Akwar'eum

[framerguy]

Well, while we were on vacation we stopped by Suncoast Aquariums in Panama City and Eric was very nice to deal with and held my stock until I left. I picked out two small red serpent stars, one Blue Linkia, one Fromia elegans, six astreas, six nassarius, and one awesome Blastomussa wellsi. Gail picked out a pink leather frag, she liked the color.




those are the only pics I have of the new guys. These next photos are some of the old guys...




My mother-in-law did a fine job taking care of everything while I was gone. I did a large water change when I got back and after 24 hours the tests were as follows:
ammonia:.025(I never get a 0 reading with the Salifer NH4 kit.)
nitrite:0
Nitrate:0
calc:340 Yikes
mag:1175 yikes
strontium:nt
iodine:0 (I stopped adding Iodide when I started using TM salt, guess I need to start back)
ph:8.24
alk:7dkh (low)
I really need a calc reactor! I took my homemade one off because I had to much co2 getting into the tank, maybe all I needed was a ph contoller...

I've been working for two days getting the levels back up, I'll get it done. It's good to be home. I missed you guys and gals!

[Techno-Vicki]

Welcome back! Great pics!

[AQTCJAK]

Tank looks good

[framerguy]

I've been playing with my photo program on my computer. I took several photos of the left, right and middle of my tank, chose the best one of each, and loaded it into HP Photosmart where I found a "create" area. I arranged the photos in order for a panarama shot, hit "stitch" and viola!, a perfectly blended panarama shot with lot's of detail that I can't get taking a full shot with just the camera.

It was way fun!! I uploaded it to my account at "photobucket.com", then copy and pasted it here. I see some fun possibilities here...

Anyway, I still have my homemade calcium reactor, which worked but I had excess co2 getting into the tank, not to mention a leak somewhere because I was going through a co2 tank in four weeks. I think I want to fix the leak, add a second chamber to help with ph droppage, and get a ph controller. I've been looking at this Digital Aquatics Reefkeeper controllers
it has a ph controller plus a bunch of other funtions that I like. Does anyone have any experience with it? It would consolidate a lot of funtions into one unit if it's a quality piece of equipment.

[kathywithbirds]

wow! that's nice, seamless job! the only way you can tell is the corners on the top where it stitched.

[GeeWizzItsMe]

Great job! PS your zoas in the pic with the mandarin are JAW-DROPPING! I love the huge polyp ones!

[framerguy]

Just in time for halloween I'd like to post this creepy photo of my Blastomussa wellsi at night under the moonlights. This photo has not been touched up in any way!

I mentioned in another thread that I dropped my camera on a concrete floor and broke my lense so I replaced it with one just like I borrowed from my friend. It's a nikon 60mm f/2.8 macro and it is terrific!!
This is pretty much all I've got to report. I did a 15g water change today. I'm using TM Pro and I checked calc and mag in the replacement water and calc was 330 and mag was 1250, I brought each up to specs before the change and will test tank H2O tomorrow. All critters A-OK at the moment. Oh, I did purchase another heater today, (along with a new freakin' awsome monitor for my pooter! 22" baby) the heater is a hydor 200w to supplement my other 250w that wasn't keeping up with the temp. I placed it in my overflow and it has helped a lot already. Temp seems more stable at 80, but to soon to tell for sure. More later!

[framerguy]

Well, I noticed last night that several of my coral were looked a bit off, so today when I got home from work I tested the NH4, NO2 and NO3 and came up with .04, .025 and 5 respectively so I figure somethings dead in there. There's nothing obvious but I can't find tne new blue linkia so I move the rock that's in front of my overflow just enough to look behind it and there's the blue star except he's more of a brown goo than blue. Yeah, he's dead and stinky. What the heck is it with these guys that I can't keep them. I KNOW I acclimated him correctly. The orange fromia is doing fine so far. Anyway, I'm giving up on the blues and will try a burgundy tamaria star next time. I believe that something is going on with the starfish imported lately. Every body that has starfish that is doing well with them has had them for a long time, years even. Has anyone gotten one lately and had any luck? If so, what do you have? How long?

[Dentoid]

Sorry to hear that Greg! Those damn linckias are just difficult to acclimate to captivity. They don't ship well and more often than not suffer from the shipping stress. My understanding is that the fromia species do much better than the linckia. I agree, it's strange, I have two Serpent stars that came with my CUC package. When I first started out, I didn't know any better, and just threw them in the tank right out of the bag! They are doing great today. Why are these linckia so hard to keep?

[framerguy]

I've had some folks ask me to keep them updated on the health of my elegance coral. Here's the latest photo:


Here's a photo from June:


I don't know if you can tell from the photos but the elegance has grown about 2" in length. It's very exciting to watch his progress. As for the particulars of my care for him, he is in an indirect light area with his skeleton nestled in a sugar fine sand substrate. I feed him either krill or silversides twice a week, and everynight I feed the suncoral and goniopora the following(but everybody, including the elegance, gets some): 5mg DTs, mixed with 1/2 cube cyclops with a "pinch" of DTs oystereggs. Temp hovers at 79.4-80.7, salinity is 35ppt or 1.027sg, I dose kalkwasser everyday, my calc averages 380-400, mag=1310. These are the parameters and daily chores that have made him seem the happiest.If anyone else is having luck with theirs I'd like to know what you are doing that is successful. Thanks!

[cheeks69]

The Catalaphyllia looks great, congrats Greg

BTW love the shot of the Blastos !

[Dentoid]

Very nice Greg! That Elegance looks very healthy in your care.

[framerguy]

Thanks guys. I'm very proud of him.
I did neglect to post (shame perhaps) that the dendronephthia (carnation) is not doing so well. It's seems to be shrinking lately. I wish I had a more shaded area for it.

[chum]

Framerguy,
I'm new to the forums and getting ready to start a reef chronicle, came to yours to get some ideas. Love your latest photos!!!
VERY INSPIRATIONAL!!! Just curious...Do you turn off all water flow before taking your pictures? Sorry for the loss of your blue linkia.
chum

[hma]

Nice Elegance Greg