Ms. Peacock

How about a proper Full tank shot?

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Beautiful!

Love the frogspawns especially.. always wanted them in another DT but I'm too afraid of it hurting my harlequin shrimp.
 
Beautiful!

Thank you!

Now, I pretty much expected this, but I'm sure it's going to be an issue for a little bit. All of the rock that was in Betty's unlit mantis tank has inevitably soaked up a bit of phosphate. So, it's going to be leaching phosphate for a little while and I'm going to have to run some extra phosphate media, and most of that rock will have some minor issues with algae until all of the phosphate leaches out. And by minor, I expect very minor if I stay on top of the phosphates.

Also, related to the phosphate leaching, I now have a few sprigs of bryposis here and there. It's not much; it could be worse. At least the solution to bryopsis is pretty simple. I'm going to be raising the magnesium levels in the tank to around 1800 using Kent Tech M until it's gone. I have it up to about 1550 right now, and two more doses over two days will get it up to 1800. That should wipe it out without any issues to anything else in the tank. I'll let it return to normal with regular water changes after all of the bryopsis is gone. I'm also going to be watching Alk and Calc during this time, but I'm not expecting any real issues with that. Mag boosting with Tech M for bryopsis is pretty well established as a safe treatment at this point.

So, that's about it for now. I'm really happy with how the tank is going and the surprises are not really surprising, so I've got that going for me, which is nice...

 
Bumping the Mag up to about 1700 today. The bryopsis doesn't look too swell. Everything else in the tank looks great. I'm starting to see some other algae growing on the rocks that were in the 20 gallon tank. I'm going to add a little more phosphate adsorption media.
 
How big is your peacock?

My wife was reading the thread while I was away from the computer and almost got me in trouble with this question... she was under a different impression and then she got even more confused when I was explaining her it was about the size of a "shrimp"... then I finally show her what a Mantis "shrimp" looked like...

haha
 
My wife was reading the thread while I was away from the computer and almost got me in trouble with this question... she was under a different impression and then she got even more confused when I was explaining her it was about the size of a "shrimp"... then I finally show her what a Mantis "shrimp" looked like...

haha

Is this the first time? :lol:

Hope everything got sorted out :crazy1:
 
I was playing around with the camera the other day and got some nice video.

This one if from dinner time. Betty is cleaning up any food pellets that Barney missed...



This was Saturday morning. She pokes her head out to check out the camera.

 
This past weekend, we glaze fired a batch of seven mantis shrimp mugs(and some other stuff). I think we finally have the temperature distribution issue with the kiln solved, so we got less than a 20 degree temp differential between the top and bottom of the kiln at 2200 degrees. Unfortunately, a couple of our new glazes didn't turn out as expected and about four of the mantis mugs will have to be glazed again and re-fired, but they should come out fine after the next run.



My fiance got the three new pieces posted on Etsy, so if you'd like to see them, here's the link: http://www.etsy.com/shop/PeaDogStudios?section_id=14419254

These are the only hand made mantis mugs that I know of in the world, so they're kinda cool, IMO. Not many potters know what a mantis shrimp is, let alone get to interact with two on a daily basis, so I find it exciting that she has taken on a piece of my passion into her work. She's a keeper.

For those of you who follow twitter (I don't), she's posting new mantis mugs on twitter as soon as they hit Etsy... https://twitter.com/peadogstudios
 
Tell her to keep up the good work!

At that heat.. I'm assuming touching the kiln is a no no :D

Yeah, I'd avoid it. I'll have to bring home my infrared pyrometer and measure the surface temperature of the kiln when we fire it next.

It's also hard to get pictures looking down through the flue is difficult without melting the camera or losing all of the hair on your knuckles!
 
Betty went on a murder spree a couple days ago! WOW!

There was this little hitchhiker bivalve of some unknown genus and species that was a hitchhiker on a piece of live rock that I've had in various tanks for years now. It was about the size of a dime and about 4mm thick. Betty found it the other night and well, it was a tasty snack.

That's it. That was the entirety of the murder spree. She killed a little clam-like thingy.
 
Betty went on a murder spree a couple days ago! WOW!

There was this little hitchhiker bivalve of some unknown genus and species that was a hitchhiker on a piece of live rock that I've had in various tanks for years now. It was about the size of a dime and about 4mm thick. Betty found it the other night and well, it was a tasty snack.

That's it. That was the entirety of the murder spree. She killed a little clam-like thingy.

Oh no! all those poor victums :uhoh2:

:lolspin:
 
Betty doesn't often see the little tiny magnetic cleaner that I use to get into the corners of the tank, so she's often very curious about it and wants to inspect it. She got bored after a bit and wandered off, found a little asterina starfish in a crevice on the rock. She whacks it a couple times and gives up. The little star lives to see another day. I didn't know they would eat those.

 
Some new things today.

I picked up a used SL1 module for my reefkeeper for super cheap from a local guy who was upgrading to a reef angel. Actually, I got a couple of PC4's and the controller, too. Those will go on the 25 gallon tank.

The pH probe was real old and out of calibration, so I got a new pH probe and calibrated it.

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Also, the stock Nuvo 30 pump was too rattly for my liking, so it got swapped out for a Sicce Syncra Silent 1.5. It is silent, or at least quieter than the skimmer, so mission accomplished.

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Other than that, the tank is doing amazing. Betty and Barney look happy and super healthy. The corals have tons of new growth. And by tons, I mean more than average. Also, my cali tort has better polyp extension than it ever has.

One rhodactis mushrooms and one small colony of zoas seem to have been annoyed by the magnesium spiking to kill off the bryposis. Anyhow, the bryposis long gone and I suspect they will recover.

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Betty looks stunning as always:

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