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OUBrook

OUBrook

New member
A couple things...

The feather duster that pooped out it's feathers is doing great. It has been growing back its feathers, and is as healthy as ever.

Also, I am almost done building my mom's tank! I have basically everything I wanted for her, except a few things:

Some sort of goby to clean her sand
A cleaner shrimp
Snails
Maybe a few random frags (she already has several though [w/PC])

If anyone is wanting to get rid of their goby, cleaner, or snails let me know, and I'll buy them from you!! I'm trying to do this on a tight budget (esp. since I have projects of my own ;)), so I'm trying to get things relatively cheap.

Thanks everyone for being so helpful!! I love COMAS! :D
 
Haha thanks Adam! I won't be at the meeting *tear* so if I don't see you somehow within a month, I think it'll be okay if I don't get it. :) Hope to see you soon though! And thanks for tryin to help me out!
 
I can bring you some hardy coral frags for the next meeting (kenya tree, maybe some zoas, ricordia, etc).

As for a cleaner shrimp, you might remember that Extreme Corals had them for $14 a piece, when picked up in person (something on their website, minus the 20% discount). So I could bring one of those up to you as well (at a great price). Or maybe one of our wonderful OKC fish stores would be interested in matching (or at least coming close to) that price as to make the sale.

And after the tank has been up a month, I'd actually say that a sand sifting goby (try a dragon (brown-barred) goby, A. phalaena if I remember correctly) has a very reasonable chance of surviving if the tank has had water in it for about a month or so.

And I think a good starter set of fish for her would be a pair of clowns and a sand-sifting goby. The goby will help with the look of the tank as it will help the sand look cleaner. And since this is a gift, you want it to look as pretty as possible.

If you do get a goby, I HIGHLY recommend you have the fish store guys feed the sucker in front of you. The biggest problem with sand sifting goby husbandry is nutrition. In the wild, they get most of their nutrition from critters in the sand. In our tanks, they will have consumed all such nutrition in a matter of months, if not weeks. Now, this is not a problem if the thing adapts well to food tossed at him. I have had several, including the one you brought up from SWP to my wife, that would happily eat mysis and flakes and anything else that I threw in his general direction.

Also for setting up the tank, give yourself a jumpstart with the cycling process by using as much old tank water as possible. You are, if I remember correctly, using new rock from our group by, so that (I suppose) is a pretty big limiting factor on the speed of your tank maturation.

For the fastest curing possible, do large and frequent water changes. You could EASILY change 75% the water in your rock curing setup twice a week. I'd want to leave enough old water to keep a good water-borne bacterial colony going. But I'd want to get as much of the junk out as fast as possible, too. That process will also be sped along by good swishing of the rock, etc, along the way as well. You'll figure it out.

Good luck on your really cool Christmas present! Spread that reefing love far and wide.... :) (I sound like a hippy from the 60s now, don't I)
 
Haha, Paul you're a hoot.

I guess I should clarify what I'm ACTUALLY doing. I bought a 40gal w/stand from Steve (poke75). My sisters and I are going in together to get this done for her around Christmas. The tank has been cycling for about a month. I am getting her live rock from this order we just did, so that will start cycling tonight.

I have been getting random things for a couple months now, and am keeping them in my and Chris's (cmc0814) tanks for the time being.
:fish1:So far, she has a mated pair of false percs & a LTA (MyMonkey), a coral beauty (MyMonkey), a couple snails (bumblebee, cat's eye, etc), a porcelain crab, I think she'd like a pink&green cucumber someday too... Small frags of kenya tree (thanks to Thompson), xenia (papagimp), various mushrooms, a dumb-looking gorgonian lol, etc... And since she doesn't really have anything to compare it to, I think I'm going to fill it up with some feather calurpa, red leafy algae, etc. So it won't be empty by any means... And I know she will just die when she sees what she now owns!!:fish2:

If any of this sounds like a concern together or anything, certainly let me know. You won't offend me. I just assume they can all go together in her tank.

Sadly, we don't really have the money to build her a sump... I hate this. But she'll have to make due with an Emperor. This also is her first SW tank. I'm super excited for her! Chris sold me a PC for her. I'm also on the lookout for a Mj.


>>So to make this post painfully longer, here's what all I've bought and how much I've spent:

40 gallon tank with stand and glass top, sand, water, rock, heater, filter, PC, 2 clowns, anemone, coral beauty, snails, crab, gorgonian, cabbage leather, feather duster, calurpa, mushroom rock, xenia, star polyps, bleached SPS lol, zoos, feather duster... I think that's it :)

*For a grand total of: $317 !
:eek1:
Haha, I hope I've done well. I just have been buying things as I find good deals. And thanks to many of my COMAS friends, I've saved so much money!! Thank you all!
 
You've dun good girl!

I don't even try and think what I have spent over the few years I've been at it. I am spending more right now (Calc reactor and lights, and skimmer pump).

My wallet hates this addiction!!

Oh yeah, I got a Nikon D50 also, not for tank projects of course, just for taking picts of the kids.

anyway, your mom should love it!!!
 
Hey, how are you keeping this from her?

Is it getting cycled somewhere else or does she already know about it?
 
Woohoo! Sounds like a great plan....... EXCEPT.....

I'd hold off on the anemone for now. Anemone's are more sensitive to water quality issues that many of the critters we keep. Putting it in a relatively brand new tank is pretty risky, IMHO. On top of that, anemones and corals really are actually very contradictory beasts. In the wild they basically do serious chemical warfare against each other. So approach them with caution.

And I'd skip the Caulerpa all-together. Caulerpa is an EXTREMELY risk thing to put in any tank due to it's tendency to "Go Sexual". In short, this is a reproductive event where the algae turns white and releases countless baby algaes into the water. Without SERIOUS intervention, this will undoubtedly crash a tank due to the metabolic requirements of the algae and the strain that puts on a tank.
 
Oh I will post pics, but they won't come for awhile. I do want to stress that nothing is going to be done hastily. I have plenty of time. She may not get it at Christmas, but that's okay. I won't add anything until everything looks and tests out great. Then baby steps adding everything.

Okay, I'll rethink the calurpa. She won't really need it anyway. Plus, this rock is gorgeous! Esp with $2/lb! I always find cheap to be attractive. ;) With this awesome rock, it won't need much filler for the eye.

My mom doesn't know about it. We've been keeping it from her... speaking in foreign tongue (my sister and I speak in French to each other a lot lol), using secret hand gestures. Ya know, morse code and all. I live here in Norman, and she's in Enid. But I know she'll love it. She's always had fish tanks. In fact these past 4 months or so have been the only time she hasn't had one for as long as I know. I just wish I would have started sooner. We planned on another bulk rock buy quite awhile back, but that fell through. Which I'm kinda happy about... I really like this rock!

God Bless~
 
hey brook, i have some pic's on my homepage ( little red house) i've never fragged any of corals and some of them are definatly due for a trimming. if you see anything you like let me know and i'll see what i can do for you. ohh by the way i have a engineer goby that i hate!!! it moves alot of sand and eats anything you put in the tank ( even my finger somtimes ) anyway i doubt you would want something like like for your moms tank but when i can catch him he's gone!! so your more than welcome to him if you want. let me know!
 
Hey,

I think I may have a few easy frags I can give you. I can send them back with someone at the meeting or just hang onto them until you're ready.

I've got some green button polyps that are really nice under actinic, purple and/or red mushrooms that grow quickly, and green star polyps.

Let me know if you'd like any of these.

Stephanie
 
You all are so generous!! I certainly don't want to take advantage of your offers. I am willing to pay for frags if you guys want to make a little cash. I will basically take anything that's given to me :) Chris was going to frag me off some star polyps and some mushrooms if he can. But if you guys have a superfluous amount of corals, I will gladly take them off your hands. I won't be at the meeting, but Sheri (ouspeedbump) will be. She can put things in my or her tanks till Mom's is ready.

JD, sorry but we just got rid of our 2 engineer gobies. Ya see, Chris is a Mechanical Engineer, and when we started the hobby and heard of the Engineer Gobies, we thought it was too cute to pass up. Then they drove us crazy. So they went to another foster home. Thanks though!

Also, something Sheri and I just decided, when we give Mom her tank, we are going to give her a card with it that has all of her kids' names on it, plus everyone that helped out will have their handle and name on it too. We couldn't have done this for her without you all. So expect your name to be on her Christmas card! :)
 
Brook,

Your mom will be so surprised at all you and your sister's planning for her! You win the daughter of the year award... :)

I noticed on your Interests, you enjoy ballroom dancing. How often do you go? Paul and I tried our hands at it a couple of times. It was such fun -- we just kept stepping all over each other's toes....

Too bad you're not gonna be at the meeting tomorrow. Me and the kids are coming along for the ride. Anyway, great job planning and organizing all the stuff for your mom. :)
 
Oh! Sorry I missed you!! I hope you enjoyed the meeting though.

Chris and I have been going to ballroom since August. We go once a week and are in the Sooner Ballroom Dance Club. It's $15-20 per 5 weeks there (I've seen ages from 13-73 come). They teach 3 dances in the 5 wk session. It would be quite a drive for you though.

Thanks for the award ;) I've been planning this for awhile now, and I really hope everything pans-out! Which it should. I just need a couple more things and it's all a matter of time!
 
My wife and I are both jealous of the ballroom dancing lessons. We'd have much fun with that.

Maybe we'll find something down in Dallas someday, if we every get around to moving here....
 
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