate the great work that is being done.

Here is a photo of Joe and Sandi helping out at the Staghorn nursery:

If you may be interested in adopting a coral, or even a coral head or something larger please check out the Coral Restoration Foundation website.

$5 Frag Madness!

2009-07-25T18:13:00.000-07:00

Evie and I dropped by Einstein Aquatics to check out the coral sale. After impressing Chris and his mother with her cuteness, Evie sat back and watched the fish while Daddy picked out some new frags. :)

Here are some photos of the frags acclimating on the bottom of the tank. This is the blue-green Acropora:

This is the Acro. from another angle. A new chalice coral (Oxypora or Echinophyllia spp.) is behind it. Not pictured is a 2-headed red Acanthastrea Hillae. It did not seem to like the dip I gave it, so it is acclimating in a dark, quiet corner.

The coral on the left is a new Favites frag, it is an interesting yellow and orange color. The coral on the right is one of the two warty corallimorphs (Discosoma sanctithomae) that we moved to the front of the tank; it has really expanded!

Here is another Acropora frag. It's already at the top of the rock, and has started to show some pretty cool colors. (I have no idea what is is supposed to look like.)

This is a "night" photo of the new Favia extending its sweeper tentacles. I think that's a good sign that it is settling in- now we just have to decide where to place it. ELFie seems to think it is interesting too!

Welcome Back Big Girl & Little Boy!

2009-07-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

Our (Amphiprion ocellaris) clownfish "Big Girl" and "Little Boy" came back to the main tank, and we are all very excited! We have had them for more than a year, and they have grown a ton since then as they were just tank-bred babies at that time. In their time away from the main tank, LB has grown to be larger than BG, but the names seem to have stuck. It isn't clear which one is now the female (the larger and dominant member of a pair joined this young becomes the female) so we'll have to wait and see.

ELFie (Evie's Little Fishie) was a little belligerant at first, but they seem to have settled into a truce (or stalemate) and are pretty good buddies now. Little Boy is even giving him some attitude! They will probably establish a territory, but for now they are roaming all over the place, even choosing the algae magnet for the night. :)

Here is a better photo of the starfish. He still does not come out much while the lights are on, and when he does he moves surprisingly fast so there won't be a lot of photos like this!

The red Acan is next to the starfish, and that's the Ricordea florida in the background in a new location with more shade and less current.

New Aquascaping

2009-07-17T18:16:00.001-07:00

Here is the latest aquascaping at the topmost live rock:

We decided to add the small birdsnest frag next to the larger colony. We'll see what happens, but it may look pretty cool when/if they grow together.

Here it is from another angle:

The coral on the left is some kind of el-cheapo Acropora frag that I picked up for $5 today at Keen Reef- the closest store to us and conveniently (or inconveniently...) on the way to the Farmer's Market. Anyway, the polyps are yellow with a brown-purple color to the rest of the coral. We'll see how it does!

This is the new starfish. He moves around a lot, amazingly fast, once the lights are off, but during the "day" it is usually under a rock, but I caught him running around yesterday:

New Coral Pics

2009-07-14T19:40:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos of our new corals photoadapting on the bottom of the aquarium:

The Pocillopora:

The Poci. and the purple Acan.:

The green and purple Acan.:

The Favia:

Welcome back, Shrimpie!

2009-07-13T20:12:00.000-07:00

Welcome back Shrimpie! He had been waiting in our 10 gallon tank downstairs until the time was right. :)

We have had Shrimpie for about a year and a half, and he has grown a lot since then. He is a Pacific Skunk Cleaner Shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis) that to date has not done much cleaning, except for my finger nails, but he is very friendly and a lot fun to watch.

(There is a very similar Caribbean species (Lysmata grabhami) that is identical except for the pattern on the tail.)

New corals!

2009-07-12T18:30:00.000-07:00

We picked up some new corals today (the rest of my birthday present from Papa and Nana) that we're really excited about. Here is a photo of them acclimatizing:

These are all stoney corals. The large one is a maricultured Poccillopora, the reddish one is a Favia coral, and the other two are Acan. lordhowensis frags.

We also got a little starfish.
They are evidently very sensitive to pH changes, so he stayed in this dish for an extra long time. :)

Here are some updated photos of a few other things...

This is a shot of the top of the tank. The M. capricornis and S. hystrix are in the foreground; the new green M. spongodes is in the background.

This is the Kenya Tree (Capnella) coral- new location.

These are some old zoanthids (3 different kinds) that I glued together on a rock. The gorgeous hammer coral is in the foreground:

An old zoanthid colony newly epoxied to a rock:

New Tank Photos

2009-07-11T20:13:00.000-07:00

Here are the latest. It's looking good if I don't say so myself! :)
The Hammer Coral is really looking good. We seem to have found a good combination of light level and water flow for it.

I know it's kind of hard to see any detail, but if you click on the picture, it will pull up a larger image.

Sealife Critters

2009-07-10T17:29:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos of the soft corals we recieved from Sealife Inc., now that they have settled in to the aquarium a little.

These Discosoma sanctithomae mushrooms are a nice surprise. One is tan, the other is green. They've expanded a lot... well the green one -had- expanded a lot until I sucked it into a bucket during the last water change. Hopefully it will improve!

Here is the red mushroom. There is some kind of other mushroom like thing on the same rock, but it hasn't expanded or anything, so who knows. Any ideas?

And finally, the (free) yellow sea whip gorgonian Pterogorgia citrina. It is looking very good, with great polyp extension. Hopefully it will stay that way since these are supposedly kind of finicky. The polyp extension is actually better than shown in this picture.

Thanks Guys!

2009-07-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

Papa Joe and Nana Sandi sent me a birthday present- and this is what we picked up over the weekend!

This is an aquacultured Montipora spongodes coral from ORA. ORA is a wholesaler that specializes in aquacultured corals and fish; their corals are 6+ generations removed from the original wild stock, and were also selected originally to look good. :)

We happened to get this small (and non-ORA) Seriatopora hystrix fragment for free with our purchase. It looks to be the same color variant as our larger colony. Yes, it is on its side but the hermit crabs keep knocking it over...

Thanks guys! We got a good deal, so we'll be able to pick up more stuff later.

New coral frag

2009-07-03T22:53:00.000-07:00

I visited "Einstein Aquatics" a while back to see if they had a fish for Evie. They didn't... but Chris did have a very nice coral frag tank, so I picked up this nice 2-headed Acan frag (Acanthastrea lordhowensis, I believe) for $12.

Chris is currently running his shop out of his parents' basement, so I guess it's the least I can do... ;-) Should I have gotten a discount from getting blocked in their driveway by the other customer?

Caulastrea feeding tentacles

2009-07-01T22:22:00.000-07:00

Our C. furcata (candy cane coral) has been extending feeding tentacles every night and evening since it was placed in its current location in the display tank. It's been fun to watch it catch and eat frozen mysis shrimp.

The current location was temporary- but not any longer! It had not exhibited this behavior previously.

Happy Birthday to Me :-)

2009-07-01T21:50:00.000-07:00

It just so happened that an order of mushrooms that we purchased from Sealife Inc. arrived today. As usual (birthday or not) Ken included some freebies, so here is what we have. Pictures to follow of course!

2 Discosoma sanctithomae coralimorphs. They are different colors, so I'm excited to see what they will look like once they acclimate! (One is a "bonus" from Ken.)

Several red Discosoma mushrooms (ordered 2, received 3) These were the main reason for the order- our "Big Girl" clownfish will expect a large mushroom when we move her back into the display tank!

Green and purple Ricordea florida. Ordered one; received one double-mouth plus a small guy!

Totally unexpected, a yellow sea whip (Pterogorgia citrina). It's epoxied in, so pictures will follow soon!

Cool stuff

2009-06-28T16:04:00.000-07:00

Ryan and I went to the fish store to find a fish for the baby to enjoy, and came home with some early birthday presents (for me!) Is she the best or what?
Oh, we also brought a fish. :-)

This is the big guy- a gorgeous hammer coral (Euphyllia ancora).

And that is the new fish, of course! It is a longfin fairy wrasse Cirrhilabrus rubriventralis; similar to the ones that Evie enjoyed watching at the Aquarium. Here are some more photos of him:

Lastly, we got a nice captive-propogated birdsnest (Seriatopora hystrix) coral colony. We could not tell in the store, but it actually has a greenish color tint that I haven't seen before. Here it is at the bottom of the tank adjusting to the lighting:

Here it is in its final location, kind of like the angel at the top of the Christmas Tree!

More Photos

2009-06-25T19:11:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned, we placed a few of our "old" corals into the display tank a few days ago. They seem to be doing really well.

Sarcophyton sp. Toadstool Leather Coral. One of our favorite; it has puffed up quite a bit since it was introduced (easy to do of course since their bodies are mostly water!)

Purple Sea Plume gorgonian (Pseudopterogorgia bipinnata) This was actually fragged from one of our first corals, which was stung to death by a C. florida anemone... The polyp extension looks really good.

Lime Green Candy Cane Coral (Caulastrea furcata) Since it has been in the display tank, it has been extending feeding tentacles out in the evening and at night- which was a behavior I had not seen in the past. I've fed it mysis shrimp a couple of times already- pretty cool. (Not a very good photo- I'll try later to get one with the feeding tentacles extended.)

Here are some photos of the tank with all of the current critters in place:

I did some additional tests today- Nitrates: 0.5 (still!); Nitrates: 2; 0 Ammonia. A little concerned that there are still detectable nitrites, so I'm feeding very conservatively for now.

Corals!

2009-06-24T18:21:00.000-07:00

Since the water parameters have been looking good, we decided it was time to stock more than snails and hermits. I had placed a small colony of Caribbean Zoanthids in the tank, and they were doing well after several days so this seemed to be a good "bioindicator" that the conditions were stable (these Zoanthids seem to close up consistently when the conditions are not.)

I went by the local fish store (LFS) and picked up a couple of "buy one get one free" coral frags. I specifically purchased frags that were un-mounted. The cement frag mounts are useful to propagators for mounting specimens into egg crate, but in my experience are both difficult to epoxy onto rocks and also don't look very natural.

Acropora spp. (staghorn form) "Starry Night" (similar to Acropora cerviconis, one of my long time diving favorites.) It may seem that the coral should be mounted base down, but it will actually grow faster by affixing it flat so as to "reverse" its growth patterns so that the former radial (slower) growth patterns will become multiple axial growth patterns as it encrusts onto the rock and reorients itself as such. This makes sense when you consider that these corals reproduce extensively by growing new colonies from fragments broken off by storms, etc. [ref: Eric Borneman lecture] Hopefully I will be posting growth pics! (You can see the aforementioned Zoanthids in the background.)

Encrusting Montipora coral. Not sure of the species, but it may be a nodosa.

Soft "Colt" Coral. Not sure yet of the genus- probably either Capnella or Cladiella. This was growing "wild" on the glass of the coral tank at the store, and the reddish patterns weren't similar to any of the larger colonies that I saw at the time.

Monitpora capricornis (at last I can make a definite ID!) This coral is extremely common in the hobby, and reasonably hardy and fast-growing. Same color morph that Payton gave us last year. The frag is a really good size, and is mounted for best viewing from our computer desk. :-) It is a really bright orange under the aquarium lighting.

I tested the water again and was surprised to find that there were trace levels of nitrites. I dosed some Seachem Pure and made up some water for a water change tonight... The other parameters look OK for now.

A day at the aquarium

2009-06-20T21:10:00.001-07:00

Ryan, Evelyn and I enjoyed the first full day of our Staycation today. We all went to the GA Aquarium, and I was very pleasantly surprised to see that little Evie is even more entertained by watching the fishies than her Daddy is!

She had a great time checking out the Indo-Pacific Reef exhibit, and was spellbound by the Caribbean Pygmy Angel display. At the latter, she spent a lot of time just staring into the lower part of the tank (at her height- about 18") and watching the wrasses and surgeon fish swim by (the angels weren't quite that interesting I guess.) I can't wait until we have some fishies for her to watch at home in our living room!

Here are what seemed to be a couple of Evie's favorite fish in the Indo-Pacific exhibit:

Yellow finned flasher wrasse:

Yellow tang: (There were a ton of them!)

End of cycle?

2009-06-20T18:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Ammonia and nitrate levels were zero and nitrates were two or less. So... I put the toadstool leather and the nicest purple gorgonian frag back in the aquarium, after a 4 gallon water change.

It has been fun to watch the little hermit crabs crawling around, but only so much fun. We want to see some corals!

Algae!

2009-06-15T18:07:00.001-07:00

I came home today to find a little bit of brown algae growing on the glass. Evie and I took a walk, then scraped it off together. She really seemed to enjoy watching me!

This was quicker than I thought- it seemed that the algae may have spread from the live sand. Hopefully it won't spread quicker than the coraline algae, but I may pick up some snails- just in case...

Rock On

2009-06-11T19:31:00.000-07:00

The live rock and sand arrived yesterday from Sealife. I should say live rocks, since instead of the one I ordered Ken sent three- as usual throwing a free bonus in the order. The rocks have a ton of coralline algae, as well as some macro algae. We should see in a day or two what survived the trip out of water.

Here is a closeup:

Did a couple tests. pH is 8.15; Annonia 0,25; Nitrites are 1.5 tonight. SG is 1.023.

Aspirations

2009-06-08T21:05:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Ryan, Evie and I went to our local fish store (LFS) to check out what we might enjoy in our "new" aquarium. Here are some photos of what we aspire to keep (and hopefully for many years!)

Picasso Trigger (Picture by the wifey in Bora Bora) Our current system is too small, but we can aspire, right?

Hammer Coral

Favia spp.

On the way!

2009-06-07T19:30:00.000-07:00

Well, over the weekend (after Evie went to bed) we got the aquarium started up again. As of today, it is basically all set up and waiting to cycle. Not too exciting at the moment, but I think it will be an even better platform on which to display corals than the old setup was (more about that later.)

Here is a list of what we've used:

40 pounds Seachem Oolite Sand (from Keen Reef) This is nice, consistently fine sand, however there was a lot of dust and dead seaweed in it. It has taken longer for the water to clear up than what I'm used to.
About 30 pounds of CaribSea dry lace rock- less than a whole box (from Premium Aquatics) I decided to use dry rock instead of (wet) live rock to save some money and to limit the amount of nutrients going into the aquarium- yes I'm pretty paranoid about that now. This product exceeded my expectations; there were plenty of larger pieces, and it looks quite interesting. This was my first purchase from PA, and it was a good experience- they filled and shipped the order really quickly. The price was also much better than anything else I could find.
Reef Crystals Salt Mix. It's interesting that the water volume after all the rock and sand was added is about 19 gallons! (This is from a bucket that I've had forever.)

We have an order in for a single piece of premium, cultured live rock, as well as some cultured live sand, from SeaLife, Inc. The sand is to seed the sandbed with benthic critters and beneficial microbes; the live rock will hopefully have some cool "hitch hikers" on it, as well as seed the other (dead) rock with coraline algae and beneficial nitifying bacteria. The last rock and sand we ordered was really great- it had plants, corals, worms of all sorts, etc. so I'm looking forward to seeing what we get. I'm hopeful that none of the hitchikers if any will be lost when the rock cures, since we are only adding one at a time.

Cultured live rock is a sustainable alternative to live rock that has been pulled from areas around the reefs in the Pacific or places like Haiti. It has been illegal to take live rock in Florida for a long time, and very recently from Fiji as well. From what I've seen in fish stores, cultured rock from places like SeaLife is also superior in terms of the amount and quality of decorative life that actually survives from the sea to the living room.

Ground Zero

2009-06-05T20:47:00.000-07:00

Everything clean... time to get started again. I thought this might be a good time to capture the most important "lessons learned" from the last year and a half of reefkeeping. No doubt, I've learned some important lessons above and beyond what I knew from 5+ years of keeping marine fish. Starting out with a smallish (28 gallon nominal) system may have been a little more challenging than a larger water volume, but nothing could be cooler than having a 24" square reef in your living room...

Lessons learned:

1- Metal Halide lamps really do need to be changed every 6-9 months; toward the low end of the range for magnetic, HQI ballasts.

2- There may be such as thing as too much live rock- I think that the more surface area you have in the tank, the more flow you need to ensure that detritus cannot build up to the point where there are anoxic zones, etc. I started with about 50 pounds; restarted with about 30 pounds. Instead of piling it up from the bottom, it is now placed on 3/4" PVC sections daisy-chained together with zip-ties to ensure that the sand bed is continuous below the rock.

3- You need a good protein skimmer. I'm now using a CPR Remora hang-on-back model driven by a Maxijet 1200 pump. Previously, we had the stock, air-driven JBJ skimmer. Unless you have a lot of time to devote to tweaking/optimizing the skimmer, a product like the Remora that can be pretty much set and forgotten once it is up and running is the way to go, IMHO. Worth every penney.

4- Quarantining corals is a good idea... Having a simple T5HO setup that gives you time to ensure that monitpora eating nudi's, AEFW, etc. aren't present on that new frag cannot be a bad idea... We took care of this with a 10gallon and Coralife light fixture- but not before losing a couple of really nice Montipora spp. frags that had grown out really nicely. (Thanks Payton!)

All gone

2009-05-31T07:42:00.000-07:00

I cleared the tank out last night, and cleaned all of the equipment. It kind of feels better to see it totally empty as opposed to ugly and barren...

Clearing the tank...

2009-05-30T19:28:00.000-07:00

I just removed the last of the livestock into the 10 gallon. As you can see, all of the live rock above the sand bed is already gone and in a bucket (originally for "cooking"...) Losing the live rock is a real shame, but the only thing live on it now is algae, bacteria, and some miscellaneous bivalves. It is now waiting to be taken to the local fish store- Keen Reef, to be cooked by Tim and enjoyed in a few months by someone else.

This was aquacultured rock from the Florida Keys that is cultured and sold by our friend Ken Nedimeyer (sealifeinc.net) Until a few months ago, it was loaded with feather dusters, tunicates, worms, etc. Really good stuff, and a sustainable resource unlike most of the live rock being sold. There was a lot more life on the rocks we received from Ken than on anything I've seen in a local store.

Rebooting

2009-05-29T20:22:00.000-07:00

Well, I made the commitment last night to totally break the tank down and start from scratch. Ryan had been advocating this for a while, but I persisted in thinking that I could deal with the endless cycle of algae (mostly bryopsis) irradication and resulting nutrient spikes and restart of the cycle. Of course, this is hard on the (remaining) livestock... Crustaceans seem to persist well: orange claw and blue leg hermits, peppermint shrimp, miscellaneous *pods.

"Cooking" the live rock might have been an option, but at a cost of about 2 months of downtime. There is a really good thread on cooking here: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=650985

I feel pretty bad that my wife is sitting at home looking at this wasteland, and 2 months seems to add insult to injury so the rock is going to Keen Reef to be cooked by someone else, and I'm ordering some dry rock with which to start over with.

Anyway, I thought it might be good to start with some photos of the system in its heyday (late 2008.) RIP "Skit" (the fairy basslet.)