i got another 15lbs of rock and some new coral on saturday as well.

frogspawn (Euphyllia divisia)

bird’s nest (seriatopora hystrix)

i’ve also got a plating montipora (montipora capricornis) but i got him on a deal because he was battered. i’ll take a picture when it’s healed up a little.

i’m tired of lifting things and we’re almost done. just the couch and the big shelf which we’re donating to my aunt and uncle. the aquarium is moved and sitting on our counter. not ideal but finding a stand for the new aquarium i got turned out to be rather difficult. i got an Oceanic 37 gallon show tank; the dimensions of which are 24×18x18. apparently they’re discontinuing the model and as such don’t have any stands left. i could get one but only by special order and that would take 8-10 weeks. not good. so i called a local shop and they can have one custom made in no more than 3 weeks. it will also match our cabinets. score.

we’re getting a van to move the couch and big shelf on friday so theoretically we could be done this weekend. i have this vision of going over there and just throwing a bunch of shit out and i’m hoping to stick to that but i’m a horrible pack rat. i have too much junk and this is a perfect opportunity for my lazy side to actually do some work for a change and make me not want to move stuff so i’ll throw it out/donate it instead. it needs to happen though, a good purge will do our apartment good.

we got some more boxes. i realized that i can’t pack up the bookshelf until the aquarium is moved because the aquarium is really heavy and may be unstable on top of an empty shelf. so i’m not sure what we can pack up. but i guess we’ll get to it this weekend. i don’t really think my stand is going to get here but if it does i can move that this weekend. i’m going to check out a fish store that’s going out of business saturday, so maybe i’ll be able to snag a slightly larger tank. a 29g is the same foot print as the 20L but 6″ taller. that would be nice.

i also got my protein skimmer working again.- turns out all i had to do was block the air outlet on the outflow.- but that’s making a nice green paste that used to be dissolved solids rotting in my water.- hopefully that will solve this nitrate issue i’ve been having.- my friend is babysitting some coral frags that were annoyed by this problem and he says they’re coming back nicely.- so after my water tests better i’ll bring them back and glue them to a rock instead of sitting them in the sand where my hermits tip them over.

the aqua-box is a strange hobby.- i spend about as much time staring at it or fiddling with it as i watch tv.- so between work, tessa, the tv, and the ocean box, my days are pretty full.

• try for a nintendo wii on sunday
• buy a commercial light fixture to replace the DIY one on my aquarium
• save it

having a wii would be really fun. nintendo is great for games you play with other people. and it just so happens that tessa likes to play games too. fun for the whole family. on the other hand, getting a commercial light fixture for my aquarium has a couple upsides. the first is that i won’t have this ugly red light hanging on chains from the ceiling; this will also please the lady. the second is that the fixture i want has a higher light output and wider coverage; which will be very beneficial to all of my reef critters. also, i can sell my DIY fixture for about half the cost of the new fixture just because it’s a popular and impossible to find wattage of light for nano-reefers. the third option, which is probably the smartest, is also the least fun.

i think what i’m going to do is go try to get a wii sunday and if i can’t, see if i can get a discount on the light because my friend wants an identical one; maybe get a bulk discount. if i end up getting the light, i’ll be spending less money, so i can kind of do the third option as well. but then i wouldn’t get to flail around at my tv with my girlfriend. i’m not sure how i get by having to make these kind of decisions. i srsly lose sleep over stuff like this.

this picture is in eugene’s aquarium; mine is the one in the middle.- EDIT:- this was taken last night in my aquarium. when i put it in my aquarium it looked really happy. that is until my peppermint shrimp started acting like i’d just but an all-you-can-eat buffet in front of it. i had to take out all the rocks in my aquarium to catch him. sometimes peppermints leave them alone, sometimes they like to eat them. i’m not risking it. the next day i noticed that my clam wasn’t all out and happy. i then saw my blenny take a bite at it. at first i thought it was just trying to get at some algae on the shell but it soon became apparent that it was trying to get at the mantle. it almost lost it’s head trying to get at it when the clam almost closed on him. again, i had to tear apart my rock work to get him out. so now the shrimp at the blenny are floating in a tupperware inside my tank until i can get them to the fish store.
it kinda sucks that i have to do that, i really liked both of them. but i like the clam a lot more and i’m not risking an animal like that for them. the clam is a Tridacna crocea. this is probably the hardest clam to keep happy in captivity. not only that but this is what is known as a super crocea. the difference is that the color on the mantle is incredibly vivid and patterned. these usually cost upwards of $50 for a specimen the size i have but i got it for $20. so my interest in keeping this thing happy is quite high. aside from that the blenny has annoyed every new thing i’ve put in my tank so far. this makes two things he’s tried to kill. a few weeks ago i purchased a rock that was absolutely covered in bright yellow zoanthid and star polyps. as soon as i put it in the tank the blenny started picking and rubbing all over the rock. the end result is that my star polyps didn’t open for about two weeks and about two thirds of the zoanthid colony died. i’m not taking such a risk with this clam.
so here we bid farewell to an annoying fish that was cute for a while, but ultimately a pest to a reef environment.

fedex fucking sucks. our receptionist doesn’t like them because they’re slow and expensive.
also, tessa’s grandma died. that’s probably one of the worst things that can happen to a person, losing someone close to you. that’s all i’m going to say about that.
then last week, right after i placed an order for some very delicate marine life, my aquarium decides to have a nitrate problem. i can’t figure out what the issue is. i’ve tested damned near everything i can think of except the water i get from the grocery store; which since it doesn’t explicitly say that it is de-ionized water (it only says that it is reverse osmosis) i have to assume that it is not pure enough for a saltwater aquarium. this prompted the purchase of an RO/DI unit that i will place under my sink in the bathroom and make my own damned water.
to top it all off work has just absolutely sucked. there’s no other way to put it. it sucked so bad that i made nearly three times the old cap for what can be earned on a week of pager duty. posting real numbers is tacky so we’ll just say i didn’t sleep very much that week.
it’s now november. a month that is usually pretty good. lots of people i know and love have birthdays in this month including myself. though i don’t really look forward to birthdays anymore. after you hit 21 the only thing you can kind of look forward to is 25 when your car insurance drops. but that’s not really something to go “whee” about. so here’s hoping november won’t suck.

sunday i talked to my uncle.- i’m going to a KMFDM show with him on halloween.- he’s friends with one of the guys in the band.- my aunt tracy works with the guy’s fiance+¬.- put all this together and i get to hang out with KMFDM on halloween after their show.

my tank is finally settling down.- for some reason my cycle took about two months to kick in. kinda took my by surprise because i had thought it was just a weak cycle or i completely missed it and everything was fine.- everything was not fine.- for a couple days i had a horrible nitrate spike and i nearly burned up a rock i just bought that was covered in zoanthid and star polyps.- the star polyps are bleached but they’re coming back with a vengeance.- the zoanthid colony was pretty much decimated; it’s less than half it’s size now (i think it was unhappy and started dying and falling off the rock, which in turn triggered the nitrate spike and cycled my tank).- there’s a solid patch of it left though and when that recovers there will be no stopping it.

it’s been about three weeks or so since dippy died.- i’m hoping another two or so weeks and water changes will get rid of whatever parasite he had that might still be lingering in the water.- i would really like to get a pair of them.- i can’t decide if i want orange or black.- since i know a guy at the fish store i can get them for about the same price. and both cheaper than retail.

i’m really unhappy with the rock arrangement right now.- but since the nutrient levels are being good i feel like i shouldn’t disturb it. soon enough though i’ll have my hands in there and completely rearrange the universe belonging to the critters in my ocean box.- i’m going to try my hand at actually aquascaping the tank rather than have it be a box filled with water and a pile of rocks in the middle.- keeping a marine tank isn’t all that much harder than freshwater.- you just have to pay attention to it more (which is easy because i obsess over hobbies) and you have to be a lot more patient (which is hard because i obsess over hobbies).- after about two months up, two shrimp, about 5 snails, possibly 4 hermit crabs, and a clownfish later things seem to be leveling out. which is good because i want more critters.