Yeah.. it is hard sometimes. Jim is about 2hrs from me. I am gonna email him and see what he can get in for macroalgae so he can place an order for some for me when he makes an order in September.

The LFS here in Belleville is far too expensive and won't bring in special things like that. That is why no one goes to him, also the livestock he gets in is not in the best of shape. He doesn't have his SW section properly set up to handle the bioload he gets. He has lots of water and tanks, but no live rock for biofiltration. That is why everyone goes to Jims.

I would say to put them in your 24g, but make a nice cave area in the front of the tank for them prior to getting them and hopefully they will host that area.

Haha its funny because I got my rock from GARF, so one of the rocks is actually a cave, believe me if I put them in my 24g I would never see them, ever. Thats why I am still on the fence about getting one at all.

Thats a bummer about your LFS, mine are the same way so I know what its like.

Yeah, I am hoping to educate the local people bit by bit so as not to offend them and perhaps they will start doing things right. If so, then I will purchase from them, especially if they lower their prices a little.

I try to do that, but nobody listens to a 15 year old lol

Yours have high prices too?? Wow I think your LFS is a tank for tank copy of mine.

Yeah, they try to sell 50 Gallon bags of Instant Ocean salt for $39.99 when everyone else around sells the same thing for $19.99

They charge 10$ a pound for crappy live rock. The other one holds 10inch tangs and huge angels in ten gallon tanks. Most of the fish I see in the tanks are dead too. Its really sad seeing 20 clowns in a 10g with no live rock.

yeah i hate those overpriced rocks...
i bought at 2lb live rock for like $10 ish. but the owner wanted to charge me cycled price which was like 1.50 more...it didnt have any coraline algae or anything also they just got it last night. dont think liverock cures that fast.

i still bought it since it was a sexy piece.

Ouch, that is a lot for live rock. I get mine here from Jim for $6/lb fully cured and sitting in water in a huge pond tub and I get to pick the pieces.

I also purchased from a local reefer who was selling some of his off for $4.50/lb right out of his tank with lots of feather duster on it and brittle stars. The only issue with his rock I had is he gave me a piece with aiptasia on it and it is going nuts in my tank and joe's juice isn't working, neither is lemon, boiling water. So Aiptasia X is my last resort. Odd thing though, that whatever it butts up against so far and touches like my candy canes doesn't seem to be bothered much by it. So far lucky!

This Jim sounds like a good guy, although all Canadians seem to be from my experience

Hopefully you get the pest nems under control, it would be a shame for them to take over, but there has to be a way, you have the same species as everyone else haha.

Jim is awsome actually. He gave me the coco worm for free!! I was sooo stoked. He gives lots of good advice and tries to get yeah anything you want. He can get a Candy Basslet and sell it to you for $89 where most places are charging $130 or more. He also gave me three free mushrooms when I first started into saltwater and bought my stuff from him all used.
He sells coral colonies for between $35 to $55 depending on size. He also talks your ear off anytime you go to see him. Guaranteed when you go, you are there for an hour or more just chatting LOL.

Yeah, I figure I will eventually get them nipped in the butt but it will take some time. As long as the aiptasia doesn't start really hurting anything I will keep on trying what I can.

Wow colonies??! Thats a great price. I have noticed that most good LFS owners do talk a lot, helpful though haha.

Wow a coco worm for free? Sweeet...

Hopefully you do, wouldn't want to see any of your corals dieing.

yeah I know those are great prices. He sells SPS colonies for that too, problem is I like to see the pics of the colors I am ordering first and not just go by the names. I am gonna hold out and get an enchinata and granulosa colony from him eventually.

Yeah.. I was happy to get the coco free. I had always wanted to get one, but went for what I needed and planned for first. But now, I am planning for more.
He had a nice summer sale in June for them where you could get 2 for $35.

Yes, I hope not to loose anything else either. Crossing my fingers and knocking on wood.

Sweet. I wonder if he ships to the U.S. haha.

Hmmm.. Well you may be able to work something out with him there. Living in Gananoque he is really close to the border, so if he is planning on going to the US some time he may be able to put something together and send it out to you once he crosses. I am speculating though.

I looked at his site, at first I was like ehh these seem like normal prices, then I remembered its canadian dollars.

The one thing I like about canadian money is its always a dollar amount. I hardly ever saw something that was 19.99 in canada.

very true.

huh that would be interesting to get a colony for cheap. I wish his site would have more info on corals though.

Well that is just it. He runs his business out of his home garage and most of the people who buy from him tell him what they are looking for in terms of coloration and size and he lets you know if he can get it.

Sweet. I would rather support that than my crappy LFS. You should buy from him only lol.

Huh well if he comes into the US with any SPS or LPS colonies I will want them lol.

I predominantly buy from Jim, but I thought to give Fragalot a try... never again... but I will support hobbyists who know what they are doing like nematoad.

I am trying to see if I can get my cerith snail eggs to hatch in my 25g. They laid eggs the other day on my baby onyx's little home and I had to clean it tonight, so I scraped the cerith eggs off into my other tank. With luck they will hatch and have lots of diatoms to eat.

Thats one thing I have never had happen. I had smotatella snails spawn in my tank it was weird. But never had snails actually lay eggs.

Heck ya, support the people who are doing things right.

My cerith snails lay eggs all the time. And I have a few baby snails in the tank, but I am not sure if they are trochus, nerite or turbos. They are really small though.

Neato. I think that comes with tank age.

Well now that I have a new computer I am slowly getting things reconfigured but at least I can start to add pics again. Here are a couple and in a few days after I do a water change and clean out the baby onyx's pen I will add more pics.

Happy hungry BTA


Frogspawn with flash under blue leds


Blue/Purple mushroom with 2 babies


Here are some comparison shots.


Duncans way back when I first got them in January 2009 with only 4 heads.



Duncans now with 24heads


Back in May



Purple acropora: Now extremely purple

So I scooped up my mothers one digital camera she is looking to sell as I was curious about it's ability compared to the camera I use now, since they are both 8mpeg cameras.. Now I somewhat wish I hadn't because I am probably gonna buy it from her.

So here are some of the pix from tonight.

My green zoas have really grown over the last 3 to 4 months.


The Tiny Toadstool


What is left of one of the sps frags I received from a crappy frag business. It is still working at healing and not spreading yet.



Right tank shot. As you can see from this pic my BTA has decided to move on me. I thought it was dead at first and started panicing as I just came home after being away for a couple of days, but everything else in the tank looked fine.. I found it behind the rocks moving up on the right.


Red Mushrooms I got in a trade. If you look to the far right, you can see a baby growing. Finally!


Blue spotted mushie and my single green mushroom.


Better pix of the unknown purple sps.



Runt is quickly developing his stripes now. As you can see from this pic he has started his mid-bar from the bottom.


This is the oldest sps I have had in my tank. Again, another one I purchased way back in Jan from the crappy frag online store. It had developed RTN, which was not their fault but due to high salinity in my tank. This happened in April/May.. It has now really started growing out this summer. It is now developing a nice purple coloration, and you can see where new branches will start growing up.



Jigsaw, my picasso. My female Big Momma got a little rough with him a few weeks ago. But he's unphased.


Branching hammer and froggy in the foreground.


Duncans


Dendros and Suncorals.


Cocoworm.... now if I had this camera when the worm photocontest was happening, I might have been able to give Kraylen a run for his money .... LOL.


Here are just a couple non-tank related shots of my other pets.

Dragonmistress Ka shedding her skin and looking very heavy with eggs.


Ryn apparently felt let helping me out with the computer.

bump for the afternoon peoples.

I am liking this new camera I am using a lot, so I am going to be sharing more pix taken from today.
I also went out and bought a new critter holder home for my baby onyx clowns. It is twice as long and twice as wide, just a little shorter. I wanted to give them more room to swimm around and with the side opening design it allows much more water flow in so the babies have to swim against the current more in a couple areas.

Blastos with toadstool.


BTA has moved to the back right of the tank. At least it is bugging the Aiptasia for now.


Mr. Blue Damsel is rather a bit out of sorts because I changed something in the tank.


Big Momma checking out the juvi's in their new container.


Runt and Omen checking out the space in their new home.


After only a couple of weeks, the tailbar on Omen is twice as thick as it was at the end of August.


Another shot of Run showing his bottom mid-bar coming in.


I am rather glad the baby onyx are developing well, but I am beginning to get concerned that they do not have a lot of onyx coloration coming in right now, where other members who have received these guys from Christos Clowns have.
I am hoping with the new home, which has a much larger clear plastic door on top, thus letting in more direct light, we help in the color change.

Clowns are looking great as always. Your dendros and sun corals look really cool too, I have been wanting to get some for a while. Keep updating haha

I envy you and all your nice livestock. *drools*

I've been lucky with my livestock. I buy cheaper and buy frags when I can. My picasso clown was my most expensive piece of livestock at $100 canadian.

Thats good. You have a lot of really nice LPS, I want lol.

Well I lost my big octo frogspawn that was damaged in shipping finally. The hermit crabs just wouldn't leave it alone. So, I am thinking of replacing it with an elegance coral instead. They have one in toronto, about a 5 to 6 inch specimen for $35. So I am going to contact the guy and get it.

I have done some research on them and they like less than ideal conditions, with low flow.

They are pretty neat. Give em space though, I think they sting a lot haha

If I get it, I will be butting it up against the rockwork in the middle, but on the right side where is there is much lower flow than anywhere else in the tank. That area also gives about 6 inches away from other corals as space for sweeper tentacles.

I am also getting SPS frags from another member here on Friday.I am real excited for those.

Well I went to the big City today. That would be Toronto for those not from Ontario and I picked up some frags from Nematoad. Very cool dude I must say!

Frags were well packaged and nicely looked after. All healed and enstrusting starting on each one.
Makes frag-a-lots frags look like crapola.

I was given 7 frags from Nematoads, though I only asked for $6, which was cool.




Acropora Yongei aka Green Slimer


Purple Monti-Cap


Orange Montipora Digitata and Purple-tipped Montipora Digitata


Purple slimer: the frag broke off the live rock but a piece was left on so I am gonna see what it will do.


Green Bottlebrush


Dendrophyllia head. It is still mad in this pic. Tentacles slowly coming out now.


Inspector Morris my Cleaner shrimp. He is my first indication on whether or not any coral added to my system is healthy or not. All Nematoad frags passed with flying colors. He was done checking them all out in less than 5 minutes.

Nanobuds sent you that stuff? To canada and they made it??

Yay for new pics haha!

Wow. nanobud really did that? LOL AWESOMENESS.
you got one cool cleaner shrimp. picking though corals to see if theyre good or not. i want one like that!

Sorry Jacob no.. I ran out of battery life on this PC for my mouse so now when I go to type stuff in from another source it is trying to autofill on me and it 's driving me nuts.

It was Nematoad in Toronto who I got the stuff from. I went up today and picked them up from him myself. Cheaper than paying Fedex overnight shipping.

I am very happy with them.

I was gonna say, where did he get all that SPS???

Looks like good stuff, should do well!

Yes, I have so Nematoad does a very good job raising his SPS!! He should be proud. They are the nicest frags I have seen around in a while.
Definately no clip and ship methods used.

LOL exactly what i was gonna say!

Sorry for the confusion

But how do you like my tank nanoreefnate?

what do i think?
i think it is............
(drumroll plz)
.........
.........
.........
.........
.........
.........
.........














TOTAL AWESOMENESS!

Awwww.... thank you.


I most definately like your tank too. Needs lots and lots of pics.

AHAHA. yes. yes it does. thanks!

Glad to see that they all made it fine

Here's what you can look forward to (for folks who didn't get to see where they came from):
Purple tip digi:


Orange digi:


Purple slimer (pic 5):


Green bottlebrush acro (pic 6):


I hope they start to colour up and start growing for you soon And it was great meeting you too!

You will be glad to know too, that all of your frags are now in polyp extension. The green slimer and purple monti cap are at half mast, but the monti digis are definately at full mast for extension. I just took more pics to show, but I will fix them up and post em tomorrow. GRINZ.. I am sooo happy. Thanks so much!!

Oh.. and I forgot to not, you can already begin to see the green sheen of the bottle brush and the flouresent yellow of the yongei. So cool.

They get more colourful

BTW, do you dose anything?

Come back soon for some more frags - with the size of my tank and the growth I get, it's always fragging time

Yeah I know, I can't wait until they do go into full color like your colonies.

The only thing I dose in my tank, and only a touch of it is PurpleUp. Just a couple of drops usually once a month to give a boost, otherwise I let my water changes do what is needed.