Project 150!!

Looks good Nick! Give me a call when u get the chance. I work till 6 in the morning this thursday, and am off all day friday. Not sure of your schedule or would call you.
 
Hey Pat....got this too late, I'm guessing you're crashed out right now so I'm not gonna call you. I'll call you later on today.

Nick
 
07-15-2007

Brief boring update....

The 120 is doing fine. I turned the halides on (dual 250 watt XM10k's on an HQI ballast), because I was worried the Tomini wouldnt have enough to graze on. They've been running on a timer since shortly after the Tomini was introduced to the tank. Everything has a brown fuzzy algae growing on it, but I'm also seeing coralline algae in the tank, interestingly enough, I'm seeing most of it concentrated on the Thorite covering the PVC rock rack...

All the fish are doing fine, eating happily and not squabbling over territory.

As far as the 58 goes, the SPS are doing great....still havent figured out a way to get the Royal Gramma out of there yet....need to get on that.

The eel and the two clowns in the 10 gallon are all doing fine too...

Nick
 
My wife is getting to like him too...thats pretty huge since she doesnt normally care about the tank at all, except that it makes me happy...

Primarily an Indonesian art known as Pencat Silat, (Pen Jahk See Lot phonetically...), but I also like Filipino escrima and Kali Silat as well. I've done some training in JKD and Muay Thai...but I'm really not good at them at all.

Nick
 
IMO, Aikido is a good art, but its got a steep learning curve, and may not be suitable for everyone. Krav Maga on the other hand has a easier learning curve.
Depending on the instructor, Aikido also has (alot) more emphasis on the spiritual side than Krav Maga.

Both are good arts.

IMO, there are three main branches of martial arts:

1...spiritual, (Tai Chi is most often this way)
2...sport, (Kickboxing, Tae Kwon Do, and various forms of Karate are taught this way)
3...combat, (Silat, Krav Maga, shoot fighting, etc)

All arts to some extent have all three in them to some degree. The emphasis is however up to the teacher. There is no one perfect art IMO, just one (or more) that is perfect for you. So if Aikido or Krav Maga doesnt work out for you guys, dont quit looking around, you'll find one that fits you better.

Nick
 
well, I just didn't want my son starting out in a competative art at the age of 6. My theory is to get more of the spiritual/self control instilled before learning a true combat art. Maturity is a big issue in martial arts IMO and taking it slow with a child, including protecting vulnerable joints during the development stage is of paramount importance. Ou dojo is non-profit too, so that makes a huge difference in the culture he is exposed to. He is 10 now, a red belt, and slowly maturing through the process. In our dojo, adults are all white belts until they earn the hakima, but there is little emphasis on the belt process.
 
It sounds like you have a good idea of what you want out of the art you guys are studying together. Thats a good thing IMO.

Its really cool you guys get to do that together.

:)

I'm most likely going to remove the Doliatus Rabbitfish here in the near future. Its very greedy and is starting to try and hoard the broccoli by keeping the Regal Angel from it. I'm also considering taking the Royal Gramma to the LFS for credit towards something...
Its pretty large, Its pretty difficult to remove him, and I'm not real sure how well its gonna get along with the Blackcap basslet, (Which is smaller than the Royal Gramma), but this is a 120...

What would be ideal is to replace the Royal Gramma and the Doliatus Rabbitfish with a Powder Blue tang, and a Flame Angel.....but I'm not real upbeat about my chances of finding a Flame Angel that wont nibble on clams or acro's.

Possible substitutes are the Peppermint Hogfish (Bodianus masudai), or a Flameback Pygmy Angel (Centropyge acanthops), or the Flame Hawk (Neocirrhites armatus).

I want something relatively easy to care for so anything like Anthias or fairy wrasses are out...too much effort to feed every couple of hours, and the constant threat of jumping....I have an open topped tank for better heat dispersion.
My only concern about the Flame Hawk is that I have heavy flow throughout the tank, and that I would like to have some cleaner shrimp in the tank as well....and Hawks are pretty well known for munching on shrimp.

Thoughts or suggestions?

Nick
 
I like the fairy wrasses and although they have an upward orientation, I have never had one jump from my display. They only get fed when the tank gets fed, and that seems to be more than enough.
 
you're supposed to feed fairy wrasses every couple hours? uh oh. I've been feeding mine every couple days for the past year. :D they're easy to keep as far as I know. and very colorful. keep it in mind.
 
I have a mysteri, blue-sided scott's fairy, and a golden rhomboid. They are all smart quick fish and know how to stay out of the maroon's way.
 
08-04-2007

No pics, things are kinda in a holding pattern at the moment as I've been working quite a bit lately.

I took the Doliatus/Scribbled Rabbitfish out of the tank and brought him to a LFS for store credit. He/she was actually slightly larger than my Regal Angel and was hoarding food from the Regal, and actually chasing her away from Broccoli placed in the tank. That pretty much meant it was leaving the tank IMO. The Regal is one of the showpieces of the tank for me.

I turned off the Halides and went back to NO flourescents over the 120. The algae growth was impressive, and the only one grazing on it was the Rabbitfish....and it would still chase the Regal from the broccoli even though it was fat from grazing on algae growing on the rock work and the sides/bottom of the tank.

I added to Astrea snails, (didnt do much due to the size of the tank they were in), and moved the Long Spined Diadema urchin over to the 120...The urchin made a major dent in the algae, and the tank is almost looking presentable again.

Still no luck w/ the Royal Gramma.

In the 10 gallon with the Dwarf Moray there have been a couple of changes too.

I had a very small purple H.crispa anemone, (about 3 inches) and a decent sized Long Tentacled Anemone, (M.doreensis), the tank bred Occelaris clown and the tank bred Gold Striped Maroon clown.
The LTA decided one day to move all across the tank and I found it sitting over and potentially stinging the H.crispa, and the Maroon had followed it over, and subsequently chased the Occelaris out of the H.crispa and banished it to a small corner.

Both the LTA and the Occelaris were taken out of the 10 gallon, with the Occelaris being taken to the same LFS as the Rabbitfish for store credit, and the LTA taken over to PK228's house and given to him.

I know he'll take care of it, and I think it will do better there over the long haul than it would in a LFS where it could wind up with someone who has no experiance w/ anemones and would end up killing it.

So that's all for now.

Nick
 
LTA is doing great Nick! Male clown is all over it and happy as can be. Female still in the BTA on other side of tank. Fed the bubble tip the other day and decided to throw the LTA a piece of silverside. Impressive! That sucker closed up on it fast, and was open begging for more in about a minute. Won't feed it too much as I don't want it getting to big, but it was fun to watch.

Pat
 
Glad to hear its doing well. I knew it would be fine in your tank.

Hows the BTA doing?

What does your daughter think about the new anemone?

Nick
 
She was freaked out by how big it is at first, but happy that the "little clown fish" had a place to sleep, other than the xenia.

Bubble tip was looking much better, it ate well the other day, then last night when I checked it decided to take a walk and with the lights out I was unable to locate it. hopefully I will find it soon.

Pat
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10480688#post10480688 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by maxxII
08-04-2007


I took the Doliatus/Scribbled Rabbitfish out of the tank and brought him to a LFS for store credit. He/she was actually slightly larger than my Regal Angel and was hoarding food from the Regal, and actually chasing her away from Broccoli placed in the tank. That pretty much meant it was leaving the tank IMO.
Nick


They are genuine PIGS! But, they are tough to beat for algae control:D
 
Having a bit of an aptaisia problem in the 58 at the moment. One large aptaisia has turned into 40 or so little to mid sized ones. And they are not confined to one rock any longer....they're pretty much on every single rock in the tank.

They will not be moving to the 120.

Tomorrow, I'll be heading over to www.saltyunderground.com and picking up some Berghia Nudibranchs. Turns out they are local to me, (about 5 minutes away) and I never knew it. I talked with Lisa on the phone today about them, and she initially suggested I consider buying a raccoon butterfly to remove them as she did not feel I have a sufficiently large enough aptasia problem to justify the non recoverable cost of the Berghia's. (Berghia's only eat aptasia, and they will starve to death if there are no more for them to feed on).
I contemplated it for a bit...but I also have the H.magnifica anemone and some SPS left over...and its not exactly easy to get fish out of the 58 once they are in there.....the freakin Royal Gramma is a perfect example of this.

So I'm going to go with the Nudi's. It will take a bit longer, but be worth it in the long run I think.

Gawd this is a long tank build up....

Pat, have you found the BTA yet?

Nanook,
I know what you mean, I wasnt really thrilled to get rid of it, but I wasnt gonna let it chase away the Regal from food. If it had just played nicer with the other kids in the pool, it would still be there.

Nick
 
I put 50+ peppermints into my system and they had no effect on the aiptasia. I recently acclimated a CBB in a 40g with nothing but rock, macro, and aiptasia. Once I knew it would eat the aiptasia, I released him into my display, and now the aiptasia are being beaten back. Yay!!!! Good luck with the Berghia!
 
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