Temp housing for the dudes

The move on Saturday went extremely quickly, thanks in no small part to help from our Boston friends Shawn and Sanna, and their puppy William Wallace. :-)




I was so grateful not to be the one trying to heft mattresses and couches and the TV. Not only is it so nice to have all of the furniture moved (the house has finally stopped echoing!), but they were such great company. In all, we only spent about two trips and 4 hours of loading, driving and unloading the UHaul. The boys stopped in the middle to go play football, and then we all went out to watch game three of the series in the evening.

Even the weather cooperated.



Blue skies and perfect temps after a week of drizzly cold.

I'll post house-with-furniture pictures once we're a little bit more organized. :-)


The fishtank move on Sunday was a bit more of a challenge. By mid-afternoon, we'd moved all of the dudes into temporary homes, with lights, current, heat, filtration and circulation. We brought about 60 gallons of water over from the apartment to lessen the transition. (Between our wonderful friends, we were able to borrow 7 carbuoys -- the huge glass jugs used for brewing beer -- which made the water transport in the car MUCH easier, if still pretty heavy.)

Here are the clowns hanging out in a tupperware on the counter:




And reunited with the PVC in their new temporary digs:





The clowns *really* didn't like my attempts to catch them with the net for transport, but once they were both together in the quarantine tank and were able to hide in the PVC for a breather, they calmed down quite quickly, and even ate dinner.

Here's our green tub of rocks and corals, all lit up:




It looks quite sensational with the blue lights in that green tub. Here's a slightly less glowing photo, taken before we put the skimmer in. (You can use the futon for scale -- it's a pretty big tub.)




The corals are out and look pretty happy, which is a relief.

We've now moved just about all of the equipment. I hit the point of total exhaustion around 8:30 pm, when the water was out of both tanks, but we still have about 40 pounds of sand. I'll finish getting that out tonight, and then we can wash the tanks, and transport them and the stand tomorrow. So, we aren't done, but it's progress!

Moving the tank...

I haven’t posted a tank photo in ages. Here are the dudes, happy and oblivious to all of the coming changes.



The fish tank will be the last thing that we move. There are a lot of pieces. We have a 55 gallon display tank, a 40 gallon refugium, a +/-5 gallon sump, a 10-gallon quarantine tank, a stand, a cabinet (that the sump sits on), plus lights, plumbing, about 80lbs of rocks, about 80 lbs of sand, nearly 100 gallons of water, plus corals, fish, invertebrates, and zillions of worms, critters, and creatures that we didn’t put in the tank but that we want to preserve.

The rough plan is to set up the quarantine tank (with its lights, CPR Backpack II skimmer, pumps and heater) on the counter of the new house a few days ahead of time, with water from the main tank. Then we can bring the clowns, shrimp, snails, hermit crabs, and smaller corals and keep them there until the main tank normalizes.
One of my coworkers has offered to lend me four of his (sterilized/sterilizable) 6.5 gallon jugs for beer brewing to transport all of the water. So, then, the plan will be to:

1. Transport water from the tank to the quarantine tank two days ahead of time. Also transport all of the ready-water buckets and their water.
2. Transport fish, crabs, snails, and small corals in bags to the quarantine tank.
3. Scoop out sand to container.
4. Siphon as much tank water to jugs as possible.
5. Move coral-encrusted rocks to containers, with water and, if possible, heaters and current?
6. Transport 55 gallon tank and stand to new house, along with water, sand, rocks, equipment. Also transport 40 gallon tank, sump, and cabinet.
7. Reassemble stand, tanks, rocks. Add water. Heat and circulate. Add lights.
8. Connect full plumbing loop between 55 gallon display tank, sump, and refugium.
9. Continue to bring water from the old apartment for water changes (to reduce stress on the creatures) for the quarantine tank and the main setup for the next three days.
10. Once the tank seems in the clear and the water is testing normal, reintroduce the fish, etc from the quarantine tank.

I have a nice chart in progress for the four car trips that I think this will take.

I’m daunted.

Fish tank fun

The "Gramma Rock", so named because the gramma used to live inside it, has always been a bit of our nemesis. In addition to housing our first zoos and lots of coralline algae, it's also been host to the annoying green fan algae and the alarming red algae. not to mention bubble algae and aiptasia. When both the green and red algae started reproducing on the same day, it seemed time for drastic measures.

We'd talked about pulling it out a year ago, but decided that the gramma would never forgive us. And then we stalled a bit, in his memory. But, with the red algae making a nasty comeback, and the ongoing dominance of the green, when I raised the subject a week ago Kevin was very enthusiastic about pulling the rock out.

Here's the tank before it went:



(The gramma rock is the huge lump in the right third of the tank.)

Kevin documented the removal. Here's the tank with the lights off, and me with a towel prepping to remove the huge rock. (Like the Seafair tan?? :-))




Here is the tank under the blue lights, all murky from the sediment raised from under the rock:



The rock removal left a big sand bed, and let us move the unhappy torch coral out of the corner and into the current and light. The torch coral looks so happy. And a bonus: the clowns are venturing further right in the tank. Nice!

We've put the rock in fresh water in the quarantine tank in the bathroom to re-cure (i.e. lose all of the negative life-forms). I had a momentary lapse, since that also meant losing the zoos (purple and orange), and about a zillion starfish and snails, but Kevin was adamant (and correct) that it was for the greater good of the tank.
We were intrigued to find a crab about 2" across after the second day. We'd spied him a handful of times, when we watched the tank by flashlight well after midnight, but it's good that he's now away from the coral. As for the experience of letting rock rot, I wish that there was a way of blogging smells, but for all of your sakes, it's probably just as well that there isn't. Picture every bit of loveliness that the phrase "low tide" dredges up. Luckily, it isn't our turn for a Brown Dinner anytime soon. Here's the sanitized version of the rock, pre-water and pumps:



We have no idea whether the rock will become part of a new, better system (contingent on buying a house), or just be an exercise in letting go. I think it's quite pretty and hope to keep it. We'll see!

Clownfish in the mist

I love this photo.



One of the tank care items that we do every other day or so is to blast the rocks and sand with a turkey baster, to stir up debris and detritus. Then it can be filtered out of the water, and the tank looks all glittery and clear a few hours later. I've always felt terrible for the fish, though, since it would be like breathing smoke, until we went to Hawaii and saw how murky with sand the water there gets every afternoon when the wind picks up. Since then, I've been basting with renewed vigour.

This picture was of Clack from the back of the tank, through the swirling murk. In the tank, you can see the pink mushrooms, yellow and orange zoos,
and the cursed shiny green bubble algae. You can also see through the tank into the living room: the red couch with its white pillows, the kayaks in their stand... Still life of living room through a fishtank. :-)

Things that are green

1. New strips for the bushes and trees in the quilt!



I was cutting at the kitchen table -- one of the coolest spots in the house, since it's on the first floor, all the blinds were closed, and I got the few fragments of breeze from the fan that made it past the fishtank. (We really should buy another fan at some point.) After sunset, I had to give in and turn on a light to read the markings on the ruler, but in all it wasn't a bad way to take my mind off the heat. (Good thing the fabric wasn't red or orange!)

2. The second batch of beans!



I really need to stake the plant, since it's gotten very floppy and top-heavy as it's grown, but in the meantime it seems to keep spitting out plants unperturbed.


P.S. The fish made it through the heat wave without issue. The tank got up to 83.4 degrees or so, but Kevin's ice cubes and ministrations throughout the day seem to have done the trick, and when I approached the tank to take a picture, all of the dudes, including the shrimp, came clamoring over to the glass to be fed. A very good sign.



Sorry for the florescent, flash-marred picture. It's really hard to take good pictures when the white tank lights are off. First thing in the morning, we turned off all of the refugium lights and the white lights on the main tank, leaving only the blue main tank lights for the day. It was an attempt to avoid as much heat as possible without stressing out the fish and corals too much. As a result, everything glows (think bright colors under a black light). Pretty in person, but tricky for photos!

The original forecasts for today were for a second day in the upper nineties, but luckily, cold wind blew through overnight and the morning was quite cloudy, so we were given a reprieve. :-)

A scorcher

My mom runs Vista on her laptop, and has it set up so that she can see the weather for Seattle, New York and DC (where me and my siblings live) in the sidebar on the desktop. According to her, I've been winning for the last week or so. Sunny and low 80s easily beats humid and upper 90s. Yesterday, though, started to get really hot (89 on my car thermometer at one point!), and today, we're supposed to hit 98. Anything over 85 is severely alarming to the general Seattle population -- we aren't equipped for hot weather.

Kevin and I would merrily go to our air conditioned offices and then complain heartily when we finally got home to a baking apartment, and leave it at that, but the fish (as usual) complicate things. We generally have a few days a summer where we worry about the tank getting too hot. It's stressful for the fish, and there's real concern that our corals could bleach. You can buy a chiller to keep the water cool, but they're expensive, and not really worth it for our climate. Usually we keep the tank reasonable cool (under 81 degrees) by closing the blinds in the apartment. If it looks like it will break into the mid eighties, we turn a fan on the lights, to chase away their hot air, and to promote evaporation, which cools the water.




Today, the tank was already over 82 at 8:00 am. Eek.



(And look at that salt creep!! When it's hot, we have to wipe down the salt every few days instead of every few weeks.)
So, fan, upstairs windows open, shades drawn, and Kevin's braving the heat to work at home so that he can do water changes with cool water every hour or so. We're cooling the next bucket with a ziplock of regular ice (since it has chlorine in it, we can't put the ice in the water directly).

Then, in a flash of inspiration, I remembered that I still had my ice cube trays from Boston (pre-ice maker). We poured some of our fresh top-off water into those, and those ones will be able to go directly into the refugium. Nice.




Keep cool, little fish!

Tank: 1 Susan: 0

I've long learned not to put my hand in the tank after the lights go out, but every now and then I deal with things in the "twilight" (blue lights on, as in "daylight", but white lights off) and get totally rebuked for it.

Here's my effort to right coral that was tumbled by too many hermit crabs:



A few seconds, 7 stings from some tank-dwelling creature (my bets are on the web-spinning snails), and it's all benadryl and ice. Nice. Thanks, fishtank.

The tank never fails to disappoint

The night before we left for the airport, we found an enormous, hairy crab in the refugium. Kevin called me downstairs, and we took photos with a finger for focus and scale. Woah.



We'd caught a crab about a year ago and let him loose in the refugium, and then he disappeared. I'm guessing that this is the guy -- he's huge. He was really speedy once he got spooked, but amazing that it took a year before we found him. I still can't guess how he made it up the 21" wall of the baffles. Crazy!

Here's a shot with his eyes.



Creepy, no? :-)

New dude: a shrimp!

I should have posted this two weeks ago. After about five months of a clown-only tank, we finally went to the fish store to pick up a new dude. We got him home and he hid behind the torch coral for the first four days. We finally stopped coddling him by feeding him where he was and started luring him out, and now he's taken up residence on the underside of the overflow box.



Every now and then he swings around and I can get a better shot. He's still a bit freaked by the flash, so I haven't persisted, even though these are still only moderate.



The clowns are intrigued. The old shrimp used to hang out with them, and this one is much smaller, which they seem to appreciate. However, he stays near the top of the tank, and they don't spend too much time at the surface unless they're eating. They've mustered the courage to get close enough for the shrimp to do a quick cleaning a few times. We ought to start feeding him lower and then maybe he'd start hanging out on the rocks where the fish could reach him?

Clack from the back

He's almost impossible to photograph from this vantage point, because he finds the camera fascinating. Nonetheless, when I try to photograph his face, he obliges with his tail.

More Tank Adventures

Something has been irritating our purple zoos for about two months now. They haven't opened at all since then, and I have no idea what might be wrong. It doesn't look like anything's eating them, and they're getting good current and light. So, chemical warfare with another coral? (Like maybe the amazing blue acro right up top? It's been growing like mad recently. Or maybe the torch coral? We moved the leather away, but that didn't seem to make any difference.) It's so frustrating not to have the slightest idea what the problem is, especially where all of the other zoos are all happy and open.

In other tank mysteries, we've been finding bits of mystery crabs in our tank all week. The tally had been two pincers and a leg, and then I found a whole crab! Geez!



The last time anything new was added to our tank was over a year ago -- the ricordia was a "new job" purchase in January 2006, but it didn't come on a rock. Best guess, this crab has been in our tank for at least a year and a half. How crazy.

The front view is even more ridiculous. How enormous is that claw?



My question is how many more of these guys we have in there. Given the multiple claws pulled out in the last week, it seems like we're not in the clear.

The red-speckled leg is another mystery, as it doesn't match any of the known inhabitants. I'm hoping that maybe it was a blue hermit crab, and all of the blue faded? If not, we have another huge dude in there somewhere, running around on seven legs.

Some of the dudes

It must be the pressure of demonstrating that the clowns are happy and healthy, but I've been completely incapable of taking a good picture of the dudes since the storm. I'm officially throwing in the towel. If you can't see that they're wriggly and charismatic from this, I have nothing helpful to add other than a reminder that my photography *truly* is not representative.




The tank really has bloomed since the storm. Part of my brain wonders if the difference is the tang -- they're known to be time- and resource-intensive fish, and 55 gallons is the bare minimum for keeping one. I wonder if the water quality is so much better without him? It's also possible that we've been more attentive since the averted disaster, and that's made the difference. The tank really is preoccupying.

In that vein, here's a great picture of one of the two turbo snails.



Isn't he neat? I know he's a snail, but really, he's captivating. I ought to try to bend youtube to my advantage, and then maybe some of the tank-doubters out there would understand? You just have to see him in (surprisingly fast) motion, and delight in the suspense of whether he'll eat the nearby annoying algae or take a different route... you'd understand, in person.

In other snail news, we're seeing a lot more "naked" snails, again. When we first saw these guys, we almost wondered if we'd managed to develop a new species of unpreyed-upon shell-less snails. The moniker "naked snails" stuck long after we learned that they already existed, were named, and were commonplace besides. They're exactly like snails, except that they only have a backplate (my term) instead of a shell. But they come in a beautiful, velvety black as well as the less exciting snail-color, and they're interesting. However, I don't think I've ever seen one as big as I did last night.



To the left, you can see a turbo snail on the back wall. And to the right: do you see that naked snail? Enormous! In other interesting news, the blue SPS coral in the mid-foreground has completely recovered from the storm, and can be seen growing like mad between the two. Neat.