Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Lights, Camera, Ack!

Last night we brought home three new coral, which finishes off our additions for at least a month if not longer. Hopefully we can see some growth and expansion from our coral, there was much epoxy used, many curse words, and I nearly fell off the stepstool and hit the ground. Thankfully my arm was in the tank which kept me up or I get the feeling I would not be such a happy camper this morning. Granted while I have a large bruise in a perfect line where I fell backward and caught myself on the lip of the tank, I think that’s better than smacking the back of my head into shelves lined with geodes.

I picked up some PhytoGold-M from Brightwell and tried a little different feeding regimen for the coral last night. Three cubes of oyster eggs, 10ml of PhytoGold, mixed with tank water (three full turkey basters) then target fed to the tank. I think I went a bit overboard. So I am going to change it around a little and try the following:

Heavy Feed Day: 5ml PhytoGoldM, 50g frozen oyster eggs, 50g frozen krill target fed to coral.
Alternating with: 5ml PhytoGoldM
Once a week: 10ml CoralVite

I am going to stick with Heavy Feed every other day, if that seems like too much I will go with Heavy, Alternate, Alternate, Heavy. The Jeffery seemed more than happy to clean up the excess, but I hate the Jeffery and am not interested in their welfare.

We moved the Pipe Organ yesterday, it was not faring well and I am thinking it has to do with flow and light. It is now higher in the tank where it will hopefully get what it needs. Polyps have not been opening regularly or fully and it should be healthier. If not I will turn to the sages of the Internet who will probably tell me we need new lights.

Speaking of which we went over lights yesterday and have narrowed it down to AquaticLife Six Lamp T5 HO Light Fixture after making myself feel incredibly stupid looking at dozens of articles on lighting. It boils down to the fact that I don’t want to spend the money on Metal Halides, either the upfront, electricity or cooling, and I don’t see the need with what we want to keep in the tank. Upgrading from our measly system to T5 will more than help the tank, and we can get a few lunar lights for our own desire to see things better in the tank.

Frank nearly had a heart attack when I told him what the prices were. I don’t blame him, I nearly did as well.

A large part of me is really happy for this journey, the other part wonders constantly what the hell we are doing and why it is so important to us that we have this tank. I also wish that we had purchased a tank instead of inheriting one, but I know that in the next few years we will be building our own 200+ gallon tank and have the ability to do things exactly how we want and precisely as they need to be done.

2 comments:

  1. Three new coral?! more like fresh meat for us Jeffery! It is looking great! Oh and uhhm the tank shall soon be ours we will no long be the bottom feeder but a vast powerer people of Jefferys and .... stuff THE WORLD IS OURS!

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  2. Whether or not you "take over the tank" which will not happen, you will still be bottom feeders. Slimy, muck devouring, pooping, bottom feeders is all you can hope to be – because you’re Jeffery’s.

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