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And more babbling... |
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I keep rearranging the rockwork. When i first set out to do this tank i had all my rocks spread out across the back wall of the tank. I couldn't think of anything else to do with them and they were covered with featherdusters that i was fascinated by and didn't want to squish. I had been deprived of having my own little biosquare for so long that at the beginning of seting up my salt tank i was sure i would be satisfied with just keeping hermit crabs and podwatching. Anyway, so when i first put in the rocks i didn't want to take the chance of destroying something really cool and never know i had it so i set the rocks in formation to reduce squishing of innocents.
Now that i have had the rocks for some time, i know where what is and have a good idea of how it will cope with being moved and piled on.
The above photo has the current layout (though the most recent pic is on the home page). Below is the one i changed that from. I had managed to get a 'swim-through' bridge in the lower left of the formation. My only issue with my rocks is that they are large, round and akward to set up. They don't pile well because there is little flat surface and they are heavy and bulky. I can't pile them easily and have a stable construction, it also does not leave much shelf space to place shrooms and polyps. The other rock placing factr was the peach damsels i had. They would dig up the CC and undermine the rocks and it would shift them around. The large rocks were under the sand, but when the fish dug at the bases, they would slip forward or backward anyway, and i was constantly in fear of avalanche. Those fish have been removed to a 'vacation spot' so i was free to rearrange once again without unreasonable worry about how it could stand up to digging. I have much more space to settle the new shrooms, zoos and the leathers.
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Below is my first placement of rock. I had amazingly high nitrates and phosphates and lots of algae, i still have some algal problems, but i am winning the battle....this is embarassing, can't believe i'm posting this
Its a jungle in there!
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New additions (4-30-03) |
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This is the Gold Crown Leather i got from IPSF.com. The photo was taken about 10 hours after it was placed in my tank. It came unglued 3 times and then i sewed it to a rock. I have been told it will take some time before it sets itself upright and that i should not worry untill then.(4-30-03update) I killed it...it fell behind the rocks one night when the urchin got tangled in the string i had to use to keep it on the rock. The urchin has been evicted-not killed, just Banished from the Bowfront. It had fallen all the way down to the bottom and i couldn't find it...i had to dig three different times to get it-took me 5 days (between work and household responsibilities), by that time it was so damaged it didn't make it...still sad, it had puffed all up and was like a fuzzy ball of sunshine (excuse the melodrama please)...i am still bummed.
| Lime Green Leather |
Also from IPSF.com. Taken shortly after acclimation, it is still flopped over in this photo, but currently it is upright and expanded. The color is bright. It also came unglued, but i was able to fix it the first try.(4-30-030) Or so i thought, this little brat has come unglued like 4 times, the urchin managed to unstring him too on my sewing attempt...i had this leather on a clam shell under a coke bottle top for what seems like 9 weeks waiting for it to attach and it never did. I have now sewed it to the shell and then rubberbanded the crap out of the shell so the string stays put.... i can't believe it is taking so long. I am supremely untalented with superglue.
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Here's my New Zooanthids. See what i mean about my camera being inadequate? It loses the orange, makes the teal into algae green, completely snuffs out the pinkish and the blue hues are undetectable. I need a new camera. 3-6-03, Photo taken minutes after placement in the tank:
NEW STUFF (4-30-03)
I hate having to shrink photos...
But these are my new blue shrooms and a better shot of my zoanthids (so many colors!). If you look closely you can also see my rubberbanded lime green leather as well.
More shrooms and a Capnella.
The new shrooms are the fuzzy reddish ones just behind the kenya tree (Capnella) the shrooms have neat flourescent tips on their long tentacle things. There are also more new shrooms at the bottom right of the pic, the nice brick red-orange ones... and the Capnella is new.
These are called "Colonial Tunicates" and there isn't a lot i can say about them except that they are really quite pretty. There just isn't much known about them. They came on the rock i bought that had yellow polyps on it, so it was an extra special bonus. I guess CTs come and go and its just the way they are, but i hope they stay:
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Emmit |
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Maroon Clown.... The first fish in the tank.
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Sunshine |
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The Yellow Tang..... the neon yellow piglet.... yes, thats a term of endearment. :-) She had a bit of what i think is a lateral line issue up behind her eye, there was some loss of color that is clearing up now.
thats Emmit in the upper left. The not very happy looking shrooms are squinched up because they were placed on that coral skeleton minutes before this pictre was taken. They open nice and big now.
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Cee-Bee |
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The Coral Beauty. This was the final addition to my tank. Not the best picture, but since she dosen't stop swimming and i don't have the most technologically advanced camera available, its the best i can do right off. This photo was taken the day after i bought her. She was very healthy looking (round and smooth body) except for a few rough edges to the fins, she was eating along with the others within hours of being introduced.
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My excuse for not being a productive member of society... |
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I've had a lot of fish tanks. Up untill now they have all been fresh water and rather trouble free. Aside from the occasional bout with freshwater ich and a non-compatible species skirmish har and thar, it has been pleasantly uneventful.
In high school i had quite a few tanks, about 4 10 gallons, a 20 gallon, a 30 gallon and a 55 gallon with about 6 one gallon bowls with bettas. I kept the usual assortment of tropical livebearers- guppies, mollies, platys and swordtails. I had tanks with barbs, tetras, danios, killies etc.
My favorite was the 55 gallon which had my overly large albino oscar named Odin. My 2.5 foot tiretrack eel named Sir Edmund, Attila the polypterus, and the Jack Dempsy named Dippy also lived with him. Odin, like most oscars, would let me pet his sides, hed come right to the top of the water and turn half over so i wouldn't have to put my hand all the way in. I got him when he was about 2 inches long and he learned to take feeder guppies from my fingers, later he was taking medium sized comets. Sir Edmund also ate from my hand but he preferred Hikari cichlid pellets.
Went to college, broke down my small tanks and gave them ant the fish away. The 55 and its inhabitants i left with a friend's uncle where everything went well untill that lovely ice storm that hit the area in 1998 :-(. The power went out and the heat went off.... there was nothing my friend's uncle could do, total loss. It was too bad, i let him keep the tank and equipment since i was still in school 3 hours away and he started it up again and i hope he is still enjoying it.
As soon as i finished school and got a stable apartment, i started tanks again. Got my daughter a simple 10 gallon full of guppies. Then i got a 20 gallon tank and put in some fancy goldfish...but i wanted a pond, unfortunately outdoor ponds with fish in them are not legal in my state, so it had to be inside. So i thought about barrel ponds, but not a small barrel pond of 15 or 20 gallons, no not big enough..... so i found a 30 gallon cedar tub pond with a fish-safe liner online and bought it. The look on my fiance's face was priceless when i dragged it into the livingroom, hauled out the Python and started filling it up.
Shortly after i decided to try a salt tank. I was working at the LFS at the time and it was easy to let myself get talked into one.  The substantial employee discount made it irresistable.
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