Well if you are trying to goad me into an update it might work just a little. I'm not sure how many factors have contributed to the scarcity in updates but here are a few.
My wife has not been well for about 16 months. It is not life threatening (she might argue otherwise) but it has required daily visits, seven days a week to a clinic for treatment which grabs a minimum of two hours out of the middle of each day. For a golfer, and I am officially the worlds 'worst' golfer it presents a real challenge to find the window to play 18 holes and still be home for dinner at the requisite time. I still try but with marginal success and certainly no benefit to my golf score!!! Notwithstanding Judy and the weather, I still try and get out twice a week as a goal.
Between Molly (my Shetland Sheepdog) and the aquarium there are another 2 hours minimum built into my daily routine which cannot be avoided.....ever, ever,ever.
Life does go on however and I can tell you that Jamie Grimm continues to work with me to maintain the system. He comes by twice a week to put in the most amazing four hour windows of effort to keep this aquatic environment in pristine condition. And it works well. I can have impromptu 'tours' for friends and members of the community without having to apologize for the condition of the tank because its always perfect. Jamie continues to be a great member of the team.
Mr. Wilson also continues to manage and support the overall health of the system. He is also here at least two if not three days a week on his way to and from the coral reef shop in Burlington. We try although no always successful to do a 100 gallon water change per week and have incorporated a similar routine for the two 180 gal coral frag tanks in the fish room as well. We take water chemistry tests twice a week and continue to value stable measurements very much.
Before I get into any event updates I should also mention that as far as the aquarium goes I have entered another phase in this build process as far as principles and best practices go.
I would describe the clock that I used to measure time with this system as that of a 'day trader' in the stock market with hourly checks and measurements on progress. I would, as many who followed this thread know, look daily for opportunities to improve on managing and caring for the life forms in this captive environment. And to a greater extent I think it worked reasonably well to get me where I am now. I have learned however that there are differences between what we hobbyists can hope to achieve with our captive coral reefs and perhaps what we aspire to achieve in comparison to our open ocean environments. They are NOT the same and they never will be. This is NOT a negative. It is NOT a criticism or sign of failure that we can't match the real thing it is just different. There are communities of life in our aquariums that we would never find together in the natural ocean environment. 'Adjusted life forms' as I call our inhabitants, acclimatize to our closed environments, no longer subject to the geologic time clock that their open ocean counterparts enjoy over the millennia. Although I haven't completely adjusted my sense of time I can say that I now realize that whatever clock is the best one to use in managing these lifeforms it has to have a huge dose of patience and tolerance to be effective.
I have observed that both captive raised fish as well as corals survive and thrive far far better in our captive environments than wild caught. This observation isn't pushing any environmental agenda its just a safe observation that my Bangaii Cardinals are far far healthier than any of the wild caught Cardinals I originally got to start the population in the beginning. Add to that same observation that coral colonies that have done well in the captive environment offer huge upsides to anyone starting their own colony from a frag from this community.
So much for my ranting..........
As most know by now there have been a few challenges over the past year that we have had to work through. The most well known was the Acro Eating Flatworm infestation that was very devastating to the coral. I was pretty convinced that I was going to lose everything. I had decided from the outset that I could not treat the display tank without damaging everything else. There is approx 70 feet of reef with SPS actively growing so there was no hope of isolating and of the damaged colonies. Someone on the thread had made the best observation on coping with this phenomena suggesting that the best strategy was to do everything to maintain a healthy environment for the coral and I am convinced now that they were right. I did not lose everything and the stuff that survived has thrived. I just have to be patient about the timeframe its going to take to fully recover the SPS population number I had before the whole thing started. I suspect also that the size of my tank had some positive effect as I can easily imagine that a smaller tank would be impossible to maintain any SPS without removal and treatment. I have learned a powerful lesson however. I had to change my practice for new coral introductions to maintain a minimum four to five week quarantine period just as I had been doing with my fish. All of the AEFW appropriate dips commonly available to hobbyists effectively kill the adult worms but do not kill the larvae. Since the larvae take a week or two to cycle to adults the coral must be dipped at least twice if not three times to be certain that no hitch hikers make it into the display. Trust me you cannot see these things easily as adults and its highly unlikely you will ever ever see the eggs.
I am leaving for another clinic visit so I will continue the dialog later..........
Peter
