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Gulf's ever evolving nano party mix tape!


gulfsurfer101

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gulfsurfer101

It's is a hippocampus errectus or commonly known as a lined seahorse. I am feeding live rotifers, tisbe pods and copepods from my sump by replacing a pound or two of live rock from my sump into this tank and placing the other back into the sump to be repopulated again.

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gulfsurfer101

Been adding tisbe pods and live rotifers daily. I see the pair of pipefish we caught picking the tisbe pods off the glass and the seahorse seems to catch free floating rotifers with her beak out the water column. Things are good, and maybe when I get out of class today at noon I'll take the kids back to the beach and hunt for more. I only got rid of the others because I didn't have a tank set up, but I gave away a snowflake eel that was passed down to me so that cleared up some space in my tiny inner city living quarters lol.

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gulfsurfer101

I got rid of two pair to a couple of locals and kept the tiniest one that my kids and gf named Arribella! She is doing well and made the transition to the aquarium pretty easily. I still haven't tried offering her frozen foods and don't want to. The water quality is fine using live foods and I'd like to keep it that way. A steady supply of live foods keeps her hunting and happy.

 

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  • 5 months later...
gulfsurfer101

So the ten gallon was tore down a long while back but everything went into my 75g. I'm remodeling so my 75g went into storage and I reinvented my 20l sump back into a diy AIO. Sold off all my fish except my pair of clowns, ywg, and dragonet! Kept frags of mostly everything I wanted to keep. This tank was butt ugly just two days ago. I cleaned off all the calcium buildup off the glass, cut off the outer trim around the top and put some overflow teeth back on to keep my clowns from going over the rear chambers.

 

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gulfsurfer101

Thanks! It was beyond ugly just a few days ago. It had major calcium buildup on all the glass. Two baffles on the far right end and the overflow teeth were busted out because I was running it in reverse as a sump and the baffling system where my return pump is now was where my drain entered from my 75g and would spill over the overflow section into the fuge which is now the dt. A little bit of elbow grease and a few razors go a long way!

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gulfsurfer101

Love it! Needs more pics!!!

Thanks so much! I'll waiting to replace my s5 soon because it's all busted up. I'm using a cheap lg and the camera is a joke. Once I send my other phone out I'll be getting some pics. Still using nsw water btw! Got a 275g tote sitting outside. Thinking of doing like 10g a week wc's

I like it. I've been tempted. Unrealistic for me, watching your success

Thanks man, at first I was skeptical about using the nsw but from seeing how my coral puffs up and grows so quickly I'm set on it. All my frags were colonies when I fragged and sold them off. By this time next year they'll be ready to chop up again hopefully. They'll be growing out soon enough.
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gulfsurfer101

As you can see this wasn't my first attempt at building my own diy AIO! I started doing this thing right here before badfish ever came around undercutting the small people. Only thing is Gulf's still here doing what he always done. I don't do this for a profit, I do it for the love I get looking into a glass box of rocks!

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  • 2 weeks later...
gulfsurfer101

Well I decided to test calc alk and mag today to see if anything is needed but after three weeks of no wc's everything tested good. Calcium tested at 430, alk was at 9dkh, and mag at 1400. I've been meaning to make a trip to the beach to see what kind of macro I can find in cooler waters now. I usually find lots of blue scroll and red gracillara around this time. I also need to fill up my nsw container! I probably only have 50g on hand that I'll be dumping and bleaching out the holding tank before filling it back up.

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gulfsurfer101

Dude this is sick! You live in an amazing area for this hobby, well frickin done!

Thanks so much! I was hoping to make it out to the ocean this weekend to go collect water while it's good. I don't like collecting in the summer months because of higher bacteria levels. As of right now we're at mid to high 80's and lots of sunshine but this weekend looks a little drizzly. Might have to put it off till Christmas break. I'll have two weeks off to do whatever the hell I want. I might find me a used kyak on cl and hit up some new collecting spots around oil platforms. Found some huge clumps of sun coral out there before.

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Thanks so much! I was hoping to make it out to the ocean this weekend to go collect water while it's good. I don't like collecting in the summer months because of higher bacteria levels. As of right now we're at mid to high 80's and lots of sunshine but this weekend looks a little drizzly. Might have to put it off till Christmas break. I'll have two weeks off to do whatever the hell I want. I might find me a used kyak on cl and hit up some new collecting spots around oil platforms. Found some huge clumps of sun coral out there before.

 

Thats so unbelievably awesome

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Much braver than I am man I don't trust our oil rig waters we have out here. I never thought I would hear that we had corals in our bay with all the coral eating fish and crabs we have out here.

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gulfsurfer101

Remember when gcreef first opened and they had tons of tessalated blennies and a 4 foot long nylon rope encrusted in sun coral! They were from local waters. I wouldn't add anything from the bay. It's too much run off and high bacteria. I pull from the other side of padre island from the gulf. The amount of bay water and run off going out there is like the equivalence of poking an above ground pool with a needle. A kyak on a calm day to the end of bob hall and who knows what you might find.

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I didn't get into the hobby till a couple years after they opened so I never saw that. I know they always were pulling peppermints out of our waters but true who knows what we will see coming into our waters.

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gulfsurfer101

If you look on my first page, I caught a freaking octopus at the packery jetties! Everything from file fish to triggers can be found in the sargassum during the right times. Spring and fall are my best seasons to go scavenge the waters for interesting creatures. I even had an aquapod full of hundreds of those tiny sea anemones you can find all over the rocks at low tide. Man those things were awesome but deadly to anything they could catch. Never moved around but would easy your shrimp if it got lucky.

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gulfsurfer101

Your telling me! I'm just glad things are finally slowing down for me. This month. I am planning a lil vacay so hopefully I can fit an exotic reef shop visit in there as well!

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That's good to hear brother hopefully you can find something sweet for a sweet price. I can't wait for my tank to finish its cycle so I can start hitting some shops up also.

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