Reef Blog

Oh my god, I believe I'm about to upgrade to a huge tank! Stay tuned. ;)

In an effort to get rid of my Aiptasia, I've tried a number of methods, including kalkwasser paste injections, Joe's Juice, and adding nine Peppermint Shrimp to my 55g. What I'm seeing is more and more of these glass anemones. Yesterday while at the LFS, I saw a baby Copperband Butterfly fish, and wanted to buy it on the spot. However, they advised me not to put it in my reef, and I left empty-handed.

Recently I got a LifeReef Calcium Reactor. It is the LCR2, standing 20" tall with a 5lb CO2 cylinder. I got it used with a bad pump, so I replaced it with another Mag 7 I had in the garage. To avoid any leaks, I put silicone around the impellar coverplate, and let it cure 3 days. Finally tonight I turned it on after filling it up with freshly mixed saltwater, but the pump burned up and a puff of smoke came out.

Moonlights have been installed over my 55g reef.

I've been meaning to update my Blog for some time now, but things keep getting in the way. A few days ago, I took pictures of every creature I could in the 55g reef. Here's the page.

I built some cooling fan brackets for a club member, so I felt they needed to be added to a webpage. I incorporated the cooling fans on my 55g to the same page, since they were only listed in these logs and wouldn't be found otherwise.

While feeding the tanks tonight, I noticed Peaches was out a little more, and the brusing I observed seem lessened. There's hope yet.

I updated several webpages on my site with easy shortcuts at the top, to help people navigate my site more easily. :)

That's it, the Rose BTA is no more. I tried everything in my power to keep it alive, but last night it heaved its final breath, and all day today it lay like a sad deflated puddle in the protective container it's been in for the past 10 days. I removed it before the tank was polluted.

I went to Dallas Marine today because they were giving away the eels they had, and picked up a Snowflake eel. Another club member has one in his reef tank, so I felt it wasn't a huge risk. Still, it is going in my son's 29g where it can't cause too much trouble. Hiding in a piece of LR (live rock), I decided to see what else came with it:

Over in my 29g, things are looking better. One of the three BTAs has been having some trouble eating. Because it is hanging off the side of a rock, gravity isn't a benefit plus the neighboring BTA seems to be stealing its food. Keeping the clownfish out of these anemones during feeding is a must, because they are just so hard on it. I can't wait for these to grow larger so they can defend themselves and actually consume a meal without needing so much intervention on my part.

The partitian is back up protecting the Rose BTA from the cleaner shrimp and the clownfish. I had to hand feed it today, twice. The tentacles simply don't have the ability to hold the food unfortunately. With time and some TLC, I hope it'll regenerate new tentacles.

I took a number of pictures today from my 55g reef. I believe all of these are individual corals.

This coral had light-blue tips when I got it, but for now they seem to have faded. I think they'll be back.