Scott Nicholas

with limited budget and no xenia available, i added Golden Polyps to my tank this weekend (Saturday night). didn't upload pics because it wasn't working for some reason. i still don't think it's gonna work, grr!!! i don't feel like messing with it. like the link for the hi-res pic i was able to get on tinypic.com. i also added 2 scarlet hermits. they're nice. no more snails... and my shrimp has molted again! that makes what, 4 now? hrm!

they did not have xenia at that fish place this weekend, and i had a tight budget. i got golden polyps, 2 scarlet hermits, and a 50gal bag of reef crystals. it's amazing how cheap it is for the big bag. it's like $9 for 10gal box, $10 for 25gal box, and $11.89 for the 50gal bag. so why not? it'll last forever at approx 2-2.5gal per water change a week... heh. that'll last me like, half a year! :) here's the polyps freshly added:

it was my birthday. i went to south carolina wednesday after work, just got back saturday evening. my tank still looks beautiful! the diatom problems are gone. maybe the carbon helped, maybe it was the PRIMO bottled water too. btw, i removed the carbon last sunday (may 13th) with that other maintenance and didn't mention it. the glass also has no green on it! the white areas of the big live rock have turned a beautiful green color though, which i like. macro algae is getting nice... only problem i have now are the few bubble algaes. =( right side of …

is that a snail...?

nope it's TINY the hermit crab!

and here's Jacques! (just named him, right now... yeah that's the nemo characters name).

bit harder to see, look at the BIG picture and you'll see 3+ of what i reckon are feather dusters.

i knew i needed a water change, and my outlet was blowing sand everywhere, so i had to move that too. it was pointed in the area that kept turning brown. hopefully that prob went away. i put the hydor flo back, since i thought it was just too much current! clownfish didn't swim around much, and the food was never getting delivered to the shrimp. it burst into flames from the strong flow HEH. so what went wrong. first i got carried away with removing detritus from in front of filter inlet. didn't notice my 1gal jug was full …

bullcrap that it's "perfect for aquapod" though. at least my 12gal. it's just a bit shy of fitting in the filter. mostly because the pumps intake. i removed the strainer and squeezed that sucker in a filter chamber. water level is prob a bit high, due to there being absolutely no overhead room, but we'll see in a few days if the foam matures. i could always lower the tanks water level a bit. i keep it at the "MAX" level. MIN is prob a good 2 inches lower.

and the initial burst of micro-bubbles... i needa add some foam …

i wasn't going to name him nemo... it's too cliche to name your clownfish nemo. but today when i stuck my fingers in to feed him, he jumped into the filter! was going to be late for work so he spent about 5 hours in there. this is what i did to my net to fit into the filter chambers:

looked for the night life a bit ago. a snail was stuck upside down in the sand with a piece of live rock still underneath him. it's fragile in some spots i guess. :) then i see 3 old hermit shells in the front... hrm, someone ELSE has swapped... rocky's now in a shiny new white shell. i think it's rather big for him. he got himself stuck between a rock and a hard place (same place as tiny back when we first started). freed him. then TINY is upside down on the bridge-rock... they can usually flip over, but it …

my sand turns brown every day. must be this "brown algae" they call diatoms which is normal to new tanks, especially when using tap water. that's my understanding anyway -- that it's expected and will go away with age. i hope so!

i ordered the fission nano-skimmer. just under $29 with s&h. i hope it fits somewhere. the hood on the aquapod leaves no room above the water! but they say it's great for the aquapod. it's made by Current USA, who makes the aquarium as well, so... also put a $2 bag of carbon in the 1st filter chamber. just for a couple days. it was made for the aquaclear power filters. didn't see the point of buying anything expensive since i probably won't use it ever again once i start using RO/DI water.