Pay-It-Forward Frags and Anal GSM

The second time around anything always seems better. Though careful research may prevent you from some financial mistakes the first time around, it may not prevent all of it.

Yesterday, Bridget and I drove up from Atlanta up to Acworth (somewhere 10-15 miles north of Atlanta) to get a couple of zoo frags from a local reefer. Darren, the guy who owns the amazing 40G breeder reef has one of the cleanest and nicest reef I've ever seen. (Darren, you really need to get some pics up on the web!) I've actually thought about keeping a 40G at some point but in this stupid hobby, the bigger the number, the larger the craving. Anyway, Darren was kind enough to give me two of his zoo (zoa) frags for the price of driving up to Acworth. This pay-it-forward tradition is one I will definitely help continue after establishing my bigger tank.

On the way back, we stopped at two of our LFS (local fish stores) that are north of the city. I'm still yearning for the Oceanic 70G tank for $300 but I also saw at the second LFS an AGA (All Glass Aquarium) 65G tank for about $212. They are exactly the same size but I think Oceanic is padding their numbers. The cheaper tank sounds nice except that the glass is thinner and because of such, there is a center brace on the top. If I want to get any kind of cool Metal Halide lighting, that center brace would deem it useless. Of course, the other option which I am now debating is running a 75G Oceanic or AGA. The 75G has a center brace up top as well but at 4 feet wide, most MH lights would come in two instead of one, thus making the center brace shadow a non-issue. There are several used 75G being sold in the area so hopefully this second time around, I can learn to be a bit more patient and get the best deal on one that I like.

On another note, I just learned that my GSM (gold stripped maroon) clown fish is every bit as anal and as protective of his clan (friends) as I am. His home/friend the anemone has been slowly moving from his spot. The xenias which have been waving around their arms like they just don't care (about taking over the entire tank) is now getting close to the anemone. In an act of chivalry, the clown is now nipping at the heads of any Xenia stalks that is waving and taunting just a tad bit too close to the anemone. Frankly, I think this is kind of cool as he will now help keep the xenias in check. The xenia heads literally shrivel up like it's been punched in the face! But I guess we will see in the long run if I will keep this fish. As much as I like him, I would really prefer two false perc clowns. The GSM has been doing a great job of fattening up this anemone though. They really seem like they're now good buddies.

In other news... World's Smallest Fish Discovered

Wed Jan 25, 5:40 PM ET (Associated Press)


BANGKOK, Thailand - Scientists say they have discovered the world's smallest known fish in threatened swampland in Indonesia.

The fish, a member of the carp family, has a translucent body and a head unprotected by a skeleton.

Mature females grow to less than a third of an inch long. The males have enlarged pelvic fins and muscles that may be used in reproduction, researchers wrote in a report published Wednesday by the Royal Society in London.

"This is one of the strangest fish that I've seen in my whole career,' said Ralf Britz, a zoologist at the Natural History Museum in London. "It's tiny, it lives in acid and it has these bizarre grasping fins. I hope we'll have time to find out more about them before their habitat disappears completely."

The fish are found in an acidic peat swamp on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Indonesian peat swamps are under threat from fires lit by plantation owners and farmers as well as unchecked development and farming. Researchers say several populations of the tiny fish, Paedocypris progenetica, have already been lost, according to the Natural History Museum.

The previous record for world's smallest fish, according to the Natural History Museum, was held by a species of Indo-Pacific goby one-tenth of a millimeter longer.

"You don't wake up in the morning and think, 'Today we will find the smallest fish in the world,'" Swiss fish expert Maurice Kottelat, who helped discover the fish, said in a telephone interview from his home in Switzerland.

According to researchers, the little fish live in dark, tea-colored water at least 100 times more acidic than rainwater. Such acidic swamps was once thought to harbor few animals, but recent research has revealed that they are highly diverse and home to many unique species.

Rocks, the building blocks of the reef

Reef rocks made of calcium, or dead coral skeletons and coralline algae is one of the basic building blocks of a successful reef. Unlike the rocks you can skip on the water or those big round stones found in streams, rocks from the reef are often light, porous, filled with beneficial bacteria and interesting hitch hikers including corals and invertebrates. The live version of the rocks, or live rocks do not look like the pictures here. They are much more interesting and for the most part, purple.


Anyway to save costs, I've been wanting to start my next tank with part live rock and part base rock (old and dried live rock that's dead). Basically, mixing base rocks with live rocks for 6-8 months will make the base rock just as alive as the live rocks pulled out of the ocean. Granted it won't have as many hitch hikers or new surprises (which could be a bad or good thing). However, it will still have all the beneficial bacteria, which is the most important part. My first choice for base rock, after scanning the forums for praises was to order them from www.reeferrocks.com. One of the things I thought was cool is that they will send you pictures of the rocks before shipping them. That's the definition of customer service right there! However, a local reefer here was selling 100lbs of show size rocks for $50; a deal I couldn't refuse. So Reefer Rocks, you will have to wait...


Honestly, if there's something I learned this time around getting back into the hobby, it's that it pays to shop around for the best deals; preferably from people in your area who are getting out of the hobby. So far this has saved me a ton of money even though I will still end up spending thousands of dollars by the time this ends. However, buying used from local reefers is the smart thing to do. Take live rocks for instance... chances are you will not encounter a mantis shrimp and most bad hitch hikers will probably be plucked out (from a experienced reefer). Anyway, the pictures here are of my new addition... the rocks are really huge and amazing and it's hard to say how cool they are without examing them close up. However, if you're not into salt water fish, there's just no way you can get excited about $50 worth of rocks so it's pointless to try.

I will say this though... I took one of the more porous pieces and soaked it in a fresh water bath a couple of days ago. After I cleaned it tonight, I threw it into the 12 gallon to "seed" it with bacteria from my current rocks. While I know there are some cool nooks in this piece of rock, what I didn't realize, and what the dottyback showed me was that there are actually two tunnels in this rock which allow the fish to go in one hole and come out of another. This is so much fun! It's like giving my fish a McDonald's play gym. Well, I'm sure I look like a geek now, but you reefers will appreciate it. =D

Nemo demands clean water!

You know in Duece Bigalow.. alright, you may not have seen it since Rob doesn't make the best movies... but you've heard of him, right? Anyway, in the movie, there's a scene where he returns home from his day job, give his fish fresh water while he drinks... well basically sewage. As sad as this seems, this appears to be the direction I'm heading towards as I dive deeper into the hobby.

The last time I kept salt water fish I was living at school so while water quality wasn't so great, I really didn't have a choice or a place to plop down a RO/DI unit. (I was also a n00b.) As a result, I ended up with a lot of nuisance green algae that I had a constant battle with. It wasn't the end of the world... but scraping the glass every couple of days with a razor blade so I can look inside was no fun.

In the world of salt water fish, reverse osmosis deionized water (or RO/DI) is pretty much considered a necessity for keeping your fish happy. Yes, the fish swim in their own crap, but they prefer to do so without your human chemicals added in there. RO/DI units are commercially available for your homes if you care about the quality of your drinking water, but most of us leave the water purifying job to the city and really don't think much about it. Anyway... you can buy RO/DI units with anywhere from 4 to 7 stages (or "chambers") and for the most part, these can run a pretty penny. If you pay your own water bill, I'm sure this could add up in the long run as well since it takes about 4 gallons of wasted water to produce 1 gallon of purified water. (Luckily in Atlanta, condo communities share one giant water meter and spread the cost throughout the whole community... Guess who is going to get their share of the water buffet and THEN some... =D )

In the end, after you get it all setup and stuff... you'll get absolute pure water with nothing added in so you can pour your salt and other additives to fool your fish thinking it's real ocean water. Of course, the other option is going to your local fish store (LFS) and buy RO/DI water for about a quarter a gallon or pre-mixed salt water for about $1.25 a gallon. Whatever you decide, purity is appreciated by your 'lil pets whom you can never actually pet.

Here's a tip though, eBay has sellers that offer six stage RO/DI filters starting at $60 and up. These work just as well as the $300 systems plus you'll have money left over for a giant trash bin to store your water and other accessories for your new addiction. As far as how good they are, people seem to like them.

As you shop for RO/DI filters, you will notice some RO units with clear casings and some with white casings. These are for the most part, both the same and they do not affect how the RO units work. The clear casings are good because you can get a visual indicator on when you should replace your filters which normally should be replaced every 6 to 12 months depending on the chamber. The bad side of the clear casings is that the plastic used to make the clear casing is a bit more brittle than the white ones. If you have butter fingers, you could very well crack one if you drop it. The white casing although blind, are as tough as the Chinese food soup containers. or so I've heard...

Anyway, hopefully within the next month I will have this part of the process checked off. In time, maybe I'll accept the fact that drinking pure water from a giant trash can is okay.

Catching up...

Okay... so, some quick dates so I can get things in order...

January 5, 2006 - Bought Eclipse Nano from a guy named Andrew who is moving back to Florida.
January 11, 2006 - The gold striped maroon clownfish found the anemone. Surprisingly, I only realized that this tank had an anemone inside a couple of days prior.
January 10, 2006 - Joined the local reef club (www.atlantareefclub.org) and went to a meeting. The highlight of the meeting was listening to the marine biologist in charge of the health of the jellies from the Georgia Aquarium speak. Did you know there are jellies with a 6 feet+ disc and 100 feet+ tenticles? HOLY CRAP!
January 15, 2006 - It could have happened previously, but today was the first day I witnessed the clown actually taking a piece of food and dropping it off at the anemone so it can consume it. Needless to say, I think this fish will be well trained for any American Gladiator events if that show is still on.

On another note, I bought a fish stand from another guy who happened to be named Andrew in the ATL area. This stand however, will be used for either a 58 gallon or 70 gallon reef tank whenever I can scrounge up enough loose change to sum up the parts.

The journey begins...

Okay, so it's 2006. Bridget and I just bought a condo in late November and of course, after finishing some of the initial house work, my focus now shifts over to the fish tank setup/display/shrine. Let me just say, this hobby is expensive. If you are thinking about starting a salt water tank, make sure you do your research and know what you're getting yourself into!

We actually thought about getting a dog for awhile and while I love dogs in general, I realized that I would not have done nearly as much research into various breeds of dogs and their personalities as I would have with the different species of fish and their personalities. I mean, you could adopt a nice dog and/or one that may have been abused. Either way, you would probably gain a loyal friend for life. With fish, it's a bit different... no research leads to mistakes and one little mistake means your new purchase may be eaten by the current tank mates and/or one of the fish will show off like its a dolphin and go carpet surfing after it jumps out of your tank. Most marine fishes are at least $15 - $35 dollars so these displays of show-off are not really welcome... but I digress...

If you're currently thinking about buying "Nemo" fish and/or "Dori" fish please make sure you know what you're getting yourself into. Did I say that twice already? Make sure it sinks in... Some good resources I've been hitting up on the web are the forums at www.reefcentral.com, the forums on www.thereeftank.com, and for livestock references, I've been using the store www.liveaquaria.com.

Okay, so on to the picture... After about a month or so of scouring the forums above... checking out the "For Sale" section on Craigslist, forums of for sale items at local fish/reef clubs, and even eBay! I finally found a deal I was happy with to jump back into the hobby. I didn't want something too high maintenance at first as I wasn't sure if my budget would allow it and I didn't know if I was ready to handle all the issues that come with keeping lives-in-a-box living. So after much research, I decided I wanted to do a nano tank.

Yes, nano is the new big! Nano is hot right now... but nano for a fish tank is a bit different than a iPod nano or nano-technology. Anyway, I thought I would start by getting a JBJ Nano tank and/or the Aquapod nano tank. Both tanks come in 12 gallon and 24 gallon sizes and both come with pretty much all the accessories to keep marine fish alive in a small space. For laymen purposes, the JBJ Nano tank is the first generation and the Aquapod (which is still being released as of this writing) would be the second generation. The Aquapod is supposed to have been developed through learning and fixing the mistakes of the JBJ Nanocube, but it seems like the Aquapod is still prone to cracking, leaking and it also has electrical issues. This is where research paid off... while the first impressions were great, further research showed that these tanks were cracking and lives of both fish and humans were destroyed. That's no good. I think the verdict is if you buy something with bended glass corners, you better make sure that nothing was stressed during shipping.

Anyway, what I ended up buying was a used Eclipse 12 nano from a guy moving away from the area. I must say, this guy knows his stuff and he had a beautiful tank when I bought it. Hardly any hair algae and lots of purple (coraline) algae. I bought the whole setup for $200 and this is what it had:

- Eclipse 12 gallon system with PC lighting upgraded via a Sunpod retro-fit thingy. (Basically it has better lights)
- A gold striped maroon clown
- A blue damsel (will be gone when upgrading)
- A yellow and purple dottyback (will be gone when upgrading)
- A skunk cleaner shrimp
- Various mushrooms on live rocks
- 2 species of toadstool coral, 4 small pedestals
- A bubble anemone
- 2 headed candy cane coral
- Various snails
- Various blue legged hermit crab
- Orange sea star
- 3 stalks of xenias
- 2 Floridia ricordias
- Various zoas
- Green carpet coral? I forget the real name or friendly name...

The one thing I was surprised about was that the guy doesn't use his heater and that this tank did not have thermometer on it. Guess what I ended up buying the day after I got this tank? Anyway, this is a long post so I'll continue a bit later.

New in Box...

Like many proud "parents" of their pets whether it may be a dog or a mantis shrimp, I'm starting this blog to document the growth of my babies and interesting things/events that I will encounter along the way. I'm hoping this blog will be entertaining if not helpful to those of you that happen to find this 'lil page on the net and want to keep salt water fish yourself. So please... feel free to tag along if you too find having an ocean in a box entertaining.