Blndbunny's 40g shallow reef

[Blndbunny]

Lol I know right!

I've got to say though that Tim has been fantastic in keeping me informed on what's going on. He's feeling like his only luck right now is bad luck. Dive one didn't happen because their wetsuits were not warm enough for extended dives, so they ordered new suits. Second dive the boat decided that it didn't want to work. He already has stuff set up for this weekend to try again.

 

[Biggles]

Their bloody wetsuits were not warm enough ? Listen here Tim, the collectors here stay warm fending off white pointers with garden rakes while they grab the rock and corals with their free hand........... ain't no time to get cold mate ! The only reason deep water acros have become readily available is because the divers collect down deep to avoid the saltwater crocs - garden rakes don't work on salties.

This weekend it is then

 

[StirCrayzy]

Hey now, 75deg water is "cold" to Florida folks.... Brr.

 

[Biggles]

So we're talking about Florida are we, i watched a doco series on Florida many years ago so i'm pretty much an expert on that area of the world Josh. From memory it starred Don Johnson but the series name escapes me atm. Apart from those stunted little PG rated crocodiles they call alligators i don't recall anything resembling dangerous being in or near those waters so i think if all we have to worry about is a touch of hypothermia then it's a go from me for Tim to dive this weekend. :snrkl:

 

[Blndbunny]

Lol! Well you Aussies live with death every day! You have some of the scariest critters ever over there! Us silly Americans aren't made of the same tough stuff an Aussie is. 60 degree water is just too cold! Well at least in Florida it is, in Michigan we will have people swimming in 60 degree water!

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Hey now, 75deg water is "cold" to Florida folks.... Brr.

lol - when I got certified many years ago in January, we had to break a thin layer of ice to get in the lake 5 mil wet suits, hood and gloves was it

I am sure the wait will be worth it, for some great rock !

 

[sirrealism]

Ya its crazy. I have been in FL for 26 years now and if the water is not 80 I am not getting in. Yet I grew up in northern MN and was on the swim team. If there was not ice on the lake i was in. Lake superior never gets above 60 and I was in that all the time. Well maybe it was above 60 for the first 6" but then its colder. I can remember sailing on a big lake in a regatta on a very wet 18' catamaran around ice. Looking back I have no idea how I did it

 

[NanaReefer]

Been in Michigan all my life...haven't found 60 degree water yet-lol. I live on the shores of Lake Superior doesn't even gets near 50 let alone 60 degrees. Biggest reason for our cooler summers.

 

[Blndbunny]

I've lived in mi my whole life but I'm a warm weather person, hubby and I hope to move south someday

 

[Blndbunny]

They were able to dive yesterday!!!!!!! So YAY I will get my rocks this week!

 

[Blndbunny]

So Friday will be the day! They are squeezing in an extra dive tomorrow since they were not happy with the sand that they brought up. I'm really starting to get excited. Not sure how I'm going to handle working tomorrow, I. Just going to want to get the new light set up and the reactor installed, reprogram the the apex, and all the other little things. Must remind myself I will spend most of Friday, (and probably the weekend) with my hands in the tank.

My orginal goal had been to have the tank set for Christmas, my hubby is buying me coral for Christmas. He's well trained bought me two tanks so far for previous Christmases and fish or corals for other holidays There is no way it will be ready, because of all of the delays. However with doing the zeovit 14 day cycle it should be looking like the start of a tank by the new year, complete with fish and corals. I'm not going to hold my breath on that though. So far this tank has been my lesson in patience, and I'm determined to do it right and get what I want, not settle

 

[Blndbunny]

Ok more pics since I've unpacked more equipment and I'm working on set up, or killing time till I get my live rock

Fancy new digital tests, Hanna tests for alk, calcium and phosphate

[/url] image by jessica_haering, on Flickr[/IMG]

All of my zeo goodies, my basic 4 plus some stuff I will likely need in the near futur, found a good deal

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Dosing pump

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New light! Hydra 52, lots and lots of light for those sps

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I have also added a filter sock to the sump and will be setting up my IM reactor once the zeovit media has finished soaking.

Still need to figure out how to work the dosing pump, and my RW8. I will be syncing the new hydra to the apex next time I actually turn on my laptop.

So close to not just being a glass box of water!

 

[Blndbunny]

ITS HERE
ITS HERE
Well it's finally here, and so worth the wait! You guys this rock is beautiful, I had a hard time arranging it and not squishing life. First I will apologize because these pictures suck and don't do the tank justice, iPhone plus LED lights do not mix.

Picked up two boxes from the airport at about 1:30 today. One box was a bit wet but still ok

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Then it's time for that scary moment of opening the boxes, hoping everything made the trip ok. As I had hoped I opened the box and it smelled like the ocean!

[/url] image by jessica_haering, on Flickr[/IMG]. Everything was very well bagged and sealed, all of the live rock was mostly submerged in water.

Once I got into the bags I was even more amazed, I've never seen rock with so much life on it, my husband was getting a huge kick of all of the girly sqeeing, over cool new things

[/url] image by jessica_haering, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url] image by jessica_haering, on Flickr[/IMG]
There were more bags but by then I was too busy arranging and unpacking to dry off to take more pics lol

As I unpacked the rocks I removed a few tiny (body only about 1cm) gorilla crabs. I found a myriad of tiny pistol shrimp (grain of rice size) in a variety of colors, yellows, reds and blues. Found blue porcline crab, and a little ruby mirthrix crab, all who got to stay. They're corals all over the place on all of the rocks, encrusting sponges, and tons of colonial tunicates, I've found 5 diffrent minds/colors. There are bivalves all over too, I got a great big jewl box clam, I beleive.

Since I ordered the reef to go package I also got a number of critters, two nice size sea squirts, one of which looks like a heart in my tank. I received a long spine urchin, an beautiful lavender pincushion urchin, a cucumber, a red and black brittle star and a handful of snails.

Everything has been set for only a few hours and the corals have polyp extension, the sea squirts are startling when they pump, urchins have been wandering, snails busy, clam showing it's beaustiful yellow mantle, and brittle star being sneaky checking out the tank. Every thing is happy but the cucumber but he had a rough trip with a leaky bag. At this point everything looks very happy

Now for what you really want pics!
Brittle star who is actually much more red

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Full tank shot

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Top down

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Thank you everyone for taking a peak and sharing this journey. Feeling like I've got a good start here and can't wait to watch it grow

 

[Wrangy]

Now that's some amazing rock!! the scape looks awesome and I'm really jealous of all the little critters you got with that rock! You're going to have an amazing zeo tank with this start and rock! are you following the 14 day cycle??

 

[Blndbunny]

Awe thank you! I can't wait to get some corals and my fish in here!

Yes I am doing the 14 day zeo cycle. My only concern is that it suggests not doing a water change for the first 4-6 weeks, I'm planning to watch my numbers closely. There are living critters in here and I'm not going to risk their health by living in filth. I trust the zeo system, just going to also fall back on old habits, I figure better safe then sorry.
I'm also looking forward to moving my corals over. Since I moved the location of my 16, all of my Stoney's have browned out, and I lost a number of them I'm guessing it's cause I had to change lights, and probably stored stuff up when we moved its location.

 

[Oxylebius]

Yes I am doing the 14 day zeo cycle. My only concern is that it suggests not doing a water change for the first 4-6 weeks, I'm planning to watch my numbers closely. There are living critters in here and I'm not going to risk their health by living in filth. I trust the zeo system, just going to also fall back on old habits.

I'd do the same thing also.

 

[Blndbunny]

Into day three!

Added carbon passively in the sump, I was supposed to have done this on day one, but didn't have a filter bag, and holiday craziness kept me away from the store.

I changed out my filter sock this morning, wow was that thing nasty! I thought my filter floss got gross, but that was noing compared to that sock, yuck!

I'm also impressed with my new skimmer. I really figured there would be a week or two of break in before it started pulling anything out. This morning my skimmer cup was looking like dark lemonade and stunk! There was water in the cup before I tured it on from evaporation/condensation with in sitting in sump while I waited on rock.

So far the critters seem happy. My cucumber opens up and filters at night and spends its day hugging one of the sea squirts. I think the sea squirts are happy. The urchins are cruising all over the tank, corals have tentacles everywhere, I'm finding more and more bivalves, and my clam just keeps expanding.

Number are doing what they should. I think I need to replace my ammonia test though, it is a couple years old. Yesterday day ammonia test (Red Sea) was showing to be nearly 5! I was shocked with urchins not looking stressed and clams open. I didn't do anything, I know it's all part of the cycle. Retested this morning and it was down between 0.5-1.5. Still 0 on nitrates, and as of this morning the tank was showing trace amounts of nitrites

 

[Blndbunny]

And I officially have a mantis :cursin: bright red and actually out and about during daylight, looks to be about an 1"-1.5", looks like tonight I set up traps

 

[Oxylebius]

A bright red one would bring good $$ trading it in at a LFS - all the colorful ones are wanted by mantis enthusiasts. Once you catch it, keep it alive and call around to LFS to see if you can get a good trade in deal w/them.

 

[Blndbunny]

Ohh good idea, from what I saw she is very pretty, and curious. She went right up to my ruby mithrax crab and left her alone. I'm hoping I will be able to just trap her and find her a home, that's not in my tank