Journal of an Absentee Blogger
Moving my blog off my own server into the blogspot network has forced me to do an update.
Quickly, here's why I've been nonexistent over the last several months. There comes a time when every hobbyist looks at his hobby and shrugs. The shrugging becomes ignoring, doing maintenance only when absolutely required, and this breeds resentment. To quote Harvey Keitel in From Dusk to Dawn, "I don't care if you're a preacher, a priest, a nun, a rabbi or a Buddhist monk. Many, many times during your life you will look at your reflection in a mirror and ask yourself: am I a fool?"
Well, that quote really doesn't have anything to do with it, but it's a cool quote from a great movie.
My ten gallon nano reef fell into disrepair. It became so bad I ultimately scrapped the entire tank, saving only the largest pieces of liverock, the open brain coral, the crocea clam, what I could of the once prolific green star polyps, and later the large mushroom rock. Here's the wasteland of what the reef became:
The crocea clam seemed to thrive in the nutrient-rich environment --at least until the water became so cloudy it stopped getting enough light.
I split the nano reef among two tanks: a new store-bought ten gallon and my old seahorse tank which had fallen into disrepair as well. I moved the 96 watt PC fixture to the old seahorse tank and stocked it with my salvaged corals. I DID NOT put in any rock as at this time every centimeter of LR from the former reef was covered in cyanobacteria and slimy dead bryopsis.
I scrubbed the pieces of rock as best as I could and then put them into the new tank with freshly made seawater. The fine playsand was ultimately a bad thing so I didn't put in a substrate. A few days later I picked up a sea urchin to scrub the live rock clean. It's taken the urchin more than two months but every bit of nuissance algae is now gone -- along with the uppermost layer of the rock's surface, scoured off by the urchin's pickings.
Since I filmed the following video of the "new" reef, a lot of things have changed, but I'll talk about the new additions/changes in my next post.
A more detailed and in-depth post will follow. I keep no fish in the "new" reef, and the store-bought tank has a tiny ocellaris clown and a dwarf coral beauty angel.
Josh
Quickly, here's why I've been nonexistent over the last several months. There comes a time when every hobbyist looks at his hobby and shrugs. The shrugging becomes ignoring, doing maintenance only when absolutely required, and this breeds resentment. To quote Harvey Keitel in From Dusk to Dawn, "I don't care if you're a preacher, a priest, a nun, a rabbi or a Buddhist monk. Many, many times during your life you will look at your reflection in a mirror and ask yourself: am I a fool?"
Well, that quote really doesn't have anything to do with it, but it's a cool quote from a great movie.
My ten gallon nano reef fell into disrepair. It became so bad I ultimately scrapped the entire tank, saving only the largest pieces of liverock, the open brain coral, the crocea clam, what I could of the once prolific green star polyps, and later the large mushroom rock. Here's the wasteland of what the reef became:
The crocea clam seemed to thrive in the nutrient-rich environment --at least until the water became so cloudy it stopped getting enough light.
I split the nano reef among two tanks: a new store-bought ten gallon and my old seahorse tank which had fallen into disrepair as well. I moved the 96 watt PC fixture to the old seahorse tank and stocked it with my salvaged corals. I DID NOT put in any rock as at this time every centimeter of LR from the former reef was covered in cyanobacteria and slimy dead bryopsis.
I scrubbed the pieces of rock as best as I could and then put them into the new tank with freshly made seawater. The fine playsand was ultimately a bad thing so I didn't put in a substrate. A few days later I picked up a sea urchin to scrub the live rock clean. It's taken the urchin more than two months but every bit of nuissance algae is now gone -- along with the uppermost layer of the rock's surface, scoured off by the urchin's pickings.
Since I filmed the following video of the "new" reef, a lot of things have changed, but I'll talk about the new additions/changes in my next post.
A more detailed and in-depth post will follow. I keep no fish in the "new" reef, and the store-bought tank has a tiny ocellaris clown and a dwarf coral beauty angel.
Josh
posted by Josh Day at 1:39 PM
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