Dave’s Ramblings

Angel bought a couple of new critters to add to our 180 gallon saltwater reef tank… a couple of quick pictures I took last night… #1 Deresa Clam (99% sure that is right name) #2 is a baby Maxima Clam, they should both be a lot of fun to watch grow up, and they are just plain cool looking, the colors are so vibrant, the digital camera seems to lack a bit in representing some shades of blue…

Also added some purple tipped Montipora and some green tipped. Not to mention another 9 or 10 different varieties of zoanthids that Angel picked up too… The tank is starting to look full. Really only looks that way, we still have a lot of real estate to work with, the 180g is absolutely huge. But this should hold us for a while, now we can get back to concentrating my efforts on getting the Seahorse tank project finished so we can start her cycling.

Here are some quick pictures I took of the Zoanthids sent to us from YourReef.com as part of a sample pack. For anyone not familiar with them, they are actually animals, not a pretty little marine flower, we now have about 2 dozen different varieties and color varations of them in our tank and always on the lookout for more.

In a little time they will multiply and spread covering the entire rock like this colony has.

These guys are ready to be ‘fragged’, all it takes is a few individual polyps stuck to a new rock and in a few weeks they will start multiplying again and again. A great way to share the beauty with others without harvesting them from the natural reefs of the world. Although beautiful to look at they actually contain one fo the most potent toxins in the world. Bet it would be a tough one for an ER doctor in WI to figure out what kind of poison was flowing through your body, odds on testing for or even suspecting it was a marine critter? Not a bet I’d take.

If you’d like to see even more take a look at the galleries of coral reef pictures being built by members of Captive Reefing.

CaptiveReefing obtained another sponsor this week, YourReef.com, pretty inadvertantly. Angel was actually trying to order his sample pack of Zoanthids (9 frags for $99, a great deal!), but wanted to select a bunch of specific colors, instead out of the blue John just sent us 14 frags of some awesome looking Zoa’s (many quite rare color variations) to add to our collection, but didn’t send us a bill for them. They arrived packed better than anything we’ve seen from any vendor, triple bagged with water in each bag for extra insulation against the bitter cold. Overnight lows are still in the single digits here. Spring needs to hurry up and get here, my motorcycle is getting very depressed sitting in the cold garage all by herself.

Ah back to YourReef.com, now our second official sponsor, he has some softies and LPS, but specializing in the SPS coral, I’ve already been through his selection and have passed along my order to Angel to order for me. Purple Montipora, green acropora, and a maxima clam They’ll make fantastic additions to our reef.

If you are in the market for Coral or other drygoods they have a great selection and I recommend his shop VERY highly. Tell John that CaptiveReefing sent you there and maybe he’ll make you a deal who knows?
I’ll shoot some pictures up here shortly for those not yet ‘reefers’.

Today started a new adventure, building a fish tank into an existing wall. Bizarre Aquariums donated a ‘wall tank’ to our forums for a product review and is also providing another to be raffled off later. So far I’m totally impressed! Everything looks great, even have the location picked out where it is going to live. It will be viewable from both sides of the wall between Angel’s office and the hallway. Once it’s all said and done it will be a living picture, all framed in and flush fit to both sides of the wall. Angel’s going to fill her up with seahorses and of course I want to add some pipefish to her.

Follow along with the project log on this thread on CaptiveReefing. Are you a reef nut? Come on in and join the rest of us, if not feel free to browse through and maybe you’ll turn into one.

If you’re looking for some inspirations for a unique fish tank, let the Jones’ try to figure out where you got one of these from, take a look around Bizarre Aquariums, tanks in coffee tables, lamps, all sorts of really cool ideas, tell Blaine that Dave sent you.

Finally got the new canopy built and added to the tank, got 2 250w Iwasaki mercury vapor lights, on to each side, waiting for the ballast for the 400w bulb to add to the center of the tank, it won’t be here until Monday. Still going to hack part our old power compact fixture to add the power compact light from it to the tank as well. When it’s all said and done we’ll have 1160 watts of light over 180 gallons of water.

With just the two MV lights it already looks a LOT better. Never looked forward to Mondays, but this week I can hardly wait.

Thought I’d share a picture to show the difference so far, BTW don’t mind the coral, it was late and the main lighting period had ended so a lot of the coral was already closed up for the night.