Jan 6 2007
so i went to my first MARSH meeting today for only one reason: to buy a frag of a Leng Sy monti cap from another member. and i ended up with a custom-built Melev sump! i never win anything!
it goes like this: i’ve been on the lookout for a Leng Sy (or look-alike since they may or may not be lost from captivity) for awhile. on the MARSH site i saw one for sale. after talking with the seller, he says it is authentic as he supposedly got his from Mike Paletta. (or down that chain) i wasn’t too worried about it; if i get the tell-tale nodules it will just be a bonus. since he lived pretty far away, we decided to meet at the MARSH meeting at ADG today.
the meeting’s guest speaker was Marc Levenson, well known sump and acrylic DIY afficionado. he gave a talk about sump design and how to build stuff with acrylic. i’ve always wanted to build my own sump, but due to apartment life the closest i’ve gotten is throwing some glass baffles in an old 29g tank. (aka my current sump) as a surprise, they anounce that all MARSH members get one free ticket for a sump to raffle off. damn, i thought; i’m not a member yet. and the only cash i had on me was just enough for the Leng Sy. so it turned out the computer at ADG had internet, and i was able to sign up and pay right there. they gave me a raffle ticket and not 5 minutes later they drew my name out of the bucket! i was floored. i was this close to not even bothering with it since i didn’t have the cash to become a member.
so now i have this behemeth of a sump (48″ x 16″ x 16″) sitting in my dining room and plans for all the new equipment i’m going to buy spinning through my head. for those that care, the story behind the sump is that it was custom made for a customer of Marc’s, but Fedex didn’t handle it well and it arrived cracked. so they sent the sump back and the guy got a refund. but the sump was barely damaged, so Marc patched it up and brought it to houston for the meeting. Thank you Fedex; your incompetent workers netted me a new toy!
It’s probably the best $30 I’ve ever spent.
Dec 1 2006
so i ordered some new stuff from extremecorals.com, but unfortunately they didn’t get my order right. instead of the damacornis i ordered, i got a leather instead. pretty much the exact opposite of what i wanted. so on monday i’m going to be letting them know that the only acceptable outcome here is if they ship out the coral i paid for on their dollar. i’m certainly not gonna be paying for their mistake. (update: talked with the guy over there, and he’s looking to put my coral in with an upcoming order to someone in houston who wants the leather i got. so in a week or so i’ll have it after a quick switcheroo. not exactly what i wanted but i’ll get my coral without paying any extra.)
other than that i’m extremely happy. got 2 great misbar clowns and an ORA tort that is stunning. i have a sinking feeling that it will lose its color, so i’m gonna have to work hard to get my tank in shape. pretty much every SPS in my tank has changed color from when i got it. i haven’t looked into why yet, but its the top thing on my todo list. here are my best shots of the new stuff.
did you notice a difference in my new pictures from all my other ones? yeah, they are actually in focus now! i borrowed my sister’s tripod and it has made a world of difference. you just can’t physically keep your hand still enough to capture the detail in the up-close shots without one. here’s a good example between the growth shot of my millipora i took for the last post and one taken with the tripod. i’ll let you be the judge.
night and day, right? now all i have to do is figure out how to take good shots of my fish when they are swimming around.
Nov 13 2006
a little bit of irony goes a long way. just this weekend (during an awesome trip back home) i realized that my tank was very empty and boring for being 4 months old. so i decided it was time to fill it up with some life by buying some more fish. and don’t you know it, i came home to find my sailfin tang stuck to the inlet of one of my maxijets. :[
so now i really need some more fish. (and a digital feeder to make sure i don’t get a repeat of this mishap) after examining my original stocking plan, i pretty much have it all figured out.
Depending on whether i get 4 or 5 anthias, i may have room for one more undecided fish. going to tour the fish stores this afternoon to see if anything catches my eye. also going to be on the lookout for a peppermint shrimp and emerald crab for some natural predators against aiptasia and valonia.
Nov 6 2006
not much new news from the tank these days; i’ve just been letting everything settle and grow. my return pump did kick the bucket, so i got a eheim 1250. i like the pump and dont mind the low flow, but its causing my overflow to lose siphon, so i may step up to the 1260. still havent kicked the microbubble problem :[ i’ll look into it closer after i get my nanostreams next month!
enjoy the pics
millipora growth over 2 months:
Sep 26 2006
last weekend i had the priviledge of attending MACNA 2006. the only reason i went was because it was being held about 5 minutes away from my apartment. i really enjoyed it, but i wouldn’t want to spend any money other than a ticket to go to one of these things. maybe after i’ve been doing this for 10 years i’ll make a weekend vacation out of it, but as of right now it was just a welcome diversion to the weekend.
for those that are unaware, MACNA is the yearly conference slash trade show for all things salty. its in a different city every year and this year it was at the galleria in houston. so on saturday i headed over there around noon and bought a cheapo pass for the trade show. (tickets for the workshops/presentations/banquets are much more expensive and i wasn’t that interested in them) they had lots of great stuff to check out and frags to buy, so i’ll just highlight the stuff that stood out for me.
tunze nanostreams
these bad boys have been on my radar for awhile now. i’ve always known my maxi jet 1200s just aren’t going to cut it for a SPS-heavy tank, but since my tank is only 75g, i was wary about using a tunze stream. they just seemed too big and powerful for my tiny tank. and i just knew a sandstorm would be unavoidable. but the nanostream is meant just for me. don’t let the name fool you, they aren’t THAT nano, but they would be a nice fit in alot of tanks. there are 3 flavors: a 660g/hr, a 1189g/hr, and a controllable one that goes from 264g/hr up to 1453g/hr. the non-controllable ones should be coming out in october while the nice one is scheduled for around christmas. i definitely know something that i’ll be asking santa for.
profilux controller
this was my favorite of the show. finally a controller that doesn’t make me have to comprimise on features. first off it’s the first controller that supports wireless connectivity out of the box. hopefully this becomes a defacto standard; i still remember being surprised 2 years ago when i found out that controllers were using serial connections to PCs. what were they thinking? having ethernet ports was a step up, but who wants to run a cat5 across the house to their fish tank?
another neat feature is the expansion card slots. just like a PC, you can buy up to 3 cards to customize your controller. the only cards i’ve seen so far are for redox, conductivity and USB support. and supposedly the controller will automatically detect and work with the new cards, no firmware changes needed. i like this much better than having seperate versions of the same controller when the major differences between them are what they can monitor. (AC jr, AC pro, AC3, AC3 pro anyone?)
also of note:
- all your basic controller functions
- temp monitor/control
- pH monitor/control
- outlet switching
- digital timing
- web interface for online viewing/control
- windows program for control/configuration
- T5 and LED lighting control
- dimming
- weather presets (lightning storm was my favorite)
- powerhead control
- controllable powerheads (i.e. tunze) can supposedly be controlled with this. not sure if it supports all the stuff something like a tunze multicontroller can do, but i know that things such as “soft start” are included.
- external display (added $$)
- seperate display screen which can be mounted or placed in sight while viewing the tank so that tank parameters can be viewed without opening your stand and accessing the primary unit
frags!
of course who could leave out all the livestock? i picked out 3 SPS peices i liked. kinda upset tho, since one of them doesn’t look as nice under my lighting. all just tan and boring under my 14Ks. i’ll give it two weeks and if it doesn’t color up i’ll sell it. i’m really happy with my new milli and tort. hopefully they’ll keep their color.
« Previous Entries
Next Entries »
