Darth Vader-Fish

Remember, 720p.


New life: Bengali Cardinal.
I liked 'Ben' but, having just seen the first three episodes of Star Wars (as in, ever), la muñeca likes 'Darth Vader' because it has black. She also claims to hear the storm trooper theme when she sees it...but I don't think it's that evil.
Maybe we can compromise on 'Darth Bender'?
Probably not. She tends to get her way.

Living Room Aquatica

La muñeca took some shots of the tank.
Long time readers will remember this was a gift from her at the end of 2009.
I did the transfer from the dead old tank in early 2010, so that puts this setup at about a year and a half old.

One or two tragedies along the way, but mostly, it's thriving.
Got some new coral (as of yet, unidentified species...anyone?).
It's bright yellow. "Highlighter coral" for now.

Click on the shots for high-res versions.

Skunk Cleaner Shrimp (Shrump):


As it would in the ocean, Shrump sets up cleaning stations for fish to come by and rid themselves of parasites.
Shrump likes to clean your finger too. Seriously, just drop it in there. Instincts are powerful.


Yellow Watchmen Goby (Spot):


Spot is usually more of a perching fish, but ventures out sometimes.
Swim? Meh, this rock is comfy...
Retreating to the man cave is my move too.


Firefish Goby (Flash):


Flash is fast and hard to capture on film without blur.
He has very nice colors though...and it would appear, a gut.

Libya has no bearing on filling up this tank

New coral up in the left quadrant.
Also get a closeup of the pulsating xenia coral.
It might look like it's just going with the flow of the water, but each polyp actually pulses in a pumping kind of motion, similar to your hand if you were to hold your palm face up and touch your thumb to your fingers (assuming all you monkeys have opposable thumbs - I don't think my readership has expanded to the non-evolved, yet).

Remember to select 720p


As is often the case, some hitch hikers (as they're called in the hobby) were living on the rock that came attached to my new coral. Not sure of the exact species, but at least two small bristle starfish (I think that's what they are, someone else got a picture) came along with the coral.
Bonus!

Reading
How Would You Move Mount Fuji?
The Master and Margarita

Hearing
Glassjaw - Coloring Book EP
The xx - xx
Dropkick Murphys - Going Out in Style

Viewing
Dexter
The Office (BBC version)

Friday Tank Update

The Yellow Watchman Goby generally perches smugly on rocks or sand, balancing on its ventral fin, perpetually frowning, until some food floats or crawls on by.
Lately, as it has become more acclimated to my tank (and much healthier than it was at the fish store, I might add*), it will venture out into the Fire Goby's domain.
The Fire Goby flicks its dorsal fin to show local dominance, but since I've found both fish in the filter chambers**, it's unclear who is dominating whom...
Remember to select 720p, I don't know why YouTube changed it up so HD isn't retained.


You can see that just swimming in place is much more of an effort for the Watchman Goby.
They are really built for perching.

*Why is that said? "I might add" always follows something that was, in fact, added.
You're in the conversation, you're not conversing about how you might converse if you weren't presently conversing.
English is fucking weird, I might add.

**These are chambers behind the wall of the tank, housing active carbon, sponges, the pump, and the water heater. If a fish is back here, it was usually chased to the surface and jumped out. It is a bitch to get them back into the main tank.

Scoid Tank 121210

Zoidberg does a cartwheel.
Jester dines from snail shell.

Yeah, I'm time stamping now...

Reefer

Remember a while back my brother gave me his old 10 gallon fish tank?

It died. The electrics stopped electrifying. No more light for the creatures.

Super Girlfriend to the rescue!

She got me a JBJ 12-gallon Nano Cube Deluxe. It's gorgeous, with nice blue and white daytime lighting, surface skimmer, filter media, great flow, and LED "moon lights" which look awesome in a dark room. It also fits on the same old stand, which is nice.

Three weeks ago the brother came and coached me through the tank transfer -

Man, I really hate the Southwest Airlines "bags fly free" commercial.

HATE IT.

- what was I saying - oh, right...

We took out all the live rock and creatures, dumped half the water, and poured the other half in the new tank, put the rock and sand in to the new tank, made a saltwater mix with a package of sea salt from local fish store and tap water (found out this is bad, more later), and filled the new tank up.

- shit, stupid Colts took the lead. I hate you Manning. -

- Oooh, Mass Effect 2 commercial. Cool. -

Umm...oh yeah...moments of truths came:

• Tank does not burst under pressure, check.
• Plug in, flip the switch and stuff turns on, check.

Sweet. My girlfriend didn't get me a piece of junk...I will keep her around...

Minutes after adding everything and turning it on, the water is already starting to uncloudify, showing how strong the pump and filtration is in the tank...

Shot with LED moon lights:

Jump forward two weeks. I have put a few snails and hermits in the tank.

Zoidberg, the alpha-hermit from the old tank is still alive and well:

Next to another hermit, really showing size:

Snails in the moonlight:

For a healthy tank, water conditions must be just right.

Among other things, you have to maintain healthy parameters for:

• Temperature
• Salinity
• pH
• Ammonia
• Nitrites
• Nitrates
• Phosphates

I picked up a test kit, made by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals at the fish store. I will wait until the tank is healthy and stable before adding fish.

Brother also gave me a heater, so my temperature is maintained around 77 degrees fahrenheit.

Ammonia levels are ZERO, good.

Nitrite levels are also zilch, good.

pH between 8.2 and 8.4, good.

Nitrates at highest part of scale, BAD!

Nitrate is the last effect of the nitrogen cycle before being released as nitrogen into the atmosphere - aka, living room area behind my couch.

So why are my nitrates so high? Hobbyists keeping saltwater tanks will often have nitrate spikes when adding to or removing something from their tank. This changes up the chemistry of their tank and will usually correct itself.

However, since half of my water came from my old tank, my suspicion is that the old water, with no light, improper maintenance routines, and other general newbiness on my part, such as overfeeding, are to blame. Another possible culprit is the tap water used to make the saltwater. Tap water is treated with all kinds of chemicals and could very possibly contain chemicals you don't want to put in your tank, so I should have instead been using RO/DI (reverse osmosis and/or de-ionized) water.

How do I rectify? Water changes. Patience. I purchased some water from the fish store and will use this when I do water changes:

Create a syphon, drain portion of tank, dump, and add new water.

Hopefully in a few weeks the tank will be good to add some fish.

Until then, I'll keep watching crabs and snails...

Like this crab looking for a new home to grow up in...

Watching

The Jets lose their lead. Stupid Colts. I hate you Peyton.

Mad Men

District 9

Playing

With my new phone - LG Env3, hooray for me.

Batman Arkham Asylum

Bioshock - sequel coming soon!

Listening to

Muse - Black Holes and Revelations

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus

Massive Attack - Splitting the Atom

Deftones - White Pony