Acans

The latest coral hype has to do with Acanthastrea lordhowensis. Prices seem to be driven by artificial hype and, of course, demand in this hobby. How this is truly controlled or deemed fair in the coral market, no one can be sure. A great article describing the Acan phenomenon can be found in Reef Keeping magazine.

After lurking on the San Diego boards, I finally took the plunge and ordered up four headed frags of 5 color types and was just in time for the bonus frag offer at Fish n'Frags. This local San Diego startup knows how to post up the eye candy on their website. After placing my order, I was a little skeptical of what I would actually receive because their posted images were so colorful, vivid and crisp. Would it be genuinely "WYSIWYG"?

So far, I am not disappointed. Even my amateur shots are capable of recording the colors of these babies! Okay, so someone at the SDMAS meeting mentioned that the colors are vivid now because the polyps are contracted. (...and my bubble goes, "POP!") He went on to explain that when the polyps expand, they may lose color because pigments will space out. I doubt that they will look any less interesting when I get to that point, though.

I currently have them on a black frag rack that I purchased from a fellow on SDMAS. The magnets holding the black egg crate rack have been dipped in a resin which protects from salt water corrosion. The white egg crate is there temporarily because I had them situated in the refugium for a while.

You can see the exposed skeleton underneath where the frags were cut (with some sorta precision jigsaw tool?!) from the mother colony. That's what builds a reef!

Now I just need to head over to Home Depot and purchase some special glue and figure out where the heck I'll be placing these in my main tank. I'm having a hard time figuring out which ones I like the best; it affects their strategic placement in the tank.

SDMAS July 2008 Meeting

Even though they weren't promised any raffles this time, the SDMAS members & friends in our area showed up enforce to about a headcount of 25. The chicken mole, lemon bars and chocolate mousse cake were big hits. And, my tank didn't crash or do anything out of the ordinary right before the meeting. The fish behaved well. Even my Midas Blenny decided to put on bright yellow colors from his, lately, moody dark brown.

Salt water devotees in the backyard

We decided to setup the screen projector and have the Reef Nutrition lecture outside. The jacuzzi wasn't heated up. Maybe next time?

Randy giving his lecture in perfect San Diego early dusk

A captive audience

Salt water chit chat

Thanks to all those who attended! See you at the next meeting event!

Aquaillumination LED: Back from the Dead

Back from the Dead

The 5' Aquaillumination LED is back. In case you're wondering about shipping a 5' box to the Midwest, just be prepared to shell out more than $250 for packing, insurance and S&H. Unfortunately, when they mention "modular design", that doesn't mean you can take it apart and stack 1' units in a simple box. Threatening to delay the entire process, this exchange was happening after the Midwest flooding and right before July 4th holiday.

My corals were placed under PC lighting. The Acropora were not pleased; they lost color and turned brown. The fish and softies could have cared less. In fact, some of the softies seemed to be responding more to the PC lighting!

After struggling with the legs, the unit is now situated on top of wooden spacers inside the canopy. I can slide it front to back when I'm doing tank maintenance. None of the LEDs on the sides are being blocked.

More "vital information" concerning the operation of this device:

VITAL INFORMATION #2

Cool down the adaptors with a fan as now suggested by Aquaillumination.

After getting my refurbished unit, I started to increase output of the blue and white LEDs at a rate of 5% per day. When I reached 55%, the unit shut itself down. It turns out that the adaptors will shut down the entire unit when a specific, high temperature is reached. To avoid this, one should install a fan to disperse the heat. So far, I've managed to avoid another shut down albeit with a faulty RKE (high tech these days....:rolls eyes:) controlling the fan. I'm up to 95% blue and 95% white.

VITAL INFORMATION #3

Attach the unit to a QUALITY power surge device. Apparently, my initial situation didn't provide enough surge protection. The small battery backup shown here is mainly being used for its power surge capabilities. This is a temporary solution until I can get a newer batter backup model.

Otherwise, I'm sittin' back and relaxing while the corals bring back their colors and the dialed-in calcium reactor doses my tank! Looks like we're back in the game with only one possible loss.

RKE v1.0.3

RKE: almost recommended

The new firmware update is only aimed toward the PC4 outlets. The software that applies the firmware has been edited with a check box dialog which makes sure you've taken the appropriate steps before proceeding with firmware updating.
Now, I just sit and wait to see if the "Red Dot of Death" appears on my PC4 controlling the two fans. I'm not sure if I'll wait a few days or the entire week. When I'm satisfied that it's not going to randomly shut off, I'll try adding the main return pump and the protein skimmer to the controller. Then, the chiller will be added.
I get plenty of time to come up with a programming scheme for the new items. For instance, the skimmer pump should shut off when the main pump is shut off. Also, there should be a delay in turning the skimmer on when the main pump powers on or there will be a little flooding in the skimmer. I'd also like to set up the main pump for a 20 minute standby while I'm feeding the tank mates.
I'm currently controlling these options with a Red Sea WaveMaster Pro. And, there's an UltraLife float switch in the sump controlling the protein skimmer.

The graphing capabilities are still troublesome. The old data doesn't get removed from memory even though you've waited more than 20 minutes to reactivate data logging. Now I've noticed that the y-axis doesn't change resolution at all.
So, there goes the summer months as far as trying to tweak the system by using the data graphs to clue you in on what's going on 24/7. That is, of course, unless Digital Aquatics releases any new updates to address this specific issue.

Banggai Parenthood

It starts out with a true pair.

My pair of Banggai Cardinals, which were purchased April 26th at Pet Kingdom, have been doing well in my tank. They were in my quarantine tank for a few weeks before going to the main tank.

Click....click....click...

One thing that surprised me was that they were able to make clicking noises with their jaws when I'm face up against the aquarium and staring at corals. At first, I thought the dominant male was butting his head against the aquarium when I first heard the clicking. Then, I Googled about it on the internet and found out otherwise.

Jaw Dropping

I also came across various posts from people worried that one of their Banggai's jaws was damaged. As the posts went on, they soon discovered that their fish was incubating eggs in its mouth. I had already read about cardinals at WetWebMedia before my purchase and knew that they could readily reproduce in captivity. I just wasn't prepared at how soon this was to happen in my case.

Suspect: Extended Jaw

Water Conditions: A-Okay

I've seen the pair's courtship dance. It's a satisfying treat when you see your captive fish carrying on "naturally" because it at least means that your tank condition requirements are being met for this to occur. I've read that the male is the large, dominant one (as opposed to the large, dominant female in a clown fish pair). I wasn't able to witness it, but the female deposits eggs on some surface while the male subsequently engulfs them into his mouth. He will not eat food until they hatch about a week later. I haven't a clue when that day will be, though.

Guilty Pregnant Look

Fish Fry

I don't have any plans to capture and raise the fry. But, if I'm lucky enough to isolate them, I may offer them up for adoption. They'll most likely become Fish McNuggets to the other tank mates or get chopped up by the Vortech pumps or simply go through the overflow and end up in the filter sock. In the wild, the young fish may be found in the protective, long spines of Diadema sea urchins. My tuxedo urchin has been wrapping itself in red algae. Perhaps it's anticipating a birth and making up for its short spines? ...wishful thinking on my part.

The Proof

Observing the male mouth brooder, I can see that he has to adjust the eggs every so often. It's probably to keep them well oxygenated and to wash out waste products. I just had to wait patiently before I could snap this shot.

The Society

I'm having an SDMAS meeting here in 5 days. If all goes well, perhaps they'll witness a birth? and a slaughter? Maybe I'll just distract them with The Hand of Neptune?!

RKE v1.0.2

The new updated firmware and application software for the RKE was released last Wednesday. This short-lived software was then taken off the Digital Aquatics website and offered again on Friday with basically the same updates.

After the update, the graph for temperature now starts out as 70.0 through 100.0 on the y-axis. It appears flat because of the low resolution. Temperature graphing was fine before the update. I don't know how to change it at this point. I've already tried removing the graphing data, but now I just let it collect data and wait for the next update. The only option I have causes the y-axis to graph from 0.0 to 100.0 which isn't any better.

Going to Reef Central, I found a thread in which someone finally explained how to calibrate the pH meter. The pH meters that I've come across in my profession usually require you to calibrate a probe using either a pH solution of 4.00, 7.00 or 10.00 depending on what kind of pH buffer you're creating. The process involves calibrating the probe at each individual point. The RKE, though, requires you to go through two pH buffers first before you can choose to save the calibration points.

I wonder which country in the world calibrates their probes in this fashion? But, with that in mind: which probes have I been using in my career? hmmmm......curious now.

RKE as a Controller

With the pH and the temperature probes satisfactorily monitoring my tank, I've decided to move one very small step up and allow the RKE to control 3X 200W heaters in the sump. I say it's a small step because heat is not needed now as it's summertime! Maybe there will be communication software available before winter comes?

The next step is adding two fans. These fans used to be in my canopy where they cooled down the Metal Halide/PC combo lighting. But, since upgrading (?) or changing over to AI LED's, I decided to use one of the fans to blow air on the sump water. In this way, I can cool down the tank's temperature and delay the time the chiller turns on and save energy. The other fan is now being used to cool down the AI LED's three adaptors. The entire AI LED has already shut down twice because of adaptor overheating (AAARRRGGGHHHHH.....feel my pain, blog!).

RKE Not Recommended (for now)

This morning, I checked the temperature of the AI LED adaptors by hand and discovered that the fan was not on. In fact, the sump fan was not on either! I looked at the PC4 which controls these two and it was displaying the RED DOT OF DEATH! So, I turned it off, unplugged the communication wire and it reset. I was dreading having this particular unpredictable problem as I've read about it happening on the Reef Central threads.

Therefore, I cannot recommend the RKE until all issues have been solved. Until that time, I certainly won't hook up my main pump and protein skimmer to the RKE.

The Hand of Neptune

After spending 1.5 weeks in the QT, I've finally gotten around to moving the Ricordea florida pack to the main tank system. While they were in quarantine, though, I observed about 5 flatworms in the vicinity of the Ricordea. The flatworms were small, but I could almost tell that they were the greenish ones with the orange/red dot. I haven't observed that kind in my main display or refugium, so there's a good chance that the Ricordea had hitchhiking flatworms. This type of flatworm is not harmful to the reef aquaria, but it can become a nuisance as it goes through a population explosion.

I decided to put a drop of Flatworm eXit for 5 minutes just to give any flatworms a hard time while I acclimated the Ricordea to the refugium.

Here is "The Hand of Neptune" live rock in my refugium. It's probably just a simple piece of Tonga live rock. I took it out of the main display after a majano anemone migrated to it. While in QT, the majano moved up the glass and I was able to dispose of it.

Here is the rock, posing. Are you convinced now of the moniker?

I'm using Gorilla Super Glue (gel formula) which contains cyanoacrylate. Another hobbyist that is successful with gluing a lot (I mean A LOT!) of Ricordea suggested using a super glue containing ethyl cyanoacrylate. Looking at the MSDS, I find that Gorilla has ethyl 2-cyanoacrylate. So, they probably contain the same ingredients.

I think this glue works really well on live coral. I was instructed to avoid getting glue on the exposed flesh of an acropora specimen. But, I was so clumsy while situating it on live rock in my main tank. There was glue all over the bottom portion. Surprisingly, the coral encrusted over all the glue and is doing really well in my tank.

I removed the live rock and dabbed it with a paper towel to remove excess salt water. It was difficult handling the Ricordea because they would produce a slime. I didn't want to apply too much pressure on them, but at the same time, I need to get a hold of them! Most of them were already attached to a small piece of debris which I dabbed with a paper towel and applied a blob of super glue. After they were all in place, I waited 5 minutes before returning the live rock to the refugium.

For corals, producing a protective layer of slime comes in handy during very low tides in a natural setting. It probably delays them from drying out.

Here is the The Hand of Neptune minutes after gluing down the specimens. There's a very tiny one near the bottom bringing the total to 9. I gave away one green and one blue to a buddy on SDReefs who had let me borrow PC lighting while my AI LEDs were out for repairs.

Who will survive? Who will multiply? Who will simply melt away? Only time will tell. I'll be sure to post updates. As the Ricordea become acclimated to their positions, they should spread out more. If all goes well, the rock will look like a hand full of beautiful Rics!