Newest addtions to the family

So with the new 90g we've been forced to add to our family. Introducing...

Though not officially named yet, here's Fred the Engineer Goby. Though he looks a lot like an eel he's actually not. That hasn't stopped him from creating tunnels all through the bottom of the tank. Though he occasionally comes out for a swim, he's most often seen darting out of his tunnels to grab a quick bite before returning to cover.


Tigger the Tiger Shrimp - one of the coolest things about saltwater aquariums is getting a glimpse into some wonderful symbiotic relationships that exist in nature. Such is the relationship between many gobies and a species of shrimp called Pistol Shrimp. Pistol shrimp have incredibly bad eyesight but are exceptional at digging tunnels. Gobys have great eyesight and love to live in tunnels, but don't dig all that well. Sounds like a match mad in heaven, right? It is. Almost immediately upon putting Tigger into our new tank, Rorschach found him. They could be seen following each other in and out of their tunnel. The goby lets the shrimp hold onto his tail. If the goby moves forward the shrimp knows it's safe to come out. If he backs up, the shrimp will scramble back into their tunnel for cover. It's incredibly cool to watch.

In fact, we'd love to see more of this behavior except that upon taking up residence in the tank Fred had to establish his title as "Most Officialist Best Diggerest in the Frame tank". We haven't seen Tigger since, but we hope that he's just enjoying exploring all the new tunnels Fred has dug. We'd hate to believe Fred was capable of anything more sinister than digging...

Lenny the Blenny - Lenny's a shy little guy that loves to scoot along the bottom and over the rocks searching for tasty morsels. He's a bit thin right now but we're trying to fatten him up. Since Tigger went into hiding, Lenny and Rorschach like to hang outside of Rorschach's place and watch the humans walk by.


And not to judge, but our most popular new resident is a gorgeous Green Mandarin. He hasn't told us his name yet, but he loves to hover around our live rock and occasionally grace us with a full appearance. Once picture of him should show you why he's an instant favorite.


Keep your eyes peeled, more to come soon. Oh, and I still need to write a post about the new 29g tank and and its partners who have taken up residence in Laura and my bedroom. :)

We're Moving on Up....

So with my habit firmly in check, I convinced Laura that we needed a bigger aquarium and that it would be the perfect opportunity to finish the aquarium stand that I started building almost six years ago. In my last house I had a 29g freshwater aquarium much like our current setup but had decided to upgrade it to a 75g tank. Live got in the way, though, and after cutting out most of the pieces for the new stand I ended up shelving all the pieces without assembling them. Apartment life and fish aquariums don't make good partners so the pieces languished away in three garages before finally seeing the light of day again this past June.

Ah, the clash of hobbies. If I'd know when we bought are new larger aqaurium that it would take me almost five months to finish the stand I probably would have just bought one at the same time. Instead, I'm now happy to unveil our new 100% Michael Frame, hand-made, cherry and oak aquarium stand.

Here it is in July with just the pieces I'd originally cut assembled:


In September with the skin finished but without doors and false drawers:









So here it is the first week of November and I can finally say that the stand, six years in the making, is complete. And as soon as I take some pictures of it to prove it I'll post them here. No, seriously, it's done. Take my word for it. Fine, don't. I'll post the pics tonight.



I can only hope that after all this that the canopy, currently 75% finished, will be done before everyone arrives here for Thanksgiving. Cross your fingers for me!

Meet the family

So now that things are filling out we wanted to take a minute to introduce the newest family members.

So technically, two hermit crabs and two snails were our first inhabitants (not counting the bristle worms living in our rocks). We'll just refer to all of them as lower-case p "pinchies" and "slimies".

However, our first real inhabitant is Uno - top(an oceallaris clownfish), and soon to join him was Juno - bottom (also an ocellaris).


Following the two of them was KGB (a flame hawk), named for both his Red color and his habit of constantly sneaking around, hiding, and always keeping an eye on you. This guy seriously likes to watch people.


Selected for her gorgeous color was Picasso (a coral beauty). She's camera shy, but looks like this.


Around this time we added a Graboid 1 (a Green Bubble Tip Anemone aka GBTA). Graboid 1 had issues in transit to us and didn't make it... It actually puked all of its intestines up and died. This was all just to make room for the much happier but still shy Graboid 2, who was more than happy to literally take 1's place on the same rock. Uno and Juno wasted no time making it fell at home, as well as being their home.


An emerald crab joined us for a week before moving on, but has since been replaced by a second emerald crab who has a flair for aquarium design. After frequenly telling us that the green mushroom would look better on the aquarium sand band than in the hole in the rock that it preferred to live in, we've finally listened. He can be found most nights sitting in the hole on the rock, gloating at the mushroom lying on the sand below.


Rounding out our marine crew is Rorschach (a yellow watchman goby). He hasn't quite warmed up to us yet, but seems to be house-shopping some of the holes and caves in the rock of the tank. For now he prefers living behind some of the pumps and filters at the top of the aquarium.


Keeping an eye over the whole bunch is our coral banded shrimp, who still hasn't told us its name.


Next post we'll catch you up on our other invertibrate inhabitants.

Anemone

Our first anemone (Graboid aka a Green Bubble Tip Anemone). Sadly Graboid was delayed in shipping from Florida and spent three days in a box rather than arriving to his new home on time. Apparently the trip over-stressed him and he didn't make it. Uno and Juno were devastated, they had just adopted him as their new best friend and home.

Pictures coming soon of Multi-Graboid, the torch coral they starting living in after Graboid's untimely passing, and Graboid 2, our second GBTA.

Send in the clowns

Meet our newest inhabitants, Uno (small male) and Juno (larger female). These guys are Ocellaris clownfish, the same type as Nemo in the movie, and are a blast to watch. Uno was MUCH happier once he got some company in the tank.

The case of the curious white stuff

So I've got a curious "creature" growing on the live rock that was donated to my aquarium. Current opinion is that it's a white sponge. Whatever it is, it's happy and growing.

The setup

After diving the Great Barrier Reef on our honeymoon last month, we've decided to get back into aquariums. Stephen is handling the tropical fish side and beginning his experiment with breeding Blue Rams. Meanwhile we've been working on setting up a 29g (30x12x18) reef aquarium in our living room. We got a great deal on it used from craigslist, and it came with a stand and Emperor 400 filter.

So far we have painted the back blue (outside of course), installed a Tunze powerhead, and added 15 lbs of live sand and 15 lbs of live rock. We hope to add more rock this weekend to the tank and some rubble into the Emperor (it's acting as our fuge). After allowing the aquarium to cycle, next on the list is lighting, a battery backup to deal with power outages, and introducing our cleaning crew.

Follow along as we try to establish our own little section of the great reefs of the world.