Currently Listening The Journey By Anna Schaad see related

Here are the new water parameters for the past 3 weeks:

Week of Saturday, Nov. 12th:

Calcium: 460

pH: 8.2

ammonia: 0

nitrates: 0

phosphates

temp: 78F

SG: 1.025

Week of Nov. 19th:

Calcium: 460

pH: 8.2

ammonia: 0

phosphates: 0

nitrates: 0

temp: 78F

SG: 1.025

Week of Nov. 26th

Calcium: 480

pH: 8.2

phosphates: 0

nitrates: 0

SG: 1.025

temp: 78F

There you have it. The weird thing is the calcium.

Additionally, here's Nemo. I used the flash this time, so it's a bit clearer, but my white balance was really screwed up or something and so the colours went all weird, it looks really dark. Although he is in his cave..

Well, I haven't updated in a while, but I'm starting a new project for biology. I'm going to keep maintaining this tank as well as setting up another one, and comparing the flora and fauna levels therein. I will also be keeping track of the parameters.

So, for my Courtyard reef, here are parameters for two weeks:

Week 1 [October 30th]

Calcium: 460

Nitrates: 0

Ammonia: 0

Phosphates: .5

pH: 8.2

SG: 1.025

Temp: 26 C

Week 2 [November 4th]

Calcium: 470

Nitrates: 0

Ammonia: 0

Phosphates: 0

pH: 8.2

SG: 1.025

Temp: 26 C

So, as you can see, the tank has remained pretty stable so far. After our disaster in August, everything's looking pretty healthy - corals, fish, inverts, and also this new weird kind of macroalgae that I have to look up. However, we did lose the kenya tree a while back. There's what looks like a tiny frag of it left though.

Currently Listening Illinois By Sufjan Stevens Casimir Pulaski Day see related

Today I ended up at The Courtyard after not going for one week.

Bad news.

Protein skimmer wasn't working [darn that thing - no, wait, it's actually been working a lot for a while now] and there was a freakin TONNE of nasty stuff on the top. Also, some of the corals looked really bad.

And...

RIP orange spotted goby.

I got him out and looked him over, and I couldn't find anything wrong. He looked fat and healthy, no sign of problems.

But.. he was dead.

I'm going to bury him in the garden tomorrow.

I have a theory. About the corals anyway.

1. the powerheads were kind of screwed up [a closed loop is starting to sound really good]

2. The top of the water was covered in a good quarter inch of would-be skimmate.

So, I have drawn the following conclusions.

Since the kenya tree was lying flat and the mushrooms and some zoo's were closed up, I don't think they've gotten enough light because of all the stuff on the surface. Also, the screwed up powerheads just added to the problem. Apart from the fact that the kenya tree coral was lying down flat, everybody looked fine. Just closed up. All the other fish looked fine, I saw all of them.

I tested the following parameters and this is what I got:

Ammonia: 0

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 0

pH: 8.2

Phosphate: 0

Calcium: 460

SG: 1.025

Temp: 79 F

I forgot one test: alkalinity.

However, everything looks fine, and I've been doing 10-15% water changes weekly, so with all the factors combined there is my theory.

Kelly had the goby and blenny for several years before this, so I'm willing to bet it was just old age, considering its healthy [although dead] outer appearance and the fact that all the other fish and the parameters seem fine.

Still depressing though..

Currently Listening Plans By Death Cab for Cutie Soul Meets Body see related

Well, after much rumination [and encouragement from Mum, who is very bad about pestering me about fish] I decided to add another percula clown. So yesterday we went to Clark's and got the captive bred percula along with six scarlet reef hermit crabs [well, 5 anyway, I think I may have accidentally ended up with a dwarf blue legged one] and some of DT's live phytoplankton. God knows whether six crabs are going to make much difference, but in the meantime they'll at least be fat and happy.

The clown is little, maybe two inches long, and it and Nemo were having some interesting interactions when we left. I acclimated the new clown and the crabs for an hour while I worked on the tank; I moved what I now believe to be a kenya tree coral and cleaned algae off the back glass, fixed the protein skimmer [again - darned thing. I'm looking at a Euroreef for the new one]. The coral looks a lot happier already, and the two frags I've gotten from it are doing really well. I think I've got a fairly serious green hair algae thing going on, which I blame on phosphates due to the fact that I don't have an RO/DI unit yet [still working on it]. Also, I have recently noted the appearance of what I take to be limpets. Not sure about these but I'm going to check them out on ReefCentral.

Also, Dad [I think he's joking, we'll see] has recently expressed a desire for a 90 gallon corner tank in the living room. With all the home improvement that we're doing these days I think it's only fair.

And, if we do that, we're definitely going with TBS.

Probably going to cost about $1,300 for the 90 gallon package with shipping.

I've been looking into getting a job in Fairhaven. Could take the bus to work and everything.

Oh man.. it's been a big day.

And week and month.

I had my presentation on the 15th. I was preeetty freaked out but I did ok apparently. I covered:

1.  My project [history]

2. Maintaining a reef aquarium [show and tell]

3. Goals for the future

and when I was talking to Dad later he said it lasted something like 25 minutes.

scary.

that was 25 min. ?

anyway, on saturday was graduation, and I took the protein skimmer to school. Charlene and I did Shenandoah and we're doing it again tomorrow for her teacher's recital. Which means I've some people to call.

But anyway.. to the point.

Today I had my first fragging experience.

It was freaky weird swell a whole lot of hard work.

I had no idea!

Basically, my tree coral either split or got split and I found a sizable piece of it floating around so I put it in a bucket, got a bunch of test kits and trace elements and buffers together [also some extra powerheads and the Instant Ocean] and lugged the whole thing home [in the car].

I was going to put it in my quarantine tank and put the PCs on it during the night while they weren't on my planted tank, but the quarantine tank has apparently gone to heck so I rigged up a bucket, mixed  some fresh saltwater and put the PCs on it. I have a little mesh and plastic thing between it and the bucket. Hope the whole thing's not going to melt.

Earlier it had some polyps out but then I tried to secure [read: tie] it to this piece of dry base rock with some fishing line which worked sort of okay.

I just might try the superglue method.

I'm new at this fragging business..

oh, and in other news, I just spent $41.14 of my own hard-earned money on a 65 watt 22 inch actinic PC bulb.

while I was at Clark's I saw a large green star polyp rock for $49.99.

Which means that I need to earn about $100 for a polyp rock and the other PC bulb. I'm going actinic with that one as well.

Anyone wanna put me to work?

seriously, though. I'm getting good at mowing lawns.