Holy $&)$ that is a good deal. I might be interested in the strobe. Is it a single or a double? Congrats!!!!!
SS,
Was leaning towards getting a matched set of Inon D-2000’s, but that would take away the essence of my cheapness, and at $1200 for a new strobe setup, meh…..passing.
I ended up getting a used S&S YS-110 for a little over 250 shipped off fleabay, and I am going to sell the oly strobe, the UFL-2….i found the S&S’s more to my liking. I'm sure ill only get 325 or so it on fleabay.
I did manage another awesome score. I purchased a new housing on Olympus’s website. They are fire selling the housings for $195 since the camera is ‘so last year’, even though is shows $819 on the website, until you put it in your basket. I set up for international ship; someone paid me $300 for it!!
That’s a $100 net to me, so still on track for a sub $200 DSLR rig with two strobes.
well that too a better part of all my free time today but man was it worth it. The wife and i have been planning a trip to the Marshall Island for almost a year. You may have made my mind up on which island to visit. Thanks for letting u experiance a little piece of heaven at your expense. TEXAS native here as well.
Meh,
The marshall islands doesn’t have the same infrastructure as other places to support tourism. I would highly suggest going to Pohnpei instead.
You got one heck of a deal and shipped too!!!
Nice setup.
Yeppers, super stoked. Tough sell job to the misses until I did my world famous spreadsheet justification and some hard selling.
Hi,
I have just read this thread and I am seriously shocked. You don't feel bad about having a tank at the most beautiful place of the world...and you feel that the Ocean is a self service store? Shame on you! Leave the corals where they are, don't catch any fishes just for test purpose. The Ocean is not yours...you are just a guest!
Can't bellieve they let you in the water and grab everything what moves or looks colorful.
This has nothing to do with Aquaristic!
Permi,
Its not that easy to grab everything that looks colorful, it does take some practice.
Yes junkie you should feel bad for poor people like us that wished they were in your place. Please trade olaces with meeee! I would have a 1k gallon tank.
Sent from somewhere
I’m riddled with guilt. I’ve applied to Greenpeace, UNICEF, PETA and Doctors without borders….I haven’t heard back yet.
just doesnt get any better then that
High speed would make it better, you MB loving fools, im stuck living in a KB world…..I’m jealous.
Permi I really hope you are not being serious with this post. If you really DID read this thread you would realize that he takes corals/fish for his tank in moderation and always collects responsibly from how I read his entries ( case in point: "as i pointed out, i only get 3-4 corals when i go out, sometimes none. it's a bit of self policing, coupled with the fact i can only cram so many corals in a 58G. when i want something different, i return what i had in my display onto the reef" Post # 77 in this thread.) I'm also wondering if you have a aquarium yourself because if you do where do you think your fish came from? Unless you have clownfish, gobies,and dottybacks, that came from a breeder the fish swimming in your tank were at one time swimming in the ocean as well. I would like to thank R-balljunkie for posting all of the beautiful pictures. I think it is always inspirational/helpful to see how corals grow on the reef, and what corals are found together in the same patch of reef.
No problem, wait to you see the new pics!
Admin -please disconnect my Account! Not worth to spend my time in such a Forum
And yes - I was very very seious with this post. Because people intend to watch pics only and forget to read between the lines. Taking species out and return them back has "self service" behavoir.
And the alternative? Flush flush? Don’t forget, everything go’s back when I leave here. I'm sure most cannot say the same, i.e. repatriating all of your stock.
We are all in the same boat buying corals and fish that are taken out from the ocean. Permi by the way you feel you should not even have a tank.
Perhaps Permi has a space ship, we don’t know about. I welcome all open dialogue. Not everyone has to agree with me in life, but please don’t present yourself as being righteous. Its like going to beef.com’s website trying to get people to buy into Tofu burgers as a healthy alternative.
Wrong crowd bro.
I love these types of posts. They are here to do nothing but stir up trouble. More coral and habitats are destroyed by pollution that they clearly participate in then any taking of a few colonies. In fact taking a few colonies responsibly can allow room for others to grow. In addition, catching what 5 fish and keeping them in a tank seems to me to be better than killing them and eating them. Typically the people who write these posts kill more reefs themselves by wasting electricity and driving old poluting cars causing increased carbon in the atomosphere. These are the same people that brought us plastic bags, tires in the ocean off of Texas and many more short sited failed attempts at "saving" our planet. Trust me this person doesn't have a tank and is only here to stir up trouble.
I ride a bike every day, everywhere, as with everyone else in my family. Does this help my cause?
WRONG - I had a tank for more than 12 years and started approx 25 years ago with some breaks in between. At a certain point in Time a ZEO Showtank. Packed with SPS.
I have changed my mindset. It's really sad how people treat their fishes and other species. Reason why I stopped - was that I lost still due to unknown reason 1/2 of my fishes and then said: enough is enough. I better spend my time with Diving and observing fishes where they live. But never again
It's like those guys who hunted sharks are now trying to protect them.
I hope this clears up my statement.
I'm glad you had a change of heart. Snorkel Bob is waiting with open arms. Give him a bear hug for me, will you?
And I stand by my belief. Please take your time and effort and use it for something that will really make a difference in our oceans. The elimination of long line fishing, drag netting, the taking of entire tuna colonies, whaling, the use of plastic bags and CFL light bulbs. All of which contribute far more damage than the modern aquarium hobby. Just a further note that the author of this thread returns all of his animals back to the ocean and has assured us that he only keeps wild caught so he can not transmit deseases. I'm sure you can find more destructive places to use your time and electricity.
You can add me to the list of destructive forces on the environment…..one man wrecking crew muh ha ha ha.
Thank you Permi, I think you leaving this forum would be a good idea. Why did you sign up for R/C ( a worldwide forum on keeping marine fish and reef tanks) when this is your position on this hobby to begin with? The people on this forum use it to disseminate information and tecniques, that hopefully lead to the best life possible for the animals we all have chosen to keep, and not to brag about what we have taken from the ocean. And in the process, it has taught many of us, things I think many of us here on R/C did not expect to learn (this hobby has taught me personally a little about electrical, carpentry, chemistry, biology, just to name a few.) and as for the "self service" behavior you mentioned, i believe its not just the OP that benifits from his taking the fish and placing them in his aquarium, the animals especially the fish, will also reap some benefit from not having to compete for food, being free of predators, not being captured by someone who planned to eat them instead, just to name some of the advantages. this post has taken this thread off track, but I wanted to adress this comment.
I think what is needed now are some more pictures to bring this thread back on track! R-balljunkie, the fact that you can catch your own Rhomboid wrasses is just amazing!! Soo jealous!!!
Why sure, Rhomboids are sooo 80’s. Ive gotten the hang of catching them, going to spread the wealth to the other folks on island that keep tanks. Scroll down for drool effect.
The two previous posts are spot on.
+100000000 cause I can't get enough and I'm jealous!
+1
This post makes me want to dig up my old pics from my trip to the Red Sea >< keep the pics coming Rballjunkie
More the merrier, please do post if you got them.
Could a moderator please clean up the last page or two. Would be nice to keep this thread on track. Also please grant his wish and delete his account.
Cheers
Jason
Please, do post again. We can have a civilized discussion anytime you want.
Hmmm. Diving now are we? I'm willing to bet there are more inexperienced divers scraping their gear across reef building scleractinians than there are wild corals being killed in hobbyists' tanks. In fact, I don't know many people at all that even want wild caught corals anymore, so it's really a moot point.
Unless you plan on swimming or taking a canoe to these dive locations, I think the world's reefs could do without the added fuel exhausted into the water as well.
Six posts in almost six years and half of them in this thread. I'm just sayin'...
Blaming the aquarium hobby for destruction of the world's reefs is like banning gasoline model cars because of their carbon footprint. I think your energies would be better suited trying to teach and speak to the 3rd world countries that these reefs are located in, and trying to get them to get out of the 18th century and learn proper sewage treatment practices.
I ran into a lot of people like you when I was installing a lot of hardwood flooring. After some research, I learned that people fighting against deforestation needed to know that because of our harvesting practices, there is actually more red oak and white oak in North America today than there was before Theodore Roosevelt was President. I've also come to learn that all of those people wanting Bamboo floors are doing more damage than to the environment than if they just used a hardwood. The glue and resin used to bond the strips of bamboo together to make flooring are worse for the environment, and most of their materials would be considered a VOC (volatile organic compound) violation in the USA, but since it's dry when it gets here...no harm, no foul. Also, the child labor in 3rd world countries that's used to strip the outer grass off the stalk isn't talked about either.
My point is, you need to know your facts. One Red Tide, typhoon or hurricane can, and does wipe out more coral reef life than us hobbyists could ever muster.
Somewhere there's a tree that needs hugging. Please find it.
I would not recommend a canoe, the waves would definitely get you.
OK OK, back from Vacation. We ate our way through North America, and increased GDP by .0001% with the amount of money we spent. After awhile, you realize your wallet is hemorrhaging, and you say, meh, what a few more hundred dollars. Nice to see family and friends and enjoy high speed internet, TV commercials and these strange devices with steering wheels and engines. All said, its nice to be back “home” on the island. Been doing some diving in between the last post/vacation, still test driving my new camera. All the shots looked underexposed, so still need to work on my technique. The DSLR rig is monstrous. Really not practical to take out, but ill stick with it. It’s a toss up for me, on what to do when im diving. I cant haul this thing around, and still manage to collect at the same time, so its one or the other. My preference is fish collecting since it’s so challenging. Only bad part is…..leaves less photos’s to post.
I’ve gotten a handle on collecting Rhomboids….mystery wrasses are a mystery still. I sat around for 10 minutes at 100’ waiting for one stupid mystery wrasse to make its move. He won the war of attrition and I left without him. I’ve been holding back the name of my dive buddy who collects. Well he said, not a big deal to him, so I’ll let the proverbial cat out of the bag……its Brian Greene, formerly of Twilight Aquatics. All said, one of the premiere collectors of marine specimens in the world, super bad arse diver extraordinaire.
I think he absorbs oxygen thru his skin because it’s freakish how long he can stay underwater.
Over the last year and a half, I’ve gotten his cryptic like hints on what to do, how to do when it comes to collecting. Will power means nothing when it comes to collecting. Experience and skills trump all.
Ive gotten much better at collecting since I started. I haven’t blanked in some time. The second part of the equation is decompressing the fish, which is quite unnerving to do while still under water.
All said, it’s a blast and a challenge to collect. I drained my tank before I left and thinned out the fish population in anticipation of getting different fish. I had to drain my tank once again yesterday due to a rowdy yellow wrasse harassing the new guys. I put him in my kids bug box, and let the kids play with him for awhile, and then they let the yellow wrasse go. It’s amazing what keeps a group of 5 year olds entertained.
With this said, my piddly catch bucket consisting of three rhomboids, two F. Cirrhilabrus balteatus look like a dozen yellow tail damsels.
Everyone brace yourselves, please don’t vomit in your mouth…..drum roll please.
Chaetodon tinkeri x burgessi
Bodianus neopercularis
Last but not least ……….. Belonoperca pylei AKA Dr. Seuss Soapfish
DFS has one listed:
http://www.liveaquaria.com/diversden/ItemDisplay.cfm?c=2733+3&ddid=156942
Thats a dream team lineup of fish that im sure is coming to neighborhood LFS soon. I'll have to up my game before im able to wrangle the likes of the above. Once again, back to the D league/minors for me. Just when i thought i was getting too big for my britches, reality check fool.
Enjoy the pics, and thanks to all who came to my defense in my absence. Aquarium geeks arent bad people, right?
c
C
