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Jamie's 8 gal ADA


Jamie

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Thanks guys!

 

 

Nice tank. Whats under the rock? looks like tile.

 

Yep, marble tile. I'm hoping to grow zoas all over it. :)

 

 

How is EH&S ok with this?

 

 

I have no idea. On my first day of work I asked my lab manager if I could start a tank, and he was like "sure!" I was like, "are you sure it's allowed?" and he was all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ so I showed up on my second day of work with a tank and live rock, because obviously. Idk, it might have to come home with me whenever we have our next lab inspection :P

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eh, it's just an ecology lab, we work with coral polyps and stuff on these counters anyway so I think it'll be okay.

 

Anyway, I've been thinking about what I want to do with this tank, and I've decided to set some ground rules for myself, just because, I don't know, I guess it makes things more interesting? So, first rule: everything is going to be aquacultured. I haven't been super up with the hobby in the past few years, so maybe this is something people do all the time, but I thought it would be fun to work with that constraint, and also see what's going on with aquaculture these days and support some cool peeps. So, fish recommendations anyone? Neon gobies would be obvious, and might be what I end up going with, but I'll have to do some research to see what else is out there. If you guys have any ideas, let me know!

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I don't mean to be nitpicky but isn't that the worst case scenario? contamination of your experiments with your personal tank?

 

anyway if you need some gratuitous concept try the one I did a while back. restrict yourself to a species, add in 3 polyps of it and let it grow in. It was my "3 polyp project" for a while. I personally hope to see some less kept fish like a pair of possum wrasses or a trio of cardinals (tankbred of course).

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For sure, I hear you. At the moment that bench is more of a desk than a work space, but we can (and will) definitely move the tank if need be. :)

 

Dang, just three polyps sounds hard. I don't know if I'm patient enough for that, haha. I was thinking of doing a max price for any item I add to the tank ($30 maybe?), which could have a similar effect, though.

 

Also, another rule I just remembered: if something dies, it will not be replaced. Categories for this are going to be kind of subjective - I don't want it to be species specific, maybe genus or family, depending on the animal (eg if and acro frag died, then no more acros, but other sps still okay, but if a wrasse died, no more wrasses, but other fish still okay). Hmmm that was kind of a confusing explanation but hopefully it makes some kind of sense?

 

I love possum wrasses! Do you know if anyone is breeding them in captivity?

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not the possums but the bengali cardinals are captive bred. Ive seen them hunt down baby saltwater mollies as well.

 

Leave your tank as is and see what grows. Call it a global warming reef and have an accurate representation of the ocean. Or a plastic island reef, that seems like an unexplored concept. Mini alcohol bottles and fancy hermits. Empty horseshoe crab tank.

 

I'm just spitballing here.

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Pfhahahahaha, those are all such good ideas I don't know how to choose! I'm gonna be honest though, I have a guilty love of clowns, so there's a chance that could end up happening, too. We shall see!

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So I was snorkeling in Long Beach a couple days ago and saw this really sweet orange gorgonian, which made me miss my cold water days. Then I was going back through my photos and realized I had some cute baby fish photos from when I was living in San Diego last fall. So here are some gratuitous temperate animal photos! Because empty horseshoe crab tank is not that exciting yet, so why not.

 

The long beach gorg. do want.

590230c0-47b6-4e3f-aa64-b3d9122288c0.jpg

 

baby garibaldi = adorbs

IMG_6174.jpg

 

I do not know what these are and I am too lazy to look them up

IMG_6102.jpg

 

Baby kelp bass :wub:

IMG_6286.jpg

 

riiiiight before it tried to eat my finger

IMG_6307.jpg

 

 

 

Buuuuut seeing that pretty orange gorgonian did make me feel like I needed something orange for the tank. So, without further ado, I present to you the tank's first coral!

bff3e4b0-f798-43d7-8a84-79cbfbc8b4a2.jpg

 

Not quite within the three polyp rule, but close! I picked these guys up yesterday, and they're looking fairly content this morning, so I think the tank can officially sustain life!

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New things!

 

photo%203.jpg

 

photo%202%202.jpg

 

photo%201%202.jpg

 

:happydance:

 

 

ALSO

 

I've been thinking about these a lot lately:

 

http://www.orafarm.com/products/fish/gobies/masked/

http://www.orafarm.com/products/fish/gobies/greenbanded/

 

I was talking to a guy at Vivid about fish, and I asked if he knew which of their fish were aquacultured. He was like, "I have no idea." Then I asked if they ever got anything from ORA and he was like, "We specifically don't get things from ORA." And I was like "Ummm, why is that?" And he said he don't know, sorry. So like. What was that about? Is ORA secretly evil and I didn't know about it? Related: can any LA area reefers suggest a fish store that does carry ORA fish (unless ORA *is* secretly evil, in which case, never mind). Thanksssss

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New things!

:happydance:

 

 

ALSO

 

I've been thinking about these a lot lately:

 

http://www.orafarm.com/products/fish/gobies/masked/

http://www.orafarm.com/products/fish/gobies/greenbanded/

 

I was talking to a guy at Vivid about fish, and I asked if he knew which of their fish were aquacultured. He was like, "I have no idea." Then I asked if they ever got anything from ORA and he was like, "We specifically don't get things from ORA." And I was like "Ummm, why is that?" And he said he don't know, sorry. So like. What was that about? Is ORA secretly evil and I didn't know about it? Related: can any LA area reefers suggest a fish store that does carry ORA fish (unless ORA *is* secretly evil, in which case, never mind). Thanksssss

 

 

Looking good!

 

Jim's Exotic Fish (El Segundo) Not as much selection here. They have some coral in the back right of the store and they usually have healthy fish. I can't remember if they have ORA but it be worth checking out

 

Aquatic Fantasy (Redondo) Last I checked they had some ORA Tiger gobies which means they might have some other ORA fish. Nice store with decent selection but can be hit or miss depending on the month.

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  • 4 weeks later...

time for an update!

 

 

The tank has had some ups and downs over the last few weeks - but the good has outweighed the bad. First, I'm excited to show off some new goodies, courtesy of the wonderful Justind823:

 

photo%203%202.jpg

 

photo%202%205.jpg

 

Also, not pictured are a few frags I picked up a couple weeks ago: a cool clove-polypy octocoral I've never seen before, and a little trumpet coral frag.

 

You may have noticed all the diatoms in the photos. In fact, I am almost certain you noticed them :P Partly, these are the remnants of the tank's initial diatom bloom, which I didn't take photos of because who wants to look at ugly pictures of diatoms? No one. HOWEVER they are also (more significantly) related to that cute little Pocillopora colony RTNing, which was triggered by the lab's air conditioning breaking/going into overdrive and dropping the tank's temperature down to around 70 degrees for a few days :( So that was sad, and led to hella diatoms, as you can see, but fortunately everything else made it okay!

 

You also may have noticed a tiny fish! It's a greenbanded goby courtesy of ORA and the lovely folks at Aquatic Fantasy in Redondo, and it's super cute (I'll try to get better pics at some point). Unlike at Vivid, they were super knowledgeable about where their livestock came from, and seemed really excited to talk about aquaculture in general. They even had aquacultured live rock, which was great to see.

 

That's about it for now. I'm looking forward to these diatoms going away, and also to seeing the zoas start to encrust over the bottom. I'm probably not going to buy much else for this tank - I like watching things grow in over time! I will definitely be adding more photos once the tank is looking a little prettier though :)

 

Thanks for reading!

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We have copepods! (And a microscope! And a phone held up to that microscope!)

 

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l22/jamie_canepa/th_IMG_3979.mp4

 

lol idk how to embed videos from photobucket so you will have to deal with this situation for now

 

 

You can hear my lab mate's voice in this video... we were discussing whether or not plankton from spongebob is, in fact, a copepod. (conclusion: yes???)

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